Now that Bus Simulator 21 is out (our test and review here), we thought it might be interesting to provide you with this handy little guide to help you become a wealthy and successful entrepreneur in the brand new town of Angel Shores.
In this new opus of Bus Simulator, the economic dimension is more extensive than in version 18 while being less assisted. In fact, there is no longer an “optimize the route” function that automatically ensures that the stops will be in the correct traffic order and that the busy periods will be taken into account.
How to choose your buses?
When you go to the dealership (which has several stores spread across the city) on foot or on a fast trip, and you activate the selection desk, you will have the choice of sorting the buses offered according to several criteria ( price, type of engine, etc.) including the " bus loads". In fact, it is nothing more or less about its ability to meet a certain demand.
In the game there are buses from capacity 2 to 4 (for older children). Thus, if your trip has a demand of 6, you will need several buses (2 buses of 3, 3 buses of 2,…) to fully meet the demand and generate the maximum income available for this trip.
Note that it is by no means mandatory to fully meet the demand for each of your trips to start generating comfortable income. Thus, only 1 bus per trip will be sufficient at first, whatever happens.
Route creation in detail
By pressing the TAB key, you will arrive on the interactive map as well as the list of your routes (on the left). By clicking on the route creation option, you will see a window similar to the one below.
From there, it's up to you to build an itinerary that meets the requirements of the scenario (passing through certain districts or stops, connecting two districts, etc.). To maximize the occupancy of your buses, be sure to balance your trip with the same number of green requests (upbound passengers) as pink (downbound passengers). We therefore advise you to always use the "request" type view.
The longer your route, the more potential it will have to bring you back. It is up to you to succeed in balancing it and to allocate enough buses to it.
Remember that as the level of stops changes, their value may change and will not necessarily always be at 1 (even if the number in the pellet does not change).
Trick : feel free to change the loop path type (default) to ping-pong.
This will prevent downtime during which the bus will run empty when it has completed the journey. Indeed, in loop mode, when it has reached the end of the circuit, the bus rejoins the starting point of the empty journey. In ping-pong mode, he repeats the circuit but in the other direction, thus passing through all the stops.
When composing your itinerary, also think about these two possibilities available to you to plan your trip as well as possible:
- Right click on the stop to choose which side of the street you are going to arrive
- Click on the small arrows to change the serving order of the stop in the route
Also remember to increase the level of your stops by clicking on them (but not in route creation mode) and on the + which will appear next to the level.
If you click on the name of the district, you will see at a glance the current and maximum possible level of all the stops in the district. Handy for quickly knowing which ones you can improve.
Managing your routes
On the side of the interactive map, you can view the summary of each of your routes at any time. You can sort them in several ways including by "request fulfilled". This allows you to quickly check whether the route requires more buses to meet demand. Take for example the route “Route 6” below. Your bus (s) provide a response of 3 for a demand of 5 (3/5) and provide a response of 2 for a demand of 2 during peak hours (2/2). The game displays 2/0 here but this is a bug that will be fixed soon.
When doing the direct drive trip yourself, try to do it as best as possible because at the end of it you will get stars. These stars affect the quality of service your employees provide when you are not driving yourself. With a 5-star journey, your employees will be 100% efficient and therefore earn more money. In the example below, you have completed the journey with 5 stars, your employees will now be 100% efficient when you hand them over.
Assignment of buses to routes
When you click on a route and then when you choose the button of the timetable, you have the possibility of assigning buses to the route.
Each affected bus will appear as a ribbon with a height representing its capacity to respond to demand. The higher the ribbon, the more capacity the bus has (4 maximum as a reminder).
The process is the same for peak hours, except your bus will not be used all day. It's up to you to be smart and to allocate it judiciously to the right routes. If, for example, this route only has rush hours in the morning, find another route with rush hours in the afternoon or evening and you can assign the same bus there!
Here are already good foundations for your transport business to thrive in Bus Simulator 21. Good game to you.