Hawk & Badger Railroad Forum

The following text is a compilation of what was salvaged from the old Gathering Forum. It contains postings from several different people.
Thanks goes out to Wolverine for putting this all together.

Hawk

Greening the Red Planet
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768*512
Tempe Terra sector, northeast of the 'New World' map
topography and colour by Viking, and PJay's bmp2gmp
one and only one company
50 years
five types of cities, with distinctive architecture
verrry varrried and interesting topography
greenhouse agriculture - near the cities
Terraforming has already started. Sublimation of the polar caps has caused the release of carbon dioxide and water, so there is enough atmospheric pressure for people to work without pressure suits. But the atmosphere is a bit off for humans and plants. We are approaching 1 millibar of O2 pressure, a little water and it's getting a little warmer, so now lower plants are able to survive.
You are the manager of FAO operations in this sector. Your mission is to build greenhouses for the new cities that have popped up, ship strategic cargo - deuterium (uranium) and fertiliser, and spread green goo - a mixture of cyanobacteria, lichens and nitrogen fertiliser.
This is a beta, so please let me know how you like it and how it can be improved.
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You are worthy of great praise.
The Mars map looks completely realistic. I am, however, a bit concerned how I shall avoid all the craters and hills when laying track.
I will start playing your Mars scenario when I have the time.
(Are there any divisions into Nationalities on you map?)
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yep them craters... Definitely a challenge. I usually go around them but in the case of the crater cities, Sytinskaya and Uranius Patera, I just tunnel straight into them.
There are no Earth nationalities. You have a combination of UN and private sector influence. The first settlements were commercial mining enterprises, but for at least 20 years now, the UN has been involved with terraforming.
The colours are from a Viking image. I am not sure how accurate they are but they look cool.
Tempe Terra, 'moderate land' - the red - is the name for the geographic region that covers most of the map. Vastitas Borealis, 'norhtern waste' - the purple - is less hospitable terrain and requires special construction techniques.
There are no countries on Mars. Territories are used to define cities mainly for the greenhouse building project. However, some of the cities have some interesting bylaws. The monastery and two tourist towns have banned factory construction, and you will not get any production out of them. These three cities plus the university town have double passenger production. One of the cities is promoting business development, and has increased production rates.
Terrain is steep but realize that you are in low gravity, which is good for pulling power. 8% slopes on your track is fine.
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Version 1.0 has been sent out to H&P and Express World and uploaded at The Terminal and RT Info.
The main changes from the beta are:
- fewer acres need to be seeded
- more chemicals and fertiliser
- a break on track construction and track maintenance costs
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Version 1.1 will be up on fan websites soon.
- The prices for chemicals and fertiliser have been increased.
- There are discounts to graded and electric track construction.
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Totally cool idea! I will definately give this one a go once I secure a few spare hours.

Version 1.2 is up, with a little bit of fun added.

1.2: February 2007.
- increased fertilizer demand from 1 to 2 per year at warehouses
- added scenario-specific language file.

NEW: Special language file for Mars scenario!
1. Place the mars_rt3.lng file in the language folder.
2. Before playing this scenario, rename rt3.lng to old.lng. Rename mars_rt3.lng to rt3.lng.
3. After playing, do the reverse of step 2.

Just hypothetically, if one were to skip the whole .lng file switcheroo, what would one be missing? :)

Why, messages in Martian, of course! :)

I haven't successfully finished that scenario yet. I can however say that it looks good, is fun to play and certainly a challenge.

The one thing I can complain about is the bumpyness of the map. That there's only a few distinct height levels not only looks odd; track resembles a staircase more than anything else. Building track across these "steps" costs a lot of money, so much so that the application of a post office or two to smooth them down will actually pay off.

Just right now, I wanted to place a piece of track, projected cost almost 2 million. After placing and razing 10 post offices and two taverns, the same track eventually cost 1.2 million -- not only did this save me 10% construction cost, the track also is a lot smoother. (although I don't think it really matters: with all the time spent loading, unloading and servicing, a top speed of 150 or 180 mph probably has next to no effect).

Anyway, there's distinct humps and ditches on the map that literally scream for leveling. I certainly cannot resist. I wonder wether applying a bit of gaussian blur to the height map before importing might lead to cheaper and smoother track overall, while at the same time making it more difficult to level the remaining height differences.

Thanks for the feedback Alfie. I noticed the step problem too, but only after I had worked on the map for a while. Initially I was afraid the map would lose some of its character, like some of the small craters, if I smoothed it. I found the steps too late in the process, and would have to everything over again - all the coding, territories, cities etc. So I will just have to do some localized smoothing when I do the next version. When I come up with a few more changes to make I will prepare another version. Glad you liked the scenario overall.

Glad to see that you're considering further development :)
I really love that scenario, mostly because it's both easy and challenging. Having only a small number of large cities allows for a clean network and to concentrate on the actual task at hand. Meeting the fertilizer goal requires some tycooning, though.

So you cannot tamper with the heightmap any more once cities are placed? I thought blurring the input file might be the easiest way. But anyway, the point might be moot. I tried smoothing the terrain using the steamroller funtion of the editor, all the map twice over. My feelings about the outcome are mixed: the plains certainly look and feel much better now, the large craters and steep cliffs didn't suffer all that much. However, where before was rugged terrain (like near Ferromontes or where the Sacra Mesa plateau drops towards Kassei), it's ...well, technically speaking it still is rugged terrain. However, it looks really eroded and worn down.

Laying track for the most part becomes much easier; in the plains, you just pull a beeline connecting one place to the next. However, it's much more difficult to flatten the remaining bumps and when laying track in rugged terrain you get much fewer offers for tunnels.

Some more suggestions:
It takes absolutely no effort to meet the deuterium goal, only time. There's nothing wrong with that, however, I wonder wether this maybe should pay off in some way. Cheaper energy comes to mind, but that's something you don't really need anymore at that time. How about the forced placement of a few fruit and grain greenhouses?

I've looked into the editor and seen all the agricultural zones. You are aware that after the initial seeding, in most places the AI will have severe difficulties in placing any more farms and orchards? Cattle barns and the likes can always be snuck even into a tight corner, though. In the long run, this leads to a gross oversupply of wool and cattle while the growing population eats more and more of the greenstuff you ought to turn into booze. Hence my above suggestion: forced placement seems to work almost always, even if the standard building function doesn't.

RAIN! Rain is cool. I would however suggest that you make this solely dependant on the seeded area, starting at maybe 30k acres and improving for every 10k beyond that. I don't see how plants enclosed in greenhouses should affect this in any way. Also, give the player a hint that this might happen, as an incentive to constantly seed more area -- otherwise, people might be inclined to do it last.

This one is a tough nut to crack. The Mars-scape is very rough and tracklaying costs a bundle. For that reason overborrowing is (yet again) a constant ogre lurking in the background . Yesterday, I finally reached Gold on this map. For me, it was a question of finding the right line to start with. Took me a while but I made it!

Can't connect to Bonestell! Water, water, water ...

Any hints?

You can connect there but it takes a bridge of epic length. I think at some point the game tells you that an invention has been made to negotiate the treacherous terrain in that area of the planet. That is, ofcourse, suspension bridges.

If I remember right, suspension bridges become available in 1895.

On Earth yes...but on Mars? Is it possible to allow suspension bridges on an arbitrary year on a per scenario basis?

Hawk wrote:If I remember right, suspension bridges become available in 1895.

That's correct! And there is no way to influence that by an event!
But, although the scenario's starts in 2048 (> 1895 ), I didn't see an availability of suspension bridges ...

Sugus wrote:But, although the scenario's starts in 2048 (> 1895 ),

Oops! A minor technicality I overlooked.