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[TUTORIAL] Knowing Simutrans

Started by vilvoh, October 27, 2009, 11:06:22 AM

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vilvoh

Author: IgorTekton
Translation: Vilvoh
Aspect: game basics
Level: basic
Summary: Knowing more about Simutrans and its fundamental basics



1. Simutrans, a transport simulator

1.1. About the game

Simutrans is a transport network and economy simulator. You can build transport networks for freights, passengers and mail, boosting the economy and founding new cities.

The terrain consist of vegetation, cities, tourist attractions, terrestrial and aquatic landforms, etc...

The game uses an isometric perspective, creating the ilusion that the world ingame is in 3D

The goal of the game is to create and develop your transporting company, make cities grow and boost the economy of the game. The player can transport freights, passengers and mail.

1.2. Transport modes

Simutrans allows you to transport the stuff using different modes:

  • Railway: train, tram, troleys, monorail, maglev
  • Road: trucks, buses
  • Marine: boats and barges by sea or river canals
  • Aviation: aircrafts
  • High voltage lines

1.3. What more can I do inside the game?

Basically, the player can do the following:

  • Implement the necessary infrastructure including bridges, roads, highways, airports, canals, etc ... you can implemented signs and traffic lights to control traffic flow, too.
  • Constructing buildings for logistics like stations, loading docks, platforms, bus stops, airport terminals, even garages and depots.
  • Changing the topography raising and lowering the field, creating terraces and walls, digging at different levels using the underground mode.
  • Managing a fleet of transport to create and manage lines / routes by defining the origin and destination, buy, sell and manage vehicles and convoys compose.
  • Monitoring the game to list and inspect stops, vehicles, cities, commodities, factories, etc..
  • Browse finance.
  • Founding cities.

1.4. A sample of the game

Now, we're going to show you how the game looks like graphically. The following image shows a city with different road types (pak64)...


You have more screenshots at Simutrans screenshots gallery

2. The elements of the game

2.1. The Simutrans world sandbox

It consists of the cities, topography, vegetation and water.

The cities usually include:

  • A townhall where you can change the name of the city and see its statistics.
  • Several urban roads, which are automatically built as the city grows.
  • Buildings which are the destiny or the origin of passengers, goods and mail.
  • Special buildings such as urban attractions, monuments or curiosity buildings that are also destiny or origin of passengers and mail, usually in large quantities.

Topography refers to the map terrain. There are various configurations, flat or with different heights. The terrain can be modeled by the player. There is the possibility of constructing various elements underground.

Vegetation refers to trees, bushes, grass and similar. There are many types of trees according to the climate and terrain altitude.

The oceans are zones of water occupying parts at lower altitudes in the map, and they are navigable. You can bury the sea changing the topography of the seabed.

2.2. Tourist attractions

Tourist attractions can be rural or urban, and they only deal with passengers and mail.

2.3. Factories and Industry chains

These are the buildings that consume or produce different goods. They are one of the most important aspects of the game, along with the passenger transportation.

The factories depend ones from the others, associating to form industrial chains. Therefore, the goods are produced and consumed by other industries until they reach to the markets or final consumers inside the cities.

The different types of factories are:

  • Providers that produce some stuff that will be consumed by consumers.
  • Consumers that consume some stuff produced by providers.
  • Intermediate produce something and consume somthing at the same time.

Most of the times, a factory can be consumer and provider at the same time (intermediate) In this case, it will produce only if it's feeded with the needed goods provided by the providers.

i.e. the car factory, will produce cars for the car dealership only if it's feeded with steel from the steel mill and plastic from the refinery.

2.4. Ways

It's were vehicles transit. There're several types available, each one with its own building and maintenance costs, as a max speed. Use the right kind of way according to the transport you want.

2.5. Stops and Logistics buildings

2.5.1 Stops

The stops are places where vehicles load and unload the goods, passengers and mail. The stalls of goods used to clear goods. The same applies to mail and passengers.

These are the types of stops, and the compatible transport type:

  • Station: transp. rail -- passengers.
  • Platform: transp. rail -- freight.
  • Bus Stop: transp. road --  passengers.
  • Mail Stop: transp. road -- post.
  • Loading Dock: transp. road -- freight.
  • Canals: transp. maritime -- freight.
  • Dock: transp. maritime --  passengers.  
  • Harbour: transp. maritime -- freight.
  • Gate: transp. air -- any type.
  • Airport stop: transp. air -- any type.

2.5.2. Extension buildings

Extension buildings are used to increase the capacity of stops of the type of goods the stop can deal with.

i.e. in a passengers railroad station, if you want to deal with mail, you need to build a post office next to the platform; indeed, you can build a warehouse for dealing with freights too.

The most common extension buildings are: post offices, warehouses, car parkings, etc... Extension buildings must be built next to an existing stop.

2.6. Vehicles and goods

Exist vehicles that can carry goods from a single category (piece goods, bulk goods, etc..). Use the suitable vehicle (this includes wagons and trailers)  for transporting each of the different categories of goods.

i.e. if a factory produces petrol, then you have to use trucks or wagons that can transport petrol.

NOTE: certain types of trains only work if the track is electrified.


3. The game files

It consist of:

  • Binary: the program that makes the game work. It's useless without the graphics pakset.
  • Graphic pakset: a set of graphics, with a certain size and style, for the game.

4. Installing the game
  :arrow: Installing and setting up Simutrans...tutorial

Escala Real...a blog about Simutrans in Spanish...