China Ultimate 2.0 for Trainmaster

[thietavu]

In case anyone else might be interested, I found a link for a pretty detailed China map for their rail system;

http://www.johomaps.com/as/china/chinarail.html

Thank you very much! This map will be a good help for me to improve the existing China scenario. I think, version 3.0 will come out one day, certainly with many detail improvements, but also very likely some bigger changes towards realism.

China is, btw. a pretty tricky area to handle. The information available, especially about smaller towns, resources, etc, can be confusing and out-of-date. If I started this map from the scratch now, I would probably do it somewhat differently. It would, for example, be interesting to include some Russian locations such as Vladivostok there. I would also love to add even more detail to the nature, the geography, everything. ;) This was never to be a "game" scenario - this is pure long-time train building/running in an interesting, huge, exotic (to us) environment where only your imagination is the limit for most of the time. And money, of course... ;)

I wish there was RRT4 with even bigger maps, even more complex economy, everything. Sigh.

[j484fan]

Thank you very much! This map will be a good help for me to improve the existing China scenario. I think, version 3.0 will come out one day, certainly with many detail improvements, but also very likely some bigger changes towards realism.

China is, btw. a pretty tricky area to handle. The information available, especially about smaller towns, resources, etc, can be confusing and out-of-date. If I started this map from the scratch now, I would probably do it somewhat differently. It would, for example, be interesting to include some Russian locations such as Vladivostok there. I would also love to add even more detail to the nature, the geography, everything. ;) This was never to be a "game" scenario - this is pure long-time train building/running in an interesting, huge, exotic (to us) environment where only your imagination is the limit for most of the time. And money, of course... ;)

I wish there was RRT4 with even bigger maps, even more complex economy, everything. Sigh.

In a way, that's kind of why I posted it. For some reason here of late, I have taken more of an interest in the rail systems outside the United States. The rest of the world is about (I would say) 100yrs ahead of us in having great rail transit systems. Both in their systems within cities and going from region to region. You can just about live most places over there and never own or need a car. Our government was totally and completely stupid. We don't even have the infrastructure left to use for doing something. I was hoping for some of the cities I noticed missing to maybe get included. Especially on the Shanghai/Beijing route. Because of the game engine though, might need to eliminate some of the outer area, to get more of the cities within China included. Only thing now, (for me) is to try and find out what RR's haul freight and the names of any passenger rails, unless it is simply China Railways as it says at top of the key on that map.

[j484fan]

I found some more links that may be of interest;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_trans ... c_of_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingguang_railway
found the official site for the China Ministry of Railways;
http://www.china-mor.gov.cn/

[thietavu]

The "original" China Ultimate map as well as its heavy improvement, version 2, were built on the idea of including 170 largest towns in the map's area. In some cases, there were exceptions; some big cities were omitted since they were located too close to other major cities - and in many distant, desolate areas, even a small village can be a major "hub". ;)

But I see now that it was probably a mistake. Railroads don't always just follow the sizes of the towns or cities, but other things - such as natural resources available. I am now going to research China again, using that very useful real world map, and trying to find out why there are railways in China in very many places with no obvious reason. Or: the reason must be a huge mine, industry, military, etc.

Already now I noticed some very, very interesting real-world railways running through some very unlikely and extremely difficult places. One good example is Sichuan (Chengdu etc.). Anyone who has tried to connect it to the rest of the world in China Ultimate 2 knows what I mean. But in reality, there are railways in China , connected to Sichuan, which simply make me wonder: "How did they make THAT happen??!" :)

Some places in China Ultimate 2 are actually quite difficult to reach, especially if the player has trouble with money available. Chengdu is, I think, a fine example. If you have loads of money, you simply build a couple of monstrous tunnels under the mountains - and that's that. In theory, at least. In practice, one may find surprises. The tunnels, for example, may easily become too long - and trains therefore miss their necessary servicing. Not good. If one, on the other hand, decides to choose the hard way over the mountains, it is very likely that one will need engines capable of extreme grades. Fine? Well, not always. Those monster engines may consume insane amounts of fuel and demand equal amounts of servicing - so you may find yourself with these lines running at heavy loss all of the time...

Anyway, I think I shall remove some places from the map - and replace them with new ones, based more on China's real railroad structure. The current map is already fairly accurate - perhaps one could say that China might have built its railways that way, because about all the major cities and towns of importance are already there. But there must be reasons behind why China's railways lead to so many "in the middle of nowhere" destinations - and it just might be fun to simulate all that in China Ultimate 3.0. ;) We'll see.

[j484fan]

I haven't been able to find out very much about this railway, but here is a pic from railpictures.net with steam running on mainline as late as 2005. In fact, it was in Dec 2005 that the last of these beasts ran. Shame too, looked like some great locomotives.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 054&nseq=6

[j484fan]

In reference to my above post, any chance someone could skin a QJ 2-10-2 for this map? maybe even doing two of them together? On railpictures.net the Jitong Railway ran most all if not all of their trains with two of these monsters. There are several great shots of these locomotives on that site. These were for them what the Y6 2-8-8-2 was for the N&W.

[nedfumpkin]

In reference to my above post, any chance someone could skin a QJ 2-10-2 for this map? maybe even doing two of them together? On railpictures.net the Jitong Railway ran most all if not all of their trains with two of these monsters. There are several great shots of these locomotives on that site. These were for them what the Y6 2-8-8-2 was for the N&W.

I'll see what I can do. I am sure that the decapod could substitute for the QJ, however, doubling it would be difficult. The double diesels have the second locomotive as the tender.

[thietavu]

An update to this China scenario is now tested and will soon be available for those here who like the concept. Improvements here and there - and also bigger changes where need be. The goal was to make this update more realistic to play.So far, I have had a lot of fun building the China Railroads, so I hope you will share this feeling and invent your own ways to connect places!

[thietavu]

Well, it took a *lot* longer than I thought, but the new, totally re-made Great China 3 is now ready, tested and available for downloading. Not yet in the TM downloads section, but can be found as an attachment in TrainMaster discussion thread "Challenges in Great China 3..."

For those of you who played the old "China Ultimate 2" and hopefully even liked it a bit: thank you for the many downloads! This new version should be a much better scenario in many ways and a totally new challenge too, since the economics and so many other things have been heavily changed.