I'm Kernigh. I'm teaching myself to play Simutrans with Pak128 after having played OpenTTD. My computer runs OpenBSD. I was able to download the source code of Simutrans from Sourceforge and build it for SDL on OpenBSD. I can't play multiplayer because the game crashes, but I can play single-player Pak128.
I played my first game of Simutrans in September 2015. I was not in beginner mode or free-play mode. I built buses and transported only passengers. I used public roads to save money. I stayed out of debt and made a small profit. I slowly expanded my bus network to get more passengers. Then profit went negative and stayed negative. I had too many empty buses losing money, and elsewhere, I had too many passengers in crowded stops. I sold some buses but failed to fix the problem. I founded the company in 1930 and abandoned it in 1955.
I stopped playing Simutrans until March 2017, when I got Simutrans 120.2.1 and Pak128 2.6. I teach myself to build trains. I buy a cheap engine, the Nabe-JNR SL C11. I add Plank Cars and make a 4-tile train. I experiment in some games that I don't save. Then I reroll new maps until I have tree plantations, and I start my second game, "Edinburgh". My trains pull lumber to a sawmill and planks to a furniture factory. I'm not transporting furniture, so the factory gets full and my company goes bankrupt.
My third game is "AI Land". I build nothing, but I start 6 passenger AIs and 6 cargo AIs. I watch as all 6 passenger AIs go bankrupt. Of the cargo AIs, 3 transport waste to an incinerator, and 3 do nothing. AIs never do the longer industry chains.
My fourth game is "Stirling". I again reroll for tree plantations. I go into debt to complete the chain of lumber to sawmills, planks to furniture factories, furniture to shopping center. I learn to ignore my big red negative account balance, and look at my net worth in the finances window. This is my first successful company in Simutrans. I almost go bankrupt when I sell my furniture trucks and buy furniture trains, but I survive. I founded the company in 1930, with 500,000 in cash. My net wealth returns to 500,000 in 1954.
The game makes .bmp screenshots. I cropped some and made .png files. They are bigger than 64K, too big for forum attachments, but I can upload them to Imgur and copy the "BBcode" from Imgur to here.
This was one of my bridges in my fourth game "Stirling". I terraformed to make the bridge, as I learned in
the thread about double-height bridges. But the bridge has expensive maintenance.
So I deleted the bridge and put some elevated rail. This saves 75.40 every month in maintenance. It costs 22.00 to maintain a tile of bridge, but only 4.80 for a tile of elevated rail. Maintaining the 4-tile bridge costs 88.00, but maintaining 2 tiles of elevated rail and 2 tiles of regular rail cost only 12.60. Now I never build bridges and always build elevated rails.
