Simutrans Map Editing Tools
Hello and welcome to my attempt at guiding beginners through the 'I know how the controls work, but why am I constantly losing money?' Stage of Simutrans. I'm going to assume you know the basic controls as there are lots of helpful guides out there on that topic like simutrans.igoreliezer.com.
If you're not familiar, start a game and mess with the controls for a bit. Destroying stuff you've built costs money, and leaving them unused is wasted monthly maintenance so I don't suggest messing around in a game you actually intend to play. When you feel comfortable with building, making lines, purchasing vehicles and assigning them to lines continue reading. Notes: This advice is aimed at the pak128 game without beginner pricing (aka the loaded as default settings).
If for any reason you want to translate this or repost it elsewhere feel free to do so so long as any changes are credited to their author and a link to the original is provided. Now, as is mentioned in other starter guides the basic activity in this game involves moving products/passengers/mail to their destination. Factories are your go to profit for early game, and they have production chains. Some factories produce resources, some process resources, and others act as a consumer end point. The important note is that processing facilities will refuse to order more resources if they have a full inventory, so you can't just endlessly deliver sand to the glass factory without shipping the glass produced. In the early game, you have a rather limited amount of capital to work with.
Assuming you use default settings, you're going to have enough for roughly two trains and the supporting infrastructure. If all the industries that randomly spawned on your chosen map have chains with more than two stops, that map is effectively unplayable for our purposes. In other cases, you may have one long complex chain (Car manufacturing is the notorious one for this), and one single stop chain that doesn't generate much in the way of profit (Garbage Dump Waste incinerator). So what you want to do is reroll your map (I like to turn tree generation off in landscape settings to make the map easier to look at) until you find a good set of industries to begin with. Using the lists button at the top of your screen, and then the industry tab you can view everything on the map. If you inspect the industry, you can see what plants it's willing to buy goods from, and where (if it's not a consumer location) it ships products.
Clicking the arrows zooms you to the location of the connected industry. If there's multiple factories that demand the same resource, be sure to double check the resource you're laying track to is actually on one of those lists. Good industries to see are oil power plants (oilpower ), and short production chains like gas (oilrefinerygas station ) or bakeries (grainflourbakery ). All three of these chains you can do from start to finish with your starting capital on trains. If possible, aim to find two of these types of chains, since a low capital expansion early on to increase your profit will help speed up your growth. Now that we've covered the bare minimum for perpetual profit, we have to put on our business hats and talk expenses. The game does a somewhat lackluster job of providing the tools you need to see what is costing you money, and as a beginner this step definitely took me the longest.
World Maps
As a transport company, you're paid per kilometer an item is hauled. There's a list that tells you what each good generates, but for our purposes they all pay 'enough'.
This goes for goods as well as mail and passengers (which I've been specifically not talking about for a reason, more about mail/pax will come later). From this per km traveled, you'll have to deduct the cost of the vehicles hauling an item. Larger trains offset their higher engine cost with the ability to haul more cars at top speed. However there's an important note: Infrastructure is friggin' expensive.
Each tile of freight station will cost you 72.00c per month in maintenance and each unit of track will cost you 1.5c (When building things, the price in brackets beside the purchase price is your monthly maintenance fee). Because you're being paid per km hauled, short tracks have a disproportionate amount of infrastructure maintenance for their stations. How many tiles of freight station a train needs is mentioned in the depot screen when you're attaching cars. Note: When you're designating a stop you can force the train to wait for 100% capacity with a little button in the schedule window. Very good for making sure your freight trains aren't wasting money by chugging around with less than full load. So now that you've got the basics of the variable costs (cost per km of item hauled) and the fixed costs (cost that exists whether or not you haul anything) it's time to mention factory capacity. This is pretty important when we're talking about small output factories like garbage dumps and coal mines.
It's quite easy to get drowned by the fixed infrastructure cost when your trains are sitting too much, or for super long tracks where the factory capacity isn't being fully used. Now if you want to play fancy, you can do double tracks + signals to make longer hauls efficient for trains, but these topics are pretty complex and belong in their own guide (There's this on steam, check it out if you're ready!).
For a rough rule of thumb, I'd say a single train traversing a track shouldn't go more than roughly 1/4 of the length of a map edge in the early game. Super freight trains that can be bought when you're rolling in dough will of course modify this length significantly.
The basic idea here is that if your factories aren't outputting/processing at the max speed they can, you're missing out on profit from that line. If lines are particularly long, this will mean that you'll have less income to cover the fixed costs of track maintenance. Now before we're done, we have to address depreciation. When you buy engines/railcars over time the price you can sell them for drops.
If you want to upgrade the engines on that rail line at some point, this becomes a cost over time which isn't visible on the budget screen directly. In order to see if you're beating the depreciation race, watch your assets. If there's a general upward trend on assets you're profiting more than depreciation is taking away. Due to game mechanics mentioned later on, you will be forced to upgrade your trains at some point so keep this in mind. Depreciation is also important due to how bankruptcy is determined in this game. Bankruptcy happens when the value of your assets minus your loans equals 0. This means you can take out a loan that puts you quite deep into the red if you want.
The interest you pay is fairly manageable, and shows up in the 'maintenance' tab of the 'other' tab in the finance window. That said you'd better be sure you're profiting more than depreciation takes away, or eventually your loans will be worth more than your assets Misc tidbit #1: The vehicle “profit” ignores fixed costs entirely. It's far better to watch your monthly profit per vehicle type in the finance menu for attempting to gauge profitability. Misc Tidbit #2: Trains get slowed going up/down hills. Landscaping isn't that expensive so don't be afraid to edit the terrain to make a more efficient route.
This has no maintenance, so the use of less tracks which have maintenance fees will pay off eventually. Misc Tidbit #3: If you want to create a slope up to an elevated track, note that trains can only go up the “one step” artificial height elevation. Elevated tracks are two steps above the ground you're elevating them over. As of this writing, there's no tooltip in the default pak that gives you an easy comparison between freight trains. The term for how much a train can haul is tractive effort. Now, a train needs to push itself down the line as well as its cargo, and I'll use the term useful tractive effort (UTE) to represent the total tractive effort minus the weight of the engine.
The total tractive effort of an engine ingame is derived from the power times the gear ratio. Subtracting the engines weight will then give us the UTE. Lets look at two of the starting engines in the game. RVg 0-4-0T (1.30c/km) Power 340kW Gear 0.8:1 Weight: 39t 340.0.8-39 = 233 UTE RVg 2-5-1 'Muscle Arm' (2.45c/km) Power 552kW Gear 1.58:1 Weight: 73t 552.1.58-73 = 799 UTE How UTE translates into cars depends a lot on the railcars, but the number of cars these two trains can haul will be proportional to the ratio of UTE.
The ratio is 799/233 = 3.4, which means that at any given speed for every car the RVg 0-4-0T can pull, the Muscle Arm will pull approximately 3.4 cars. Also worth noting that the Muscle arm is significantly cheaper per UTE hauled, since each 1.00c of maintenance hauls 326 UTE, while the 0-4-0T only hauls 179 UTE per 1.0c spent on maintenance. One key difference to note is that tracks, cars and engines have different top speeds. In the case of the muscle arm it can pull plenty of cars chugging along at the top speed of the 0-4-0T, but it also has the option to pull less cars and travel faster. The better optimal speeds will cost more maintenance per tonne per km travelled, but will likely increase the total goods hauled down the line. While this little detail complicates things a bit we're only worried about freight tracks for the moment.
The second last section talks about something called speed bonus which becomes a concern a couple decades into the game. But for now, UTE is plenty to chew on. Misc Tidbit: Whenever you see a range of top speeds, the game is showing you what your speed will be hauling the heaviest good that car can carry (slowest) compared to the lightest (fastest). Looking up the list of goods, you can figure out which end of that estimate you'll end up on for your particular good by comparing the weight of your good with the heaviest good of that type. Sorting the goods list by category I can see for example that the lightest 'perishable' item is Processed Food, while both Fresh Fish and Fresh Meat are tied for the heaviest.
Source: contains the math that justifies the UTE calculation based off formulas that were provided to me. Testing on trains in game confirms the formula to be roughly accurate (rounding due to cars not coming in fractions throws off the comparison ever so slightly). Well you get the idea. Do note: You can mix multiple lines together very easily with how Simutrans is coded. If you have truck lines delivering coal from lots of small coal mines to a single train station, the game will automatically detect if your train is delivering to a factory those coal mines sell to. The coal dropped off at your train station will be routed automatically. Alternatively, if there is no connection the game will refuse to let you ship things to that train station.
Truck: Very short trips or Long distance via public roads, limited profit volume +Using public infrastructure is free! Low fixed costs for many uses. +Cheap: It's very easy to tune your truck fleet as you get more capital since individual trucks are cheap.
It doesn't take an addition 200k to up the transport capacity of a truck line -Roads are expensive for the volume of goods they can ship if you're laying your own -Relatively higher variable costs compared to train. Around the 0.02 per km per tonne for oil, versus trains which can get as low as 0.01 per km per tonne in the early game.Low capacity: Due to unloading times and very small volume hauled per truck, it's hard to cap out high output industries like oil fields. Train: Mid distance travel +Lower variable costs +High capacity transport: For industries with high output, you can milk every cent -Higher fixed costs: Not good for short routes, or for long routes without multiple train shenanigans -Difficult to organize multiple per track, limiting ability to fine tune output without large capital investment or a lot more know-how than this guide can offer.
Proper use of signals should negate this, but I'm assuming beginners won't be casually implementing signalled track systems on their first try.
With the height levels and the enormous map sizes the game is at a point that I really dreamt of back in the day and I am immeasurable grateful to all who have got it to where it is, and the size it is; so thank you! It has actually reached the promised land! However with the enormous map sizes and enormous mountains, comes an enormous task of creating high quality scenarios. Most of the tools in there are 'hand crafting tools' rather than 'god like' tools, with a few exceptions such as the heightmap loading ability which is the life saver here. Tools like this get a scenario a long way, however the sheer scale of the map has now left a lot of the scenario editing tools a little bit overwhelmed. I spent a good portion of yesterday carving out valleys and laying rivers to discover that I have barely left a freckle on the 2,500km 2 landscape.
I'm therefore starting this discussion on a brain storm of which scenario features I believe are required to make stunning maps stunningly fast. It's quick to ask, and possibly a large task to produce some of these features however this is the direct feedback from hours of scenario editing recently and in the past, and hopefully the ideas are of value.
If features already exist I haven't found them in game, in wiki or in forum so do show me. Landscaping 1 Increase the maximum size of the 'raise' and 'lower' tools by ten times 2 An option for the 'raise' or 'lower' and 'level' tool to effect everything on the same level which is directly connected.
A large valley level is selected and clicked, the valley all raises by 1. 3 Make an option for the 'level' tool to only effect everything within x height difference of itself. Dragging through a valley will get the floor to level without flattening mountains 4 Having the 'raise' and 'lower' tool have an amount it raises or lowers on each click (e.g. 1-50) 5 Smooth out steps for world or for selected area.
6 Smooth out steps for world or for selected areas while holding onto key features (Peaks/Valleys/Water/Rivers etc.) 7 Add Roughness for world or for selected area again while holding onto key features (water/rivers/roads etc.). This adds noise to smooth areas breaks up any continuous chain of the same sprite. (Variable) 8 Add a Valleys option. Select start point and end point and it gradients a direct line between the two points. 9 Height Map Option to 'filter drops at the edges' where the gradient map doesn't match the size exactly, but it prevents the steep edging around the edge which take a huge amount of time to fix 10 Adjust Snowline after Scenario Creation Rivers/Lakes 11 Rivers - Auto bleed (Separate tool) - Clicking a 'bleeding river' creates a new river from that point downwards, same as the auto create.
12 Lakes - Auto bleed (Separate tool again) - Clicking a 'Bleed Lake' floods out like the sea tiles and flows downhill. (May require pause option) 13 Rivers - Expand/Contract Option - Clicking on an existing river or lake with this tool expands/contracts the width/diameter by +1 -1. 14 Rivers - Make 'Add rivers' as a separate option after scenario creation 15 Rivers - Have rocky+none rocky options for slopes/flat which is created by dragging over river not automatically on all slopes.
(Navigable and none Navigable river parts) 16 Rivers - When selecting a large area for water, where some of the tiles in the area are not suitable, fill the suitable tiles. 17 Rivers/Lakes - Option for filling only at 'route-tiles' hieght.
When dragging over a large area, only fill tiles at the same height as the original selection tile. 18 Rivers - Ctrl select for diagonal placement Trees 19 Trees - Have options for soft edging for 'fill area' rather than creating unnatural squares 20 Trees - Have options for Density rather than having every square in a selection filled. Hello, Wolf01 here, maybe you remember me for some really old patches or because I sit in the IRC channel since.
I'm working at some features for the scenario editor, mainly the ability to 'paint' the terrain with a brush instead of click-click-click-clicking, with the brush size adjustable (shares the same controls of the raise/lower land tools). I would like to do put there a full set of tools once I'll get rid of some problems I found working on this patch and many of the tools I want to add are suggested in this topic. Many features are really simple to draft, but everything will require a bit of work to be bug free. If you want to cheer me up while I swear.
Work at this, you can find me in the IRC channel. About landscaping I think that the 'smoothing' already covers a lot of cases, but I'll give a look on 'fill to height' to avoid touching the mountains while filling a valley, and the other way around, the ability to truncate mountains without filling a valley, it should be just a check to add in the function. Hi Wolf01, Sounds like what you have made be excellent for scenario I like to make. Been trying to make a scenario between Sydney and Newcastle Austrailia including all the suburbs to a scale of 25 squares equals 1000m as this will make it close to the scales of a train.
Passenger carriages averaged about 21 metres and a diesel locomotive around 18 metres. 2 vehicles fit in one tile, so close enough that 1 squares equals 40 meters. Hence the scale I trying to work too. Distance between towns heading westward, south of Sydney and north of Newcastle since so far apart, and 25 to 1 makes them way too far apart, work on these at a reduced scale of maybe 10 to 1. Anyway what I asking how do I add your work to OpenTTD so can benefit from what your achieved?
I don't place multi-player games. I just one of those who like to control it all.
Hope can help Cheers Garry. Wolf01: Great to see that you are addressing the issues, and writing patches for the scenario editor.
I completely agree with your point that these tools would be exclusivly for scenario editor and not for the game, as (as I refered to them as in my initial post) these are 'god like' tools, not business tools as per the game logic. If possible could someone create and.exe for this patch for the purpose of testing for the none programming types such as myself. I will happily contribute to testing and suggesting. Alternatively video and/or screen shots would open up the doors to a lot of opinions which may otherwise might not be heard if only the patch file is attached. Thanks wolf, and keep up the good work.