Buildings/Industries

[Grandma Ruth]

ned, I've been re-working the industries in the map of Germany and looking on Wikipedia to get them as accurate as possible. Apart from being astonished and admiring the number of German towns that have universities, I realised we don't have such a building in TM (or RT at all).
There were another couple of industries I liked in another project we did - Rail Mogul, I think - which never really got off the ground. They were the hospital and the builder's yard.
On the other hand, I think the various tourist attractions could maybe be incorporated in one - I keep using theme parks for opera houses, theatres, concert halls etc - e.g. Bayreuth and Salzburg have famous cultural attractions that aren't exactly what you'd call a theme park. A lot of European towns have a big tourist industry, of course.
So the upshot of all this is, can I think about the industry a bit and draw up a list of suggestions? Is it too big a job to make changes? I wish I could do it myself, I'm really going to have to try and learn about it.

[nedfumpkin]

I too thought about a university. But I couldn't think of what would be different for it, i.e., what would it demand and/or produce? And most importantly, what would it look like, as in what skin/building would I make, and what would its demands be.

The hospital is already in there, and rather than a building yard, I went all Canadian and made a hardware store..for the Canucks out there...Think Canadian Tire but with lumber and no CT money. :)

I'd be more inclined to use a cinema for an opera house, or concert hall. It's is available long before those moving picture came out so that it can be an opera house or Shakespearean playhouse. The theme park is more for fun fairs, zoos, and other things of that naure. Sea World is just a more advanced version.

Adding new industries is still possible, I haven't come across anything to suggest a limit on the different types. So feel free to offer your suggestions.

[Grandma Ruth]

Here goes then:
But first, a problem:don't know the technicalities involved, but when you click on the hospital buildings you just get this:

instead of this screen you get on most buildings like the textile mill, for example:

Also I noticed quite a few more buildings, like the apothecary, for instance, which only have the one screen. But if you look on the cargo overview it shows up that they do actually demand and supply things. Have I missed something or forgotten a previous discussion we had about this? Wouldn't surprise me!

Hospital:
Based on: existing building with a demand and supply screen, or based on one of the commercial buildings
Demands: people, paper, medicine, machinery
Supplies: people

University:
Based on: commercial building
Demands: people, paper, machinery, food, alcohol, goods (i.e. books, see below!)
Supplies: people

Printing Press:
Based on: commercial building
Demands: paper, hides
Supplies: goods

Jewellers:
Based on: retail building
Demands: gold, chemicals, glass, plastic, textiles
Supplies: goods

I'm going to have a closer look at the existing buildings and let you have my thoughts on some of them as well - I won't mind if you don't use my ideas!

[Grandma Ruth]

Just realised you can't supply or demand people in TM.

[nedfumpkin]

Trainmaster doesn't allow municpal buildings to be built nor bought by the player. It's funny, because last night I was looking at that part of the source code for 1.06 and again came to the conclusion that I did not want to make that change. I want to keep some things out of reach to the player, and the municipal buildings do that.

Recapping...there are general industries which can be bought and built, limited industries which cannot, but can be set to spawn via the industry list. Then there are municipal buildings that spawn based on a cities needs.

The Hospital is a municipal building not a regular industry. Same with the Apothecary. The one screen issue is something I have been trying to figure out. I'm still not sure why it doesn't show cargo on some muncipal buildings while it shows it on others.

The Hospital actually has a lot more demands than what you suggest, and both supplies and demands passengers. I figure not every body dies when they go there.

A university and a legislature are pretty much the same thing, but I don't have a problem with creating two different buildings. But a university would be a limited industry like the legislature, not a municipal building.

A jewellry store has sort of been included. I'd have to go through everything, but I do know that a mall (1950s) takes it into consideration. The problem I ran into was that I couldn't think of a jeweller that would create enough to require rail transport and conceptually I considered it to be mail if anything was produced. (Mail is courier packages too)

A printing press is something I hadn't thought of. I think it would be a good industry rather than a municipal building.

[Hawk]

Wouldn't a hospital supply trash as well as toxic waste, especially in the later years, say the 50's up? I'm thinking before that they weren't too concerned about the waste.

Then you have the university. It could supply animals. Ya' know - donkeys and elephants. Then create a circus train, since politics is a clown act anyway.

[Grandma Ruth]

I see. I think I'm beginning to understand a bit better. What my basic problem is, is lack of demand which I was trying to solve by having different buildings with more demands.

How do the municipal buildings spawn? Is it just like so many houses triggers a shop, and so many triggers a school, or what? Do you know?

Jewellery - hmm - I don't know. I'm probably influenced by just having been to Prague, where there's a big garnet/amber/fake diamond industry and every second shop makes and sells jewellery. Same in Amsterdam, where it's the real thing, of course. Although now I think about it some more, they do tend to sell it in the shop where it's made so probably rail transport isn't a big thing for them. It will probably go as mail or back home with the tourists.

But how about this which I've just thought of - mail order? It's an enormous industry throughout the world, I'm sure. Apart from catalogues like Grattan which is based here where I live, look at all the internet shopping people do. So the mail-order firm demands goods and produces mail. Or how about a Post Office which is a municipal building rather than something attached to the station (which I've always found a bit strange) but producing [goods = mail] as well as [paper = mail] or something of the sort.

But maybe my lack of demand hasn't got anything to do with TM but I've just not set the density right or something. I'll experiment a bit more.

Just saw your post Hawk - (I'm quite proud of myself for getting the reference!)

[nedfumpkin]

Hey you! Stay out of my head...especially on Sunday mornings...dark thoughts in there. Hospitals produce a lot of waste just on their own in TM. And I was thinking of putting livestock as a demand for Unis for research purposes...but then I already took care of that with the Pharma plant. :)



Ruth,

I'm not precisley sure how the municipal buildings spawn, but I see it as based on three factors.

Size of city and price of the muncipal building are factors I am pretty sure. The available supply also has something to do with it I am sure because I've noticed that hardware stores show up when there is a lot of lumber, and grocery stores show up when there is a lot of food.

I'm piqued by your Post Office idea. And what I am thinking is that maybe I could move the Railroad office into its place where it would continue to have the effect of holding mail, and make the post office a mail order type of business as a muncipal building. I'll think about it for a bit, but I am definitely leaning that way.

[Hawk]

Here in the US, when you order something on-line it usually gets shipped by one of the big carriers like UPS or FedEx. Rarely do they use the Post Office due to the prices are too high.

Ned - maybe leave the post office as is and create a common carrier of sorts. I know UPS does ship some of the truck (lowery) trailers via rail. Not sure about FedEx.

Sorry 'bout getting in your head on a Sunday morning. Next time I'll wait 'till Monday.

Ruth - Congratulations on your knowledge of the US political scene.

[nedfumpkin]

The post office concept, i.e. holding mail would still be accomplished by the RR office, but the actual post office itself would be a municipal building generating mail and other stuff. For some reason this seems to make more sense to me, but I will wait to make the change until others have the option of chiming in.

BTW...I'm on a break today while I am miserable at the world.

[nedfumpkin]

Done...the Post Office is now a municipal building and should spawn when goods or paper are travelling to a particular area.

It takes one goods to make one mail, and one paper to make one mail. Max is one per year.

The RR office was already set as a post office as a station facility, so I didn't change that at all. It should serve the same function as a post office by holding mail longer.

Still working in the printing plant.

[Grandma Ruth]

[Grandma Ruth]

I'm going to have a closer look at the existing buildings and let you have my thoughts on some of them as well -

I've had another look at them and the problem was that the supply/demand isn't showing up. It is there, just needs ferreting out a bit more. Now I've realised that, I see they're fine.

[sbaros]

Forest economy considerations (concerning both TrainMaster and 1.06 editions):
"Logging camps" could be renamed as "forest exploitation hubs" or something similar, and made to produce other cargoes beside logs and pulpwood:

1. Maybe a carload of "fruit" (representing all edible vegetation that can be harvested in forests) and
2. half a carload of "livestock" (representing animals hunted for commercial exploitation, excluding ones hunted by hobbyists)

In addition, I am contemplating to transform one of the warehouse "recipes" of my developing scenarios to the "VEB Forstwaren Kombinat" forest supply industries. These would convert:

• pulpwood to lumber (representing "plywood" manufacturing). I think I've read a similar proposal somewhere in the forum, but I don't recall where
• logs to coal (credible and useful for areas poor in fossil fuels)
• fruit to sugar

Or are these secondary forest commodities considered too insignificant to form a detectable portion of the RR transport volume, at least for the scale of RR Tycoon 3? Interested to read opinions.

[RulerofRails]

The difficulty with TM is that fractional demands such as 0.2 per year for Paper are fickle things. You actually have to FORCE cargo to stay there for production to take place. Because of this some industries don't really "work" without heavy micro-management.

Low volume outputs can add "interest", but aren't going to make a big difference in the typical game.

I would conceptualize that such foodstuffs were consumed by the workers locally. To me, inbound consumer supplies, especially Food and maybe Alcohol would be a more likely rail shipment IRL.

Pulpwood + Chemicals = Lumber is done in TM. Some attention must be paid to conversion profit, but many niche industries can be simulated with warehouses.

[sbaros]

Yes, reasonable. I think I'll leave the forest fruit and wild boars to the lumberjacks and confine myself to the "VEB Forstwaren Kombinat".
Also, in the context of generalizing some too specific loads into broader categories, I'd rename "coffee" to "exotic foodstuff" or something similar (covering whatever is called "Kolonialwaren" by Germans). I think it does not disrupt anything in the production chain, and makes things somewhat more realistic. A block train loaded exclusively with coffee sounds too much; enough to cause insomnia to a whole continent, right?

[sbaros]

There's something buggy with the hospitals, unique among businesses as far as I have experienced. As shown here, the hospital seems to acquire all consumed materials for free, with the result that its costs are less than 1% of revenues!!
Given the fact that I have activated the capability to build municipal buildings, isn't this like stealing?
How has this happened? I thought that paying for materials used is hard-coded in the program.

Hospital as mega-money generator?

[RulerofRails]

I did a test, and my hospital had to pay for the inputs.

PS. This is in a Trainmaster install, and I didn't actually build it outside the editor. I'm not quite sure how Ned controlled the list of buildable buildings, obviously due to space constraints not all will fit. Just changing the settings to buildable/buyable in the bca wasn't enough.

[sbaros]

This is by far not the only unpredictable building behaviour observed. Strangely enough, when I load my South Balkan map on a certain desktop PC of mine under Windows 7, it may happen that quarries produce only crystals, no rock! And rock in general is absent from all lists. It occurs about half the time with that specific PC, but never on any of my other machines (even the ones running Windows 7 too). However, when I save the session and reload it on another PC, rock miraculously re-appears, as if nothing had happened.
Whenever the bug occurs, furnaces also omit rock from their cargo acceptance list. However, both rock products, ceramics and concrete still appear. If you have a port directly delivering ceramics, they will be shipped to an appropriate concrete plant.
It happens only with the South Balkan map, not any other one!
Some bugs seem to be related to the hardware employed, such as some zooming irregularities I observe.

If there is a list of bugs, someone might be interested to add this one. And of course, I'd be interested to see that list and possible explanations about these things.

[Gumboots]

I've never seen that bug before, and it only happens on one of your installations, so the obvious conclusion is that it's the installation that is the problem.