I really liked the map - it's well thought of, I can see you've spent some time thinking about how the city would commute and how would it be built historically. I like how there's already a schedule, a route scheme, some repaints and a detailed FIS. I only could make a trip at line 5 from Suedstadt to Weilerstadt, and from there to Kleinfurt Bf. before my Lotus lost half the textures and mipmaps, but I really liked what I've seen. That being said, there are some things that could be improved:
- First of all, in the city center there should be more stops! Imagine leaving a shop direclty between Alte Furt and Spechtalee and trying to catch a 5 trying to get to Kaufungen. That's a 10 minute walk, at least!
- Secondly, the streets seem to be too wide. I like the Innenstadt promenade, it's perfect, but the street that has Krankenhaus in it is absurdly wide. The area in any city is precious - you could build a shopping mall or a housing estate there and get profit. Instead, Kleinfurt decided to leave so much space unused? Same goes with Weilerstadt, which is so rich it could let the area near it's train station (where most of the people get on or off everyday - often wanting to get something to eat or drink - how about building a shopping center there?) grow some tall grass and the only interesting thing to do there is watch a tram on a loop so big it could house a big parking lot inside.
- There are some things that seem unrealistic - apart from well "too open" open space (boy I wish all the cities were so spacious!), there's a tram and bus depot in the middle of low housing district. I think the city would bankrupt from the noise complaints coming from residents angry at bells ringing and general repairing noises the whole night, just to hear all the trams leave the depot from 3 to 5 AM. No need for an alarm clock though
There's also a cobbled track in the park at Am Park - who would do that and why? It's such a great place for a grass or gravel track! - Some technical issues are present as well - the catenary has some serious height differences that would break any pantograph at speeds allowed there - i.e. under the viaduct just ahead of Weilerstadt West, where you can do 60km/h and the pantograph is jumping like crazy - I honestly thought it's another Lotus bug for a second.
- There's a catenary pole that crashes into the tram between Kaufungen Sued and Kaufungen Kirche:
To sum up: I have really big hopes to this map. It's well built (technically), but needs some city-planning and realistic thinking. I really, really liked the Weilerstadt West - Kaufnger Freibad and St. Marien Str. - Goetheweg parts of line 5, the other ones need some polish but will be great as well if you think about how it would look in the real life. I'll try to ride on lines 7 and 8 as well and see how those areas look.
Here's some appealing shots from the map:
