In the previous two lessons, we got acquainted with the game OpenTTD and its road transport. Let’s continue learning about this wonderful game.

When there was no internet yet, my brother and I played through a local network. For a long time, I ignored ships, because for me this game was all about trains :)

But my brother used ships to transport oil. Recently, I also started using ships — I transport oil too.

Let’s see what kinds of ships there are here.
For this, there is a special toolbar — let’s take a look at it.

1 – Building a canal. It’s not necessary to lower the land on a large area; you can dig a canal instead.
2 – Building a lock (on a slope or incline). It allows ships to go up or down between water levels.
3 – The well-known demolish tool to remove anything built incorrectly.
4 – Ship depot. Here you buy ships, and they also come here for maintenance.
5 – Building a dock (similar to bus or truck stations).
6 – Place a buoy (a route waypoint).
7 – Aqueduct. Similar to locks, but used for short sections or small height differences at the ends.

Last time, we transported passengers and mail. Some players have already carried oil using tank trucks — now let’s transport oil by ships.

Oil wells can be found both at sea and on land.
I found an oil rig on the sea — point A, and an oil refinery — point B.

It’s impossible to transport directly from point A to point B. Point A is in the sea, while the refinery is on land, and the dock we built does not reach the refinery with its purple coverage area squares.

There are four ways to do this:

• pic1 – lower the land by changing the terrain.
• pic2 – dig a canal to the oil refinery.
• pic3 – raise the land and build a road to the oil refinery.
• pic4 – transit transfer.

And if the first three methods are obvious to you, I think you would easily guess how to do them.

	pic1 Simply lower the land
	pic2 Dig canals and locks
	pic3 зробити насип і провести дорогу
	pic4 I will show the fourth method — transit

🛳️ Transit Transfer✨

Transit means we will build a dock at point C, temporarily unload oil from A to C, and then use trucks to transport it from C to point B (the oil refinery).

You don’t need to build anything on the oil platform — it is already a station. (To select it, click on the base of the support.)

At point C, I am building a dock.

Note that the station accepts nothing and supplies nothing.

Accepts:	Nothing
Supplies:	Nothing

Somewhere in the middle, we build a ship depot.

Next, I clicked on the dock, selected New Ships, and chose the second ship. Note the year — it is already 1969 in my game, so this ship is available. You might not have it yet. Also, notice its capacity: 350K liters compared to 220K for the previous ship. I also opened the production window of the oil platform (it also accepts passengers).

I buy the ship and close the remaining windows.

I set up the route (task list) as before:

• Click the orange arrow on the right side of Ship №1’s window.
• Then select the oil platform (point 1).
• Next, select the dock built on the shore (point 2).

It seems fine, but the ship will carry oil from the platform to the dock, and back from the dock to the oil platform — however, when we built the dock, we saw that it accepts nothing and supplies nothing. The ship will take oil from the platform, but it will not unload it at a station that doesn’t accept oil.

So we need to change the second task:

• Goto … oil platform (point 1)
• Goto Dock built on the shore (point 2)

Select the second task with the mouse — it will highlight in white — and click the Unload All button. The ship will unload the oil at the dock, even if the station does not accept this cargo type. The oil will stay there until someone picks it up. If no one takes it for a long time, it will gradually disappear.

Now I select the first task and set Full Load so that the ship does not sail empty but waits at the platform until it is fully loaded.

That’s it — we are now transporting oil from point A to point C.

Now let’s build a regular road and use tanker trucks to take the oil and deliver it to the oil refinery.

But if you build a truck station the same way as before, it won’t work. It will be a station that never has any oil. The dock and my truck station are two different stations. We need to connect them.

When placing the new station, hold CTRL — a green window will appear asking which existing station you want to attach it to. Stations can be linked even if they are a few tiles apart. If the stations share a common edge, they will connect automatically. A diagonal touch also connects them.

Notice that these are two different stations: I renamed the dock to “C”, and it has only the ship icon, while the truck station has only the vehicle symbol and its own separate name.

As you can see here, the stations are not separated — this is one single station that serves both trucks and ships.
This means ships can deliver cargo and transfer it directly to the trucks.
Since there will be many trucks (and they are less efficient than ships), I built three truck stations.
I repeat — all of them are part of one single station.

To make the station a single one, you need to either build it directly next to the other part or hold CTRL while placing it.

Now I’ll place a depot and buy one tanker truck to start with, which I will later clone.

Reminder — I click the yellow arrow, select one station with the mouse, then the other — GO.
I forgot to tell the truck to wait for a Full Load at point C.

The ship has delivered the oil, but that’s not profit yet — the floating yellow number shows the oil’s current value.

Profit will be earned when the oil reaches the refinery.

On the left, I noticed another offshore oil platform, though I haven’t checked its production. Of course, it’s best to look for and choose the most productive ones.
But I don’t care about that right now. Also, to save money (which is limited at the start of the game), I will send the same Ship №1 to the second platform instead of buying a new one.
So the orders will be:

• Right platform
• Dock
• Left platform
• Dock

In this mode, you might not need to wait for a Full Load — that’s up to you. If both platforms were on the same side of the dock, I would unload at the dock only once.
That is:

• First platform
• Second platform
• Dock
  

Buoys✨

But the left platform is far away, and the ship might get lost or confused and not find its way. Of course, it won’t get lost here, but I want to explain buoys.

A buoy is simply a checkpoint on a route. You can place a buoy in the sea and direct ships to it, just like a station.

So I placed three buoys on the map and now change the route:

• Right platform
• Dock
• Left platform
• Dock

I arranged them differently and, for simplicity, named them 1, 2, 3.

I select the ship with the mouse and click the orange task arrow. On the first task, I remove Full Load — I expect that while the ship goes to the right, the left platform will fill, and then while going to the left, the right platform will fill.
Then I place the cursor on End of Orders so new tasks are added to the end of the list.

And I set the route as: Buoy1, Buoy2, Buoy3, second platform, dock.

After some time, for example after the ship has visited the platforms two or three times, I will check the cargo levels at these platforms (stations).
Is one ship enough?
Are two trucks enough?

Increasing the Number of Vehicles✨

I think I need to clone the ship, so the new one will have the same orders.
But the tank trucks are outdated. I saw a message that new models appeared — technical progress doesn’t stand still — it’s already 1974 😊

So I will buy a couple of new ones and copy the orders from the old tank trucks. The orders have only two points, so it’s not difficult — just click twice manually to set the stations.

Auto31 is old, Auto33 is new.

The differences between them can be seen in the image. The new truck doesn’t carry much more oil — 25K versus 21K — but it drives almost twice as fast: 88 km/h compared to 48 km/h. That means it is nearly twice as productive. By the way, you can sell the old truck, but since it is aged, it is worth much less than a new one.

Cargo Flow ✨

While I was preparing this lesson for you, the stations became overloaded. You can see that grain and livestock at the farm are 100% full, the cities are growing, and bus stops are crowded.
We need to buy more vehicles.

As the number of vehicles grows, we need a way to control everything.
On the world map, there is a Cargo Flow mode that shows traffic congestion.

But even for a transport game like this, I still don’t have enough vehicles 😄

You can even enable the Cargo mode on the main map.

To guide the city’s expansion, I extended a road (yellow lines), but it’s not guaranteed that the city will actually grow in that direction 😁

I built three stops and bought two buses for them. I also placed a depot nearby, since vehicles occasionally visit it for maintenance.

I will probably move the office from the city center to the other side of the river.

I will buy another ship — a passenger ship — and maybe one more later.

A Little More About Stations✨

Covers few buildings – there will be few passengers	Covers more buildings – there will be more passengers

These are not three different stations — this is ONE SINGLE station, and I want to attach a fourth part.
When building a station, I hold CTRL, so it will not create a separate independent station but will just extend the existing station.
If you had built four separate independent stations, you would need to manage a schedule/route for each one.

✨✨HOMEWORK✨✨

Complete the tasks and describe what you did. The more text and images, the better — but don’t go to extremes. Very little or very much is not good. Task 2 will give 4 points, the other tasks 2 points each.

1. ✨Continue your previous game or start a new one.
   Show the balance at the start of the game.
   Find two cities near the coast.
   Build docks in these two cities: Doc1 and Doc2.
   Build a ship depot and buy a ship for transporting passengers.
   Transport passengers between the chosen cities.

2. ✨Find a resource (Station1) and a factory (Station3) that cannot be connected directly, because one point is on water and the other on land.
   You can also choose a city on the coast (Station1) and a city inland (Station3).
   Build an intermediate station anywhere (Station2) — it will not accept or supply anything.
   Create a transit: Station1 ⇒ Station2 and Station2 ⇒ Station3.

3. ✨Create a long route for a ship. Will the ship get lost? Place several buoys along the route that the ship must pass or turn at. (Or just make the ship zig-zag, for those who find it fun😁)

4. ✨If necessary, build more roads, bus, and mail stations, and buy vehicles or ships.
   Start with 200K and reach 500K. Show charts of delivered cargo and company value, as well as the station and company windows. Analyze the company: is any transport unprofitable, or is some very profitable? Which resource is the most profitable to transport?
   Stop and save the game when the balance is around 500,000.
   Which is better — ships or trucks?
   

⚓If you have any questions or need clarifications, feel free to ask.⚓

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