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The longer I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that the Cargo sytem in itself is set-up the wrong way. Some strange things: cargo is moving by itself (huh?), the longer you move the cargo, the more money you earn. Cargo must be delivered within 20 minutes. It looks like they extented the already existing engine for passengers.
What make more sense to me:
– cargo does not move by itself. You move it.
– the quicker you deliver something, the more money you get (average speed). (Money also based on the demand.)
– the flipside must be in the costs for trains, trucks and infrastructure, but running and initial.
– factories can give an indication how much they are willing to produce. This can change over the years.
– no strange 20 minute rule on cargo, the longer it takes, the lesser the money (your average speed will come down)
– towns will have a demand, also changing over the years and related to the amount of people (or shops?). Receiving money is also related to this demand. This will make the strategy of delivering all to the same town less profitable.
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Most of this is already in the game.
1. Cargo does move by itsself. Or at least, it should to balance the world and give some indication where cargo should go. Railroad Tycoon did this beautifully. There are limits to how much you can simulate, and economical entities that produce stuff want to ship it one way or the other. If you are not moving the stuff, someone else will.
2. Except for some perishable goods, feright does not care all that much about speed. Average speed of 30-40 km/h is common for railroads. in this day and age. Trains are good at moving lots of freight cheaply, not necessarily fast.
3. Factories should. This is an usability issue of the game.
4. 20 minute rule for cargo is silly. 40 minute would be much more sensible ( in the current game structure )
5. You cannot do that. There are limits to how much goods a city can accept. If you want to reach maximum industry production, you need to ship stuff to several cities. 400 units of goods can feed about 4000 people. Most people will not see a city above 1500 population.
1 I do not think I understand your answer. Cargo should not move by itself unless you are playing against some a.i. player like RT (for what I remember). Cargo moving by itself is strange to me. And more important creating strange behaviour like moving cargo by itself although transport is available. It is like competing to some sort of ghost.
2. Well that can be reflected in the price you get. Perishable more based on speed then others. But in the end price should be based on speed, not distance, and demand. The distance is the fault in this.
5. What I claim is that price you get for a transport should be related to the demand of a city. Transporting goods to a small town = less money. Goods to a bigger town is more money unless this town is already receiving a lot of goods.
Best price: big city, high demand, quick delivery.
Worst price: low demand, slow delivery. Second part can have a bigger influence if cargo is perishable.
Even better if there are different type of “town” goods, like cars, food, etc creating different types of demand per town per good.
The current situation with distance driving the price(!) a strange 20 minute rule. If delevery time is driving the price a xx minute rule will automatically appear because it will become automatically unbeneficial to deliver after some time, based on good type and city demand.
1) The materials deliver themselves somehow to the industry from the station, doesn’t that bother you? Same way, if the industry is close enough to the materials, it can try and get it (using something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_truck)
2) With your model, delivering wood to a sawmill from a forest 50 meters away with a 70-year-old horse would give huge amount of money, because it would be delivered very quickly. Doesn’t sound right to me.
I think in the real world the delivery price depends mostly on the distance.
Delivering cargo is tricky. Trains are great for hauling a LARGE amount of materials. Coal to power plants is nice example. Lets say real life example : Every day power plant eats 2 trains per 40wagons of coal. The travel takes 2 hours. It really doesn’t matter if train travel double speed so it took an hour. No one would pay more.
Its similar to delivery companyes, they deliver small packages to another day. In certain region. If they night transport would travel lets say 100% faster, it is a small benefit. It would give just few minutes more to people on night shift.
I cant edit my post again. Grrr
Just wanted to add – I believe that once weight factor is added, then time limit for cargo would be rised. Therefore the slow power full engines come to play, it would be shame to limit range of delivery so much.
Now its just speed, so all winner is a good fast locomotion. Power is not important now.
There probably is not a single cargo and pax transport model that would please all players. The current model is pretty much okay for passenger traffic, and works somewhat okay for cargo, but to allow more variation it would be nice if this model could be made moddable via Lua scripts.
That way modders can create a variety of transport models to suit all kinds of play styles. Cargo for example in general doesn’t mind if it takes ages to reach it destination; as long as it’s delivered in the end (think coal, ore, and lumber). If you combine that with a different (moddable!) distribution of industries (e.g., coal mines and forests in the mountains and away from rivers, and sawmills and factories near towns), and you get a whole different kind of game with longer trains hauling loads over longer distances. I’d love that.
It sounds like you want to replace the realistic demand based system with one that is perhaps easier for the player to use. I actually prefer the demand based system is it adds alot of depth that you don’t see in most supply based games. The real world runs on demand, not supply.
– cargo does not move by itself. You move it.
This is up to the factory owner, if you provide an alternative for them they will use it. You cannot force walmart to use the FedEx network, you can only provide the option and if it saves them money, they will use it.
– the quicker you deliver something, the more money you get (average speed). (Money also based on the demand.)
It’s based on distance, not time as it is in real life. There’s no overnight option with rail freight.
– the flipside must be in the costs for trains, trucks and infrastructure, but running and initial.
?not sure what you’re saying here
– factories can give an indication how much they are willing to produce. This can change over the years.
They do, and do. Currently factory production (based on demand) is given with a potential max and changes over time.
– no strange 20 minute rule on cargo, the longer it takes, the lesser the money (your average speed will come down)
If you can’t deliver a product in 20 min, your rail network is not efficient. This is an abstraction of real life. It would be interesting to see what would happen if they turned this off, it may break the demand engine since all factories would now have 100% demand.
– towns will have a demand, also changing over the years and related to the amount of people (or shops?). Receiving money is also related to this demand. This will make the strategy of delivering all to the same town less profitable.
Again, towns currently do have a demand out of a 100 that changes over time. If you supply a town with goods, it’s max will increase over time but it’s demand will decrease. Meaning eventually goods will need to be shipped further or the factory will shut down.
1 I do not think I understand your answer. Cargo should not move by itself unless you are playing against some a.i. player like RT (for what I remember). Cargo moving by itself is strange to me. And more important creating strange behaviour like moving cargo by itself although transport is available. It is like competing to some sort of ghost.
Cargo moving on its own if rail/truck transport is available simply means that you have not provided a viable economic alternative. You cannot force someone to ship with you, you only provide an option. This is modeled after real life and ads much more depth than most simple supply based video games.
2. Well that can be reflected in the price you get. Perishable more based on speed then others. But in the end price should be based on speed, not distance, and demand. The distance is the fault in this.
In real life, distance is the primary factor. Since you do not get to choose what or where goods are shipped, you need to provide a viable option. If you don’t provide an economic shipping option, it will not be used.
5. What I claim is that price you get for a transport should be related to the demand of a city. Transporting goods to a small town = less money. Goods to a bigger town is more money unless this town is already receiving a lot of goods.
This might be easier to understand, but this logic is completely backwards. Why would transporting goods to a small town yield less money per product. Yes there are less buyers, but you would simply ship less. Typically small town residents pay significantly more for a product than big city dwellers because the distance to ship is greater.
Best price: big city, high demand, quick delivery.
Worst price: low demand, slow delivery. Second part can have a bigger influence if cargo is perishable.
Again, not how the real world works at all. Fast shipping does not magically affect the price of a product. I pay the same for a Car whether it was shipped in 1 week or 6 weeks. However, if it was shipped from a local factory I may pay less than if it was shipped from Japan. This is exactly what is modeled in TF.
Even better if there are different type of “town” goods, like cars, food, etc creating different types of demand per town per good.
This is currently modeled into the game, I’ve seen a city export goods from and import goods on the same platform at the same time on the same train. You could reason that the town was exporting tv’s and importing cars.
I believe that once weight factor is added, then time limit for cargo would be rised. Therefore the slow power full engines come to play, it would be shame to limit range of delivery so much.
Now its just speed, so all winner is a good fast locomotion. Power is not important now.
Weight has little to do with speed, once a train gets up to speed, more weight can actually save fuel. Trains travel at the same speed regardless of weight. Power has nothing to do with the weight, more to do with how many inclines are encountered. e.g. Mountain trains need more power than Prairie trains.
A lot of good discusions. Also a lot to react. First the problem now is that the current cargo sytem is a somewat bad copy of the passenger system. Passenger have different options. They can walk, which is very slow or )later on) they can take a car. Trains and buses are alternatives for this. And the passenger takes desisions based on time.And although there might be some better optimalisations, no problems there. Moving cargo is there becaused they copied the passenger system. And it is my claim that this a a mistake. Bassically the game is now about moving different types of passengers, some passegers called ore or wood.
But Cargo is different. Cargo does not have options. Not on its own. Claiming that moving cargo is representing some other company is a strangevclaim.. There is no other a.i. train company. This is not what TF is about. There is also no a.i. other Train company for passengers. You do not compete against other companies. You are competing against yourself on economic reasons, e.g. are you able to move passengers quick enough and cargo cheap enough.
Cargo moving therefore must be based on economy reasons. It is a game against yourself. If you be able to move cargo earning more money then you invest, you are doing the right job. Therefore the price of moving the cargo must be based on your service. Service to the people in the town, delivering goods based on their demand, and quick enough, based on different type of goods. And also according to the service demand of factory owners.
Again, not how the real world works at all. Fast shipping does not magically affect the price of a product. I pay the same for a Car whether it was shipped in 1 week or 6 weeks. However, if it was shipped from a local factory I may pay less than if it was shipped from Japan. This is exactly what is modeled in TF.
That is not modeled here. You simply get more money when moved over a long distance. So it is now beneficial to deliver wood from the other end of the map, to a factory, and move it to a town again at the other end of the map as long as you move it within 20 minutes. That is strange effect. Not efficient at all, to quote a famous pop band: it is better to take the long way. So another sytem is needed for cargo. A system where it is beneficial to do things quick and efficient. The trade off should be off course in the costs and perhaps in something like weight, for example the more you move, the higher the costs.
@Gasolene wrote “Power has nothing to do with the weight,”
Do you live in same universe?
Did you noticed that race cars have mods for loose weights?Did you try to pull a simple wagon by your personal car? (Well, if you have one. :D)Did they tell you about Newton’s movements law?
@Gasolene wrote”train gets up to speed, more weight can actually save fuel.” Oh, you have just invented a perpetum mobile. Great. That explains a lot.Was the 20 min rule changed? As far as I remembered was for passengers only. Cargo with 20 min rule is ridiculous.
Also they seem to be simulating incompetence, somehow? I have this coal mine that refuse to produce more than 4 units. I give up on them, working for decades with them, destroying my entire chain. I simply changed to another supplier and bum! within months I got 50 units.
Some industries are just incompetent?Doug, 20 minutes applies on all. Passengers, cargo. All industrial are same competent but, …
in case the industry could compete with otherone – it tend to hung up. That is one of the important thinks delete road connection for nearby business. Oterwise they start to compete and all stall. Proper chain is one resource-one factory-one city. anything else works wierd, slow or not at all. Or, the issue might be, that you were on the edge of time limit, then its wonky. It looks like it would level up but actually dont. I could give some actual info how the game works now, something is beter then in summer beta, somethink wierd. Would you update the guide if I give you a summary?
thx
Thanks for the reply. I’m sure they are not competing. There was no cargo going out of it to go anywhere but my station.
Which edge of time? The mine is producing 4 units even that the goods potential delivery is 130. Everywhere it say: deliver more coal.
Also I changed the industry as I said and I got 8 units, not growing again. Very annoying. Of course the reason can be that I’m playing with cargo mod. But cargo mod was working perfectly before.Its very annoying to play without the mod, because the industry chain is way too simple. I have no need to use train in such simple industry chain. Trucks can do it all.
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