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Maintenance and Getting Started

Started by taylorawillis, May 27, 2014, 02:29:37 AM

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taylorawillis

A couple of days ago I downloaded Simutrans-experimental with pak.128-britain experimental, read through the tips and the FAQ, and have been failing ever since.  I started in 1880, and connected the cities in one corner of the map with a couple of train lines:

Each line runs with about 20 minute frequencies, and every month I lose $2000 in operating profit - this is the best I've been able to do after a couple of days of trying.  I've been using the tracks with the lowest maintenance costs and the brick platform with building, but I'm still collapsing under maintenance costs.

I've tried searching and found nothing: is there some trick I'm missing on how to be profitable in the early game?

This is a link to my save game, if anyone would like to take a look and give me some tips on what I'm doing wrong:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=D06EF7F0CE26557B!6411&authkey=!ABo6bVMqZzS_FLI&ithint=file%2c.sve

Combuijs

You don't seem to have fully covered each city. A station covers a certain distance, e.g. the distance passengers are prepared to walk. I think in pak128.Britain this distance is 4 tiles. (There is an option to view which tiles are covered). So you have to arrange local passenger services to each station, for example by bus. That way, a lot more passengers will be transported, which might make your lines more profitable.

I know Experimental differs from Standard in the way passengers are generated, but I think local passengers services are still needed. Someone who plays Experimental might know better though.

(By the way, there is also a possibility to play on after you went broke. Start simutrans with -freeplay and you can experiment a bit longer)
Bob Marley: No woman, no cry

Programmer: No user, no bugs



ӔO

for pax and mail, start off with slower services, which would be ships or horse and carriage.

You need to string together a minimum of 10 cities before rail becomes feasible.

pax/mail don't mind waiting for hourly train services, which reduces running costs.

try and serve the industries with ships as well, as this gives a good return on investment.
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