Stokers' Corner

[Stoker]

A second concept I am including in this scenario involves making the three medals represent three different but equally hard goals. They would be made mutually exclusive.
Example:

1 The "Gold Watch" will be awarded by the American Railway Association for focusing on the operation of the railroad to the exclusion of meddling in "Industry". This would be made mutually exclusive by having the medal disqualified by having Industry profits. I have come up with a way to allow "traditional" railroad associated "industries" of Hotels, Restaurants, and Taverns, by scripting the subtraction of these profits from a variable which is set to "Industry Profits". The Goals will be completely focused on railroad operation, haulage requirements, Express speed- etc. including a point system , whereby points are earned for maintaining good service and completing tasks.

2 The "Silver Cup" awarded by the prestigious Mannhattan Club for Industrial might. The goals will include various Income/accumulation goals , both for the Company and Personally, and perhaps a point system to be earned by maintaining production levels and performing certain tasks. This award is kept exclusive by having industry profit and wealth accumulation goals and not accumulating the"Philanthropy Points" that are required to earn the the third medal...

3. The "Bronze Statue" awarded by the citizens of a grateful nation who have benefited from your endeavors. This will be earned by creating industries to employ the people, and a great rail network to serve them. In addition to this, "Philanthropy Points" will be required , earned by maintaining low cost service and by donating your wealth(to build Libraries and Hospitals-etc) to the populace which has enabled you to succeed. Accumulation of excessive wealth would subtract points.

Using this system of different scenario goals, the scenario will actually be three different ones using the same map. A separate string of events would be introduced by following each path, with an early divergence point that would exclude the special events associated with the other medals.

If you have any comments or suggestions about what would make a good addition to this scenario or how certain things could be implemented, I would be glad to hear them.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I really like the idea. Different strokes for different folks. We all have our favorite way of playing RT3 and a scenario such as this would allow for different style of play. You could still award Gold/Silver/Bronze as different levels of achievement for any of the three styles by just changing the text that's displayed when the medal is won.

[Stoker]

Thanks Wolverine, I had thought of making a choice to select which path you wanted also, and I might just do it that way, there is just something I like about having A "Silver Cup" and Bronze Statue" I guess that it might deter some folks that are fixated on viewing their own high scores and seeing "Bronzes" that are actually true top awards.

I have done some testing on the "Production zone" concepts that are working out rather well. Using the Troops as "Workers" requires a non-barracks source of new Troop/workers , so I programmed a port as an "Immigration Facility" that produces them. The map I am using has NYC on it, so that works out pretty good as the source of my "immigrant workers", who then get traded between production zones. I am still trying to figure out if I need to have them "consumed" (program a warehouse to produce something from them perhaps), but thus far the model seems to function ok, without having a buildup of "workers". Since this is a 1.06 scenario, I was thinking(again) about trying to thwart the "haulback" cheat somehow, but I guess if people are determined to cheat you are not going to stop them(there is always shift "E" eh?) so again I think I wont bother.

[Stoker]

I have a basic question about the "Demand" function. Do buildings that demand something also CONSUME (Remove from the map) that product ? The answer appears to be yes, but it is hard to tell by observing, as the demanded product will pile up beyond the annual demand quota.

[JFMarvelous]

I would guess that when a product is in demand(being consumed) the price will be higher in that area. When supply exceeds demand(amount comsumed) the price will drop so excess can be shipped elsewhere at profit.

[Stoker]

Thanks JF. I understand the price aspect of "demand", my question is specifically about whether a building that "demands" a product without having a "factory" function (i.e. demand/supply), if the product that is demanded is actually consumed, or is it just a "magnet" for that product. It appears that the product gets consumed up to the demand limit, but I thought I would ask instead of making up a test map and rediscovering that which is already known. . For instance, I am making a Foundry production zone that requires sand(crystals), coal, troops(workers) , and lumber to boost production level.I have a warehouse that is programmed to Demand only the first items, and has a demand/supply function of iron/machinery. The base production rate in this zone for machinery is set to 0%. By bringing in 1 load of Workers,Sand, Coal, and Lumber, along with the iron, sets the production rate at 25%. 2 of each brings it to 50% 3 100%, up to 4 of each making production 150% . My concern is that the products that are demand only will just pile up there, thus tempting folks to engage in the haulback cheat .

[JFMarvelous]

what is the "haulback cheat"? I'm not sure I understand. Ship cargo back to same place?

[Stoker]

Yes. The cheat is this: Scenarios that have a "haul X amount of an item to a city or territory to achieve goal Y" . A good example is Building to Buffalo where you have to haul X number loads of rice(flour) from Buff to the east coast. The cheat is hauling in say 8 loads, then , when they are delivered, immediately tell a train to haul these same loads some where else. You then let the train load up and begin its journey, then stop it and tell it to return, there by "hauling in" 8 more loads.You can repeat this over and over thereby negating the actual goal set by the scenario creator. People use this cheat for scarce items that are required to reach a goal, like rice in BtB or Ammo in Civil War- etc.

[JFMarvelous]

Oh, Ok, Yes with custom consist and shipping at a loss that is a way to cheat.

[Stoker]

The haulback cheat is easier with 1.06 and "loss shipping", but it can be done in previous versions as well. I have been doing a little experiment, and I like the results. I have concluded that cargoes entering a demand only industry do indeed get consumed at the stated demand rate per year. Also, I have discovered that demand only industries have a certain maximum effect on price, no matter how high the demand per year is. Example: A warehouse set to Demand 4 loads of coal will raise the price to around $60, and it will consume(delete from the map) 1 unit per 3 months. The same warehouse set to demand 240 Coal per year raises the price there only slightly, and the coal that is delivered there disappears almost immediately, thereby thwarting the haulback cheat. I am going to figure out exactly how high this demand# needs to be to "eat up" loads as soon as they are delivered. I think this is the solution to making my production zone concept function as I intend it to.

[WPandP]

Your 240 loads demand test is a nice complement to what I saw in my 0.1 loads demand, as used in my "Yard" structures. It surprised me how much one little fractional demand could "weigh" in the RRT3 economy - if it goes unmet, the price can get rather high, sometimes just as high as the demanding industry (at 2 or 3 full loads per year). Of course, at such low levels it was very easy to supply - and over supply - which keeps the price in a reasonable range. And the consumption rate is so slow that loads effectively do pile up at the Yard, which was always my intention.

I'm interested to see what kind of application(s) your rapid consumption will have, aside from thwarting the haulback cheat.

[KevinL]

I have a basic question about the "Demand" function. Do buildings that demand something also CONSUME (Remove from the map) that product ? The answer appears to be yes, but it is hard to tell by observing, as the demanded product will pile up beyond the annual demand quota.

Yes, demanded cargo is consumed by the demanding building at the rate indicated. If a building demands 2 goods per year, it will consume two goods, per year. If it gets delivered 6 goods during the year, the other 4 goods will sit there and stack up, to be consumed the next year and the year after that.

[belbincolne]

Not sure where to reply on "LA" so have put it in other section.

[Grandma Ruth]

Just going off at a bit of a tangent, if you want goods to stack up - i.e. to use the warehouse as a real warehouse storing goods - the way to do it is to have "1 supply = 1 demand".

The 1.06 patch cargoes and industries aren't quite worked out and some were abandoned which was a shame - I think the pharmaceutical factory, for example, could be better if it had more inputs, as it had originally. Chemicals and dye spring to mind, can't remember what else. Actually sugar would be a good one, and whatever we're using for glass, paper, plastic..... When you think about real life industries they all need people, who need food, and they all need packaging so the potential is there for really complex mixtures.

Sorry, got a bit

[Stoker]

The finished version of "LA & L.A." is now available for download in the maps section of the site here.
Good Luck and Happy Railroading!

[Hawk]

Not quite yet. It will be soon though. Give me a couple of hours. I'm starving and need to make some lunch.

[Hawk]

Now it's available!

[Stoker]

Thank ya kindly sir!

[Stoker]

I have put my "To Build a Nation" scenario project on the back burner for a while and am currently making a redux of the "East Coast" map that uses all of the 1.06 cargoes with straightforward railroading and tycooning goals. I am adding more cities to this relatively small map and am also moving the existing ones away from rivers and obstacles to make them more desirable to the AIs. I am experimenting with making some "buildable" warehouse factories that have reasonable profit figures such as a "Glassworks" to use the "Crystals" on the map producing Goods.

I am also trying out using the "place track to purchase things" method for buying upgrades and extra track etc. , where 1 space "territories" are created and things are triggered by either purchasing rights to these territories or things are enacted by placing track in them. I have a track purchasing method working pretty good wherein a territory on the bottom right of the map (In the Ocean) has 10 spaces , and by placing or bulldozing sections of track here sets the # of track units(5 units of track purchased monthly for each section of track in the territory) that will be "purchased" on a monthly basis.I like this track purchasing method better than the "yearly" method as you can change it whenever you like, and you dont have to deal with a "popup" choice message every year.

[Stoker]

OK, I went and did it. I caught the Mod bug. The more I work on making 1.06 maps the unfinished details in that Mod are bugging me, so I am going to assemble a "BandAid" that addresses the unskinned (warehouse skinned) new industries and also introduce a few new industry buildings to fill in some gaps in the usages of the new cargoes. My intention is to make this BandAid backwards compatible with existing 1.06 scenarios. I conducted a test where I reskinned the new MachineShop using the WeaponsFactory building, and then tried starting an old scenario that had a MachineShop prebuilt on the map and it worked! I suspect that if the new building skin was larger than the old "temporary" warehouse skin used on the new industries that there might be a problem but all of the buildings I propose to use are smaller than the warehouse so there should be no problems in that aspect. My file organization skills are good, but this Hexadecimal editing is new territory for me, so I expect to be asking for help on this subject, some of which has already been kindly offered. Please offer any suggestions about things that you think should be addressed in this BandAid or of how exactly these things should be implemented.