I play low pop usually, and whenever Train gets rolled it’s a mess. It’s an enormous station that’s difficult to navigate (the portals make navigation faster, but are hard to plan routes with because they aren’t marked on the map.) Sci usually gets completely overwhelmed because it takes them ages to just get to an anomaly, and at that point you might need sec, which is rare to have on low pop. And because of its inherently linear design, one department getting overrun by an anomaly can essentially cut the train in half.
This is all compounded by the fact that if you’re on Hopper, a good number of players just will not know about the portals, or the weird glass maint tunnels, and overall it ends up being impassable.
I had a pair of lowpop train rounds, it is honestly not that bad but in general your experience with train depends of how good the engi team is on that shift.
I’ve found train on lowpop requires every department to be on their A game.
Engi has barely any SMES capacity, so they have to get the singulo up as fast as possible. Plus, all the random windoors into space mean moving too close to the walls can just space an area.
Sci needs to be on the move the MOMENT an anomaly spawns, or it’ll have overtaken the department by the time they get there.
Sec basically gets folded into sci because the long times to get to anomalies mean they’ve usually spiraled out of control before sci gets there.
Medical has to be ready to either haul ass across the train or deal with patients who’ve been hauled across the station by someone else, either way in VERY poor condition. (Standard for lowpop, but exacerbated by the length of Train)
Cargo has to haul orders to departments because everyone’s too busy with the rest of Train to go get them. which means longer delays between trips to the ATS. (Also standard lowpop, but not to this extent)
Service is either nonexistent because lowpop, or alone at the top of the train because no one has time to get a drink.
