Profitable transportion - basic concept

[Lukas]

Hello there, I'm new to this forum and been playing this sim for the past few days a little. So far loving it and finding it rather hard to get the hang of it.

I've read the tutorials I found and stuff like that and I have also spoken to one person who has helped me a little as well.

I'm still having problems though. I managed to set up a nice link between coal station and mines and the train was making profit quite well (well ... better than what I managed previously!) going over 10 000 $ over some time no problem.

But eventually I'd still see the money at the bottom of window reduce... So I tried to solve the problem by linking another factory with more mines, which was also producing nice profit but not enough to bring the number at the bottom up.

So could anyone tell me or gimme few hints at what I am doing wrong? I was told that public transport isn't profitable unless you make big networks and such so I have stopped at messing about with buses which barely made any profit.

Transporting goods between places seems to be quite good but I still don't get how I am supposed to advance to make a profit "overall"... and also could someone tell me what exactly eats up the money? Road maintenance... etc?

Hopefully I made some sort of sense, hard to construct a post nicely when I don't really know what's my problem, possibly the fact that I lack few braincells might have a little to do with it!  

So ehm.. yeah any responses are appreciated! Basically I'd like to know how to progress and what's the key to success

P.S. If I have failed at finding the sort of tutorial I need, please paste a link or something.  :
____
Edit: Also during that game something strange occured... one of the trains which was working fine suddenly stopped from being loaded at the coal mines... Whilst it worked just fine previously... and out of nowhere... without any changes or anything it all got messed up... bug?

[Maragil]

Lukas,

Welcome to the forums!

Re the train that stopped - I'm guessing it's that the coal mines stopped producing as wherever you are sending the goods is full. Either that or the coal mines are being overworked, and are only bringing in coal in groups of 10 very slowly.

For a tutorial re passengers and some tips on the networking of passengers, here's a guide I'm writing (well, not really) - http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=2778.0

Until you feel comfortable, I would use the 'Beginner Mode' and Chronology Off - also what Pak are you using - some are harder than others.

For freight I think it's better if you have several networks, preferably with resources that don't run out faster than your train depletes it - so think strategically. If you can carry coal from A to B/C , C being further, then go carry to C, as you get more money, and you keep your trains full by the way back - try saving money and improving efficiency by having that train with less carriages, and/or dual-line the track (have another line running parallel) , 1 way going to C, the other coming back to A, using one-way signals, and have dual platforming with platform choose signals, allowing you to possibly have 4 trains running on a 2 platform rail!

Anyway, in the first year or two everyone makes a loss from the construction costs and having not made any profit on your capita.

When you feel comfortable with either of the available options, go for both - I have trains (freight+passengers) running on the same line on a big network. (making millions!)

Also, if you have a nice big train/bus network, use the power of air ,sea, suspended railway, trolleybus and tram!


Hope this helps.

Enjoy Simutrans! 

[jaamak]

The finances window is your friend. The profit a single train earns in an undetermined time usually doesn't tell the whole story. Check your operational profit and determine what's eating all the income. The changes seen in maintenance and operation costs help in diagnostics. Track maintenance, as mentioned, can be a huge factor in the beginning. Especially with pak128 the effect of different tracks to maintenance is remarkable. As your margin is low at start, never use too expensive tracks; with freight the speed bonus gained from a faster maximum speed is often minimal.

Yet in the beginning one should attempt to support whole industry chains. Raw materials seldom are too profitable, but transporting end products, e.g. gasoline made of oil is a good start of a growing company.

[wlindley]

For public transit, start with one large city; create two or three loop bus routes that blanket most of the city and all connect at your main train station. Then connect that train station (even if you don't use passenger trains) with a couple bus routes that serve neighboring towns.  That should get things going.

[Lukas]

Thanks for the responses

Buses: I have succeeded once in making buses somewhat profitable, but as far as I remember it took quite some time for the buses to start carrying a good amount of passengers, ending up in needing a bigger bus.

Trains: What I did was.. get a locomotive and 11 cars or so that was capable of transporting around 450tones of good as far as I remember, and I made it wait until it was loaded 100% instead of going forth and back without loading to the full...

Someone mentioned here about having a train with less carriages? I assume that's a name for the cars or whatever ya call them... So what's more profitable larger quantity of stuff being transported less often or the other way round?

I've got 128 pak as I couldn't stand the small graphics

So I ain't gonna make any overall profit untill Ill have linked up quite a few factories, have some profitable bus routes and so on?

This is such a hard game to get, hopefully one day I'll manage (that's my goal.. apart from many others lol)

And ya got a nice community here very welcoming

[Maragil]

Buses are very useful as mentioned above - try connecting a train from your town to the industry (if it is connected with city) - makes lots of money!

[Lukas]

Oh remembered what I wanted to ask... What sort of map should I start with ? what size, how many cities and.. what about the other settings?

Cause at the moment I get 16 cities :|

[Maragil]

try with big cities and buses:)

[Lukas]

Slight... problem... trucks suddenly started on getting stuck at the loading bay out of nowhere for some weird reason...
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1039/messup1.png

What can I do ? :(((

[Maragil]

It's the truck at the front of the bay- you've got a traffic jam , meaning it can't do anything... try making it a private road.

Also, I see you are running Simutrans version 101 - version 102 is out

[Lukas]

Would my save still work on the newer one? Yeah I noticed that 102 is out, but I installed it through the linux addon thingy, and I guess I was given the older version :(

I decided to get rid of the trucks and adding a train line for that! Hehe... I still can't manage to make buses profitable...

[Maragil]

Buses aren't necessarily profitable - they make a loss for a big win sometimes