Some Newbie Questions

[Beancounter]

I have a couple of newbie questions that I thought I’d accumulate on one thread.

The number of units of cargo a train car can carry is 2,000. How many “units” of passengers can each car carry? (Obviously you can’t fit 2,000 people in a single car)

Just to confirm, when demand/supply of a certain item is indicated as 0.2, that means 20% of a car load. Correct?

How is the fee for using a competitor’s track calculated? By mile? As a percent of the routes profit?

What’s the easiest way to determine the products a city demands without placing a station there? As far as I can tell, the globe button only shows where high and low prices are.

I had a steel factory that needed iron. I located a station that had a .2 supply of it, so I set up a train with a specific consists of iron and set its route for the station where the steel plant was. But the train kept on leaving the station without any iron. I re-checked the supply which remained at .2. The steel factory was within the receiving station’s green square. Does anyone have any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

Connecting you track to a competitor is the single biggest money maker in the game with the least amount of effort and investment. It’s almost an exploit. I was making about $200K per year, I then connected to a competitor and practically overnight, I was making $700K per year.

Thanks!

BC

[OilCan]

I'll try to answer some of your questions but will have to pass on the passenger one. I'm sure someone else in this forum will have the right answer regarding the passengers.

The 0.2 is 20% of black box cars...not necessarily of train cars. The global map view shows what I mean by black box cars. These are the cargo loads moving around the map.

The fee or surcharge is the percent of the route which you use. For instance, if 25% of your train’s route is on AI company rail, then the AI company will get 25% of the profit from your train’s consist. And, you still have to pay all the fuel costs for the entire route. And, you have to pay to use AI service towers and maintenance sheds...although I don't know exactly how much. This is why you want to avoid using their network as much as possible, but to let them run up and down your track.

You are correct that it is a financial bonus to let AI trains run on your rail network - well, most of the time. When I decide to do this I follow these rules: 1) I connect them to a two-star or greater city and I make the rail connection myself. I don't wait for the AI company to do it. Controlling the connection allows me to set it up the way I want to. 2) I connect as close as possible to their station and double track their station. I also set up towers and sheds on the connecting track. Then, I start at least one train route between the two stations. I've noticed that it takes some time before an AI starts running on the new connection, so I grab up the high profit cargos early on.

There are some possible drawbacks from connecting to an AI rail network.
a) They may rob your stations of high priced cargo which you could have made some money from shipping. This is usually trivial compared to the profit you make from their surcharges.
b) They can mess up a price gradient in a 'hub and spoke' network system.
c) They add congestion to your stations. This can be a problem at an already busy hub station.
d) Their company book value and stock price will increase as a result of the connection. This may not fit your plans of taking over the AI company later on. But it is great if you have set the AI company up as an investment milk cow.

To ward off an AI from connecting to one of my stations (I want the AI to keep fading or I don't want the AI to mess up a price gradient), I extend track way past the station, sometime curving it like a shield. When the AI connects to my extended track, I delete a section of my track and break the connection. The AI never fills in the break or trys a new connection.

An easy way to determine price or demand from a city without a station is to click on any station, zoom way out on the map and then click on a cargo type (i.e. clothing) at the station. The price or demand will appear at every city on the map. A box around the price indicate that there is no station at the city. I use this technique a lot.

The steel mill - station issue has two things going on. First, since the steel mill is within the station cache (green box) of the station, there is no need for a special train to carry iron to the mill. Cargo automatically moves between the station and every home and every industry in the station cache. Its like there is a conveyer belt between the station and every building in the cache. The iron will move quickly to the steel mill by itself within the cache. Second, trains are loaded under the watchful eye of the Stationmaster. The Stationmaser will only load a train with a cargo when the price at the destination station is positive: when there is a profit to be made. That said, the 1.06 mod to the game forces the Stationmaster to load a custom consist regardless of prices and the train will carry the custom cargo even if it is a financial loss. In any version of the game, your train should not leave the station without at least a car load of iron. You may want to check the custom consist and make sure the minimum number of cars in the consist is set at one or greater. And you may want to check that the custom consist is for only iron - not any cars for 'any cargo'.

Hope this helps. I'm sure others will join in with their pearls of wisdom. Keep the questions coming and don't hesitate to post what works in a game for you.

[Beancounter]

Thanks for your help OC!!

BC

Does anyone know the number of passengers in a full car?

Or any other info/tips they care to share?

19 views and one reply. Hmm, did I say something offensive?

[nedfumpkin]

I'm not sure where you get the 2000 units from. As far as I knew, the game was based on load, not anything more specific. A load can be broken down smaller, as low as .01 (1%), or any other number that can be set. Maybe I am missing something here.

So a load of passengers is whatever the car from that time could carry. An A era train might carry 10 passengers whereas a D era train could have 186 for a commuter, and a 102 for a long haul. In the A era, a .5 load would be 10 passengers, and the D wqould be 143/51. Both would be considered 1 one black box, or a .5 black box car in Oil Cans words. But it is a car load regardless of the actual size of any imaginary interior unit.

The black box car is just a visual representation of a car load down to the 100th. I don't think it will show less than that since the car load is measured in % without decimals. Theortically, that image could be anything including a vertical bar with colour gradient to show the percentage.

Thus, the unit of measure in RT3 is one car load, and percentages thereof.


No offense, but newbies posting about "any tips" will not likely get too much of a response since the forum is filled with a gazillion messages about tips and thoughts on a lot of different subjects. It's more likely to get a response if you specific questions you want answered.

[Beancounter]

OK thanks nedfumpkin.

[Hawk]

19 views and one reply. Hmm, did I say something offensive?

Nope! You didn't say anything offensive. If you ask specific questions and no one that has viewed the post can answer the question, rather than post; "Sorry, I can't answer your question.", folks would most likely not post at all.

As for answering general tips, Ned 'bout summed it up.
You can certainly learn a lot by browsing the numerous threads in the various forums. The 'Advanced Search' feature works reasonable well too, if you use a good search querry.

[KevinL]

I have a couple of newbie questions that I thought I’d accumulate on one thread.
I had a steel factory that needed iron. I located a station that had a .2 supply of it, so I set up a train with a specific consists of iron and set its route for the station where the steel plant was. But the train kept on leaving the station without any iron. I re-checked the supply which remained at .2. The steel factory was within the receiving station’s green square. Does anyone have any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

BC

The minimum car load is 0.5 or more. A train will not take any car load of 0.4 or less.

[Beancounter]

The minimum car load is 0.5 or more. A train will not take any car load of 0.4 or less.

Thanks Kevin. Does this apply to version 1.06 as well?

I thought it was possible to ship consist at a loss, so I'm surprised that there is a restriction on load size hauled.

[Grandma Ruth]

Yes. it applies to 1.06 as well - different bit of code, I think. Watch out when you're meeting haulage goals - if you haul a train with 8 cars loaded, but one of them only 60% full, it will only count as 7 cars.

[nedfumpkin]

The game keeps track of decimals for loads, so if you put >0 as a condition, when you have hauled .5 loads then it counts that, but would count it as >1. Similarly, haul 3 x .5 loads, and it counts as 1.5, ergo >1.

If you mouse over your load, it will say something like 68%. You get credit for .68 loads.

[OilCan]

The minimum car load is 0.5 or more. A train will not take any car load of 0.4 or less.

This is helpful information...I didn't know a car load had to be at least 50% full before it could leave the station.