Passengers in Railroad Tycoon III

[OilCan]

Most will agree that there is an element of a mystery about passengers in Railroad Tycoon III (RT3).

The intent of this sequence of postings is to summarize what is known about passengers in RT3 and possibly remove some of the mystery. Each posting will cover a different aspect about passengers.

Comments, corrections and elucidations are welcome.

Three points of clarification to begin with:

1. Passengers are called ‘express’ cargo for the simple reason that trains cars which carry passengers are lighter in weight than cars which carry freight and thus allow a train to move faster (with express). Troops and mail are also called express cargo.
2. Troops and passengers are not the same although they may seem to behave the same. Troops are generated in barracks and only move between barracks. They also pay a different fare than passengers to ride a train. They prefer troop cars to ride in – but will ride in passenger cars. Passengers never ride in troop cars.
3. Mail also acts very similarly to passengers in that it too is generated with a destination in mind and it travels only by train and in its own special car.

[OilCan]

Where do Passengers Come From?

Summary: Passengers are created by the RT3 game code at a fairly fixed rate unless the map maker changes the rate. There are visible and invisible passengers. Visible passengers are inside a station’s cache. Passengers do not stay on a map very long and are continually replaced by the game code.

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1. Passengers are shown on a game map as black boxcars, the same symbol used for all other cargo types. 1 boxcar = 1 full load of passengers. Passengers, as boxcars, are visible via the cargo supply map view or clicking on passengers in a station’s cargo list.
   -:-
2. Passengers are created by game code at houses, hotels and public buildings. Small houses can create up to 1 passenger load per year; large houses can create up to 4 loads per year. Public buildings such as stadiums, cinemas, churches and stores create 0.5 to 3 per year depending on the building.
   • Up to 4 passenger loads created per year – Large House
   • Up to 3/yr - Stadium
   • Up to 2/yr - Cinema; Church; Hospital; Museum; Hotel; Hospital
   • Up to 1/yr – House; Department Store; Museum;
   • Up to 0.5/yr – Commercial buildings of all sizes
   • Port or warehouse set to ‘supply’ passengers in 1.06V
   The following buildings do not create passengers:
   • Farm, mine, well, logging camp, quarry
   • Factory, mill, plant, brewery, distillery, processor & other industry
   • Restaurant, tavern, schoolhouse, bakery, retail store, radio station, windmill
   -:-
3. Passengers are slowly added to a game map at a steady rate throughout a given year. For example, a small house does not produce 1 full passenger load at the start of a new year but in small additions throughout the year. It may produce less than 1 passenger load some years.
   -:-
4. A game maker can use a hidden ‘event’ to increase or decrease the rate of passenger production. For example, an event can cause a small house to create 2 passenger loads per year instead of 1.
   -:-
5. In 1.06V, passenger loads can be created at warehouses or ports. This can add extra passengers to selected cities or spots on a game map.
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6. Not all passengers are visible to the player; there are invisible passengers on most every map.
   • Passengers are visible (black boxcar symbol) when:
     1. They are in a ‘connected’ station’s cache. Connected means a station is connected by rail to another station. The cache is the green box around a station.
     2. And, this is just as important, there is route to their destination.
   • Passengers on a train are visible as passenger cars which one can count and see how full each car is.
   • Invisible passengers are:
     1. Outside a connected station’s cache, or
     2. Inside a connected station’s cache but lack a full route to their destination.
   • Early in a game, most passengers are invisible. These passengers are in cities without a connected train station and at homes in the countryside.
   • Unconnected cities conceal passengers who wish to travel but have no way to do so. Once a station is placed in a city and connected by rail, invisible passengers are revealed (become visible) and can be seen via the cargo supply map view or by clicking on passengers in the station’s cargo list.
     1. If there is not a full route to a destination, a passenger will stay invisible in a station’s cache.
   -:-
7. Passengers do not remain on a map for very long. Throughout each year of play, the game code constantly clears the map of ‘consumed’ and ‘rotted’ passengers – almost at the same rate they were created the year before. Each station is cleared of excess passengers at the end of each year.
   • It is not certain what types of passengers are ‘consumed’, although it is reasonable to assume that passengers arriving at a destination are considered ‘consumed’ by the game code.
     1. Passengers are consumed (albeit at a very low rate) even if trains never run on the tracks indicating that passengers other than arriving passengers are consumed.
   • It is also reasonable to assume that ‘rotted’ passengers are ones unable to travel due to an incomplete or inefficient route. They cannot reach their destination and ‘rot ‘as a result.
   • The sum total of consumed and rotted passengers per year almost matches the number of new passengers generated the year before.
   -:-
8. The number of passengers on a map tend to follow these patterns (assuming no new city connections and no new trains):
   • Existing passengers. From year to year, the number of passengers on a map, which includes visible plus invisible, will slightly rise and fall (usually less than 10%) around a fairly constant number which itself may slightly drift up or down over time. The numbers of existing passengers are not affected by economic cycles of boom to recession or by cities growing larger over time.
   • Newly generated passengers. The number of passengers produced by game code each year stays fairly steady, rising and falling slightly, despite cities growing larger and larger. Economic cycles (boom to recession and back) have a weak, inconsistent effect on passenger production rates.
   • These patterns can change when a game maker uses a hidden ‘event’ to change passenger production. A change in passenger production takes effect gradually over several months. An event change in passenger production can only be map wide, not within individual territories.
   -:-
9. When new city connections are made, or new trains added to the map, the rate of passenger production on a map seems to increase, but this is not true.
   • Each new city connection changes invisible passengers within the station’s cache to visible passengers, who now have a way to reach their destination.
   • Each new train increases the efficiency and the quickness that passengers can reach a destination and thus more passengers will travel.
   • These two actions, connecting new cities and adding new trains, give the appearance that the game code substantially increases passenger production over time. It does not, production stays about the same over time. Instead, more and more passengers become visible and more likely to travel thus filling trains with more and more passenger cars. This gives the illusion of increased passenger production.

[OilCan]

How do Passengers Decide Where to Go?

Summary: The game code creates each and every passenger with a destination in mind regardless of whether the passenger can get to the destination or not. A destination is a building which attracts passengers, such as a house, stadium or hotel.

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1. Passengers are created knowing where they want to go. It has nothing to do with the rules of supply and demand which control the movement of freight cargo such as wool and steel. When a passenger is created by game code, he has a specific destination in mind set by the game code.
   • This is the reason why the cargo supply map view is a gray/white color for passengers: a colored display of supply and demand is pointless for passengers.
   • A station’s cache has no effect on selection of destinations. Passengers desire destinations that may or may not be captured by a station’s cache.
   • A station’s cache has absolute effect on whether passengers reach their destinations. Passengers cannot reach a destination unless it is in a station’s cache.
   • Generally, passengers wish to travel to closer destinations rather than far away destinations – but passengers will travel to far away locations especially if there is a direct route.
   -:-
2. A destination is not always in a city. A house in the mountains can be a destination for passengers. A stadium sitting all by its lonesome in the countryside can be a destination. Any building that attracts passengers can/will be a destination.
   • Until a connected station captures the mountain house or the remote stadium in its cache, these destinations will lack a full route. Passengers wishing to go to a destination that lacks a full route will not be visible on the map.
   -:-
3. The following buildings attract passengers.
   • Attracts up to 5 passenger loads per year - Stadium
   • Attracts up to 4/yr - Large house
   • Attracts up to 3/yr - Cinema; Department Store; Church
   • Attracts up to 2/yr - Hotel; Hospital; Museum; Restaurant; Tavern
   • Attracts up to 1/yr - House
   • Attracts up to 0.5/yr - Commercial buildings of all sizes
   • Port or warehouse set to ‘demand’ passengers in 1.06V
   -:-
4. The following buildings do not attract passengers, ever:
   • Farm, mine, well, logging camp, quarry
   • Factory, mill, plant, brewery, distillery, processor & other industry
   • Schoolhouse, bakery, retail store, radio station, windmill
   -:-
5. In 1.06V, warehouses and ports can be set to ‘demand’ or attract passengers. This can entice passengers to selected cities or spots on a game map.
   -:-
6. A connected station outside of any city (a depot at a coal mine for example) can attract passengers. It is probably used as an intermediate stop to reach another destination.
   -:-
7. Placing numerous hotels in a cluster around a single station can notably increase passenger traffic at the station (and map wide when applied to multiple stations). Hotels both attract passengers and generate passengers. They become destinations and they also supply passengers to the map.
   • Restaurants and taverns also attract passengers, but do not have as strong a draw as hotels.
   • Clustering multiple hotels around stations does not change passenger fares.

[OilCan]

What Causes Passengers to Board a Train?

Summary: Passengers travel only by train. They will not walk anywhere on a game map except within a station’s cache. A passenger will board a train (and pay his fare) when he knows he can efficiently reach a destination in a timely manner. Influencing this decision is the number of intermediate stops along the way and time it takes to reach the destination. The fare has no influence on his decision to board. Overriding a passenger's desire to travel is the Station Master who will not add a passenger car until he knows it can be half filled, at least, with passengers.

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1. Passengers do not move around a map by themselves unless inside a connected station’s cache.
   • If passengers are outside the cache of a station, they will never move (or walk) into the cache. They are invisible and unable to travel, yet they still have a destination in mind.
   • Inside a connected station’s cache, passengers move rapidly, instantaneously within the cache.
   • A station’s cargo list counts all visible passengers in it station’s cache – which includes passengers in the station, in a city building or moving around in the cache.
   -:-
2. Passengers are born with a desire to travel, but travel only on their own terms.
   • Passengers travel only by train and only from station to station.
   • They require a passenger car to travel. Passengers will not board a freight only train, never enter a troop car nor will they hitch a ride in the caboose.
   -:-
3. Passengers do not like to wait very long for a train at a station. They want to reach their destination as quickly as possible. Their desire for quickness is one of the key elements in their decision to board a train. An efficient route is the other key element.
   • If a train is very slow in arriving at a station, a passenger will lose a desire to travel and not want to travel anywhere for a period of time. It is unknown how long the disinterest lasts.
   • If a train is going in the right general direction, a passenger will not board if he knows a transfer station is rarely serviced by another train and he will have a long wait.
   • Waiting passengers spoil or ‘rot’ like perishable food. The RT3 Manual (page 77) states that passengers spoil almost as quickly as milk and produce, and 8 times faster than steel. Once they spoil, they presumably leave the game.
   -:-
4. Passengers do not like a maze of routes to reach their destinations. They like efficient routes. They love direct routes. Their desire for efficiency is a key element in their decision to board a train. Passengers will not travel if the route is too trying or too complicated to take.
   • Passengers will endure multiple intermediate stations to reach their destination. They will get off and on at several stations if they know the train will eventually reach their destination. It is unknown how many stations a passenger will accept waiting in before a destination becomes too trying to reach.
   • Passengers will transfer from one train to another train if there is not a single train to their destination. It is unknown how many times a passenger will accept transferring trains before a destination becomes too complicated to achieve.
   -:-
5. Overriding each and every passenger’s desire to reach a destination is the Station Master (the game code) who will not add a passenger car to a train loading at the station until there is at least half a load of passengers wishing to travel towards the next stop. The requirement for a minimum half-load supersedes all other conditions for passenger travel.
   -:-
6. The overall quickness and efficiency at which passengers can travel can be increased (or decreased) by the player. Increasing the quickness and efficiency of travel will increase the number of passengers who travel.
   • More passengers will travel if trains stop more often at stations. Passengers don’t mind waiting for a train but they will only wait so long before giving up. More passengers will travel if they know a train will soon be coming by.
     1. Adding more trains to routes will reduce wait times.
   • More passengers will travel if there is a direct route to their destination (few or no stops). They do not mind intermediate stops nor do they mind transfers to another train, but more passengers will travel if there is a more direct route.
     1. Setting up train routes between distant cities adds to direct routes
     2. Setting up ‘hub cities’ aids in creating direct routes
   • More passengers will travel if there are more connected cities. As a general rule, more stations equal more passenger traffic because passengers utilize the extra stops to create a more direct route to their destinations.
     1. This includes rivals’ stations. Connecting to a rival’s line increases the number of connected stations and thus increases overall passenger traffic.
   • More passengers will travel if there are cities that act like exchange hubs for trains.
     1. Passengers will travel out of their way to connect to a busy station which has trains coming and going from all directions and offers more direct routes.
     2. Adding more trains to routes between busy exchange hubs allows more passengers to travel much quicker.
   -:-
7. The choice of a train engine and consist can influence the speed that passengers travel.
   • It is best to use the fastest possible locomotives set on high priority to haul passengers. Passengers will ride on slow trains, but they prefer fast trains and not stopping for other trains.
   • When passenger traffic merits it, an ‘Any Express’ cargo consist or an all-passenger consist quickens passenger travel. A fully loaded express car, weighs one-third less than a fully loaded freight car of the same era allowing the train to move faster.
   -:-
8. Not all visible passengers in a station’s cache are ready to board a train, for various reasons:
   • Some passengers are in hotels, museums, stadiums and other buildings which are within the cache. They have reached their destination.
   • Some passengers newly arrived at a city are idle for a while, possibly never travelling again.
   • Some passengers are discouraged from waiting too long for a train and are not interested in travel for a period of time.

[OilCan]

Passenger Fares and Profits

Summary: Passenger fares vary by distance between stations with the cheapest fares between closer stations. The average base fare stays the same throughout an entire game unless changed by hidden event. A fast, high-priority and attractive train with a dining car and express cargo consist can substantially increase profits from fares.

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1. The unaltered average passenger fare is $28 at the start of every game regardless of the size of the map. This is the base fare.
   -:-
2. As a general rule, passenger fares vary according to the distance to the destination (straight line distance, not track mileage or travel time). Closer destinations have a cheaper fare than far away destinations – although this is not always true.
   -:-
3. A game maker can raise or lower the base price for passenger fare by hidden ‘events’. An event change in base fare takes effect immediately and can only be map wide, not within individual territories.
   • A change in base fare by event does not change the general rule that fare varies according to distance to the destination.
   • A change in base fare by event will not change the rate of passenger production.
   • A change in passenger production rate by event will change the number of riders but not affect the fare. Said another way, the amount of passengers travelling or waiting to travel is not influenced by how much the fare costs.
   -:-
4. Unless changed by event code, the average passenger fare does not change throughout a game. (It does change by distance but the base fare does not change over time.)
   • Passenger production may change and passenger traffic may change, but the base fare stays the same.
   -:-
5. Profits from passenger fares will higher the faster that passengers can arrive at their destinations.
   • Using faster trains rather than slower trains will increase the profit made from passenger traffic. The same holds true for most all cargo.
   • More profit can be made from quickly reaching a closer destination which has a cheaper fare than a farther destination which has a high fare but a slow train.
   • Using a fast engine could result in a speed record which would then increase passenger fares on that train by another 20%.
   -:-
6. The amount of company revenue or profits from hauling passengers has no effect on passenger production or the base fare.
   -:-
7. Passengers will pay more in fare if the train engine is attractive. The RT3 Manual (page 51) states that, “A locomotive with a high passenger appeal earns a revenue premium of up to 30% on all passenger traffic it carries. Conversely, a particularly ugly locomotive will drag down passenger receipts by up to 15%.”
   • Attractive or ugly engines do not change the base price for passenger fare, only the revenue for each train with an attractive or ugly engine.
   -:-
8. The Dining Car increases passenger fares on a train by 20%. Said another way, for every 5 full car loads of passengers, the Dining Car adds the fares of a 6th load. On the downside, the Dining Car takes away 1 of the 8 car slots in the consist (see first bullet below). On the upside, the Dining Car weighs the same as a full passenger car and will not slow down an express train.
   • Without a Dining Car, a full 8-car train receives the fares of 8 loads of passengers. With a Dining Car, a full 7-car train receives the fares of 8.4 loads of passengers due to the 20% increase.
   • The best use of a Dining Car is when the train’s consist is set to ‘Any Express’, which means it will carry at least 70% passengers.
   • Combining an attractive engine with a Dining Car can further push up fare price. Using an ‘Ultra Cool’ engine with a Dining Car can equal a 50% increase in the price of passenger fares on that train.

[RulerofRails]

Wow, this must have taken you a lot of time to put together! I'm impressed.

I would point out that troops will move to cities without barracks. Aren't 100% sure of the reason, but maybe they are doing their journey in steps.

While in theory the game manual is right about passengers having a specific destination in mind, what I have observed while playing leads me to suspect that the game treats a stack in the station differently. The game may be taking a percentage of passengers available in the station in a stack and then freeing them up for new destinations. I have seen an increase in passengers on a return train after it has delivered some from that very same city. Another evidence is the drastic drop in stack size and number of passengers that want to make trips at the end of the year. It's obvious to me that something more than just removing expired loads is happening.

Another note, the pricing system is quite interesting. I have seen a fall-out with prices down to $2 per load where there is no adjustment of the base via event. Normally this happens when you have large stacks and very frequent service. Slightly less frequent service can keep prices higher. I never thought to build Restaurants etc. mainly for their demand, but in this situation it sounds like the thing to do. Even though I didn't see passenger demands such as a 1.06 warehouses with passenger loads at them, or consuming them very well, I think I need to look at them from the demand side as far as pricing boost.

The price quoted will be the price for one car, not 3.6 or whatever is displayed as available loads for that destination. If the cars are loaded sequentially on the same train, each subsequent car will have a small drop in price similar to the way that pricing worked in RTII. If those cars are loaded on different trains the price drop between the first and second may be much greater. Also if there is an intermediate station a train that takes passengers there may drastically reduce demand to go to the further destination even if there are only slightly fewer cars who want to go there.

PS. Your statement, "The number of passengers produced by game code each year stays fairly steady, rising and falling slightly, despite cities growing larger and larger", is very interesting. Would you mind sharing how you came to this conclusion? Is the game producing passengers based on initial seeding density instead of real city size or actual density? This would also mean that houses DO NOT produce passengers at the rate stated in their info panel, i.e. more houses does not translate to more passengers produced.

[Hawk]

I figured this thread deserved to be sticky'd.

[Gumboots]

[*]The best use of a Dining Car is when the train’s consist is set to ‘Any Express’, which means it will carry at least 70% passengers.

I think this needs more thought. Seems to me the best use would be on a train which is set to carry only passengers. An "Any Express" consist does not mean the train will carry at least 70% passengers. Sometimes it will carry equal amounts of passengers and mail, and sometimes it will carry only mail. It depends on what is available and at what price. Working out when the extra 20% for passenger fares is going to give a greater benefit than an extra car of passengers or of mail (assuming it is available) is going to require a bit of arithmetic.

[*]Combining an attractive engine with a Dining Car can further push up fare price. Using an ‘Ultra Cool’ engine with a Dining Car can equal a 50% increase in the price of passenger fares on that train.[/list][/list]

Is this added (ie: 20% of base price + 30% base price) or multiplied (ie: 1.2 x 1.3)? The difference in end result is only 4%, but I'm curious anyway.

[OilCan]

While in theory the game manual is right about passengers having a specific destination in mind, what I have observed while playing leads me to suspect that the game treats a stack in the station differently. The game may be taking a percentage of passengers available in the station in a stack and then freeing them up for new destinations.

I think that the game code does assign some passengers a new destination after they complete their mission, especially those passengers who quickly reach a destination and would be lingering in a station for most of the year. It is very hard to confirm this though. AND there is the matter of passengers who lose interest in travel for a while. I'm guessing the game code reassigns them a new destination once they come out of their doldrums.

I have seen a fall-out with prices down to $2 per load where there is no adjustment of the base via event. Normally this happens when you have large stacks and very frequent service. Slightly less frequent service can keep prices higher.

I believe you, but I have never seen this happen. I have never ever seen the base price change on its own. I purposely tested several different games & map sizes to verify this. But RT3 can suprise a person.

PS. Your statement, "The number of passengers produced by game code each year stays fairly steady, rising and falling slightly, despite cities growing larger and larger", is very interesting. Would you mind sharing how you came to this conclusion? Is the game producing passengers based on initial seeding density instead of real city size or actual density? This would also mean that houses DO NOT produce passengers at the rate stated in their info panel, i.e. more houses does not translate to more passengers produced.

I ran tests on 5-city, 10-city, 20-city, 50-city maps, each test running 5-20 years using variations in track distances between cities, 0-5-10 hotels per station, with/without warehouses, with/without non-city houses, with/without change in base fare. One map had cities with pre-build houses - controlled additions over time. I tracked passenger cargo numbers / fares plus house & support building numbers from the editor. Company revenue/profit, passenger loads, visible/invisible, station cargo list (plus other things) at 3-6 month intervals. EVERY test showed the same thing: a relative stability in the number of passengers created year after year. Economic cycles had a faint effect. Warehouses could cause a boost, but then yearly passenger production stabilized at the new level.

This greatly confused me at first because I thought that as cities would grow with more houses the number of passengers created by game code whould grow. It does not and I do not know exactly why.

[OilCan]

An "Any Express" consist does not mean the train will carry at least 70% passengers.

This comes out of the RT3 Manual (page 48). I took the manual at its own word and did not test this. You are probably right that it sometimes falls below 70%.

[Gumboots]

I've frequently seen it happen. If an express train leaves a station when there aren't any passengers available but there is some mail, it will just leave with a couple of cars of mail. 0% passengers, 100% mail. In those situations a dining car looks a bit silly on the end.

[RulerofRails]

I just ran a little test in 1.05 with only two cities on the map to hopefully clear up some myths about the loads that cannot be delivered. In my experience, I have found that this number increases as I expanded my network, even connecting all the outlying houses seems to actually increase it (for example in one of my Yellowstone plays). I set the test up for zero growth and no industry, and zero density outside the two cities. After only a little testing it is easy to see that the game counts passengers that are on a train as undeliverable! The game is a little slow to update, maybe two weeks behind, but, barring the update lag, with only two cities the number is zero unless there are loads on a train.

PS. When I said $2 per load, that is delivery fee not base price. In Yellowstone I got the fee between Gardiner and Jardin low enough that the fee would only be above $2 (train would load) if an attractive engine were used. I have only seen this on similarly short distances, at medium distances the low-end price is more usually around $6 per load.

[thietavu]

Good info, thanks! :)

[Gumboots]

That kinda makes sense. If you're trying to figure put how many loads of passengers you can send from where they are to somewhere else, you probably aren't going to want to be looking at the ones that are already en route. This is probably what the devs were thinking when they coded it. Of course, having a two week lag on things is going to royally screw it all up.

[MoridinUK]

This is an awesome thread. Is there anything like it for how industry works? I tried to search but unsurprisingly industry is too common a word to search for!

[Hawk]

Is there anything like it for how industry works? I tried to search but unsurprisingly industry is too common a word to search for!

Not in the detail this thread goes into. I tried an Advanced Search using industry strategies, industry strategy, and buying industry but didn't turn up anything really significant on the subject.
You could try OilCan's Handbook to RT3 - 2010, found in the Tips, Tutorials, Utilities page of the site.

[RulerofRails]

Been playing Canyonlands to try to get the 50M Hotel and Resturant profits without bonuses requiring pretty careful attention to passenger hauling (I'm quietly confident, but playing no-holds barred). I think I might have inadvertently discovered something interesting. It seems that at least the service and maintenance facilities that are located inside a station's radius will get a separate supply amount of passengers. This isn't really useful as I haven't figured out how to load any of these phantom cars and they do not appear as cars on the passenger overview of the map, but it's quite possible that these are responsible for some of the undeliverable load numbers (in addition to the loads that are currently on trains as I posted above) which I only ever see climbing throughout the game.

To view these phantom passenger numbers, click on a station and then the Passenger cargo. Then move your cursor over to a maintenance facility that is getting frequent traffic and you should see differring passenger numbers. An example:

Fredonia station normal view

Maintenance Facility view showing phantom loads

[Gumboots]

That's a weird one.

[Gumboots]

Passenger Fares and Profits

Summary: Passenger fares vary by distance between stations with the cheapest fares between closer stations. The average base fare stays the same throughout an entire game unless changed by hidden event. A fast, high-priority and attractive train with a dining car and express cargo consist can substantially increase profits from fares.

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• The unaltered average passenger fare is $28 at the start of every game regardless of the size of the map. This is the base fare.
• Using a fast engine could result in a speed record which would then increase passenger fares on that train by another 20%.
• Passengers will pay more in fare if the train engine is attractive. The RT3 Manual (page 51) states that, “A locomotive with a high passenger appeal earns a revenue premium of up to 30% on all passenger traffic it carries. Conversely, a particularly ugly locomotive will drag down passenger receipts by up to 15%.”

I have some questions about these points.

Passenger Base Price: I'm wanting to experiment with changes to the base price set in the .cty file. I've checked the hex and the base price is set at $85K/load, not $28k/load.

• If maps always show an average delivery price of $28k/load at the start of a game, which seems about right from my experience, does anyone know how this relates to the $85k/load price set in the .cty file?

• Allowing for the game rounding off to $1k intervals, $28k would be one third of $85k. Has anyone managed to confirm if a 1/3 multiplier is applied to the nominal base price from the .cty file?

• Also, does anyone know why this is done?

Experimenting with changes to the base price is proving to be a nuisance. It appears to have no effect on the results. This is when using a saved game, and editing the .cty file between runs from the save point. What occurred to me is that it may be partly like the way saved games treat locomotives and cargo cars.

Once you have bought a particular loco it is locked into the.gms code as soon as you save the game, and you can't then run the saved game without it. However, you can alter the loco stats between runs and the edits will apply as they should. Cargo prices don't behave like this. You still need the cargo files for the saved game to run, but any edits you make to the base price are simply not applied.

So, I ran some quick tests on various ideas:

• I tried quitting the game, editing the base price in the .cty file, rebooting the game, then starting a new game of an existing scenario. Result: no change in pax delivery price.

• I tried quitting the game, editing the base price in the .cty file, rebooting the game, then creating a new scenario from scratch. Result: no change in pax delivery price.

Conclusion: The base price of pax is fixed, and it is not fixed in the Passengers.cty file. It is probably fixed inside the .exe itself. The result is that the pax base price can only be changed by editor event. It cannot be changed by editing the .cty file.

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Speed records: The behaviour of these is weird. When you start a game the record speed is always zero. Your first train run, no matter how slow, should set a speed record. It doesn't. Also, introducing a faster train later in the game should automatically result in another sped record, but it often doesn't. Speed records seem to be far less frequent than they should be.

• Does anyone know how the coding behind speed records really works?

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Passenger Appeal Ratings: This one isn't a question, but a statement. I've recently been testing changes in passenger appeal ratings pretty thoroughly. This testing has confirmed that the information given in the RT3 manual is misleading.

The manual claims that the difference in passenger fares is +15% for each one level increase of passenger appeal rating. This is incorrect, and may have been changed after the manual was written. The actual difference between ratings is 10% of fare price.

• Ugly returns 90% revenue.
• Acceptable returns the base 100%.
• Looks Sharp returns 110%.
• Ultra Cool returns 120%.

Also, although this is still experimental, I have confirmed that non-standard passenger appeal ratings are possible with the right hex values. It is possible to implement ratings that will return 0%, 20%, 50%, 60%, 70% and 80%, then the default ratings, then 130%, 140%, 150%, 160%, 170%, 180%, 190% and finally 200%. As far as I know it is not possible to implement ratings above 200%.

[Gumboots]

Been pondering something else about passenger behaviour. Sometimes I've been checking stations on a map, and seen a pile of passengers at one station who supposedly want to go to another specific station. For example on the default Germantown map, where there would be passengers in Chicago who want to go to St. Louis. So ok, I put on a new train running direct from Chicago to St. Louis, set it to express-only, and voila, it leaves the station empty.

I've seen this sort of thing happen umpteen times. You can have an established route, and you can have a couple or three or a dozen trainloads of passengers who supposedly want to travel, but as soon as you give them a chance to they don't take it. Why not?