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Once you understand how to make money in OTTD, the game essentially becomes about copying money, leaving the player with the challenge of only preventing stagnation. Simutrans, in contrast, has excessively high maintenance costs compared to OTTD, making it difficult to turn a profit without using a calculator to some extent.
(Below is based on the Standard-128 Pack)
First, I recommend transporting coal to a thermal power plant. Even if the route is quite short (around 50 tiles), it is possible to make a profit. Coal and oil have a 0% speed bonus, meaning that no matter how slowly they are transported, the transportation fee per distance traveled remains the same. Therefore, using slow routes (which have lower maintenance costs) and slow vehicles (also with lower maintenance costs) can yield steady profits. Overcome any shortage in transportation capacity by increasing the number of vehicles.
You can also use trains. Since we are transporting coal/oil, use the slowest train with maximum output and configure it to be as long as possible (I recommend a 9-tile length) for round trips. This should generate enough income to start in the early stages.
Connect the power plant and coal mine with power lines to increase the coal mine's production. Then, expand the single-track railway to a double track to handle the increased production (but only do so when there is sufficient transport volume, as premature expansion to double tracks could result in high maintenance costs!).
Maintenance costs for railways and roads are not to be underestimated. In the case of the Standard-128 Pack (which is the standard gameplay), the annual maintenance cost for railways is equal to the cost of the railway itself! Therefore, it is better not to build railways unless absolutely necessary. Stick to slow routes and upgrade the rails only when needed.
The fact that all passengers and mail have specific destinations makes the game very interesting. Unfortunately, OTTD's CARGODIST does not work as reasonably as Simutrans. In OTTD, users can drop passengers off anywhere regardless of their intended destination. The logic for generating passengers at stations is solely based on the station's rating. This means that a company that frequently arrives in New York City can kidnap(!) all New York citizens and drop(!) them in a far-off small town, making a lot of money in the process. However, this is hard for me to accept.
Simutrans' destination system for passengers makes the game very challenging, but the UI is not very polished, and you cannot see where the passengers originate from, making gameplay ambiguous and difficult. (You can see where citizens of a city want to go by clicking on the city hall on the minimap and using the DESTINATION legend, but you can't see where each journey starts...) You will find that Simutrans' destination system is very logical and enhances the game's completeness only after setting up city buses, a terminal system, long-distance intercity trains, and intercity bus lines connecting small towns at the terminus. This presents an excessive challenge for beginners since you need to know how to turn a profit to reach this stage.
To summarize, my opinion is as follows:
OTTD is closer to a sandbox game where you have the powerful ability to freely design routes and control the flow rather than focusing on the economy. Dominate the world!
Simutrans is like a puzzle game where you thoroughly analyze the given environment to find profitable lines. Survive and adapt!
Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but I'm fairly certain you can make and manage a 'line' with the 'Line Management' tool, you can edit the stops and you can add vehicles to that line.
I also had bunch ups due to the stops being road-based. I think I fixed it by building some station buildings/terminals for more 'parking' to avoid the bunches but I also had to tweak the stop point.
Simutrans - I'm so stupid. I cannot make money at all.
So far Cities Skylines is more balanced in engaging and economic challenges as for me.
But it’s not exactly a transport tycoon game.
Simutrans is for real economic transport simulator players: You will always look for how to not loose money. You always have to optimise your network transport Cap, buildings,...
I play Simutrans (and Extended) for years and always tend to have 45-60% margin from 19th to 21th century. It takes a lot of network sharing and a big PAX network to get ROI.
Tracks costs so much that you need them having trains pass as often you can. (the more speed the much more costly) (bridges and tunnels are 10-20x more costly). Goods have destinations and tend to be overproduced, but consumers only take as much as they need (and store) (noobs just spam trains because supply is overcrowing the station, which stops as soon as the storage of consumer is full).
People have RND destination across whole map, so only after connecting a lot of towns (and having every townbuilding connected too), you will see enough PAX that your Bus network is too small and only then thinking about trains.
In Simutrans your profit is a lot smaller than the price of the vehicles. For Trucks that could be 2-10y and for trains that could be 40y until paid off.
Vehicles often only have driving cost ($ per km), so you have to make them drive full, else you loose alot.
In OpenTDD your Profit of one single "Coal" Route is as much as the Train costs. And you are soft/hard capped on transport vehicle count, whereas in simutrans you are not and can make use of 1000x and more tile maps.
I offer you to look into your dilemma, I prefer if you send the map at start and you dilemma state, so i can look into your mistakes and give you a better solution if it's already to late.