Crystal Cotton Revisited

[Grandma Ruth]

[quote="Hawk So-the map in the incoming folder, is it OK to update with or has your testing shown anything else?[/quote]

Better leave it, I think, I'm finding other stuff as I go on. The latest is this - I've fixed the status page so it really gives the LTD figures and not the YTD (I've also changed it to "company" in case somebody plays with AI's).
EDIT ONE: No, now I've looked again I can see what you're doing. I'll have to think some more about why it's not working.

BUT somehow I've made the status page be "always on" instead of updating at the year end, as it did originally. I don't know what I've done, I've not changed the frequency of checking the relevant event or anything. Orange, do you want to retain the year-end thing? If so we'll have to work out why I've made a cobblers of it.

[groundhog]

While you guys are fixing stuff...

I have trouble with the credit for the special dividend disappearing or not being applied.

I didn't have any luck figuring what was wrong, but then again I'm just a player - get lost making scenarios

Thanks

[Grandma Ruth]

I'm not sure what you mean. The only thing that should happen, as far as I can see, is that your company cash should go down. Of course, other things are happening in the background, but the player should only notice the decrease (I think). :?
Not sure what you mean by credit?? The message will only come up if you're making a profit, so you won't necessarily get it every year-end.
Maybe someone with more experience than me can figure it out!

[Orange46]

At year end, the game checks for profits and if they're over a threshold, it removes some cash. At the same time, it adds that amount to the special dividend account.

Also, at year end deliveries are checked and the delivery accounts are updated.

Both should show values, but they won't be current until year end.

[groundhog]

The first time I played, after a point (probably where I started making a profit) the company cash was reduced (by a bunch) at the end of each year. The special dividend accounting in the status window would be increased by that amount.

However, after the special dividend account reached $50M in the status window it suddenly went back to $0 and stayed there even though the company account was reduced by $1M to over $3M at the end of each year (a window appears saying it is for the special dividend).

Subsequent times I played the account total in the status window was always at $0 even though there were deductions for the special dividend.

It could be that I always looked at the status window at the start of a year, but I don't think so.

[Grandma Ruth]

It could be that I always looked at the status window at the start of a year, but I don't think so.

That shouldn't make a difference, this figure should be always there whenever you look in the ledger. I can't see anything that would make it cut off at £50 million - I'm trying to reproduce it and see if it happens to me.

[Hawk]

It could be that I always looked at the status window at the start of a year, but I don't think so.

That shouldn't make a difference, this figure should be always there whenever you look in the ledger. I can't see anything that would make it cut off at £50 million - I'm trying to reproduce it and see if it happens to me.

If you look at the di events, most of them set a Player Variable 1. Then if you look at the Gold event it has, as a condition trigger, Player Variable 1 >=$50,000,000

I think that is what cuts it off, once that condition is met for Gold.

BTW! Did you get my email?

[Grandma Ruth]

I need advice now. Everything is working as it should, as far as I can tell, just a few minor things I've corrected.

What about the AI's? If you want them to be available, should I change the various triggers to be "x hauled by company" and so on in case the AI's haul some stuff and skew the figures?

Or (much easier!) shall we just disable AI companies? As somebody said earlier on, not much use having them if you can't take them over and so on.

Which do you prefer? :)

[Grandma Ruth]

Thanks for making me look at my e-mails, Hawk! 19 unread ones but mostly advertising! See above post - I'm waiting to know what to do with the AI's before sending final version. The version I sent isn't right, I know that already so I'll have to let you have another in any event.

[Hawk]

Do you have an email address that you actually check? :D
If so how 'bout emailing me with it.

[Grandma Ruth]

Nope, I can't reproduce this 50m error - here's a shot of my status page with more than that on it. And it keeps adding on as it should. Try downloading the revised version when it appears, it may be something we've already corrected.

[Orange46]

Sure hope I get to play this new scenario someday.

If there's a problem with the dividends, it wasn't intentional. Triggering the gold should have no impact on the ledger. The ledger statement should just trigger when to turn on the dividend line. In early tests, the ledger turned off once when CBV dropped down due to a poor year compounded by a big dividend payout from a great prior year. To correct that, I just lowered the CBV threshold. By the time someone reaches 50 Million, I can't image that their CBV would go below the threshold - it should be impossible unless someone deliberately trashed the RR.

As for AIs, as I noted earlier, they might make the game tougher or they might help (by delivering some cargoes, and i have no idea which if any AI cargoes would count for gold). I just left it in since some people want them. Once someone used AIs in NAttA and claimed that they made the game easier I have a hard time believing this, since I could never get an AI to build a single piece of track in any of my tests and I had max AIs on in most tests. But in CC, I never did test with an AI. But, at this point, I'm willing to go with what youse (hey, I'm from the Bronx) guys want.

[Orange46]

GR, you're doing great for 20 years, based on the map in the last picture and all of the dividends. It's fun looking at someone else's rail network. The meat can be tricky as you can't build a catttle ranch and sometimes there's nothing in chicago to attract meat other than the port. I can't see from the map if you have a port station (depot size), but if not, build one and have 1 engine waiting for full loads of meat at Chicago with its destination Port Chicago. (If you know this already, I apologize.) You might also need to build another slaughter house if cattle are stacking up, and if they're not, then you need to ship more cattle.

Soon, we will have to make a decision. Is it worth playing to 500 loads? If yes, increase the dividend goal to some amount just under what you achieve when you reach gold for all other conditions.

If the game gets boring, then, reduce the load delivery requirement to just above what you achieved when you got bored, but please, not less than 250. Keep the requirement the same for all 5 loads, as it is possible to start near any of the 3 Mississippi ports and that can affect which goal is easist and hardest. Also, reduce the number of years to the next 5 over when you reached the new goal.

Or, you could leave the goals and see if any others comment on what they should be.

[Grandma Ruth]

OK, I'll leave everything as it is and see what other people discover. Then we can decide what to do about changing things.

[Grandma Ruth]

- I'm trying to reproduce it and see if it happens to me.

Yes, it happened! The reason was that the company profit for that year was negative even though the CBV was OK. This may well have a spiralling effect on the Player Variable as you're adding a negative to a negative. Which might mean it takes a long long time to get back to normal.

Though how groundhog managed to not make a profit when he'd already paid out 50m I don't know

We might want to make this a feature - so players don't rest on their laurels but make a profit each year! I'm glad I found it, anyway.

Edit: It also repeated this the next time I played the same map which I'd saved at the start of the game, even though this time the profits were fine. Very strange and beyond me to figure out!

[Hawk]

The updated version is now available. :D
Grandma Ruth.

[belbincolne]

O/K I downloaded it and once again at the end of year 1 it crashes - so how come everyone else seems to be able to play it but not me?

[Grandma Ruth]

Too technical for me - have you got all the bits - the original game, the Coast to Coast, the 1.05 and the 1.06 patches? You have to load them in the right order, which of course I can't remember what it is but I'm sure there are instructions. Re-installing everything might help. :(

[Grandma Ruth]

GR, you're doing great for 20 years, based on the map in the last picture and all of the dividends. It's fun looking at someone else's rail network.

I'm afraid that game was a bit misleading as it was a test map just to see if everything was working! I either give myself enormous amounts of money or have free track so I don't have to worry about making a profit,etc.

I do like to have a few stations in Chicago, mostly for the reasons you said but also I just like to have Navy Pier, McCormick Place, Union Station and so on - my husband has a look over my shoulder from time to time and he's tickled pink with the old home-town locations!

At the moment I'm far from bored: I'm at home with a cold and playing almost constantly but not getting very far. I have a few thoughts already but I want to win it as it is before making any suggestions. :D

[Orange46]

belbincolne:

I'm curious. Are you running in Vista? Surely you have 1.06 final. In some of my attempts to get RT3 CtC working in Vista, I was able to force Vista to give me an RT3.exe, but when I used it all that I could get to work was the initial screen showing what version I had and the menu. If I actually tried to play, say by loading a scenario, the loading just hung up.