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[Djohaal]

You plop a platform, then you plop add-ons around it to keep contiguity, then you tear down the inbetween fillers.

Like:

P= Platform
F= Filler - like those station buildigns, warehouses, flat concrete slabs, or even bus stops if crossing a prebuilt road.
X = empty tile.

Code: [Select]

PPPPPP
XXXXXX
XXXXXX
XXXXXX

Then

Code: [Select]

PPPPPP
XXXXXF
XXXXXF
PPPPPP

Then you remove the two fillers

Code: [Select]

PPPPPP
XXXXXX
XXXXXX
PPPPPP

Now you have two platforms which are part of the same stop but not physically contigous as the game demands. You could in theory cover a whole city by sprawiling stops, but it is too exploity. I recall vaguely reading that simutrans has a mechanic in place to punish players for that too, as you pay extra maintenance based on the total X-Y square size of your "station", not only the base blocks. But I'm not sure.

[Robsoie]

Missed all those last days update, thanks for lots of good reading to figure out some of my pak128 hard times.

an additional question following the coal/oil/something -> powerstation

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

question : why aren't you starting with coal/oil/something -> powerstation to benefit from the electricity boost powerstations could provide for other industries ?

Robsoie: The reason is simple, coal and oil both don't have speed bonus, and coal specially is so cheap per volume that you barely can turn a profit. With this milk line I'm acheiving a huge 54% profit margin, a very hard feat in later game. You should stick to one of the "main" goods such as milk or glass to a dairy, a textile mill chain if you are lucky and the farms are close by, or a grain mill - bakery chain. If the map just hates you and spawns long chains only then you either adventure to try and complete a long chain, or start a new map (they still gotta improve pak128's balance on this regard)

This explains so much. In pak64, coal -> powerstation is the basic opening line that most people make, since it's very profitable and a steady source of income. So anyone jumping over from pak64 _{like me} would instantly make a similar line and thus end up bankrupt. I'm surprised that they changed pak128 so much that coal is no longer profitable though. Wasn't coal traditionally transported by rail in the first place?

I'm not saying coal isn't profitable at all, but that your margin is too low what slows initial expansion  a lot. If I invested my starter 500k into a coal line I'd not have such a high return in my investment (I made 200k on 1930, over 1 million already in 1931 already)

Out of getting a more or less small but at least constant positive profit of this specific kind of route as USEC_OFFICER mentionned, one of the additional use of it was electricity that i redirected to other factories in order to either boost their production or consumption to avoid sometime trains waiting too much time in stations when a factory produce too slowly or make some trains stuck because another factory does not consume the overstocks i already moved to them .

Now in your company various development i don't see the use of electricity from powerstation, is there a reason you decided to not power the factories ?

[Girlinhat]

Power lines can also carry a company.  I've had train lines barely lose profit, but the power line they supply have a 130% margin.

[Djohaal]

Power lines in small maps can bring a profit but on my continental-scale map the sheer distances I have to cover with them make the power delivery very unprofitable by itself - but it still is drastically synergistic with factories and you can get an overall greater profit by electrifying. . That's pretty much why I haven't electrified stuff yet. I don't have enough capital and breathing space to justify electrification (yet), since the closest power plant from my activities is at least 1000 tiles away. - plus due to our shitty 1930's vehicles, I'm already staurating the carry capacity of the brewery-market/farm/dairy double line without having to overcharge the factory productions.

All in all simutrans and pak128's elegance lies on these subtleties. There's a proper time and place for everything.. at least in early game. They do have plans to rebalance the airplanes (main cash cows) and other stuff to keep the punishing difficulty later on.

Also,  budget mode has a submode exclusively for power lines, if you want to be sure if they are giving you profits or losses by themselves.

[Robsoie]

Thanks i see better

[Djohaal]

This is on hiatus atm, I'm a bit busy with real life demands. Also I'm spending my free time playing around in 3dsmax and producing assets for simutrans

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nuclear age is coming to pak128!