Transport Tycoon Forums

I hope this is the right section, there was no "gameplay discussion" or "newbie corner" so I figured this would be the correct place to put it.

I just recently picked up OpenTTD and having a great time with it. I've been spending a lot of time on the Wiki trying to figure out how to best optimize tracks and whatnot. I also randomly found a decent Let's Play on YouTube that gave me a few ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic-lzaJigDk

I had a game with a pretty obvious scenario where I was wondering how it would have looked if someone a bit more experienced had gone at it.


Bigger picture with map: http://i.imgur.com/igurQ.png

Factory, Farms and loads of flat lands. Pretty obvious what the possibilities are.

How I tackled it:

http://i.imgur.com/dmYTS.png
http://i.imgur.com/wGAN9.png
http://i.imgur.com/9IYrJ.png (the Goods route)

TL;DR: Terminus loading / unloading stations with a Ro-Ro Factory setup. A couple of tunnels to line up tracks properly without issues.

Now - a few questions...

• How terrible is that setup? Keep in mind, I haven't gotten used to using any signals except Block signals so far. What would be easy optimizations? I only have like 5-6 Farms connected to the Factory so far, I imagine it will go completely wrong if I add more. Plus I didn't leave enough room for expansion.
• What's the deal with depots and trains? Before I added a few additional depots on the route I had a few trains go massively off route to get to a depot.
• Is the Goods route a decent length? I started at 1975 so I had the 200km Diesel train that shows up in 1978 and I am thinking I should have made it a longer route that went West/Southwest instead. I don't really know how the whole "lose value over time" thing works yet or if it's even a factor on a route of that size.

If anyone wants to play the map for giggles, the save is attached below (ignore the stuff built so far ). It has AdmiralAI, ChooChoo and Convoy "added" (only Admiral is active at Save point, I think). So you may need those to load it? Dunno!

Thanks for the help and much praise to the wonderful people developing this!

Edit: PS: Happy New Year!

Tip: path signals are better at complex junctions. They allow multiple trains through a junction at once, as long as their paths do not intersect. It's easier to understand if you set 'Show Reserved Tracks' in the Advanced Settings to on.