Utah & James Hill

[RayofSunshine]

:? A little stumpted,

And could not believe that there wasn't any thread started for this one.

Gwizz did a great job on both the terrain and the subject scenario requirements. Not any tycoon on this one and made the Bronze, but am having a problem paying off debts.

I first switched everything to 'electric' as the steam costs a fortune to maintain. But still a problem for all the maintainence of track, depots, etc

Many questions, but the first are the buildings which do not pay any dividend e.g. commercials. There are a multitude of them which have been purchased by the AIs. At least their logo are highlighting them. Is there any advantage to help lower the operating costs by "selling" them?

Ray of Sunshine

[Gwizz]

Yep

[RayofSunshine]

Okay Gwizz,

I there any particular reason for the AIs, or at least you the creator indicated non-profitable buildings e.g.commercial,bakeries,churches,etc to be shown as owned with their logos, yet there isn't any money involved?

It was noticed that my Pacific after a 8-10 years of service had maintainence of $490 annual cost, while the AIs after 19 years only had an amount of maybe $62. Is this just the normal of the programming. Always trying to learn something new in programming.

With the cost of the laying/maintainence of track requiring tunnels and the extensive distances to be covered for the goal requirements, is there some strategy to lower these costs? After electrifying all my tracks and converting to electric engines, plus paying off all bonds, and also buying as many profitable industries as possible, I still operate at the edge, but sometimes can run a debt in the 10s of thousands in a quarter.

Suggestions and comments appreciated, as I like the concept of this scenario.

Ray of Sunshine

[Gwizz]

I think I need to load RT3 and the map. It has been a long time and too many maps made inbetween for my gray to deal with.

Most of my maps have a twist built into them.
I believe this is the map where you need to sell your ownership in industries to have enough money for a good start. Without a good start things go South in a hurry.

I don't remember things like churches being owned by an AI railroad. I may have added them after taking control of an AI.
If so, you shouldn't have any expenses from these. Nor do they need to be removed and can't be sold.

Are you using the verson 1.06 patch by chance?

PS:
The map base is a remake of RSH's Cache Valley Map.
So a lot of how the map looks, belong to RSH's efforts.

[RayofSunshine]

:? Well Gwizz,

That map is still a work of art. I don't recall having played any scenario which has the same terrain. Will have to check my inventory.

Anyway, yes, I do have the 1.06 patch.

And unlike your suggestion, I am "BUYING" industries to try and offset the operating expenses. Having connected to all the required cities, besides acquiring a number of railroads. I believe that I am in an adequate position to continue their accummulation

Plus I have good revenue. It is just the humungus overhead. Seeing that the AIs keep running up a tab in 'bonds', I get them paid off asap.

I just need some way to cut those costs. Have even thought of deleting a couple of tunnels, but then there isn't much of an avenue to get around the mountains either. Double track is minimal, which was part of the AIs which got merged.

Stock could be sold also, but that just postpones the problems for later.

Ray of Sunshine

[RayofSunshine]

Okay Anyone,

Maybe I stand corrected on Industry Profits. If I buy an Industry for $150G, and gives a dividend/interest/profit for that year of $3G, wouldn't that show up as Profit in the Income Statement? Or doesn't the Industry show a profit on the IS until the $150G reaches its full amount of $150G?

I always believed that once an industry is purchased, that that property showing any interest would show up as profit on the IS. Anyway, the reason I ask? My Rwy has numerous Industry assets. However, the IS ledger shows $0.

Ray of Sunshine

[RayofSunshine]

Well Everyone,

You can forget the last reply pretaining to Industies. It happened that while playing another scenario, I SAVED it to the Utah game. Hence I have lost a goodly number of hourly play. And the Autosave picked up the later saved game.

Still would to get some idea on how to control those expenditure/overhead Gwizz, as I am starting Utah over again.

Ray of Sunshine

[RayofSunshine]

Well Gwizz,

Seeing that I had to started Utah from scratch, I noticed that although I was operating at a goodly Revenue, I also noticed that I was operating at a loss. So, going to the Income Statement, I find that I have that loss attributed to my Industries. However, on going to the Industry List, I find that "I don't have any industries". So just to make sure that there isn't some programming error, I spent a lot of time scanning the map. AND, I did not find any 'logo' to indicate that I had any Industry assets. SO, How can I sell off Industries, when there isn't any record of them? My only solution would be to actually BUY an adeqaute number of them, to offset the losses.

Ray of Sunshine.

[Gwizz]

Anything the RR builds in the editor subtracts from a zero profit, giving a net loss. It is much the same as in the real world. I railroad spends to build before it can make a profit.

I down loaded RT3 on to my new computer and the game crashed before I could add the patches.

When I got home today I installed RT3 on my old computer. I now need to install the patches and the 1.06 files. I need to open the map to jog my memory. If there are no industries then the map you have is the last version. Version 14. So that is the map I'm loading. That should put us on the same page.

[Gwizz]

Well I've only played for 6 months and I'm remembering why I didn't like game play in RT3. But, I did like building maps, about 9 or 10 of them.

On pause I took control of the D&RG, the UP, and the SP. I maxed out their bonds and sold stock. Used their dollars to extent track, connecting the D&RG to the UP which was already connected to the Utah Northern. I merged the UP and the D&RG. Took control of the SP and connected North and the Salt flats. The SP also built some stations, water and service stops. Bought stock in all RRs until the stock value was about equal to company value. This put me a bit into margin. I set up some routes. Took control of the Utah Northern. Ran for 3 months. Stopped and took control of the SP and used it to build electric track from Salt Lake going North until the money was gone. Then I took control of the UP and ran the game for another 3 months to let my Utah Northern buy some locomotives. At 6 months, I took control of the Utah Northern and bought my first GG1 to run on the electric track.

That is where I'm at now.

I've had some strange things happen. One loco I bought for the SP would not take a station. I got the message that the loco could not connect to that station. I tried to park it at every station on the map. It didn't like any of them. Strange.
It has a passenge and a mail car attached. Even more strange. I may have caused this when I gave it a route, bought it, then I deleted the two route stations. Normally I was able to do this. But maybe not in the 106.

When I was laying electric track over regular track I stopped being charged for electric track at about the last $200K. I tried to place electric track over normal track at another place on the map and it started charging me again. I went back to where I was getting free track. This time I got charged. There was one place on a Y where I could not place electric track over one leg of the Y, I was able to do so on the other 2 legs.

Now I'm trying to figure out how drop shipping works on this 106 version.
I must be missing something as I can't figure out how to drop ship cargo.
Does 106 have flags or does it use something else for drop shipping?

[Gwizz]

I found some of my notes on this map. It was my attempt to make the expenses higher for this map. I still don't remember for sure why I used ownership of community buildings in the map, since there are a number of ways to increase expensives. I do like the unusal methods. In a way it is a reverse taxe on the railroads. Normally business pays no taxes, either including them in the price the people pay or forcing more direct taxes on the people.

On this play through, I'm using the AI Tycooning methed. I'm using AI money every chance I get to build track, double track my RR and buy locomotives if I plan a merge.

[RayofSunshine]

:? Wow Gwizz,

I just got back from a weeks vacation. And it looks like you have spent some time with the Utah scenario. You certainly play the game a lot different than me. It took me a few years to accomplish what you managed in a few months. Seeing that you have not mentioned that you have purchased any industries, I believe that I will follow your suggestion that you sold them for their revenue, to see if I cannot get the overhead expenses down.

Ray of Sunshine

[RayofSunshine]

Okay Gwizz,

Unknowingly I saved another scenario to Utah, and thereby wiped out the works in progress.

On your mention of "buying track with AI money". Other than taking over the Chairpersonship, how can you use their money? An then I would assume that you already have 51% of your own Rwy, in order to come back to its operation.

I have never used that system and can possibly use it on other scenarios.

Ray of Sunshine

[Gwizz]

You don't have to own 51 % of your own company, just be able to buy back 51% of your own stock when you again want to take control of your company.


I build only single track for my own RR. I then tend to sell my stock and buy AI stock. I then take control of the AI and max out its bonds. I use its' money to build double track over my single track. I sometimes re-build and/or re-route the AI RR to dropship cargo to my line, using the 1.06 patch. Any money left is used to buy back the AI stock using the AI money. For a few shares this increases the stock value. If I'm lucky I can sell AI shares without losing my 51% control and still have money left to buy back 51% of my own stock. This way I retain ownership of my own track and the AI owns none of it. The AI could start losing share value quickly if it doesn't have a profit source, so sometimes I sell all AI stock.

[RayofSunshine]

Well Gwizz,

That is some theory/objective. I will have to try it sometime. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ray of Sunshine

[Sugus]

Once more I went back to RT3 and selecetd this map to play. After a short period of playing, I was faced with the following "super crossing" due to an "attack" by an AI company.

Strange, isn't it?

[Gumboots]

RT3 doesn't really know about physics.