Indonesia

[belbincolne]

Two translations of this came up in the new scenarios folder so I thought "cant remember this one" but there was an "Ind2" in my files so unzipped it and played it. Trouble was it turned out to be Industrial which I couldn't remember ever playing either so had a quickie at it on normal and got Gold easily but it was a nice scenario to play.

Then I searched the folder for the correct file and downloaded it. First snag was that I couldn't see when the scenario finished (turned out to be 2000). Second was that I decided to use electric lines as rails seemed to be pretty cheap and trains expensive. Then cheaper non-electric trains started turning up so seems to have been a mistake. Once I'd left Australia I went non electric. Really everything went very smoothly until perhaps 1980 (wasn't keeping track) then train crashes came with thundering regularity (at least 4 a year) costing some $1m plus. Overheads after getting to the outer islands played havoc with the trains there being mostly unprofitable. Lots of train were bringing in some $250k but took so long to arrive and ran back at only say $10k with the result that they never made a profit. Also the crashes never seemed to happen to the unprofitable trains only those I'd no note of so presumably profitable (one of the snags with RT3 is that you know nothing about a train that crashes except its destinations and type).

I'd invested heavily in farms/industry fortunately as these were highly profitable and kept me alive (had some 4 times the required IP at finish). Invested wisely so was just above PNW requirement but had to pay $1m dividends which was another drain.

Anyway requirements are to connect all 42 towns on map. The last 4 are on islands costing $6m each for 3 and $10m for last one to build bridges to and when time was called I'd only got one - and the train which I'd had running from it with minimum of 2 carriages still hadn't left the town after 4 years .

So got nothing (obviously only Gold given, no Silver or Bronze) and wonder if anyone else had played it especially as its now in three languages and how they found it. Despite its difficulty and annoyances I enjoyed playing it. Took all my spare time for last 3 days

[belbincolne]

Played this again and got Gold 18 years early - not electrifying and buying/building industry kept my income up. Can recommend this to anyone as a nice scenario although it calls for no special techniques.

Odd that, given the number of languages in which its available, that no-one else seems to be playing it.

[RayofSunshine]

Well I might have some reason. "There doesn't seem to be an adequate amount of any supply for revenue. I bought bonds, connecting the 4 cities in question, which all had to be connected by tunnels, or at least on my first attempt. So, for the whole 1st year, I carried 1 mail to destination, and another train started with a mail and corn. Once they reached the destination, they all sat for another year, ""waiting for cargo"".

Although the terrain is supurb, the scenario moves too slow to keep a player interested. A real challenge in patience. Didn't try to go ""over"" the mountains, which might be less expensive, but then the economy of the "trial attempt", there wasn't any supply for revenue.

SO, Bel, if you could remember the method of your endeavor, explain your initial "start", by connecting Sydney, Cranberra, Melbourne, and Port Auguta to circumvent the mountainous terrain, maybe it could be of more interest for some of the players to give it another attempt.

A real waste of such a creation if nobody is playing it, after a goodly amount of time and imagination for its creator to have taken to produce it. Besides, I hate to quit trying without giving any scenario a chance.

And I thank you.

Ray of Sunshine

[belbincolne]

We...ll - first thing I did was remove the r from Cranberra cos that really annoyed me !! but just north from there on both starts there was an industry possibility (logs so build lumber then furniture and something else - wool so clothing? produce so distillery?) and went over - not through - the mountains (rails were dirt cheap) to Sydney so had line between these three towns. No bonds needed. Money rolled in.

Then went from north Canberra to Port Augusta and from there to Melbourne. Didn't hurry. Just waited until the cash was there. Then expanded north and later west - whichever had the most resources - didn't try for Queensland towns until later cos there was never much there. Kept buying farms if it would give me industry as well. Stayed in Australia for a long time and built a huge base there (extra stations in farm areas) and this gave me the foundation to keep expanding because once you're out of Oz many towns are VERY useless - say one in three gives you a good return.

The main two things to succeed (well thats how it seemed to me) was that rails are really cheap compared to most scenarios and that your start up capital is high enough not to need expensive bonds. You also dont need the most expensive trains - they're all fast enough to give you quick journeys just make sure that if you're going over hills you have the ones which perform well uphill even if slow on flat (sorry, can never remember train names) but there's eventually one costing $100k which is adequate for virtually every trip. In most scenarios I run trains like they're meant to run - between (say) eight stations but here I dont think I ran any between more than three.

Hope this helps and will be interested to see how you get on.

[RayofSunshine]

Thanks Bel,

For the info on your method. Going over the mountains would have been the next attempt, although I didn't believe that any of the engines had an adequate climb rate for my opinion. BUT slow is better than nothing. And with the cost of the tunnels, a player has to have a goodly revenue just to pay for the maintainence.

This thread may show up somewhere or sometime, as after the initial thread was "submitted" my system got hung up. If so, sorry for the repeat.

Will give you method a try, as my initial attempt just did not give any appreciative amount of revenue considering that engines were setting at all the depots "waiting for some or any type of supply".

Ray of Sunshine

[RayofSunshine]

Well Bel,

I can see why there is not the enthusiasum of players. Even though I spent 1/2 hour trying to lay track "over" the mountains, I had to resort to the method of a tunnel to get to the plains North of Canberra. I did manage to get a route, including some tunnels, as the steep sides made it nearly impossible to just construct tracks, to the area of Port Augustus. However, I then found it impossible to get into the city itself.

Another big drawback, as I have found in a couple of other attempts, was the inadequate "supply" at the terminals. In previous attempts, although bonds were used to connect all the required cities, I had engines just setting for nearly 1 year before any one of them would produce "1" item of supply. And even checking this time as well, none of the "supply" items even had a full number. Only fractions, and none seemed to increase as I kept checking on them. After 2 years of """"nothing""", I just started to think I would try connecting to the industries in the plain, of farms which could be of some revenue. Have not really expanded into this plan, and went to a different scenario to """"play"""".

A real challenge.

Ray of Sunshine

[belbincolne]

I didn't connect from Canberra to Melbourne - far too expensive/hilly. I went Sydney - Canberra - Alice (farms/industry north of Canberra) - then west round to Fort Augustus - Melbourne. Cheaper and the towns get a good supply of goods from Alice so profitable.

Similiarly later when I went into the Queensland coastal towns I built a line from Sydney along the coast all the way up to the northern tip. Again this avoided really big slopes but very few trains were profitable. There's lots of farms in West Australia too that are profitable. Remember you don't have to build connected track so can build up a western base before connecting east-west.

I do have a problem in that I can no longer see the grade as I'm building rails but have to wait until they're done and then check they're o/k. This is so time consuming that normally I just assume that if I can build them they'll be o/k and that worked fine here - but in a recent scenario where you had to build from California east my trains could barely get over the hills which ruined my chances.

[RayofSunshine]

Hey Bel,

Guess I missed your mention of Sidney-Carberra rather than to Pt. Augustus. However, after a half dozen tries, I was able to get "over" the mountain without having to resort to tunnels. Anyway I could not find the "Alice" city, so went to Lismore. Again, engine just sat there waiting for cargo for a number of months with the only appreciative supply of Pass @ .06. There are 12 houses in that scope, but when the year ended, the supply went to "0". Thought I had a load, but the engine was still just setting there "waiting for cargo".

For this scenario being in the 1950s, I would believe that there were be more activity. Unlike RRT2, a player doesn't have any idea of the "supply per house" for either the pass or mail.

For some reason, my system does not "save" the previous playing when the year ends with the status of the ledger comes. I have to save it manually. So at this point I did not save the extension to Lismore, with the thought of trying to expand North out of Carberra into the plains with all the farms.

Oh, I don't know which engine you used, but the most useful "climb rated" engines are P2, H10, and ??????? Forgot the other.

[belbincolne]

"Alice" doesn't exist - its just the place where there's a lot of farms/logs and I built industry and a big station - over the Blue Mountains north of Canberra. Its nowhere near where Alice actually is but I couldn't remember the name of a real town in that area. The maps not very accurate so far as where towns actually are anyway. And, yes, I found Lismore totally useless too ( as with many more of the towns you have to connect to).

As I said it pays to create a few towns of your own where you can build a profitable base to make up for those that give you nothing back.

[RayofSunshine]

Well Bel,

That explains some of the info you have related. Question? You mention to "build" a town. SO, when you construct a large depot for 'Alice', to compensat all the farms, does this scenario actually start to construct houses in the vicinity? An interesting concept if it has that feature.

My son, with whom we live, is in an ongoing remodeling of his house. None of the house has any insulation in the walls and some ceilings. Also has the old cloth wrapped wiring, so between these items, as well are replacing the single pane windows, I don't get much time to be playing RRT3 nowdays. May not get finished with just this 1 bedroom until near the Christmas holiday, as there are always more problems when it comes to remodeling older houses.

But I am trying to keep up with this particular scenario, to see why more threads are not being entered, or the scenario being played.

[belbincolne]

In theory when you build a station its existence causes other buildings to be built within its orbit - particularly (I think) houses. That's why its always recommended that you build large stations. So far as possible I do this although early in a game that extra $100k cannot often be found! I'm always meaning to check this out but never have done. I'll try to remember to do it on the next scenario I play.

Good luck with the house. I had cloth wiring in mine - cost me a fortune to get it replaced (and all the windows too) but if I hadn't I reckon it would have burnt down by now!

[Hawk]

Having been an electrician for about 30 years I can say that there really isn't anything wrong with that old cloth covered wire.
The problem comes in when you change the over current protection device (fuse or circuit breaker) to a size rating higher than the copper or aluminum is rated for.
For instance: 14 gauge copper wire (12 gauge aluminum) is rated for 15 amps, but if you put a 20 amp fuse or breaker on it, then you run into the possibility of the wire getting too hot, and that old cloth covered wire is a lot more susceptible to over heating than the newer plastic coated wire.

The old adage; "put a penny behind a burned out fuse" is a major issue in starting fires since you effectively eliminate any over current protection.

OK! So I got a little here. Sue me.

[belbincolne]

Well if anyones allowed to go off topic you are! My trouble was that 90% of the cloth had frayed/disintegrated revealing cracked "pot" inner core and you could see the wire in places - house built in 1920s and never changed since. My glass fibre roof insullation had also disintegrated into dust and I don't even think I've got a cavity wall that I could fill. Won't go into all the other problems you have with a nearly 90 year old house! But its a great spot to live. Ask Grandma Ruth. Bet hers is similiar.

[belbincolne]

Well ran a ten year test (not on Indonesia). Tested 3 small towns with large stations and 2 places where I built industry near farms with no houses around called them TEST.

In one town and 1 TEST a house appeared almost immediately. In the other TEST 1 appeared in the third year. In another town (G) I got additional houses in years 2, 7 & 8 and an extra farm. In the last town I got Nil increase. Thus in 5 places I got in total an additional 6 houses and 1 farm in 10 years.

I dont know what this proves. One of the most interesting things was that in G a retail appeared almost immediately - and next year it had gone. Thought I was imagining things but 3 years later it appeared again - just for one year and then vanished again.

[OilCan]

One of the most interesting things was that in G a retail appeared almost immediately - and next year it had gone. Thought I was imagining things but 3 years later it appeared again - just for one year and then vanished again.

We call those kinds of ephemeral retails "tattoo & tanning parlors" on this side of the big pond. They ususally show up in worn out shopping centers, hang a hand-made sign in the window and conduct business until they get evicted due to not paying their rent - which takes about a year.

I'm a little surprised that Tycoonatrons have such seedy types of business. But it is a capitalistic, free enterprise game so I guess one should expect the full range of "enterprises".

[belbincolne]

Interesting - didn't know it was for not paying rent - thought it was for paying insufficient bribes to the cops for unregulated activities!!!!