Bay 12 Games Forum

yeah but why anyone would contract you coal from the other side of the county having a mine right near them?

also, if industries are too close you can make loops and bam! loads of moneys.


I hate when a simulation doesn't make any readl-world sense.


... boy I miss industry giant 1

If your argument held truth we wouldn't be outsourcing 99% of the world's industries to China...

On to surviving simutrans economy: (applies to pak128 on main simutrans, not pak128 britain on simutrans experimental which is totally different)

1: a good map is vital, some bad maps it is impossible to turn a profit on early game
3: Don't start with passengers.
4: you need a good industry density with a good few-resource industry (such as a textile mill, bakery or dairy.)
5: you need to set up the starter routes for the whole production chain so goods don't clog on the factory, otherwise it'll slow down to a halt. (goods don't get magically delivered behind the curtains)
6: Don't fucking start with passengers.
7:  You can go into negative provided your "Net Worth" always stays above zero. Usually I go down to -100 million before I reach the bill gates point where money pours in faster than I can spend.
8: Usually powerplant hauls don't turn a good enough profit by themselves (exception being oil, which is a little better than coal and has more centralized production), and powerlines don't profit either, but their boost potential is vital in midgame.
9: YOU DON'T FUCKING START WITH PASSENGERS.
10: Due to balance, sadly, the profit margins for running trucks and busses before the 1950's mack trucks are abysmal and not worth the trouble. Trains and boats are the way to go.
11: A good profit margin is around 20-35% or more. Anything under it and you are doing something awful.
12: You don't start with mail either.
13: Scale your networks - maintenance of high quality tracks can kill you on early game. Also mind which locomotive to use.

You can add extra content to a pakset in simturans too, as long as it is compatible. There's some french industry and a maglev addon at the SNFOS site, also is where I got those cute subway stations.

http://www.simutrans-france.fr.nf/doku.php?id=en:snfos

So it turns out simutrans still is alive and slowly progressing. There's a new branch called simutrans experimental but I haven't fiddled with it much. Highlights of latest versions is the new sectional view and full Z levels for subways (and curved tunnels).

What is simutrans: Simutrans is an open source project dedicated to creating a transport simulator game in the spirit of transport tycoon, but with some different approaches and gameplay features, such as:

1: Full map pathfinding: each passanger in your vehicles has a destination and will pathfind trough your network to reach it (akin to cargodist experimentals on OTTD, but way better), no need to set "transfer" orders or whatever, the game figures out a path and gets the goods flowing
2: Modular cargo: A "peice goods" trailer can accept any good that is classfied as peice goods (such as electronics, plastics, finished goods, wool, etc), what allows for double-direction routes where your train hauls different stuff on each pass.
3: No breakdowns - simutrans is all about logistics, so no breakdowns or scheduled maintenance. You can also keep using obsolete stuff if they feel a niche you need.
4: Programable game speed  - you can have the historical timeline progress super slowly, income rates and maintenance adjust themselves accordingly.
5:  Full Z-levels above and underground: The UI is a bit unweildy but it works. Pics on the spoilers.
6: Brutal economics: turning a profit is hard, but you can reach the bill gates point in mid game, but in early game a network flop and you can go straight to bankrupticy.
7: Eletrification and passanger bonuses: You can build powerlines to take energy from powerplants to factories boosting their productivity.
8: Multiple content sets: Simutrans comes with paksets with different graphics styles and gameplay balance. The most popular paks are pak 64 and pak128 (the one used in my screenshots). You can mix-and-match content that is made for a given resolution for addons.
9: Per-block pathfinding: Trains only move if they can secure a route to the next signal or stop, so nothing crashes (even if they do, no breakdown, the line only clogs). That also means the train pathfinding is usually smarter. Same applies to ships, they can figure out a route on a complex maze without problem.
10: Emergent behaivour: You'll find cargo taking unexpected routes once your network gets complex enough. Same for passengers.
Bonus feature: Awful graphics! (But I supposed this shouldn't be a problem for the DF people).

tl;dr: Dorf fortress of transport tycoon genre.

Screenshots:

*points at the fact ECS vectors date from 2009 and still work*

But yeah might need rebalancing.

The real reason Microsoft paid that much for Minecraft:
Minecraft is the next generation's Pokemon. That's why it's worth $2.5 billion.

Me and dragon are exploring a "blinded" gameplay. We don't communicate with each other what we have planned in the future, so I can't really describe a lot of what is going on here. Consider this multiple-personality factorio dude.

Big images alert.

what remote tech build are you using? Last one I used was royally bork™