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3 first days of simultrans experiance on steam

Started by PL, December 31, 2016, 09:23:20 AM

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PL

Hello, I newly downloaded the simutrans from steam and I tried to play it, Why?  beacuse it looks interesting and it is free :)

First try: shocked, many build tools that i dont understand, no tutorials, nothing.
--->I go watch videos on youtube on how to start and brows the help Index.

Second try : I build a rail way from coal mine to coal power plant with the most simple train, one station tile, but the company went deflicit! (no clear description like tooltips, the cost is not clear)
--->Why the youtube video can have 10k income with the same start up and I don't?? I google why and just realise there are many PAK, and the PAK on steam is PAK 128, and it is harder I found this forum usefull after looking for solution on the almost empty steam community

Third try : I build a bus line in city with 3 stops, with the most simple bus, 1 % of load at each station, but 99% of the time, the bus stay waiting for passenger.....
---> I google again and realise that early in the game, there are less citizens

Forth try : so I click on high speed and wait for almost 5 years and the bus still cant get profits...
---> Google again and found the ways to check where the population want to go...

Fifth try : new maps with more citizen, bus network, finally, it works with good income, and i build more bus lines... BUT I went deflicit again after too much lines in one city.
---> I delete some lines

FINALLY,  I have constant income of around 5k per month from 24 bus lines in 6 big cities and 3 lines in another 3 small city....

AND I want go for industry I build road to link the supplier to customer and deploy trucks... BUT I went deflicit again with too high road maintanent cost (I cant delete the raod because there is no connection before)
---> I am trying others industry line now, picking up the nearest one.... please wish me luck :)


Besides :

The game crash a lots, if you dont save anything, you will loss everything.                                      (NO AUTOSAVE in game)
Crash very easily when creating new line in the window of deploying new vehicles.                        (solution : Creat new line in lines management, and then just select whendeploying vehicle.)
Crash somehow when moving mouse cursor with the smart hide object ON.                                   (solutions : press ( " ) to hide buildings, and press ( %) to hide trees.)
The connection (supplier -> port 1, port 1 -> port 2, port 2 -> customer) is not accepted. It is the problem when the map is seperated by water.   (NO solution unless increase the ground lever in the water to make a way...)



jamespetts

Hello and welcome to the forums. I have moved your post to a different subforum, as the subform on which you posted was about a fork of Simutrans called Simutrans-Experimental, whereas you are playing with the version from Steam, which is the standard version.

Incidentally, there is an autosave in the game, although by default it saves only once per game year. If you are getting crashes, I suggest that you report them in the bug reports forum so that the developers can find out what is wrong and fix it.

Very best wishes for playing and I hope that you are enjoying this!
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

DrSuperGood

A lot of what you posted is due to inexperience and also some of it is not true...

Quote
Second try : I build a rail way from coal mine to coal power plant with the most simple train, one station tile, but the company went deflicit! (no clear description like tooltips, the cost is not clear)
--->Why the youtube video can have 10k income with the same start up and I don't?? I google why and just realise there are many PAK, and the PAK on steam is PAK 128, and it is harder I found this forum usefull after looking for solution on the almost empty steam community
Pak128 is both ways harder and easier. In pak64 you can plonk down a line from coal or oil to a power station and it always earns you more than enough profit to get started (usually pays for self in a month or so). In pak128 only certain goods allow for such a start, eg Milk, high volume Oil to Oil Power Station (must be big oil producer), to some extent waste. If you can get a multi chain going you can also make profit but with standard starting funds this might not be possible. Maintenance costs in pak128 are a big early game killer unlike in pak64 where route detours are.

Quote
Third try : I build a bus line in city with 3 stops, with the most simple bus, 1 % of load at each station, but 99% of the time, the bus stay waiting for passenger.....
---> I google again and realise that early in the game, there are less citizens
Only try this is using payment model 0 (distance between stops, usually the default payment model). Any other payment model makes passengers and mail extremely hard to the point that even experts struggle to make profits.

In pak128 you need to place down like 20 bus stations between many cities. Only try this if the route includes at least 1 big city. Passenger generation is based on the amount of destinations they can get to using available routes at their spawn point, hence you want to cover as much area as possible (avoid stop overlap). The combo passenger/mail stops can be used for more efficiency as mail also makes profit. Early game you do not care about overcrowding, instead you want all your busses to constantly move with 100% load. Space the busses using a single stop on the route set to wait for 100% with a timeout of some faction of the month. Spacing is important for efficient operation as otherwise you might find that the stops get depleted in a wave with a lot of busses sitting empty and wasting money. I would not recommend this start before 1940, or any time before decent capacity/speed busses are available.

In pak64 this is even easier as maintenance costs are so low. Place down 20-60 stops, connect with single line and fill with busses. Remember to space them using wait for 100% with timeout. Keep adding busses and increasing frequency until just under 100% capacity is used. This can easily bring you in a few hundred thousand a month with hundreds of busses running it.

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Forth try : so I click on high speed and wait for almost 5 years and the bus still cant get profits...
---> Google again and found the ways to check where the population want to go...
Open city screen and it shows you in the image. The general rule of thumb is that there are 3 types of people. The first are industry commuters, such as to a coal mine or shop, which will make up the bulk of local traffic. Second are local travellers which will go between buildings inside the city or to nearby cities. The final are long range travellers, which will randomly go to any passenger (or mail) levelled building on the map. As the game progresses into the future (post 2000) there will be fewer local travellers and more long range travellers.

In any case this is why to do a passenger start you need to think big. Cover as much passenger/mail levelled buildings as possible. This increases the odds that passengers use the line as it increases the odds that a source to destination exists using the line.

In well developed multiplayer maps passenger and mail pickup ratios of over 90% have been observed. Starting in such a game was as easy as finding any passenger/mail levelled buildings not covered and shipping them to a public station.

Quote
Fifth try : new maps with more citizen, bus network, finally, it works with good income, and i build more bus lines... BUT I went deflicit again after too much lines in one city.
---> I delete some lines
Rather set up new lines in other cities than more in the same city. Passengers do not care how efficiently they get to their destination (they are willing to wait years!) but they do care if they can get to their destination in the first place. Connect lines in separate cities together for even more passengers and more profit.

QuoteAND I want go for industry I build road to link the supplier to customer and deploy trucks... BUT I went deflicit again with too high road maintanent cost (I cant delete the raod because there is no connection before)
You cannot use roads in pak128 for most industry types or until late game where road vehicles are a lot more efficient. If you want to do industry early game your only option is rail. Even then designing a profitable rail network is hard and needs experience.

The two most profitable non-chain pak128 goods are milk and oil. Milk to dairy needs high speed freight lines and expensive engines (do not care about going red, it is your company net value that determines bankruptcy and not your cash in the bank) for speed bonus but makes tons of profit as a result. Big oil producer to oil fired power station needs efficient freight engines and makes profit due to the volumes involved. Coal to coal fired power station is not profitable due to small producers and low value, too much money is wasted on maintenance early game. Waste to incinerator or waste fired power station is vaguely profitable as it is worth and produced more than coal. All chain goods have the potential to make a ton of profit, especially Food and Electronics, however setting up such chains might not be viable early game.

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The game crash a lots, if you dont save anything, you will loss everything.                                      (NO AUTOSAVE in game)
The game should not be crashing a lot. Most people can play it several hours without crashes. The game is far from perfect though so if you crash please report it so that the cause can be determined and fixed. I have personally helped track down a number of random crashes.

The game does have auto save. It should auto save every so often (usually every month or so). Period can be set.

Quote
Crash very easily when creating new line in the window of deploying new vehicles.                        (solution : Creat new line in lines management, and then just select whendeploying vehicle.)
This might be a steam build issue? Either that or you will need to be more detailed as to recreating the crash. I have never had line management cause a crash.

Quote
Crash somehow when moving mouse cursor with the smart hide object ON.                                   (solutions : press ( " ) to hide buildings, and press ( %) to hide trees.)
Again this might be a steam build issue. Those tools have been extensively tested on the non steam builds and do not cause a crash, or at least not that easily/obviously.

Quote
The connection (supplier -> port 1, port 1 -> port 2, port 2 -> customer) is not accepted. It is the problem when the map is seperated by water.   (NO solution unless increase the ground lever in the water to make a way...)
The connection is accepted as long as the customer wants goods from the supplier, all stops are capable of accepting the goods and the game settings permit such deep routing (which by default they should). By default the game should allow 4-5 exchanges before it no longer sees a connection. This can be raised to truly insane numbers like 12 however it can degrade performance (why the limit exists in the first place).

The stops at supplier, port 1, port 2 and customer must all be capable of accepting goods. Some stop components might provide generic type-less storage. For a stop to accept goods at least 1 of the components of it must provide freight storage. If port 1 was made of a bus stop and passenger dock then it will not accept freight until either a freight storage component was added or the passenger dock replaced with a freight dock which provides freight storage.

An_dz

As for the crash you can try installing the standalone version to see if it's not a problem with the steam build.

PL

Firstly, Thank you for everyone who replied me and I am sorry that I posted at wrong place. Thanks to Jamespetts for moving it here.
DrSuperGood, yea, I have no experience at all of playing simutrans....I appreciate all your explanations, it is very helpfull.

Yes, I found the game have autosave, the saved file updated after one year, I lose my game before because it already crashed within a month when I designing my first line.
After I have made used to the operation of the game, it dont crash now. Probably it crashed before because I dont know how to set up the line and clicked on wrong place.
I will do as you say to create lines for milk and oil as my start up, but the PAK 128 seems too hard for now... I will download PAK64 and play until I am good enough to play PAK 128.   :D

DrSuperGood

Quote
After I have made used to the operation of the game, it dont crash now. Probably it crashed before because I dont know how to set up the line and clicked on wrong place.
If you can recreate the crash, or better yet show it, then we may be able to fix it. However there is a good chance its an issue with the steam build.

gauthier

QuoteIn pak128 you need to place down like 20 bus stations between many cities. Only try this if the route includes at least 1 big city. Passenger generation is based on the amount of destinations they can get to using available routes at their spawn point, hence you want to cover as much area as possible (avoid stop overlap). The combo passenger/mail stops can be used for more efficiency as mail also makes profit. Early game you do not care about overcrowding, instead you want all your busses to constantly move with 100% load. Space the busses using a single stop on the route set to wait for 100% with a timeout of some faction of the month. Spacing is important for efficient operation as otherwise you might find that the stops get depleted in a wave with a lot of busses sitting empty and wasting money. I would not recommend this start before 1940, or any time before decent capacity/speed busses are available.

Works also very well between 1930 and 1940 ;) I make tons of money with early coaches. In this era, start a train line only if an intercity coach line is completetely saturated. During the 40s, trains become decently profitable to be used instead of buses for crowded intercity lines. If you are playing in a map with enough sea space, you should connect the most towns you can using boats, these are cheap (you have to buy many ones as they are slow) but can be significantly profitable.

A piece of advice on how to manage finances: don't take care of your ammount of cash (what's displayed at the bottom of the screen), take a huge care of your wealth (displayed in finance window). This number CAN NEVER go under zero. The trap here is to keep your cash above zero whereas you should keep investing, even if your cash is negative, until your wealth is too low.
Anyway, when you buy vehicles, be sure to have at least 50% of their total value in your wealth. After being bought and during service, vehicles loose value, so your wealth decreases. So if you buy vehicles without having enough wealth, it will decrease until zero and you go bankrupt.

DrSuperGood

Quote
Anyway, when you buy vehicles, be sure to have at least 50% of their total value in your wealth. After being bought and during service, vehicles loose value, so your wealth decreases. So if you buy vehicles without having enough wealth, it will decrease until zero and you go bankrupt.
By default you only need ~15% of the value in wealth. Sure they do decrease in value every month in operation however if they are decreasing more than the profit they are making you have done something seriously wrong (bad investment). I would try to keep a buffer of 1 month operating costs in wealth though just as a buffer.

That said late game if you do passengers you will end up with stupid amounts of money that you cannot ever possibly spend. On a recent server game I thought nothing of blowing 100 million upgrading my passenger trains and it did not really make a dent to my total cash as that was >10 billion.

gauthier

Bad investments can happen. I agree that 50% is farly overestimated anyway :p