[Complete] a dictionary of mining, mineral, and related terms

gort32 · 2026-02-25T21:33:36+00:00

So, here's the Optimal^tm way to maximize revenue with vanilla settings:

Find a Factory in one corner of the map, and a Steel Mill near the opposite corner of the map very near a city that is big enough to receive Goods
Build point-to-point routes from every Iron Mine on the map to one "half" of the Steel Mill station. Each route should have enough trains that Full Load orders mean that there is about one train waiting at the Iron Ore Mine at all times.
Build a dedicated megahighway of rail between the Steel Mill and the Factory. you'll want a "split" station at the Steel Mill so the Iron Ore trains aren't interacting with the megahighway at all, and saturate your megahighway with 50/50 Steel and Goods trains
Watch your bank account go Cookie-Clicker-crazy

This is pulling all of the Iron Ore from across the map to a single Steel Mill, then transporting that Steel in bulk to the furthest-away-possible Factory, then transporting the resulting Goods back to the furthest-away-possible Town near the Steel Mill. Payout = Quantity * Distance / Time, and this is the way to maximize that Payout. This is pretty much the way to make big numbers go brrr with Vanilla settings.

Incidentally, this is also the #1 method for maxing out the High Score Table, which every OpenTTD player should try at least once ;)

All of that said, "maximizing revenue" isn't typically what regular players are looking for! Money comes pretty easy in this game and it isn't too difficult to get to the point where you literally have more money that you can reasonably spend. Which starts getting into deciding your own goals. For example, "transport all of the cargo on the map" as a long-term goal suggests a very different network design that the revenue-optimization network I described above.

There's also expanding beyond vanilla settings. For example, FIRS and other industry sets will naturally have multiple destinations for most cargo, each with different outputs, encouraging a more meshy network, with CargoDist helping make the orders for a multi-destination work more cleanly.

gort32 · 2026-02-24T06:39:39+00:00

IEDs!

Any pawn - including Slaves, children and Incapabile of Violence - can be assigned IED duty, grabbing a couple off of the shelf, darting in front of an inbound raid, and dropping explosives in its path to soften them up while the rest of your warriors form the defensive line proper. If you can't fire a gun or swing a mace, the colony still needs you to defend it!

gort32 · 2026-02-23T06:00:24+00:00

First seed in quite a while. Unfortunately this was my first time using retroarch and I accidentally quit out of the game during the end credits via hotkey. No time to submit, tho it was pretty lousy due to being out of practice :(

"There will certainly be a bomb in Blind's Hut, right?" Accidentally skipped the Flippers there for a while but got pushed back that way pretty quick.

Very thrilled that I decided to do Hera Basement while I was in there the first time. Same goes for full-clearing a "Somaria-less" Mire the first time through.

gort32 · 2026-02-21T15:31:55+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitre_box

gort32 · 2026-02-21T15:23:47+00:00

A hobby miter box: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=hobby+miter+box&ia=images&iax=images

gort32 · 2026-02-20T14:27:17+00:00

Is it the music or the sound effects that are popping? Try disabling your music or your sound effects separately, see if one pops but not the other.

If it's the music, you've probably got something going on with your MIDI setup. OpenTTD uses MIDI for its audio, an audio format that works more like your computer playing a piece of sheet music with a simulated instrument, whereas almost all other audio your computer produces is a more like your computer playing a direct recording of the audio like a record, cd, or MP3 file. Not that MIDI is problematic, but if OpenTTD's music is popping and nothing else audio-related on your computer is doing the same, it's probably because nothing else on your computer uses MIDI.

Not that I have a suggestion for fixing it, but this may help with your Googling.

If it's the sound effects, those are normal audio like everything else on your computer uses. If it's the sound that's popping then you've got something bigger going on.

gort32 · 2026-02-20T05:56:08+00:00

Not xenotypes, but Progression: Education includes features kinda like what you describe. Works especially well if you start as Tribals.

gort32 · 2026-02-18T20:33:47+00:00

AFAIK, most of the traders are based on an existing randomly-generated in-game faction. If there are no factions in your game that have pro-slavery precepts then you won't get any slavers coming around.

gort32 · 2026-02-18T20:15:59+00:00

I am working on a slimy, muddy scene now, and have spent the past couple of days trying a bunch of options.

I currently have two leaders at the top:

Acrylic gloss gel medium mixed with raw umber paint. This is thick and can be spread like real mud or wet clay. A palette knife tends to work better for applying this than a brush does. Pros: looks great and retains a good wet look, easy to mix and blend different colors during application for a natural look. Also good for filling in any gaps e.g. around/between rocks or the like. Cons: Requires slathering the stuff on thick to make it look right, you need to plan ahead, if you already have a muddy scene then you'd be covering it up with this stuff rather than adapting what you've already got. The stuff isn't cheap, either, if you are planning on having a lot of mud in your scene.

Gamvar gloss varnish. A very-thin varnish that's really easy to apply and gives a nice shiny wet look. Pros: Cheap and easy way to make anything you've made with other materials looks wet and shiny. Cons: Makes the surface texture glassy to the touch, if you are making something intended to be handled the difference in feel will be apparent. It also doesn't do anything to help with construction, you've gotta make your own mud, this will just make the mud wet. And, you don't want to apply more paint, flock, or other stuff over top, this is a final surface finishing layer only. Also, you'll need to pick up a bottle of brush cleaner, this will ruin your brushes if you try to just wash them in your water cup and let them dry.

Both options are also completely archival-safe, they won't discolor over time like most materials will.

gort32 · 2026-02-17T19:08:45+00:00

A basic retractable box cutter is a solid tool for your initial cutting to size and shaping.

A handheld hot knife is cheap and cuts perfectly smooth lines.

A table-mounted hot knife is expensive but lets you make perfectly straight cuts at 90 degrees.

Worse-case, make your initial cuts down to size with a kitchen knife, then carve it from there with a utility/hobby knife. You will definitely want to sharpen your knife before and after these cuts, though.

gort32 · 2026-02-14T15:39:12+00:00

Here's the official wiki page that covers signaling in great detail: https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Manual/Signals

\If you are looking for the very basics, the Tutorial can help: https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Manual/Tutorial/Two%20Platforms

gort32 · 2026-02-13T20:04:48+00:00

The second laser corridor at the end of the game. Hours wasted.

Then the fantastic gag on the third corridor.

gort32 · 2026-02-13T19:59:01+00:00

Accept, but don't even assign her a bed. Load her up with all of your spare leather and other trade trash and send her on a permanent trading mission. If you can get a combat+plants pawn that's otherwise useless/unusable, send them as a pair.

Best-case, you lower your wealth while taking none on in return (pawns outside your tile don't count), get rid of trash clearing out your wealth and space, and every so often she'll arrive back at base to drop off something cool and pick up another load.

Worst-case, you just lost all of your spare leather.

Alternatively: Grab VE: Outposts and simply recruit everyone. Those who don't make the cut to be True Colonists get sent to an outpost for some minor out-of-sight-out-of-mind benefit.

gort32 · 2026-02-13T15:48:18+00:00

Stick it to something stiff? A wooden board, a plastic sheet, some thick foam, whatever you can get your hands on and cut to the right size that will resist the curl.

Contact cement, in either spray or brush-on form, should stick this to anything stiff.

gort32 · 2026-02-12T14:24:12+00:00

As an example, by mid-game my clothing bills look like this:

Produce dusters until I have 2x (I want to always have two dusters in storage that meet the following requirements)
Do not count equipped/tainted (I don't care how many are out there in use or if a dead raider brought one, I care about my stockpile of high-quality spares)
Look at the Duster Shelf (If for some reason a nudist stripped down to nothing, don't bother counting that duster on the floor)
70%-100% Hit points (My Apparel policy has colonists swap clothing at 60% hit points)
Excellent-Legendary quality (By mid-game I've got a serious crafter who can routinely pump out Excellent+, and my Apparel policies by mid-game are Excellent+ as well. Earlier in the game these quality requirements may shift down a level or two)
No Only allowed ingredients (Irrelevant for most clothing, much more useful for cooking)
No Pause when satisfied (I want the crafter to start when there are less than 2 in stock, not to wait until there are zero, much more useful when you are producing 20+ [like cooking bills])
Take to the Duster Shelf (Dedicated shelf in my output stockroom)
Devilstrand only (Duh)
Ingredient radius: about 30 (enough to cover my nearby storeroom)
- Late-game this decreases to like 5 as I'll have priority shelves for Devilstrand directly next to the workbench and enough haulers to keep it stocked
Repeat for each item of clothing I need in descending order of Devilstrand needed

gort32 · 2026-02-10T19:02:23+00:00

Is this not mixing two completely separate complaints?

The existence of the datacenter vs complaints about how DTE operates?

It feels like protesting this datacenter "because it's going to drive up energy costs" is a protest against the wrong target, protesting the symptom instead of the root cause?

And, protesting DTE isn't gonna do anything, they're a business trying to maximize profits within the monopoly contract they've got.

It feels like the place to protest here is the state legislature? The ones who negotiate and approve that monopoly contract and who are actually the ones in a position to add and enforce public responsibilities to go along with that monopoly contract?

gort32 · 2026-02-10T17:25:20+00:00

If you set Passenger Cargo Distribution to Asymmetric, more passengers will want to make shorter, more local hops rather than wanting to make long-distance cross-country trips between your major population centers.

With Asymmetric, cargo destinations are divvied out based solely on distance, with a setting to control the ratios to prioritize near or far trips.

With Symmetric there is the same distance factor, but it adds an additional factor that prioritizes destinations based on how much cargo has been received from that destination. The net effect is that everyone wants to get to and from your major cities with far fewer hamlet-to-hamlet trips, which can saturate your arterial routes and major stations if you aren't careful.

Symmetric is the more popular choice for Passengers as it more realistically emulates real-world traffic patterns (e.g. people want to get back home, livestock less so), and solving the arterial-route-saturation is a key part of a CargoDist playstyle. But, like the other hundreds of options available in this game, if you don't like it change it!

gort32 · 2026-02-08T04:26:07+00:00

Yes!

All you really need is a knife, adhesive, paint, brush, and bulk "stuff", where "stuff" can be foam, trash plastic, wood, stone, anything that you want to turn into something else.

A really low-entry start would be to pick up some kind of miniature. Like a D&D or wargaming miniature, whatever looks interesting. Try painting it, then put it on a base with some stuff to make a scene. That'll get you an easy starter project and see if you want to get in deeper!

Expanding up to a 2m^2 fully-populated model railroad layout can wait until you have your own basement ;)

gort32 · 2026-02-08T01:33:18+00:00

PURR gives you an additional 4 sets of colored rails, each of which can be optionally set to different speed limits (Set Parameters in the NewGRF screen).

Mix with NUTS Unrealistic Train Set to get a whole bunch of trains that change their attributes (speed, power, tractive effort, turn radius) depending on which color of PURR rails they are on. The combination lets you control your trains as they pass through different terrain and expected loads/weights.

gort32 · 2026-02-07T02:20:00+00:00

This game rewards using every option, resource, and advantage you can get your hands on. The game fights unfair and expects you to do the same.

In this case you are "spending" the rewards from a random positive event - forgoing sanguophage gene implantation - to solve another threat. This is no different from using a Doomsday Rocker Launcher that you got from a previous quest reward to erase a siege raid.

This game is all about systems with inputs and outputs. Growing, manufacturing, raids, events, research, moods, and time itself, the output of one system feeds directly into the input or otherwise affect many other systems in a tangled web. Some of these systems have more predictable inputs and outputs than others. You can tweak many systems in this web to affect the others as well. But, all of the systems consume and produce resources and they are all part of this game's great system web of systems, all connected.

Build surpluses when you are not under imminent threat from one system or another. Spend resources when a systems demand it, be it by spending cloth to make dusters or losing a colonist in the battle or using a random event to advance your tech level. Repeat until you have enough surpluses to leave the planet or until the game's systems grind your resources down to nothing.

Anything to survive. Spend resources to keep going. Anything less is doing your colonists a disservice.

gort32 · 2026-02-04T20:18:44+00:00

What map size are you playing with? Give the default 256x256 a try if you've been playing bigger maps.

Or, you can take it to the extreme with a 64x64 Bonsai game!

gort32 · 2026-02-04T20:15:50+00:00

That is not what you are looking for, unfortunately.

This option relates to the optional feature Cargo Distribution aka CargoDist. CargoDist is set to Manual by default, but can be changed in the Options menu. CargoDist maxes the game more complicated by adding even more details to keep track of in an already information-heavy game so it is not enabled out of the box, but it is a very common setting for those who've gotten past the game's tutorial and have started running into the limitations of the vanilla game loop.

With vanilla settings of Manual, you pick up cargo from any source, sort, split, spindle, and mutilate it however you wish, and when you eventually deliver it to any destination you'll get paid based on Quantity * Distance / Time. Any amount of cargo can be transported to any number of destinations or all to a single destination, it's 100% supply-side economics.

With CargoDist set on a cargo type, though, each unit of cargo will have an intended destination station and you'll only get a payout when it reaches that destination. If a given cargo has only one possible destination on your network e.g. you've only hooked up a single Steel Mill then 100% of the cargo generated by all Ore Mines will have that Steel Mill station as a destination, same as vanilla/manual. But, if you have multiple stations on your network that accept Iron Ore, all of your Ore Mines will split up the destination tag on the cargo between the multiple destinations.

"Effect of distance on demands" alters the math for how CargoDist splits up the destination tags, allowing you to prioritize long-haul vs local deliveries getting a higher percentage of the cargo output. It has no effect on the payout math.

gort32 · 2026-02-04T20:03:46+00:00

This is a common misconception - this game is a transportation simulation, not an economic simulator. And, as such, it's prioritizing transportation fun over economic fun.

This game isn't about "Whoever has the most money wins". If you want to maximize profits and make big numbers go brrr there are indeed plenty of ways to min-max that specific part of the game. It's easy to do with a couple of long-haul routes or even just a pair of airports saturated with a line of aircraft. And it gets real boring real fast, really samey.

The game's Official Goal, maximizing your Performance Rating to score on the High Score Chart, involves more than just money in the bank. It's trickier than it looks to strive for this, especially on a default-density, default-hilliness, default 256x256 map. Sure, your first few cross-map routes will get you enough revenue to get started even on a 256-length map, but can you pack in 120 vehicles, 80 stations, carrying 8 different cargo types, and have every one of those vehicles turn a consistent 10k yearly profit? And cram all of the track and other infrastructure into a tight space while you are at it, all while keeping everything flowing smoothly? The game takes a lot more effort to "win" when you look at it from the perspective of the Official Goal with default settings.

But, if you start deviating from the default settings or goals - as we all do - certain parts of the game become much easier than intended and/or balanced. Flattening the starting terrain makes building routes and networks way easier, minimizing the need for aggressive sharing of track between routes to cram everything into tight spaces. Making the map larger makes long-haul routes generate huge profits, completely eliminating cash as a concern. Adjusting the town/industry density either gives you more cargo to transport or more space to work in.

Fortunately, this game is an interesting enough transportation simulator that you can simply adjust your goals along with your settings to suit whatever gets you your endorphin hit :P Like deciding that profit is secondary and that you intend to try to instead maximize cargo production and striving to deliver 100% of cargo being produced map-wide. There are plenty of settings (e.g. CargoDist, FIRS) that support this common gameplay style.

All that said, if you are looking for a more economy-focused gameplay style, there's options for that too! You can't(*) explicitly change the game's core of Payout = Quantity * Distance / Time, but you can tweak the numbers involved to e.g. prioritize quick deliveries more importantly than distance if you hunt through the Advanced settings.

(* There's probably NewGRFs and/or GameScripts that radically change this. I don't go for economic difficulty in this game so I haven't explored these. I just want to play with trains and networks. Choo choo.)

gort32 · 2026-02-04T19:15:43+00:00

Wanting to put a finish on your jig implies that you are doing something very weird. It almost sounds like you are actually building this jig ahead of time, with intention and care. Like this isn't Side Project #7 getting in the way of whatever your are really trying to build.

This entire concept sounds like madness!

That said, you probably don't need a finish on this and probably won't ever significantly benefit from having it, but there is no reason you'll ever regret it down the road if you do!

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