Transportation and production questions.

[Star*City]

Hi, all, I'm fairly new and need some opions about plane/train/helicopter orders and planting/manufacturing.

I'm on level 32, have 43 fields, 285 barn, all the cows, chickens, and sheep, all 3 trains. I have upgraded several factories and spent some money to open all of the crates in all of my factories.

But I'm overwhelmed. I've done some reading here and have tried to slow down. But I'm having problems prioritizing. Planes give coins, leadership points (don't care unless there's something about them I don't know), and a chest if you finish all three rows. I've pushed hard on this and am always able to fill the plane. I do pretty well with the trains as well. It's the helicopter orders that aren't fitting in well.

How do you decide which is more important? I'm beginning to think the helicopter orders are, coins and XP.

Also, somewhat related, how to you decide what to manufacture? I have been making a variety of goods. Sometimes this works out well and I will get a cascade of helicopter orders that I can immediately fill. Sometimes, it just sits in the barn. I try to plant crops that take a long time at night, and I want to work on making goods that take a long time at night as well.

Basically I'm having trouble organizing everything and would appreciate any advice.Thanks.

[Bessville]

Trains trains and more trains, is the advice I wish I had back then.

Get them upgraded to the maximum 50% time reduction asap. Quickest way to do this is to buy ores every time your market dealer becomes available, if you use him. The trains are bringing you loads of useful stuff, obviously, but getting more tools to expand the barn as much and as soon as you can is a big deal. For trains, I probably think keeping a few of everything in stock is the way to go, focusing on the stuff that takes longest to make. Do use your shelves as extra storage.. you might not need to always put everything in the barn.

The planes are a good source of gems, but I never prioritised them unless gems were scarce. The gems allow you to use the heli booster in the lab, doubling the coins per order. That’s something I did while saving up for each factory. But levelling up to get more factories is pointless if your barn is too small to be able to keep up.

Hope that helps a bit..

[Star*City]

Thank you very much, it does help. The trains have always been one of my priorities. I do use the City Market and have started buying ore when there are no trains and planes due. I have learned to use the shelves in addition to the barn - nothing from the farm is ever stored in the barn unless I need to use it (it did take me a bit to stop thinking of them as real animals - oh, the poor cows, they need to be milked!).

[kitty4715]

I agree with a lot of what Bess said. My strategy is very similar:

Priority #1= Trains. I try to keep my trains constantly running. When one comes back in town, I do everything I can to send it back out as soon as possible. I can always use more mining tools, barn upgrade materials, land expansion materials, and even though I've built all my community buildings, the bricks, glass, and slabs still come in handy for the zoo which is my current focus.

Priority #2= Planes. I always send my planes fully loaded in order to earn the gem + additional rewards. I think it is pretty feasible to send one full plane a day since you have 15 hours to get it filled and they give you advance warning as to what you will need. Planes are another good source of scarce materials (For ex: sometimes I'll be desperately in need of paint for my barn upgrade and my trains just won't bring me any. Then I'll send a plane and it will give me 2 buckets of paint as a reward!). Planes can also reward you with Tcash, and can be a good source of coins (Trains only give you XP when you fill your own cargo - Planes give you xp and coins). Plus, like Bess said, this will probably be your primary source of earning Gems which become important when you are ready to send heli orders...

Priority #3 = Helicopter Orders. Most days, my heli orders just sit there and I don't fill any of them. When I was about level 50 or so in the game, I learned about the "helicopter booster" strategy for earning lots of coins. At that stage of the game, coins became very important to me because the factories started costing tons of coins. The Generous Customer booster at the Lab costs 6 topaz gems, 3 emerald gems and 2 ruby gems and it will double the amount of coins you earn when filling helicopter orders. If you send at least one plane every day, you should be able to earn those gems at least every 2-3 weeks. So when I had the required gems, I would produce as many goods as I could to fill my barn to capacity. Then I would buy the helicopter booster (which lasts 48 hours), and I would fill helicopter orders non-stop. During this 48 hour period, I would let my trains sit at the station and sometimes I'd ignore my plane too so that I wasn't wasting any of my items on anything that wasn't a helicopter order. The first time I ever did this, I earned over $200,000 coins in the 48 hour period. As your barn gets bigger and you can amass more items before starting the booster, your earnings will increase. Over the course of several months of using this strategy, I had earned millions of coins and was ready to buy those expensive factories when I leveled up.

[Star*City]

Thank you very much. What you said about helicopter orders was very liberating. I've been playing for the past couple of days and now, if I don't have everything in stock for an order or one thing almost ready, I delete the order. I delete large orders that I don't have everything for. And since I'm ignoring this event, I delete any order with fishing stuff in it. And surprise! I have more cojns now than I've ever had before.

[kitty4715]

Keeping a few of each item on your factory shelves or in your barn is usually a good strategy. If you are prioritizing sending off trains, you will want to have a few of each items at your disposal so you can try to send the train off right away. For many production items, the trains will often only ask for one in each cargo spot. So you might have a train with 4 cargo spots. First spot is 1 bag of chips, second spot is 1 bag of chips, 3rd spot is 1 blue sweater, fourth spot is 1 blue sweater. As long as you have 2 bags of chips and 2 blue sweaters either in your barn or on your factory shelves, you can send this train out right away.

For some of the easier/shorter items, the train will ask for larger quantities. This is common for cream, cheese, milkshakes, popcorn, corn chips, sugar, syrup, bread, etc. Often one crate in the train will ask for 4 creams or 4 popcorns and there might be multiple crates asking for those high quantities. So you may decided to keep more of these items in your barn.

Important thing to realize is you will NEVER keep up with the demand for everything all the time (well maybe those crazy people who have been playing for years with barns that can hold 4000+ items). Decide what you want to prioritize and just try your best. Ask for help by flagging crates in trains and planes and requesting items in your co-op if you belong to one. If you don't have the items you need to send a train away, let it sit for a while and don't stress Things will get easier as your barn gets bigger, but it will never seem big enough lol.

[Star*City]

Thank you very much. I just upgraded my barn to 285 and it felt spacious - for a couple of days. Now, I'm back to the barn-is-full lament.

[Storminrain]

How do I get a 4th train?

[Graylady]

How do I get a 4th train?

You can't as there is no 4th train. We are limited to 3.

[JenAnn]

Just acquired a second train that needs me to supply evergreens. Not sure how I go about supplying them! Help.