TM - Juice Train

[Wolverine@MSU]

I'm unsure of what to do with Cincinnati though. Ideally I'd like to have that territory open along with the rest of the country, but if Cincinnati access is given at the same time as the Central Plains there is nothing preventing you from shipping food there before you are required to. And then if I used the LTD Food hauled to territory condition, it would include all the food hauled there, including the years before the 1997 event requiring food be sent there, correct?

You could set up an event that triggers after a certain date and uses a territory variable to count YTD loads. At the end of the year you would add that number to a second variable and set the "counter" variable back to zero. The second variable would then hold the "LTD since inception" variable that could be used for testing whether the load requirement is met. I still haven't gotten my tiny brain around how "variable math" works yet, and I'm not sure if Ned incorporated it in TM.

[Blackhawk]

Would I need 2 variables? Instead of:
Territory Variable 1 = YTD Loads hauled to territory ("Yearly total")
then Territory Variable 1 + Territory Variable 2 ("Loads since Inception")
Territory Variable 1 = 0

Is it just be possible to do Territory Variable 1 + YTD Loads hauled to territory?

There's no "yearly counter" variable that gets reset, but I would imagine this creates a "Total loads since inception counter" which could then be tested against for the victory conditions?

[Blackhawk]

The latest update on the map.

I was going to use turn off the industry in the industry editor and then use add event's to add sugar refineries, which would prevent them from being built by the player but still give you a few sugar refineries to use. Unfortunately, if I turn off the Sugar Refinery industry, I turn off sugar as a cargo from being available at all, so even if events place a sugar refinery or sugar is used by warehouses, sugar is removed as a cargo/industry.

It seems to be this way with other cargos as well. Ex. Turning off the aluminium mill prevents aluminum being a cargo in the map even if you have a warehouse that produces aluminium and/or add events that place an aluminum mill. The more I play with the editor the more I learn

[nedfumpkin]

I'm pretty sure that you can still accomplish what you want.

In the special conditions, disable build industry.

In the overall industry settings, select only what you want to appear in the game as cargo or industry.

Make sure your regions and cities are set to spawn how you want. If using add industry as an effect, then I usually set it to zero across the board.

This should make it so that the player cannot build industry, but should be able to buy them (there is a separte toggle for that) None will be spawn if set at zero.

Industry overall settings are for what will appear in the game. But I am also pretty sure that if you add an industry not set in the overall, it will still function as it should.

[Blackhawk]

Thanks for the information Ned. I think I'll just forget my desire to prevent anyone from building sugar refineries. I'd rather they still be able to build any other industry they want, at least at this stage in the beta of the map I think I'll want to leave the ability to build industries. As building a conveniently placed textile mill, chemical plant, or paper mill can make the scenario much easier.

At this point I should probably stop working on the scenario and focus on some more important things I have to take care of until the start of March.
I could release an updated beta though if anyone wants it, it has the industries in the East fixed, the borders around Tampa, Cincinnati, and New York should be gone, bio-corn farms are placed by event now, I added a few more reserve zones in NYC and part of Florida, and reduced the population growth of Florida. The ledger should also be fixed so you won't get annoying yearly reminders as it's all in the ledger. However, I have not yet added any other "starter" industry to Florida as I am unsure if I will add anything else to Florida. I also implemented something like Wolverine recommended using a variable to count the food loads hauled to Cincinnati, however, I haven't gotten around to testing it yet.

In a partial play test of the latest beta on expert I was able to create a profitable company within the first 10 years. The first 4-5 years I just bought industries, and then started to develop my rail line, so I think the greatest difficulty is the average speed requirement. If you use the FP45's they give you the best top speed but they have a high frequency of a breakdown and will likely have a high replacement cost when you have to replace them after 5-10 years when their chance of breakdown gets too high, plus you'll likely run them with a caboose to cut down on breakdowns, but slows them down.

Consequently, I'll likely look into the engine situation and perhaps work in some sort of event choice at the beginning of the game where if you don't want any modifier you have to get X mph average speed. If you want your engines to have faster acceleration you need to get Y avg speed. If you want better reliability you'll need to get Y average speed, and if you want faster top speeds you'll need to get Z average speed. This way depending on what gets picked there could be more variation in what type of engine you'll want to use. If you just go with no modifications (which would likely mean a lower average speed requirement to meet) you'll likely want to the SD40-2 with its outstanding reliability and moderate cost, although slightly slower speed. If you go with increase reliability, then you can use FP45s, or even the double FP45s, and not have to worry as much about them breaking down and get a faster speed from them.

There are still several other changes I'd want to make to the West and perhaps work on California to give more incentive to build out there. And I still have to work on a better Introduction to the scenario, but that's mostly just cosmetic. Any other thoughts or suggestions feel free and hopefully I'll get a final version of the map out in early to mid-March.

EDIT: Beta version 2 is now posted in the first post of this thread.
download/file.php?id=1198

[Blackhawk]

I run Firefox as my main browser, along with AdBlock, FlashBlock, NoScript, and Download Helper (you can download videos from YouTube and watch them on your hard drive instead of allowing Flash to run).
I also have Opera but I prefer Firefox. I just use Opera and IE 7 to test my web site jobs.

Hawk, what version of Firefox do you use? And have you heard of BetterPrivacy to delete flash-cookies and DOM storage objects? I'm not sure if Flashblock prevents flash-based cookies from being downloaded, and if you don't like tracking cookies it's a simple program that clears out the cookies on the browser's closing or starting.

[Hawk]

I'm running Firefox 3.6
Flashblock doesn't block cookies. It just blocks Flash stuff; animations, videos, etc. I typically block all cookies except those from sites like this forum. I have Firefox set to ask me about every cookie and to block all third party cookies. Plus I run CCleaner quite frequently to delete cookies I might miss (which is almost never) and temp files.
I tried Better Privacy but didn't much care for it. Seemed a bit redundant when couple with NoScript, AdBlock, and FlashBlock.

I'd like to add I've never had a virus and although I run SuperAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes and Spybot regularly none of them ever find anything. I am a bit careful on how I use the Internet.
I also don't have Flash Player installed on my system. Everything I've read tells me that Adobe is as bad, if not worse, about security than Microsoft. I refuse to use any Adobe product. It's just my way.

[Blackhawk]

Congrats on never having a virus. I remember the first day I plugged my computer into my college network I was swarmed with a few viruses. I didn't even do anything but turn on the computer and be plugged into the network. A few weeks ago I was using IE and webshots or one of those websites with people's photos gave me a virus. Consequently, my experimental return to IE is over after having that. Most viruses I've had aren't that bad to get rid of, it's just a matter of having another computer to download the right programs or figure out what virus you have. Of course there's always the failure of an Anti-virus program to catch something, leaving me to have to go manually delete the files.
Edit: And in the cases of not having another computer, a linux live cd is helpful. Running linux off the cd, you can open up IceWeasel (firefox for linux) and browse the internet, or you can view your hard drive's contents. It's been awhile since I've gotten a new version of a linux live program so they might now allow writing to the hard drive or a usb drive, before they used to be "read only."

So you refuse to use any adobe product? What do you use to read pdf files? It's a shame Adobe took over Macromedia, or else maybe they're be more competition and force Adobe/Macromedia to make a more secure product.

[Hawk]

So you refuse to use any adobe product? What do you use to read pdf files?

I use Sumatra, but you can also get FoxIt.
If all you need to do is read a PDF, Sumatra is just dandy. It's smaller and faster loading than Foxit, but lacks some of the features of FoxIt, and it's most definitely faster than Acrobat.

[Blackhawk]

I'll have to look into those. Acrobat reader never seems to run entirely smooth for me on most of my computers, no matter what version I have. Often it freezes and I need to terminate it through the task manager. Thanks

[Hawk]

FoxIt will do that sometimes too. I haven't had that experience with Sumatra yet.

[Hawk]

Is this map ready for Prime Time yet?
I'm working on the new Trainmaster section of the site and was curious if it's ready to be added to the map archive.

[Blackhawk]

No, it's not ready for it's final release yet. There are a few more changes I think I want to make to it. Hopefully I'll get around to making those changes in early March.

[edbangor]

I'm working on the new Trainmaster section of the site and was curious if it's ready to be added to the map archive.

You mean I'm going to have to share the TM map archive with other people... eventually...

[Hawk]

You mean I'm going to have to share the TM map archive with other people... eventually...

Eventually, yep - maybe.
Right now you've got a page all to your own.

No, it's not ready for it's final release yet. There are a few more changes I think I want to make to it. Hopefully I'll get around to making those changes in early March.

No problem. Just checking.

[Blackhawk]

Alright... I think I've got the final version of the map done. I lowered the overall food requirement as with some of the changes in the final version of TM it is slightly harder to have 2 bottling plants produce 12 food a year compared to just the old TM version with 1 bottling plant produce 12 a year. Although in a play test I did have a hospital and shopping center spawn and I didn't realize it so that likely also cost me 2-4 food a year for a few years. So hopefully the 450 is easier to attain but not too easy.
The average speed goal should also be a little easier now to meet. With chances for better reliability, increased acceleration, speed upgrades, possibility of an electric locomotive, and the option to have the DDA40X around longer.
-I also added the requirement that LA be connected to NY for a trainmaster victory. I suppose alternatively I could have required some sort of total company cash on hand at the end, but I figured this gave some incentive to explore the Western half of the US.


Included in the zip file is a readme file which also includes some tips for attaining the food and speed goals, as well as a list of the modifiers for various territories. (Ex. Florida fruit production is increased 30%)
-And now that I already posted and uploaded the file, I realized that in the readme I forgot to mention you'll probably want to take advantage of a bakery or two as well.

[nedfumpkin]

So far looks good

[Blackhawk]

I noticed I have a typo in the spelling of Cincinnati in the scenario intro. I'll fix that tomorrow. Hopefully after that I won't have to make anymore changes to the map.

[Blackhawk]

Alright I think this should be the final version of the map unless someone notices something that I missed. Again I made some changes to the objective requirements. I took an idea from Ned's Persian Electric map and used difficulty as a condition. So now there are essentially 4 different ways to win. Yard Switcher, Station Master, Trainmaster (on easy/medium/hard difficulty) and (Expert) Trainmaster (expert difficulty only). So to win Trainmaster on expert difficulty the objective requirements are greater.

I'll upload it as a rar as it's 1.5 mb smaller as a rar rather than a zip. I don't remember if Hawk's archives use zips only or if it's a mix of rars and zips. If a zip file is preferred as some people don't have a program to open a rar file I can upload the file as a zip.

[Hawk]

Zip or Rar; either one is fine.