Tippers/Farming Simulator 15
A Tipper is an open receptacle on wheels, which can be filled with a variety of Crops and/or other materials, and can dump them at specific locations (such as Silos or selling points). It may be towed behind a Tractor, Truck, Harvester, or even another Tipper, as appropriate.
The base game provides 9 different types of Tippers of various sizes, which can attach to different classes of vehicles.
List of Tippers
| Tipper | Price ($) |
Capacity (litres) |
Maintenance ($ / day) |
Front Hitch | Rear Hitch | Comments and Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
7,200 | 8,500 | 10 | Drawbar (Bolt) | Drawbar (Bolt) |
|
 |
24,000 | 21,000 | 10 | Drawbar (Bolt) | Drawbar (Bolt) |
|
 |
35,000 | 32,000 | 50 | Drawbar
(Bolt) |
Drawbar (Bolt) |
|
 |
45,000 | 40,000 | 70 | Drawbar (Ball) | No | |
 |
52,000 | 45,000 | 90 | Drawbar (Ball) | No | |
 |
54,000 | 46,900 | 80 | Drawbar (Ball) | Drawbar (Bolt) | Side and rear unloading. |
 |
60,000 | 47,000 | 40 | Fifth Wheel | No | |
 |
75,000 | 55,000 | 90 | Drawbar (Ball) | Drawbar (Bolt) | Can only carry Chaff, Grass, and Wood Chips. |
 |
98,000 | 59,000 | 120 | Fifth Wheel | No |
Notes for Table
- Tippers with rear hitches can be hitched together to form road trains.
- Except where noted, all Tippers can carry the following crops: Wheat, Barley, Canola, Corn, Sugar Beet, Potato, Chaff, Silage, Wood Chips.
Overview
A Tipper is simply an open box on wheels, that can be towed around the map using an appropriate vehicle. Itcan be filled with certain varieties of cargo - particularly Crops - and can carry that cargo from one place to another, and unload it where necessary.
There are two primary uses for Tippers:
- Unloading Harvesters as they work on the field, transporting the crop back to the farm, and unloading it into your Silo.
- Removing stored crops from your Silo, carrying them to a selling point, and dumping them for money.
Additionally, Tippers may be essential in Forestry, and may also come in handy when transporting Silage to the Cow Pasture.
Tippers differ from one another in several important ways, but the primary difference is size. Larger Tippers can carry more cargo at once, speeding up whatever work they are needed for. The larger the Tipper, the fewer trips you need to make between the origin and destination in order to transfer large amount of goods.
Of course, the larger the Tipper, the heavier it is. Therefore, the largest Tippers in the game can only be towed comfortably by a powerful tractor or truck - especially when they are full. The smallest Tippers can be towed by even the smallest of tractors.
Tippers also differ from one another based on the kind of attachment hitches they have. The smallest Tippers can only be attached to smaller tractors, while larger Tippers can be attached to any tractor, as well as most Harvesters and even the Lizard PiQup. The largest Tippers are designed to be attached to Trucks, but can be attached to other vehicles with the use of a Dolly. If a Tipper also has a hitch at the back, it may be able to tow a second Tipper behind it - creating what is known as a road train.
A Tipper generally has only two activated abilities: Filling with cargo, and dumping cargo. The option to fill with cargo only appears underneath the Silo nozzle, back at the farm. The option to unload only appears when the Tipper is located at a dumping point, such as a sale point. The Tipper's content cannot be dumped anywhere except at those points.
Furthermore, any Harvester that is carrying crop yield and has its pipe extended will automatically dump its crops into any Tipper that passes under the pipe. Similarly, the conveyor lifts for Sugar Beets, Potatoes and Wood Chips at your farm will automatically unload these materials to any Tipper that passes under them.
Harvester Offloading
The first time you will likely use a Tipper in the game will be to unload a Harvester during/after its work on a field. For this you will need at least one Tipper, of any kind.
Every Harvester in the game has a pipe, which can be extended out the side of the vehicle. While the pipe is extended this way, the game will constantly check whether there is a Tipper under the pipe's end. If it finds one, it'll attempt to dump the Harvester's cargo into the Tipper.
For this to happen, the following must be true:
- The Harvester has any cargo in it currently.
- The Tipper is empty, or is carrying the same cargo as the Harvester.
- The Tipper is not full.
As long as these are all true, the Harvester will continue dumping cargo into the Tipper. This process will take place even if the Harvester and Tipper are in motion, which is actually how most Harvester unloading is performed: the Harvester will drive along the field, while another vehicle tows a Tipper alongside it, underneath the pipe. In this manner, the Harvester will constantly empty itself into the Tipper. Because most Tippers have far more capacity than any Harvester, this allows accumulating a much larger amount of Crop before you need to go unload at the farm.
Once the Tipper is full, or the harvest is done, the Tipper can be towed back to your farm. Depending on the cargo you've collected, you'll need to dump it either into your Silo (Grains), or into the storage shed (Root Plants).
Dumping into the Silo is easy: simply tow the Tipper over the grate embedded in the road in front of the Silo, and when the option to unload comes up, activate it. Remember that the dumping will automatically cease if you drive off the grate at any point, so it's best to come to a full stop if you want to dump all your cargo.
Dumping into the storage shed is a little trickier, as it may require backing the Tipper into the correct compartment, whereupon the option to unload will come up. Tippers with side unloading (see table above) have an easier time, as they only need to be driven close enough to the correct compartment at any angle in order to unload.
Note that Harvesters cannot empty themselves into your farm's Silo or any other dumping point. They must always empty themselves into a Tipper, which will then be taken to the unloading point.
Remember that you can always carry the harvested crops directly from the field to the selling point, and sell them immediately. This is described below.
Harvester/Tipper Compatibility
Players may run into issues with certain Harvesters, when trying to empty them into certain types of Tippers. Not every Tipper is suitable for use with every Harvester.
This is because the Harvester's pipe may not extend far enough from the Harvester, or high enough off the ground, to dump its cargo into the Tipper. This is especially true for the smallest Harvesters in the game, the Sampo Rosenlew Comia C6 and the New Holland TC5.90.
The Comia C6 in particular is a very low Harvester with a very short pipe. It can only be serviced comfortably by the smallest of Tippers, the Brantner E 8041 and the Kröger Agroliner HKD 302. Its pipe will collide with the side of any larger Tipper, and thus cannot unload into them. You may be able to use a Fliegl TMK 266 BULL, but may be required to do very fine maneuvers to avoid getting the pipe stuck.
The TC5.90 has a slightly higher pipe end, and can unload into somewhat taller Tippers - but it is very short. This may cause problems when trying to drive a wider Tipper next to this Harvester as it works.
Instead of using larger Tippers for the job, consider hitching several smaller Tippers together into a Road Train (see below).
Sale Runs
The other primary use for Tippers is for transporting Crops and other cargo from your farm to its selling point. This is generally done with the largest Tipper you can afford, especially if you're trying to sell large quantities of cargo.
There are several methods to fill a Tipper with cargo, depending on what you intend to sell. Grains are the easiest, as they are collected directly from a special nozzle at your Silo. Root plants and Wood Chips can be acquired at the conveyers behind their storage shed, and can also be loaded into the Tipper using a Front Loader.
To fill a Tipper with grains, simply tow the Tipper underneath the nozzle hanging off the side of your Silo. The option to fill the Tipper will come up. Activate this option to get a menu which allows you to select which crop you want to get. Note that if the Tipper already contains any cargo, you will only be able to keep filling it with the same cargo. If you want a different cargo from the Silo, empty your Tipper first. You may stop filling the Tipper at any time, by hitting the same button you used to start filling it, or simply be towing the Tipper away from the nozzle.
To fill a Tipper with Root Plants or Wood Chips, you can drive it behind the storage shed, where three conveyer lifts are waiting. Drive the Tipper underneath the correct lift to start filling it up with the appropriate cargo. Note that the lift will continue to automatically dump cargo into your Tipper as long as there is room for it; if you want to stop filling, you need to physically tow the Tipper away from the lift. This also means that you need to be careful not to drive under the wrong lift, otherwise you'll get the wrong kind of cargo. A lift will only activate if the Tipper underneath it is empty, or is already carrying some of the same cargo that this lift can supply.
Once the Tipper has cargo in it, you can drive it to any sale point on the map that will accept that cargo. There will be a grated opening embedded into the road there, which works exactly the same as the grated opening for the Silo at your farm (see above). You will immediately receive the appropriate amount of money for every liter you dump into the hole.
Chaff Harvesting
Tippers play a crucial role in the harvesting of Chaff, a valuable material used in the creation of Silage.
Chaff Harvesters do not have any holding capacity of their own. This means that as they mow the crops, they need somewhere to dump the Chaff into - constantly. If the Harvester is manually driven, and cannot find a nearby Tipper to dump the Chaff into, it will destroy the crops without any benefit. If a Hired Worker is used for harvesting, they will simply stop if they have nothing to dump the Chaff into.
Therefore, while Chaffing, you must always have a Tipper close to the Harvester as it works. There are two primary methods to do this:
- Hire a Worker for the Harvester, and tow a Tipper next to it as it works. The Harvester will continuously dump the Chaff into the Tipper, and will stop whenever the Tipper is full or moves too far away. Note that this option is only possible when Chaffing Corn - you cannot hire a Worker to Chaff Grass or any other crops.
- Hitch One or Two Tippers behind the Harvester, and drive it yourself. Note however that in this situation, if the Tipper(s) becomes full, the Harvester will not stop destroying crops, and any excess Chaff will be lost. Turn off the Harvester and take the Tippers to the Fermentation Bunker to be unloaded, or immediately hitch new, empty Tippers to keep working.
Since Chaffing produces very large quantities of material, you may want to go with the largest Tippers you can afford for this job. Note that a Krone Big X 1100 can only tow Tippers with a Drawbar (Bolt). A tractor using a Pöttinger Mex 5 can tow whatever Tippers fit that specific tractor. If you're using two separate vehicles (one for Harvesting and one for towing the Tippers), your options are much more open.
Note that on both kinds of Chaff Harvesters, the extended pipe will actually move to direct itself towards any available Tipper it can find nearby. It will automatically swing towards such Tippers, and is capable of "shooting" the Chaff several meters away towards the targeted Tipper. However, this automated process also means that if you are not careful, the Harvester may unload its Chaff into the wrong Tipper. If you don't want this to happen, make sure that the Harvester goes nowhere near other, "inappropriate" Tippers as it works.
Once the Tipper is full, or the Chaffing process is complete, drive the Tipper to one of the Fermentation Bunkers that is currently accepting material, either at the Biogas Plant or at the Cow Pasture. Once inside the bunker, simply hit the key to unload. You may wish to drive the Tipper forward at a slow speed while it is unloading, to ensure that the material is more evenly spread (this makes it easier for vehicles to drive into the Bunker later on).
Other Uses
There are three other uses for Tippers that you may wish to consider.
One is the use of Tippers in Forestry. Since most Tippers can carry Wood Chips, they allow you to process your logs where they were cut, rather than having to carry them back to the farm whole. Use a chopping machine to cut the log into Wood Chips, unload it directly into the Tipper, and then drive the Tipper to your farm or to the Bio Heating Plant. This saves you the money of purchasing a log carrier.
Another use for Tippers is to move Silage. For this, you will need a Front Loader with a Universal Bucket (or similar device) to shovel Silage from the Fermentation Bunker into the Tipper. This Silage can then be carried over to the Cow Pasture, where other devices are waiting to feed it directly to the Cows, or to create Total Mixed Ration.
Finally, although it is not designed specifically for it, the smallest Tipper in the game (the Brantner E 8041) is low enough that it can be loaded and unloaded with Bales. This again requires a Front Loader, this time equipped with a Bale Handler, Pallet Fork, or other similar device. The Tipper is low enough that the Front Loader can both place and retrieve Bales from it.
Road Train/Daisy Chain
There are quite a few Tippers that have a Drawbar (Bolt) hitch at the rear. This hitch is designed primarily for one purpose: hitching one Tipper behind the other, to create what is known as a "Road Train" or "Daisy Chain".
This requires the Tipper at the front to have such a rear hitch, and the Tipper at the back to have the corresponding front hitch. In the base game, the three smallest Tippers can be used in this configuration. Additionally, the Krampe Big Body 900 S and Bergmann HTW 65 can also tow those three smallest Tippers behind them, but they themselves cannot be towed behind any other Tipper.
The Road Train can be somewhat difficult to construct, as it requires backing a Tipper into the hitch of another Tipper. This can be exceptionally difficult with the Kroger Agroliner HKD 302, whose free-rotating front axle makes its movements hard to predict. It's even more difficult (but still possible!) to hitch three or more Tippers together in the same way.
The Road Train provides an alternative to buying larger and larger Tippers, as it increases the capacity without increasing the size and relative price. This is especially important if your Harvesters are too small to be serviced by larger Tippers. It is doubly important when Chaffing.