Transport Tycoon Forums

Hi guys,

I've been playing tycoon for long time and this is my favorite game since 95's. I never had income problems before buuut... I started new scenario with a little bit harsher economical conditions.
Costs of build: medium
Costs of maintenance: medium
infrastructure maintenance is on

OTTD 1.5.3, 2cc trains and dutch tracks grf's.

So current year is 2350 and all I'm doing is building a passenger high speed network, as all my attempts of building some industrial train chain is not profitable or barely maintain itself, as train tracks still takes lots of cash. Aswell bought trains with little cost maintenance such as TEP80 but no luck so far... What I doing wrong? Or its okay for these settings I've chosen?

Start by checking your Finances window to see what your major costs are, whether they are from vehicle maintenance or from infrastructure maintenance.

Also check if you're playing the game with the Inflation setting enabled. That setting causes costs to rise faster than payments, so it will cause it to become harder and harder to make a profit the longer you play the same game.

I remember playing TTD in the early 2000's and only having trains and doing just fine. Now it seems like they've been nerfed. Most freight trains will make their own investment back in roughly 10 years while a plane does it in 3 and most road vehicles in 4. It's absurdly difficult to build a train focused transport empire.

Also worth looking at , is how many of your freight trains are carrying nothing in one direction, as this is a common mode of operation .

are you using any NewGRFs? they can make things much more difficult (or easier)

badly designed train networks make trains wait a long time, which may hurt profits. also check the ratio of engine power to train weight (including the multiplier for freight trains) which may be too low (trains don't pick up speed fast enough, so more trains wait for other trains clearing crossings) or too high (engines get too expensive while not providing more benefits)

planes can be exceptionally profitable, especially with a planespeed setting of 1/1 instead of the original 1/4