Cargo & Industry fixes for 1.06

[RulerofRails]

Jim, you got the right code, except your starting position is wrong. You are three values early. The entry starts at "01". This will make more sense. "0A D7 A3 3C" is the demand strength: 0.02. If it helps with the bca files, WP&P made a spreadsheet called "Hex Editing Building Planner Spread-Sheet" that's available on this page: http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/Xtras/Tips_Tuts_Utils.htm.

Are you remembering to change the count in the house file header when you remove/add demands?

Code: Select all

051	:     4 :   int	: number of supply/demand/production entries (eg: 0 for ports/warehouses, 16 for houses, 4 for tool&die)

I have successfully added demands to the 1.06 houses.


The Fiber idea might be good in a couple of scenarios (great for a scenario in which you bundle custom stuff, no need to justify any of your changes to anyone else ), but I can think of a good many maps that use Wool and Cotton based on real-life. There is also a visual impact with the farms. Having a greater variety of farms fills up the empty spaces on the map.

Did you edit the Dairy, Livestock, and Wool Farms to consume Grain? I'm surprised then. I would have thought that Grain was more likely to wander aimlessly in the countryside than collect at cities for shipment to Breweries. (In terms of a custom pack, this idea works fine because you can make further adjustments to compensate like seeding % changes and raising production level by event etc..)

PS.
The 2-cargo bug is a relic of the past. Everyone should be using 1.05, and it's been fixed since then. There are subtleties to having more than one chain in a building, demand can stack, but only in extreme cases (one example is TM agri communities) does it even become noticeable enough to affect gameplay.

[Just Crazy Jim]

@nd EDIT: And true to form, I now have a brilliant idea to change Cotton and Wool to a single cargo "Fiber"...

Oh no you don't. Fibre, and spell it correctly you barbarian , covers everything from jute to Kevlar. Neither or which come from sheep, or not any sheep of my acquaintance.

No seriously, I'd balk at seeing "Fiber" everywhere. Trains shipping wool makes sense to me. Trains shipping "Fiber" just doesn't feel right. It's getting too close to "generic Cargo A, Generic Cargo B, etc". It's the sort of thing that pulls the player out of the game world and makes them look at database dumps.

A better approach IMO would be to use custom icon packs and language files for specialised scenarios, so if you are running around Asia you'll see a lot of rice, and if you're out in Kansas or whatever god-forsaken place you lot grow corn, you'll see a lot of corn.

And you're right about the corn to cows thing. Over here most beef is still fed on grass, with sorghum as a supplement. Corn doesn't get used at all, AFAIK.

Okay, okay, so maybe I'm over zealous to make a 19th century economy with barrels and salt and fish and train oil.

Admittedly, even I thought dropping cotton and wool in favor of fibre was a wee bit far. (one forgets to use -re instead of -er after a few years of having teachers needle one for using the Queen's English, they'll let one slide on /theatre/ - but try getting /colour/ or /cheque/ past them, not a chance)

And, yeah, godforsaken about covers it. It starts in western Ohio and it seems to be nothing but maize and soybeans for the rest of the drive to Colorado. And if you swerve north to avoid Colorado, it goes on a bit farther. I'm surprised every time I use Google maps to view a location out that way and I don't see one giant field of maize peppered with tornadoes.

You're probably right. A language file and special icons would probably be vastly easier to get wide acceptance. I'd balk at seeing a Nuclear Power Plant as a fish monger's shop, but some people wouldn't. However, I'm sticking to my guns on grain as a replacement for rice & corn as the output for Rice Farms and Corn Farms. I've never agreed with the devs' thinking on the grain/rice/corn thing. I just ran 50 years on Ned Fumpkin's New France map with my all-grain mod and it was as beastly hard as ever, but not more or less hard to get those demanded Francs to the Dauphin those first few years than it ever was before. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't sorghum a grain as well as a source of sugar via molasses?

How about we consider, just briefly, the idea of a sugar farm yielding 1 grain and 2 molasses per year - the 2 molasses then go to a Sugar Refinery to be come 2 Sugars, as opposed to a direct to market commodity.

Did you edit the Dairy, Livestock, and Wool Farms to consume Grain? I'm surprised then. I would have thought that Grain was more likely to wander aimlessly in the countryside than collect at cities for shipment to Breweries. (In terms of a custom pack, this idea works fine because you can make further adjustments to compensate like seeding % changes and raising production level by event etc..)

Indeed, good sir, I did edit those files. The grain marched across the map with purpose toward cities and animal farms. On the Go West! map, it even slid down rivers to the sea and ran along the edge of map to get to the Brewery in Boston before the demand from houses and farms caused the price to lose its centre point on Boston.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Jim, you got the right code, except your starting position is wrong. You are three values early. The entry starts at "01". This will make more sense. "0A D7 A3 3C" is the demand strength: 0.02. If it helps with the bca files, WP&P made a spreadsheet called "Hex Editing Building Planner Spread-Sheet" that's available on this page: http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/Xtras/Tips_Tuts_Utils.htm.

Are you remembering to change the count in the house file header when you remove/add demands?

Code: Select all

051	:     4 :   int	: number of supply/demand/production entries (eg: 0 for ports/warehouses, 16 for houses, 4 for tool&die)

I have successfully added demands to the 1.06 houses.

Well, now, that makes much more sense. There wasn't a clear indication in PJay's noted to edit the count, but it seemed a logical step, so I did edit the vale to reflect my changed count. But being off 3 hexes would explain the wreck it caused with the EXE.

I am content to leave the farms unmolested and let them be there for the sake of visual variety. Cosmetic features are good to have in a game with a broad canvas like these RT3 maps. Ned Fumpkin's New France map was a big empty that could have benefited from terrain features rather than long empty distances with lumps and bumps. It's a good map to test my grain mod on though. Even on it there were shifts in the demand map that affected grain at a considerable distance.

I may have jumped the shark with the single unit for Cotton and Wool. But what you said about the 2-cargo bug being fixed changes everything. I willingly retract the idea. This I did not know. Thank you for that info.

[Gumboots]

You're probably right. A language file and special icons would probably be vastly easier to get wide acceptance. I'd balk at seeing a Nuclear Power Plant as a fish monger's shop, but some people wouldn't. However, I'm sticking to my guns on grain as a replacement for rice & corn as the output for Rice Farms and Corn Farms. I've never agreed with the devs' thinking on the grain/rice/corn thing. I just ran 50 years on Ned Fumpkin's New France map with my all-grain mod and it was as beastly hard as ever, but not more or less hard to get those demanded Francs to the Dauphin those first few years than it ever was before. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't sorghum a grain as well as a source of sugar via molasses?

Yes, you'd need to reskin some buildings to make it work. Corn to rice wouldn't be that hard. All you would need to do is grab the rice farm files and rename them as corn farm files, then throw them in UserExtraContent when you wanted to play them. This will make them override the original files in the game's default PK4's.

Do note that for this to work, the override files have to be loose. If they are packed, it won't work. Don't ask me why. It's RT3.

Sorghum doesn't get used for molasses here, and sugarcane plantations don't provide grain at all. The cane just goes straight to the mill. I know this coz I see the trucks every year.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Yes, you'd need to reskin some buildings to make it work. Corn to rice wouldn't be that hard. All you would need to do is grab the rice farm files and rename them as corn farm files, then throw them in UserExtraContent when you wanted to play them. This will make them override the original files in the game's default PK4's.

Do note that for this to work, the override files have to be loose. If they are packed, it won't work. Don't ask me why. It's RT3.

Sorghum doesn't get used for molasses here, and sugarcane plantations don't provide grain at all. The cane just goes straight to the mill. I know this coz I see the trucks every year.

I'm familiar with the loose files overriding packed files thing. It's how Civilization and other games generally handle modded files.

Most of the USA is too far north and too cool to grow sugarcane. I think there's only a bit of deep south that is far enough south to grow actual sugar cane, otherwise it's maize, sorghum and sugar beets. Around here, where I live, it's strictly sorghum syrup that gets made into molasses and not a great lot of it. Most usually, some farmer fobbing it at a side of the road market.

Now that I think about it, I don't know that I have ever actually seen a sugar beet farm. I'm sure they exist, just not anywhere I've been. That or they were hidden behind all that maize...

On this 2nd map, RED is sugar cane, Green is Sugar Beets, Yellow is Maize (corn syrup). They don't even mention sorghum syrup, so it's probably not a major contributor to the US sugar market.

[Gumboots]

If you're even in an area that does it, try fresh sugarcane juice with ginger and lime. It's one of the greatest non-booze refreshers ever, and is a best seller at the local markets. You'd think it would be too sweet to be drinkable, but it's not.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Well, my crazy idea works, sort of, kind of. I have carefully gone through all the buildings that make a demand for Corn or Rice and changed the reference to Grain or removed it if Grain was already an option. From top to bottom, the files I altered were:

Brewery.bca - Rice upgrade to Alcohol removed
Farm Corn.bca - Output changed to Grain
FarmCattle.bca - Demand changed to Grain
FarmDairy.bca - Demand changed to Grain
FarmSheep.bca - Demand changed to Grain
FarmRice.bca - Output changed to Grain
House.bca - Corn and Rice demand removed

I even hacked the BCA for Michael (WP&P) Rountree's Cereal Company.

Only one niggling detail seems to stand between me and 100% success. The image illustrates the problem:

Nothing is producing Corn, not even the ports and warehouses, yet the game insists that there is Corn being produced. I ran several maps for 100 years and Corn never appeared on the map. Corn Farms producing Grain, yes. Corn as a cargo, not even once. There must be something referencing Corn that I haven't found.

[Gumboots]

Dunno about that, but I just thought of something else that would be tricky with renaming/reskinning some cargoes. If they're in boxcars or covered hoppers, no problem. You'll never see the actual cargo anyway. If they're on flatcars or in open hoppers, that could end up being a nuisance. Still doable, but more work.

[Just Crazy Jim]

I found a sloppy fix for the icon in the world cargoes, changing the start date for Corn.cty and Rice.cty to well outside the year range I expect to make maps for. I need to test all this on Japan Trembles and Eastern China maps before I'll say it's stable and not detrimental to the overall economy of the game. Now, once I have that square peg firmly smashed into the round hole, I have to figure out how to introduce fish and salt without wrecking the world. Oil (petroleum) I can repurpose as "Whale Oil" and make a dock sort of model with a whaling ship moored to it to replace the oil well... ye gads, this is starting to look like it might work.

[Gumboots]

Ok, nick my ships idea and make a model of whales for the oil wells and one for a station. Put them out at sea. Then you can skin a loco as a whaling ship and a station as a dock, and have your whaling ships going whaling and bringing back oil.

[Cash on Wheels]

What version are you using m 1.0#?

[Just Crazy Jim]

Ok, nick my ships idea and make a model of whales for the oil wells and one for a station. Put them out at sea. Then you can skin a loco as a whaling ship and a station as a dock, and have your whaling ships going whaling and bringing back oil.

GENIUS!

This MUST be done :D

What version are you using m 1.0#?

I am using 1.05 as my test bed. Once I have the wrinkles smoothed out, I will apply the same idea to 1.06 and see how it wrecks that.

[Cash on Wheels]

Ok, nick my ships idea and make a model of whales for the oil wells and one for a station. Put them out at sea. Then you can skin a loco as a whaling ship and a station as a dock, and have your whaling ships going whaling and bringing back oil.

GENIUS!

This MUST be done :D

What version are you using m 1.0#?

I am using 1.05 as my test bed. Once I have the wrinkles smoothed out, I will apply the same idea to 1.06 and see how it wrecks that.

Can't you catch the Ocra locos already in the game instead?

Serious: Are corn & rice still in your .cty files? Remember switching cargo will throw everything out of order!

[Just Crazy Jim]

Can't you catch the Ocra locos already in the game instead?

Not quite as satisfying. But you make a good point.

I am using 1.05 as my test bed. Once I have the wrinkles smoothed out, I will apply the same idea to 1.06 and see how it wrecks that.

Serious: Are corn & rice still in your .cty files? Remember switching cargo will throw everything out of order!

I've seen no problem so far. My plan is to retain the Corn.cty file and rename it internally Fish, similarly to retain the Rice.cty and name it internally Salt. Then (end goal) replace the icons and create two new building types, a Fishmonger's Shop and a Salt Mine (although if I go strictly period, it would be an evaporator/furnace sort of facility based on the Kanawha Salines funded by the U. S. Congress in the 1810s).

[Cash on Wheels]

I'm assumig this is just for this senerio? If it is not refer page 4 in my "30 new unused cargos" thread inthe 1.06 fourm. I switched out about 20 cargos there.

Remember don't bash the computer screen if things go wrong.

[Just Crazy Jim]

I'm assumig this is just for this senerio? If it is not refer page 4 in my "30 new unused cargos" thread inthe 1.06 fourm. I switched out about 20 cargos there.

Remember don't bash the computer screen if things go wrong.

I hope to make a set of scenarios (scenarii, if you happen to be Italian) set in the developmental era of steam locomotives.

And, yes. I have to remind myself to not punch the monitor at times >_<

[Cash on Wheels]

I never actually tried to see if a simple replacement of cargo names in the GMP file would do anything. I did try right now, with no luck. It seems that reference to a cargo type is only made one time (assuming there are no pre-placed buildings/ports supplying/producing that cargo). Which seems a dead-end, unless further discoveries are made.

But, there is a different way.

Fish Port.jpg

This is just the 1.06 Ingot cargo. I renamed the cargo to "Fish" by renaming "Ingots" in the Data\Language RT3.lng file. I changed the icon by unpacking the 106cargo pk4 from Data\PopTopExtraContent, picking out the files associated with Fish (fish_A.dds and ~4478Fish.imb) and simply renamed them as if they were Ingots (the files the game is calling): ingots_A.dds and ~4488Ingots.imb. Then I placed those two files loose into Data\PopTopExtraContent. (I'm not sure if the loose file over-write will work for all names).

I only tested this briefly, but seems to work except the Fish Icon didn't appear on the side of the boxcar. That may be a limitation.

PS.
If you want a Fish demand automatically at houses, Medicine might be a better cargo to hack (no particular reason I used Ingots). (IIRC, 1.06 with all cargoes enabled uses up all the slots available in the house that will display correctly, more will work just not display right.) If the price ends up being too high, reducing with an event is safe. It ships in a reefer too, which is probably the most sensible. Would need to hack the cty file to get it available in 1800.

RoR this quote is from a different thread.

Have you played a game with this yet?

Plus JcJ said he was doing these cargo skins for 1.05 right?

Remember. 1.06fixed >>>>1.05

Its late....good night.

[RulerofRails]

No. This was just a test.

If using this idea as part of a patch as I mentioned in a post above, I would clean the concept up. For example, I would include a special building (model doesn't matter) with a far-future introduction date that produces a small amount (0.01 or whatever) of each cargo that would allow cargoes to be renamed in this way without their original "production sources" present on the map. So, in the example you quoted (I posted it elsewhere) there's no need to have the Furnace buildable. Otherwise, it would be outputting "Fish" which is nonsensical.

PS.
When I play 1.06 scenarios I'm using your price-islands fix. Weaker AI doesn't bother me. They were never strong enough to be good competition to begin with.

[RulerofRails]

Just realized that the 1.06 Electronics cargo has a start year of 1900, but the Electronics Plant has a start year of 1910. This was likely an over-sight, but there is an advantage: the demand for Electronics is already strong by the time that the Electronics Plant is seeded/buildable by the player.

This leads to a question: what if any production chain producing a new cargo was set to start 3 years after the cargo start date?

3 years is the time of pre-scenario simulation every time a new scenario is started. Demand functions need to start at the cargo start date to build demand.

Probably the simplest implementation would be to take current introduction dates as the time for production chains to start, but backdate cargo introduction and demand functions. Any opinions on this idea?

[Just Crazy Jim]

Just realized that the 1.06 Electronics cargo has a start year of 1900, but the Electronics Plant has a start year of 1910. This was likely an over-sight, but there is an advantage: the demand for Electronics is already strong by the time that the Electronics Plant is seeded/buildable by the player.

I suppose that it depends on what you want to call "electronics". If you get a little mincing on the term, the electronics age really didn't start until 1906 with the invention of the triode by Lee De Forest (so saith Wikipedia). If you consider the telephone "electronics", telephones were beginning to be faddish by the mid 1880s as a result of the mechanical telephone exchange. And the crystal radio was a quantifiable fad by about 1904, long before a corporation was formed solely to build radios for civilian use. And then there was a sort of popular morbid fascination with listening in on radio telegraphy following the sinking of RMS Titanic. (I imagine this is what people did for thrills before NASCAR)

AFAICT, after perusing a few dozen Scientific American magazines published between 1880 and 1930, the "real world electronics age" begins well before the "real world electronics industry", due to an upsurge in casual inventors and tinkerers (hobbyists) by merit of the residual effect of the success (and myth) of Thomas Edison (and others. e.g., Tesla had (has) a cultic following that eclipsed Edison's). Where you drop your flag and proclaim "it has begun!" is a matter of of personal preference. Granted, it wasn't until after the Great War/First World War that the development of voice-over-radio caused the electronics age and subsequent industries to become undeniable.

So, my 2-cents, leave it as it is, it roughly represents the real world. Stress "roughly".

This leads to a question: what if any production chain producing a new cargo was set to start 3 years after the cargo start date?

3 years is the time of pre-scenario simulation every time a new scenario is started. Demand functions need to start at the cargo start date to build demand.

Probably the simplest implementation would be to take current introduction dates as the time for production chains to start, but backdate cargo introduction and demand functions. Any opinions on this idea?

Now, that is a brilliant scheme if ever i heard one. Although, to be honest, I'd go with a 10-year gap on early game commodities, then switch to 3 on late game commodities. Why? Because old school thinking was "wait for demand, make investment" - whereas the late 20th century model for that is "make investment, create demand through advertising". I'm sure we call all think of recent products *cough*cough*iphone*sneeze*ipad* that follow that model.