Boats - Whats the secret with freight

[Deadman]

Hi, been playing TF for couple of years and I have never manager to get Freight boats to work successfully.
I have a ship line going from coal mine to Ore mine, to a steel works, then on to a central depo where all my products are delivered to 5 different towns via truck or train.
It works and the boats (I have 6) collect the coal and ore delivery at steel works, then collect the steel and deliver to the depo and then onwards delivery to the towns.

The issue is the coal and ore mine have all but shut down production - 20-30. Demand is still needed at the towns.

I always seem to have issues with boats. Trains and trucks no issues.
Any tips with boats? I know they are much slower. The ship line has has been going over 10 years. Coal and ore where at 200, but now they have dropped...

[Vimpster]

What sort of frequency do you have? Also, what are you making with the steel? You aren't trying to send steel to the towns are you? They do not demand steel. Click on a town name to see what products and how much of them is demanded.

[MonkeyJack_NZ]

i always find my oil/fuel shipping lines to be super succesful. my outgoing trains can never keep up with the incoming fuel from the ships. steel chain shipping never seems to work out for me either though.

[Mr Felidae]

In my experience a line using ships will take longer to become profitable. I have both a passenger transport line between various cities and also a freight line between two coal mines. The passenger line only became profitable after ~15 years(!) with faster ships. The freight line brings coal from one coal mine to another, where coal trains haul the combined coal supply to a steel factory. The line became profitable ~10 years later while nothing changed with respect to frequency and capacity, thus in my opinion consumer(s) down the chain must somehow influenced supply that enables the freight line in making a profit.

If your ship line have less goods to transport, maybe you made a new steel production chain somewhere else which has cheaper fares and also provides steel to the same consumer(s). This will have industries prefer the raw materials to go down the cheaper chain. Sometimes people, like me, make lines that unknowingly compete with one another. Recover from this by isolating chains so they only deliver to consumers not already serviced by identical chains.

[sergetechone]

Well...I dont have any problems with my boats line. Passagers ...well...not so goods, but the cargo, it is very profitable in some case, but in some case not so much.

Here a few pictures of my North Atlantic in hard mode, no mods, just vanila....that play , I win my hard mode medals btw...

Here a list of my boats fleets...

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911297278698804005/3A1F7AED7DEB177F364050795A3059F833A6F9E4/

Here two route - Food - Brick, Food - Good.... I was trying to keep the boats loaded both way... I have the North American market, and the UK / Europe market.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911297278698807562/9992ABDDA35CD80E06F82BEA800B2708739277DF/

Here some routes for plastics, crude, fuels europian distribution lines

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911297278698806388/6D834C076DC2E4CC66F1B130F2B8687A6A7AEEF2/

Here the Woods - Plank and Iron boats lines...

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911297278698805002/A83AB4DA99E5B42AC845DE0760ADA396A6B45597/

Here a recent Food - Good boat line... Goods shippment for the North American market and Foods for the Europe market. And also some Bricks from the UK , via New York going to Europe....

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911297278698805643/A1B161F5838CDAB48AFC715CB903F5F17F3D577E/

Bear in mind, this map is Hard Mode, started in 1850, the income is just half of Easy Mode, so in easy, it would be very profitable....boats have a lower running cost, and I just add more boats to the line if more products show up at the ports. As for the demands, my cities are well above 200 , so the combine demands is ...high.... As for the trains...well in this map, not so much....thay are very high running cost, I got a lots of trucks and buses...

So the key is ...the demand...even a simple boat line will work, as long it is connect properly ( with transfer line if nessary ) , if the demand is low, sometime one boat is good enough to do the job and just to get started... and alway keep your boats fully loaded ( if possible ).... As for my boat line New York - London - Foods - Bricks , I set to "pick any
load" for both stop, so I have a constant flow of boats traffics and have a proper frequency, ...I notice it help the production and have more goods on the line...But in the begining, I set to "Full Load" to get the line stated...

[sergetechone]

The issue sometime with Steel plant, if they have to much of coal or iron, the mines productions will go down, wait until more coal or iron is needed. The Steel plant have to process the coal / iron into steels and ready for the market ( Tools / Machine and Goods Factory ) , and the cycle repeat...So increase the demands for ( Tools / Machine / Goods ) , the steels demand will increase and the coal / iron demand will increase...and expend the Tools / Machine / Goods market.

In your case, try to have a dedicated coal / iron line ( Boat set Coal AND Iron load only ) AND a dedicated steel line ( Boat set to Steel load only ), so 2 line instead of one line...
If my guess is right...

[Vimpster]

Thought I too would show some examples of boat lines doing well.

First one is on a medium difficulty map. This one includes a ferry passenger service. In both maps I have altered the calender to be 3 times slower which results in more consistent yearly earnings but does not alter the average since the game automatically makes my earnings 3 times less to compensate for 3 times as many deliveries per year.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1405605629

And this one is on hard difficulty. There are only cargo lines here.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1405605379

[sergetechone]

@Vimpster... I am impress...so your passagers boat line to be sucessfull, the frequency is the key and high populations... good tips...

[Vimpster]

Originally posted by sergetechone:

@Vimpster... I am impress...so your passagers boat line to be sucessfull, the frequency is the key and high populations... good tips...

Thankyou. And yeah, the passenger one is kinda hard in the later game when not using hovercraft because you are forced to use such high capacity ferries. Despite the cities being as large as they are (about 5k and 3k) the ferries generally only get about 100-115 out of 125 capacity. It doesn't help that it is competing with a train line as well as a direct road connection that is used by drivers. With out that competition it would likely be full both ways.

[sergetechone]

@Vimpster

hum...agree...for a river boat line, maybe an ocean to cross or a big lake, maybe a boat passager line may work well , unless it is in competition with the airline...

Passager line using boat is .... mix ...maybe profitable and not...

Cargo line...yeah... big profits ..

[Vimpster]

I have only used it once, but I think the hovercraft is much easier to make money with for passengers due to the much higher ticket price and speed. But sadly it's tiny capacity prevents much through-put of passengers.

[chrisasnyder]

What's interesting though is the hovercraft will only end up taking fast preference people, where the larger slower boats usually only take the cheap people. Might have been how my comepeting lines worked out, but it's something to consider.

[sergetechone]

As I was discusting with Vimpster using an effective passager boat line, a line to cross a big lake / ocean will be an effective line...In one of my play....Great Lakes Map ( start on easy - 1850 ) I start a boat line between Milwaukee - Grand Rapid, not sucessfull, until the hovercraft came along... and make a decent profit. Start the line in the 1950's...A you can see, an airline will be out of question...TOO CLOSE, and need the real estate to construct a future train cargo terminal. And if "the peoples" decide to take a car from Milwaukee to Grand Rapids, well ...it is going to be a long drive... But for some raison, I dont have the volume of peoples waiting at the port, may be add one more boat to the line...

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911297278703045202/9F27BF372B9E6BF13E48CE1F3811A94DE79202E3/

In this one, I just recently add a new ferry line, using hovercrafts, Both towns have only two bus on their transit line, the volume is still not there...yet...so if peoples want to drive to Sault Saint Marie or Subury, it is going to be a long drive. The line only start in the mid 1990's

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911297278703042551/12D1D6A454407175DC7A3FD210AC64B06E2BEC42/