Railroad Tycoon 3 - Trainmaster Alpha 1

[Wolverine@MSU]

The Food Processor doesn't produce anything between 1914 and 1920. I also notice that for several cargoes, the demand drops after a few years at the cell occupied by the station. I placed an Oil Refinery down in the south by the tar pit/oil wells, and the station right next to the refinery suddenly dropped its demand, although the Refinery a couple of cells away still had only a moderate demand. I'm finding it difficult to supply machinery to all the industries that need it. Haven't built a Machine Shop yet, so maybe that will help things.

Ned: I've been working on reformatting the "Readme" files and (with your permission) will post them when I get done. I plan on packaging them together as PDF files in a ZIP folder. I'll update them as new text files become available.

[nedfumpkin]

Thanks for the information. I haven't gotten to the food processor yet because I am stuck on getting the sugar refinery to work a bit more profitably. I raised the price of sugar to see if that helps.

Both the food processor and cannery are noted as being subject to major overhaul. But this helps me out tremendously by knowing what isn't working. I am trying to go through every industry to test its profitability, and as you can imagine, this is taking time. You should notice a significant improvement in the paper mill and textile mill in the last patch versus the previous ones.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I've reformatted the Documentation (with Ned's permission) to make them easier to read and more "printer friendly". As the source documents are updated I'll update the enclosed documents.

[Hawk]

Nice job on the PDF's Wolvy.

Now that the server move is done, and as soon as I get done editing a ton of photos from my father-in-law's house, and after I get done updating the photo gallery, and after I get done working on another web site, maybe I'll have some time to sit down with TrainMaster. It looks real interesting, especially the service towers, maintenance facilities, etc. demanding stuff. Could make for some interesting and challenging scenarios.

[ishaybas]

****** it I am so swamped with work.
I know it will take a few hours (or days ..) of my time once I get my hands on trainmaster.
I will probably wont want to stop ..

cant wait for a few relaxed days to try it out!

[nedfumpkin]

I concur, nice job on the pdfs Wolvy.

I have to admit, this week has found me running around a lot and I haven't been able to get any work done. Might be able to get some time in over the weekend...but there may be some painting taking place so we'll see. Four our friends in the south and across the ocean, this weekend we celebrate the sovereign's birthday, traditionally called the May Two Four weekend since a lot of people grab a 24 of beer and go camping in the rain, so we have a long weekend, and I have other crap to do around this place. But I'll try to get the municipal buildings documented.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I've been playing your supplied scenario (the newer version) and have a couple of comments. With the resources suppiled on the map, especially Machinery, it's near impossible to satisfy all the industrial requirements for machinery. Some of the industries, like Lumber Mills and Oil Wells, require some Machinery or they won't produce anything. Likewise, there are many others that require a "little bit of this........a little bit of that" in order to produce anything. Ned: have you found that one needs to do a lot of "micromanagement" in order to have things work? That's what I'm finding, and without "ship at a loss", it's often impossible to make some things work. Part of the problem, as I said before, is lack of vital things on the map, but this can easily be solved by placing more resources on the map to start with. I tried running the game with the 1.06 RT3.EXE and it work OK, it's just that games created or saved in 1.06 aren't openable by 1.05. Milo seems to have gone AWOL, but if we can get him to modify 1.05 to allow "ship at a loss" (and fix my own pet peeve about the game not going to pause after the yearly Ledger is closed) it would make some of the problems go away. Alternatively, if he could just remove the code that looks for or places the "1.06" stamp on scenarios created/saved that would also fix some of the problems.

[nedfumpkin]

I admit that the test map is not all that good as a scenario yet. My goal is to eventually use it as a tutorial scenario, but as it is now, it's more of a tester for different industry ideas and strategies of play. But, yeah, it's taking a while for me too.But again, it is intentionally a very difficult scenario. Anyone is free to modify the scenario if they choose.

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Micro-managing cargo? Absolutely! Trainmaster puts the emphasis on the cargo supply chain more so than the stock market aspects of the game with the idea that complexity is by design, and it is meant to be much more of a challenge than RT3 1.05 or 1.06.

A different approach is needed in the game to play it. I am finding that industries that compete that for demand should be away from the cities, and industries that aren't in competition with the locals can go in cities. Also, when first starting, auto consists work, but very soon it is better to run custom consists on all routes. I'm even finding that mail and passengers are working better on separate trains as the game progesses. It really comes back to the Trainmaster job description in the readme, I am finding.

Machinery, Paper, and Waste are burden cargo. This means that they are your constant burden to deal with. Most industries demand machinery. Some require it to produce their products, others to improve profitability. Industries that require machinery to produce their products are industries that have it as a natural ingredient or has more than usual wear and tear on their machines to produce their product.

Paper is the same thing, however, in some cases it is packaging, others it is an administration issue. Waste is what humans produce, so it has to be dealt with. Landfills and scrapyards will spawn in the cities to accept waste.

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I have started looking at the RT3.exe file to look into making some modifications like the ship at a loss, and other issues that would be good to have, but again, I always return to that this must work on Vista at all time, and unless the 1.06 exe can run in Vista, it'll never be used.

There are only about 4 million some odd characters in the RT3.exe, and when I am ready to tackle it, I'll try to contact Milo and see if he can give some direction. He's not truly MIA, but otherwise occupied. I'm not ready just yet to tackle this monster.

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Something I have also found is that you don't want to get more than 4 bonds, 5 at the most. It seems to alter things when you have a higher debt load.

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Again, thank you very much for the feedback. I'll be the first to admit that this game needs more work to be what it can be, but I am finiding it an enjoyable challenge, but a much slower game. I hope others do too.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Something I have also found is that you don't want to get more than 4 bonds, 5 at the most. It seems to alter things when you have a higher debt load.

In what way? My current play has me maxed out with 20 bonds, but of course with nothing to compare to (4 bonds) I don't know what effect it has. I used the low-interest bonds (5-6%) to finance industry purchases that are returning >10-15% ROI, so I don't see a downside to this. I can now readily see the logic in placing certain industries, such as a Machine Shop, "out in the boondocks". That way, it is almost certain the demand will be higher almost anyplace on the map, so shipping a load here or there won't pose a problem.
It's going to take a whole new mindset to master the playing of a scenario, let alone designing one. I'm going to tinker with yours a bit. I'm not sure I like the "one and only one" locos at the beginning of the game. Because of the varied terrain, a wide choice of locos needs to be made available; an Atlantic just won't do in hilly areas trying to pull a load of 6 cars!
Keep at it Ned. I think you're on to something here, and it has progressed much farther than Rail Mogul (whatever became of this?) and makes RT3 an almost completely new gaming experience.

[nedfumpkin]

I haven't been able to really pinpoint it, and maybe it just might be my style of play, but I've found that when I keep it at less than 3 million in bonds then times are a bit better, whereas when I have a lot of bonds, times seem tougher. It's just a feeling, and it could just be me.

Something else I have found is that certain formulas will work for one industry, and another industry will not function with the same basic formula. This has me diligently working hard on working them out to function properly.

I'm still not settled on the demand for houses while I keep on considering the possiblity of the suburban bungalow and the high rise apartment building. It's something I am going to have to work out on paper first.

A lot of the concepts in Rail Mogul are being incorporated into this game; as much as can be done. I'll admit that some of the ideas are my own and I am just curious to see if they work. :) But based on what I've seen, there's no new RR games coming in the forseeable future, so Trainmaster could be all that there is at some point. Especially for Visat users.

And thank you so much for all your help, you have no idea how much it is appreciated.

Edit: Something else I was trying to remember to post. Most industries do not store their parts for long periods of time. Instead they work on a "just in time" method. In real life this is a very important consideration, especially in the auto industry when delayed parts cause significant a impact on operations. I am trying to incorporate that concept into the game.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I haven't been able to really pinpoint it, and maybe it just might be my style of play, but I've found that when I keep it at less than 3 million in bonds then times are a bit better, whereas when I have a lot of bonds, times seem tougher. It's just a feeling, and it could just be me.

Do you mean that the "Economic State" tends to be better? I haven't found this to be true, but haven't really tested it because I always max out bonds during the "growth" phase at the beginning of a game.

[Orange46]

The Alpha 1 link is working, but the other 3, including the j patch don't seem to be since last night.

Also, if I install the j patch over the i patch, will it mess up a game in progess? That happened to me in Civ 4 where I patched and then couldn't finish the mod I was playing.

Edit - As Emily would say ... Never mind. Now it's working, but someone can still answer the i to j question. Thanks

[nedfumpkin]

No, it shouldn't affect games in progress. It might alter the game as it progresses in the scenario...actually, it should, but the patches at this point are cumulative in that they have everything before it, and the changes from i to j are cargo recipe modifications and cargo price changes. Very minor tweaking. I'm going to keep doing that until the industries are working as they should.