TM - Juice Train

[Hawk]

Let me check that again.

Edit 1: Try again. I made a change so it should work.

[Blackhawk]

Still no luck in uploading anything larger than 10mb.

[Hawk]

That's strange because I have the size limit set at 15 MB and I believe Ned or someone else attached a file larger than 10 MB one time.

I'll look a little further into this. It might be a server setting, which could take a little time to find and adjust. I did just recently move to a new server.

[Blackhawk]

Ned's also a moderator, could that have had an effect on the file size that he could upload?

[Hawk]

Good thought but no, that file size isn't limited to mods or admins.

[Blackhawk]

Hmm... well I think I'm out of ideas. I tried attaching something in a PM and it says nothing larger than 10mbs so the forum post attachments and PM attachment sizes aren't reversed or anything like that. Although generally I haven't come across many 10mb or larger files that needed to be uploaded.

[Hawk]

Well, as you can see from the screen-shot below, I do have the settings at 15 MB.

Well, that's weird. I just uploaded a 10.68 MB file and it worked. Let me look into the settings again. It may be a mod/admin thing, although it will most likelt be tomorrow. It's near my bed time.

I would say you could email it to me but you probably have a 5 or 10 MB limit on email attachments (I can receive up to 25 MB attachments), and I can't download it from that file sharing site you uploaded it to.

[Blackhawk]

Hawk, is it possible to put the version of the map with Rail Structures enabled up in the map archive in place of the current map? The updated map was uploaded back on page 5. download/file.php?id=1367

I haven't heard any other complaints about the map so I assume everything else works fine.

Also I just realized the set up for the TM maps is different than the display for the RT3 maps. I have to say it looks nice and is very convenient to be able to click on the map and be able to read the intro and initial briefing.

[Hawk]

Hawk, is it possible to put the version of the map with Rail Structures enabled up in the map archive in place of the current map? The updated map was uploaded back on page 5.

Are you referring to the 2.1 version? If so - not a problem. I'll try and get it updated today. I guess I missed that post. Sometimes you have to bring things to my attention.

Also I just realized the set up for the TM maps is different than the display for the RT3 maps. I have to say it looks nice and is very convenient to be able to click on the map and be able to read the intro and initial briefing.

I'm in the process if rebuilding the whole site using the new menu and layout. I'm going to do the RT3 map archive the same way as the TM archive as I get the time. I've already done the RT3 Africa section like that. http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/map_arch/rt3_africa.htm

for the encouraging words.

---

Edit 1: Got it updated.

[Blackhawk]

I haven't tested it to make sure it works correctly, but I think I wrote the events properly, so ideally this version should disable/remove the ability to buy some of the locomotives after the TM 1.1 patch has been installed.

[j484fan]

Not sure what the issue is, I DL this gmp file and it does not show up in the list. One issue may be that I still have all the game maps from CtC and 1.05 in there, yet those seem to load just fine. Do I need to delete all those in order for the TM maps to show up and function? I also find that the campaign files do not work. I can open to the campaign page, but when I try to select the available maps to play them they won't go beyond the movie clip, at the end of that it crashes. I DL the Campaign files and Campaign 1.1 if that helps.

[Blackhawk]

I haven't tested it to make sure it works correctly, but I think I wrote the events properly, so ideally this version should disable/remove the ability to buy some of the locomotives after the TM 1.1 patch has been installed.

Hawk if you see this can you add that as the updated Juice Train map. I had to make a change to it when Ned released TM 1.1.

Not sure what the issue is, I DL this gmp file and it does not show up in the list. One issue may be that I still have all the game maps from CtC and 1.05 in there, yet those seem to load just fine. Do I need to delete all those in order for the TM maps to show up and function? I also find that the campaign files do not work. I can open to the campaign page, but when I try to select the available maps to play them they won't go beyond the movie clip, at the end of that it crashes. I DL the Campaign files and Campaign 1.1 if that helps.

The first thing I would do is delete all the CtC and 1.05 RT3 maps from your TM directory as they are not compatible with TM. Some may load, but they will likely not play correctly as the cargoes and industries have changed. But you should still be able to see the map.

Only certain TM campaign maps have been finished, and I think only 1 or 2 of them have a movie clip as well. I wonder if your TM install, installed correctly. You may want to try going into the editor and starting a new map and seeing what kind of buildings can be placed. Ex. Does it place an agricultural community, or is it still a farm.

The easiest way to install TM (the game files at least) is with the .msi file available to update a 1.05 version into a TM version. At this time though you'd still have to manually install the patch from TM 1.0 to 1.1 and the campaign files.

[Hawk]

Hawk if you see this can you add that as the updated Juice Train map. I had to make a change to it when Ned released TM 1.1.

Thanks for the PM pointing this post out to me.

I got it updated.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I'm pretty well along in this one, but noticed a couple of problems:

1. The Briefing says you need to haul 400 loads of Food to New York for the highest award, but the medal check says 450 or more. These types of hauling goals are easily met with little trouble; just set up a train to haul the food out of New York to Philadelphia (with Custom Consist) and then haul it back to New York. With double tracks and a couple of trains you can get 50 or so loads delivered per year as long as you are bringing in a few from Tampa or other food sources.

2. The offer to get back the DDX40 from GM didn't work when I paid the money. The money was removed from my company, but the loco was not made available. I changed the radio button in Effect #2 to "For the Whole game" and it worked.

I'm in the late mid 90s but my lifetime speed is only 48 mph. Have most of the Food to NYC so I may cut out some of the slower trains and go for some longer runs with short trains to see if I can get the speed up. I took all the options to increase speed, and have expanded out to Omaha, so hopefully I can boost the speed a bit to make the grade.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Oops........ I read the Briefing wrong. It does say 450 loads of Food to NYC for "super Trainmaster" (or whatever it's called). I also misspoke about where I was in time. After fixing the loco issue, I'm now in the early '90s with average speed at 50 mph, thanks to loco upgrades. Have close to 500 loads of Food to NYC and have reassigned my Tampa -> NYC Food trains. Have over $200 million in Industry Profits and gaining fast (Paper Mills are a good source of industry profits as there are lots of sources of Pulpwood, especially out West), so I'm just waiting for Y2K to roll around to get my medal after I connect to LA.

[Blackhawk]

Thanks for the review. I knew the cargo hauls could be manipulated but since this scenario was the first one I had made I decided to go with something fairly simply. I built in a small amount extra for if a train or two was distributing the food around the New England area from NYC and brought some food back to NYC. However, that's not enough of a "buffer" to prevent someone from just using custom consist trains and hauling them back and forth.

I'll have to look into the DDX40 event not working and make a change. I thought I had tested it and it worked, but I didn't test it after some changes to TM itself were made with locomotives no longer having an "end date" for their appearance, so maybe that had an effect.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I'll have to look into the DDX40 event not working and make a change. I thought I had tested it and it worked, but I didn't test it after some changes to TM itself were made with locomotives no longer having an "end date" for their appearance, so maybe that had an effect.

I don't think it's that because the event is for allowing the loco, not prohibiting it. I'm not sure whether you will need an event to remove the loco in the new release of TM (with no loco end dates). The simple fix for allowing it is to check the "To the Whole Game" radio button, since there is only one company.

I'm also a little puzzeled on another thing. When I got the medal, some text appeared in the movie clip window, but when I looked at the event, there was no text specified for the event. Same with other medals. Where does the text come from? I couldn't find it in any other events. Is there a "default" dialog that gets displayed on wins?

Sugar hauling was also easy with a "sly trick". I had a Sugar Refinery in Des Moines, running Sugar to a few Bakeries in St. Louis. When the stipulation to haul 10 loads of sugar came up, I just build a couple of small stations along the way from Des Moines to St. Louis, and had my trains stop at each of these, unloading, and reloading the Sugar before finally depositing it in St. Louis. That's why I generally don't like "Haulage goals" with commodities; it's too easy to game the system to achieve the goals, especially with the "ship at a loss" feature. I think someone devised a method to count loads shipped in and loads shipped out of a territory, and computed the difference between the two (loads in - loads out = loads delivered) to try to thwart the workaround.

[nedfumpkin]

I'm also a little puzzeled on another thing. When I got the medal, some text appeared in the movie clip window, but when I looked at the event, there was no text specified for the event. Same with other medals. Where does the text come from? I couldn't find it in any other events. Is there a "default" dialog that gets displayed on wins?

That comes from the language file.

[RulerofRails]

Just played this. First of all want to say, Thanks, Blackhawk, for making a nice scenario!

I had put off playing it due to the speed requirements. I had some real issues with water towers not working near bends on the last map I tried to play with maintenance spurs. Once I put my mind to it, I got the hang of it. This time I gave them more space and didn't have any problems with a train skipping a service. Still was a pain to re-route trains to Cincinnati in 1997, though. I choose the acceleration option and then used the GG1 with 3 or 4 cars until I connected to Omaha and needed to cross the Rockies with the DDX. Throughout the scenario I managed to keep average speed at 55mph. I paid to have the Class 103 but only kept it for 5 or 6 years due to poor reliability (Above Average). It was too tempting to switch to the USA 103. Once running with it I was hitting 76mph yearly average speed (I was only running 66 trains). This was enough to bump lifetime average speed up to 60mph by 2001 when the game gave me a win. Looking back it was a fun challenge. The speed bonuses made the speed goals very achievable.

I used industry for most of my revenue. I am on a learning curve with Trainmaster industry. There are so many possibilities, I hit 75M industry profits per year, but am sure one could hit 200+ with proper optimization and forgetting about the speed and hauling goals. Still trying to work out which industry chains give the best return on investment. Am I right to think that it is not possible to get quite as high return on investment from industry as is possible in 1.06 and 1.05 (discounting farms, those mouth-watering 400k Dairies!)?

[Blackhawk]

Thanks for the kind words. With as enjoyable (and frustrating) as it was to make this scenario, I wish I had completed my other projects.

I'm not a big fan of speed goals either, but I figured I needed to find a way to increase the difficulty of the map as there was no personal net wealth goal if I remember correctly. I thought the speed goal was enough of a challenge that it required some effort, but not so difficult that it would be impossible to do. With the speed goal you may be forced to run shorter trains, and balance your reliability/acceleration/speed needs of the locomotives, and even possibly replace a locomotive earlier than you would normally do so in an effort to avoid breakdowns.

As to your point about TM industries. I think the majority of income in TM comes from owning industries. The trick is just figuring out which industries are the most profitable as they aren't necessarily the same as in 1.05 or 1.06. If I recall correctly, paper mills and furniture factories usually make a good profit and steel mills which made a lot in 1.05/1.06 aren't as profitable in TM, but can still make a profit. With TM you have keep up to date with the ever changing demand cargoes to keep an industry supplied. In addition, some maps may increase the price of a cargo which can have a much bigger effect on the profitability of an industry as well. Some of Edbangor's TM maps were very heavily reliant on industry and I think a couple required you to build almost all the industrial base on your own. I can't remember what map it was, but it was pretty enjoyable and it can also be helpful in discovering which industries seemed to make the most profit.