Why are steamships worth the cost?

[pat]

I built a steam shipyard to get an oil tanker. The cargo ship looks inviting with its 6 cargo slots. But the cost! OMG. The construction materials are pretty high, but the maintenance cost is 500. The maintenance cost for the 4-slot clipper is 175. So three clippers (with a total of 12 cargo bays) will have a maintenance fee of only barely more than one steam cargo ship, and the building cost will be FAR less.

So what am I missing? Are these purely for late game when you've amassed millions and can't fit any more steam engines in the warehouse?

[MFH]

Well, from the top of my head:
A clipper costs 3 Influence, whilst the cargo ship costs 4 - and from my experience you a really starved for Influence in this game... Sure a cargo ship has more upkeep then a clipper, but that doesn't really matter in late games...
Steamships have fixed speed whereas sailing ships are really dependent on wind - giving them the option to be way faster then the cargo ship but may also have them reduced to snails pace. The determinism of steam ships IMHO really pays of for inter-continent transfers.

[JayY653]

-influence
-unload/load time (6 slots and 4 slots take the same amount of time -> less ships queing up)
-fixed speed

but yeah i dont replace every clipper with a steam ship, just where it's nessecary.

[Chompman]

You really don't worry about maintenance costs on ships like this as much by the time you can build them usually.

Steam cargo ships are nice because of the no wind issues and 6 cargo spots plus 2 ship item space to increase their speed even more usually.

Not to mention this will mean less ships traveling around thus less port traffic and this can be an issue as you get multiple islands and start shipping a lot of goods around.

You could keep a few clippers for smaller trade routes if you want but eventually most will be switched over to steam cargo ships.

[Ebin398]

Yes they're worth it. The clipper doesn't bring rum and coffee from the new world quickly enough.

[pat]

Ok, this sounds like something for much later in the game than I am now.

[Tankfriend]

I'm currently building my Great Exhibition, and at this point, I've replaced most of my clippers with steamers. Money and ressources are usually not an issue at this stage, but maintaining a huge population base is. Steamers are simply more reliable because they don't care about wind, and they carry more load per loading/unloading cycle than a clipper. And as far as I can tell, steamers are noticeably better for moving between old and new world.

[_fantail_]

Originally posted by Ebin398:

Yes they're worth it. The clipper doesn't bring rum and coffee from the new world quickly enough.

This. Plus pick up one of the prop speed items from Blake.

[ssitjf]

how do i get electricity to my shipyard i have power station and powerlines but the shipyard still says no electricity

[BigRockWall]

Originally posted by ssitjf:

how do i get electricity to my shipyard i have power station and powerlines but the shipyard still says no electricity

Click on the power plant and look at the green lines on your roads. Make sure that the green actually reaches the shipyard and doesnt stop just short of it. Additionally make sure your power plant has oil supplied to it via tracks. The train has to physically travel there to deliver oil, so efficiency of track layout matters. As in, its best to have 2 lines side by side running the entire distance from oil harbor to power plant. Hope this helps.

[BigRockWall]

To the OP. If you set up a massive soap production line very early game and get a trade route set up to sell soap to the prison, money problems very quickly become a thing of the past. And I'm not speaking late game at all. First Island with workers is all you need to get it rolling.

The upkeep cost on the cargo ships is thus made irrelevant, as you can have this all in place long before you get access to steam motors.