Agriculture in Trainmaster

[nedfumpkin]

Note: This message will be continually edited until it's finished and then will be included with the docs.


The most important difference between Trainmaster and all previous versions of Railroad Tycoon is the way that agricultural products are handled. In previous versions, individual farms would produce the agricultural product, and they would accept an input to increase their output.

Trainmaster is based on the idea that agricultural products tend to come from collection points such as a co-operative, and they collect many different commodities from the invidividuals farm in an area. There are essentially three plus one main types types of agricultural communities, and then there are different types of individual farms that specialize in their output.

The three plus one main agricultural communities are basically small towns and should be associated with a city on the map. This city itself should have the population set accordingly as a small village. This is why these should be placed rather than spawned. They produce a wide variety of cargo and have the same needs as would a small village co-op.

The Farmstead Community (Dairy), Farmstead Community (Ranches), Farmstead Community (Rice Paddies), are the three main types, and the plus one is the Traditionalist Community. It's plus one because the former will be affected by the all farms/mines effect, however, the Tradtionalist Community is considered a basic industry.

The difference between the Farmstead Communities, are the focus of their production. All will produce most of the commodities as the others, but some more and some less. The Traditionalist Community is more distinct, and primarily shuns modern technology.

Another change is the inputs for increasing production. Crops require fertilizer, but livestock require medicine rather than corn or grain.

There are also speciality farms and plantations. These can be spawned or placed, and in the case of the Bio-mass plantations, they can be built.

[edbangor]

Just one question about this do you 'need' to have all the co-ops, in any map, or can you get away with two, or even one, and still have a fully fledged, if limited, cargo chain?
Naturally, ports and/or warehouses could be used to fill a small gap.

Elsewise, is it an idea, in that in the latter periods of the game (say the late 2000s) to allow the player to build the communities for quite a large outlay of course?

(Okay that's two questions!)

[nedfumpkin]

Any of the three main Agricultural Communities will be enough by itself on a map. The Dairy and Ranches are identical except for the amounts produced. Neither supplies rice. The Rice Paddies produces rice instead of something else (corn I think), and is otherwise the same as the dairy.

So on any given map, you can have just one community type and have a fully functioning map. The Traditionalist Community could also be used in the same way, but it is more limited.

Originally I had a tropical community, but upon researching gum (latex) production, it was more appropriate if they were plantations instead of communities. So with any of those four, or any combination thereof, you have enough on a map to produce your agricultural products.

[RulerofRails]

After finally realizing what was going on with the Agriculture Communities and some research I decide to share a brief summary to let all those who are playing TM know what is going on behind the scenes. I have looked at the bca files which control the cargo exchanges at the communities and I also did a thorough search sifting through pages of old threads.

I found the confirmation of what happened here: viewtopic.php?p=22631#p22631. Quoting Ned from that post:

I've got the Farmstead Communities so that you can clearly see what they produce. I have made the demand cargoes into exchanges so they are hidden. They still demand what it says in the new doc, but they produce very tiny amounts of the other products so they don't show up and clutter the window.

I believe he failed to realize that a side-effect of this "fix" to make cargoes appear correctly made the agricultural communities massive demands. To give an idea of how much: each community will demand roughly 190 loads of cargo per year for "conversion". The worst ratios are 33:1. So, if 33 loads of Petroleum are present, one load of Grain will be produced in a year.

However, these conversions are loss-making so the real demand strength is less than half this and because there are so many (12+) conversion chains competing under the same limit of conversion (1 loads per year) I believe that it has more to do with the rot factor and how much will be deleted from a stack due to age. More details on this: viewtopic.php?p=41577#p41577.

Obviously, the Trainmaster Cargo Chain Guide is mis-leading. Maybe it was made before these conversions were changed. I have deciphered most of the info in the bca files, but don't know how much use an individual listing would be. In summary, all the cargoes that the main 3 agri communities produce are all interconnected in such a way that there's no easy way to use production events to boost specific cargoes without boosting demand a fair bit. The worst offenders are Hemp, Corn, Wool, and Grain. Demanding Textiles, Lumber, Goods, and Petroleum all at 33:1 ratio. Using the biomass farms for Hemp and Corn could help some to side-step this. The other farms like Cotton, Lavender, Rubber, and the Vineyard also aren't affected.

Here's a quick overview of the ratios of conversion. I haven't tried to see if there's another way to fix the display for them.

[Hawk]

For whatever it's worth, Ned hasn't even logged in her since Oct. 4th of last year. I've sent him a couple of emails but never got a reply.

I'd say any changes done would need to be by you or others.

[RulerofRails]

Thanks, Hawk. Yes, I did check when Ned stopped by. Hope he's doing ok.

At this point this is information for players to strategize with what is presently existing. I.e. presently there is no point in supplying them with anything except Fertilizer and Medicine.

A "fix" may take some time, but if I find something that works well I will post it so everyone can use it. I'm working on correcting and freshening up the Warrington Wire map at the moment. Will post that when it's ready.

[Cash on Wheels]

After finally realizing what was going on with the Agriculture Communities and some research I decide to share a brief summary to let all those who are playing TM know what is going on behind the scenes. I have looked at the bca files which control the cargo exchanges at the communities and I also did a thorough search sifting through pages of old threads.

I found the confirmation of what happened here: viewtopic.php?p=22631#p22631. Quoting Ned from that post:

I've got the Farmstead Communities so that you can clearly see what they produce. I have made the demand cargoes into exchanges so they are hidden. They still demand what it says in the new doc, but they produce very tiny amounts of the other products so they don't show up and clutter the window.

I believe he failed to realize that a side-effect of this "fix" to make cargoes appear correctly made the agricultural communities massive demands. To give an idea of how much: each community will demand roughly 190 loads of cargo per year for "conversion". The worst ratios are 33:1. So, if 33 loads of Petroleum are present, one load of Grain will be produced in a year.

However, these conversions are loss-making so the real demand strength is less than half this and because there are so many (12+) conversion chains competing under the same limit of conversion (1 loads per year) I believe that it has more to do with the rot factor and how much will be deleted from a stack due to age. More details on this: viewtopic.php?p=41577#p41577.

Obviously, the Trainmaster Cargo Chain Guide is mis-leading. Maybe it was made before these conversions were changed. I have deciphered most of the info in the bca files, but don't know how much use an individual listing would be. In summary, all the cargoes that the main 3 agri communities produce are all interconnected in such a way that there's no easy way to use production events to boost specific cargoes without boosting demand a fair bit. The worst offenders are Hemp, Corn, Wool, and Grain. Demanding Textiles, Lumber, Goods, and Petroleum all at 33:1 ratio. Using the biomass farms for Hemp and Corn could help some to side-step this. The other farms like Cotton, Lavender, Rubber, and the Vineyard also aren't affected.

Here's a quick overview of the ratios of conversion. I haven't tried to see if there's another way to fix the display for them.
TM agricultural communities.jpg

Those 33 to 1 must be mistakes because in the .bca file its 8FC2F53C (backwards) =.03 the intent I bet was to set it to .33 hex =3E 8A F5 C3

16.67 looks familiar, like 1÷6=16.67. It is in the. bca as 0.03 to 0.5 hence the 16.67 number 50÷3=16.67

I guess he wanted the co-op cargo panel to look better than it was. So he used a line of text to help hide the overload of production chains.

Presenting the RoR community co-op!

[RulerofRails]

TBH, I think Ned just went too quickly there. If you look in the TM Supply Chain Guide for the Agr-Communities you will find this:

<

What he did when converting from Demand-Only to Conversion was leave the value for Input the same, then put in an Output and a value for that. Whether he messed up with the hex figures themselves or forget for a time that he was not just making the possibility for a small output (what he wanted) but was also drastically raising demand. Most of the Input values were "1" so demand was raised to the inverse of what he entered. For example, 1/0.03 = 33.3.

The good news is that I went digging in the bca files for a couple of hours and thanks to Milo with the 1.06 Machinery demands I worked out how to hide a Demand Only chain. I wont make detailed instructions. It's identified like this in the Production section of Pjay's RT3notes:

Code: Select all

040	:     4 :   int	: q1 = 0

If you put 02 here, the chain will be invisible.

<

<

---

<

So the question is have the much higher demands become a feature of TM gameplay? (AT41B, what do you think?)

I put the Rice Paddies back to the levels from the TM Supply Chain Guide for proof of concept:

<

<

<

Side-by-side with a Ranch for comparison.

<

---

<

PS. I was trying to work out how the text string calls in the bty files work. Haven't remembered yet.

On a positive note I discovered that the following string (decimal address 041 777) is an integer that acts as a Multiplier on REAL Production AND the demand amounts beside the recipes, but NOT displayed production max. in-game. The Paper Mill has a multiplier of 4. So, while production max. displays as "2" in-game, the real output is 8 loads per year. Could easily be changed.

[AT41B]

As far as I think, I am not very logical minded. So I don't have an opinion, yet. I will have to play around with it for a while.

[Cash on Wheels]

TBH, I think Ned just went too quickly there. If you look in the TM Supply Chain Guide for the Agr-Communities you will find this:
TM documentation agri. com..jpg

<

What he did when converting from Demand-Only to Conversion was leave the value for Input the same, then put in an Output and a value for that. Whether he messed up with the hex figures themselves or forget for a time that he was not just making the possibility for a small output (what he wanted) but was also drastically raising demand. Most of the Input values were "1" so demand was raised to the inverse of what he entered. For example, 1/0.03 = 33.3.

The good news is that I went digging in the bca files for a couple of hours and thanks to Milo with the 1.06 Machinery demands I worked out how to hide a Demand Only chain. I wont make detailed instructions. It's identified like this in the Production section of Pjay's RT3notes:

Code: Select all

040	:     4 :   int	: q1 = 0

If you put 02 here, the chain will be invisible.

<

<

---

<

So the question is have the much higher demands become a feature of TM gameplay? (AT41B, what do you think?)

I put the Rice Paddies back to the levels from the TM Supply Chain Guide for proof of concept:

<

Rice Paddies - display.jpg

<

Rice Paddies - demand size.jpg

<

Side-by-side with a Ranch for comparison.

<

---

<

PS. I was trying to work out how the text string calls in the bty files work. Haven't remembered yet.

On a positive note I discovered that the following string (decimal address 041 777) is an integer that acts as a Multiplier on REAL Production AND the demand amounts beside the recipes, but NOT displayed production max. in-game. The Paper Mill has a multiplier of 4. So, while production max. displays as "2" in-game, the real output is 8 loads per year. Could easily be changed.

I written 5 replies to this thread & this forum and the forum or phone keeps making me log back in. Short reply:

2 hides I know. That text string is n one of the .lngs. It maybe called from the .exe. (fert & corn 20%) in farms are in there. That multipler deep in the .bty files IIRC was used for houses and municipal buildings. IE commercial building demanded paper 1 ,2 or 3.
Does the co-op really need all of those small chains? What effect do they have on the game? Is recreational hemp allowed to be smoked in the game?

[Cash on Wheels]

No people I don't light up. In case you were wondering...

[Gumboots]

You can use it to run your steam trains.

[RulerofRails]

That multipler deep in the .bty files IIRC was used for houses and municipal buildings. IE commercial building demanded paper 1 ,2 or 3.

Ok. Thanks for that info. So, that entry (041 777, decimal address in bty file) is for when you use multiple bty files (Commercial building has six) with the same bca, to enable small, medium, large to have corresponding demands strengths. Interesting.

---

Thanks AT41B, I had a spare minute, I decided to simply restore the demands on all the agri-communities to the way Ned had them before the workaround to hide the demand chains. So these match with the documentation, and as far as I can discern functionally match those TM was Beta tested with.

Notes:
The installation is simply to place these in the Data\BuildingTypes folder. Overwrite the old ones.

[Cash on Wheels]

That multipler deep in the .bty files IIRC was used for houses and municipal buildings. IE commercial building demanded paper 1 ,2 or 3.

Ok. Thanks for that info. So, that entry (041 777, decimal address in bty file) is for when you use multiple bty files (Commercial building has six) with the same bca, to enable small, medium, large to have corresponding demands strengths. Interesting.

---

Thanks AT41B, I had a spare minute, I decided to simply restore the demands on all the agri-communities to the way Ned had them before the workaround to hide the demand chains. So these match with the documentation, and as far as I can discern functionally match those TM was Beta tested with.

Notes:
The installation is simply to place these in the Data\BuildingTypes folder. Overwrite the old ones.

What's the logic behind some of these chains?
produce->autos
Rice->lumber
Livestock->steel
Wool-> goods

Didsclaimer, i've never gotten hooked to TM yet. Booo, I know ... anyways since my job hours can be feast or famine, anybody want to help clean up these cargo panels for buildings in TM? They visually turn me off when I click on them!

[RulerofRails]

When I made that list I did the confusing thing and put the Output first. So really the chains are reversed. Sorry for the confusing.

But, to answer your question: there's no logic with those chains. They used to be demands, but Ned changed them to be conversions as this was the only way he knew to hide them (if all are visible they super-impose ). The good news is that these chains have been reverted to demands (now hidden properly) in the zip I posted.

[sbaros]

You can use it to run your steam trains.

What would the effect on the crew be?

[Gumboots]

That could be a problem.

[sbaros]

Further to these comments, I came up with some more steps towards normalisation of cargo flows. The more notable by-product so far has been a converted "Farmstead Cooperative", adopted for use with version 1.06 . Someone may have done this before, however I was unable to dig anything up in the forum and decided to convert it myself. It makes a noticeable difference in freight traffic facilitation.
There are some questionable demands of these Farmstead Cooperatives, such as steel and oil (diesel would be more understandable). Steel might stand for barbed wire, but I still find the demand negligible in order to be accounted for any significance in rail traffic volume. It may literally steal steel from more important users in the production chains.
However I didn't touch these things yet, in case there are some counter-arguments too.
EDIT: As I proceed in parallel with scenarios in Trainmaster and version 1.06 i realize the misbehaviors of the default Farmstead Communities seriously affecting cargo flows. I suppose they are related to the faults reported by RulerofRails in the topic. I am going to test the corrections posted here and see if the problem persists. For the time being, I am removing the downloads of these Farmstead Communities adapted for version 1.06 . I hope to replace them with corrected ones.

[AT41B]

When you click on the chart for what is required to produce something, for instance:
Steel Mill: it takes (0 coal + 1 Iron ore) to produce 2 steel, or it takes (0 coal ) to produce 1 fertilizer.

Chemical Plant: it takes (1 coal) to produce 2 chemical, or it takes (1 glass) to produce 2 chemical, or it takes ( 0 alcohol + 1 pulp wood ) to produce 3 chemical, or it takes ( 0 alcohol +1 gum ) to produce 3 chemical.

My question is, what does the quantity 0 stand for?

[RulerofRails]

There is no provision to display decimals. When you see "0", a decimal <1 is used. For example, 0.1, 0.25 or 0.5, etc..

This is one of the weaknesses of the economic model in TM. Cargo rentention of demand strengths below 2 per year is questionable. Below 1, it's a disaster. What I mean by this, if you make a delivery of say Alcohol to the chemical plant, if you are lucky enough there are no strong demand buildings around the Alcohol you drop at the station will be carried locally to the plant. However, once there pretty quickly the demand is overwhelmed and all the Alcohol will wander off to nearby houses, etc.. And therefore consistent production doesn't occur even when you are regularly "delivering Alcohol".

There are some workaround measures suggested by various members. One measure is to build "industrial complexes" outside cities. In those, and also for regular use, we can try to place similar factories on the same cell (for example all that demand paper). Another option is to carefully place a small station on the same cell as the factory, if possible. Then set a train to pickup straying cargo at a large station and force it back using ship at a loss in an endless loop.

Not all factories in TM have this issue. Also, some industries have chains that are immune which will end up getting favored. Also, be aware that demand is summed, so if you had 4 chains in one factory demanding 0.5 Paper each, this is an effective 2 loads per year strength. Some industries could be tweaked without too much trouble. Others would require more fundamental changes. Which is probably why nobody has tried to patch these.