Optimizing

[lilleskut]

Are there any online resources on how to optimize transport (maximize profit, prevent overfull warehouses,...)?

Some questions I have:

1. If I connect a producer (e.g. a coal mine) with a consumer (e.g. a power station), is the production only stopped if the consumer is full or are there other ways to reduce output? I have only ox carts and they can't carry coal fast enough to prevent the producer station to fill up with coal. Should I build ten roads in parallel to increase the capacity of my transport?

2. I notice that there is a penalty if a station is overfull, i.e. if it is labeled red. But what is the meaning of orange for a station?

3. How do I optimize in general? What statistics should I look at (vehicle earnings, profit, free capacity,...) and what are good values for those?

4. Is it advisable to run a line with the consumer empty/half empty/full?

[Václav]

1. If I connect a producer (e.g. a coal mine) with a consumer (e.g. a power station), is the production only stopped if the consumer is full or are there other ways to reduce output? I have only ox carts and they can't carry coal fast enough to prevent the producer station to fill up with coal. Should I build ten roads in parallel to increase the capacity of my transport?

Production of producer is stopped when consumer is full - when there is more than one consumer, production goes on but transportation to full consumer is stopped. There is no way to reduce output below original level.

Building of more than two roads is useless. So, build one another road (or let be in use only two) and make them one-way to one will be used for direction from consumer - and other will be for direction to consumer. And also built some extra loading platforms and use choose signs. This would make transportation a little more fluent - and amount of delivered coal will be a little greater. But nothing more.

[Ters]

Production is also stopped if the station is full. And I'm not aware of any penalties from crowded stations, apart from the monthly warning message.

Orange simply means not quite red. According to the help, a stop turns red when more that 150 percent full, more than 200 unhappy passengers or when a factory must stop stop production.

I just let lines run, with convoys set to wait for 100 percent load, except for passengers and mail. With pak64 at least, convoys don't cost money when standing still, so I don't care much for ensuring a smooth flow of goods. When consumer is full, the convoys just wait until the source resumes production when consumer gets non-full again. I just have to ensure that there is room for all convoys to wait at the source, side by side or in a queue, without blocking other traffic. Monthly infrastructure cost has never bothered me once I get going.

As for optimizing for profit, I just try to move as much goods as fast as possible with the cheapest vehicles on the cheapest road/track. Sometimes, I have made calculations on how many vehicles a locomotive must pull to break even or better. For some types of goods, it might actually be impossible to run a profitable line, but you still need the line to complete a profitable chain.

[Fifty]

2. I notice that there is a penalty if a station is overfull, i.e. if it is labeled red. But what is the meaning of orange for a station?

I don't think there is any penalty for overcrowding by default. Most pak 64 producers will produce more than the consumers consume, so overcrowding will almost always occur on freight networks

Are there any online resources on how to optimize transport (maximize profit, prevent overfull warehouses,...)?

One of the best resources for me has been looking at other people's savegames for ideas.

If you just have one coal mine going to one power plant, it is usually best to have a direct route- that way you do not have to pay extra maintenance costs on a transfer station. Warehouses and transfer stations are generally only useful in two cases. First, if there are a number of similar consumers in the same area. For instance, in the netgame I am currently playing in, there are 5 steel mills in a small area, so I have built a large hub at one of the steel mills so all shipments of coal and ore from more distant locations and exports of steel can be centralized. Second, if you can take advantage of backhauls. In this same game, there is a train that brings coal to the steel mills from the south and ore from the north. However, there is a coal powerplant near the ore mine, thus by using a hub station at the steel mills, I can backhaul coal on ore trains. When freight trains are loaded in both directions, you make more profit.

Oh- and if you're in a year before 1930, you'll probably need to move coal by train, horse carriages just don't have enough capacity to fill large consumers like powerplants.

[lilleskut]

Thanks for the replies. Makes it easier than I thought.

As for the penalty I was under the impression that my account balance dropped whenever the warning message appear. But perhaps not.

[Ters]

As for the penalty I was under the impression that my account balance dropped whenever the warning message appear. But perhaps not.

Since the message, if I remember correctly, appears only at the start of a new month, the money probably drops because some monthly expenses are paid at the same time.

[lilleskut]

That makes sense. Thanks.

[Václav]

And for another optimizing of transportation, build (mostly railways) in a such way to you could re-use already built ways.