Profit? No way

[telesien]

Hi, I got Simutrans few days back, when I was thinking about great times I had with Transport Tycoon.

Now I've read the starting guide and basic tutorial you can access through simutrans page, than tried to play and hit the wall.

No matter what I do I can't make any profit. Even the most simple thing suggested by tutorials, i.e. connecting coal mine with nearby power plant through trucks using pre-build road, is hopeless. The maintance costs are just too high to turn that operating income into profits.

Needless to say I am lost and this is my last hope to crack this game. I was searching the web (mainly youtube) for more detailed tutorials, but nothing helpful I'd understand. Can somebody here help me?

[The Hood]

Which pakset are you using (pak64, pak128, pak128.Britain etc.)?  All the cost data is part of the pakset so it's pretty hard to help without that info.  It would also be good to know about starting year, and what exactly you are trying to do.  Beyond that, some screenshots/saves may help.

[telesien]

Oh I thought the pakset are just for graphics. I am using 128 with the starting year 1930. I was mainly trying to connect short to medium distance power plants and coal mines. Short distance with trucks and medium with trains using the shortest way possible. Just single line with no better rails than needed to achieve the max. possible speed (which means the worst available). If it will be necessary, I may add some screenshots, although I don't think they'll help much.

[DirrrtyDirk]

Maybe your train stations are too expensive? (Too long or you chose the wrong sort maybe? Wrong as in too expensive per tile, I mean)

[telesien]

Well I've chosen the most simple type possible without any fancy stuff. Anyway that wouldn't explain my problem with trucks

[DirrrtyDirk]

Hmmm it's a little hard to tell here...


Would you mind uploading your savegame (please also state the exact and full version of Simutrans and pak128 you are using) for us to check? (you could do it e.g. here: http://files.simutrans-germany.com/ )

[prissi]

The default "most simple one" in pak128 is the coal loading one, which is rather the most expensive one. (The AIs frequently fail for railroad due to this.) In pak128, you have to use the simple one plus an extension building.

[DirrrtyDirk]

Actually, an extension building is no longer necessary, since the simple platform accepts goods by now (and has been doing so for quite a while, too). So, the times when it didn't enable goods or passengers are long gone.

Oh and the coal station is level 13 and the simple station is level 2 (no old style separate cost or capacity entries)- so even the AI should do it right nowadays.

[telesien]

I will upload it just as my **** provider fixes his problem with virtually non-existent upload speed.

[DirrrtyDirk]

Oh next idea... did you set your trucks and trains to wait for 100% load before leaving the coal mine?

[telesien]

Sorry, I must take it back... Is it possible that some wrong files might have been loaded? Because now I can make money. Coal transporting train now earns me around 1,000.00¢ per year (with operating costs and maintenance already subtracted).

EDIT: OK, I think I get it. The trucks in pak 128 have very small capacity and generate such a small profit that I need to balance their numbers well and trains arrive irregularly, so they can seem like not making enough profit to cover maintenance. It all depends on timing of arrivals and end of month. This still doesn't perfectly explain why I failed with larger lines like coal+sand->glass+milk->dairy, but I now feel confident enough to try again