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We have developed a new system that uses train track direction and no-stopping zones instead of your block and chain signals. The motivation was to make train network building easier but not to compromise on what can be achieved in terms of rail network complexity.
In short, instead of chain signals ensuring that trains can pass through intersections without blocking them, in our system, intersections are marked as "no-stopping-zones" and train will only enter a no-stopping zone if it can reserve enough track along its path to fully clear it. This is even better than chain signals, because it takes into account the train length.
We even support bi-directional tracks that allow for terminus stations, or sidings on bi-directional routes, all while guaranteeing that no trains will get stuck (when configured correctly). These use "exclusive zones" that restrict only one train to ever occupy bi-directional sections.
This has taken us nearly a year and while the system is not perfect, our early testers love it. I am not claiming that you won’t be able to get trains stuck with this system, but I do think that the kind of issues and their solutions are easier to understand and resolve than with chain signals. Only time will tell though. If you are interested in more details, see our blog post: https://www.captain-of-industry.com/post/cd-46
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
More than 6 years ago, me and my friend from university were playing around with an idea of making a game we always wanted to play. We worked on it on weekends but the progress was quite slow, especially due to so many dead ends and wasted effort.
Eventually however, we solidified our direction and decided to take the risk to resign from our well paid SWE jobs and work on it full time. It took more than a year but yesterday we have finally released it on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1594320/Captain_of_Indust...
I am still not sure if this was a good decision financially, but unlike in a corporate environment, I am so much happier working on a product that I can put my love into and see people enjoy it, see my direct impact, and be able to make big decisions (although this also adds a lot of stress).
I also quite enjoy the added SWE challenges. I had to write so many complex algorithms (path-finding, logistics, serialization, ...) and optimize things down to bits (shaders, compression of in-memory data, ...) that were rarely required by my corp job.
Anyhow, this is getting a little long, feel free to ask any questions, I will do my best to answer them.