In this tutorial you will learn how to build docks for ships to load and unload cargo, and how to pick a suitable location for a dock. Ships can for instance be used to haul Oil from an Oil Rig to an Oil Refinery. Once you get the hang of building ship routes, you can use ships for other things as well.

The oil refinery where we'll be constructing a dock.

Finding a suitable location

Find an oil rig and an oil refinery on the map that you want to transport oil between. Oil rigs have a built-in dock so you don't need to construct one there. The only dock you need is at the oil refinery. Refineries are only found near the coast.

Building a dock

1. Click the button to open the Waterways construction toolbar.
   

   The Waterways construction toolbar
2. Click on the Build ship dock button . The Dock window is displayed.
3. Move your mouse cursor along the edge of the water: the dock needs to be placed on a sloped tile that connected to a water tile.
4. Check that Oil is displayed next to Accepts in the Dock window before building the dock. You can turn on the Coverage area highlight option to display the area covered by the dock, and make sure it covers the refinery.
5. If the cursor displayes two white squares and oil is accepted, click to place the dock. You might need to terraform the area first to create a suitable location.

After some terraforming, we've found a suitable location for our dock. Note that the window displays that oil is accepted.

Our newly constructed dock.

In order to buy a ship to transport the oil from the oil rig to the refinery, you need to construct a ship depot. This is covered in the next tutorial.