Railroad Tycoon 3 - Trainmaster Alpha 1

[nedfumpkin]

This is the Trainmaster Alpha version. There aren't any maps yet, and this is still a work in progress. It requires a fresh copy of RT3 with the Coast to Coast Expansion.


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The links here have been removed since all the latest files are now located here:

viewtopic.php?f=74&t=1883

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[nedfumpkin]

8 months of work
1 Alpha upload
3 patches to get things sorted out.

Zero feedback.

Basically here is the deal. If nobody wants to help out with this mod even by offering feedback, then expect another 8 months while I finish things, test things, and then create scenarios. During that time the Alpha version will be removed, no betas will be forthcoming, no information will be provided, nothing will be ported out for 1.05 or 1.06, and when it is all done, it will be released as one final package without any future fixes, and you might have to learn German to play it.

Or, I can abandon all work and just keep it as a local game for my use only.

I understand that people have lives, jobs, or serious family issues. I also understand that there is a learning curve involved. But, some feedback would be appreciated.

Make a choice.

[Hawk]

I'm dealing with a dying father-in-law right now. All my time is spent with my wife.

[WPandP]

Ned, I understand what you're saying. A little bit more feedback might have kept some steam in my boiler, to keep going on my freight car mods; as it was, I let the fire die out and "wasted" a lot of time, over the past few months. It's taken a while to get the boiler back up to pressure, to get going again.

Thing is, you just gotta let it develop its own momentum; you just released files over the weekend, people have barely had a chance to get things installed. You got some feedback, from early adopters who ran into troubles on the install end of things, and you've promptly addressed these issues with patches (kudos! ). I downloaded almost immediately, as I was online at the time, but it was just as I was going to bed, and my schedule prohibited exploration just yet. I really won't have time until next weekend, and believe me I've got time set aside for it.

As I am a modder, I'll have to do a fresh install of the game, so it isn't all that simple for me. And for any of us, since there are no ready-made scenarios, the first order of business is to craft some little sandbox in which to play.

In short, I think your complaints about lack of feedback are approximately one month too early. Just be assured that we are all greatly appreciative of the work, and recognize how much you've poured into it!

[WPandP]

I'm dealing with a dying father-in-law right now. All my time is spent with my wife.

Hawk, I'm saddened to hear this. My prayers are with you and your wife.

[nedfumpkin]

Hawk, my condolences on your father-inl-law. I appreciate that you are dealing with that. Truly, I do, and in my books that's your first priority. On top of that, you do so much on the site, that I accept you are busy with other things. So my comment was not directed towards you, nor WP&P.

WP&P, I also appreciate that I may be premature for detailed feedback, however, as you said, feedback is a big motivator. I also realize that there are no premade scenarios, and things have to take time to set up. You've done a ton of work that has been incorporated into this mod, and that is a large part of what it is built on.

Not too long ago someone posted a complaint about how the 1.06 patch was only 98% complete, and there has been whigning about the use of warehouses. Rail Mogul had a flurry of activity in the beginning, but now seems to have been abandoned.

I would rather not abandon this project, but neither do I want to spend my free time working on this if it is to be for nought.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

I'm scared of this patch. It appears to create a version of RRT3 thats not compatible with the classic version of the game. 1.06 added stuff but I could still play the old maps. With this one I seem to have to choose - either Trainmaster RRT3 or classic RRT3 patched to 1.06. I guess I'm not ready to leave RRT3 classic behind until the rest of the community moves as well and I have scenarios to play on.

[Zteuer]

Hi

I have downloaded all the patches and it seems to be running fine. I have made an extremely basic map 320x320 with two cities and two regions just to see how things are working and playing around with the industry chains. I am very lousy at map design though, so I'm basicly waiting for some kind of scenario to play around with. I really like the complexity of the industry chains and how everything fits together. Like how you need machines to really get the lumber mills going. I would like to see some more documentation on the various station improvement buildings as the descriptions are adopted from the original restaurant and post office buildings. My first impression so far: I love it, and I am eagerly awaiting some clever (or even not so clever) maps to try out.

Z.

[nedfumpkin]

Thank you Zteuer, I should have all the documentation completed by the weekend.

Jeremy, this is not an add-on to 1.05, nor 1.06. This is a completely new version that runs along side of the other two. Vista users can't play 1.06, so this is for people on Vista to have something new to work on. Face it, one day XP will be obsolete, and so will 1.06 as a result. Old maps can't be played as they are, but they can be loaded into the editor, modified, then played.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I gave some feedback about an error when I tried to run the game, but got no response. Although I didn't start with a "fresh" installation, I did copy the relevant folders to a new destination, copied all the things as directed into their appropriate folders, installed all the patches and it didn't work. I'm going to try a fresh install on a different computer and will let you know whether it works.

The lack of a playable map for testing is also a drawback, especially for those unfamiliar with the Editor. You must have some maps that you made for testing, and if you made them available for use, you might get more folks to try Trainmaster and give feedback.

[Grandma Ruth]

Hawk, I'm so sorry to hear about your father-in-law. My thoughts are with you and your wife and family.
ned, I know how you feel and I'm sorry if I've done to you what I felt other people were doing to me some time back over the 1.06 testing. I did a couple of test scenarios for that which were never used, and at the time I felt a bit miffed.
I'll re-do them for Trainmaster and attach them to a post in this thread - they're very basic but will give people something to test with. I'm at work now and working late tonight but hey, who needs sleep?

[Grandma Ruth]

I'm scared of this patch. It appears to create a version of RRT3 thats not compatible with the classic version of the game. 1.06 added stuff but I could still play the old maps. With this one I seem to have to choose - either Trainmaster RRT3 or classic RRT3 patched to 1.06. I guess I'm not ready to leave RRT3 classic behind until the rest of the community moves as well and I have scenarios to play on.

Not so - I've got basic RT3, 1.04, 1.05 and 1.06 all running on the same machine. You need to play around with the drive paths so as well as C:programs/RT3 they say C:programs/rt3.4 and so on, whatever you want to call them. Then you'll have four or more shortcuts on your desktop, each pointing to a different path. They'll all work with the same play disc. I'm not at home so I can't give you any proper details at the moment. It was Gwizz told me how to do it - you'll usually find him on the RT2 forum!

[Hawk]

The old guy has a strong will to live, in spite of his condition, which is pretty bad.

I'm going to try and steal away a little time today to have a look at TM, but I can't promise anything.

Thanks for the condolences folks. My wife and I are very appreciative.

[OilCan]

Nedfumpkin: please give me some time to get the alpha version loaded up and played with. I cannot get to it this weekend but I promise to give you some honest and constructive feedback as soon as I can. I'm not a map maker so I will have to lean on the creativity of someone else to provide a demo map.

Hawk: my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

[Hawk]

Before I head down to the hospital I thought I'd take a look at this.
I guess I'm a little brain-dead here as I have a need for clarification on the industry text files. For instance:

Bakery

1800 - $357,000 - /$195,000

Obviously this represents the start date. Following that; is this the purchase price - /upgrade price?

1800 - >

Available from this date on?

3 Food - 1 Flour, .5 Sugar, .5 Logs

1 Flour, .5 Sugar, .5 Logs will produce 3 Foods? Required, or this helps the production? In other words, will the bakery produce without the supplies?

Is this how to read the text files?

I have available a base map that was created for the first contest over at RTI if anyone thinks this would be a good map to test with. It's the same map that Paphalophagus was made form, but it's a bare map. No cities, territories, nothing.
According to the X - Y readings on the map, it's 575 X 575.

Click on image to view full size

Hawk: my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

Thank you!

Edit 1: This gives me ideas for a couple of events.

Mail - snail mail, courier packages, donations the the H&B RR., etc.

Gold - gold, silver, titanium, etc.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Ned: I did a fresh install on a different computer and all seems well. Must have been something in the way I did it the first time. I'll be installing it at home tonight, and hope to have a map for testing soon.

[Grandma Ruth]

Old maps can't be played as they are, but they can be loaded into the editor, modified, then played.

I'm having a problem doing anything with the Editor - it won't load old maps, create new ones, load the heightmaps - anything! It's saying "Pack element <2Hab_Profile.imb> not found" when I try a new map and just not loading the old maps.

[nedfumpkin]

Thank you everyone for their replies. Really, it makes all the difference in the world. One of the things that I am faced with is choosing between finishing things and documenting as much as I can, and testing things in depth. I would prefer finishing things and allowing others to test because that gives me a different perspective than my own.

I will try to answer all your questions, etc.

Wolvy, I thought I did reply to you, and the reply was that you were lacking the CTC expansion.

Ruth, 2Hab is an electric engine and it is in the /poptopextracontent/trainmaster_locos_electric.pk4 file. If the file isn't there, then you haven't installed all the files. There should be locos for electric, diesel, and steam pk4 files, as well as the express cars, freight cars, and bldgs files. I'll post a file list with the next patch.

Oilcan, I am hoping to have a basic map set up in a few days. I realize some people aren't comfortable with the editor, and I am hoping that determinging industry profitabilty could be offered by some who wouldn't mind. Everything so far is 90% theory, and 10% "looks like it is working." So I expect some adjustments will be made.

Hawk, yes on 1800 is start date, first price is purchase, second is upgrade. If no second price, then no upgrade possible.

1900 -> means that it goes from that date until 9999.

3 Food - 1 Flour, .5 Sugar, .5 Logs means that all are required for it to work.

When is says produces .5 loads per year, or demands 2 loads per year, these are not affecting the supply and demand of rhe industry, however, in theory the should affect the profitability.

Zteuer, to expand on the station buildings, there are two types. Railyard structures, and station amenities.

Station amenities are industries that feed off the passenger traffic, but also have their own demands. Restaurants need food and glass (dishes), taverns need alcohol, and glass, etc.

Railyard structures, which unfortunately the game displays the information for a restaurant, are different because they just attract different kinds of loads. The idea is originally WP&P's. !.06 was modified to allow for drop shipping, and these buildings will allow for that. But they also serve so that proper rail yards can be created.

For example, let say you have a paper mill and a textile mill that will both use hemp. Rather than run trains from the communities to the factories, this allows you to send all your hemp to a railyard, and then ship it to different places as you determine. The possible combinations are endless.

...... I think that answers everything....


The base map that Hawk displayed is a great map to create as a tester, or even a "how does all this work?" type scenario.

[MrScott1964]

I loaded the game into it's own folder (directory) which seemed to work well. I started radomly adding building to a blank map just to see what was new. There is one building...I believe it is the lavender shop...the textures are mixed up. Other then that everything looked good to this point.

[Gandar]

The old guy has a strong will to live, in spite of his condition, which is pretty bad.

I

I once dropped everything and took a same day flight to see my brother who was only given 24 - 48 hours to live. after two days he opened his eyes and asked what was for breakfast, he lived another 6 months, but the guy in the next bed who we had been chatting to whilst sitting around my comatose brother,suddenly gave up and died 4 days later.
Never underestimate the will to live.
I'm sure its very trying Hawk but hang in there, our thoughts and prayers are with you.