Central California

[Sugus]

@jrbrockm
In my copy of your fine map I changed the sequence and triggering of the events to

Bronze Hauling (end of month)
Silver Hauling (end of month)
Gold Hauling (end of month)
Win Gold (end of month)
Win Silver (end of year)
Win Bronze (end of year)
Lose (end of year)

and moved them down to the end of the event list. Furthermore, I changed the condition in Win Gold from >= 20 to <= 20, which allows to get Gold before 20 years, and - finally - disabled the train crashes and breakdowns. Now I have a great map.

[Gandar]

If you can open it in 1.05 then it must have been written in 1.05, and thus should be played there. I too started it in 1.06, but will go back with the updated version and play it in 1.05 just to be fair.

It would be easier to meet the haulage goals in 1.06, the trains not loading because of them not being profitable was the most frustrating part of this scenario, almost as frustrating as your train crashing when you finally get it to haul cargo.
I found this to be a difficult scenario, and its quite sophisticated as it's written. Its nice to come across a map that really makes you think rather than just build rail and haul cargo. At first it looks to be a haulage scenario, BUT, and its a big but, on this map the thing to consider above all others is to make money, you will be hit with 2 recessions and you have to be making money to carry you through. You also need the money to build the infrastructure to spred out the cargo you are hauling. Perhaps thats why I am enjoying it so much this one heck of a jrbrockm scenario.

[jrbrockm]

Sugus,
I concur with everyone of your changes and will implement them into my map. All except the breakdowns, of course. I'm sure the actual Southern Pacific railroad company would have LOVED to be able to turn off breakdowns also :)

Maybe it's an expert thing (I always play on normal), but I've never found making money/depressions to be a problem. If that's the issue, than please forgive my ignorance. Also, has anyone noticed any differences starting in 1940, or 1960? Just curious.
Thanks,
JB

[Gandar]

Sugus,
I concur with everyone of your changes and will implement them into my map. All except the breakdowns, of course. I'm sure the actual Southern Pacific railroad company would have LOVED to be able to turn off breakdowns also :)

Maybe it's an expert thing (I always play on normal), but I've never found making money/depressions to be a problem. If that's the issue, than please forgive my ignorance. Also, has anyone noticed any differences starting in 1940, or 1960? Just curious.
Thanks,
JB

You should definitely play RRT3 on expert, you will appreciate the scenario even more.
I found the crashes to be frustrating but I would not take them out of this map, it makes attaining any medal a real achievment. If it is something that bothers anyone then they can turn train crashes off.
I hadn't even thoght about trying a different year, perhaps the later trains would make a difference. Perhaps after I repeat my gold performance.

[jrbrockm]

If anyone gets gold, I demand to see a screenshot of the status window will all four products over 150! :)
JB

[Gandar]

If anyone gets gold, I demand to see a screenshot of the status window will all four products over 150! :)
JB

I hit gold on expert again this evening . I reached the haulage goals in Nov 68, but I didn't receive the gold medal until the end of 70 by which time I had hauled
Alcohol 205
Meat 202
Coffee 265
Steel 283
Alum 200

The fun part occurred in 1965, I was in the second recession, doing well on my hauling and the shareholders demanded that I improve my performance or else !! I was able to avert disaster by increasing the dividend and buying shares, after that it was downhill all the way.
I would love to post a screenshot but,( I know this will make me sound stupid ) I have no idea how to do such a thing. You may have noticed that I seem to be the only guy posting without some cool logo or photo in the sidebar. I am not the best at instructions. I've tried to load up trainmaster three times and blown it every time, so I have decided that it will be much easier to wait until its all finished and invite Ned to dinner so he can show me how to do it.
O.K. I found the screenshots I had tried to take one before, the first time I hit gold but couldn't find it, I have them now but they are TGA files and I don't know how to turn them into pictures. I am using my daughters old laptop so I don't have a lot of stuff on it. Any help would be appreciated, or I could send you the files.

[Blackhawk]

Are you able to open the TGA files? I think any photo editor software (Photoshop, photofiltre, etc) will open them as well as quicktime/quicktime picture viewer.

One of my computers doesn't have any photo editing software on it, so I open the TGA file with quicktime and then resize the picture to the size I want.
Then either go up to the options at the top (For me it's Edit, then click Copy). [You could also hit Print Screen on your keyboard to take an image of what's on your screen] From there open up a copy of Microsoft Paint, and then Hit Paste. (Ctrl + V, or in the options at the top) and it should appear and you can edit out what you don't want or need. From there you can save the picture as a .gif or .jpg and upload it to the forums or a photo uploading website like imageshack. (Go to Save As, and then name the file and select the "save as type" as a jpg/jpeg. If you are not given any other choices as to what file type to save it as, go back to the file name and add .jpg after the file name. Hopefully this will convert it into a jpg which you can upload)

EDIT: OPTION 2:
Alternatively, if you know which TGA file you want to covert to a JPG file to upload to the forums you can use an online file converter. Go to Zamzar.com, and upload your file there and say you want to convert it into a JPG. It'll be uploaded into zamzar, then you'll get an message in your email saying it's been converted, and you can follow the link that is sent to you in your email to download a JPG version of the picture you took. Then come back to the forums here, and where it says Upload Attachment (when you're making a post) click that and upload the jpg version of picture. (You could also upload the file somewhere else on the internet and use the [img]URL%20LINK%20TO%20IMAGE[/img] to post the picture that way)

[Gandar]

Thanks Blackhawk I will buckle down and see what I can do, I don't have quicktime on this machine but I'm sure I can figure something out with one of your other options.

[Blackhawk]

I guess I could add some links here for free photo editing software. Obviously the free ones aren't as good as something you can buy like photoshop, but for converting a TGA to a JPG they work fine.

Photofiltre - http://photofiltre.free.fr/frames_en.htm It's a pretty small program (2mb) and you can open up the TGA's in it, and save them into a JPG, or crop out the part you want, and then just save that as a new image as a jpg.
A quick step by step in Photofiltre to get the image you want as a JPG: 1. Open the TGA file. 2. Drag the cursor over the area of the picture you want, if you don't want the entire picture (ex. just the status ledger) 3. Right Click and Hit Copy. 4. Go to Edit, and click Paste as New Image. 5. Save the file as a jpg. 6. Upload to the forums.

GIMP - http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ At the very top is the Windows download.

http://www.irfanview.com/ - I've never used this, but apparently it's an program that views many variations of images. I'm not sure if it can convert file types or if it just can view images.

Hopefully that helps and you can finally look at any screen shot you've taken in the past.

[Wolverine@MSU]

http://www.irfanview.com/ - I've never used this, but apparently it's an program that views many variations of images. I'm not sure if it can convert file types or if it just can view images.

This is a great program. It reads lots (and I mean lots) of different file types, including images, sounds files, videos, and can do some basic editing (resizing, cropping. lightning/darkening, contrast, sharpening etc.) and can save/convert to a compatible file type (TGA -> JPEG). I would highly recommend this FREE program.

[Hawk]

http://www.irfanview.com/ - I've never used this, but apparently it's an program that views many variations of images. I'm not sure if it can convert file types or if it just can view images.

It will also do batch conversions quite effectively.

Re-size multiple images at once.
Crop multiple images at once.
Re-name multiple images at once

and a multitude of other options.

For free it's quite an impressive program. I've been using it for years. I've even donated to Irfan (yes, that's the developers name) a couple of times.

I highly recommend it. Building this site was so much easier with it than it would have been with Paint Shop Pro exclusively, although for this site I use both.

As a matter of fact, I know longer use Windows Media Player. Irfanview does a much better job of playing videos than WMP does, in my opinion.
'Course there is the occasional file format that Irfanview won't play, but then neither will WMP. For those I use VLC PLayer.

[Gandar]

Thanks for all the help guys. Blackhawk I downloaded the Photo Philtre, its a nice small program that will do the job nicely. I will be erasing all my stuff from this machine when I get back home so it makes no sense to go for the full featured app..
A question Hawk, I can save the picture as a jpg, and it gives me a quality setting, so what size file is the best for uploading, bear in mind that I will be uploading two or more pictures.
I appreciate it.

[Hawk]

I'm not sure about the program you use but with Irfanview I generally set it about 80%.

[Gandar]

This first screenshot is from the game I was awarded silver

Second screenshot shows the game I received gold

Wow this is so cool Hawk. You are a master.
I left the images as full screenshots so that you could see from the revenue details and the rail routings below that they were from different games.
Both games were played on expert
Thanks again Blackhawk I had to follow your post line by line to upload these images.
JB Its a scenario that makes you think. Would you like me to post in the strategy section or would you prefer to go your own way ?

[Blackhawk]

I've tried to load up trainmaster three times and blown it every time, so I have decided that it will be much easier to wait until its all finished and invite Ned to dinner so he can show me how to do it.

If you're interested in trying Trainmaster, I could probably come up with some instructions with pictures which might help. Do you know how to have seperate copies of RT3 for version 1.05 and version 1.06?

[Gandar]

If you're interested in trying Trainmaster, I could probably come up with some instructions with pictures which might help. Do you know how to have seperate copies of RT3 for version 1.05 and version 1.06?

As I understand it Trainmaster uses large maps which I am sure would be quite beyond this little laptops GPU, thats why I am quite selective regarding which maps I play right now. I do have 1.05 and 1.06 in separate folders, but when I was at home,I lost it on the deleting and replacing and such. Trainmaster is something for me to look forward to playing on my desktop, but I do thank you for the thought.

[jrbrockm]

Thanks for posting those Gander. By all means post any scenario strategies! I'm fairly new to the game and could use any advice. Even on my own scenario!
JB

[Gandar]

MY first attempts at this map left me broken I could manage the bronze and even silver but gold seemed out of reach. This scenario is written to be played in 1.05 and as such trains will not leave the station if its not profitable to haul the cargo. The gold targets are 150 each. Alcohol,Meat,Coffee,Steel,and Aluminum. It sounds like a simple haulage scenario but its complicated by that 1.05 must be shipped at a profit requirement. Consequently to ship large amounts of cargo to a single city you must either spread the delivery over a long period of time or ship the cargo away from the receiving city as soon as it gets there. Given that you have to make enough money to even connect never mind disseminate cargo once its delivered it changes from a haulage scenario to a money scenario, especially when you have 2 depression/recessions to contend with, and the frequent train crashes.
You are only allowed to start one more company so take advantage of that and tycoon your starting company, buy shares then have the company buy back all the stock sell your shares and start a new company. This will give you about on years start on the game. Remember every year to issue stock you need the money !! I started off by buying a lumber mill then a paper mill from then on It was industry, two distillaries two steel mills a dairy processor you name it I bought it I didn't start building rail until about year 8, and I shipped steel and aluminum first because those cargoes had the furthest to go. Alcohol was almost an afterthought ,it has the shortest distance to travel, so spread it out I also built two Tool and die in Salina and upgraded both of them to use up the metals. I built the meat and coffee network in one fell swoop, I waited until I had over 7 million in cash before I built them. I needed to have enough to connect and also to ship away excess cargo. Its important to use trains that are Good on reliability, average will cost you too many crashes.
Using these strategies its possible to hit gold a couple of years early, so you can do it without tycooning if you wish, there is more than enough time.
I enjoyed this scenario and I look forward to more from jbrockm

[Hawk]

By all means post any scenario strategies!

...and he did - in the Strategies forum - of all places.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Here's what I had at the end of December in the 20th year: