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Starter Scenario - Pak64 : Supply Gas

Started by Severous, October 01, 2011, 12:15:55 PM

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Severous

A simple scenario suitable for new players.

Pak64.  No mod or add ons, just basic Pak 64.

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/271893/Starter_Scenario_-_6months._Supply_Gas.sve

Its really three scenarios in one.

1st time you play it: Just use ships.  How much gas can be sold in 6 months?

  • the basics of ports
  • learn to alter the land to make suitable port locations
  • watch the gas station and refinery carefully and what happens when supplied more than it needs
First play is to learn the basics of industry supply and effects of over supply.  Also check the city population - which city grew? why?



2nd time you play it: Just use road vehicles.  How much gas can be sold in 6 months?

  • long bridge building is needed
  • many vechiles
  • difference of the monthly production rate of the two different oil producing locations
  • try some passengers and mail also
Second play will give you a lot more to do but time will still drag. If you used buses check what happened to city populations on the city you connected for passenger journeys.

3rd play: Just use trains. How much gas can be sold in 6 months?

  • so many locomotives to choose from...which ones to use..max speed?..and check if they reach that speed or not
  • speed or efficiency?
  • will you go bankrupt?
  • signals! How to make best use of tracks and avoid gridlocks
The most expensive to set up.
The speed of the trains should mean gas reaches the gas station earlier in month one so should have the best result.
I found i kept tweaking this one and investing in line improvements right up to the end.

Enjoy.

I will post how much gas my gas station sold in a few days time.  Can those totals be beaten?
Regards
Sev.

Combuijs

Bob Marley: No woman, no cry

Programmer: No user, no bugs



Severous

This is how much Gas I sold in 6 months on each attempt with different vehicle types.

Can you match or better this?



Ships:  282
Road:   274
Trains: 289
Regards
Sev.

Optimix

Severous, I almost cant wait to play your scenario. It looks nice
and its a funny idea.

But it is impossible to download the file.
I just have been busy for one hour. It is only
waiting and waiting, and when they finally let me
in, I get all kind of game popups. After trying for
45 minutes I got a download link in my mail,
but after clicking that link, I got the message then
that the file is unavailable. Please can you post your
sve on a decent filehost? Thank you.

Sybill

I had the same problem and I don't like ImageShack because of its pop ups and advertisement terror. I recommend to use http://files.simutrans-germany.com/ this is simple, free and without advertisement.

Severous

Here is the save game link now hosted via the German site:
http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/Starter_Scenario_-_6months._Supply_Gas.sve

I hadn't used that site as previous scenarios I made a few years ago have been lost.

Enjoy.
Regards
Sev.

Optimix

That link is much better Severous!
This cost me 5 seconds to download.

Interesting puzzle! This is an educating challenge! ;-)
I have a lot of questions.

You uploaded a picture, but its resized by the host I think.
It is almost not possible to read what is in the picture.
Am I right, that you check how much gas is deliverd there
by the townhall menu? Is not it strange, that the number
of "supply" is growing, while nothing is delivered? I checked
the help function, and it says something like: "number of times
goods are checked........"

Why not clicking the car-stop, then chart and then supply?

I tried a short game, month 1 = 528, month 2 = 192 and month 3 = 0
During month March nothing happened at all in my game :-)

Final question for now:
- Clicking the raffinadery it says "OIL 1305/1250 300%"
Does that mean it's not optimal there, the raff needs only
1250, and I tranported a bit more, so there will be less
gas produced? The trick is to transport less oil?


Severous

Hello Optimix, I am glad the link to the save is working and that you had a go.

The challenge is not how much can be delivered, but rather how much can be sold. This changes significantly how much you have to do in this simple starter scenario.

This difference explains why we measured the results using different graphs.  In my images the town hall charts are used. The town hall has two 'goods' charts. One shows the number of checks for goods available for sale, each month (switch to month not years) and the other chart shows how many of those checks were successful because there were goods supplied, ie sales.

The Refinery can store an unlimited amount of oil supplied to it. But once its supply of unused Oil is above 1250 it will cause something to happen. That something is one of the key learning points I hoped new players would observe. 

The 300% element is not something I meant to be significant. I think it means three units of oil are needed to produce 1 unit of Gas. It does not alter to my knowledge.
Regards
Sev.

Optimix

Severous thanks for your reply.
I think we need an university study to understand all
these complicated figures about supply, consumption
and all these terms more. I have a lot of questions about
this all. Let me know if you are getting tired of my questions
and I will stop asking immedeatly :-)

Can you take a look at this log below?
I really dont understand what is happening here.
At the start the gaz cars are filled and transport gaz.
So there is nothing wrong with the route or destionation.
But then it stops all, and the gaz car cant be filled.

The supply of oil is okay. Not too much, and not too few.
Gaz is produced too......Why does the raffinadery not fill
my car with the produced gaz?

I use only one oil ship, so the oil rig is sometimes crowded.
(to avoid over-supply of oil) The oilfield has enough cars to
transport all the oil that is available there.

click the thumb below for full view



Severous

:-)

Understanding these figures is the purpose of this scenario.

Consumption Oil:
- Whilst the first number is lower than the second number..eg. 1207/1250 the Refinery is still demanding more Oil.  So oil will still be being produced at the Oil rig and oil field. 
- Once you have supplied more oil eg 1513/1250 the refinery demands no more oil.  No more oil will be added to waiting ships or to the oil rig station.

Production Gasoline:
- Gasoline will be made from oil IF there is somewhere that has a contract and still demands more Gas. (and there is a transport route)
- If the Gas station has been supplied more Gas than is needs no new Gas will be added to waiting transports, or to the station.  Gas will be added to the refinery reserve supply...eg reserve supply 228/270
- But once the reserve supply is full then no more gas will be made and no more oil will be used up.

When the Gas station has sold its Gas..or at least got below its 100/100 reserve of Gas then demand will start again
- the reserve Gas at the refinery is transferred to the station
- Oil is again used to make more gas
- Gas will be available to add to transport again

So Optimix...is there something you can do to check and understand this?
Clue from my scenario description.."watch the gas station and refinery carefully and what happens when supplied more than it needs"
:-)
Regards
Sev.

Optimix

Oh man! This is all new for me :-)

It looks like if there is a communication between the raff,
the rig and the field. The rig and field only produce if the
raff needs oil and I never knew that. I have to learn a lot.
My thoughts about that (untill now!) was that the field and
the rig only produced random oil, and that the raff stopped
producing if there was delivered no oil, and that it produced
less if there was delivered too much oil.

I have a lot of more quesions and suggestions, but perhaps it
better I will make a serious study of your latest reply first.

I did a first serious try with cars and the result you can see
below. Of course with your new information I will try again.
In this game, only 3 times, during the 6 months, a file of cars
started to transport gaz. Rest of the time it looked like if there
was a strike for all the workers and drivers of the cars.

You will hear from me! ;-)




Optimix

Quote from: Severous on October 03, 2011, 07:22:51 PM
Can you match or better this?



Ships:  282
Road:   274
Trains: 289

Yes I can better that :-)

Road: 281

I forgot the oil field, only one ship for the rig and 4 cars.
That keeps the gaz station in a healthy condition with
a number of gaz between about 60 and 82 / 100

The months feb to june give always the same results if you
play it optimal. That's 50. So the question is, how fast can
you transport the gaz during the first month. I got 31
in January, maybe some simutrans wizzards can better that.

Now I need some sleep :-)


Severous

You have hit the nail on its head:

"So the question is, how fast can you transport the gaz during the first month".

And your first screenshot above shows how you delivered gas quicker than I did. Your bridge is in a different location to mine. :idea:  Well done.
Regards
Sev.

Sybill

Hi Severous, I downloaded your save and played a bit, but I'm not sure I understand the point of this contest.

The gas station can only sell 248 units per month and will only accept as much gasoline as it needs. So the only difference is - like Optimix pointed out - the first month, and how quick you are with building everything you need and get your first ship to the gas station. I wasn't very quick with this, in the first month I only sold 78 units of gas, 16 in the city supply graphics. I wasn't sure if it was allowed to build anything else, so the only other thing I did was a passenger boat using the existing harbours and an additional one in Torstead, but it didn't make a great difference.

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/starter_ships.jpg

The second attempt was "only with road vehicles" so I built an underwater road to the oil rig. Now I sold 131 units of gas in the first month, 26 in the city supply graphics. After three month I found it boring just to wait for a new gasoline demand and provided the gas station with electricity. I went nearly bankrupt because of this, but I could sell a lot more gasoline as a result.
It doesn't show up in the city supply graphics, and I think that 50 means always 100%, but I'm not sure about this.

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/starter_cars.jpg

I have yet to try the railway approach, but it's a nice little map.

Severous

Hello Sybill.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with this simple starter scenario.  It never occurred to me to build a road under the sea!  Electricity didn't occur to me either until I started playing someone else's game.

I think you are right that you sold more gas as a result of adding electricity.  The measure I used, City Town Halls chart, is successful sales checks and not units sold.

As with Optimix and his long bridge over the sea its the sharing of our different approaches that is part of the point.  The sharing of comments in the Ragoland challenge of a few years ago that made that quite popular.

The map was generated at random.  But I had to do it many times until I got one that gave me an industry chain that fit my scenario design objectives.  I wanted it for new players who would learn from completing it.  Simutrans has many resources for programmers and those who understand dat and configgy files. I wont be able to use such things and never contribute to them, but I thought I could contribute game playing scenarios. No strings, basic game files where you 'play' to reach a set of objectives. I would like to see more of such scenarios.  I'm running out of such things on this forum.  Are there any on the German site you use?
Regards
Sev.

Sybill

Hi Severous,
I finally made my last attempt with trains on your little map. As you see, I wasn't very quick in the first month, I only sold 58 units of gas, that's 11 in the city list, but my main interest was the money side this time.
My rail approach was a lot cheaper than my road attempt, I used the cheapest rails, bridges and slow trains. They were sufficient to provide the gas station without to many over capacities. With my trucks I had the underwater road and a lot of terrain changes even before I made my power grid to bring electricity to the island.
This time I had enough time and money to make a little passenger network too with busses and a ship to Heppcross.

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/starter_trains.jpg

QuoteI would like to see more of such scenarios.  I'm running out of such things on this forum.  Are there any on the German site you use?
I don't know, I never searched for something like that.


Severous

Hello Sybill

Thanks for playing and posting your go with the trains.

Here is a picture of my attempt with trains.  I went for a rail station on the sea at the high output Oil Rig, and a fast train using the shortest bridge route. Using fastest train possible I made a little gasoline and steamed off quickly to deliver a small amount of gasoline as early in the month as possible.



I notice your graphs. I cannot make graphs like that.
I see your industries have a 'Statistik' and 'Details' buttons that my version of the game does not provide. 

The Tankstelle consumed graph fits perfectly for the measure of gas consumed that I defined as the measure of success. I would be interested in how your version of Simutrans has those features.

Sev
Regards
Sev.

Sybill

Your rail solution looks very nice. My main station is at the Oil Pump and I have a ship from the Oil Rig to the pump. This station includes also my main passenger harbour with bus stops from both sides.
I'm playing a nightly version of simutrans, nightly 110.0.2 r4696, that's where I got this buttons and graphics from.  I used to play the stable version, but there is a ship depot bug in it, that's why I downloaded the nightly. There are a lot of newer version after this, but I stay with it at the moment, because there is a possibility that in a new nightly version are new bugs too.