I borrowed $280 million to buy a passenger ship, and paid it off over a year. Boy, did my freighters etc have to work to pay it back, but I did manage to without going bankrupt or having a ship seized, but it was close in the last few months. I am now expecting it to be ready in the next few months, in game time.

Another route I have found profitable is Grain to Casablanca, or most African ports, and back with Phosphates, with a bulk freighter, to Adelaide.

I have a refrigerator ship running from San Francisco with tropical fruit, and if that doesn't fill up the hold, then meat usually, to either Madras or Colombo depending who has enough Tea. I was running Tropical Fruit to Europe, and back to Los Angeles with meat, but availability became an issue, so I switched to this route.

One of my coastal freighters were "suprised" by a typhoon or something, and then sank before it could even get to it's destination. I thought that wasn't very nice, I haven't replaced it yet, don't know if I will. I might buy a larger freighter and put it to work on a route once the passenger liner is in service.

B.

Never cared much for refrigerator ships, they never seemed to offset the extra costs (ship price + fuel consumption) with profitable routes for their unique cargo.

Coastal freighters are so vulnerable and so limited in their routes that I never use them, I'd rather save up for a large freighter, skipping the medium sized ones (the standard medium freigher has quite a small range, preventing it from working on some of the most profitable routes)

I feel really stupid but HOW do you transfer items FROM the ship TO the warehouses?

Kiwimac

This is a little tricky to explain since I don't have the game in front of me, hopefully you can follow my explanation...

In the cargo screen (where you see the various goods and their prices), you have a couple of icons at the bottom, featuring ships, green warehouses, etc.
Normally if you move the mouse cursor over such an icon, at the bottom of the screen it will display a text saying what the icon does. Or you can look at the icons and look for "Ship" "Arrow to" "Warehouse"

Tried that & it won't let me do that. I had, for example, a cargo from a middle-eastern port to hamburg, freight forward, needed to be there before the 5th of April, I arrived on the 25th of February, I had enough warehouses for the goods but as far as the game was concerned I could NOT transfer from ship to port or to warehouse.

I'll be deleting this dog of a game.

Hey, just found somethin intressting...
First I allways concentrated myself on trading goods ... but then I checked out the Stock Market!
Its easy to earn a lot money! I mean a lot ... Of course in the beginning its hard and it doesnt works better then trading. But when you have more then 200.000.000, u should invest in a share. Of course u have to change the shares often.. but if u do so you will be rich soon! Once I bought a paper with a value of 1.600.000.000 after 1 month it grows up to 2.256.000.000 thats more than 40%... Now I have to much money to count and for some reason the company doesnt allows me to buy more shares. Does anybody have a clue why? Now I have to trade again :( , I m lucky to have some Passenger Ships their easier to handle...

I also have some good freight routes:
L.A. - RIO (Computers), Manila - Kapstadt (TV Stuff), Naples - RIO (Chemical Stuff), Bombay - London (Tea)

Well, its a cool game but if u have big ships & a lot money, u allways have to wait for goods, their runing out all time, does some realized that? And in the end, how does this "Freight Business" work.. I tried it once, brought the stuff to the harbour like supposed to but I didnt get more as normal??? Have I done something wrong?
Please Help!
Cheers..

1) You are limited to a certain percentage of your company's worth (probably total cash + total value of assets) when you buy shares. Sort of limit to the risks you can take.

2) Indeed most goods run out quite quickly when you're using vast ships. Solution: transport coal, iron, aluminium, probably oil as well since these come in such vast quantities in the best source ports that you can't cause them to run out. In addition, build some passenger ships.

3) What exactly do you mean with freight business (since I don't have Ocean Trader here)?
- For example: get 10000 tons of oil in London by March 25th
- For example: in Tokyo there is 13000 tons of steel waiting to be shipped to Hongkong
In the first case, only take assignments where the price they pay is much higher than normal for this good.
In the second case, only take assignments where this trip will make you much more profit than your usual freight route.
Sometimes these special assignments are not profitable at all and should be avoided...

ok , I think I understand!
so its just depending on some unknown "circumstances" if those special assignments will bring you some money... I was just surprised, that I never earned more than may 10% when I accept those assignments.
But I improved my shareholder activity: So its easy to double your money twice a year. have a look at the stock market... hire the expert... and concentrate on the share called "Atlantic Airline" its actually weird to invest in a airline as a boss of a shiping company but never mind.. This share will usually grow up to 50% twice a year.. so when u recognize that "Atlantic Airline" is about to raise, buy!!! Take all you money its worth it .. have a look once a week and dont miss 3-4 weeks later the point to sell them before they start to fall...

Really interesting game, just downloaded it, and I really like all the options....:)

hey i just got my game again i think Ocean is a awsome game a old pall showed to me some years ago but it seems i cannot get it to work on vista :/ what could that be?