Manual servicing

[ibanez074]

So if i choose to manual service it costs $15000, or if i just pay at the validator its $13000?

[Glendathu]

it depends how high your copay is and how high your service costs. In the beginning the validator is cheaper, but as you get more Licences and your copay rises, at one point manual service is cheaper. This helps to earn some money in the beginning of the game !

[ibanez074]

Great thanks!

[schutt]

If your remaining copay to trigger the insurance to pay evrything is 13000 and the fee of your locomotive is ~33000 that is correct: Manual service cost halve the "fee" but does not cover the environmental costs, once copay is reched on the machine it pays all outstanding fees, including All locomotives.

The confusing thing is that insurance (copay) does not only cover damages but also running costs, i think it would be much more understandable if you have to pay running costs by yourself and only the damage is coeverd by insurance.
But since wheel damage and mechanical/electrical damage are partially damage and partially running costs that is eaven more confusing.

[ibanez074]

Yes I think my issue is I've not really read into what or how copay works yet as I've just jumped straight in..

[Adie]

I'm not sure if it's an American term, but the copay system seems a lot like what we call an excess for insurance in UK.

[Namdaets]

Copay is the amount of money you have to pay before insurance covers any remaining fees. The max copay amount starts low, making the early game more forgiving if you make mistakes, but increases dramatically as you obtain more licenses, meaning you need to keep more cash on hand in the event of a serious railroad disaster.

Did you toast the DE2's traction motors shunting heavy loads and now owe $10,000 in fees, but you only have $2,000 in your wallet? Don't worry, your insurance only needs you to clear your copay amount and then they will cover the rest. In the beginning of career mode, your copay is only like $100, meaning you need to pay $100 out of your wallet and then the remaining $9,900 in fees is paid by insurance.

For a mid/late game example: Did you crash a hazmat train and cause irreversible environmental damage and now owe $10,000,000 in fees, but you only have a measly $300,000 saved up in your wallet? No worries, since your max copay is $250,000, you just need to pay up to $250,000 and the remaining $9,750,000 in fees will disappear like magic.

Any time you pay fees or perform maintenance (someone please fact-check me if manual service contributes to your copay amount; I think it does but could be wrong) it reduces your current copay amount, so you generally won't owe the max copay amount for every incident. It's possible that over time, doing maintenance and paying emissions fees, you crash your $10,000,000 train but only owe $1,000 since you've been paying towards your copay up until this moment. You can check your current copay status from the terminal at any station office on the "stats" screen.

Keeping cash on hand equal to or exceeding your currently owed copay amount is a good rule of thumb to prevent total bankruptcy. If you don't have enough money to clear fees or meet your copay amount in the event of a serious, costly disaster, you're kinda screwed and have to revert back to shunting jobs only, I believe, until you can clear your copay and reduce your fees so you can take better-paying jobs.

[ibanez074]

Thanks for all the info!
Yeah I understand that and yes in the UK it's called excess. What I don't understand is why at any stage in the career copay would be more than manual service? Is it because copay covers damage and servicing costs so my figure of £15000 included repairs as well as servicing?
I'll need to have a proper read of that stats screen.

[Namdaets]

Originally posted by ibanez074:

...What I don't understand is why at any stage in the career copay would be more than manual service? Is it because copay covers damage and servicing costs so my figure of £15000 included repairs as well as servicing?
I'll need to have a proper read of that stats screen.

Both manual service and paying the fees at the station kiosk cover the same repairs/maintenance (minus environmental fees, which have to be paid at the kiosk). Manual service is cheaper per repair unit than paying at the kiosk, but requires, well... manual service vs. the instant repairs from paying at the kiosk. If you pay at the kiosk, you are spending more money on repairs (maybe like 20% more?) than if you did it manually.

If the manual service ends up costing more total than what you'd have to pay in fees at the kiosk, my guess is your remaining copay was $12k (since this is what you owed at the kiosk), but the total in actual repairs was about $15k. My theory (I don't know for a fact this is how it works) is that if you paid $15k in manual service, your $12k copay would be cleared and the excess $3k you paid out of hand for manual service is applied to your next copay amount (which would have reset to max as soon as you paid off the remaining $12k).

If the remaining copay is more expensive than the total manual service cost (i.e. remaining copay = $20k, manual service fees = $15k), it shows that manual service is in fact cheaper than paying the fees at the kiosk, and if you do pay $15k to manually repair, your copay is reduced from $20k to $5k for next time.

[ibanez074]

Ah yes I think I understand that lol thank you