Public transportation system in NC

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Public transportation system in Night City could be quite impressive as one of the interactive aspects of CP2077. Right now the player can not take a taxi or ride a monorail train, although both means of transit are present in the game.

During my gameplay I tried to follow most of the monorail tracks in NC. This little investigation lead me to the conclusion that the whole city structure was designed with the train system in mind. There are many fake NCART (Night City Area Rapid Transit) stations in the game. They are located both underground and above street level, yet always in the places where the rail network is already present. The whole system could work, if the players were given the ability to ride a monorail.

Unfortunately, at some point in development the decision was made to stop working on the interactive transit system. I have no idea what was the reasoning behind this decision. It could be due to the time constrains or the lack of ability to properly implement this quite complex aspect of the gameplay. The leftovers of the unfortunate process of cutting this interactive monorail out are quite noticeable. Instead, we were presented with pretty "unimmersive" fast travel points that could work as an optional way of transit (e.g. in the form of interactive maps located in the train stations).

We do not have a proper modding tools (SDK) that would make some kind of a complete implementation of this monorail system possible. The skeleton of this system is in the game: the tracks are usually in the right places and some stations are located properly, populated and accessible via elevators. Unfortunately, the full implementation of the monorail system requires rebuilding some parts of the town, creating the interiors of some stations and interactive cars that the player and NPCs could enter. And, most of all, it would be necessary to design a smart transit AI for this game. Yes, an impossible task if we consider the fact that the city traffic AI in CP2077 does not work very well.

The city looks amazing from above. That is why riding a monorail, although not the most important aspect of the game, would greatly increase the immersion and improve our gaming experience. As soon as I acquired Double Jump I started looking for a way to ride a monorail.

I discovered that there are a several places in the city where the player can jump, climb and get on the tracks: especially in Downtown, Little China and Northside. I am sure the developers were well aware of that, so they tried to make it as difficult as possible for the player to get there and placed many invisible walls around certain areas (e.g. in the vicinity of the Afterlife) and on the tracks. Still, the player might get through some of them and ride a monorail.

There are huge parts of the tracks where it's possible to enjoy a ride for almost a minute (before the train disappears or the invisible wall blocks the way). It is an incredible experience. The vistas are breathtaking (pun intended). I highly recommend anyone to try it. If you liked riding a rollercoaster with Johnny, then you'll be having a blast with the monorail. There are no problems with performance, missing textures etc. during the ride, so it should not be a problem for any PC user. The city looks as impressive from above as it is on the street level. It's a pity that we are not able to fully enjoy this experience. Still, one can get a taste of it by taking advantage of the whole immersive sim systems that are available in the game (without resorting to any "cheats" or mods).

I wish the developers, after taking care of the more pressing issues with the game, could bring interactive transit system back to life. What do you think? Do you miss properly implemented NCART in NC?

Here are some shots I took while riding a monorail in various districts:

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If they do I hope you enjoy it. Ill fast travel or take a motorcycle.

Yes, I also do not think that everyone would be using a monorail train all the time. It could be just another open world "activity" that some of us are missing (for various reasons). Yet it is at the same time quite fast, comfortable and enjoyable mean of transit in CP2077 world. A great and immersive substitute of the fast travel system that, by the way, could be implemented in a better (more immersive) way.
 
At stations, sometimes there are boards with the arrival time of the train, a map of connections and probably ticket machines (inactive).
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Buses also exist, apart from the ending, I have seen a lot of them in the garages at Valentinos

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you mean like when you hit the fast ravel button a short loading scene of you getting on a bus or or taxi?
That's what people expected. It would have a optional sit down and watch the city as it drives around. Or you hit F to skip ride. The other obvious thing would be to use the train in one mission. I had thought of a mission example. You spare the guy Claire is racing. You win, he wants revenge. Claire is on train. And now goes after her. This than makes you need to rush through the city to a station and jump aboard to disarm a bomb. Kill an assassin, Psycho etc. This could also involve hover cars.
 
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you mean like when you hit the fast ravel button a short loading scene of you getting on a bus or or taxi?

Not exactly. It might be annoying if you had to watch this kind of animation every time (if it's not skippable). What I meant was some kind of a better designed object (e.g. interactive map) that is placed in some reasonable environment (e.g. entrance to the train station). What we have right now (a screen that transports the player to the menu) does not look and feel very immersive. That's all.

As for the taxi... Why not call the taxi the same way we call other characters (or our vehicles)? Sometimes I like riding around with the driver (Claire, Judy, River etc.) and enjoy the cityscape. It could be just another option for getting from point A to point B.

It's all about immersion. Yes, sometimes you just want to get the job done as fast as possible. But sometimes you want to feel like you are living in this city and take your time.
 
This points to more cut content!!!

The interactive monorail system was certainly in development. There are many leftovers of this system (e.g. usually inaccessible and unfinished stations above the ground level) in various places.

Here's one of the (still functional) elevators that leads to the populated station:

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And the interior of this station:

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I'd like them, reality is that I would hardly use them after the first time, maybe if they devoted a whole dlc to them and fill them up with quests etc and bring in a survival mode. It seems like a lot of wasted dev work for the amount it actually adds to the game. It's one of those things that sounds great on paper but I think the reality is something else,

Most open world games of any complexity have plenty of cut content.. fallout 4 springs to mind and yes even rdr2 whole regions and activities cut.
 
I'd like them, reality is that I would hardly use them after the first time, maybe if they devoted a whole dlc to them and fill them up with quests etc and bring in a survival mode. It seems like a lot of wasted dev work for the amount it actually adds to the game. It's one of those things that sounds great on paper but I think the reality is something else,

Most open world games of any complexity have plenty of cut content.. fallout 4 springs to mind and yes even rdr2 whole regions and activities cut.
Yes. But this is different. What we see in the game. Was that this cut content was 70% done. That's months if not a year of wasted development. Proper management would have cut this at pre production. Look at GTA. After GTA 1. The train system was never re-incorporated into the game again.

It's always you can hop on street level ones, or they don't exist. Saints Row had them function. But SR2 and up didn't. SR2 had them work. But that was used for a single cut scene. And since it was work that was done in the first game. No wasted time. SR3 and 4 destroyed the cities train system. So we had no reason to complain about them not working. Techincally we could still use them. Because the tracks still exsisted and we could hop on them with a car.
 
Yes. But this is different. What we see in the game. Was that this cut content was 70% done. That's months if not a year of wasted development. Proper management would have cut this at pre production. Look at GTA. After GTA 1. The train system was never re-incorporated into the game again.

RDR2 players have glitched to a recreation of Mexico, from the first game, the whole of the snowy north entirely developed players have glitched to find.. Do you not think this takes time and resources or do you assume that RDR2 project management is perfect?

It's always you can hop on street level ones, or they don't exist. Saints Row had them function. But SR2 and up didn't. SR2 had them work. But that was used for a single cut scene. And since it was work that was done in the first game. No wasted time. SR3 and 4 destroyed the cities train system. So we had no reason to complain about them not working. Techincally we could still use them. Because the tracks still exsisted and we could hop on them with a car.

saints row cut them because they had no value for the time they took to dev,... whatever reason they gave in the story for them not being in 3 and 4.

I also do not know what overhead they would take,.. do you really want to get on a train and then a cut scene taking you to a loading screen.. These are cut scenes you see once and then press escape to make them end quickly,

I would like to see them brought into NC,.. as a full DLC,.. with adventures and quests aboard them,.. maybe a hijacking of pelham 123 type quest would be cool,.. Incorporate that with a survival mode and the possibility of you getting banned from driving and they could work.. BUt,.. aside from the actual work getting them running,.. there is also a lot of work to be done making them a viable play area and not just a pretty train set you look at for a few minutes and then move on
 
I personally find the idea of mass transportation; better.

In a busy neo-metropolis; it is expected that most roads are busy during certain times of the day. Therefore, mass transportation is the better option. As we already know; we can only fast travel in the game or drive. I found it very awkward when the distance I needed to travel, wasn't too close, but wasn't too far. Therefore; you'd naturally call for your vehicle. Then we you drive to the destination, there is no appropriate place to park the vehicle. Or you arrive at the destination and accidentally hit a gang that has no affiliation with the mission. CDPR may have found it a lot easier, making an underground subway. This would have really given NPC interaction the true attention that it needs. Maybe for missions in the Badlands; you hop in the vehicle and take the long drive.

In my imagination the NC transit system should actually serve a purpose in the game. Maybe there are missions that require V to use the bus or train. Maybe she's doing a Jessica Jones style mission where she has to follow someone from one end of the city to the next; without drawing suspicion. Or there are a lot of meet ups that take place near busy train stations. They shouldn't be something that is passive; they should be something that V has to use.
 
Yes. But this is different. What we see in the game. Was that this cut content was 70% done. That's months if not a year of wasted development. Proper management would have cut this at pre production.

Maybe. Maybe not.

My feeling is that they really wanted to do the metro and make it work. I think that persisted for a while. I have to wonder whether lazy players doomed the system. Instant travel to locations conveniently close to the quest target is preferred by quite a few players.
 
Public transportation system in Night City could be quite impressive as one of the interactive aspects of CP2077. Right now the player can not take a taxi or ride a monorail train, although both means of transit are present in the game.

During my gameplay I tried to follow most of the monorail tracks in NC. This little investigation lead me to the conclusion that the whole city structure was designed with the train system in mind. There are many fake NCART (Night City Area Rapid Transit) stations in the game. They are located both underground and above street level, yet always in the places where the rail network is already present. The whole system could work, if the players were given the ability to ride a monorail.

Unfortunately, at some point in development the decision was made to stop working on the interactive transit system. I have no idea what was the reasoning behind this decision. It could be due to the time constrains or the lack of ability to properly implement this quite complex aspect of the gameplay. The leftovers of the unfortunate process of cutting this interactive monorail out are quite noticeable. Instead, we were presented with pretty "unimmersive" fast travel points that could work as an optional way of transit (e.g. in the form of interactive maps located in the train stations).

We do not have a proper modding tools (SDK) that would make some kind of a complete implementation of this monorail system possible. The skeleton of this system is in the game: the tracks are usually in the right places and some stations are located properly, populated and accessible via elevators. Unfortunately, the full implementation of the monorail system requires rebuilding some parts of the town, creating the interiors of some stations and interactive cars that the player and NPCs could enter. And, most of all, it would be necessary to design a smart transit AI for this game. Yes, an impossible task if we consider the fact that the city traffic AI in CP2077 does not work very well.

The city looks amazing from above. That is why riding a monorail, although not the most important aspect of the game, would greatly increase the immersion and improve our gaming experience. As soon as I acquired Double Jump I started looking for a way to ride a monorail.

I discovered that there are a several places in the city where the player can jump, climb and get on the tracks: especially in Downtown, Little China and Northside. I am sure the developers were well aware of that, so they tried to make it as difficult as possible for the player to get there and placed many invisible walls around certain areas (e.g. in the vicinity of the Afterlife) and on the tracks. Still, the player might get through some of them and ride a monorail.

There are huge parts of the tracks where it's possible to enjoy a ride for almost a minute (before the train disappears or the invisible wall blocks the way). It is an incredible experience. The vistas are breathtaking (pun intended). I highly recommend anyone to try it. If you liked riding a rollercoaster with Johnny, then you'll be having a blast with the monorail. There are no problems with performance, missing textures etc. during the ride, so it should not be a problem for any PC user. The city looks as impressive from above as it is on the street level. It's a pity that we are not able to fully enjoy this experience. Still, one can get a taste of it by taking advantage of the whole immersive sim systems that are available in the game (without resorting to any "cheats" or mods).

I wish the developers, after taking care of the more pressing issues with the game, could bring interactive transit system back to life. What do you think? Do you miss properly implemented NCART in NC?

Here are some shots I took while riding a monorail in various districts:

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I doubt they planned an interactive system, they did plan the city though, so they built out everything thats supposed to be there. They may use them as fast travel later, or they may stage events there.
 
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