Why do people start with industries?

[low_grade]

Okay, listen to Stoker but not me!:lol:

So, started British Isles, $1100K let the cash sit for two years... $30K interest, $6K overhead, $9K salaries, $16K profit the first year, $33K interest, $1K overhead, $7K salaries, $25K profit the 2nd year. Very odd... so there's still overhead, even with cash just sitting in the bank. Could be about 20% of revenue, guessing from the first year, as 6K overhead is 20% of $30K interest... but then the 2nd year when revenue/interest actually goes up a tad, overhead drops to just $1K. I have no explanation for this at this time.

Same game, still running, I plop a Paper Mill on top of a stack of pulpwood, $316K profits first year, then drops and fluctuates (when it starts to get the pulpwood from a neighboring logging camp) from $35K to $140K per year over the next 5 years, economy improves to prosperity for the last two years, and overhead remains basically flat, though it still exhibits the erratic behavior I can't yet explain, staying at 1K for the first, most profitable year, then going to 4K, 7K, 7K, 3K, and back to 1K.

Also odd, my income from interest had been $18K/year during normal times, with about $700K sitting in the bank, growing slightly each year, to about $850K the last year, which was a whole prosperity year, but interest income dropped to $13K in that last year, when I had the most money sitting there, but which was prosperous... I'm hypothesizing that you get 1% in boom, 1.5% in prosperity, 2% in normal, maybe continuing to 2.5% and 3% in recession and depression, though I haven't actually looked at those yet.

Third try, I build a couple of large stations and run a pair of planets between Manchester and Liverpool. First year about $300K profit, then fluctuating between $147 and $300, prosperity then boom for the last few years. Overhead was higher in every year except the first , which is ****** to cost you $6K overhead no matter what you do. 2nd year it was $16K, dropped to $10K then $8K as income sagged, then back up to $16K as income picked up. Always a delayed effect, one year late, relative to rail revenue. A good year increased the following year's overhead, a slow year decreased the following year's revenue.

There probably is some baseline related to CBV... like 1/2%, then maybe 3% of rail revenue with the delayed effect.

Conclusion: overhead is still fuzzy, but it seems to be mostly related to rail operations. Not so much the economy, money in the bank, or industry profits.

[RulerofRails]

I'm hypothesizing that you get 1% in boom, 1.5% in prosperity, 2% in normal, maybe continuing to 2.5% and 3% in recession and depression, though I haven't actually looked at those yet.

By hovering over the interest line in the ledger (the word interest) it will display the current rate. This is the same thing I did to get that screenshot about overhead.

Tried to rig up a quick test map by adding an event to try to keep economic state stable, but it was buggy. I was trying to have stable profits to get a more accurate reading.

[Stoker]

As soon as you guys get RT3 overhead figured out, maybe you can crack the Mojo behind Passenger and Mail generation...

[Gumboots]

That one is inversely correlated with the current consumption of ayahuasca in Bolivia, via the application an inverse square law and multiplied by the constant pi. Prove me wrong. .

[Stoker]

That one is inversely correlated with the current consumption of ayahuasca in Bolivia, via the application an inverse square law and multiplied by the constant pi. Prove me wrong. .

It's that simple? And here I have been using this little machine I fabricated to calculate RT3 Passenger generation for years.

[Gumboots]

That one would seem to apply to roughly half the total game code.

[Hawk]

Dandy little machine ya' got there Stoker.

[Alfed E Neumann]

May I steer the conversation back to the topic?
From some dry runs I did in the mean time, it seems that railway systems ON THEIR OWN are seldom as pofitable as any decent industry. (Notice the qualifications)

To put that in context: ordinary industries, like the sawmill or tool&dye you put on the map, yield about 25% return on investment. Extraordinary industries like snatch-a-dairy bring in even more.

To get 25% from a railyway system, the conditions have to be just right: even on normal difficulty, you still need level terrain, few if any bridges, at least fifteen stars worth of connected cities and good-looking engines. Few maps provide you with such an environment and even fewer scenarios provide you with enough starting money to build such a system right away.

So starting with industries usually is a smart move because industries just *are* the better investment, period.

However, industries are more profitable if there is a railway to support them. And I'm not even talking about custom consists and stealing raw materials you otherwise wouldn't have: the mere act of shipping away the product will increases an industry's profit quite a bit. Although technically speaking no railroad revenue, it's money you wouldn't have without the RR. Back to the statement that sent us to this last sidetrack:

I'd be surprised if an industrial empire can be more profitable than a mature rail network,

As it turns out, even mature systems can seldom compete with ordinary industries (when considering net revenue vs. initial investment). However, the railroad can be a great enhancement to and enabler of industries; if those industries happen to be yours, the benefits of building a railroad will be much larger than the ledger lets you know. And then there's another side to it: many spontaneously-placed industries don't work very well or not at all. An economy led by the invisible hand of the player creates more and better cargoes for your trains to carry.

Final note: if freight rates are high, industry profits tend to be low. But if you own both the railroad and the industry, you make money either way.
--

[Gumboots]

May I steer the conversation back to the topic?

No! We have standards!


Oh, alright then.

From some dry runs I did in the mean time, it seems that railway systems ON THEIR OWN are seldom as pofitable as any decent industry. (Notice the qualifications)

To put that in context: ordinary industries, like the sawmill or tool&dye you put on the map, yield about 25% return on investment. Extraordinary industries like snatch-a-dairy bring in even more.

To get 25% from a railyway system, the conditions have to be just right: even on normal difficulty, you still need level terrain, few if any bridges, at least fifteen stars worth of connected cities and good-looking engines. Few maps provide you with such an environment and even fewer scenarios provide you with enough starting money to build such a system right away.

So starting with industries usually is a smart move because industries just *are* the better investment, period.

However, industries are more profitable if there is a railway to support them. And I'm not even talking about custom consists and stealing raw materials you otherwise wouldn't have: the mere act of shipping away the product will increases an industry's profit quite a bit. Although technically speaking no railroad revenue, it's money you wouldn't have without the RR. Back to the statement that sent us to this last sidetrack:

I'd be surprised if an industrial empire can be more profitable than a mature rail network,

As it turns out, even mature systems can seldom compete with ordinary industries (when considering net revenue vs. initial investment). However, the railroad can be a great enhancement to and enabler of industries; if those industries happen to be yours, the benefits of building a railroad will be much larger than the ledger lets you know. And then there's another side to it: many spontaneously-placed industries don't work very well or not at all. An economy led by the invisible hand of the player creates more and better cargoes for your trains to carry.

Final note: if freight rates are high, industry profits tend to be low. But if you own both the railroad and the industry, you make money either way.
--

Yup. All of that ties in with what I've found, particularly on the harder difficulty levels. It's difficult to quantify the contribution a rail network makes towards profit though. I agree that having a rail network will boost your industry profits. However, assuming profit is your only aim (which aint the case or we wouldn't play with trains) another question is whether or not taking the money invested in rail and putting it into industry instead would yield even more.

[RulerofRails]

May I steer the conversation back to the topic?
From some dry runs I did in the mean time, it seems that railway systems ON THEIR OWN are seldom as profitable as any decent industry.

Sorry, thanks. Sounds about right to me. Industries give a certain financial freedom in the game, which makes me feel like a real tycoon so I can build some impossible routes or aim for a fast finish. Just wish it was that easy in real life!

PS
Stoker, nice machine. Passenger generation is not going to even enter my mind to solve!

[Stoker]

In the interest of full disclosure I did not actually "build" that machine, but I think it would be as good a way as any to calculate passenger generation in RT3.

[Wolverine@MSU]

In the interest of full disclosure I did not actually "build" that machine, but I think it would be as good a way as any to calculate passenger generation in RT3.

Where did you get it from? Is it available somewhere?

[Stoker]

In the interest of full disclosure I did not actually "build" that machine, but I think it would be as good a way as any to calculate passenger generation in RT3.

Where did you get it from? Is it available somewhere?

I had seen that gif somewhere before, and I found it by doing a google image search for "Rube Goldberg gif" .

Click here to see the page, there are a few more interesting gizmos to be found there as well, like this non-animated gem:

[Alfed E Neumann]

However, assuming profit is your only aim (which aint the case or we wouldn't play with trains) another question is whether or not taking the money invested in rail and putting it into industry instead would yield even more.

I don't think that's still any question.

And now off to a different line of thought: It looks as if a railway system was pretty much bound to make money. Well, one could easily design a system that won't, but you get my point: just connect a few cities and you will have a net profit. It may not be much, not when cosidering the initial investment, but the bottom line will be in the black.

Actually... If you're serious about Return on Investment, you have to keep the investment as small as possible: Be very wary about bridges, for example: even a long detour is cheaper than another bridge. Never build any tunnels, ever. And double track, really, how often will trains meet, and will that delay really justify the extra cost for double track? If you're serious about ROI, only the most congested bits warrant double track. Probably every system I ever built would have been much more profitable, ROI-wise, if I had stuck to the basics.

But frankly, I'll still build good-looking, fluent systems. That's what I like and as long as I can get away with it -- why not?
--

[Gumboots]

Not sure about the long detours being cheaper than bridges, or tunnels for that matter. Can be sometimes. Other times not. It depends.

Long detours slow down cargo shipping times. Bridges are faster, therefore potentially better ROI. Also, long detours, if trying to avoid tunnels, are often used in mountains where the grades can be quite bad. This slows down shipping times even more, and if two trains do meet and the lower-valued-cargo one is on a bad grade it may take ages to get going again.

Then there's the sheer basic tracklaying cost of detours. If using them in mountains, the cost of the long graded track can sometimes be as large as or even more than the cost for a fairly short tunnel.

[RulerofRails]

Because I accept that industries are the best return on investment in the game, game goals aside I normally set my rails up to service my industries, mainly by spreading the high value cargo out as much as possible. By running these trains on mixed consist most passengers get taken of care also. (Wherever they happen to appear as predicted by Stoker's machine!)

For me the available locos hill-climbing ability affects whether I will use a tunnel or not. But I almost never build a long tunnel to make money. The track maintenance costs of tunnels and suspension bridges have to be carefully weighed. They can get really costly.

Timber bridges are obviously a far better ROI than steel or stone. Sometimes it is cheaper to build timber bridges parallel with a river or coastline than lay heavily graded tracks along them.

If I find myself needing double-track on a normally spaced map early in the game I probably have too many trains. Double-track near station and maintenance facilities is good though.

Probably every system I ever built would have been much more profitable, ROI-wise, if I had stuck to the basics.--

If running a rail system for max ROI, I wonder how medium stations would compare to large. I always build large partly because I want to capture as much low grade cargo as possible before it is consumed and partly because I don't want to have to bulldoze to replace it when the town grows into a city. This is a good example of sacrificing short-term ROI for the sake of a better ROI after 15-20 years when cities have grown, train maintenance/engine replacement costs and the 80% station revenue modifier will be hitting the bottom line.

Industry ROI is easy to work out. It is pretty constant over the course of the game. Rail ROI is complex and decreases over time.

BTW, Alfed I found your post viewtopic.php?f=5&t=928&p=8042&hilit=danube#p8042 and it had me literally laughing out loud! I don't do it, but destroying cargo to keep demand high sounds like what real tycoon would do.

[Alfed E Neumann]

Long detours slow down cargo shipping times. Bridges are faster, therefore potentially better ROI. Also, long detours, if trying to avoid tunnels, are often used in mountains where the grades can be quite bad. This slows down shipping times even more, and if two trains do meet and the lower-valued-cargo one is on a bad grade it may take ages to get going again.

From watching many trains go, I'm under the impression that

• going downhill greatly improves acceleration,
  but accelerating uphill is nearly as fast as in the plains.

Regarding best track across the hills, I could write whole essays on the topic and you probably wouldn't believe half of it. Just do a few test runs, and not only look at MPH, but at actual travel times: how long it takes for the train to get there and back again. My trains usually spend only about half of their time actually carrying goods. The rest is (un)loading and maintenance. The actual average speed of my trains is somewhere on the order of 10mph, going a bit faster on some part of the track does little to raise that figure.

If running a rail system for max ROI, I wonder how medium stations would compare to large.

That's a good question.
Even in large cities, you could get 80% coverage even with a medium station; but then again, compared to the whole effort of building and running a railroad, the extra cost for a large station is a pittance. It probably doesn't take much to become worthwhile. One extra express load every couple of years will do.

[Alfed E Neumann]

The results are in.
From a standing start, after accelerating for 10 bits of track, the following speeds were attained:

Code: Select all

uphill at grade 8-11:   8 mph
uphill at grade 6-7:   11 mph
almost level track:    14 mph
downhill, grade 4-5:   45 mph

All measurements were taken on the same trip, so always the same loco&load.

[Gumboots]

Ok, so taking acceleration as equal to 1 on the flat, those figures equate to:

uphill at grade 8-11: 0.57
uphill at grade 6-7: 0.79
almost level track: 1.00
downhill, grade 4-5: 3.21

Given that nobody in their right mind would be laying track at anything over 6%, even for short stretches, it seems the average loss uphill will be somewhere around 10% of acceleration. For that locomotive and load, anyway. Might be interesting to try it with a range of locos and loads and see what happens.

[Alfed E Neumann]

Given that nobody in their right mind would be laying track at anything over 6%, even for short stretches,

*cough* (raises hand) *cough*

Alright, I recently played Rhodes and currently play Coast to Coast, so by now I'm quite used to the 2D2. While not exactly a mountain goat, it's still a better climber than any of the steam locos. On top of that, in C2C I got +25 pulling power at the expense of top speed. So my idea of what grades are workable might be biased.

Two more things I just found out: A) momentum goes a long way. I mean: a really long, looong way. And B) the in-game datasheed (Vmax at grade vs load) is lying. When the slope leveled out to a mere 8%, my train *accelerated* to 9mph. According to the datasheet... well, 8% is off the chart, but even at 6% the train ought to make only 2mph.