Helping hand for a beginner

[tykemalcolm]

I'm completely new to Simutrans, I only installed it about 3 days ago. I'm using the British pak and have created a rail connection between a coalmine and a power station. The line runs 1 train and 7 coal cars. I'm making money on the deliveries, but the maintenance costs are causing an overall loss. Does anyone have any suggestions? Should I play using a different pak?

[Ters]

You might be using the wrong locomotive. Some locomotives are made for speed, and will only be profitable when hauling passengers at high speed. Coal doesn't usually mind much about speed, and can use a slower and cheaper locomotive. You might also have built a costly track meant for high speed trains. Finding the correct combination of vehicles and infrastructure for a certain cargo is one of the central parts of the game. (At least until you've built enought profitable lines to begin drowning in money.) Detours can also be costly, as each tile you drive across costs money in running costs, but you only get paid for the straight distance between stations.

[tykemalcolm]

Thanks - that's possible. Is there any way to preview the locomotives and rolling stock prior to laying track so that you determine the best way to go? Also, is there any way to see what the maintenance cost of a building is prior to contruction - for instance, the train depot. How does the game determine payment for goods delivered? You said in your response that payment is calculated based on a stright line distance - so is each good rated differently? I'm assuming they are?

[DirrrtyDirk]

You only need two tiles of track and a depot to see a available vehicles - other than that, there is no other option in game that I know of.

The number in () is maintenance cost.

And yes, different goods get different payments (but all depend on the distance as a multiplier). You can open a window with that information by pressing... Shift+G, I believe.

[Ters]

In general, there is no need to see vehicles before building the track, as long as you know that you don't need 300 km/h track for a coal train. There should always be some train that's suited, unless you're playing at the fringes of the time period where vehicles are available. Electrification or not could be an issue, though, and the depot must be electrified to show electric vehicles. (Unless something changed very recently. There was a proposal to always show them, just as unappendable when there is no electrification.)

[tykemalcolm]

OK - thanks for the responses.

Sorry - more questions - is it better to have long routes, or short routes? Or is that dependent on the stage of the game? for instance, early on then short routes to get cash influx, and then longer routes later when high speed becomes available?

Also, is better to run freight or passengers early? I've seen both espoused on the forum and in help documents.

[tykemalcolm]

More questions - I'm using the Britain pak and it has a beginner option on the main menu. How does this change the game and make it easier for a beginner like me?

Is it better to start a beginner game in say 1950 where there are more viable transport options available? and then back it up gradually with experience? I'm asking because I'm having a hard time breaking even. I've tried trucks and trains and always run at a loss - even in beginner mode.

[Ters]

Sorry - more questions - is it better to have long routes, or short routes? Or is that dependent on the stage of the game? for instance, early on then short routes to get cash influx, and then longer routes later when high speed becomes available?

(Very) long freight routes have traditionally been a bit problematic in Simutrans due to the way industries "place orders". Industries will place orders for more supplies when their input storage has free room. With long supply routes, it will take a long time before the ordered supplies arrive, while new orders are constantly being placed. At the producer, goods keep arriving at your station and you get messages about it flowing over. So you start adding more vehicles, since the first vehicles are still underway. In the mean time, the input storage runs out and production stops. When the deliveries start arriving, they start filling up the input storage and orders for more deliveries stop being placed. But vehicles keep arriving with more deliveries for orders placed long ago. The input storage is filled way beyond capacity (which Simutrans turns a blind eye to). All the vehicles arrive back at the station at the supplier, but there is no more cargo to move (consumer doesn't order more since it's full), so they start bunching up. The consumer is over full, so it will be along time before it places new orders. Therefore, the vehicles will be hanging around for a long time. You better have space for them!

A new solution has been made and is being tested, but I don't think it's in a stable release yet. Nor am I sure it will be the default.

Long passenger routes are not a problem, because passengers are generated at a fixed rate.

Also, is better to run freight or passengers early? I've seen both espoused on the forum and in help documents.

It depends on the pak set how profitable they are and how costly the respective infrastructure is. But in all cases, passengers traffic doesn't really pick up until you have connected several cities, which might be expensive.

[DrSuperGood]

As far as I am aware pak128 Britain is balanced for Experimental and even then it is only roughly balanced (needs features not yet implemented). As such it might be impossible to make profit shipping some goods. Similar to how generic truck shipped paper cannot ever make profit in pak64.

A new solution has been made and is being tested, but I don't think it's in a stable release yet. Nor am I sure it will be the default.

As far as I know the solution is stable mechanically, although other revisions probably are still needed (*cough* shipping to nowhere *cough*). Experimental has a different solution to the problem but that may or may not have issues (on the server it kept not allowing enough in transit but I believe that to be fixed).

Also, is better to run freight or passengers early? I've seen both espoused on the forum and in help documents.

If the pakset is well balanced it should not mater. You should be able to ship anything as long as you do so properly and efficiently, optimized for that pakset. In reality paksets are not that well balanced so certain goods are better to ship than others at the start.

pak64 -> coal/oil
pak128 -> oil
I have started with a variety in both paksets but the above are noticeable "make life easy" starts. Passengers in pak64 start too slow and in pak128 might break you unless you have experience.

Passengers/mail generally make less profit at the start due to a lack of coverage (their volume is based on volume of all passenger buildings). If you have a "public exchange" going on your server you can start by hooking not covered areas of cities to that for instant huge profits from passengers. Otherwise you need to abuse "cargo bouncing" or other distance based exploits (forget efficiency), especially in pak128. Of course you could temporarily set up an industry route, even one already used, but these are usually hotly contested by other players. Once passengers and mail networks are operating efficiently they should be more than self-sufficient, as seen in the last pak64 game where I only shipped passengers and mail and was more wealthy than all other players combined (and did not even service half the towns personally).

[el_slapper]

You can settle a (slightly)profitable tram line in PAK128 right from start if you've got a city above 12000 inhabitants. It requires some habit though. You need something like 3 trams running nearly full on every track you have to break even(for monorail, it's more 7 or 8, avoid it for a long time). Plus, it can gather properly all local inhabitants to a central station(or airport) for more profitable LR transport.

in PAK128, air transport can net a lot of money, especially from 1944 when you get the constellation. Most planes can make their purchase value in benefits each year. But it requires a strong infrastructure behind to feed those airports. And that's the challenge : feed your airports without getting bankrupt. In this situation, a few industrial lines that net regular amounts of money are really welcome.

BTW, I usually begin in 1910. It allows for more time to grow before going for the big boys(fast trains or planes). In my current game, I"ve got 10 707 that fly nearly full all the time, and I'm drowning under money. I didn't go industrial this time because there was a 30,000 inhabitants town with a nice square plan, allowing for an efficient tram system that made a nice benefit from scratch. Though I had to let it run for a few years before growing outside.

[tykemalcolm]

Interesting. I tried starting 2 games in 1920 and could not make a profit, so I started my current game in 1950. At this point in 1953, I have 3 freight lines netting me around 7,000 per month. I think I will gradually back up the starting year as I get more familiar with the game.

Do you the timeline option?

Also, I have noticed people walking around the towns that have industry within the town. Do they walk to jobs, or should I still transport them?

[An_dz]

Factories don't require workers to work, more like a cosmetic feature to bring more life to the game.

The only point is that if a passenger from anywhere on the map can't find a route to another point it will create a citycar, if allowed.

On standard I don't think there's any "walk" feature for the passengers, except for the catchment area of stations. On experimental passengers walk but I don't know enough of it, and there's a limit of distance.

[percy4u]

From my own personal experiences (using pak128.britain), I find a passenger tram line around a city is quite profitable. Pick a small-ish city on the map, and build a tram line so the tram line runs in a circle continuously (with little projections for stops as necessary) for your first profits.

Use the money you make to repeat the process in other nearby cities, then eventually connect them up, with buses, trams, or trains (depending on distance).

[tykemalcolm]

If factories/industries don't need workers, then what is the rationale behind transporting passengers to industries?
Each industry lists the source of passengers and mail that are for that industry.
Guess I'm confused about the purpose of passengers and mail.

[tussock]

Workers serve two purposes.

One is passenger generation, moving people to and from work happens at a very predictable rate that can be served for easy profits. Shops appearing in cities generate customer traffic from all over the map as well (at least for pak64).

The other is production boosts. Some industries can process their inputs much faster, allowing you to feed more materials in and get more product out, to the limits of demand at the end of the supply chain (so supply them first). Electricity is more important for some industries, and Mail usually plays a small part if any, you can check the maximum boost %ge by clicking the industry -> chart button -> production/boost tab.

Depending how your passenger network is set up, and distances from it to the factory, a cheap low-speed bus may be the best way to connect a factory to the nearest stop without disrupting your other lines. You usually want to avoid dog-legs for the main routes, keep longer connections strait and with minimal stops, and use cheaper options to distribute and accumulate traffic at the end points. Good practice for setting up and feeding airports.

[Ters]

If factories/industries don't need workers, then what is the rationale behind transporting passengers to industries?

They don't need them, but benefit from them. It causes producion to rise, giving you more goods to transport and more money to earn.

[DrSuperGood]

Currently most paksets have the passenger/mail boost balanced such that it can help but is not required to use the industry. If it was intended that passengers be required to use an industry it could be given a very small base production with a massive passenger/mail boost. Then without connecting the industry to passengers the production would be so trivial that it is not viable to use.

For this to work properly it might be a good idea to change the production bonus functionality from additive to multiplicative. That way things like mail and power could still provide a noticeable boost while still "requiring passengers" to produce anything meaningful. With additive any boost they provide could allow it to operate without passengers.

An example...
Imagine a coal mine from 1800 odd. These required a lot of man power to produce coal so it is a reasonable example of a producer that could require passenger transport to be usable. Both electricity and mail does improve production but still it should need passengers to be meaningful. It has a base production, 25/month, in an environment where a steel mill can consume several thousand. With passengers a production of 525/month seems reasonable.

If one was to balance this currently you get the following problems.

Passenger -> 2,000%
Power -> 100%
Mail -> 20%
Total -> 2,120%
Under this balance both Power and Mail are so trivial that you might as well not bother.

Passenger -> 2,000%
Power -> 2,000%
Mail -> 400%
Total -> 4,400%
Under this balance both Power and Mail are worth so much that you need not ever deal with passengers to use the industry.

If multiplicative bonuses were enabled then the following balance would suffice.

Passenger -> 2,000%
Power -> 100%
Mail -> 20%
Product -> 4,940%
Without passengers the maximum bonus is only 140%, which is still trivial. However with passengers alone the maximum bonus is 2,000%. Hence Passengers are required and Power/Mail provide non-trivial bonuses (can over double output).

Obviously this is terribly off topic (I do apologise) however it does make an interesting balancing point for if one does want passengers to be required for a factory to be usable.