Beta test map - West San Diego County

[nedfumpkin]

I just watched a new episode of Criminal Minds, and I have to laugh because it seemed like it was based on this map. The serial killer was traveling around souther CA via empty box cars....I was just waiting to see a lavender farm. :)

[coruscate]

LOL, now that is funny.

[coruscate]

This is a done project, barring issues it is ready to be uploaded to the site Hawk ^_^

http://www.healthyinsanity.com/railroad ... go1976.rar

[Hawk]

I got this when I tried to unrar the file.

Click on image to view full size

[coruscate]

*groan*

Okay, I'll fix that shortly.

[coruscate]

Okay, same URL, update and finished it, it works just fine.

There's one simple strategy to this map, I'll put it in extremely small text, just cut and paste from here...

Make a track from Escondido to San Marcos, invest in the fruit orchards. Build up to Twin Oaks and then set up a textile mill in San Marcos. Run a track from Twin Oaks to Vista, and then out to Oceanside. Run another from Escondido to Valley Center, then build an aluminum mill in Vista, a goods factory in Twin Oaks, and you should be start making enough to expand and buy industry easier. The idea here isn't conencting industry as much as it is building it and fostering growth.

...until here and paste it into a text reader if you don't want the spoiler.

[WPandP]

Coru -

My new monitor is a whopping 24" diagonal. Your tiny text was perfectly legible to me! Oh well.

[Hawk]

Got it. This time it unpacked fine.

I'm assuming this is for RRT3 1.05 (with C to C), and not 1.06?

I'll have it added to my site in a few minutes.

[belbincolne]

Just downloaded it, unzipped it and put into the maps folder but it (and dozens of others) don't appear. I'm guessing that this must be because only those on 1.06 appear so I'd have to remove this to play it. Don't remember this being a problem on my previous computer using same XP system - anyone else had it? It also appeared when I was Beta testing it so something has changed.

[Hawk]

I unpacked it and added it to my 1.05 and 1.06 installations and it shows fine in both.

BTW! It's now available at my site.

http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/map_arch/rt3_n_am.htm

I also made a post in the RRT3 News forum about it; viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1487 as well as added the announcement to the scrolling banner.

BTW coru; I wasn't sure what you wanted me to do with the 'small text' you provided, so I did nothing with it, other than to copy/paste into a text file on my hard drive.
Do you want it added as a read-me on the download page?

[Hawk]

I've been playing this map for 6 years. Wool isn't very profitable yet. Tough times so far.

One thing I noticed is the connection bonuses don't fire when you connect to San Marcos and Twin Oaks. The paper shows the bonuses, but the company doesn't get the money. Sure would help.
I looked at the events and tried a couple of changes but I couldn't get them to work either. I'll look at them again.

Should I add this thread as a link in the map info box on the download page, like this?

Click on image to view full size

[coruscate]

Nah, the thread isn't that important.

I'll double check the connection bonus and what not. I added warehouses with demand on points of the map where the highways lead to other parts of the state, that should boost most second or final tier industries.

[Hawk]

You might want to take a look at the Comic Con event. After the first time the newspaper pops up, it continues every year after that.

I lost miserably the first time. I'll have to try again.

[coruscate]

The comic con is a big event every year, always makes the news in San Diego. It's a huge convention that brings a LOT of money to San Diego. Something like 130k to 165k people (whatever the literal maximum of the center is) show up every year. It's a whole city in a city showing up for a week.

The secret is industry, buy what's there and build what isn't. If you do it as consistantly as you lay your track you can't lose.

[coruscate]

I gotta admit, it's nice to see someone failed my level, it means I actually did make a challenge ^^;;

[Hawk]

You devil you.

[Hawk]

Coru - I owe you a major apology. I thought the connection bonuses weren't firing, but I went into the editor and changed the amount from $100,000 to $1,000,000 and tested. Sure enough I got the bonus.
I guess the $100,000 was so minimal that I didn't notice getting it, and the fact that it doesn't show up in the ledger under Misc. Income had me convinced it wasn't working right.

Sorry! I hope it didn't cause you too much aggravation. Next time I'll test a lot better.

[Hawk]

The comic con is a big event every year, always makes the news in San Diego. It's a huge convention that brings a LOT of money to San Diego. Something like 130k to 165k people (whatever the literal maximum of the center is) show up every year. It's a whole city in a city showing up for a week.

I know. It just gets a little annoying that paper popping up every year.

The secret is industry, buy what's there and build what isn't. If you do it as consistantly as you lay your track you can't lose.

I met the Gold requirements for Industry Profit, and exceeded it by about $10 mil., but it didn't help my Company Cash and/or PNW, neither reaching even the Bronze requirements (I've always had a problem with PNW requirements. )

[coruscate]

PNW is fairly easy to work on, just remember to start working on it from year one.

The easiest way to boost that is to keep your dividend good (because I do believe you too receive dividend money) which will cause the investors to raise how much money the company pays you. I stop bothering with loans after the first few years and sparsely use stock sales, just keep buying on Margin and make sure your company stays in the black, that way you can aggressively buy shares of your company before they go up in value and before they split, giving you what seems like small money in the beginning but becomes bigger at the end.

An easy way to see the difference is start a map where the player starts the company with the usual 2,000,000 investment between self and investors, and set the company cash to some high profit value. You'll see how much the stock value affects your personal net worth there. When I accidentally did that on this map with a company cash of 20 million my mere 3k in shares became $2,600 dollars a share and my net work was 6 thousand or something like that. So just remember to think of it as a business too.

[coruscate]

I've fixed the stuff and tweaked the map a little more, I'll upload it again probably later today. The warehouse scheme wasn't working so I switched it up a bit.

I haven't finished but from what I can see victory should be achievable, I'm at 1986 with a PNW of about 15 mill and 10 million in industry profit. Normally I'd have it higher PNW wise but I added two connect these cities by X and X date goals to the start of the game. If you beat the clock you unlock some different trains to use on the level. I wish the game would allow us to set individual maintenence prices for trains, it only has three classes for each motive type.