This post is both meant to help out players new to goal servers and also an invitation to come play on the goal servers currently active! More people is always grand!
Videos
The game I recorded shows a lot of the stuff I mention below so I figured I'd put it here first for people interested. There were not really many people playing at the same time, but the "mechanics" are the same regardless of opposition or not (it's just slower with others, as you're likely competing for industries).
The server is BTPro #6 which is a 25 million QUICK goal server running Tropical. It's not the most active server, but it has decent games. I enjoy QUICK or SHORT games (25 million and 125 million respectively) seeing as I get bored if playing for more than 1-2 hours.
The game in a playlist!
The first video starts 3 minutes into the game since I forgot to start recording early on. You only miss out on me building my first track - the recording picks up just as my first train leaves station while I clone my initial train (ignore signals so it can go load while the first one travels) and finally set up a really cheap feeder with the last $40k I got.
If there's anything you don't understand about what I do in the video, feel free to ask! Or if I'm playing like a idiot, feel free to critique me.
I got lazy in the end.I was listening to Pink Floyd while recording this and didn't bother putting any other music on it when encoding, but that got some of the videos blocked of course, so I went ahead and put some random stuff from YouTube on those that got blocked (part 1 is still blocked in Germany apparently - I'll fix it but it takes a while for YouTube to replace music). Feel free to mute the videos and play your own music. Here's some inspiration from 2 awesome bands if you need any:
Emancipator playlist
Ratatat playlist
Servers
BTPro & n-ice are both excellent servers. The admins are responsive and fair while the people there are nice. If you have played a lot of single player / openttdcoop / similar games then make sure you read the rules prior to jumping into the game since a lot of things like station spreading / satellite stations / destroying trains right after they deliver / etc. are not allowed on these servers.
http://openttd.btpro.nl/ - http://openttd.btpro.nl/index.php/forum ... rver-rules - be sure to check out the awesome web interface that shows you currently playing / recent scores / etc.!
http://n-ice.org/openttd - http://n-ice.org/openttd/rules.php
The big difference between n-ice and BTPro lies in their differing rules when it comes to Goods. BTPro does not allow you to take Goods that others have manufactured (by delivering various stuff to a Factory / Refinery / etc.) whereas n-ice does. I personally like BTPro's server variety (and their Goods rule) so I can be found most commonly on those servers, but n-ice's #3 40 million / 600 perf Desert server is also good fun (and will be challenging if you play against people like N3 - although no one compares to solo
).Also, the n-ice servers play without breakdowns. This makes it a bit simpler for newer players to start with, but dumbs down the game quite a bit for experienced players. I still recommend BTPro overall, but many people enjoy n-ice.
Guide
One of the most important parts of playing goal lies in the early game. Getting a money-maker set up pretty fast will give you a significant advantage over people you're playing against as it also allows you to be the first to grab other valuable spots (even though competition is perfectly legal on multiplayer servers). Quick expansion is very valuable and is a big leap towards victory.
Securing that early lead comes through distance and constantly keeping your money low. For your initial line you should aim for earning $100k+ each delivery. Good early money-makers are Coal (Temperate) & Oil (Tropical) - passengers are also very good when done correctly, but I won't cover them since I tend to stick to Industries and find them the most fun. Both Coal & Oil are consistently one of the top paying products (they decrease very slowly in the "Cargo payment rates" graph) and are often clustered together so that you can find a spot that covers 2 mines / wells to give you ~2-300 production right off the bat. Coal & Oil wagons both carry 30 units as well (as opposed to, for example, Water wagons which only carry 25 - the first reason it's less powerful than Oil, the second being the fact that you don't get Goods from it after).
If on Temperate, pay close attention to the position of Farms as you start out too! The increased cost for building on farm land can severely limit you early game if you don't take it into consideration when planning your route - if the initial loan is somewhat low it may even lead to your route being completely screwed.
Do not get bogged down with creating very complicated lines, but do aim for high profit. You should be able to nearly finish your line in the time it takes for a ~7-tile train to fully load from your Oil / Coal pickup. Only build a single line at first! You do not need to build your full complicated network right off the bat - it will be a waste of money which could have been spent on additional trains / longer line / setting up feeders / etc.
Keeping your money low is very, very important. Anything that contributes to the money you could be earning later should be implemented ASAP. Plan ahead and think about what you will be doing next once one of your trains make a delivery!
Random tips in no specific order
1) Shared orders are extremely valuable. If you know trains will be linked and you may need to change / extend the line they are working now, always hold down Ctrl when Cloning the train in question. This will allow you to modify the order for a single linked train which will modify the order of all the trains in question.
Of course, make sure no trains are just about to drop off at the old dropoff point when you delete the order in favour for a new one. It's a good idea to simply derail them towards the new destination and change it when you know nothing will go wrong.
2) A common mistake that newer players make is to build their full rail network before they've even built a single train. Once you've found your initial spot you should go through these steps:
*) Place a station
*) Place a few tiles of track
*) Place a depot
*) Buy the engine + the appropiate wagons for the spot you've chosen
*) Ctrl-click (Full load any cargo (watch out for engines that can carry mail if you're near a city )) the loading station and set the train to go.
After that is done, THEN you work on connecting that to your dropoff station. You waste far too much time if your train is not loading while you're building tracks. Remember to modify the orders for the train once you've created your dropoff station.
This goes for all kinds of stations. Even if you can't fully connect the station to your network (be it as a feeder or connected to your main line) get the train loading so that by the time you can connect it the train will already be at 50%-75% loaded.
If you have a large amount of money and you are setting up feeders for a new line then create 4, 5, 6 stations that all start loading before you've connected any of them! Then connect them one by one while all of them have been loading, meaning they will deliver earlier and overall earn you MORE MONEY (which is the whole point, afterall
)!3) Statues will provide an additional 10% rating in any station "connected" (named after) to the town in which the statue is built. 10% higher rating is very valuable and ~400k USD is next to nothing once you've got your profit rolling. Do it when you hit a million+ or so - basically, at a point where you have enough money to effortlessly keep building after investing in the statue.
Of course, this depends a lot on whether your main station has enough traffic to warrant a statue AND how long the goal itself is. On micro-goals it's definitely not advisable. Weigh the pros & cons for yourself, it's (nearly) always a good idea if you are feeding a lot of materials to a Factory / Refinery / etc. for your Goods pickup from there.
Statues are built from the "Local authority" window.
4) Never stop building. This is the one I'm pretty bad at upholding because I like optimizing my tracks and watching all the pretty trains go by once I've played for a bit.
5) Stations should be quick and easy, but still efficient enough to have your stuff running smoothly. Terminus dropoffs should include a non-blocking path signal to force trains coming in into the leaving side so it won't block when leaving if a 2nd train comes in, etc. - if you have a large amount of feeders and you're playing on Temperate (ie. 241 or 265 km/h trains) it's usually worthwhile to make sure your main station is a Ro-Ro to avoid too much congestion.
An example of the path signal "trick" can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rN6toMpBdA#t=13m15s
Don't be shy to slightly remake stations to make them more efficient if it's needed. It's fairly fast to do so and can save you a lot of headaches as your line traffic increases over the course of a game. Terminus stations can be made very efficient with a bit of quick tinkering, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lxdIb_5j0k for example.
6) Use the option to show reserved tracks (Advanced Options -> Interface -> Display options). It will give you a good idea of how signals work if you don't know yet and it will actually show you which way trains are planning on going so you can correct something before it goes wrong. Of course, it only works if you have signals around so they have track to reserve. It's just handy overall and will help you out.
7) Pin (top right) your map & primary construction window (99% of the time it's rails). This will allow you to use Delete hotkey to close all windows except the ones pinned. This makes windows management A LOT faster overall and a lot less painful. I personally despise hitting those little X's.
Signals. If you place a signal on a piece of track and then hold down and ctrl-drag it in the direction you want the signals to go then the game will place signals for as long as the track does not deviate or it meets any other signals. It's an extremely fast way to put signals on your track and is very, very useful.This can also be used in conjunction with the removal tool - so you can remove all signals on a track and place a new one facing the opposite direction to quickly change the passing way on your track in less than 10 seconds. Thanks a lot to cxc for the removal tip!
9) Forced servicing is very valuable and something you should acquaint yourself with. Place 2 depots on a track and remove the forward track. Trains will be forced to go through the depot in order to move forward and when you have 2 depots a train can leave at the same time as another train is entering. It can service a high amount of trains and it's really efficient.
A note: If you do this after a Ro-Ro station then make sure to place it far enough away (~20 tiles worth of tracks) if there's a chance that trains will be in service-mode when they reach the station. If trains are in "need-to-service-NOW" mode they will go THROUGH your station to reach the depot. This can create all sorts of problems.
An additional way of taking advantage of forced servicing is by placing them just before a pickup. Any extra trains will wait inside the depot until a spot frees up in the station. This is good because the reliability of the train itself will not start ticking down unil it actually leaves the depot. So you minimize the amount of time that the train is sitting around ticking down reliability (and service timer) by simply keeping the train inside the depot until there's room for it to leave.
See the screenshots below for examples of forced servicing and the "trick" mentioned above. There are also examples of this on the Goods line in the videos linked above. These are just 2 random shots from a small game I had where I set up a two-way Coal line (delivery and pickup so the trains are always carrying stuff back and forth).
http://i.imgur.com/C2iVm.png
http://i.imgur.com/UMycQ.png
10) Bridges are more expensive if you place them right down to the coast of water (so that there's no elevation up or down). In the early game, it's ok to make them 2 tiles longer than the minimum to pay ~3k as opposed to ~25k+.
Also, holding down Ctrl while placing Bridges apparently auto-selects the fastest one? I normally just place the bridge and when the menu pops up I just press 1 to get the best one. Do not use the bad bridges!
11) Get accustomed with hotkeys and UI improvements. I've mentioned a few in the post already, but have a look at the Hotkeys wiki page too (http://wiki.openttd.org/Hotkeys). Using 1-4 for railroad track building and Q, W, E for terraforming will make your building a lot faster. Also, X to toggle transparency! Shift to scroll faster! Aaaahh, there are so many good ones. Use them!
Another good example is the ability to automatically replace vehicles with newer models when they are servicing. Trains (the button that brings up your list of Trains) -> Manage vehicles -> Replace vehicles will allow you to choose the older model to be automatically replaced. Any time an old model enters a depot it will be automatically replaced with the model you've specified.
This works really well with the forced servicing mentioned before.
12) Diagonal, diagonal, diagonal. You get a higher amount of money from a diagonal delivery for a fairly similar cost in rails. It's very important and you should keep it in mind when scouting out your initial spot in particular.
Of course, you should not be building diagonally if it means you have to cross through a ton of farm land early game or there is no good dropoff in that direction - evaluate the map for each game you have!
13) This is pretty closely related to #2, but worth mentioning by itself. Pre-load your stations! An industry will not begin delivering items to a station before a truck / train has attempted to retrieve items from said station. If you know for a fact that you will be ferrying away the Goods that you're creating at an Oil Refinery in the near future then create a station for that purpose and send in a dummy train / truck so that the Goods start showing up at your station! Your rating will suffer a bit at first, but the extra amount of Goods that you will have waiting for you once you send in trains to retrieve them easily makes up for that (and rating increases steadily after that).
Preload constantly! It's very valuable for getting the highest possible amount of profit.
Example with a dummy truck (was pretty silly to do, but I was waiting for money to come in anyway + this way I got to show it): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCvX8MP1Zjg#t=11m
Example with a dummy train for Goods: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCvX8MP1Zjg#t=14m30s
14) A quick note on Perf maxing. The n-ice servers usually require you to both have a high enough CV (Company Value) and Perf (Performance rating) for their goal. If you find yourself nearing the CV limit but your Perf is not up to snuff, these tips may help you out a bit.
Click and hold on the yellow cup (next to the Industries tab) and choose "Detailed performance rating" to see your current score. You may need to browse to find your company in the list.
*) Pay off your loan. This is the easiest way to earn a quick 50 Perf.
*) Max out the cargos. You may only have 2-3 covered with the network you currently have, but simply make short lines for the remaining few to gain a fairly quick 50 Perf from it.
*) Use trucks in correlation with the above tip to also get closer to maximizing your vehicles score.
...
This was pretty "off the top of my head" and just random things that stood out when watching others play. The best way to improve is to watch good players play and learn from what they are doing.
If anyone has questions or suggestions, fire away! I am just doing this to try and get more people interested in playing some multiplayer goal games.
