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This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important 
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-paper in Augusta +59%
-electronics in Boston +59% (with toys unlocking 1 lvl earlier for 19%)
-plastics in NYC +39%
-plastics in Indy +39%
-plastics in NO +39%
-paper in Charlotte +59%
In Augusta and Charlotte, you only need 5 reputation to unlock these (BLS), which is very easy to get. Miami is close to Charlotte and you got +59% electronics there. NO is not far with 39% plastics.
Taking a few minutes to learn how these work and how to unlock them for better payouts is worth it.
Unlocking paper early will really kickstart you.
Dont rush to unlock furniture in Augusta. You can rush papers, get tons of money while unlocking the other good stuff I mentionned, then simply drop marketing on Augusta and blitz furniture.
You'll have so much more money you wont even know what to do with it. You can make 150k+ profit per week in your 6th week or so in campaign if you're aggressive.
And also, you can use the "Here" tab when checking contracts GOING to a city. This allows you to filter more easily what you're looking for.
A example of how to use this would be: you wanna unlock electronics in Boston. Go in Boston, go in "here" and check from which city you can get a contract that would send supplies to give you reputation in Boston for electronics. Then, you simply arrange something to go in the city you need and then go to Boston from there.
I've used that to unlock electronics in Boston using trips from Pittsburg on loops either going from Aug-Pitts-Bos or when contracts available werent as good, things like Aug-Det-Ind-Pitts-Bos.
You can look for 3 trips per contract for example with 3 trucks gonig at the very same time. It makes no management and will bring in the cash quickly.
If Pitts to Boston for electronics is a 4 trips contract, you can either do 2 times 2 trucks loops or a loop using 4 trucks at once to keep it simple.
You can use a loop of 3 and then a loop of 1 for a 4 tripper when you get the hang of things.
Having 50 trucks is the same as 4. You just need to get trucks in groups, simple.
You'll also notice toys and electronics in Boston unlock with the same spot. This means while working to unlock electronics, you'll unlock toys and their 19% bonus. Not a bad deal while working your way to electronics.
Also, when looking at a contract, you can see how much reputation that contract will give you, to which cities and also which mill specifically. You have that info at the top when looking at contracts. It's the thing to use when trying to unlock these bonuses.
Wow that is a pretty extensive guide :) Thank you for the tips for the new players. If you want to you can actually write such a guide in the "guide" section here on the steam page. So that players which are looking for it find you even faster!
It is definitely highly appreciated by us!
About a bigger guide, we'll see. I just took a few minutes and wrote some stuff. I've noticed a lot of people are having issues either starting out, making money or both. I've noticed that on this forum and also on youtube. Figured some might be looking for pointers as there arent any good english videos on youtube, for example. I havent checked the german ones so I dont know about those. The amount of empty trips on those youtube videos is disgusting, hehe.
A lot of those vids have people blaming it on game mechanics when it has nothing to do with that. Its a management game, you should have management stuff to do. Otherwise, go play Super Mario ;)
Btw, while I got you on the line, gotta say it's been nice seeing the updates coming 1 after the other. I could name some companies that arent as quick on their feet, lets just say ;)
Most annoying bug for me is this tho: a truck skipping a contract in a schedule to jump to the next one, therefore messing up the trips as well as creating an empty trip.
Using 5 trucks doing these, I accepted:
NY to Chi, 15 trips
Pitts to NY, 15 trips
Then, CHI to Pitts, 5 trips
This would make for easy money with 3 loops using those 5 trucks.
Problem is, as the trucks reached Chi from NY, the 5th truck skipped the Chi-Pitts contract and went straight to the NY-Chi one. I caught it before he moved out of Chi. I manually reselected it and placed it on Chi-Pitts, which had 4/5 trucks on it already. This was the 5th.
He was in the Chi-Pits contract for a second or 2, then skipped to Pitts-NY again. I took the Pitts-NY contract out and reselected him to the right contract. He skipped to NY-Chi this time.
If only leave Chi to Pitts contract in the schedule, he acts like he's doing the trip correctly but as he unloads, his trip doesnt count, it remains 4/5.
I loaded a savegame from a few minutes before and then reselected the contract Chi-Pits again (same one I had an issue with) and it works correctly now.
Gotta admit, this bug creeps up every now and then and it irritates the hell out of my ocd ;)
I think those few minutes and the stuff it produced could very well already function as a small guide :)
Regarding this issue...
Could you maybe send us your logfile the next time the issue arises for you? That would be grand and help us in reproducing this issue.
Btw, got some ideas regarding pick ups/drops:
-Any chance pick up/drops end up being paid to drivers? Aka, 25$ for every drop or pick up for a driver. Another driver could ask for 10, another 50. Top ones could ask for 100$.
I know in RL, this happens when we're talking LTL, but it could be implemented in this game, even if this game uses FTL only.
Which brings me to my next idea: any chance we'll see LTL implemented? Now, that'd add depth and management :)
Also, could add a rating to drivers about how fast/slow they are with the pick ups/drops. I do understand in RL, it has more to do with the supplier/receiver but in-game, this could be implemented.
If early on, you wanna go for 30 cents mile drivers, they'd be slow to pick up/drop for example. If you wanna go cheap on the workforce, you get less quality :)
I'd also like to see a laziness rating (prone to being late compared to guys who are always on time) that's just me ;)
In RL, a lot of guys being late are always the same guys. You have guys in the same compagny who are never late while others are always late and then complain about traffic, same traffic their colleagues have to deal with.
This'd add a bit to the game :)
Oh, and btw, you guys think this would be feasible: you know, when you click on a town to see the loads available, it'd be awesome of you'd have hotkeys for cities, so it'd scroll down the list to cities with that hotkey.
I'd guess this'd be feasible as this'd mean you'd have to disable other hotkeys and simply map new ones while you're looking for loads for any given city.
For example, pressing "P" while checking the loads leaving Augusta would quickly show you whats going to Pittsburgh. Pressing multiple times on "P" would go throw all the Pittsburgh loads only, showing you the ones leaving Augusta with mail, then BLS and then La Décoration.
This'd speed up the search for loads going to a given city.
Also, any chance the contracts available prior to selecting them could also show how much % per miles driven this actually represent.
This would be useful when you have a 15 trips contract: you'd see how much profit per mile driver on each trip but also the completion bonus show show how much money it actually represents per mile driven. For completion bonus, that value would be the total miles driven for 15 trips that you'd divide from completion bonus.
We can calculate these mentally, but it can be a chore ;)
As you know, $ per mile driven is the base of transport. This'd speed up the process when selecting contracts.
Also, having visible counters on the map for when the sellers will be restocking would be handy, so we dont have to individually check them.
I got a saved file that has a contract thats messed up like I described above, just sent it.
Also, just noticed I have a max of 8 trucks/trailers. I have 8 trucks, yet 9 trailers. I wish you could do trains in this game ^^
Thank you for this Guide, have done like tou say here, and I am making money. But are having problems unlocking BLS in Augusta early.
There are almost nothing going to BLS from anywhere, and when it happend only to small contracts from Montpelier. Do you do anything special to get loads to BLS (or to Emerald El. in Boston?
Go in Aug, click "here" and see from which city you can do loads that will help BLS. Then, figure out a very profitable way to get to that city to then do this contract.
At the start, you cant do miracle about those. You dont have as many options, contracts wise, as you do later on. You cant be too greedy ;)
If you can't do BLS stuff, focus on supplies stuff. They normally have nice bonus for the amount of trips required.
If BLS isnt available, check for other Drybox stuff, then check for Reefer stuff. Thats right, reefer, even tho you dont have reefer yet. Working to unlock those bonuses while doing drybox bonus stuff is great for down the road. It means that as you get to reefer, your profits are gonna explode as you'll have a lot of high paying contracts available on the spot.
When I get to reefer, I often stick 5-10 trucks between Miami and NO. Very profitable route for reefer.
I see that a Truck with 500HP is much faster than a truck with smaller engine. Can't pair them together without the one getting far ahead of the other when doing 2 trips contracts from town to town. Trying to match 2 with the same engine. Only tried 2 axles.
When do you switch too 3 axles trucks and does the speed change alot on Dry van trailers then?
As for engines, I do pair them together regardless of engines. You then start to get slower trucks falling behind. What you can do is use the intra-cities trading to bunch them up, aka slowing the faster trucks, or simply manage it more. I do a lot of shuffling of contracts when this arises instead of using intra-cities contracts. It takes more time and management but its more profitable.
Early on, you'll have disparities between trucks engines. As you grow, you can start grouping them by engines until all your fleet has good engines.
Remember: if you got some money and you're just waiting to buy that truck with a top engine and you wait and wait, you'll lose much more money than if you were to use that cash to get a slower engine truck right away.
While slower trucks are slower, they are still very profitable. The fact they are cheaper compensate for that to a degree. Not totally, of course.
Only thing I'd avoid to buy is things that arent good investments long term, like getting a new truck with low mpg. Avoid low mpg in new trucks and try to aim for the minimal amount of weekly cost you can get for each type of trucks, aka 2k weekly cost for a new 2 axles truck.
I'll get a 2k weekly cost used truck no problem if it has 30k+ maintenance and good mpg. It just means I'll sell it when its due maintenance and the cost of an extra K a week wont be dramatic for the time being. This'll be offset anyway by the cheaper price you'll have paid to buy it.
However, if you get a new truck, this means you plan on keeping it. The extra K a week of 52k a year. If you can, avoid those extra cost. Same is true for other axles trucks.
They'll still be profitable, just not as profitable.
Not sure if this awnsers your question.
You should write all this down in a Guide to help new players. I had problems when I first started this game. Am now on the 4. restart.