Questions from a Noob!

[Raw1812]

I just started playing this awesome game this week and have some questions I can't find answers to in the wiki.

Production:
Why does production go up and down? Can you influence production? I've seem screen shots of extremely high volume factories, but where are all the resources coming from?

Water and food:
Necessary to grow cities on Tropical climate. What is the mechanic behind this? Do you need to provide more food and water as the city grows? Or does it depend on frequency? I'm really confused about how this works. Is the only way to grow a desert city with no water tower investing in a tower?

Auto-replace:
(Question answered by supercheese, thanks!)

New Graphics:
So it seems like a lot of cool people have added graphics mods to the game. If I try some of these mods out now will my current saved cities crash when I load them? Will I have to turn them off to load those cities?

Plane crashes:
I had three inexplicable plane crashes within a minute or so at one airport. Are there factors that influence plane crashes? (not settings related, because I was operating a lot of aircraft with no accidents then suddenly 3 major accidents at one airport).

Signals:
I'm so painfully lost. I only understand how to use the one that stops the train from going where one is already. I tried playing with different signals and had some hilarious train wrecks (poor passengers). Does anyone have a youtube video?

Thanks so much in advance! Great game! (I just came from AoEO as it ceased development, look me up Raw1812 on their forum if you need help with that game ^^)

[Supercheese]

Auto-replace:
Auto-replace is a great feature, especially once you are operating tons of vehicles. But upgrading Regal Bus to the Hereford (not 100% about the name here ) is very time consuming if you have a lot of bus routes. Is there an auto-default to newer model renewal feature anyway?

Autoreplace is not the same thing as Autorenew.

[V453000 :)]

Production:
primary industries (farms, forests, mines,..) - service them constantly (have a train always loading) and productions will go up in the long run
secondary indsutries (factories, refineries, sawmills,..) - produce based on how much you delivered of the primary cargo to them, deliver more to produce more goods

Water and Food:
The original mechanic requires just BOTH 1t food and 1 unit of water every month, then the town grows, given that you also have at least 5 serviced stations in the town.

NewGraphics:
I wouldnt change house graphics but it might not be terribly dangerous ... save a backup and check for yourself is generally the only way to know. Either way do not complain if you break your game by changing newGRFs

Plane crashes:
Just disable them in settings... other than that it probably is random, but the likeliness increases if large aircraft is on small airport

Signals:
The absolutely most important part of the whole game, there are various tutorials on signals around the web, try reading for example this, or anything you could find on that wiki and you will know a lot of stuff

http://wiki.openttdcoop.org/Presignal_Basics

Enjoy!
V

[Raw1812]

Thanks so much V453000 !
I had a feeling that was the case about production! Very cool mechanic.

I'm probably not going to touch any newGRFs atm because I want to get the feel for everything in vanilla (I love the vintage look anyway).

What exactly do you mean when you say 5 serviced stations?

Do all stations transporting everything in city limits count? Like coal mines?

Or is that just stations in the city itself carrying passegers?

Atm I usually build some bus stations around town and send buses between A and B locations (instead of making a bus route). Typically, I send a bus between a high volume and low volume station in the outter city.

Is this really nooby?

Also, helicopters. Why?

SO MANY NOOB QUESTIONS

[Raw1812]

Thanks so much V453000 !
Just what I was looking for!

Some more questions:

When you say 5 serviced stations for growth, does that mean all stations, including coal stations in city limits for example?
Or does that just include passenger services in the city?

My typical strategy is to have buses a-b, as in one bus only visits two stations. Usually from a high usage station to a low usage one in the outer city. Is this really nooby? Haha.

[V453000 :)]

I am not sure about everything, 2 options: 1. check wiki.openttd.org, it is great for any game mechanic related questions, or 2. test it

[Dreedo]

I don't use helicopters much, but they do have their advantages.

They're basically busses, they cost more, but are faster and hold more passengers, and can carry mail, so they can replace lorries and busses.

The fact that heliports only take 1 tile, means you can easily place heliports in the middle of large cities later on in the game.

Also you should never have to replace helicopters really, I'm not 100% sure about the Guru, but the Tricario helicopter will not lose speed, even when it breaks down, due to the fact that it's classed as a plane, and planes slow down to 320kph when they break down, which is the Tricario's top speed anyway.

[Raw1812]

I was placing some helipads but I think it caps because of noise pollution . I know that can be turned off, but a whole bunch of helipads everywhere would be kind of silly. Also, you need to build that helicopter airport and then helipads everywhere correct??

I've learned so much just lurking the forums and watching youtube videos (Found out about this game because of yogscast btw)