Reflections on version 1.06 cargo flows and economy

This is intended to serve as an initiative for more thorough contributions and proposals towards balanced and reasonably credible economies

Some of these are more or less anticipated in the TRAINMASTER edition under slightly different philosophies, yet it is feasible to improve things for version 1.06 as well.

Cargo flows

1. The biodiesel issue has already been covered in this intervention
2. Meat packing should also produce a quantity of "wool", usable by the clothing industry, to represent the skinning of slaughtered animals for this purpose, maybe 1 load for each 6 loads of meat produced. This ratio is a first rough guess, we are open for discussion on this matter. The associated "tannery" could be considered to be adjacent to either the slaughterhouse or the clothing industry, it makes no practical difference.

   This matter is partly addressed in the "TrainMaster" variant through the "hides" concept. However hides' and tanneries' treatment as separate entities may be adding unnecessary complexity to the transport flow. I'll probably delete them from the TrainMaster versions of my scenarios too.

3. In this context, the various animal farms can be consolidated into one kind, which will produce simultaneously wool, livestock and milk (maybe differentiating the ratios between various farm types if desired). Sheep milk and meat is popular too!
4. Recycling plants might more realistically be producing more of an equivalent of pulpwood than paper, since I think their output has to be processed in a paper mill before reaching the end user, right?
5. Barracks could convert passengers to troops (or maybe 3 passengers to 2troops+1passenger to account for failed recruits).

Commodity structure and interaction

Some commodities seem too generic and in need of being separated into more sorts and some others seem unnecessarily fragmented and could be consolidated. Generally, I am in favour of consolidating, which helps cargo flowing more smoothly and leaves free slots for other, neglected commodities.

1. Such a case constitutes by all means the questionable discrimination between corn and grain. Corn can be renamed into "Cereals" and accepted for all uses of both corn and grain for bakeries, animal farms, biodiesel and alcohol production. The slot of "grain" will thus be released for something more substantial.
2. "Autos" may or may be not split into family autos and heavy road vehicles (both produced by basically the same firms). They are addressed to totally different users however. The former are needed by households while the latter are required by almost all other enterprises, even schools will require buses. Of course this could be logistically approximated through the definition of required quantities by the various users without splitting this category. Each auto load could be represented by a couple of wagons carrying automobiles, buses and lorries regardless of the split.
3. Instead of plywood, I would propose hardboard as artificial lumber made exclusively out of pulpwood.
4. "Goods" as a term by itself sounds quite vague. In the out-of-the-box distribution of RR Tycoon, their manufacturing from metal or plastic by "tool & die" plants and their conveyance in containers gives a hint about what the original creators had in mind. In this context, perhaps the "Cereal Company" producing a comparable sort of "goods" may be a flawed idea (although its creator does provide an explanation). Practically, I see negligible differences between bakeries and the "Cereal Company", and it may be a better idea to utilise the superb building 3D model of the latter for something radically different, that will make a worthwhile breakthrough in the production cycle. As for the "Goods", perhaps they should be referred to as "hardware" to become better specified.
   Anyway, there are further issues with these "goods" production cycles. First of all, these goods are treated as equivalent, regardless whether made of plastic, aluminum or steel. This doesn't seem right. Let's have a look at aluminium production: It is a far cry from the "Tycoon" model, that converts a load of bauxite to a load of aluminium and thence to a load of "goods". Input and output of alumina mills might have to be adjusted to reflect this situation more accurately, maybe 4 loads of bauxite + ½ chemicals for each aluminium load (perhaps boosting it whenever mapwide electricity production exceeds a certain limit, since power demands for aluminium production are colossal). The values involved make it clear that it works incorrectly to put on a par "goods" made of plastic, aluminium & steel. I see 2 ways of differentiating them: either make each aluminium load produce:
   • -more goods, like 1 aluminium load for 4 "Goods", or
   • -a more valuable sort of goods. There was already a proposal to rename toys to something like luxuries and alter its production and consumption details accordingly, which I find especially attractive. Or perhaps
   • -a combination of both, for example 1 aluminium load for 2 "luxuries"+1 Goods.
   To determine the ratios more definitively, we may have to take a look at the actual profit margins achieved by the real-world industries involved in the above
5. On the nature of various food stuff: There has been much discussion in the forum. In my opinion, fish can be assimilated with meat for quite good reasons. After some thoughts I'd call it "Perishable food". Both require refrigerated transport and must be consumed either fresh or after being processed into something more durable (i.e. in a cannery or something). They cannot be assimilated with fruit, since the latter is used for alcohol and sugar production. The main reason is to add ports as a major source of this commodity, since the sea actually provides mankind with immense quantities of food, and this should not be left out of the production chain of the Tycoon.
   So far, we have left an unused slot after eliminating the corn/grain diversification. My proposal is to fill it with the remaining uncovered commodity mentioned above, namely the non-refrigerated, longer-lasting processed food, ranging from canned food to flour products. It would be produced by an assortment of industries from all kinds of raw food plus packaging materials (plastic, steel, aluminium and paper).
6. Industries are ignored in the original configuration as passenger traffic sources. As if commuting to work were exclusively a matter of private or corporate transport. Probably something we must change too.

New proposed traffic sources

Recreational Parks (also a cosmetic improvement for greener cities), Park&Ride facilities, Airports

Submitted by Nick Sbarounis

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Observation: The whole discussion draws our attention to a serious drawback of Railroad Tycoon. The railroad pockets the price difference of a cargo between origin and destination, as if the railroad were the merchant itself. In reality, railroads have specific tariffs for each transport, regardless of the sales profit of the cargo. It is understandable that it would be more complicated for the software to make the split. For example, if coal is collected from several mines along a route and then delivered to various consumers further down the line, instead of the surplus being distributed to the mine owners, it stays in the railroad's treasury! Such a thing is valid only when the railroad itself happens to be the owner of the resources.
A relevant simplification of the program is that any seeded industry (and actually everything else outside a company's explicit property) has a very vague ownership status. If it is buyable by definition, nobody can deny selling it to the first company that will offer to pay the price! And the sum paid for its purchase simply vanishes from the session, it is not visibly utilised by the seller whatsoever.

In a more realistic algorithm, the sales profit would be deducted from the railroad's treasury leaving there only the deserved transport fee.

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