NSW - North, south & west

[RulerofRails]

I'm yet to try it. Planning to do it real soon. Feel free to PM me a copy with these tweaks even if it's a bit WIP.

RTII has a known behavior that if you build new track that will help the chance of the economy staying good or improving. Perhaps this feature is here also. People were trying to do it just before a potential change believing this to be best practice. It was an observation and not properly quantified. In some way RT3 code is related, so I'm not really surprised if has something to do with player performance also.

[Gumboots]

Will do.

I'm now thinking I could do the same thing with the track cost inflation over time: have three separate additions for difficulty levels 1, 2 and 3.

Expert: track cost +3% per annum
Hard: track cost +2% per annum
Normal: track cost +1% per annum
Easy: track cost @ default

There are already annual events for the total loads quotas for each difficulty level, so adding the track cost inflation to those would be easy enough. This won't affect how we play, of course, but I'm in the mood to be nice to beginner/intermediate players.

Edit: Kinda over this up and down with credit rating too. I find I spend too much time trying to figure out how to game the system. Easy fix: change the penalty scale so it's -1 credit rating and +1 prime rate for every million in debt, with no getting back anything if you reduce debt after having gone up once. If it starts at $2m (same as now) and goes up to $6m, that would mean for $6m and up you would have a maximum credit rating of B (if you would normally be AAA) and you'd have a minimum prime rate of 10% in a boom (or 14% in a depression) and you'd be stuck with these until the end.

Same deal with lower game difficulty levels: have only the credit rating reductions for Hard (with prime rate staying at default values) and have no credit rating reductions or prime rate increases for Normal or Easy level.

Checking it quarterly seems to make sense, since quarterly is a financial tradition thing. Three month window between checks will allow a little bit of scope for playing the system sometimes, but not much and not often.

[Gumboots]

Have tested these latest ideas. The new (and harder) credit scale is a good thing, IMO. Even with my knowledge of how to rort the system I ended up limited to $5m debt at an average rate of just over 10%, and getting that far took some thought.

However, the economy being limited to Normal or less for the first 5 years does not work well in combination with the new credit scale and a difficult initial seeding. Having both would probably work with a generous seeding, but is just too much with an exceptionally hard seeding.

So I replayed it from the same seeding, with the economy left free to do what it naturally wants to do (ie: limitation events disabled). This appears to work very well. With the new credit scale it's challenging, but still ultimately playable, which is what I was after.

This led me to thinking that there could be value in leaving the economy limitation as an optional extra. If you start from a given seed and it's turning out a bit too easy, load a save of the start and switch on the early economy limitation. Hey presto, it will be harder. You could even have a selection of economy limitation events, so if you like the look of a particular seed but know it's going to be a piece of cake you could limit the early economy to Recession or even Depression if you wanted to.

It's easy to code a multiple choice dialogue that would allow for:
a/ economy left as game default (ie: Booming allowed) or
b/ limited to Prosperity or less for 5 years, or
b/ limited to Normal or less for 5 years, or
b/ limited to Recession or less for 5 years.

[RulerofRails]

The other option is to manually place one or two critical buildings to limit downside of bad seeds. For example a Meat Packing Plant somewhere, maybe Paramatta.

Question, are you using an exe named simply "RT3"? Remember my test, one that was renamed seemed to return much more reliable overall density.

With the +30% increase in graded track costs, a no bonds start with 3 large stations, Newcastle-Maitland-Greta, isn't possible anymore, previously said connection was doable, but tight both on track and money. You have no choice but to start in the Sydney area. It has to be a very good seed to keep up development at the pace to meet the general haulage quotas for a considerable stretch of years. Without much general haulage, the challenge in this is to aquire enough track to make the connection to all cities. I did a low-effort run where I missed all general haulage and didn't finnesse the other targets. I connected 30 cities, and almost made all the haulage (215/240 wool, final goods en route to Wellington). Again this was low effort and I had a drought in the 2nd year. I didn't receive a Silver Medal because I hadn't connected to Musclebrook. The current briefing doesn't mention that a connection to Musclebrook is required. Maybe this could be tweaked.

Lowering the density has made the no bonds/industry play harder. But I don't want you to worry about this, very likely it's only me who will ever the play the map in this way. To me it's more important that the map is for majority of players balanced towards still making money rather than being on cruise control with a stack of cash just waiting for the next track allotment.


I think with the extra graded track cost, we should forget about the Illawara escapment route being cost competitive with the regular "tunnel". The only reason remaining to do it would be to save a little track.

I'm sure your skin will crawl when you see this,,,,, but I couldn't tell in your screeshot if you accepted a heavy fill section on what is basically a cliffside between Cowan and Brooklyn on the Woy Woy section. I wasn't really excited to pay $200-300k of fill to get through there. So my devious mind was looking for a "better way." In this first shot you will see my first idea, simply to climb on top with a 6% jump up. But what is this on the left?

Turns out that there is a way when building from the south that you can start a regular "bridge" on the sharp cell corner X: 328, Y: 227. This bridge can then at a specific angle be extended over the "ocean" cell. It has a nasty 13%, but this route cuts out the tunnel. That's what I used on my run. Sorry, I know it's a bit naughty. Just thought you should know about this possibility.

[Gumboots]

The other option is to manually place one or two critical buildings to limit downside of bad seeds. For example a Meat Packing Plant somewhere, maybe Paramatta.

I don't really fancy that. I like the greater variety for replay options.

Question, are you using an exe named simply "RT3"? Remember my test, one that was renamed seemed to return much more reliable overall density.

Yes, but then so are 99% of people who play the game. Personally I like the radically different seeds that are possible. They can be interesting.

With the +30% increase in graded track costs, a no bonds start with 3 large stations, Newcastle-Maitland-Greta, isn't possible anymore, previously said connection was doable, but tight both on track and money. You have no choice but to start in the Sydney area.

Hadn't thought of that. How much cash are you short by? If it's only a small amount I could tweak things somewhat.

Edit: I took a look at it. There's plenty of track available, and you can just hook up all three towns with large stations for the default $990k, but you won't have any cash left over for locomotives. So yeah, that would slow things down a bit. You'd need to start with $1,100k to make it viable (that'd just get you 2 locos).

Lowering the density has made the no bonds/industry play harder.

Umm, yeah. It has made any playing style harder. That was the idea.

It would be possible (just thinking about it) to script user-selectable options for no industry or bonds. Selecting one or both could come with a trade-off, such as slightly cheaper track and/or increased cargo generation.

No bonds is easy. You just wallop credit rating. You can't borrow below B, and the scale goes to F, giving possible 12 levels that don't allow you to take out bonds. So if the option at game start took 6 levels off your credit rating you'd never be able to use bonds, and the setting would remain valid even if your default rating was as low as DDD.

No industry is slightly trickier, because increasing industry buy/build cost also increases the cost of sheds and towers. This is, IMO, stupid coding. As essential railway support buildings they should not be classified as "industry". Unfortunately we are stuck with it being stupid, which places more undesirable limits on scripting.

I think with the extra graded track cost, we should forget about the Illawarra escarpment route being cost competitive with the regular "tunnel". The only reason remaining to do it would be to save a little track.

Which Illawarra Escarpment route? Are you talking about the drop bears line from Wollongong to Moss Vale? Or are you talking about sneaking along the coast to Hurstville instead of using a tunnel? The latter was never intended to be cost-competitive with the tunnel. I'd never given cost any thought at all. It was just a route that was possible if someone felt like doing it.

I'm sure your skin will crawl when you see this,,,,, but I couldn't tell in your screenshot if you accepted a heavy fill section on what is basically a cliffside between Cowan and Brooklyn on the Woy Woy section.

Yes, I regard that as normal. I just run the line across the face of that cliff. It's the closest approximation to the real line that RT3 will allow at this scale (I'm very familiar with the area). In real life it's worse (half a dozen tunnels, umpteen cuttings, etc).

By the way, you can cross that river at the kosher location with a level bridge (ie: no ramps at either end) if you are careful about how you place it. Can be done with a timber or stone bridge on either "Common" or "Average" bridge setting. Haven't tied it with a steel bridge, but it should work the same way.

Anyway, I'll turn the bears loose to make sure you behave in future. Handy things, these bears. Fun for all the family.

[RulerofRails]

Regarding the seeding, I suppose it's my preference to play without industry, that I'm wanting there to be something going on somewhere. It's then a matter of what and where and is it useful to my start. Otherwise, if playing without limits if there is no action at all in a particular area you can probably create some by building industry. I suppose the worst possible seeds can be interesting to play with industry. But there's also the "easy", overpowered ones. You might get through the map facing little challenge at all. Which I suppose could see your system come in (however I'm not sure how many people will play the same seed multiple times, enough to really understand it, instead of just trying another). Some games have roll-the-dice kind of randomization even on tasks. For example, the Tran-Siberian one. But these are probably
secondary," the primary one of making the Tran-Siberian is the same.

The big thing about no industry/bonds play is start-up density and/or seeding (for example higher density but lower production via event will work better). Also, because you plan for the economy solely with how you build your railway, if things spawn in later for example Meat Packer/Tool and Die) in strange locations all you can do is adjust some routes (you can't for example select via small variation in station placement what your price gradients will be). With this map, there are quite a few locations such as north of Windsor where difficult terrain takes longer than the fixed 3 year "simulation period" for cargoes to reach "civilization." But overall I wouldn't worry too much about the no industry/bonds route unless it's something you feel like trying yourself.

Raising industry prices doesn't affect service/maint facilities ("station" price does though). Industry price does affect the price of Hotels/Rest/Tavern/Post.

$1,100k cash should work. You run out of track if you try to finesse for lowest possible grades, ie. the cheapest track. Bit more cash and it will work fine. Also Greta station needs to cover as much river as possible. That's a bit further than the "easy" location.

Yeah, I was talking the drop bears route. I know it's not the realistic one.

[Gumboots]

I suppose the worst possible seeds can be interesting to play with industry. But there's also the "easy", overpowered ones. You might get through the map facing little challenge at all.

Sure, but then if you want more challenge you just pick a harder seed. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for train rides, so am happy to play from an easier start. Or maybe I just want enough resources to try something different, to see what the map is capable of. Other times I want to get right into analysing how to make a tricky one work, because I learn new things from that and it exercises the noggin.

Raising industry prices doesn't affect service/maint facilities.

It does. I tested it yesterday to refresh my memory. I was fairly sure it was coded that way, and it is.

$1,100k cash should work. You run out of track if you try to finesse for lowest possible grades, ie. the cheapest track. Bit more cash and it will work fine. Also Greta station needs to cover as much river as possible. That's a bit further than the "easy" location.

Yes, river coverage is important. There's enough track to do good river coverage for all three stations, while keeping the route a reasonable compromise between grades and track units (which is how I lay it). It was just cash that was a bit short for a no bonds start. I'm fine with increasing the starting cash to $1090k* as the default, without requiring extra player choice events. I think that will work well overall with the new tighter conditions.

Yeah, I was talking the drop bears route. I know it's not the realistic one.

Oh that one is real. It's called the Unanderra–Moss Vale line (Unanderra is a suburb of Wollongong). It wasn't built until the 1920's, but it's a real line and is still in use. I did take a few small liberties with the local ecology though.

Anyway, I think very slight adjustments to the overall YTD loads quota and building density progressions, and maybe graded track cost, will finish this one off nicely. Overall YTD loads quota was getting away just a bit too fast from mid game on, so if I don't taper off the building density increase quite so much that will help in several ways. The aim is to mimic the original, where you could hold the overall YTD loads quota until roughly 5 years from the end.

I'm going to test the current version with these changes:

1/ Change building density progression from [3.8%, 3.0%, 2.2%] to [3.8%, 3.4%, 3.0%].
2/ Change graded track cost to +8% Normal, +16% Hard, +24% Expert (events #3, #4 and #5 - names "Graded track 1", etc).
3/ Increase initial company cash to $1,090k (event #6 - name "Company Settings").
4/ Increase range of voracious bears. Some of them like holidaying near Cowan Bank.

1/ will increase annual cargo production by an average of around 4% over the latter half of the game.
2/ will give an actual 4.6% reduction in graded track cost compared to the current value.
IOW, will save $92k on graded track that currently costs $2 million. There are several connections like that, so it will add up.

I think these are enough to just nudge things into the right ballpark.

*This is just to torture you, so you have to really scrape it in with station placement, or wait for the first load to get a second loco. Hey, you want to make things hard for yourself.

[RulerofRails]

I don't know what you are seeing, but this is what I experience:

Actually, given the choice I will only start with one train. When playing without bonds there is no point to do anything sacrificial for price gradients. WIth bonds, posting a bigger result in the present year can be worthwhile for a better credit rating at the start of the next year even if it equalizes virtually all price gradients. It doesn't matter even if all gradients are near flat (wont happen as much here for resource cargoes since it's on a river). Those bonds are opening new markets and I could haul there from anywhere.

[Gumboots]

That's weird, because I did test it and it was bumping cost on sheds and towers. Ok, I'll check it again, just to make sure, but I wasn't tripping on LSD yesterday (or today either).

And if one train suits you to start with, that's fine. $1,090k should suit everyone. I found another seed that closely approximates the last gnarly one (but with the new scripting tweaks) so am having a go at that.

[RulerofRails]

Did you check building density on your "bad" seed?

I messed with the normal "RT3" exe, to try a few saves. This is the worst one so far. No Meat Packer on the map. Has a working lumber mill in Richmond though.

69 resources.jpg (11.6 KiB) Viewed 7819 times

Then I tried the renamed exe and I got this:

That theory about the renamed exe wasn't ever correborated with a second test. It's probably complete hocus.

[Gumboots]

Checked the industry cost increase again and hey, it doesn't affect sheds and towers. Dunno what happened yesterday. I must have temporarily lost the plot and checked the wrong thing.

Ok, it's "Build Stations cost" that increases shed and tower prices (as well as increasing station price, obviously).
Buy/Build Industries cost increases the price of Hotels, Post Offices, Restaurants and Taverns (as well as all "industry").

---

Re building density on the seed: Houses - 263, City Support - 15, Raw Producers - 82, Factories - 23, Total - 363.

It's not so much that there was nothing on the map. It's that the way it was arranged was highly restrictive. Short version: all the goodies were where you couldn't get to them at the start. Or, you could get to some of them, but then you wouldn't have been able to get anywhere else. Basically, gradients were flattened quickly and re-hauls of the same cargo died.

Tried several starts, rail and industry, in Sydney and Newcastle. Decided a Sydney rail start gave more chance of survival, so went from there. Pushed early pax with some Hotels. Went up the hill to Springwood as soon as I could (couldn't afford Weatherboard) to take advantage of temporary price differences from the cities on the flat, then out to Picton. Onward to Goulburn next, because that was the affordable incremental option and Goulburn was making some Lumber, so I finally had a chance of track bonuses.

Can send you a copy of the seed if you like. It would require all my custom cargo cars and NSWGR locos to load in the game, as well as my custom booze reefers (which I only made recently, for this scenario, and haven't released yet, but can send if you want them).

Come to think of it, I'm going to apply the latest minor adjustments to this exact seed (I still have a save) and play from there. That should be the best test because it's a known baseline.

[RulerofRails]

Sure, you can send it, I'll take a look a bit later. I agree with you that the most difficult starts are normally with the ones with an average number of resource producers, but in bad locations. This also means that the game isn't trying to seed new resources in to get towards that average during the first couple of years (I believe it may even give preference at least for factories to the cities you have connected). These 69 and 60 resource ones were suprisingly playable. Only played them for a couple years each.

[Gumboots]

By the way, if you want to know how I do the Hawkesbury River Bridge and the track up Cowan Bank...

It's a bit fiddly to get it this good for the bridge, but the rest of the track is easy once you've done it the first time. It does require care around the bend at the top. You have to lay it so it doesn't lump up over the map vertices. Grade overall is very moderate if you get it right.

Also, if you want a fun route from Hurstville to Wollongong, this would be impossible to build IRL (or at least with 19th century tech at a reasonable price) but I did a bit of smoothing there if anyone feels like having a different scenic route south.

It's probably much the same as the more realistic route in terms of cost, although I haven't done a comparison. You don't have to pay for a short tunnel, but you need an extra bridge. Grades are lower, but the track requires more fill under it along the cliff face, and it uses a few more units of track. This route would probably be faster with locos like the 14 Class, and you get nice sea views all the way.

[Gumboots]

Well, I'm still going on the same play through. Have adopted an intensive management style, with the majority of trains (around 100 of them) on standard "set and forget" routes and about twenty or so on routes that get adjusted as they land at each station. The latter get set to whatever cargo and destination is most lucrative at the time, with an impossible consist at the destination so they stay put when they get there. When I go through the list they're sitting ready to load, so I switch the consist again and off they go.

I've adopted this process for the wool trains too. They get set to 8 Wool, or 8 any cargo, at the western depots (Yass, Woodstock and Wellington) and are set to 8 Corn at Sydney depot. They can't find this at Sydney, so they wait for me to re-route them. I pick the best load and destination for them on the way back (ie: clothing to Bathurst or whatever) and at the intermediate station they are set to "min 0 max 8 any cargo" so they don't waste time there, and will just head on down to grab more Wool if there's nothing going in the middle. This is a better use of their return journeys than just running them straight back to their origin station.

I think this is more the way RoR plays. It's certainly an interesting experience, but it doesn't leave much time for train rides, and it's frankly getting to be more like work than a game. Nonetheless, it does allow pulling amazing numbers of annual loads with quite surprising amounts of profit from rail. I may even have to try a no-industry run just to see how I go with that.

I've specifically set up the area around Sydney to maximise traffic flow and minimise congestion. I usually run a bypass from the foot of the Blue Mountains direct to Sydney, skipping Penrith and Parramatta, to eliminate two major bottlenecks once heavy traffic from the west starts rolling in. Previously I have always done this with overpasses, but this time I switched them off and ran all crossings instead.

This does mean some interference at crossings, but as the trains are crossing more or less at right angles the interference time is far shorter than if they were on the same line. Also there are no overpass ramps, which means no significant grades, so that helps to some extent. The big advantages though are that crossings are significantly cheaper, and they allow much easier interconnections between all lines in all directions. This is important with the number of randomly targeted trains I'm using. The less time they spend travelling, and the less time they have to use the same track as another train, the better the result.

Doing it this way does mean taking a hit on expansion for one year to set up the bypass, but there's enough track to do it if you're hitting the track bonus haulages consistently and it does pay dividends in terms of traffic flow.

It also gives a wonderful "major city rail yard" feel to the whole thing.

[Gumboots]

I think my test installation has been corrupted. I was continuing this test play last night, and the game suddenly started playing four or five tunes at the same time. Sounded surprisingly good, funnily enough, but definitely indicates something is going wrong somewhere.

So I switched the music off, and another bug started turning up. I think the large number of possible routes around Sydney, combined with the 140 locos I was running, sort of fried the game engine. When checking out stations in the Sydney area they would all suddenly explode into balls of spiky pixels, then the game would CTD. I may have to try it with less complex track around Sydney, but I'll make a new installation first and see if that helps.

The good news is I'm confident that this scenario is now finalised for scripting and balance. All it needs now is a bit of work on the terrain painting.

[RulerofRails]

Ok. My take on the seed you sent me is that it's a good seed for no bonds/industry play. A $400k first year is possible with either a Newcastle or Sydney start. The Sydney start is better for the 2nd year ownwards. Greta and Singleton both have shadows on the demand map from surrounding mountains. This means stagnation. In addition, reaching Singleton town center requires a bridge and it's a steep riverside block, weighting it for river price.

Something that's "sub-par" about this seed is Lumber. It pretty much necessitates going to Goulburn. But in fact my plan is normally to go to Yass as the first expansion. The leg up through Picton needs some saving, but there are enough "steps" on the expansion that you aren't hard-saving for 3 or so years like if you try to link Newcastle and Parramatta early on ($3M+ cost).


I took this particular seed from a Newcastle start to a Silver* without bonds or industries. This includes no Hotels/Taverns/etc.. Had a drought in the second year, but economy was 75% of the time at boom. Had a second port spawn in Sydney.

*Actually I only got Bronze because I diverted some Goods bound for Wellington to Bathurst and they arrived in Decemeber of the final year. The Silver medal didn't get a chance to be checked.

I did a second start and made use of the land-locked trio of cities above Penrith. This area is good for express and also is a properly isolated demand location unlike everthying else that is linked. Some good short-term haulage revenues there for Milk, Alcohol and Clothing. However in this start, I didn't get a Lumber Mill appear in Bendigo (had it my "Silver" run) and the one in Rylstone disappeared. At that point I decided to develop the Newcastle area. It's a little tight, but I think it's probably possible to stay with the haulage quota for 5 or so years with the right strat provided you don't get a drought. On my silver run with the Newcastle start there is no way to meet the haulage in the 3rd year onwards.

I then made the mistake to try to link Newcastle to Parramatta. Momentum choked out and it used up track supplies I should have used to get to a Lumber mill, so I abandoned it.



My company ended up at $40M CBV. Overall Engine Maintenance and Fuel cost were about equal. Individually they were less than Overhead or track maintenance. Engine of choice for most of the game was the 6N. Mainly the acceleration is swaying me. If the 17 Class had comparable acceleration I would consider it, even though it's slower, more expensive to buy, and maintain. With equal accel, fuel cost can be more of a consideration. The haulage quotas are making most of the network higher than normal volume.

The setup here is interesting when considering rails ROI. And that's to say I probably don't have it right. If you make many shipments in an effort to stay with the haulage quota, these will be at low value. You can over-do it I'm sure, but what is the right amount? I would proposition that it's just under the limit of needing double-track. But there is more to consider: lots of haulage = not much production from factories, and in the long run that is not good.

Obviously rails ROI is decreasing as the game progresses since track cost is constantly rising. Past the middle of the game and for the farther, lower grade connections, ROI is dropping below 5% according to my estimates. Compared to good industry (25%) which is net positive after 3 years. . . .

This seed is probably Gold winnable with my conditions and some luck. As you said it probably requires some extensive management of consists. I didn't do extensive management, only a little for the haulage cargoes. I will use medium management when expanding, but the plan is always, after expansion moves on, to reach a locally "stable" state where trains run automatically. I simply don't have time/ambition to play like that. My typical plan is to try to have a setup that automatically promotes industrial production. Too much interference will confuse the game's rehauling price island mechanic, and I believe can result in harm to the unwary.

More realistically, would be to try with Taverns and Hotels. I switched to playing without Hotels because I wanted a "worst-case" test for testing dedicated express in case the average player isn't enlightened about the benefits of Hotels. Not sure when that will be. Should be good as is though.

And then to consider there are some seeds which are quite slow to start. . . . Those aren't going to be possible with special conditions. But it's better to have something tough than easy. I'm doubtful more than a handful of people play the game this way.

I did a different route down to Wollongong. . ... When you are low on cash the schemes start.

Here's the demand shadows in action:

[Gumboots]

Ok. My take on the seed you sent me is that it's a good seed for no bonds/industry play.

Yes, but you'd say that about a blank map. Mere humans struggle.

Something that's "sub-par" about this seed is Lumber. It pretty much necessitates going to Goulburn. But in fact my plan is normally to go to Yass as the first expansion. The leg up through Picton needs some saving, but there are enough "steps" on the expansion that you aren't hard-saving for 3 or so years like if you try to link Newcastle and Parramatta early on ($3M+ cost).

Ok, I agree with that assessment. I found the same thing. Goulburn was the easiest way of getting track bonuses early in the game. However, I did end up finding some other dodges that allowed (very lucrative) expansion out to Mudgee before Goulburn, but that was with the use of bonds.

*Actually I only got Bronze because I diverted some Goods bound for Wellington to Bathurst and they arrived in Decemeber of the final year. The Silver medal didn't get a chance to be checked.

That's odd. It should check at the start of year 25. That's when Bronze checks too, but Silver checks first. So if the loads arrived in December of year 24 they should be available for a medal trigger at the start of the next year. I'll take another look at the scripting and double check everything.

I did a second start and made use of the land-locked trio of cities above Penrith. This area is good for express and also is a properly isolated demand location unlike everything else that is linked. Some good short-term haulage revenues there for Milk, Alcohol and Clothing.

Yes, those are a good early move, on just about any Sydney start.

However in this start, I didn't get a Lumber Mill appear in Bendigo (had it my "Silver" run) and the one in Rylstone disappeared.

Bendigo is in Victoria. Did you mean Mudgee? That's one usual place for a mill out that way.

At that point I decided to develop the Newcastle area. It's a little tight, but I think it's probably possible to stay with the haulage quota for 5 or so years with the right strat provided you don't get a drought. On my silver run with the Newcastle start there is no way to meet the haulage in the 3rd year onwards.

For RC6 (which should be "final except for eye candy") I added in fourth haulage bonuses for each cargo. So 10/20/30/40 Wool instead of 10/20/30 as before, and similar for Lumber, Steel and Alcohol. My reasoning was that this would allow catching up on track later, without having to go nuts on bait and switch or "shunters", while not affecting the early years. Once you have a developed network it's not hard to haul 80 Lumber in a year. If you've had a good seed and a good economy you will be ok for track anyway, so these changes won't make much difference, but they should help if there have been severe recessions or depressions and several droughts.

My company ended up at $40M CBV. Overall Engine Maintenance and Fuel cost were about equal. Individually they were less than Overhead or track maintenance. Engine of choice for most of the game was the 6N. Mainly the acceleration is swaying me. If the 17 Class had comparable acceleration I would consider it, even though it's slower, more expensive to buy, and maintain. With equal accel, fuel cost can be more of a consideration. The haulage quotas are making most of the network higher than normal volume.

Yup. Fuel cost for me tends to work out around 60% of overhead in the mid to late game.

Re the 6N: I tend to use it a lot too, which is not that good historically since there were only a couple of them, and used in a limited area. Having a fleet of them running all over the state is a tad bonkers, but with the possible stats I could get and the need to make it distinct from the 1 Class (and the fact that they were early dedicated freight haulers) I settled on something that seemed to be the best balance. Maybe I should increase the fuel rating in an attempt to restrict its range somewhat.

But yes, there would be a case for increasing the 17's acceleration by one level. It's a good unit on longer runs where it gets a chance to wind up, but not so good around the Sydney area. When given a chance to get going it will easily match the 6N in terms of actual speed with a freight consist. Nominal top speed is lower, but it doesn't lose any even with a heavy load.

As an aside, I ended up using the 17 Class for pax and mail quite a bit too. This was with managed/randomly routed trains that just took the best load from where they were to wherever was next best. Sometimes they'd dump a load of freight, prices hadn't had time to adjust, but there was a stack of pax sitting there looking for a train. In situations like that, using the 17 makes sense. Prices are down, but haulage cost is cheap, and it counts towards the yearly loads quota (the 17 class actually were used for pax on branch lines).

The setup here is interesting when considering rails ROI. And that's to say I probably don't have it right. If you make many shipments in an effort to stay with the haulage quota, these will be at low value. You can over-do it I'm sure, but what is the right amount? I would proposition that it's just under the limit of needing double-track. But there is more to consider: lots of haulage = not much production from factories, and in the long run that is not good.

I tend to double track some areas anyway. Holding onto the yearly loads quota is an interesting challenge for me, and it can be done, and it can be done with consistent annual profits in the $3m-4m range later in the game. I had no trouble meeting the quota until the mid-1870's, although it was getting tight by then and a depression could have nobbled it.

Obviously rails ROI is decreasing as the game progresses since track cost is constantly rising. Past the middle of the game and for the farther, lower grade connections, ROI is dropping below 5% according to my estimates. Compared to good industry (25%) which is net positive after 3 years...

I've been using some hotels and taverns (maybe a dozen of each) and some post offices, but apart from that I've been using very little industry. One T&D in Sydney, a couple of just-seeded farms later on. That's about it. Although I did build and upgrade a Textile Mill in Sydney late in the game, but really that was only to boost the Wool price gradient out west to haulable levels.

And then to consider there are some seeds which are quite slow to start. . . . Those aren't going to be possible with special conditions. But it's better to have something tough than easy. I'm doubtful more than a handful of people play the game this way.

I added a no-bonds option at the start of the scenario. You get -6 on your credit rating, but you get an extra $250k to start with (standard cash is back down to the original $990k, no-bonds cash is now $1,240k). It also disables the Montefiore events, so you won't get dialogues that aren't any use to you.

I did a different route down to Wollongong. . ... When you are low on cash the schemes start.

Oh good. I'll add some extra poison.

[Gumboots]

Ok, have done eye candy. Have also done coding. If there are no bugs found in this one, it will be the final version*.

Zip attached.

*Next job: sort out a proper all-in-one express pack and the NSWGR locos.

With the haulage requirements in this one I'm really liking the idea of being able to distinguish Iron and Coal hoppers at a glance, as well as having separate Alcohol reefers, so those may happen too.

[RulerofRails]

Nice. I will try it out in a bit. Will try to find another "bad" seed. The 4th level for the haulage bonuses is a good idea. This takes a little pressure off the early game.

I can also agree that it's a bit hard to distringuish the cars. The new sets are harder to tell than the default ones. One idea for that could be to integrate the good icon into the shot for preview in the train list. I suppose it could be optional, a set with a partial transperancy icon super-imposed or something.

Had another thought also. Not necessarily for this map, a general one, but I'm typing here right now. I believe the reason why industries get the feeling they are imbalanced to me is due to them having comparable profits across difficulty levels, while the ROI outlook for rails is decreasing on the harder levels.

I couldn't find some of my infos quickly. That means these stats are a little "guess/approx.", but theory should be easy to grasp.

When we compare Medium to Expert, Revenue is down by almost 20%, and as the stations age there is much less penalty for older stations. This can be +30% achieved over time. The expenses are lower, I know track cost is a litte more than +10% for expert compared to Medium. If we assumed that this was +10% across the board, and that expenses are roughly eating half our profits we can come up with something like (1-0.3)*0.95= 67%. I suspect this may be lower with actual numbers and more detailed consideration.

Anyway, if we conservatively say that rail ROI is down by 30%, that is grounds in my opinion for increasing industry cost by at least that amount to get a "more balanced" industry/rail comparison on Expert. Of course this is before the consideration that building industries will often produce totally new resources that outright increase the economic size of the map. With this consideration I would suggest +40-50% to industry prices. It could be variable also, start at 50% and drop back towards 30% by late game. As your company gets more established locally it's more reasonable that it would extend "roots" into the local production economy.

[Gumboots]

I can't see how the new set would be harder to distinguish than the old one. The old one provided no differentiation between any cargoes at all, except for flatcars, in the train profile view. Boxcars, reefers and hoppers used the same icon for all cargoes carried in that car type. The new set has pulpwood flatcars too, which are easier to spot compared to the generic covered hopper of the default set. On the other hand it no longer has a distinctive flatcar icon for Goods, so I suppose that's a trade-off.

What got me thinking about Iron is the new set requires separate cars for all open hopper cargoes anyway, because there's no other way of getting the cargo models working with the double hoppers, so making distinct ones for Iron is just a matter of recolouring the sides of the Iron hopper and its profile icon. That's easy, so might as well do it.

The rest (ie: not in open hoppers) of the freight cargoes all still work the same way as the defaults: any cargo in that car type uses the same mesh and skin and profile icon (ie: exact same files and file names). It's not that big a deal to split them up if anyone really wants to do it, but at the moment I'm not thinking of doing them all.

When we compare Medium to Expert, Revenue is down by almost 20%, and as the stations age there is much less penalty for older stations.

There's less penalty for station age on Expert level? I think you mean the other way around.

The expenses are lower, I know track cost is a little more than +10% for expert compared to Medium.

You're mixing things up again. I know what you mean, but you're definitely trying to make it confusing.

Anyway, I can see an argument for increasing industry cost or decreasing industry profit on Expert level to some extent, but 40-50% seems way over the top unless you are deliberately trying to prevent all use of industry. In which case you might as well just disable it in the special conditions.

For this map, my feeling is that some industries are kosher for NSWGR and some aren't. For example, I don't feel it's wrong to buy or build a T&D. NSWGR had pretty massive engineering works spread about the place and a T&D fits as the RT3 1.05 equivalent. OTOH they weren't into farming, so buying farms should probably be off the list even though grabbing ones that have just seeded is often really good ROI. Ditto Meat Packers and most other industries, because they don't really fit as part of the company.

Taverns and restaurants are a grey area. There were cafes and whatnots at stations, and you could buy booze too, and the railway made money out of them, so you can argue taverns and restaurants are ok. Hotels, not so much. NSWGR did have accommodation around the state for engine crews on duty, but didn't get into hotels as such. But I often build hotels just to get early express pumping faster, and they do provide reasonable direct ROI (apart from the pax traffic) on the whole.