How to make insane profits?

[Zruty]

pak128.
Well, I tried a lot of times to get a profitable industry chain working. Most of the time I have about 1000-2000 monthly profit, which is of course very low, provided that I'm wasting hundreds of thousands to get the chain working.

Even if I simply connect an oil power station to the nearby oilfield, I get 1900 monthly profit, and it will decrease slightly because the oil supply is a little excess. Of course I'm using the cheapest possible track and stations, and the cheapest possible contemporary trains (as of 1980).

What am I doing wrong?

[The Hood]

If you are making a profit, chances are you are doing it right

When you start out it does take a while to get your investment in infrastructure and new vehicles back.

[Zruty]

Well, but 15k per year makes it 40 years to return my 600k spent on infrastructure & vehicles.

I understand that I have to wait a little, but I'm prepared to wait 1-2 years, not 40. So, I think my profits are too low.

[mobo]

People usually start earlier and when thy reach 1980 they already earn billions with their passenger networks. Therefore late vehicles are often very expensive and thus less profitable, to keep some challenge somehow. So if you start in 1980 you might need more starting money, you can edit that in simuconf.tab.

On topic title: Insane profits come with passenger transportation.

[Zruty]

So it's actually normal that goods transportation earns less than passenger transportation? I find this rather strange to be honest.

Edit: and the starting money value is irrelevant, since I want to minimize the return of investment time.

[Spike]

I think pak128 was made with long amortization periods. Other sets like pak96.comic or maybe also pak.Hajo have higher incomes.

[Zruty]

So I figure that I basically do well, and that I should stick to passenger transport for a while and use fast forward a lot

On a side note, what is bankruptcy?

[mobo]

So it's actually normal that goods transportation earns less than passenger transportation? .

At least in the game it is (but also in real life i think)

You can press G (shift+g) to see a list of goods, their transportation prices and how many percent more they'll pay if you transport them fast.

Another fact is that the number of passengers increases exponentially the bigger your network gets, so once your network reaches a certain size there are masses of passengers willing to travel and their number increases on and on and on (it's a nightmare )

edit: bankruptcy is running out of money

[Zruty]

bankruptcy is running out of money

I'm not that stupid, thanks I mean, if the game is not in the Beginner mode, how many months on loan is allowed? Or is it some other endgame condition?

[Spike]

In former versions 3 months of being in debt were allowed. Recent versions have no time limit I think, but the value of your vehicles and infrastructure must be greater than your loan. Keep in mind that aging vehicles lose value.

[Zruty]

So bankruptcy is defined as Net wealth < 0 ?

[Combuijs]

Yep!

But I never go bankrupt because I use the freeplay option  .