TM - Juice Train
Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 10:49 pm
Alright I finally got done with a decent beta of a scenario I've been working on. And I've play tested it a few times, although the more I play it the less I like it. Anyway I'll release a beta now and see if anyone plays it or how it goes over. I'll likely not be able to put any more time into this scenario until the start of March so if you notice anything feel free to post and recommend what you think needs to be changed.
EDIT: SEE PAGE 5 FOR FINAL VERSION OF THIS MAP
viewtopic.php?f=76&t=2344&start=60
download/file.php?id=1325
Updated Beta version 2.0:
download/file.php?id=1198 Introduction:
I took a map from the Coast to Coast RT3 (Alternative USA) and made a lot of changes to it. In some places the terrain seems to be overly steep at times, but I figured if the initial RT3 people thought it was acceptable, I wouldn't make too many changes to it. The primary focus of the map is food and shipping enough of it. If the map works correctly you should be unable to build bottling plants, cereal companies, or creameries, so you'll have to largely use the food industries that are already built up to fulfill your objectives. [NOTE: These industries do not appear until after you start a company -- for a list of the locations to either verify they all showed up or to help you out in deciding how to build your railroad check the Hints part of this post]
Currently the map is a 40 year map set from 1970 to 2010. If after other people play it and decide that 40 years is too long, I may have to shorten the scenario to 35 years or find other ways to keep the scenario entertaining for the full 40 years. Anyway on to the warnings of the map and potential future fixes/changes I may make to the map, otherwise I'll keep rambling and this post will take longer to read than the scenario would take to win.
Warnings:
-Some industries are set to spawning still. In the Southeast oil wells, coal mines, and logging camps are randomly spawned. Out of the games I have played so far the location of these spawned locations has not made the scenario impossible. It may slightly change the way I connect cities or what I focus on, but I have not noticed it being a problem for winning the scenario. If it does I may end up just placing a couple of them. Although at this point I think I like the random generation and placement as it provides for some increased replayability. Otherwise I'd just know where some key things pop up and create the same rail system over and over.
Future Fixes/Changes/Thoughts:
-warehouses in the western half of the US might be deleted or replaced as they currently don't serve much purpose.
-If the scenario is considered too easy I may have to add more objectives. Ex. Connect to a midwestern hub (St. Louis/Chicago) and then connect to the West Coast. (LA/Seattle), or some sort of alcoholic beverage related objective, or possibly an optional military related objective since the US is seemingly always in a "conflict" somewhere or another and there was Desert Storm in the early 1990s, although I haven't really placed any weapons/ammo/missile plants so that may be somewhat more difficult to do.
-Also to increase difficulty I might had a personal net wealth requirement and/or maximum amount of debt/bonds that is acceptable. Otherwise you can just repeatedly keep issuing stock. Which I don't necessarily mind, as I always like to focus more on my company than on my own wealth when I play.
-Another possible option to increase the difficulty would be to write in an oil shortage of the 1970s and potentially make it more expensive to operate the diesels.
-California could probably use more cities, and I haven't fully tested out the economy of the Western US/Rocky Mountains. I have largely focused in my tests on the central/eastern half of the US.
-I've never been that great with getting the max speed out of my trains, so I'm not entirely sure how attainable or unattainable the average speed requirement is in this scenario. I'm not entirely sure of how good of a selection there is either for locomotives so I may make options to earn some of the European diesels. Although I suppose the option between the FP45, double FP45 and SD40 (with slightly better graded speed and better reliability) might be enough of a choice although I haven't taken an in-depth look at how much of a speed improvement double FP45s are versus their increased costs and maintenance. Overall I have generally not used the spur method of putting stations off the main route, as well as putting maintenance sheds and sand towers off on their own branch. I also had breakdowns disabled while testing so I don't know how much of an effect this will have on average speed either.
-On a related note I may add events (if I can think of anything good) where you might be able to get access to some other locomotives, i.e. European Diesels. Or maybe if you connect to certain cities you'll get access.
-I added events for gaining increased acceleration and increased pulling power. However, I have yet to test these events and the effect they make on average speed. The increased pulling power may be too great of an improvement. I also ran out of ideas on how the player can gain these advancements so I resorted to connecting a few specific cities, and transporting enough of a certain cargo. If anyone has any other better ideas on how a player should be able to get these advancements feel free to share.
Finally some hints/observations of the map I've made so far. Feel free to skip this if you don't want any help or notice of events.
EDIT: Made into a text attachment as I didn't realize there were different color schemes for the forum
Changes made in Version 2:
-Move the placement of the radio station in Miami
-Removed fruit warehouses and increase fruit production output of the farms
-Removed fruit shipped in Florida totals
-Fixed Status Ledger
-Hopefully fixed NYC and potentially Florida crowding
-Placed corn bio-farms by event
-Increased starting funds slightly
Past released versions:
Version 1.0
File location: http://www.mediafire.com/file/rmmj2znyg ... betav1.gmp
EDIT: I also uploaded it in zip form to the forum:
EDIT: SEE PAGE 5 FOR FINAL VERSION OF THIS MAP
viewtopic.php?f=76&t=2344&start=60
download/file.php?id=1325
Updated Beta version 2.0:
download/file.php?id=1198 Introduction:
I took a map from the Coast to Coast RT3 (Alternative USA) and made a lot of changes to it. In some places the terrain seems to be overly steep at times, but I figured if the initial RT3 people thought it was acceptable, I wouldn't make too many changes to it. The primary focus of the map is food and shipping enough of it. If the map works correctly you should be unable to build bottling plants, cereal companies, or creameries, so you'll have to largely use the food industries that are already built up to fulfill your objectives. [NOTE: These industries do not appear until after you start a company -- for a list of the locations to either verify they all showed up or to help you out in deciding how to build your railroad check the Hints part of this post]
Currently the map is a 40 year map set from 1970 to 2010. If after other people play it and decide that 40 years is too long, I may have to shorten the scenario to 35 years or find other ways to keep the scenario entertaining for the full 40 years. Anyway on to the warnings of the map and potential future fixes/changes I may make to the map, otherwise I'll keep rambling and this post will take longer to read than the scenario would take to win.
Warnings:
-Some industries are set to spawning still. In the Southeast oil wells, coal mines, and logging camps are randomly spawned. Out of the games I have played so far the location of these spawned locations has not made the scenario impossible. It may slightly change the way I connect cities or what I focus on, but I have not noticed it being a problem for winning the scenario. If it does I may end up just placing a couple of them. Although at this point I think I like the random generation and placement as it provides for some increased replayability. Otherwise I'd just know where some key things pop up and create the same rail system over and over.
Future Fixes/Changes/Thoughts:
-warehouses in the western half of the US might be deleted or replaced as they currently don't serve much purpose.
-If the scenario is considered too easy I may have to add more objectives. Ex. Connect to a midwestern hub (St. Louis/Chicago) and then connect to the West Coast. (LA/Seattle), or some sort of alcoholic beverage related objective, or possibly an optional military related objective since the US is seemingly always in a "conflict" somewhere or another and there was Desert Storm in the early 1990s, although I haven't really placed any weapons/ammo/missile plants so that may be somewhat more difficult to do.
-Also to increase difficulty I might had a personal net wealth requirement and/or maximum amount of debt/bonds that is acceptable. Otherwise you can just repeatedly keep issuing stock. Which I don't necessarily mind, as I always like to focus more on my company than on my own wealth when I play.
-Another possible option to increase the difficulty would be to write in an oil shortage of the 1970s and potentially make it more expensive to operate the diesels.
-California could probably use more cities, and I haven't fully tested out the economy of the Western US/Rocky Mountains. I have largely focused in my tests on the central/eastern half of the US.
-I've never been that great with getting the max speed out of my trains, so I'm not entirely sure how attainable or unattainable the average speed requirement is in this scenario. I'm not entirely sure of how good of a selection there is either for locomotives so I may make options to earn some of the European diesels. Although I suppose the option between the FP45, double FP45 and SD40 (with slightly better graded speed and better reliability) might be enough of a choice although I haven't taken an in-depth look at how much of a speed improvement double FP45s are versus their increased costs and maintenance. Overall I have generally not used the spur method of putting stations off the main route, as well as putting maintenance sheds and sand towers off on their own branch. I also had breakdowns disabled while testing so I don't know how much of an effect this will have on average speed either.
-On a related note I may add events (if I can think of anything good) where you might be able to get access to some other locomotives, i.e. European Diesels. Or maybe if you connect to certain cities you'll get access.
-I added events for gaining increased acceleration and increased pulling power. However, I have yet to test these events and the effect they make on average speed. The increased pulling power may be too great of an improvement. I also ran out of ideas on how the player can gain these advancements so I resorted to connecting a few specific cities, and transporting enough of a certain cargo. If anyone has any other better ideas on how a player should be able to get these advancements feel free to share.
Finally some hints/observations of the map I've made so far. Feel free to skip this if you don't want any help or notice of events.
EDIT: Made into a text attachment as I didn't realize there were different color schemes for the forum
Changes made in Version 2:
-Move the placement of the radio station in Miami
-Removed fruit warehouses and increase fruit production output of the farms
-Removed fruit shipped in Florida totals
-Fixed Status Ledger
-Hopefully fixed NYC and potentially Florida crowding
-Placed corn bio-farms by event
-Increased starting funds slightly
Past released versions:
Version 1.0
File location: http://www.mediafire.com/file/rmmj2znyg ... betav1.gmp
EDIT: I also uploaded it in zip form to the forum: