Help with bus stops?

[nicholas]

I'm early in the game and really need some transport options for my workers but I can't figure the how the bus stops work. Seems like each depot gives you one bus line with just two stops, a starting and ending one. Is that right or is there a way to add more stops?

At the moment I've got 3 lines:
Line 1) Starts at the port and ends at a clinic/church/circus area (my citizens seems to love the damn circus...they'll literally walk for months to get to it)
Line 2) Starts near the end of line 1 and goes to the plantations/lumber mill/cigar factory.
Line 3) Goes from there to the gold/coal mine island.

I've got housing all over the place but still my workforce seems to spend more time getting around than actually working. I played Tropico 4 to death and loved it. Couldn't get through the T6 tutorial because of a bug with nonstop invaders, but the games can't be that *different. I know I'm doing something stupidly wrong but I keep losing money because none of my exports are being produced, let alone exported. What am I missing?

[Z-40]

What i do is building essential buildings near my people's workplaces such as houses, church, entertainment buildings, hospitals, restaurants and so on, so they dont spend days walking arround to get their fun, sleep and so on. I also make the tickets free and income on bus station on max so i have enough bus drivers and people who can afford a ticket. And yeah circus is a nice building for people with low income, as soon as your people are well off or higher, they stop visiting circus.

cheers

[nicholas]

Originally posted by Z-40:

What i do is building essential buildings near my people's workplaces such as houses, church, entertainment buildings, hospitals, restaurants and so on, so they dont spend days walking arround to get their fun, sleep and so on. I also make the tickets free and income on bus station on max so i have enough bus drivers and people who can afford a ticket. And yeah circus is a nice building for people with low income, as soon as your people are well off or higher, they stop visiting circus.

cheers

Thanks, this helped. I was spreading myself too thin...trying to harvest resources from all over the map instead of focusing on a particular area. Now I've got a decent income I can expand more slowly. Busses are still useful for the odd remote mine but, yeah, even when they're free and fully funded they're not efficient at getting workers all over the map.

[Z-40]

Yes i realized this after dozens of hours that you should give them a reason to stay near their workplace. Yeah the parking deck combined with the free wheel edict is nice too but only if you have enough money but if you have too much parking decks compared to the bus station, too many people will drive arround and block your trucks with goods, thats the only negative thing to keep in mind.

cheers

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Yeah this is pretty much what I'm trying to figure out if a citizen needs to get to point C can the AI figure out to take a chain of bus transfers across the map? To get to spot D can the citizen take bus A to stop B, take B which goes to C, and then catch the transfer to D? And how does this work with parking garages? I am unsure of their pathing

[Thebadgamer98]

Originally posted by Red Star, Blood Moon:

can the AI figure out to take a chain of bus transfers across the map?

Yes, citizens will transfer from bus to bus to reach their final destination.

[Sgt.Ray]

Your citizens can go to and fro from the stops so it isn't just one way. The AI is smart enough to hop bus to bus so you can chain them. I have 3 bus routes that meet in the middle from East, South and West (North is useless mountains) and everyone chain rides around the island. Also a good idea to place your stops where your teamster port is linking the other islands too. Even though the description on the garage says only rich can drive cars I've seen well-off wealth people driving around and no im not using the edict.