Wiki / The world
Sharing & community
trainsworld has a small, deliberate social layer: you can publish a network, and you can open someone else's as a copy. That is the whole of it.
Sharing a network
The community panel shares the game you are playing — the whole network, not a line. To be eligible:
- the game must be saved;
- it needs at least 2 lines and 8 stations;
- you need to pick a name and a title to show with it;
- your account has to have 60 minutes of play before sharing and liking unlock;
- you can share 3 times a day, and hold at most 20 shared networks.
Sandbox games are not shown. Sharing is per network, and it can be stopped again from the same panel; stopping removes it from the listing.
What people can see
When you share, anyone can see the network, the name you chose, and its points. They cannot see your account, your other games, or your saves. The game says this plainly before you share, and it is worth reading before you press the button.
Browsing
The community view sorts networks three ways — biggest, most liked, and by city — with a search, a random/shuffle option and paging. Each listing shows the network's title, the name shown, its points and when it was last shared.
Three actions matter:
- Like — one per account, and it can be taken back ("take back like").
- Open a copy — opens the network as a new game of your own. This is the interesting one: it is how people share layouts, and how a good design travels.
- Report — for offensive content, a fake score, or something else. Reported networks can be hidden while they are looked at.
Opening a copy is not a live connection: it is a snapshot. Changes you make are yours, and the original author is not affected.
Leaderboards
The leaderboard ranks players by points, in three scopes:
| Scope | What it covers |
|---|---|
| World | Every ranked player |
| Cities in this game | The cities your network serves |
| Other cities | Cities you are not currently serving |
Points are per 24 hours, and the rule is stated in the panel: one point per trip and one per kilometre travelled. That is why a long, busy network scores differently from a small, intense one.
Sandbox games are excluded, for the obvious reason. To appear you need to sign in and choose a name to show; you can leave the leaderboards again at any time.
Why the social layer is small
There is no chat, no comments and no profiles. What exists is closer to a gallery: publish a network, look at other people's, copy one you like. That is a deliberate design, and it has two effects worth knowing:
- The cost of a shared design is low. Nobody can take your network or change it; a copy is a copy.
- The leaderboard is the only competitive surface. Everything else is showing work.
Playing well with the system
A few habits that keep the gallery useful:
- Title the network for what it is. "Tokyo — 41 lines, 12% share" tells a reader more than "my game".
- Do not share a work in progress unless you want it copied as one. A copy is a snapshot of the state you shared, half-built junctions included.
- Report scores, not designs. A network you do not like is not a report; a fake score is.
- Remember the copy button. If you see a layout you want to learn from, open a copy and take it apart — that is what it is there for.
What the copying feature is really for
Open a copy of the biggest networks and look at their schedules, not their track. The track tells you where they built; the schedule tells you how they thought about frequency, which is the part that is hard to guess.