The U.K.T.M. Project

[dazzharvey]

Here is my idea for a trainmaster map:-

I have made a fairly detailed map of the UK and ireland with a small corner of france aswell, I have applied industries to a close approximation to what you would expect from this location. One difference to this map is i have decided to break it down into different eras, with different challenges for each era, eras are :-

Age of Steam covering 1829 - 1923: covering the rise of the railways in the UK, 2 companies are already in effect the Historical Stockton - Darlington & Liverpool to Manchester lines.
the aim is kickstarting the coal, iron and steel markets early on going on to expand the network quickly with incentives to help you connect to distant parts of the country, ending the scenario with World War 1 moving troops and weapons ammo etc for the war effort ending in 1918, decisions for number will happen later once looked into

Golden Age 1923 - 1948: single player map with the possibilty of a 4 player muliplayer map covering a 25 year challenge during the period between the consolidation of the railways to nationalization 1923 - 1948 where each of the 4 players can choose the company they want to take command of and basically the winner is the one who either delivers the most cargo or highest grossing earners, Companies being LMS, LNER, GWR and Southern, for parts of the country not covered by these 4 companies I was considering either AI control or leave as assets for players to invest and expand.

Nationalization 1948 - modern day: Starting in 1948 the rail network has been nationalized, was thinking of having the human player chooses a region such as England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, France or Ireland, letting the AI control the rest, however in 1963 i need an events trigger to remove non profitable railways from the map just like the Dr Beeching cuts, aiming to end event for 1965 with the option to reconnect later (after privatisation in 1994) or have smaller AI companies possibly rebuild in deleted tracks place before 1994, also in 1994 would it be possible to create the channel tunnel or would I have to make a new map template for that one? In 1997 frieght is privatised and sees an increase in numbers again.

this one is the one i will probably either have to split in 2 parts or get serious help from an events wizard from this site, I seriously lack in the events programming side of things, who knows maybe my idea is unachievable but would like to at least try do it.

I also might need some help with making some authentic company logos, possibly making some modern express trains for the later maps, I have a livery pic to show (attached file) for an example if anyone can help with that one.

Any suggestions, questions, concerns or critisisms are more than welcome, I shall be posting up the seperate maps in due course

Dazz

[dazzharvey]

also sorry to post on this page, I had thought I had started a new thread, my mistake :(

[Hawk]

I split it up from the other topic and created a new one for you.

[dazzharvey]

Nice one Hawk, Cheers

[Blackhawk]

Age of Steam covering 1829 - 1923:

While a 100 year scenario can be done, it can be difficult to keep the player's attention for that long of a period of time, and will likely require a very large map to keep the player busy on.

A large map may then not necessary play very well on part 2 of this campaign as it's only a scenario of ~25 years. Only testing would be able to know for sure if it would work or not. If you're only working on a part of the large map then it may just be fine, but if you need to cross the same map in 25 years that you previously had 100 years to do, it might be a little difficult.


It has been awhile since I've played TM but if I recall correctly the AI's work best in the game if they have pre-built track connecting cities that are known to help it make a profit, otherwise with the more advanced economy/cargo system of TM they may not be very profitable if they just randomly connect a couple cities.

I can think of a way to possibly force a company to be liquidated, but I can't think of a way to have an AI company's track deleted (unless you pre-build the AI's track and then create a territory around the track and use an event to destroy territory)

aiming to end event for 1965 with the option to reconnect later (after privatisation in 1994) or have smaller AI companies possibly rebuild in deleted tracks place before 1994,

You may be able to start the scenario with extra AI companies but don't allow them to have any money until the year you want them to start building. But there's no guarantee they rebuild the routes or that they would be profitable.

[nedfumpkin]

Based on the pic you uploaded, I am assuming that you are looking for new skins for existing locomotives rather than new locos completely. TM has a very good livery of British engines, and when I get the chance I will be adding new engines to TM. I can help you with skins and making customs paks.

I agree with Blackie, 100 year scenarios are very long and you run out of room to build so it gets boring. I would recommend two separate scenarios.

Sorry folks...I've been really busy of late, and now I am working on buying a house...hoping to be in one by the end of 2011 and out of this vertical ice cube tray. And just to prove my bona fides as a train nut...I am currently looking into a 2 ½ story brick house where I plan on building a massive train set in the ½ story, I can see trains go by from the front porch (4 houses away), and it is just on the edge of the industrial area where there is a steel mill, a chemical factory, and an petroleum storage facilty, and the port. :)

[dazzharvey]

Hey Guys, thanks for your quick replies,

I am starting to think you guys may be right about splitting the 1st saga into 2 parts or shorten the length of time the scenario runs for, the map where 25 year challenge would be based on just the English part of the map as Scotland, Wales and Ireland had their own terrotorial railways, with scotland and wales connected to the english network i was thinking of setting up challenges for delivering certain amount of certain cargos to help boost the win to gold. Ireland and france can always add ports and send the uk some goods to help balance out the economy

In response to the skins and train modeling - new skins would be a nice addition however there is 1 train I would like to be considered to be made but if we only had time to do one then it would have to be

:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_390

With regards to the Ai track

""I can think of a way to possibly force a company to be liquidated, but I can't think of a way to have an AI company's track deleted (unless you pre-build the AI's track and then create a territory around the track and use an event to destroy territory)""

Is that similar to the old japanese earthquake trick, where predetermined areas of track vanish?

Also guys - I wanted to thank you for helping me pick this all apart, in my head im gd at ideas but when it comes to implementing anything im kinda useless and it's a gd education for me to learn more about the inner working of the game, I used to be in other modding communties but was just either beta testing or beta failing

Cheers guys

Dazz

[Hawk]

and now I am working on buying a house...

I've got one for sale.

Seriously though, good luck on finding a house you like.

[Blackhawk]

Good luck Ned in the housing search/buying. Hopefully you'll be soon be able to RT3/TM while watching and hearing trains go by.

Is that similar to the old japanese earthquake trick, where predetermined areas of track vanish?

If you mean how the stock RT3 Japanese earthquake map worked, then if I remember correctly on how that worked, it would be similar to that.

[nedfumpkin]

Thanks Hawk and Blackie...sorry Hawk...the commute from Georgia would be too much and also it's way too hot and sunny for me. :)

I would have to play around with how to liquidate the company, but I think it could be done...

[Hawk]

A 3 day commute is too much for you, and 95 degrees is too hot?
But the price is good. Only $69,840 (used to be worth $130,000 2 years ago).

[dazzharvey]

I'm having a small problem, I am trying to determin why my editor keeps crashing on the map page, I say crash - what I mean is the whole system freezes - with no task manager and no way to switch back to desktop, I end up having to hold down power button on machine to power down and reboot once the hard drive stops spinning, I originally thought it was a hardware issue but tested my old graphics card and it runs fine on other games and i even had a go of a few other scenarios maiking sure i was pushing the envelope but they ran fine.

I liked the Liverpool Warrington, manchester campaign with the way events were set up and history of the towns i was connecting to, a couple of very minor errors with dates but overall I was pretty impressed with the setup and thought gone into it. Hats off to the edbangor for that map.

Dazz

[Blackhawk]

When exactly is it crashing? Is it on a specific map, or is it on every map, even a map from scratch?

You may also want to try using RT3/TM in windowed mode, and then if it freezes you can probably use the task manager (ctrl-alt-del) to close the RT3.exe and not have to do a cold reboot of the computer by holding the power button down.

[dazzharvey]

I'll use windowed mode for now, so I can crack on with the editing, was just getting worried with it happening 3 times last night with me giving up in the end lol, will let you know if it gets worse

Thanks :)

[dazzharvey]

It worked for a while then did exactly the same in windowed mode, task manager was open in background ready for me to just use but this crash isn't letting me do anything at all, not even move my mouse to the task manager, only option is to power down - I am gonna do a complete re-install to see if its something on my end 1st