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.
Thanks for the help and much praise to the wonderful people developing this!
Edit: PS: Happy New Year!