Building History

[nedfumpkin]

I've noticed something with industries and buildings on maps, and their start dates.

Buildings that are spawned by the game when the scenario is started will go back 3 years for their start dates.

Buildings that are placed on the map during creation will have the date that is current on the map during creation. So if the window is saying 1900 then any buildings that are placed will have that as their start date. If the scenario starts in 1910, then spawned buildings will have a start date in 1907, but placed buildings will have a start date of 1900. Of course, industry that is added via event during start-up would have 1910 as their start date.

This will affect the flow of cargo on the map because the buildings will have had longer to attract their cargo. It can also affect whether an existing industry will have been upgraded already or not.

[Wolverine@MSU]

This can't be exactly correct because even though placed buildings show up as having been built at the later date, they must have been there when the economy was "seeded". Witness the Meat Packing Plant in Erin and the Flour Mills in Silibury Bay and Alberina on your Trainmaster map. They are shown as having been built at the map start date, but have already developed a cargo demand that is attracting livestock and corn/grain respectively. This would suggest that they were placed at the -3 years from start date and began sending out their "demand" signals at that time. Contrast this to a building that is placed by event at Start-up. I added an Efect to place a Meat Packer in Maccuso as part of the "Start up" Event, and it shows as having been built at the scenario start date, but doesn't have a blue "demand triangle" above it at the start of the game and shows no demand gradient toward it.

[nedfumpkin]

Actually, the meat packing plant and flour mill shows as being built in 1900, not 1910 the map start date. This is why they are shwoing cargo already there. The Co-ops show as being built in 1870, which is what the date was when I was doing that part of the map. The houses and muncipal buildings show as being built in 1907.

[WPandP]

But Ned, even though they show a build date beyond the 3-year lookback, the game doesn't run economic simulation all the way back that far. The building exists at year -3 as a 7-year old building, and the economic model starts moving cargo around from that point, doing the 3 year iterations. If the scenario creator places a building when the editor shows 1800 as the date, then the scenario gets played with a start date of 1900, the game doesn't run 100 years of economic cycles; it just runs 3. At least, I'm pretty sure that's the case; a test might be to compare load up times of a map at 10 years beyond the building placement, versus 100 years, and see if it takes something close to an order of magnitude longer to load (i.e. it's chugging through 100 iterations rather than 10). I would imagine that they would not have wanted to have that kind of variability in load times, as it would be frustrating to players (especially on the older PC's for which the game was designed).

[nedfumpkin]

The thing that got me was that on one load of the scenario, the meat packing plant was already stacked up with livestock, and had been upgraded. The price for it was $1,800,000. This seemed to make more sense since it's not something that would be normal in three years, especially with cargo moving on it's own.

I could be wrong, but it's worth looking into for when creating maps since it would allow for some variability on industry placement. I don't think it will calculate 100 of years, but it seems to go back as much as ten years.

[Wolverine@MSU]

If you start the map in 1900 instead of 1910, the meatpacker still is drawing livestock, so it must have been included in the -3 year inventory of buildings when the economy is seeded. Your original map was made with the start year (in the Editor) as 1900, so that's when the game "places" it, regardless of the start date. If you start the game in 1895, it's still there, has created a demand gradient, but shows no "activity" when you click on it (no Loads consumed or produced). After 1 year, it has upgraded itself, but still no stats in the window. I've seen this before in some maps, where an industry is present and shows a "built" date later than the current year but shows no activity in the stats window. After three years of play, the packer has been making meat from livestock, and has a hefty purchase price, but still no stats. Mousing over the "Buy" button shows a purchase price of $2.3 M. In 1899, the stats window now has listings for Loads produced/consumed, Revenue, Mat'ls cost etc. but is not showing any activity (no numbers) in the window. In 1900, the values start appearing.
So I went back and restarted in 1895, and bought the packer. Even though no stats appear in the window, the packer is generating profits ($217 K for the first year). Same goes for other "placed" industries. I bought the Lavender Farm and textile Mill in the second year (1896) and although nothing shows in the stats window, they're still generating profit. This behavior is probably not unique to TrainMaster, but a property of the RT3 game engine. I guess map makers need to be aware of this when they are designing maps. It's probably best to make all maps in the Editor with a start date of 1830 if there are going to be any "placed" industries on the map. Only after everthing is set should the start date parameters be changed.

[nedfumpkin]

Here's an example of what I am talking about. I loaded the scenario in 1910 as per the default. The meat packing plant shows that it was built in 1900.

For 1908 and 1909 it made a total of 302k in profit. That would mean that if it only went back 3 years then its first year would have 330k in profit. I'm figuring that if its first year made no profit, then its showing business for at least 5 or six years at the time of spawning the scenario. Maybe more.