Train Arrival

[AT41B]

I have been trying to find in the forum a posting that I thought I had read sometime ago about scrolling back the train arrival list. I searched for "Train Arrival" with some results that did not apply to my question.
Can someone point me in the right direction or just tell me what keys to hit to scroll back the train arrivals in the upper left corner of the screen?

[RulerofRails]

Train arrivals are identified as the main type of game message. The "M" key will bring up the previous message. The game must be paused when you do this, otherwise when a new message arrives you will start back from the most recent one again.

Thanks to Oilcan for this tip. He mentioned it in the helpful hints in one of his maps. Sorry, Oilcan that I don't remember which one.

Another trick: If you have a train to replace, but don't have the money, click Replace anyway. You can still run the game with the Buy Train window up: use the + key (which is the shortcut to make the game faster) to re-start the game. Please note that doing this will cause you to miss other messages, so if for example a second train crashes you will never get the option to replace that one. Still can be useful sometimes.

Sidenote: Does anyone use custom shortcut keys? I can change them, but upon game restart I revert to the originals. Could be just a quirk of my install though.

[AT41B]

Thank you, RoR (and Oilcan). I have not started playing yet this morning, but I will do what you said.

[undertoad]

The "M" key is incredibly useful, not least to see what your rival tycoons are up to. It allows you to scroll back through any messages: train arrivals, and the green ones about your rivals doing highly-complex stockmarket shenanigans before you've even had a chance to open your ledger at the end of the year! After you've had a telling-off from your directors (even if you're the majority shareholder ) about making slightly less money this year in a middle of a recession because the company Overhead has just inexplicably jumped from $3M to $6M, you have no idea what Jay Cooke might have been up to in all those green messages. "M" key is your friend here.

As RoR said, you have to be in Pause speed for it to work well.

RRT3 has many more hotkeys than you might think. Check out the Hotkeys section of the Settings menu, which you can get to through the File Options button (the same one you use to load/save/quit). I'm sure you'll find some that are useful for your style of play. I like the Camera View ones (Shift+number to save, number to jump to it) to quickly focus on trouble-spots. But I'm sure you'll find the ones which are useful for you.

[OilCan]

I like the Camera View ones (Shift+number to save, number to jump to it) to quickly focus on trouble-spots. But I'm sure you'll find the ones which are useful for you.

I too like to set the camera view on 2 or 3 spots, usually my first industries so I can easily check on them. I set the camera view on most every game I play...it's become a habit.

Its also a helpful tool for keeping tabs on a train engine. If I'm setting up a long haul route which may take the better part of a year for a train to complete the cycle, I like to set a view on the very first engine - that way I can see where it is along its route and judge how many more engines I need to keep adding to the haul route.

[OilCan]

Sidenote: Does anyone use custom shortcut keys? I can change them, but upon game restart I revert to the originals. Could be just a quirk of my install though.

I don't use custom shortcut keys because I probably would not remember what they were to use them.

I mostly use the M key, the A key (game status), the [ and ] keys to rotate stations, the F9 key to go off full screen, the camera view keys and ever so often the N key to re-read a newspaper. And, oh yes, the W key for a train whistle when my wife walks by.

Upon looking at the Hotkeys in the settings (it has been a loooooooong time since I've read these), I see that one could add geese, planes and lightning strikes with keys. Who knew?

[RulerofRails]

I was using custom keys while testing some things. I wanted a key really close to my mouse-pad such as SPACE or "." to pause the game. As I said they worked, but after restarting the game I had to set them up again. For general use, the "+" and "-" keys give plenty of control over game speed. Easy enough to pause by holding the "-" for just a second as well. As I mentioned above, these can be useful to run the game even when an in-game window (ex. train purchase) is open.

Great tips on locking the camera to a train view. Also, using the "[" and "]" to rotate stations. I never used those before, and they sound very useful for the way I play as well, especially rotating the stations. Thanks for sharing those tips!