The U.K.T.M. Project

Topics on how to write scenarios for TrainMaster.
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Hawk
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

Here's a thread that may help. viewtopic.php?f=66&t=821

You can also read some of the threads found in the 'Letters to the Editor/Scenario Writing' forum.
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

Took a few days off to relax for my birthday there on thursday, needed to chill with the future Mr's, she's so tolerant of my geeky behaviour, especially when at her home her dad has one of the largest collections of model railway layouts in the area (he runs exhibitions locally), I have been trying to butter her up to help me with my project as shes a programmer by nature and can write the events on this game 10 times faster than me on a good day, now i'm back from birthday land I have time to fully focus on finishing these maps off, apart from the base map of the UK I uploaded earlier on the forum I will have 3 more regional base maps released soon,(unpainted) all I gotta do now is sweettalk the lady to helping me get some challenges set up :)
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Moggie
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

dazzharvey wrote:Took a few days off to relax for my birthday there on thursday, needed to chill with the future Mr's, she's so tolerant of my geeky behaviour, especially when at her home her dad has one of the largest collections of model railway layouts in the area (he runs exhibitions locally), I have been trying to butter her up to help me with my project as shes a programmer by nature and can write the events on this game 10 times faster than me on a good day, now i'm back from birthday land I have time to fully focus on finishing these maps off, apart from the base map of the UK I uploaded earlier on the forum I will have 3 more regional base maps released soon,(unpainted) all I gotta do now is sweettalk the lady to helping me get some challenges set up :)
Could you sweettalk her father to let you take some pics of his layouts and post them online? :?:
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

i have 2 weblinks for his sites, http://www.perthmrc.com/ and http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/

I went to the exhibition in perth a few weeks ago (my first time), I was pleasantly impressed with the amount of people there and what was on show, some really impressive layouts

I can only send links just now because the only camera I have at the moment is a rubbish one on my phone
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Moggie
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

Whoa! !*00*! The stuff on that community site is amazing!
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

I thought so too, There are a few exhibitions on every year, I have only been to the one in Perth so far, planning to visit many more
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

I am hoping to fInd someone who is good at skin retextures and also perhaps who can make a new train model for me, I hope I'm not being inconvienient in asking

I need a reskin for the intercity gner (want to keep the original, just like the class 50 Hoover has 4 skins) ha ha... 4 skins (sorry)

I would also like to know if its possible to build me a pendolino in this livery
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nedfumpkin
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

I'll see what I can do. I'll get back to you.
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

thank you nedfumpkin :)

I have been trying to make company logos today and i dont think i got the knack of it yet - i got half a logo then i got jibberish and lastly a crash, gonna try again tomorrow with a fresher mind, what I have done is make a 2nd TM folder for me to test and test until i get it right without messing up my original installation, I might aswell use my 2 TB storage. I am using coral and did try GIMP2 for the tga files, maybe i've just overlooked something in the making process :-D
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nedfumpkin
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

Keep in mind that TM is desigined for custom paks, rather than using extra skins etc. I can help you out with that, and since you are using corel too, I cn even send you files, like for the gner, I am pretty sure I have it as a corel cpt file all disassembled. I'll look tomorrow.

If you haven't, you should d/l the TM rolling stock development kit.
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

Aye, I've downloaded the RS kit, just having a look at it the now, It's raining heavily today so I got a few hours to kill
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

Yay, I managed to write some events but seemed to fulfil them too easily, buttering up works for the lady but she's busy busy just now with real world stuff !*th_dwn*!

been experimenting with 3 smaller maps aswell as that uk map

Northern scotland (Caledonian line) 75% done
Southern scotland (Waverley line) 90% done
Wales (incomplete)
UK (might ditch)

i set the scenario on waverley to modern day to celebrate the rebuilding of the line but find that too many pre-existing railroads move most the industries around so might focus that one on buying up the industry or passenger movement instead, initially i intended to release the smaller maps a few company logos (most made) and possibly a new train (haha, my skills suck) as a pack but realistically id probably be still here in a couple years so just focusing on the maps one at a time making sure the events are challenging enough for mainstream release, I've a long way to go before even coming close to some of the recent releases, very fine work from the community I must say !*th_up*!
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

got a quick question, does anyone use slow date on any scenario? if so i noticed it asked for a number to be typed in, how slow does it go and how would this affect a scenareio of 20 Years?
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nedfumpkin
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

slow date is what is used in one of the original Rt3 campaign scenarios, I forget the name, but the map was counted in hours. Perhaps that's the number it wants.

And if you want, send me the images for the logos you want and I can make them up if you want.
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

Thanks :) here are some of the ones i had troubles with due to resizing, they didn't turn out so well and became all blocky or looked rubbish, I will let you work your magic and see how they turn out

also attached are the logos i have made, ready for judgement lol ;) :lol:
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Blackhawk
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

dazzharvey wrote:got a quick question, does anyone use slow date on any scenario? if so i noticed it asked for a number to be typed in, how slow does it go and how would this affect a scenareio of 20 Years?
Slow date was used in the Japan Quakes scenario and I think one other scenario as well. You had the futuristic train and had to spread the bio-accelerator spray.

I once tried experimenting with it and still may in the future if I ever get back to a scenario idea. I believe a year = 12 hours in slow time. So there are essentially 2 "years" in a full 24 hour day (AM and PM). My guess would be rather than take the time to program 24 hours to equal a full year, they just figured let's change the "name" for what's being counted. Rather than 12 months we'll count 12 hours. That way the programmers wouldn't have to do extra work in programming for 24 hours and how to test things over 24 hours rather than just 12.

I would have preferred the slow time go like RT2's and go by days rather than hours but unfortunately slow time in RT3 is in hours rather than days.

It would take a very long time to get 20 actual years in a scenario put in slow time. However, a scenario programmed for 20 years and then played in slow time would last 10 days, I think.
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Moggie
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

That would be the Greenland scenario, the last one in the RRT3 campaign I think....
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dazzharvey
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

I can remember the greenland one barely, you had to spray your solution (oo-er) over greenland to make it fertile.

thanks for the numbers blackhawk, those numbers sound about right, was just experimenting because the 20 year scenario seemed a bit short at first, maybe i might extend it to 30 years, also with one of my maps has partially prebuilt railways on it, is there any tricks i could use to spawn industries quicker, i load up the game and sometime uranium (for example) there at the start of one game and sometimes its not there until 5-6 years into the game, i noticed some maps have small regions dedicated to resources, does that encourage them to spawn quicker or do i have to play about with the spawn trigger in events?

i suppose im just looking for a balance to have some industry goods ready for as soon as you start the game instead of waiting for things to appear or build up, in reality - modern day would have a pile of coal ready to ship to the power station, not wait a year to ship a few wagons

hope i make sense, i confuse myself easily when i skip lunch (blame the diabetes)
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Blackhawk
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

dazzharvey wrote: thanks for the numbers blackhawk, those numbers sound about right, was just experimenting because the 20 year scenario seemed a bit short at first, maybe i might extend it to 30 years, also with one of my maps has partially prebuilt railways on it, is there any tricks i could use to spawn industries quicker, i load up the game and sometime uranium (for example) there at the start of one game and sometimes its not there until 5-6 years into the game, i noticed some maps have small regions dedicated to resources, does that encourage them to spawn quicker or do i have to play about with the spawn trigger in events?
Using the event trigger to specifically place industries is one way to make sure some spawn around a certain time. If you also use the regions to spawn specific industries you may have more control over them as well. If you use a smaller region and only focus on 1-2 industries in that area then you can control more of what appears, rather than if you use a large region and say you want these 6 industries to appear then you may end up with a lot of 1 industry and none of the other industry. You have to look at the region/city density and those numbers will usually give you a decent idea of how many total industries will appear at the start and over time. But again if you're using a large region with say 5 industries selected to appear and the density says 10 industries will appear, you may end up with 10 of the same industry, you wouldn't necessarily get 2 of each industry. (It's unlikely that would happen but depending on what percentage the sliders are set at and things it is not necessarily a guarantee an industry will appear)
i suppose im just looking for a balance to have some industry goods ready for as soon as you start the game instead of waiting for things to appear or build up, in reality - modern day would have a pile of coal ready to ship to the power station, not wait a year to ship a few wagons

hope i make sense, i confuse myself easily when i skip lunch (blame the diabetes)
In addition to using game spawned industry, you can hand place some industries on your own and that should help have some cargo right to go right away as well. You can set the date of the scenario a few years earlier than you want it to actually start, then save it, and then reload it again in the editor and you'll now be working on that date. Then place some industries in this year, and then go back and change the year you want the scenario to start in again. Now you should have some industries that should have been running for a couple years before the game started so there would likely be a load of coal at a coal mine rather than having to wait for one to appear.
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nedfumpkin
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Re: The U.K.T.M. Project Unread post

I recommend against spawning industry. Mines and logging camps okay, but not industries. I also do not recommend spawning agri-communities. These are essentially small rural towns.
If you look at the Deadwood map I am working on, this shows pretty much everything being placed at either map creation, or via event during game play, it's more work and tedious at times, but it is how TM was designed.

Something to remember about placing industry during map creation.... check the map year in the editor, and keep in mind your start date. If you place an industry in the editor with the same date as the start date, then the industry will have no history. The game will go back three years from the start date of a map. Industry that is placed at earlier dates will have cargo flowing to it and profits, new indsutry will not.

I tend to place indsutries at various times, and I do this by back dating the map, saving, placing the industry, then saving, then changing they start year, saving, and placing more industry, etc...
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