TM - Juice Train

[Blackhawk]

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

Juice Train Beta v2.zip

The latest beta version of the map.

(7.4 MiB) Downloaded 776 times

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

hints.txt

Helpful Hints & Observations of the map

(1.45 KiB) Downloaded 581 times

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:

juice-betav1.zip

Outdated Beta-v1. Railyard Structures don't appear

(6.44 MiB) Downloaded 563 times

[Blackhawk]

Thank you El Moichi for finding a minor glitch. I have released an updated beta version. It seems for some reason the RailYard Structures disabled themselves, and possibly a few other non-crucial industries (like the bakery?). In this updated beta the RailYard Structures should appear.

[Hawk]

I've moved this to the right forum.

[Blackhawk]

Hawk it's TM scenario though not a RT3 scenario, shouldn't this be in the TM area?

[Hawk]

Sorry! I didn't see anything in your post about it being for TM.
It seems I saw it posted in a Scenario Creation forum which didn't seem to be right, whether it was TM or RT3.
I moved it to the TM Scenario Review forum.

[Blackhawk]

Thanks for moving it back to the TM area. I wasn't really sure where to put the topic since in the Scenario Creation section there were a few topics about maps and changes to make to them. (Monkey Motors, Monkey Business, Persian Electric) But then there were also a couple finished maps in the Scenario Reviews (The Hub, and The Hub2) and I figured since mine was just a beta and not a finished product I'd put it in the creation section rather than the reviews part. But as long as I know where to find it that's all that matters.

[edbangor]

Oh someone has made a TM map and it wasn't me...

just a shame I don't have any train time this weekend...

Still when I do I'll be on this like... crazy

[Hawk]

But as long as I know where to find it that's all that matters.

If I do move a thread to a different forum it's pretty easy to still find the thread. On the main forum page just look near the top for 'View new posts', as seen in this screen-shot from the prodarkblue style.

Click on image to view full size

or if you're using one of the sub styles

Click on image to view full size

New2.jpg (76.51 KiB) Viewed 18540 times

Click on that and it will show you all new posts since your last visit. Just scroll through the list to find your thread.

[Blackhawk]

Oh someone has made a TM map and it wasn't me...

just a shame I don't have any train time this weekend...

Still when I do I'll be on this like... crazy

Hopefully it's halfway decent and at least semi-entertaining. It's the first map I've made and as the initial post shows I could possibly add things to it still.


Hawk thanks for the show new post advice, I also used the "view your posts" option as well to see where I posted before. I used to moderate/administrate a busy forum before so the "view new post" option is definitely a nice option to use. Although I never really looked into the options in the control panel here but after I saw your pictures with different views I noticed you can have different color schemes. It's a nice option to have :) I wish I knew that there were different views before I made the initial post here with "spoilers" in it in a different color, since the color I chose makes it hard to ignore them if you use the "prodark" color scheme.

[Hawk]

You should be able to go back and edit your post.

since the color I chose makes it hard to ignore them if you use the "prodark" color scheme.

...and makes it very hard to read in other color schemes. 'Course I guess that was your intention, to make folks go through all that trouble of highlighting the text to read it.

[Blackhawk]

You should be able to go back and edit your post.

since the color I chose makes it hard to ignore them if you use the "prodark" color scheme.

...and makes it very hard to read in other color schemes. 'Course I guess that was your intention, to make folks go through all that trouble of highlighting the text to read it.

Not that the hints/observations are really that useful but now rather than go through the trouble of highlighting, I'll make people have to go through the trouble of clicking and downloading a text attachment rather than find a color that's hard to see without highlighting. *Evil laugh*

[nedfumpkin]

And I did precisely that. :)

I took a look at the map, and it looks really cool. Gonna play it now so I will get back to you.

[Hawk]

*Evil laugh*

This smiley might be more appropriate here.

[Blackhawk]

Edited: As a former forum adminstrator/moderate for a clan, my over use of smilies bothered me and as such I deleted them from this post. =)

[nedfumpkin]

Might I suggest that you remove the fruit warehouses and instead use a start up event to increase produce production?

Loads of fruit hauled from Florida to the rest of the US counts loads hauled inside Florida as well.

Any chance of relocating the radio station in Miami? It gest in the way of extending the track for a maintence shed and service tower.

[Blackhawk]

Might I suggest that you remove the fruit warehouses and instead use a start up event to increase produce production?

I may resort to using a start up event in place of the warehouses in a final version. I'm not entirely sure if I'd want the produce production to increase at the ranches in the Midwest though. And at the time I made fruit warehouses I felt that I needed to give some incentive to connect to Naples, otherwise in my playtests I skipped Naples and just connected to the argi-communities.

Loads of fruit hauled from Florida to the rest of the US counts loads hauled inside Florida as well.

I figured as much when I saw the totals were so high, and later read a forum topic about hauling loads inside a territory. However, I decided against using the loads hauled in Florida for any event. So in reality the yearly update is currently just there to be annoying. I planned on removing the yearly update in the future and probably should have just deleted it before releasing the beta since it would have taken 10 seconds to just hit delete event.

Any chance of relocating the radio station in Miami? It gest in the way of extending the track for a maintence shed and service tower.

I'll look into it. There are a couple other buildings you might eventually request I relocate as well. I initially placed them and didn't realize the effect they would have until later when I was play testing and wondering where some of my cargo was going when it was needed elsewhere. Ultimately, I had to raise the money to act like the big powerful railroad company and use some eminent domain powers and bulldoze these buildings. I suppose it would be easier for the player to not have to bulldoze any pre-existing structures, but in a way I also liked that you had to be observant to the industries input/output and cargo travel and take the necessary actions to change the product demands.
Ex. #1 In one run through of the game instead of having trains go all the way to NYC I had them go to Virginia Beach and drop their food loads. From there a train would bring the food to NYC and then distribute them across New England. However, I forgot there was an military base there and so I had to demolish it, otherwise my food was being eaten by starving soldiers before the connecting train could pick it up.
Ex. #2 I increased the oil output of the NY port to 2 loads, but back when I just had it at 1 load the majority of the oil was being consumed by the shipyard in the NYC area. I think there is enough oil up in the Northeast, however, the player still has an option to consider: If the sand from the shipyard is important to you you'll want to keep the shipyard, but if chemicals and petro are more important to you, you might want to destroy the shipyard and get more oil for the refinery in Philidelphia, or maybe more oil for creating plastics. As TM is largely about the industry chain, for now ,I'll leave it so the player can make minor alternations to the demand chain by bulldozing these types of places. Unless the need to sometimes bulldoze something is not desired by players than I'll make some changes.

EDIT: If you'd like a list of places you'll likely have to bulldoze, let me know or PM me and I'll respond.

[nedfumpkin]

It's not so much the radio station needs to be relocated out of Miami, as much as moved from its current position to somewhere else in Miami. RT3 usually leaves a patch through the towns to lay track, and the radi station just happens to be in that space. Just put it on the outskirts of Miami.

Try using the start up event to increase produce production just for Florida. Also make it so that all the cities in Florida have to be connected before you can win. This will make sure that you connect to Naples. Maybe put a passenger goal on Florida too.

[Blackhawk]

Thanks for the advice. I wasn't sure if you could do just a territory wide increase in production but if it's possible then I suppose that'll give me more incentive to eliminate the warehouses.

As for the radio station, I just noticed where it was placed and I'll likely move it next time I make changes to the map.

I didn't think of requiring you to have to connect all the Florida cities. That's an interesting and fairly easy goal. I'd have to think of what sort of passenger objective I could make. I guess at this point I'm just trying to see what people think of the difficulty of the scenario so far and how much more I should add to it.

[nedfumpkin]

I'd like to see a starter industry in Florida. The only thing is the bottling plant, and if you buy it first then you can't connect it to Miami to get glass, not enough moola.

I'm ending up buying logging camps up north that are making a few bucks and are cheap, just so I have some income.


Edit....another possibility is to create the company, since you're using Menk, go with the BNR, and then set company cash in such a way that the player has almost enough to get a good start from various starting points.

[Blackhawk]

On one start I built from Miami to Tampa and was able to supply the plant, however, I didn't play this start very far and didn't buy the plant. (I made several changes to the map and decided it wouldn't be worth it to continue this game)

In the last couple starts I bought some of the lumber industries in the North and focused on gaining money from industries for a couple years before building any rail. Then in I started building up by NYC first, and bought a furniture factory. In other start after buying a lumber mill, I bought a textile mill (profit from the lumber mill, issuing stock, and I think a bond) and started in Florida, however after I got the bottling plant initially supplied from Miami, I connected to Orlando or Gainsville to sell off the food at a profit, and then again I went back to the north connecting NY to Boston, and then I worked my way down through the cities to Richmond and Virginia Beach. At that point I focused on building up the Florida track again around to Savannah and Charleston, and then Northwest to... I think it was Columbia to be able to bring more textiles to Miami in order to get more glass for the bottling plant.

I think it's easiest to make money starting in the North where the industries and cities are closer together rather than in Florida, despite the scenario actually focusing on shipping food out of Tampa. However you can't put off shipping food out of Tampa for too long as it is important for getting access rights and expansion.

Edit....another possibility is to create the company, since you're using Menk, go with the BNR, and then set company cash in such a way that the player has almost enough to get a good start from various starting points.

I assume Menk is the player choice? I think I set it unassigned so as far as I know there is no assigned manager for the railroad and it just picks one.
I might have to replay the map again in the future to get a better idea of how much money is needed to start in other places. (I have only played the map so far on Medium and Hard difficulty)