Test Map

[Hawk]

I had a big post I was going to make here that I did in Notepad while I had TM running in the background. Then I see your post.
I'm going to print what you wrote and study it over coffee in the morning.

But - Since I worked so hard on my 'big post', I'm going to post it anyway. It might give you an idea of where I'm going. Lord knows I don't know!

Let me see if I get this right.

The meat packing plant does great being supplied with livestock from Arton and Middleton.

I need the paper mill because the flour mill and sugar refinery needs paper. I have to get either pulpwood or hemp to the paper mill to produce the paper, that is until 1920 when it requires the addition of chemicals.
The chemical plant needs alcohol and pulpwood, alcohol and gum, or 1 coal to produce chemicals (going with only coal seems to produce nothing). Alcohol needs either grain & lumber - until 1939, then grain & glass or grain & aluminum for the brewery, or produce-or sugar & lumber, then glass for the distillery Glass needs sand and coal, or chemicals, or aluminum.

Then I need the flour mill to produce by supplying it with grain & textiles-or paper or corn & textiles-or paper.

Then the food processor comes in, and it needs milk-or meat and flour until 1920 which it then needs the addition of plastic.
The plastic plant needs pulpwood-or hemp and chemicals until 1921 in which it then needs gum-or oil and chemicals.
The ports supply gum if supplied with food.

All of these need machinery, which by default is only at ports and in limited supply, so a need to build a machine shop comes into the agenda, which it requires steel and textiles-or rubber until 1930, then it requires aluminum & electronics starting in 1910.
Steel requires coal and iron. Aluminum requires bauxite, textiles require cotton or wool or hemp and rubber until 1930 then it requires plastic, and electronics require coal, petroleum, glass, and machinery.

Rubber requires gum, which requires food, which requires meat-or milk and flour (which requires grain or corn and textiles or paper) and plastics (which requires pulpwood or hemp and chemicals until 1921, then it's gum or oil and chemicals).

So, just to get food going I need to run rail from Arton and Middleton to Erin with the rail supplying livestock to Erin for the meat packing plant. Then build track to Silibury Bay and Eastport (to get as much machinery as possible until I can build a machine shop) and supply Silibury Bay with pulpwood or hemp from Middleton (or beyond if you can afford to lay the track) for the paper. Then the paper goes to the flour mill so I need to get grain and/or corn to it from Arton and/or Middleton.

Then I need to get the flour from Silibury Bay to the food processing plant, along with some meat from Erin, then - after 1920 I need to get plastic to it as well (I can swap food for gum at the ports). This necessitates the building of a chemical plant and a plastics factory.
Plastics needs chemicals as well as gum and/or oil (oil seems to be no problem).
Chemicals needs coal – or – pulpwood and/or gum and alcohol.

Here's where I run into a problem. I can't get the chemical plant to produce squat! I feed it with a dedicated coal train and get no chemicals. I tried feeding it with alcohol and pulpwood, but I can't get a distillery to produce because I'm too broke to get near the sugar refinery.

Thing is; Without the chemical plant the chain starts to break down. Paper, plastics, fertilizer, sugar, etc. all die out from not being fed.
Maybe I'm going about it wrong. Could be I'm still scratching my head over this industry structure, but if my trains would make a tad more money I could probably keep my head a little more above water.

[nedfumpkin]

I'm going to look into the Chemical Plant to see if there is something wrong with it. It looks good and I did test it, but I'll go for it with gusto.

The oil refinery also produces chemicals.

I'm able to keep my paper mill profitable by having direct trains from Arton and Middleton supply it with hemp. Two sources are enough to keep it going. I'm making sure that the Textile Mill at swain doesn't get any hemp, and relies on the supply of wool.

I've not had a problem with the supply of machinery. If an industry just demands machinery, then it only affects profitability, if the recipe includes machinery to make its supply, then give it a higher priority. The ports are supplying enough for me.

[Hawk]

I'm going to look into the Chemical Plant to see if there is something wrong with it. It looks good and I did test it, but I'll go for it with gusto.

Try feeding it with coal only.

The oil refinery also produces chemicals.

I saw that in the overall view, but I didn't seem to have any luck shipping chemicals from there. 'Course that was earlier in my playing days.

I'm able to keep my paper mill profitable by having direct trains from Arton and Middleton supply it with hemp. Two sources are enough to keep it going. I'm making sure that the Textile Mill at swain doesn't get any hemp, and relies on the supply of wool.

That's basically what I do but in 1920, when it starts requiring chemicals, that's where I run into a snag with the chemicals.

I've not had a problem with the supply of machinery. If an industry just demands machinery, then it only affects profitability, if the recipe includes machinery to make its supply, then give it a higher priority. The ports are supplying enough for me.

I've not got that far into a scenario to actually realize a need or none for machinery. I was just guessing it might be required.

[nedfumpkin]

I ckecked the chemical plant and it will produce chemicals from coal, however, this was at a loss because the price of coal was more than the chemicals. I am going to up that so that it is profitable.

[Hawk]

Oh! So it was a loss for the chemical plant to produce chemicals with nothing supplied but coal. Well, at least we know the 'Not-Profitable' inhibitor is working.
That would explain why the chemical plant was forever red.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I see your point Ned, and agree with you that the bugs and unplayability in Vista that are inherant in 1.06 make it undesirable as is. I was just using it, for a while, to see how "ship at a loss" helped with supplying resources to industries that didn't have a high enough demand to ship on their own, even with custom consists. The other thing I like about 1.06 is that it puts the game in "Pause" after the Ledger is closed at the beginning of each year. I hate having to do it manually each January, so I can do what I want to do before starting the ball rolling. I was hoping that, perhaps in consultation with Milo, you could come up with a mod of RT3.EXE that would incorporate some of the desireable features of 1.06 without the features you don't want to see in Trainmaster.

Oh, and by the way, with the newest release (Version i), I'm not able to buy oil wells. Is this by design, or did something unintentionally get tweaked in the descriptor files?

Hawk, I have a modified version of Ned's map where I added a little more density and growth and spawned some of the other items. Also opened up the stock market, just in case I need a little extra cash by issuing stocks. Seeing as it's a testbed anyway, and I was having the same sorts of problems you are as far as a slow economy, I "goosed" it a little and things go much better. I don't have it here at work, but will post it tomorrow if I remember.

[Hawk]

I thought about tweaking the economy just a tad, to give it a little boost, although I hadn't considered opening the stock market.
I might try the economy boost and see how that goes.

What did you tweak?

[nedfumpkin]

Wolvy, I haven't heard back from Milo yet, but I'll give him some time to respond. I totally forgot about the pause after ledger feature, but I agree, it's something I would like to have. My goal is to modify the 1.04 Beta exe like 1.06 did, but ensure that it functions on Vista at all times. So if there are specific 1.06 features that you'd like included, post them and they will go on the list of ...if it can be done it will stuff.

The oil well problem appears to be a case of fixing one problem only to create two more. :) I will post the fix with the fix for the Chemical Plant as soon as I get a chance to make sure it is working properly...hopefully tomorrow night. My time will be limited this weekend because I will be working (okay, it's harder work than my day job, but it's volunteer work) most of the weekend, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get to.

Feel free to post variations of the text map or any other creation at any time. As posted, it was made so that there is something to have to look at stuff.

[Grandma Ruth]

Now I've finally got the Alternate USA bug out of my system, I've downloaded the test map and started to give it a go. But I was totally distracted by the passengers - they're wonderful, everything about them from the icons to the first class carriage and all. At last we can see Tycoonatrons!!!
I rarely think about express trains, I much prefer the freight and industry side but I can see I'm going to have to expand my horizons with TM!

[Grandma Ruth]

I was just using it, for a while, to see how "ship at a loss" helped with supplying resources to industries that didn't have a high enough demand to ship on their own, even with custom consists.

I originally asked Milo to look at this for that very reason. But I was a bit disappointed with the result. I thought it would make industries profitable but it had some very odd effects on supply and demand. Sorry I can't be more specific as the memory is completely shot and I think I'm having a good day if I can remember my own name! If I were you I would test it a bit more before asking ned to go for it on TrainMaster.

BTW, I've got to 1918 and produced 18 loads of food so far! I'm connected to a food processor, a sugar plant, and an agricultural community but I made the mistake of not buying or building those that can be bought before I started I won't make the same mistake with the auto production chain.

This is really something, ned. The production chains are realistic and so interesting, being so complex. Excellent job! Only thing I've noticed so far is something you already know about - the production is so complex that there isn't really room for the information in the building's information panel. Did you make any progress on that?

The sugar plant is particularly crowded. Could you make it simpler by putting "paper" as a constant demand? Or make a new category to replace Demand such as Essentials? Or maybe this could be dealt with in a completely different way. We all know trains need the maintenance buildings, could we also take it for granted that industries need paper and machinery and produce waste without having to specify it or each building? Just my

[Grandma Ruth]

I've had a go at making production charts. Are these useful? Shall I do more? Am I re-inventing the wheel?

Bakery.doc

(33 KiB) Downloaded 20 times

Food processor.doc

(32 KiB) Downloaded 18 times

[Grandma Ruth]

I didn't wait for an answer, I've just done it anyway.

Automobiles.doc

(147.5 KiB) Downloaded 19 times

By the way, ned - do we have a bit of a potential problem with the production of glass and electronics? You need one to make the other but you can't make the other without the one. A bit of a - what do they call it - recursive error?

[Hawk]

Ruth - I take it that it's safe to assume you're not having any problems with the chemical plant like I am?

Your Auto doc got a ittle cut off on the right hand side.

Click on image to view full size

[Grandma Ruth]

I didn't get to it yet. Didn't need chemicals for the food chain and I was doing the production charts before starting on the cars, trying to figure out what makes what. Then I started again because I wasn't making enough money - same problem you and Wolvey had - so I turned on the stock market, like he suggested. On my new start I haven't hauled anything required as yet, I'm concentrating on building up industry first. I'll let you know how it goes.
Wonder what happened to the chart? I'll send the spreadsheet. I'm having a real problem with this Admin account thing in XP. Because I'm in the non-Admin account now as they recommend you don't use the Admin for the internet, I can't get into my RT stuff which is on the Admin account.

[nedfumpkin]

Ruth, thanks on the compliments. I am still working on some new icons for some freight as well as new ones for the Any Cargo and Any Express. I've not made a big deal about them to see if anyone noticed, and thanks for noticing the new passengers and first class icons. It's all part of the idea that if the game looks different then people will aproach it differently. Still much to do for that.

I am still looking at a way to change the industry display, but haven't found it yet. My thoughts are that it is in the RT3.exe file, rather than in another. I'm starting to make sense of it, and I am confident it can be done because I was mucking about with the houses once and tried a transformation which showed up in the window but at the smaller font. The alternative is going to be to see if I can't load an image and then I can make individual images for the industries to create the information pane. Last resort, but I am still confident it can be done...I'm close, but not there yet.

I'm going to look into your suggestion about demands for paper etc. I've tried to keep it so that the paper burden (I'll have a quote about this as soon as I can find it again) I've tried to identify between paper as part of the administrative process, and as part of the packing as a component. Sugar is packaged in paper bags. This is why it is a compnent for making sugar. Flour comes in either paper or cloth bags, so it requires either to create its product. Neither in its final form is usually transported in bulk, corn syrup may be, or liquid sugar, but what gets consumed usually comes in those paper or textile packages.

This is part of the challenge aspect of TM. You have industries that require their basic inputs, and then you also have to have a small amount of something else to create the product for shipment. Drives me nuts, but it's intentional. But, after more people look at it, more suggestions will come, and I'll be happy to consider everything.

Re: Electronics and Glass. In some aspects they can be recursive, however, both have enough potential supplies that a balance can be work, and they in fact compete for resources. This is part of the challenge aspects of TM and is intentional. You'll find that it happens quite a bit with different industries and it is so that you have to really think about where your cargo is going.

An example would be the paper mill and the textile mill. Both will take hemp. But the textile mill takes wool, so until you have a steady supply of pulpwood, all your hemp should be made into paper. If you don't control your cargo properly then your paper mill won't produce enough and your supply chain might start breaking down in parts.

Since you mentioned you are a freight type of person, I can say from my own perspective that you will like TM. It's a real freight focused game, less tycoony. For me it is having the same addictive appeal as RT2 and RT3 when I began playing them. Hopefully others will discover this too once they get the hang of it.

The charts look great.I'll post them up with the other files when I get a chance.

After post....

I will upload the nex chemical plant fixes later today. Stupid me wanted to raise the price from $30k to $40k and then tested it for a while only to discover I put 40 dollars for the price. No wonder it didn't work. :)

Gotta run now thought.