Cargo & Industry fixes for 1.06

[Hawk]

BTW, how do you shorten (like you did) a link to not display the full path,

Don't use the url BBCode. Just paste the link.

Don't do this:

Code: Select all

[url]http://hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=456[/url]

Do this:

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http://hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=3482#p3482

or change the name on a link?

This is where you use the url BBCode, like this:

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[url=http://hawkdawg.com/]Main Page of my Website[/url]

Note the equal sign between the url and the http.

That comes out looking like this:
Main Page of my Website

[sidekikd34]

Something else to include in our "bandaid"- adjusted weights for Caboose and Diner. I've edited them down to match Passenger cars for each era, 3-7-13-27 tons. No way they should be the weight of a loaded freight car.

[Blackhawk]

Caboose/Diner cars - I think that was another change that was going to be made, but wasn't as immediate of a need to fix and in 25 pages on this, I actually forgot about them. Thanks for the reminder and file.

Hawk you're adding informational forum help in an already informational brainstorming thread. It's informational overload! Actually though, I never realized the little icon to get a link for a post on the old threads so that was useful to learn, thanks.

Blackhawk, great idea to add the demands to the Department Store and School House. I am not sure if it's necessary to add an ingot demand to the Department store if the Church demands 2 per year. Maybe this could be split between them, 1 each? As far as getting Machinery demand, do you want me to fine-tune the logging camps, mines, and quarries I made? I need to load them up again to see if they are truly compatible, but I remember saved games worked interchangeably.

Ingots probably don't need to be demanded at both places. I was just continuing your line of thinking with a jeweler. We could split the demand 1-1 or just leave it at a church if we wanted to.

As for machinery, I liked the work you were doing on the raw material industries demanding machinery. I thought we came up with some ideas to balance it pretty well. I just can't remember if we were thinking of including that in a 1.06.01 or a 1.07?

As for the T&D vs Machine shop discussion. In 1.06 obviously it is the way it is because 1 produces goods, the other machinery. Although in a 1.07 we were talking about the T&D producing Parts or Tools or something (we couldn't think of the perfect name for it) which could then be used at a Machine Shop to make machinery. Then the Toy Factory could be re-purposed and could produce Goods instead of Toys. [This hinged on deciding if we would rename toys to something like luxuries/valuables which could then be produced at a jeweler or elsewhere]. And/or a new industry like a printing press could be created to use paper + dye = goods.

[Hawk]

Hawk you're adding informational forum help in an already informational brainstorming thread. It's informational overload! Actually though, I never realized the little icon to get a link for a post on the old threads so that was useful to learn, thanks.

Sorry! Didn't mean to overtax the old brain there BH.

[sidekikd34]

As for the T&D vs Machine shop discussion. In 1.06 obviously it is the way it is because 1 produces goods, the other machinery. Although in a 1.07 we were talking about the T&D producing Parts or Tools or something (we couldn't think of the perfect name for it) which could then be used at a Machine Shop to make machinery. Then the Toy Factory could be re-purposed and could produce Goods instead of Toys. [This hinged on deciding if we would rename toys to something like luxuries/valuables which could then be produced at a jeweler or elsewhere]. And/or a new industry like a printing press could be created to use paper + dye = goods.

I like changing the Toy Factory to something more along the lines of TM's Industrial Assembly Line making general Goods, and changing the Tool&Die output to something more industrial-specific, like MachineTool? I know it should be Machine Tools but that old 11-letter limit again...
Then the Machine Shop goes 1 MachineTool+1Steel or Aluminum+1 Ingots(MetalAlloys? ) = 3 Machinery, and up that fractional demand at other factories to maybe 0.5 instead of 0.1 I think it is.
edit: would a Tool&Die producing ToolsDies be lame?
edit again: An Industrial Assemby Line making general consumer Goods could use Electronics and/or the MetalAlloys(Ingots) too. Steel/Plastic/Aluminum + Electronics + MetalAlloys = 3 Goods?

[RulerofRails]

Hawk, thanks! I am obviously no programmer, but your illustrations were perfect. I understand now.

Good idea to decrease the caboose and diner weights.

sidekikd34, you are definitely right that there isn't enough demand currently for Machinery. From what I am gathering you are working towards 1.06.01, for now. Is this right? Adding the demand at the raw material producers would spread plenty of demand all over the map. The questions to be answered on this topic are, is there going to be changes to the Machine Shop output or recipe? These will affect the output and how much demand is needed or desired.

From what I understood, we can change the bca file without wrecking current scenarios, but not the bty. Is this correct? Maybe this is why the small quarry still has the farm footprint? I loaded LA & L.A. with the new quarry and the manually placed ones still showed up as the large ones. I think BH's quarry is a little dark, but I wouldn't lighten it that much. It should look dirty in my mind.

[sidekikd34]

From what I am gathering you are working towards 1.06.01, for now. Is this right?

I'm inputting ideas for both processes. I've come to the conclusion 1.06.01 is a half-step to 1.07, and I didn't think there was a separate thread for 1.07? I've tried to differentiate my ideas and indicate which is which, maybe we should have 2 threads for this?

From what I understood, we can change the bca file without wrecking current scenarios, but not the bty. Is this correct? Maybe this is why the small quarry still has the farm footprint?

Either one changes scenarios. The BCA will affect how cargoes move, and could upset delicately balanced setups. The BTY is mostly about the models and placement, which visually impacts current scenarios, and could affect industry spawning if the footprint is substantially different.

[Blackhawk]

The idea for machinery was to remove the demand from the production industries as it's so small it's rather useless and can be exploited*, and substitute that demand into the raw material/resource industries (mines, logging camp, etc) with a greater demand. In addition, it would demand the machinery, but also the machinery would act like fertilizer and help boost production. This would incentivize actually making machinery as it gives the player a reason to make machinery. 1. It gives the player something to haul back on a return trip to the resource industries, and 2. It increases the amount of resources available. This could then be used to the map makers advantage. Ex. If a resource is limited, the player must work on making machinery to maximize his resources.

I'd have to look back in this thread to where RoR and I were talking about it and see if this was a 1.06.01 or 1.07 idea.

The building/skin for a toy factory in 1.07 hasn't been decided yet. I wouldn't mind calling it a Factory or Assembly Line, but I'd rather not use the TM building for it. If I remember correctly, the Industrial Assembly Line in TM takes up a large amount of room and I would want something smaller as goods are a very in demand resource. The larger the industry the less likely it may appear in tight cities.

*Since the demand is so low, a small amount of machinery can overwhelm the demand and force the price down. From there you pick up the machinery and take it to another town with industries that demands it. Once it's there, it can overwhelm demand again and the price goes down. Repeat as necessary for more profits.

Edited to respond to the last couple posts:
-I think the .bca can be changed and still be compatible (in that it will load). Any changes may affect the game play though. The .bty files, some changes in that file will make the game no longer compatible. Ex. changing the image for the skin.

[sidekikd34]

The idea for machinery was to remove the demand from the production industries as it's so small it's rather useless and can be exploited*, and substitute that demand into the raw material/resource industries (mines, logging camp, etc) with a greater demand. In addition, it would demand the machinery, but also the machinery would act like fertilizer and help boost production. This would incentivize actually making machinery as it gives the player a reason to make machinery. 1. It gives the player something to haul back on a return trip to the resource industries, and 2. It increases the amount of resources available. This could then be used to the map makers advantage. Ex. If a resource is limited, the player must work on making machinery to maximize his resources.

Love it.

The building/skin for a toy factory in 1.07 hasn't been decided yet. I wouldn't mind calling it a Factory or Assembly Line, but I'd rather not use the TM building for it. If I remember correctly, the Industrial Assembly Line in TM takes up a large amount of room and I would want something something as goods are a very in demand resource.

I think the existing Toy Factory building is fine, just name it Assembly Line. TM uses the Auto Plant but something's wrong with the footprint because they upgrade into each other when placed side by side.

[sidekikd34]

-I think the .bca can be changed and still be compatible (in that it will load). Any changes may affect the game play though. The .bty files, some changes in that file will make the game no longer compatible. Ex. changing the image for the skin.

Changing the NAME of the skin, yes, but if the skin is edited and re-packed through TrainSkin, it will still work. The old ones will look original, new ones will look right.

[RulerofRails]

Loading the scenario, yes that is what I meant. I remember having problems loading scenarios with manually placed industries once I changed the bty file. There is a little quirk due to some text in the wrong place in the Quarries' bty file, this has the effect to cut off the new Machinery demand from its cargo window in-game. All the others displayed fine. Maybe this is due to my incompetence, plus a different footprint file may well not have this cargo display issue. I am clueless about this.

I have been thinking and I am on the fence as to whether it is a good idea to put Machinery demands into the raw materials producers in a 1.06.01. On the one hand, all of Arop's maps that I have played (he made most of those that have been made for 1.06) would be improved with this new use for Machinery. However, out of the fewer maps that others made (only a handful I have seen actually use the 1.06 cargoes at all, even though others are for 1.06 but with the old cargoes), I know that difficulty would really be altered in Panama Canal, Chile, and LA & L.A.. Chile would be easier, maybe even to the point of being broken difficulty-wise. Panama Canal would be harder without careful wait-to-fill shipping at a loss. While thinking about this I remembered that Crystal Cotton would be affected by any new demand for Crystals. Shipping at a loss could be used, but not everyone likes to do this. Whether these few maps are enough to stop some of these changes I don't know. Maybe a note with them could say to use the original 1.06. It is a bit ironic that the creators of these made more effort to utilize the new 1.06 cargoes.

[Blackhawk]

Indeed the machinery change, while a minor change in the files, could be a substantial change in the way industries behave. I myself would probably lean to making the change in 1.07 rather than a 1.06.01. Even adding a crystal demand to a muni building can have an effect on scenarios where crystals are used to represent something else. Like Oilcan's scenario which required a lot of hauling of crystals. Or maybe the Chili scenario too.

Anyway, since the machinery change would change the dynamics of the machinery production chain and its use I'd probably go with including it in 1.07 but not 1.06.01

[Blackhawk]

I figured it might be a good time to list some of the changes proposed for both 1.06.01 and 1.07.

1.06.01:
-Caboose and dining car weights
-Ingot demand added to church, other possible demands added to muni buildings
-Machine shop start date changed to 1860. (other alternative is to give it an earlier production chain -- could be a potential use for ingots)
-concrete car changed to hopper, price and rot time slightly changed
-ceramics price also slightly changed.
-Optional building skin replacements.
-possibly slightly reduce the output of the furnace

1.07:
-Rework the 1.06 production chains -- although an ultimate way of changing it up hasn't been figured out yet.
-Ceramics changed to glass
-Concrete renamed Cement
-Machinery demanded at resource industries instead of production industries
-Split the furnace into 2 industries (assuming there is a need to do so-- depends on the production chains)
-reduce output of the furnace, and change its price as necessary.
-Possibly return to 1.05 locomotives, and allow Gumboots (if he has time) or others to decide what locomotives would be suited for a 1.07.
-Possibly have the tool and die create parts/toolsdies/forgedmetal instead of goods, have these demanded at a machine shop. Toy Factory becomes an Assembly Line, and produces goods. Other new industries like a Printing Press could also supply goods.

[sidekikd34]

Sounds like a plan to me. I think that means I already have 1.06.01 running. I haven't been keeping a spare copy like I'm supposed to, I have 1.05, 1.06 with current adjustments, and TM. They all run in Windows 7 Ultimate, except the Texas map crashes in 1.06 pretty consistently after a few years. Both on the campaign map Texas Tea, and the Texas II scenario I downloaded. Just gives me an error window saying AppCrash for rt3.exe, and lots of code.

[sidekikd34]

1.06.01:
-Caboose and dining car weights
-Ingot demand added to church, other possible demands added to muni buildings
-Machine shop start date changed to 1860. (other alternative is to give it an earlier production chain -- could be a potential use for ingots)
-concrete car changed to hopper, price and rot time slightly changed
-ceramics price also slightly changed.
-Optional building skin replacements.
-possibly slightly reduce the output of the furnace

Got adjusted car weights, got adjusted church, I think I have the machine shop change, need the concrete hopper and ceramics price change. Have building skins? I think, not sure where we ended up about the furnace output, but I'm fine with turning it down somewhat.

1.07:
-Rework the 1.06 production chains -- although an ultimate way of changing it up hasn't been figured out yet.
-Ceramics changed to glass
-Concrete renamed Cement
-Machinery demanded at resource industries instead of production industries
-Split the furnace into 2 industries (assuming there is a need to do so-- depends on the production chains)
-reduce output of the furnace, and change its price as necessary.
-Possibly return to 1.05 locomotives, and allow Gumboots (if he has time) or others to decide what locomotives would be suited for a 1.07.
-Possibly have the tool and die create parts/toolsdies/forgedmetal instead of goods, have these demanded at a machine shop. Toy Factory becomes an Assembly Line, and produces goods. Other new industries like a Printing Press could also supply goods.

I like the ceramics=glass, like the concrete=cement, like the machinery going to resources, like the split furnace, locos are not an issue to me, like the tool and die/toy factory changes.

[Hawk]

1.07:
-Machinery demanded at resource industries instead of production industries

Wouldn't machinery also be used at production industries, at least some of them?

[Blackhawk]

I'm sure I missed some things in the 1.07 summary, maybe RoR will stop by and see if I missed anything. Hard to remember it all with everything that's been discussed.

Hawk, realistically machinery would be used at all the industries. Practically speaking though, the small demand in 1.06 for machinery at production industries was so little that very little machinery was used up and a few carloads could flood a city with machinery and drive the price down. I suppose the 1.06 demand at production industries could be kept, but then also add the greater and more useful demand at the resource industries, where the machinery could give a small boost in production of the resources.

[RulerofRails]

I wondered what happened, things were quiet for awhile. Good to see everyone's still here!

Blackhawk, good outline. Maybe this can be added to and updated to try to keep some focus, so we don't wander?

About the Machinery demand at the resource industries. I have tried, and was unable to get any noticeable increase in production from the production industries. Even if a new chain is added that includes Machinery as an input, the one figure in the bca file that controls max output doesn't allow more production. Hence a chain such as 3 Logs + 1 Machinery = 4 Lumber, only has the effect to use up less logs from the map and maybe be slightly less profitable especially in marginal situations. 5 Lumber is the most the Mill will produce (non-upgraded) whatever its demands.

The reason why this can be gotten around at the resource industries is that a supply function in the bca file has a different limit to any conversion function. Hence by combining a supply and conversion we get a "boost" effect. This is what PopTop did with the farms. The slight hurdle here is that Machinery is so expensive (around $300 on the map, though base price is less). To get around this we can use a very small amount of Machinery such as 0.2 becoming 1 load of Coal for instance. Blackhawk had the excellent idea to then also add a demand only function to bring the total demand up to 0.75 or 1 per year. For example, have a demand only function for 0.5 per year. This gives a much better demand on the price map, and whenever Machinery is present it will be used in both the conversion and demand only functions without preference. Correctly adjusted this can be made to work, we just need to find the best balance we can. One of the main considerations to decide is a nominal amount of Machinery we consider possible on a decent sized map. For example, now it is quite hard to produce in a large quantity, once the inputs are changed up it could become a fair bit more plentiful. With only 2-inputs it should become something to use in a normal game instead of requiring a lot of considerable effort to get the Machine Shop producing.

I thought that it might be better to drop the Machinery demand from the Production industries as essentially it is just disappearing there. This way it wont be necessary to connect to the resource industries with extra stations in the countryside, Machinery will migrate out from towns on its own. I agree that Machinery should be used in both to be realistic. It will require testing, but maybe it could still work with both, don't know?

Will give some more ideas a bit later.

[RulerofRails]

Other things that were discussed for 1.07 that I remember right now are:
- Food which would replace Medicine - there were some plans to include the Cannery and maybe Cereal Factory.
- Some cargoes with low demands: Aluminum, Dye, Paper, Rubber and Tires. (Aluminum introduction could be shifted forward {see below}. The others could use muni building demands.)
- Introducing Furniture as a cargo much earlier. This would help make some demand for Dye. Realistic also. Possibly a smaller output industry, or just use the current one?

Ok, now some questions

Thinking about the Assembly Line idea. The idea is good, clean and simple. However, I noticed that TM has the Industrial Assembly Line appear in 1890. This is sensible, but I don't think that an Assembly Line makes realistic sense before then. Maybe we need to make a smaller output industry for before this time, such as the Hardware Store from TM (renamed of course, maybe Manufacturing Workshop {?}). This could represent the more localized manufacturing from earlier eras. Maybe Furniture could use another TM building and be similar.

Stoker had this idea for early low-output industries. It has popped back up in the discussion a couple more times. I haven't done any testing. There would need to be a definite advantage to build the currently available full output industry (i.e. Furniture Factory) when they are introduced. Is it possible to make an industry obsolete, i.e. it wont appear in the build list anymore? Obviously any industries already built or seeded on the map would stay. Maybe we could change their conversion rate to be less than ideal, making the player want to sell/avoid/replace them. For example 3 Lumber = 2 Furniture, instead of 1 Lumber = 1 Furniture.

This brings up some other questions as far as when to integrate the introduction of cargoes. There are a bunch of new cargo additions between 1880 and 1910, and then only Plastic, Uranium and Waste are left to be introduced in the rest of the 20th century. Gumboots pointed out that Aluminum wasn't used even in aircraft before 1920. We could realistically move its introduction forward to 1930 or maybe even further forward. Wikipedia has a nice little chart that shows world production of Aluminum went over 5M tons around 1960 and has been steadily climbing since then to around 45M tons today.

If Machinery is to become available in 1860 and it is the "main" demand for Ingots, what happens to Ingots before this? Also what to do with the Tool and Die producing Parts/ToolsDies/ForgedMetal, before Steel is available in 1856?

Maybe we could keep the current Iron to Goods conversion at the Tool and Die prior to 1856. Would want to stop it much sooner than 1876 though, as the overlap would create a problem of what is getting produced Goods vs Parts/ToolsDies/ForgedMetal. A couple of years grace period would be nice. We could change it to be less than ideal (4Iron->2Goods) in these transition years.

Lets take the Manufacturing Workshop and use it for an early chain such as (Ignots->Goods) before 1860. In 1856 we can add one or more chains involving Parts/ToolsDies/ForgedMetal. By 1860 could be integrated so that we could have combinations of Parts/ToolsDies/ForgedMetal with Wood and Ingots. Depending on testing, we should probably phase out Ingots demand after 1860 if we want to keep most of the Ingot demand for the Machine Shop.

I am trying to think of a reason why we need to justify having a Tool & Die convert Steel to Parts/ToolsDies/Forged Metal. I am almost feeling it is a little unnecessary. Could Ingots possibly be called SoftMetals or Light Metals? That sound really lame, but I am trying to justify why the Machine Shop would combine Parts/ToolsDies/Forged Metal, with Ingots, even though Ingots aren't processed as much. The supposition I am making here is that Steel is much harder to process than the more easily workable metals such as Tin, Zinc, Copper, Lead. Ingots is very vague for these things, but probably still the best general-yet-semi-specific term to use.

I am just thinking here and asking many more questions than answering. Would love to hear what anyone thinks.

sidekikd34, for me, ToolsDies is the best suggestion for T&D output thus far. Thanks.

[Blackhawk]

- Food which would replace Medicine - there were some plans to include the Cannery and maybe Cereal Factory.
- Some cargoes with low demands: Aluminum, Dye, Paper, Rubber and Tires. (Aluminum introduction could be shifted forward {see below}. The others could use muni building demands.)
- Introducing Furniture as a cargo much earlier. This would help make some demand for Dye. Realistic also. Possibly a smaller output industry, or just use the current one?

Ah yes I forgot to mention about the shift from relatively useless medicine to a more useful food cargo. There could also be the change from crystals to sand/silica.

Thinking about the Assembly Line idea. The idea is good, clean and simple. However, I noticed that TM has the Industrial Assembly Line appear in 1890. This is sensible, but I don't think that an Assembly Line makes realistic sense before then. Maybe we need to make a smaller output industry for before this time, such as the Hardware Store from TM (renamed of course, maybe Manufacturing Workshop {?}). This could represent the more localized manufacturing from earlier eras. Maybe Furniture could use another TM building and be similar.

I don't think really want to create multiple industries to do the same thing. I'd rather just use some other name like Factory, Manufacturing Plant, Manufactory, or Industrial Plant instead to avoid the issue of Assembly Plants not appearing until the 1880s.

Stoker had this idea for early low-output industries. It has popped back up in the discussion a couple more times. I haven't done any testing. There would need to be a definite advantage to build the currently available full output industry (i.e. Furniture Factory) when they are introduced. Is it possible to make an industry obsolete, i.e. it wont appear in the build list anymore? Obviously any industries already built or seeded on the map would stay. Maybe we could change their conversion rate to be less than ideal, making the player want to sell/avoid/replace them. For example 3 Lumber = 2 Furniture, instead of 1 Lumber = 1 Furniture.

I think we had discussed this some and I was leaning against this idea as there was no way to turn off an industry (no industry end date, only a start date). So it wouldn't really make much sense to have a small "cottage industry" appearing in a scenario based in 2000 when there are mostly large factories. It could still be done. I suppose they could be added and it would be up to the scenario maker to decide whether to turn them on or off in the editor, although I would hate for a scenario to spawn with a lot of relatively small production, small demand industries and not play very well.

This brings up some other questions as far as when to integrate the introduction of cargoes. There are a bunch of new cargo additions between 1880 and 1910, and then only Plastic, Uranium and Waste are left to be introduced in the rest of the 20th century. Gumboots pointed out that Aluminum wasn't used even in aircraft before 1920. We could realistically move its introduction forward to 1930 or maybe even further forward. Wikipedia has a nice little chart that shows world production of Aluminum went over 5M tons around 1960 and has been steadily climbing since then to around 45M tons today.

I think this goes back to seeing if we can find another use for Aluminum, and if we needed to. Early on in its appearance it is relatively useless, but it wasn't a very common metal either. The waste/uranium cargoes also bring up the idea again, are they best kept in the game or do are they better used for something else? I liked the idea of introducing waste earlier and creating a landfill but I don't think there's a great model/skin to make a landfill with so we could use that cargo slot for something else if we really wanted to.

If Machinery is to become available in 1860 and it is the "main" demand for Ingots, what happens to Ingots before this? Also what to do with the Tool and Die producing Parts/ToolsDies/ForgedMetal, before Steel is available in 1856?

A 1.07 Machine Shop could have an earlier date than 1860. One of it's main ingredients would be the cargo from the T&D so it could appear as early as when the T&D appears most likely.

I am trying to think of a reason why we need to justify having a Tool & Die convert Steel to Parts/ToolsDies/Forged Metal. I am almost feeling it is a little unnecessary. Could Ingots possibly be called SoftMetals or Light Metals? That sound really lame, but I am trying to justify why the Machine Shop would combine Parts/ToolsDies/Forged Metal, with Ingots, even though Ingots aren't processed as much. The supposition I am making here is that Steel is much harder to process than the more easily workable metals such as Tin, Zinc, Copper, Lead. Ingots is very vague for these things, but probably still the best general-yet-semi-specific term to use.

I'm not sure I understand this point. I'm fine with T&D producing goods, but on the other hand it also works that it could produce something else that the machine shop would demand. As for ingots, I'm not sure what the best term would be. In a way I can understand they are putting parts together and using conductive metals for the electrical wiring in machinery.