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[burningpet]

So, did anyone actually managed to build a profitable bus system yet? or for that matter, anyone managed to stay financly positive? everytime i play (sandbox mode) and gets close to that, the economy falls down and the passenger are ripping me off. 3.80 for a tram ride?! those cheap assess europeans! (no offense intended)

Whats the "best" method of arranging the transport system? i usually go with a triangled metro line (connecting the center, southern railway station which seems to attract most passengers and the east side of the danube) and a tram system that loops the area for each metro station.

[MrWiggles]

I hope its not like OTTD, but more like Simitrans.

[Rift]

profitable bus system yet?

I made a bus system that i made a slight profit on.. It was a massive circle that hit all the major railways/airport, and had stops all along the way. I threw 26 buses on it.. And charged like 4.80 a busride

I think you shoud dramatically increase what your charging for a ride. If your buses arrive on time, it seems you can charge quite a bit more then the default.

[Knight of Fools]

I found that you basically have to ignore what the customers think.  If you notice, the price will change from Green (Cheap) to White (Fair) to Red (Outrageous) - Keeping it in the White seems to keep people coming, but keeping it in the Green just seems to make you lose all your money and overflows your busiest stops.

I've managed to stay slightly profitable, earning at least an extra $100 a month by concentrating on chains of trams and buses between leisure areas.  The game is staggeringly difficult in this aspect, though, and how much you pay your employees seems to have a huge affect on public opinion.  I wish there were more information on what did what.

[Krelian]

if I put two stations togeter of different service (bus and train for example), would they merge as in simutrans? I mean, I want to make a long train that uses buses as shuttles

[Rift]

i'm pretty sure they are supposed to. i haven't actually tried it though.

[Deon]

I've just started playing it, but I just paused and started to look around a city immediately... And I am in awe . So many details! Different cars, different people (even with their own portraits!) which you can track forever . And different types of all sorts of structures. Man, I love this kind of details in games like these!

[Deon]

If someone cannot install beta or have no time for it, I am uploading a silent let's play (no comments because my wife is at home) of the tutorial level to youtube.

I had some problems with an interface but I solved them pretty fast (i.e. I didn't know that "z" is "cancel building placement"). Also aboveground metro can be hard to place. Otherwise the amount of details is great and the interface is nice.

[burningpet]

elevated or ground level metro? elevated is quite easy, ground level just takes too much space to really be anything but a relay station somewhere deserted.

managed to get a steady profit of 7000 a month.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

what i did was taking all the loans i could right at the start, placed a triangle of underground metro network  at the center, bottom train station and at the island at the middle of the danube and built small loops of bus networks that connects each at one station to cover all the area (it seems that loops larger than a few blocks are very ineffective) and feed the metro all the passengers. i let it ran abit, doing some of the requests that gives tons of money (you dont have to keep the lines they request, just build once and destroy, keep the bus for future requests). then connected the high tech area (east of the danube) with the island using helicopters and a tram. works like a charm. later on is just adding tram and bus stations to cover more grounds and maybe another metro or two.
and btw, i started at 2010, before that the economy is not stable enough to loan that much at the start)

[Deon]

Elevated tracks can have different height, I was not aware of that .

Also, how do you... remove metro lines?

P.S. Oh wait, there's a button which switches ground/underground levels. Awesome.

[burningpet]

Bulldoze them just like tram tracks.

[AlStar]

I haven't managed to get a profitable operation going in the full town yet, but I did manage to get one up and running in the Tutorial town - ended up with 90% coverage (not too hard, since the town is fairly small).

A giant tram loop in the center of town, with bus branches running to the two suburb divisions. My big surprise was when I connected up a heli route to the airport / stadium across the river - suddenly, both pads starting filling up with dozens, then nearly a hundred people! I increased my heli's up to six - enough that they were cueing up, loading and unloading as fast as possible - and I still couldn't get the stations below 70 or so (unhappy) people!

An underground metro solved the problem - a single train can hold almost 10x as many people as a chopper, and moves just as fast. My profits soared when I put in the train - while my best tram was making about $300 a month, my metro was making $1,500 a month. I was also able to cut my heli fleet down to just 2, to keep up with the (much smaller) amount of pasengers that still used them.

To answer a question asked above - I've watched a single person leave his home, get on the bus, walk across the road, get on the tram, walk to the heliport, and then take the chopper to the stadium - your passengers will definately use multiple methods to get around. I'm not certain how far they're willing to walk, but it's certainly at least across the road.

[NewsMuffin]

Man, this sucks.
I've wanted to play this game since I read the thing about it on RPS.
Now, when I try to play it, I get to look at the world for about three minutes, before my computer crashes completely. The screen is black, and I get no response from anything.
Man, that would be an evil piracy protection method.

[Deon]

Piracy what? It's open beta .

Also try to update your drivers or something... There's a reason it's a beta, if your system doesn't work then send a feedback and hope they can fix it.


I've found one CtD which was frustrating because there's no Save button. However it stopped me from playing it for hours, which is good .

Buses are a very bad invenstment. You may want them early, but still they require drivers which consume the same wages as trams... And trams can go offroad (on rails) so they often can circumvent roadblocks. Also trams are faster and carry more passengers...

I usually start with 2 metro stations, each of them having 3 tram stations as "arms" around them. Then expand further. I started to play in 1920 and it's still easy despite of all the problems with economy. When I crashed I had two metro lines, 3 stations each, and 5 long tram lines (and one support bus line which could be easily replaced with much more profitable tram line, but I was lazy).

Heh, I definitely like this game... And I didn't see boats and choppers yet.

[NewsMuffin]

My drivers are all updated, but I'll go through and check again, just in case.
Thanks.