andythenorth wrote:Nice. Anyone got more? Seeing how players use FIRS helps us design the set
Well, since you ask... First a small thing about my playing style: no excessive terraforming, no gicantic intersections, one or two flyovers is ok and ofcourse cargodist. Furthermore this being my first game with FISH, i decided to use ships to cross water instead of building islands and bridges in the water.
My strategy? I usually link some primary industries to the aluin plant and steel mill: scrap, iron, bauxite and coal. This because engineering supplies are extremely important This implies that if I want to make quick starting money I look for some closely coupled industries so i do not spend to much money on track.
Now since I use 2cc+nutracks and start in 1940, 120km/h track without overhead lines is enough. However I have to avoid mountains (even hills) as those slow down my trains enormously.
Oh, and mapsize is 512*256 while playing with cargodist OpenTTD_CD_g0f7d66d2_win32 from the thread on the OpenTTD development forum. This game was actually a test to find whether I liked the changed supply scale algorithm (from number of stations to cargo waiting at the next hub).
newgrfs
map; size 512*256
The two screens above show my newgrf settings and the world map I'm playing in. Luckily there are some usable primary industries near each other, with a steelmill on an acceptable distance. A small hill I have to work around, but that's no problem.
network after one year
cluster of four primary industries
Now, with one year passed, I hooked up some primary industries as you can see. My cash is largely gone, but I have a steady initial income and still have some space for additional trains. The length I chose for the trains seems to be too large, trains slow down a lot on hills, with a small ammount of trains this isn't a problem, however, with increasing traffic density distances between are more important.
worldmap after two years
steelmill after two years
As you can see, I decided to hookup a useful machine shop to my network, as well reserve some space for the aluin factory as a bauxite mine is nearby. Currently not enough cash to buy more trains for a steady production level, lay tracks for distribution of engineering supply and buy the trains required. That'll come later.
five year world map
So my income is increasing steadily with additional trains, I've hooked up some more primaries, to the left there are an iron mine and a bauxite mine. I've not yet made a decision, but i'm thinking of transferring all primaries to the steel mill with the exeption of bauxite going to the aluin plant.
uphill steam problem
four tracks uphill
and from the other side
After ten years with the increasing number of trains my network occasionlly stops and i have to manually reverse trains and signals in order to fix issues (trains going uphill with a speed of 1Km/h).
That leaves me with two choices: more expensive trains or additional (uphill) tracks. I chose the latter because during later stages of the game I always have issues improving my network as the tracks become to crowded, additional tracks are useful always.
steel mill and network after 15 years, please note the brewery being supplied with fruit and veggies from farms
a cluster of serviced farms
an engeneering supplies transferium
Some big changes in the last five years. I've hooked up the engineering supplies to the cluster of two coal mines, an iron mine and the scrap yard. And connected a cluster of farms as well, fruit and veggies to a brewery and livestock via a dock transferium to trains waiting on the otherside of the water, uphill to a meat packer.
All the time during playing I improved crossings; doubled tracks and bought trains.
another transferium, this time at the bauxite and iron mine to the left side of the map
I connected a second cluster of farms
the stations and hubs at the first cluster improved
loading and unloading at the machine shop
Twenty years into the game the machine shop production I at a good level. I've now got trains strong enough to no longer be bothered by hills in such a way that it brings problems to my network. So I can start working on other industry chains, wool wood etc. But first some more network optimalisation because that'll come in handy when there are a lot of trains running.
all vehicles
all industries
So the last screenshots. One with all trains, road vehicles and ships in this game. The second one shows all industries by type.
Finally a link to the savegame.
Edit: Two things to add. 1- sorry for breaking layout, next time I'll split the post in several messages. 2- Forgot to mention that my weight multiplier is set to 8X.
You know, just like IRL?