what causes freight station to be corwded?

[Ptkaisen]

Hello. I have been trying to play simutrans over and over and i can tell you that is very hard to start without watching a few videos from youtube.

Right now i can do a few thing without problems but i am having the freight stations crowded.

How can i know when a freight station will be crowded?

It happens to me when i have several trucks in a road transporting oil to a refinery, even if i have only truck loading the oil, it says that the loading station is crowded.

It happens sometimes when i have more than one train loading or unloading, but does not happens always even if i use two different tracks for each train as you can see in the picture.

I am using pak128 and i hope you can help me.

Tahnks

[Vladki]

If you have direct link (no transfers) than you can safely ignore ovecrowded cargo stations. Do not even try adding more trucks or trains to deliver all that cargo. First you should check the production and consumption rates of served factories and deliver only so much as the target factory can consume.

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[Ptkaisen]

I forgot to post the picture.



I use 2 different rail roads because i dont how to use train signals yet. Later i will learn, right now i just want to know how to make money and avoid crowding stations

Ok, then i think that what causes a station to be crowded is trying to load/unloading more that it can produce/recieve.
Thanks for the help

[DrSuperGood]

Do not even try adding more trucks or trains to deliver all that cargo. First you should check the production and consumption rates of served factories and deliver only so much as the target factory can consume.

This requires pointlessly complicated micro management and will still cause places to become overcrowded. You need to slap enough convoys that the destination will always end up over supplied eventually and that goods are pulled away from sources slightly faster than they can be produced. The amount of storage required at goods sources is based on the time a loading convoy is away from the stop (enough that it is still green by the time it arrives) so the industry keeps at full production. Transfers do not have overcrowding problems unless you are using Experimental or playing with various options like "no routing over overcrowded". With transfers you have to be careful that goods do not "stagnate" due to transfer bottlenecks resulting in an undersupplied consumer and a maxed "in transit" amount.

In Standard you may encounter the "bursty" consumption pattern. This is due to the maximum storage amount not being sufficient for continuous consumption while the suppliers produce and convoys move the goods to the consumer. Most noticeable in Pak64 with consumers like Construction Wholesalers and Bookshops which have tiny maximum storages yet insanely high demands (on an average setting a bookshop with proper transport services and power can empty its storage 8 or more times a month). This makes continuous consumption pretty much impossible over very long distance or slow supply lines. In Pak128 this is less of a problem as maximum storage amounts are larger but you will still struggle with very large maps.

I use 2 different rail roads because i dont how to use train signals yet. Later i will learn, right now i just want to know how to make money and avoid crowding stations

This is not viable in Pak128. Unlike Pak64 which has relatively cheap infrastructure yet expensive running costs, Pak128 has cheap running costs and expensive infrastructure maintenance. In order to even think of making profit you would need to merge those lines so they share at last some of the space. If you want to learn how to use signals you can try pak64 which is more forgiving with infrastructure.

If you are using default pay mechanics (distance between stops) then you can use the cargo bouncing exploit for a good early start (near infinite money). Obviously this defeats the point of playing a transport simulator but can be a great way to get on your toes to set up profitable lines.

Ok, then i think that what causes a station to be crowded is trying to load/unloading more that it can produce/recieve.

A station is overcrowded if it holds more of the same type of good than it's maximum storage value. Industries cannot supply a good to a station that is overcrowded with that good. Depending on settings, you may not be able to transfer a type of good to a station overcrowded with the same type of good.

In Experimental overcrowding causes goods to decay faster and logically results in very poor waiting times. This is especially important with passengers as they can ask for refunds. None of these features exist in Standard.

[Vladki]

Hauling more cargo than the consumer can accept is waste of money. Those conwoys and infrastructure could be used on transporting sth else.

Just keep the source stop capacity large enough to fill one convoy. Ignore overcrowding at source. Check input storage of consumer. If it is near zero add more conwoys. If it starts to grow reassign some convoys to other tasks.

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[DrSuperGood]

Hauling more cargo than the consumer can accept is waste of money. Those conwoys and infrastructure could be used on transporting sth else.

It is also a waste if a consumer stops working due to lack of supply as that translates into goods you could have shipped but no longer can since you cannot go back in time and ship them.

You do not have to pay fixed costs on vehicles and often the same infrastructure is sufficient to handle the required capacity increase.

Just keep the source stop capacity large enough to fill one convoy. Ignore overcrowding at source.

This only works if the source station is supplying a single destination. Throw in more than 1 destination and you can get stalling where goods to a destination overcrowd the stop and prevent the goods to another stop from being prepared. Obviously you could use parallel stops but then you are wasting money on additional infrastructure.

If it starts to grow reassign some convoys to other tasks.

Depends entirely on the speed of growth. If it grows very slowly than you can probably obtain full utilization so leave the convoy. Only if it is massively over supplied (convoys sitting idle for very long periods of time) should you consider removing convoys from it (usually easiest to sell them except when depots are expensive).

It should be noted that in Pak64 due to cheap infrastructure and convoys you do not have to be so fussy about oversupply. That Printer Ink train that runs once a month and sits idle most of the time makes so much profit it does not mater if you spend even 10,000 a month parking it most of the time.

[Vladki]

DrSuperGood I agree with you on most things. I was trying to help out a beginner, so I assumed an early stage of a game with just a few simple point-to-point links. In early game you are quite limited in what you can afford to buy and build. Therefore if 3-tile long train with the slowest engine is (fast and big) enough to supply coal to power plant, so that the input storage of power plant is only slowly growing, then it is perfectly fine to ignore the overcrowded warning on coal mine station. It would be pointless to buy longer and faster train just to haul all the excess coal to that power station, because it will just fill quicker, and your expensive train will sit idle. If the coal mine produces more that one power plant can use, it is better to spend the money to build line to another power plant (or steel foundry), and deliver the coal there.

If you havemore destinations and the source is still overcrowded, it is still not a problem. If both destinations are not full, there will be cargo for both of them. Just watch such a station and you will find out that there is cca 50:50 distribution. Of course in such case it is good to have station capacity to fill two convoys...

To the print ink example - sometimes it might be better to have a few trucks instead of longer train to keep the supply consistent. With high bursts you might end up with starved consumer. If the input supply can be consumed faster than the train makes the delivery trip.

[Ptkaisen]

This game is a little bit hard to start playing. Too many things to learn :/

Thanks for your help, i will try continue playing and see if i can learn a little bit more.

The website with helps docs needs to be online soon please!

thanks

[Miziiik]

http://simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php May help

[Vladki]

Ptkaisen, don't be afraid of too many options. Just build tracks and run trains and other wehicles. You may go bankrupt for the first time pretty soon. So just start another game, try different starting year or another pakset. Owercrowded stations are not catastrophic. It is just a hint that there is more cargo that can be delivered and thus an opportunity to earn more money.

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