How do you decide what resources to transport?

[Solem]

So...

At the start of a game, how do you guys decide what resource to transport?

I have read, and understood that oil is the most providing resource, am I right?
Still sometimes I see players start out transporting other resources.

And as the game plays on, some wells dry out, and some really get a production boost... is there any way to predict this?

Thanx for any input on the matter!

[alex879ro]

Actually coal is the most providing resource. Coal Mines grow the fastest and it has no secondary product so you also get a strong income. Also it has a big period before expiration.

How do i decide what to transport? Easily....i just look on the map...and see what type of industry is good (by the number of them) and also which one has good positioning.

Actually, there isn`t any way to predict which industry will dissapear and which will grow. Actually the dissapearing one is mostly one without servicing. But the one which will grow is impossible to find because it`s random:)

[Solem]

Oh, I forgot about Coal, as I almost only play the desert goals, where there is no coal. And most of the times I see people starting out transporting the oil, but sometime they chose Copper Ore instead.

But you actually "count" (or estimate) the number of plants for the different resources, and then decide from that?

[geo]

on desert the best is wood,but u have to fund lumber mills, followed by oil if i'm not mistaken...
no, u don't count, u just click on them, see how much the production is...and if it's big enough, start building...

[Solem]

Yeah, obviously the lumber mill, but that always have to wait some years to have the cash...

Alright, so there is no trickery here, just plain picking a good production site, and hopefully as many of them as you can =)

[YorVeX]

it's not completely random though, there is a specific algorithm behind it. you directly affect the chance of an increase or decrease of production by the amount of cargo you transport from it. more about that here.

[alex879ro]

on desert the best is wood,but u have to fund lumber mills, followed by oil if i'm not mistaken...
no, u don't count, u just click on them, see how much the production is...and if it's big enough, start building...

I dunno about you, but in most cases i do count the number of industries so i know what to choose.

@Solem i dunno what to say, yea, in desert it`s true..oil is most plentyfull , wood is too. Personally i tend to transport fruits & food or diamonds, but , as i said i choose after i open the game map and do a little recognizing and counting of the industries. I also look at placement...if for example there are many industries in the north , but not so many in the south, i usually look for other industries to see how they are  represented

[Geert]

So...

At the start of a game, how do you guys decide what resource to transport?

I have read, and understood that oil is the most providing resource, am I right?
Still sometimes I see players start out transporting other resources.

And as the game plays on, some wells dry out, and some really get a production boost... is there any way to predict this?

Thanx for any input on the matter!

I just start building something without knowing what and 5 hours later i have 300 or 400 trains
it doesnt really matter what you use. its the network that matters (if you want to win)

[Cossack]

Right at the start of the game? Whether it's a long or short goal i always start with passengers. it's easy to make 800k/900k euros within the first year. on 3, a couple of times, if the town are good i've managed to make 1.5mil euros in my first year, but that's only happened twice i think. So yes, best start = pax although it might be different on some of the servers i don't play on.

[TechNoir]

temperate - coal and pax
desert - oil, copper, pax and oil

Good players can start with oil and rafinery on both sides of the track. But you need to be lucky with the map.

Diagonal route only! Remember

After your first train got income you need to have money for second train and switch. So you need to plan wisely. Instead of going to server straight ahead, first of all start as observer and analyze map. Look for best position for tracks. Try to avoid farms, slopes and mountains.

I still have problems with start sometimes. But I am learning from my mistakes.

Good start is 50% of success!

[sherc]

Hello guys

I'm new to this forums and also fairly new to openttd. I've played TTD back in the days, but i fell back in love with this game I'm playing on your servers most of the times and i've found a wonderful mod you guys did. The citybuilder. I think it's fantastic, I love how you can make the town grow into city and so on, but I'm always struggling with one thing. I have a cronic shortage of mail !!! I get tons of passengers all the time, but I just can't seem to be able to transport enough mail.

I have tried with transfering mail to the train station, but unlike passengers, town generate only a small amount of mail. I've seen others having 500 or more mail at their stations ...

Are there any tricks you would like to share with a fellow transporter? Thanks

[Andreas]

I have not seen you play so I am only able to guess about what improvements you can make. The most important part is: make sure yoh have regular service to the stations. High station rating is keye. You can read more about it here: http://wiki.openttd.org/Game_mechanics#Station_rating (on the same page there are a lot of usefull stuff to know if you want to maximise your efficiency)

Secondly if you are transfering it is better to allways have a loading vehicle ready. Cargo waiting at a station disappears, and this process is faster if station rating is lower.

Last thing (a bit obvious) make the city you take mail from grow, so that it can produce more mail!

Summarized:
-Keep station ratings up
-Keep time cargo spends at transfer station as low as possible
-Make supplying towns grow

[f25]

Personally, I do like mail and passengers.
1. As You transport more, the cities on both ends of the line grow, so, You just put more trains at no infrastructure cost and Your business grows.
2. Even, if You transport coal or oil, You usually at the start transport it only 1 way, passengers and mail run bidirectionally, so it is recommended to peer-up two cities of a similar size.
3. With cargo it is difficult to have efficient train utilization. I usually tier this out: primary resources, like oil/farms output/wood: slow diesel. Then for secondary level cargo one can use better transport means: electric/monorail/maglev. However, pay attention to properly feed the converting industry to properly saturate the transport of goods and similar, secondary cargo.

Also, please take a look at the cargo rates, where some cargo types pay more when they are transported fast, some can take time and still pay off.

The ideal setup for cities is to find a set of 6:
3 @ one corner - 3 @ other corner, connected with long diagonal path. So, You can triple-utilize the main line, and pair cities on both ends of the map. Sometimes cities are big enough to just be two pairs. Remember that collision-free crossings is a must then.

Ideal setup for coal:
3-4 coal mines - diagonal route - power station - 3-4 coal nearby coal mines - diagonal route - power station - (and again).
But, then using "Full load" option will kill the rating. You need to use schedules i.e. 5-6 days per coal mine station.
That should give "full" trains going both ways. So, even if they run at 70% utilization, this still brings more money, than one way 100%.

Having said this, as during scored plays, time is the largest constraint: build infrastructure wisely, with a though to reuse it or scale for future growth.