What kind of vehicle do you use the most ?

[acs121]

Hi,

Because we are in a game where there are trains, buses, trucks, tramways, ships, planes and helicopters i'll have to ask a question : which thing do you use the most ?

At first, i didn't know how to make train lines very properly. So most things used to transit by buses or trucks. But now, i'm able to make gigantic networks with highspeed lines, and i try to use more trains for freight, as the HEQS gives things that kill all freight trains - the logging trucks or the Kilimanjaro Unitised Mining Truck for example.

Road vehicles are my main type of vehicle. That's mostly because you can easily insert them everywhere, they don't have to obey to signals and most stand in 1 tile. Plus, the 2cc Bus Set gives buses with very high capacities, like the Renault Mégabus.

I don't use very much ships. But since Squid Ate FISH (i think) implements the Thunder Bay, going at 98 kph, i use them as i can. But mostly, they are used for pax between towns by me.

Meanwhile, aircraft is my third main thing. I can limitate myself with aircrafts. In the first times, my plane network is just composed of planes going from the main city to other towns - town-to-town planes appear later with me.

[Pyoro]

Going by numbers it's RVs > Trains > Ships > Planes. If I counted trams separately from RVs, they'd be somewhere around ships, depending on the map.

Obviously I mainly play for the trains. Buses for feeder services are just sensible, easy to pop out, but kinda boring. So are trucks. Ship I use because they look nice on the map, but too many and performance becomes an issue Planes I always find I a bit boring and they totally killed my last game by annoying me about the airports ... I'll never finish that if I don't finish the GRF first So, yeah, trains are best.

[acs121]

It's right ! But when cities grow, you have to handle urban traffic. My biggest city yet reached 267,000 inhabitants. You can't handle all urban traffic, just with trains. You need tramways to handle this. As i set town cargo generation factor to 2 (a very high value), it gives more challenge than having this easily "Outstanding" in the station rating.

I can explain what i said on the first post easier, by doing like you : Buses > Trams > Trains > Trucks > Planes > Ships > Helicopters (sadly, it ends on this)

[Alberth]

Freight trains and freight ships (with a large enough watery area), with an occasionally passenger/mail transport.
Industrial trams to serve a cluster of eg farms.

Trucks don't have sufficient capacity to be of use, and aircraft are too boring.

[GarryG]

I'm a train lover .. but like to use connecting road transport from farms, forests and smaller towns to the nearest railway station and transfer cargos to and from the trains.

Like the trains to be nice and long .. in New South Wales, Australia in the 1970s and 80s when I worked for them trains could be as long as 450 metres .. that equals to 2 locos, 54 x 4 wheeled wagons (or 27 bogie wheeled wagons) and a guards van.

These days freight trains usually 3 locos and up to 1.5 km long and coal trains can have 90 coal wagons.

[acs121]

Freight trains and freight ships (with a large enough watery area), with an occasionally passenger/mail transport.
Industrial trams to serve a cluster of eg farms.

Trucks don't have sufficient capacity to be of use, and aircraft are too boring.

This depends on which NewGRF you use. Trucks are very efficient for mail. With eGRVTS, you can have trucks transporting 50 bags of mail at 109 kph.

[andythenorth]

All the kinds. Especially Zellepins. But not Ekranoplans.

[Redirect Left]

I mostly use trains, both electric and not depending on the route. Other than rail, I use trams to link up some stations in the same towns, instead of buses.

[Gwyd]

Trains.
3rd rail.
Job done.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[acs121]

Is it correct to say that with UKRS (or BRTrains, i don't even remember) the Pendolino (correct me if i'm wrong) has 3rd rail power ?
Notice, it's quite useful when you want to put metros too.

[Supercheese]

Especially Zellepins.

Ah, I see you, too, are a man of culture.

[Leanden]

Is it correct to say that with UKRS (or BRTrains, i don't even remember) the Pendolino (correct me if i'm wrong) has 3rd rail power ?
Notice, it's quite useful when you want to put metros too.

Maybe in UKRS, BRTrains they are OHLE only

[acs121]

I think it's UKRS.

[Pilot]

Is it correct to say that with UKRS (or BRTrains, i don't even remember) the Pendolino (correct me if i'm wrong) has 3rd rail power ?
Notice, it's quite useful when you want to put metros too.

The Pendolino doesn't have 3rd Rail Power in UKRS, however, both the Hitachi A-Train and Eurostars in UKRS are the express trains that do have both OHLE and 3rd Rail power. Though both are limited to a lower speed on 3rd Rail. Away from those, the 313s and Electrostars in UKRS are also Dual Mode, but these are commuter units, whilst the Electrostars could perhaps be classed as Intercity on some of the routes they operate.

---

As for the topic's question, I mostly use a combination of trains and busses/coaches. My current game is a modern-day German-based/style game, and I've start several companies that "compete" with and also complement one another, much like what would happen IRL. For example, I might have a bus company that does feeder services to a main station, but said company might also run a long distance coach that competes with the train as well.

Ships are my lowest priority, and generally get used for moving Oil from the Rigs, though I do have a couple that are used to to cross bays where the journey by land transportation would be longer for Passengers (using the FISH Hydrofoils).

I do also use Aircraft, Heli's are only used to serve Oil Rigs, much like the majority IRL, and then there are Airplanes for longer distance travel, but even these are competing with the train and coaches.

I nearly forgot, I do have 1000, if not more, trucks. These have kinda been left for the last year (IRL year), and are mostly there to add a bit of variety to the roads away from busses/coaches.

[Redirect Left]

I tend to avoid using buses, boats and airplanes. As they're a little CPU heavy compared to rail. Which is why I always focus on it, then i can run it at fast forward faster!

[LaRoso]

I mostly use trains and buses or trams for feeding the train stations. I'm totally into building and optimizing train tracks and stuff.

[acs121]

I tend to avoid using buses, boats and airplanes. As they're a little CPU heavy compared to rail. Which is why I always focus on it, then i can run it at fast forward faster!

It depends on the NewGRFs you're using. You can have 111 kph trams transporting 206 passengers (2cc Tram Set) and 121 kph buses transporting 132 passengers (Ikarus Set 6). To me, with this kind of buses, it easily beats most urban lines. However, i admit since i set town cargo generation factor to 2 (thanks JGR), urban lines become necessary alongside buses to empty as much as i can stations. Of course, with my friends, we try to put as much buses, trams, etc as we can on our stations - thanks again JGR for Infrastructure Sharing. And when the station is ours, we put double-deck cars / EMUs but since the platforms are quite short (3 tiles for urban lines) it doesn't take enough passengers compared to a trains which will take 2 more tiles.

[srschacher]

I've been playing FIRS a lot, and recently with the Goal-Based City Growth script. I have inflation turned off, but I do have maintenance costs turned on.

Since my major goal is to grow a designated town, I'm forced to build networks that connect nearby industries. What I've found in my games (and it might just be me), is that the running cost of a train is far greater than the delivery payment for cargoes. Therefore, I have been using mostly road vehicles.

I was delivering milk from a farm to a dairy. Milk is near the top of the rate graph, but I still couldn't overcome the cost of the train. In another game, I was delivering coal to a power plant. Coal pays very low, but it doesn't degrade with distance.

I've come away from this exercise with several take-aways:

1. You have to look at the whole value chain. Some components (such as milk to the dairy) may net a loss, but then food to the town makes up the difference, netting a gain.

2. I've been recently looking into refitting a train between locations, so I can try to make money both ways. Thee trick is to find consists that can be refitted to both products, such as using flat cars instead of tankers for milk.

3. The cost of building a rail network early in a game eats up most of my budget, so I don't have a lot left over for town deliveries, which are necessary in the Goal-based script to "turn on" town growth.

In short, I think I have to start with a road infrastructure to establish the value chains, and then perhaps add rail later to increase my delivery volumes when I can absorb intermediate leg losses.

We'll see...

Steve

[growlithe16]

Normally I like to use trams even thought infrastructure is expensive you can move more that buses but does not have struggle of making intercity metro's. But also trains are great for connecting cities around my main hub and have trams in cities leading to the train stations.

[jules]

trains for cargo and busses for passengers. I only usually use vans if there is an industry near one of my hub manufacturers and it is only producing small amounts. I keep trying trains for passengers but find the city growth and tree planting too annoying, also I always end up with waaay too many passengers than I can handle fairly quickly, town has expanded and I struggle to grow my stations to cope.