Island Sugar Company III

[Gwizz]

Island Sugar Company III uses the same base map and most of the same events that are part of the 1st Island Sugar Company map.
The map is an upgrade of the Island Sugar Company map. Added cause ways, a locomotive, two AI companies that were
merged by Island Sugar Company. This merger caused the stock to increase greatly in value.
The Island Sugar company has two Ports in a major city area where most of their RR track is located.
Your challenge is to expand, using Methane powered Shay locomotives over some very rugged mountains.
Except for the plantation areas most of the Island is extremely rugged.
The Bauxite Railroad is at the far end of the center island and has a modified deep water pier.
Since it is a deep port it also can import coal and export a few cargos.
The native port is a shallow water port also on the center island and can only export Sugar.
It does import a few cargos.
The other railroad is only used to move the sacks of fertilizer from the two sacking plants to a storage area. The wagon masters refused to haul the sacks until they air dried for a long time. The fertilizer is used by the sugar farms.
Because of the huge amount of fertilizer the sugar company wants to export it. That is another of your jobs.

This is a builders delivery map. But the extra Gold win event is a challenge for those that like a different style of game play. The map uses slow time. This hourly time works well for a small map where a train can make 3 or 4 round trips in one day.

[RayofSunshine]

Well Gwizz,

I have completed the 100 loads of sugar, and now to get the fertilizer quota.

This is a question again on you "obtaining" such buildings as Houses, Churches, etc. which I have found in other of your creations. In this case as I was checking data for all the different revenues, I find that the "Industry List" shows that all these "non-industry" buildings have a deficet. From true/real life, that is definitely the case. Just wonder again the reason you select this avenue of creation.

Ray of Sunshine

[Gwizz]

I don't remember why. It could be that I planned for the company to own most of the island.
My memory and time do not get along as well as I would like. I think I will send time to counseling.

[Gwizz]

Ray, I rode an 8 car fertilizer train from sacking plant #2 to one of the main piers.
Took about 11 hours of game time.
I missed building a water tank on a cut off track and that mistake slowed my arrival time a bit.
At this point, the 8 car sugar train I was following left me behind.
I can't believe I built that track so poorly through the maintains.
I have not played an RT3 map for a long while where track had to be built a long distance in mountains.
I built a roller coaster route. If I had rode in the cab I might have felt a little safer.
If it was real life I would not ride that train a 2nd time.
Of course shays are slow; but these are super charged shays and much faster.

I did notice that the two sugar status reports must be reporting the same sugar hauls.
Their cargo numbers are always the same. I'll check that out.

[RayofSunshine]

Hey Gwizz,

As previous mentioned, I don't know how programmers keep all the facets in order, with the exception that they have to keep a log.
Anyway, that is 1 aspect which I thought might be eliminated with RRT3, so that trains, at least in the modern world, would have level terrain, as the track was laid. Not necessarily in mountainous areas, but near level or slight rolling plains.

It was in a different scenario that I was using electric engines. At speeds well over 100mph, what the cargo would be like at a destination on a 'roller coaster' laid track? And the passengers. Don't try to drink coffee or eat a bowl of soup. The best remedy was to get "strapped" into the seat and grab a hold on the seat arms.

Ray of Sunshine

[wsherrick]

In the dining car I'm sure the bartender just poured the ingredients for his Manhattans into the glass and they just shook themselves done.

[Gwizz]

On my track he would have to seal the glass and hang it in a net to be successful.

Ray, I checked the events and the two sugar status reports do both test the same sugar cargoes.
The win events will still test correctly all sugar loads delivered to a port for a win.

I'm now in day 8 and have completed all wins through Gold.
I'm now going after double Gold. I've connected all plantation fields.
I still have 1 bauxite mine to connect and a number of sugar farms, cattle pens and sheep pens.
I have 41 shays running, I'm debt free although that is not required until map version 4.
I had some congestion at the water towers and the service station near Sugar city.
So I added more water towers and a service station to spread out the trains in that area.
Trains can now run right through and pass each other at either service area.

I've had enough money to fix some of my roller coaster routes. It is just hard to build track along the side if very steep and rough mountain.

I don't remember having this much fun with these maps.
I glad you started the map thread.

[RayofSunshine]

Gwizz,

You don't know what you are missing by not just "playing" instead of creating them. But I can understand your incentive to create from you imagination. And that is something. Although I enjoy playing these scenarios, I also have had the inclination to enjoy in the "model railroading", and have had several different display gauges. Right now I am in the project of making a wooden trestle bridge span with a 15 foot wooden trestle in the G-scale (1/22), all from scratch, cutting my own materials, etc.

Anyway, I have a couple of new questions.

1. Although we are now using the 1.06 Patch, I find that I can move cargo without the notice that it is "not profitable to haul" message. However, I find in your scenarios, that although the cargo can be moved, there isn't any revenue for those commodities. I don't recall this being a penalty in other created scenarios.

2. I completed all the requirements in III by Jan 9th as well, and going for the ""EXTRA GOLD". However, in playing the 'original', I noticed that although that goal was achieved that I didn't even get "honorable mention" in the "Hi Score" ledger. So, is that your intention? Or just forgotten? (I remembered that you said something about "fogetting things". LOL)

Ray of Sunshine

[Gwizz]

question #2 first

I made this map open ended with no win event that was game ending. Perhaps I should have.

Question #1

I sometimes sent cargo to a station close to a port.
I had a couple of trains that only worked the port area with a 0 to 8 cargo haul.
If one port didn't except the cargo the 2nd might. I'm assuming some cargo was lost.

I finished the double Gold at 11 days and about 4 hours.
I didn't pay a lot of attention to what the trains were doing.
I did stop them them a few times as I improved the looks of the track.

The last version of this map is the hardest. The two AIs are independent. Money is short. There is more to do. Well you will see.

I didn't set up my cheap indoor G scale as we spent the holidays with the kids and only had a very small tree. My HO layout is getting quite dusty. I did work on my grand scale a bit, but mostly to rail as I cut down some dead or dieing trees above the right of way. I spend too much time on the computer. But then it is too cold outside and I'm not as hardy as I use to be.

[RayofSunshine]

Gwizz,

Good to hear that a player is able to get to the end.

However, on Jan16th, and thereafter, my revenue slumped downhill to a -$4+G and my profit was -$1.6+G. I know that the economy on commodities kept shifting around, but by Jan18th, I was having a problem just getting a 1 car cargo from most depots. Even kept checking those depots to see which cargo was available, and their desired destination. Didn't help much, and of the 24 engines for operation, maybe 6 of them were just "waiting for cargo". Hence, hauling costs obsorbed the revenue. Thought that I would have had the Extra Gold by this time.

Anyway, I did run into a problem with both the 'original' as well as the III. Usually whenever I notice that an engine is indicating 'no water/sand or oil', I will check to see where the last depot of departure. Then I will set up a facility to eliminate the problem. So after a pass or 2, that problem is eliminated. Hence I usually do not have a problem with the majority of the operating engines.

Another system I use is to try and keep the laying of the track to eliminate those steep grades. At least the majority of the time. Tunnels are just too costly to maintain, although I do use them very sparingly.

But my main complaint with both Island Sugar scenarios, is the 'water/sand' facilities. Sometimes even with no indicator in the tubes for water, an engine will just pass them by. It may not happen all the time, but at certain facilities, certain engines just do not stop. Therefore to make sure for the long hauls from Sea Bird to Produce Pier, etc, I routed the train to each facility necessary, and mostly in the mountainous areas. Otherwise they slowed down, and some barely got up a grade.

Probably something in the main programming as I have noticed this problem previously, but at a lessor degree than with Island Sugar.

Still a lot of fun.

It is too cool here as well for an outdoor railroad display. Well, at least to work at one. I have an N-scale in our workshop, but there is so much electronic equipment of my son, that there isn't room to set it up. Hence a "stab" with the G-scale.

Ray of Sunshine

[RayofSunshine]

Apology Gwizz,

Not to get you on the wrong track, I went back to the III for playing. Found that I had made a mistake in my quote. The -$3.7+G loss is the CASH with a REV of +$4.7+G and a -$1.7+G loss in PROFITs.

Just spending too much, and no credit cards, and loans in the CCC. LOL

Ray of Sunshine

[Gwizz]

I used no tunnels this time and kept my grades to no more then a 5% grade. There were a few 6, 7 or 8% grades for a cell or two. It was just too hard to build track on the side of a steep rough hill. The shays don't slow down much on a 5% grade. I over built water towers and found that there was less waiting when they were close together. I missed building water towers on a couple of routes and I made the mistake of building one on a steep grade, But trains with 8 cars would stop and seem to have no problem starting up again. I ended up with 51 trains. Most had 5 or 6 station routes and I tried to have common stations for where the routes crossed each other. When cargos would not continue, it would be automatically dropped and another train would pick the cargo up and take it to a different demand station. All trains were on automatic load. After reaching the Silver win, I noticed I had many trains waiting to load cargo. So, I switched almost all to 0 for minimum loads and 10 for maximum hauls. That is when I started to make a lot of money. I had shays that ran with no cargos but they often picked up 8 loads for the next leg of their route. I would watch the arriving trains and I had many 0 to $20 payments. but also many loads that earned over $400 each. I let the game run for two days at this point. I earned 27 million, so I paid off all 20 bonds, double tracked and added the rest of the locomotives for areas where I had excessive cargo piling up. I normally let the game run at half speed for a day and then stopped to adjusted routes or add shays.

I did notice that the Shays would creep from a station to water or a service area. So in this game I kept the stations a long ways from service areas. No more creep.

The 106 patch seems to make the game a lot more fun than before.
There are still parts I don't understand. I was unable to build a port.
I think I remember someone doing that. I didn't build any industries.

I renamed stations for the cargo they produced.
I think it would have been better to have a few more villages to ease the naming process.

[RayofSunshine]

Well Gwizz,

I am still struggling to get some workable "cash". Still trying to figure the reason for the slump.

Anyway, you mentioned something to the affect of a problem to find out the players CASH, REV, and PROFITS. There is a more simple solution to just press the "C" key.

Have started the IV version, so will open a new thread. There is a comment and maybe a suggestion of play. Still an interesting scenario.

Ray of Sunshine

[wsherrick]

I started this one to check it out. I wonder why I get the GP-7 along with the shay?

[Gwizz]

Could it be a user made add on. It didn't appear in my game.
What day did it appear?

[wsherrick]

It's actually the GP-7 double and it is available from the start of the game no matter what year you start from. Is there supposed to be another engine or just the shay?

[RayofSunshine]

A little Gwizz,

As mentioned, after Jan 11th I was getting a different "steam" engine every day or two. Never a diesel, and I am into Jan 18th. Then the last time I booted up, the selection went back to the HST 125, with was the 1st engine switch with the Shay around Jan 11th.

The HST 125 is a speedy engine to get commodities to market, but not very great in the steeper grades in the mountains. But a GP7? Wow, that would be a dream in place of most of the steam engine options.

Ray of Sunshine

[Gwizz]

I won the final gold just after the 11 day started and I didn't look at what engines were available.
I don't think I've deleted that game, so I will go back and take a look. Interesting.
I think I made a note somewhere in the map that there was a shay engine bug that came alive later in the game. So with this map being 4 years old, this may have been an original PopTop bug. Version III did have a 2nd engine. I think it was a Planet.

[wsherrick]

Ray Of Sunshine, I know you might want a GP-7 to play this scenario, but I run those heaps everyday at work and I'll take any steam engine over one of those anytime

[Gwizz]

I checked my saved games.
At 11 days I had loss the shay and only had the planet locomotive left to buy.
I ran the game until the 14 day and still had only the planet to choose from.
I have the 106 installed but none of the content created extras, yet.
I don't know why you both have more locos showing up on the for-sale list.

I took a ride in the DC6 and it flew off the edge of the map and it disappear.
I had to parachute back to the map.

I noticed I was making 2000k to 3000k for each haul from one train.
The closest I came with the earning for another train was around 500k.
I took a ride on that train and it was the only train hauling 8 loads of fertilizer to 4 different sugar farms.
The long waits at each sugar farm was running the price of fertilizer up.
No wonder I finished the double gold so quickly.
I'll have to remember that fewer trains sometimes have an advantage.