Industries shutting down on meee!

[Defacto]

So i start the game, make a few connections between industries, check that they got contracts, buy the appropiate vehicles, and everything goes well for a few months... then the Industry shuts down! It stops producing, and got a red bar in the details view.

Is this a glitch or am i just missing something? 

[gwalch]

Are you sure the final industry isn't full ?

[Defacto]

What do you mean?

[gwalch]

For exemple, petroleum chain
oil field->raffinery->gas station

If gas station is full (more gasoline than it can accept), it stops production in the raffinery until station can accept gasoline... If raffinerie stops, oil makes raffinerie full, and oil field stop the production ! So it can stop all the chain... And you have to wait the consommation of the final good

[Václav]

Red bar means many things:
- factories cannot produce more for insufficient space on close station - so you should increase transportation or capacity of station

- factories may need more than one material for making their product(s) - so support factory with other materials

- factories cannot produce if consumers of their products have enough goods for processing/selling - so you cannot do anything else than wait ... until target factory will consume sufficient amount of materials - or decrease of transportation

... I hope I did not forget on anything

[Lmallet]

Maybe this wiki article can help:

http://www.simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=en_Factories

[Defacto]

Hmm, maybe that's correct! I'll bring this into consideration...

So you actually need to sell the wares the industry makes aswell as providing them with other ones, and if not they get grumpy and shut down?

[Lmallet]

Pretty much.

Take the steel mill for example:
-It needs coal and ore to produce steel.  If it does not have ore or coal, it won't produce.  If it is full of coal and ore, then the coal mines and ore mines supplying it will not produce.
-If the steel has nowhere to go, or the buyer is full, it won't produce.

Industries can produce without selling for a little while, this is to allow you to build connections to other industries.  Once full, it will stop.

[Defacto]

Now that i'm over with this problem, another one appeared; someone is stealing from my treasure chest!

Every 10 seconds or so, my money dips with like 5000 credits! The profit bar tells me that the maintance costs have gone haywild, but the vehicle statistics say that all vehicles go with profit!

[Zeno]

Every 10 seconds? I think that's pretty quick, but it might be caused by infrastructure unkeep: that means, each station, railway track or road you build, will cost you some money each month due to "maintenance" costs. If you built lots of tracks/roads or large stations/buildings you'll get huge maintenance costs.

[Defacto]

Every 10 seconds? I think that's pretty quick, but it might be caused by infrastructure unkeep: that means, each station, railway track or road you build, will cost you some money each month due to "maintenance" costs. If you built lots of tracks/roads or large stations/buildings you'll get huge maintenance costs.

Yes, you're probably right... how do i get profit then? I use low quality track/road, the cheapest trains/trucks, and the resources that gives the most profit, over a short distance as possible, and i still don't earn any money!

[Lmallet]

How long are your trains?

[Defacto]

Four to five wagons, the mines doesn't put out more resources to fill more wagons.

I don't amke profit with trucks either, and then we talk like 30 trucks on just a few tens of kilometers...

[Lmallet]

I would say your trains are too short and you have too many trucks.   For trains, longer is often better, since you get more money per trip while spending less on maintenance (don't go too long).  For trucks, if you have too many, you end up with lots of trucks waiting, which don't make you money.

[Defacto]

I can't have longer trains than i have now, wells and mines don't make enough resources for me to fill up the trains!

As for trucks, i started a new map and only have around 10 trucks now...

[Lmallet]

If you set the train to wait until it is 100% full, it will wait.  I rarely allow a freight train to be shorter than 4 squares (or 1 loco and 7 cars),  even if the train has to wait 2 months.

[Defacto]

Right, thanks for your advice. I'll try again tomorrow...

[Defacto]

I'm still not making profit!

By the way, i use pak 128, i heard that the game is harder with this pack. Is that true?

[Lmallet]

Yes, pak 128 was made to be more challenging that pak 64.  Basically, there is a point where your network is large enough that it will generate more money than you can spend.  This point happens much later in pak128. 

Could you upload your savegame here: http://files.simutrans-germany.com/ and post the link here?    It would be easier to look at your game than to guess what your problem might be.  Also let us know if you use any addons as well.