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Monetary problems in Simutrans-Experimental

Started by ph34rb0t, March 05, 2015, 08:28:43 PM

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ph34rb0t

Build  version 11.35 with Pak128.Britain-Ex-0.9.1.

I started out in 1900 and built a few railroads. Cheap railroads connecting a coilery with a power plant (coal) plus a passenger line between two smaller cities. This works pretty well in Standard with a suitable pakset, but not in Experimental, nuh uh. Especially the sub stations and lines for the power grid were monetary black holes.
I had to go into freeplay mode after a year. 25 years later, I am running a profitable passenger rail network powered by EMUs (love 'em!). But it's nowhere enough to cough up the 3 Million Credits that the banks are sucking from me month after month. Not motivating at all.

I don't want to start over, so is there any way to get rid of the 32 Million Credits that I owe to the bank or at least reduce them so I can actually cover interest costs with my operating profits? It's quite demotivating to fight windmills.

I'm desperate enough for hacks, cheats, exploits, etc... of any kind.

Anyone know where the player's money is stored in the save file?
Can I simply declare bankruptcy and have my infrastructure picked up by another player?
Anything else?

Any help would be appreciated.



- Edit:

I think I have an idea.
I'll simply add a new player with starting money that is about the amount of my current assets. I'll then switch to that player, take screenshots of the route network, wait until the old player has been liquidated and then simply rebuild everything with the starting money. That just might work.


- Edit²:

I think that worked. (Although I needed about four times my asset value to rebuild everything.)

Now if I only could remove "Default Player"...

Moe Ron

Switch players to the public service and place profitable industries in a close distance to eachother, such as the chain for making autos. If you're looking to improve passenger service, use the public service player to create larger villages and cities near your existing infrastructure, then add to the travel demand by placing large attractions near stations, such as the football grounds.

Aquin

Noone has claimed that the pak is balanced yet.
But once your passenger network is big enough you start swimming in money.

ph34rb0t

Thanks for the tip Mr. E. I'd like to keep the map as "organic" as possible though.

One funny thing is that after I've played a year or so as the new player, "Default Player" suddenly went from -32 Million C to the starting money I've allocated to new players.


Another question: Is ist possible to remove players from a game?



Quote from: Aquin on March 06, 2015, 07:44:45 AM
But once your passenger network is big enough you start swimming in money.

Provided that you run efficient trains, yes. I'm scared of what will happen when I hit 1935 and my favourite EMU becomes obsolete. The late 20s steam engines are all duds and there's no diesel engine in sight.

Should I ever have too much money, I'll simply start air travel.  ;D


P.S:
I don't think that a pakset can ever be considered "balanced" at all. There are too many factors and simply too many playstyles to ever achieve an optimum for everyone.

P.P.S:
Regardless of balancing and difficulty, I really like the improvements that Experimental makes over standard. Too bad that I don't have the time to do/update a german-themed pakset for it though. But then again, the british-themed stuff looks really picturesque and works quite well.

jamespetts

As has been pointed out, the pakset has not been balanced (and by "balanced", I mean costs in a realistic proportion to each other and to revenues such that the player's profits will bear a realistic relationship to the player's actions). Balancing is a way off, as quite a number of features are required before this can be done properly.

If you need a way to preserve an existing game in which you have been unable to make money, you could always use "freeplay", which will allow you to keep playing even though you are in the red.
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

ph34rb0t

Err...I said in the 1st post that I already freeplayed. The entire issue was about getting rid of the -30 Million C because they were bugging me.


jamespetts

Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

ph34rb0t

That happens; don't worry about it. :)


FYI:
I've taken the (sudden) reversal of fortunes (i.e. reset to the starting money) as an opportunity for my original player and built a transport network on another part of the map. While being composed exactly like my ersatz player's network (EMUs everywhere), it just fails to turn a profit. Very weird, but on the other hand also quite challenging...

Junna


ph34rb0t

#9
No, it's not. But reconsidering my statement about both networks...

The old network has been in existence for 30 years -> 30 years of stimulated city growth -> "overgrown" stations = each station's capture radius is filled with buildings and thus potential passengers -> higher demand -> higher ridership -> much more profit

So I was simply too stupid to take the headstart of the old network into account.


Not sure what I can do about the lack of demand and profitability though. I'm playing with the idea of closing down routes that are not profitable enough* and doing a bit of Sim City cityplanning by relocating stations directly into the city center.
At the current cash flow rate, I've got about two years left for that player.


*I wish there was a "required upkeep" statistic for a particular length of track




- Edit:
Turned the company around. Diesel railcars hooray!