Stokers' Corner

[Stoker]

I am making this thread to discuss, ask questions , take comments concerning, and make announcements about things relating to my personal projects in an effort to keep all this information in one place.

[nedfumpkin]

Oh. I thought the capital S was a typo. :)

[Stoker]

LOL- Nope, no "Hemp" cargos stopping at my station these days.

[Stoker]

Here's an interesting observation. Working on my current scenario using script to set production levels of some resources to zero until a trigger event , I had set Logs production -%100. I observed that the logging camps which were gong to have robust production (above the stated 2 per year) still produced the "overproduction" of .2 when setting production - %100. What happens when production level is set to a value of negative > %100 ? Also, I had read in some thread that setting production per territory was limited to territories with visible borders, but in testing I have found this not to be the case.

[Grandma Ruth]

I don't think the visibility or otherwise of borders has any function at all, it's just a graphics thing. Loads of scenarios rely on doing things to territories with invisible borders, though I must admit I hadn't thought of limiting production. Might have been a good way to do the scenario I'm working on now instead of disabling an entire industry!

[nedfumpkin]

I'm not sure because this goes back years, but I remember either figuring, reading, or both that it's not really a percentage as much as a deduction. I'll try to explain....

You start off at 100, if you lower production 50%, then it is at 50. If you lower production another 50% then you are at 0 rather than 25.

So if you lower production 100% you are at zero, but then economic factors will lower or increase production and result in some production occurring during good times because it would increase production by adding to 0, rather than multiplying by 0.

I might be wrong though. Try setting production at -200% and see if that works.

[Hawk]

I've stickyed this thread.

[Stoker]

Thanks Hawk! I have about a dozen scenarios that are all 80% complete. Getting the last bugs worked out takes a while. I am focusing on my Southern Pacific 1.06 redux , which involves inheriting a Hotel in New Orleans and some money, and some "worthless" real estate in a small unknown town in California called "Los Angeles", then building industry until you can merge with a railroad, then build a line from New Orleans LA to L.A. and bring in the materials to develop the area.I have it worked out so that you can take over a railroad within 3-5 years and most of the economy bugs worked out and am testing to get the haulage requirements set to be tough- yet possible. Should have a beta version in a day or two if anyone is interested in giving it a run thru to see if I left some "easy win" door open and give any suggestions. This isn't going to be the pinnacle of scenario design but it should be some good fun railroading!

Edit to add:These AI players are so inept in this game! In an effort to stop them from making a two town railroad and sit there sucking up industries I have increased industry purchase by 70% and decreased all rail costs- track, stations, locos, everything by 90% and they still barely expand- even with very ripe loads available in neighboring towns. Any tips to get more expansion action out of them?

[Wolverine@MSU]

Any tips to get more expansion action out of them?

Give 'em some money at the end of each year. Amount depends on how much you want them to expand; you'll have to experiment though, too much and they dominate....too little and they still just sit there. Start with maybe $1 million and see what happens. Each company will behave differently depending on the whims of their Chairman.

[Stoker]

Thanks Wolverine. I found that making industry purchase@ +70% all rail cost -90% AND rail maintenance - 90% the AIs' will finally expand at a simialr rate as a human player.

[Stoker]

Ok, my new scenario is nearly complete. I have named it LA to L.A. . and it uses all of the 1.06 cargoes, limited to 1870-1900. Gold and silver are achieved in 25 years, Bronze has same goals as Silver and is achieved in 30. I was making this scenario to be much longer time frame wise, but it was getting too clogged and boggy as this is a rally large map, so I shaved it down a bit. I have tested it playing different styles and am able to get Gold nearly every time on Normal, most of the time on Hard, and have yet to get it on Expert (I put a few curve balls in) but I think it is possible. I gave the Southern Pacific map a complete new paint job, and mellowed out some of the extreme terrain. I hope to have this scenario ready for testing by the end of the day. If you are interested in giving it a beta run through, let me know and i will send it to you.

[Stoker]

Final projects I am doing today on this scenario are adjusting the haulage requirements to meet the reduced time requirement(and testing of course) and weeding out some non-historical industries, such as providing a warehouse link to Birmingham(off screen to the east) to provide another steel and iron source and reduce non historical iron sources.I may or may not have this done today, I am heading to town (Phoenix) in a little while.

[Stoker]

Getting closer! Tested game with new goals- got my butt kicked, but I think I have hard but possible goals zeroed in now. Was close to getting goals and had around 120 trains, where with longer term goals I was getting up past 200 and game was getting boggy. New "warehouse" linking to Birmingham works well to give enough steel to meet goals.

P.S. This makes 50 posts for me- no longer a Hobo around here

[KevinL]

Send it to me, Stoker. I'd love to give another southwest map a try while I'm working on my southwest map.

[Stoker]

Sure Kevin, I will shoot you one later tonight. I can also send you a mostly finished map I made that might interest you . In it, I have scripted an "Express Point" goal system that awards points per express speed, which are required for medals. It also gives production bonus'(Increased passengers for high speed service-etc) for maintaining express speeds, and has penalties(like losing your mail contract and points) for failure. It adds a little flexibility to attaining goals as compared to straight lifetime express speed. Feel free to use that event script if you like, unfortunatley, you cannot copy events in the editor, so you must manually re-write them.