Age Of Steam IV-Blue Streak For Your Comment and Review

[RulerofRails]

Thanks, Hawk! Your the MAN!

Here it is:

Both ways.jpg (105.75 KiB) Viewed 215441 times

[Shamough]

STOP playing the V2_1 !!!

I left out 5 EVENTS that are kinda IMPORTANT re speed/load test events. Problem was me being tired and NOT checking the game B4 POSTING it. I make the game work in the game I'm playing and then edit a virgin game ...

I'm currently testing V2_2 and will post it as soon as I can confirm that the speed/loads events work correctly.

Hans

[Hawk]

Thanks, Hawk! Your the MAN!

Glad that's all it was.

[RulerofRails]

I was in a hurry posting the last post. I also tried GIMP and downloaded a new freeware program that was supposed to view tga files (it would crash while trying to load the screenshots), before I said that they were blank. Its so obvious I don't know how to use GIMP either from this. Anyway, I am so happy this is resolved now.

Hans, what sort of problems am I going to run into? More of the same, I will have to pay the 10M for access rights? I would like to see how those probability events work the way you have coded them.

Also, as I am sure you notice there is an infinite loop in the warehouses involving the Distillery. Alcohol->Fertilizer->Produce which can either be consumed at the Distillery and begin the cycle again or theoretically put through another warehouse to make Sugar. This may require separation though as this is the same warehouse as does the Alcohol to Fertilizer production. Even without including Sugar, one load of Alcohol becomes 9 loads of Produce so the factor of multiplication is 9x. So you could fill the map up with warehouses and Distilleries. On account of this I am glad that you raised the haul count for instant gold. It would be possible to reach $1Bln book value in around 15 years if you didn't have to haul the loads.

This time I have thought to run 4 cars on the 8-wheeler, but now I am thinking that this will be a slow way to reach those loads while giving an average speed of 55mph+ once I get the Superheater. I don't care to redo all the consists, so I will probably just keep with this and see what happens. Half the idea is to keep running costs on those trains low as the overclocked trains with improved fuel economy are just as expensive to run as running unmodified trains. Even though using the warehouses I don't really need the profits.

[Hawk]

I also tried GIMP

I couldn't get Gimp to show the tga files RT3 creates either.

[Gumboots]

It's been working for everyone else for quite some time now.
Sure, you get a little degradation even saving with a new name, but not as much if you save with the same name.

TBH I'd like to see proof of that before believing it, meaning same images side by side, along with byte counts of the respective files. I have tested this, and I'm pretty sure it's people convincing themselves of something because they think it sounds good. Logically, it makes no sense. The degradation with each save isn't huge anyway, so I think what you call "a little with each save" is probably standard regardless of file name.

[Wolverine@MSU]

As long as you're fixing V2, please note that many of the "informational" events are out of order, for example the "about Fireboxes" and "About Valves" (see screenshot below)

[Shamough]

REPLACED with Age Of Steam IV-Blue Streak V2_3 in a later post.

Found and STOMPED the BUG in V2_1.
Reordered the EVENTS. (Why the changed positions I have no clue.)
Copied the TGA map from an original Age Of Steam IV-Blue Streak.
Moved the AREA 52 to the top left corner of the map.

As it turned out it was just one wrong VAR in the first Speed Test EVENT.

Hans

[Hawk]

I merged this with the thread you already started about this. There's no need to start a new thread every time you make changes.

[RulerofRails]

I didn't wait for a medal (playing V2_1, I had to manually give myself access to one of the territories at the proper time), but after reading what wsherrick said about using the warehouses to produce the most of the cargo for the goals, I went heavy on warehouses in this play. Here is a screenshot of when I met the last grain hauling goal. All these totals come from honest hauls, with only Oil having been transported into the Dallas territory from the north before starting its journey east. I also never ran trains between any two of the cities in a city-territory to try to avoid inflating the counts.

Haul goals using industry conversions.jpg (63.31 KiB) Viewed 215377 times

I had ~44,000 loads hauled at this point and around 920M CBV (all my efforts after year 5 were on rail expansion, double track right from the start, and the haul goals once the cities opened up). My average freight speed including the 1st World War years when speeds were down to 33mph, was 51mph. I could have finished this in the previous year if I had taken greater care to stop Alcohol from reaching the warehouses I was using to convert Cotton to grain in Kansas City, as that conversion made more profit than the one producing grain. The game was seriously slow on my machine as after more than 300 locos my system gets really slow. I turned resolution down to 640x480 at the lowest quality to play the last couple of years with only a couple of pauses to check things. I was using only Ten-Wheelers with 4-cars until 1916 when I bought some Pacifics for special runs. During the war I was seeing over 200 breakdowns a year.

In version 2_2 I will try to aim exclusively for the Instant Gold using 8-car Atlantics. I don't know if I will manage to reach 75,000 loads in less than 18 years. This time I need to build many more stations also, at least two per city. Unfortunately, this map is seeded fairly heavily in the first place and using the warehouses makes this into a really heavy cargo distribution. This should make separating the warehouses and hauling between them the ticket, but it is easy to end up with a mess which will not be good for average speed, and likely many more trains are needed than my computer likes to think about.

[Shamough]

I already posted that V2_1 was a little flaky. I looked and found nothing wrong with my copy of V2_1's GOLD logics. SSS, Frt Speed & key city goods moved are all correct. IF you still have the last year of your V2_1 game saved look at GV1. It should = 4.

Your GRAIN delivery may have happened during the year of 1923 and not 1922. The game tests for GOLD/Sliver/Bronze at the end of each year. (It should probably be set to test for the win situations at the end of each week.) SOOOoooo at the END of 1923 you should have gotten GOLD.

re your breakdowns ... are you stopping at the maintainance facilities frequently enough to prevent running out of water and oil?

I asked because you have what looks like a bypass around one of your spurs.

Hans

[RulerofRails]

The game was really unplayable, and I simply couldn't be bothered to wait the year out. (A year game time is taking at least 15 minutes of my time on normal speed with my slow computer.) I didn't want to abandon this attempt even though I knew it was buggy. I posted to give an idea of a run to see what is possible with the normal medals, seeing the instant gold should be doable quicker.

My trains were running with oil, maybe not frequent enough service, but apart from a couple that I added the wrong service stop to, they didn't run out. The WWI event decreases reliability a lot so even trains full of oil can be running around at 100% or more breakdown chance. It is almost a toss up whether to add cabooses to every train at the start but that only last 2-3 years and the caboose will hamper your load count.

The bypass you see is a planned space for an in-line maintenance stop if I decided to use a long distance route here. I never did. This is my latest idea to be able to make hassle free long distance routes that don't need special sidings and lots of calculation for maintenance spurs. Local traffic never wants to enter here as it is headed for the station, and the long distance traffic doesn't go past the station and hit the vulnerable accelerating trains. The idea is to have the bypass more direct while the route through the station is slightly longer. A little more curving of the track is sometimes necessary, but I like the result so far.

[Shamough]

Age Of Steam IV-Blue Streak V2_3 UPDATED with V2_4

I hope this is the LAST version of Blue Streak I'll be making.

Changed the GOLD EVENTS to be sampled WEEKLY (EoW).
Corrected a error in the 75,000 loads for INSTANT GOLD EVENT.

Shamough/Hans

[Shamough]

I was using only Ten-Wheelers with 4-cars until 1916 when I bought some Pacifics for special runs. During the war I was seeing over 200 breakdowns a year.

I just load the trains to MAX + Caboose and keep the train count down. Dbl track ASAP and stop at every spur ... except the three for St Louis, Chicago & Dallas-Ft Worth where the stations are close enough to only need one spur stop per round trip.

Another thing I noticed that you connected almost if not all of the towns ... nice for quick load count but not necessary for INSTANT GOLD or GOLD ... and it will keep your train count down.

Shamough/Hans

[RulerofRails]

I started version 2_3, but had only 21M profit in the 4th year. This is compared to 28M I got last play. To try to have an accurate comparison of difficulty for a fast win, I wanted to use a similar start as I think either way it is worthwhile to get access to the cities as they will give you extra loads. I forgot about the version differences for a minute , so I loaded up my save from March 1908 and here is what I got at the end of the year with a little better strategy. Truly exponential growth, those warehouses are making greater than (EDIT: one day I'll get maths right ) 50% ROI. Of course the economy is Boom Times, I maxed bonds out in the 2nd year and re-financed at the beginning of the 4th year at 7%.

Exploiting the warehouses.jpg (95.45 KiB) Viewed 216290 times

Originally I got 28M profit in year 4, but that is before I knew that the Corn->Milk conversion is the unlikely winner for the best conversion in the warehouses (bang for buck at the beginning). The Logs to Furniture conversion is not far behind, but it isn't sustainable. The Corn->Milk conversion will eventually drop below that of the Grain->Meat conversion, and this is to be expected as the demand for Milk is easily overwhelmed. The main short-term advantage over the Grain->Meat conversion is that one upgraded warehouse will be running at almost full capacity when placed next to a Corn Farm, next to a Grain Farm it will be around 60-70% capacity. I corrected my earlier post about the differences in overhead. The main reason for the difference I saw I now believe was that one Warehouse was consuming Livestock. I can speculate as to the reason (I did in my edited post), but it has something to do with using a demand only function in a warehouse that also has a conversion function. The bottom line with this is that it can be profitable to spread Diesel and Livestock among your warehouses, even a small amount at each will increase your profits via this overhead reduction.

On my earlier attempt, I wasn't using the grid to place the warehouses. Now I use the grid (press the "G" key) to help place as many warehouses as possible on a cell. Each cell is divided in sixteen small squares by the grid (4x4). A warehouse seems to take up around 6 cells total, so if you visually divide the cell up into 4 pieces (2x2). Make sure to get most of the warehouse within this space while not overlapping into any of the other parts (2x2 squares on the grid) of this cell (think of the warehouse as being a square shape as it will be upgraded), but rather with the surrounding cells. On flat ground all of the small farms (cotton, corn, grain, rice, etc.) can have 3 warehouses on their cell (three 2x2 corners of their cells are free. (All warehouses need to aligned with either edge of the cell or they will overlap into another 2x2 and prevent the placement of all 3.) This is when the farm is within one of the four 2x2 cells. If the farm is between two of the 2x2 cells or in the exact center of the cell it is possible to have 4 warehouses on that cell. Example of 4 on a cell (the one in the lower right is a little high, but I got away with it):

4 Warehouses per cell.jpg (58.86 KiB) Viewed 216290 times

Hans, I am going to use 7-cars + caboose except for the mountain routes, meaning half the locos necessary with only 4 cars. I will still connect to all towns, but wont need the 150+ long-haul trains I was using to get the haulage goals. These two things mean that I shouldn't need more than 320 for this map, and keep things running smoothly.

[Shamough]

Only one word for you: SEEDING ! It be random.

[RulerofRails]

Unfortunately I have to politely disagree. My problem was that I was focusing on the Cotton->Grain->Meat OR -> Milk chain too early. I only "discovered" this last play so I wasn't trying to use it as much. Why is it delayed? To do the full chain the River Boat Warehouse must be on a cell next to the one with a Cotton Farm. The other conversions from the Grain and Corn farms I am building on the same cell. As Cotton is at low demand it takes a while for price to rise so it can start accepting Fertilizer and reach full output.

My classic start place in Topeka seems to be unaffected by any seeding I have seen yet, there is always a Cattle Farm there. Also, the Corn and Grain Farms near there and Council Bluffs are pre-placed not seeded. I also look to this area near the start. I am not one to blame seeding easily, I didn't see a problem here as there is plenty of resources every time and the open nature of most of the map seems to prevent any uneven distribution developing (seeded originally vs. seeded in-game). I suspect bumpy maps may suffer from seeding variations, but that's not the case here.

Main difference this time is that I was utilizing the effect of low overhead by trying to build warehouses where they could absorb Cattle, and by also including the South East Warehouse with Corn->Cattle conversion which is profitable in the Springfield to Chicago area right from the start. I also "discovered" this during play, so would look to expand here earlier next time. (Ledger showing 1909 and earlier for comparison.)

Better Exploitation.jpg (105.17 KiB) Viewed 216273 times

This warehouse is consuming Livestock and paying 900k less overhead per year than the exact same type of warehouse on the left behind it. This looks to be a sweet spot for next time, the logs make a Rubber Bauxite Supply a good investment on its own here. Drawback is that the Livestock doesn't arrive immediately.

I spent 4 months in 1909 investing in rails, problem is I underestimated how fast the Eight-Wheelers would be with eight cars and ended up with 31mph average speed. This means that after 1910 which will also be a bad speed year, I will need to post 46mph average over the next ten years to just make the goal since this initial time is applied by the game to all 5 years since game start. Time to back-track, even though all my nice track-work is lost. Four cars is a good idea before the Atlantic after all. Might even try three cars to get a good cushion against later heavy hauling. Oh well.

[Shamough]

I usually started building up around Council Bluffs and the random seeding there makes a big difference in the short run. My plan is simply CB E to Dixon & S to St Joseph to get my loads count up ASAP. I pick Chicago and head S to Memphis to get my loads over 300/year. Then just relax pick up Dallas-Ft Worth at my leasure and then shoot for max wealth. (It seems my building stratigy needs a major adjustment. I usually just go for about $10M/yr industry before laying track.

I've also started with COTTON down near Memphis for a good start.

I have NEVER had a $100M year before 1930 ... I need to rethink my warehouse stratigy.

I wish William would check in ... I really want to nerf the warehouses ... they are simply toooo powerful. (It's obvious that you will be able to roll the company $$$ into the RED >= ~$2B ... even sucking cask into your personal account they will both be over maxed before GOLD/INSTANT GOLD. (There's a way to fudge the $$$ by removing $1B for the Co., or Player when they exceed $1.25B and keeping track of how many times $1B was subtracted from each and then create totals at the end of the game. ... IT is NOT the same game that William posted tho ... And I'm not willing to change his overall game dynamics without talking to him.

IF there is an interest I could CHANGE the endings AND create a game to see who can amass the most wealth before the end of 1945. It would be based on the honor system ... I.E. no adding $$$ or mucking in the EDITOR to create wealth. People would then post their 1945 STATUS page. You would still need to PASS the connect city tests and meet the >= 200 cargo moves AND the loads count would be removed or reduced so there wouldn't be a need to have 300+ trains running around, but GOLD/Silver/Bronze/Game_Lost would not fire. (194601 EoM game resets all $$$ = $0. AND the values displayed on the STATUS page will be locked from EoY 1945.)

Hans

[RulerofRails]

Well, what you see here is a true case of outstripping overhead by a long way. The faster you can grow your company the more you are rewarded. This was an attempt for fun to give me a good base for an attempt to get the Instant Gold in LESS time than it took me to get the normal Gold. When I went back and only loaded 3 cars on the Eight-Wheelers for a 52mph average speed, I only hit 93M as I spent all my money after June on rails. Once overhead caught up this becomes 60M profits.

This attempt is much better than the bases for the Gold attempt, but I can see the limit with the opening territories means 17-18yrs is minimum possible for normal Gold. For Instant Gold there is no limit, but to get it in less than 17yrs with the higher load count I am finding might be possible, but will require many trains to get around the hurdles in the road including the 1st World War. Currently I have 330 locos Atlantics hauling 7 cars + caboose, and in year 8 I got 5,500 loads hauled. At this rate I project I could be finished by year 20. Next year the count should be higher, and the economy is stagnant right now so these things together should counteract the effects of the war. This is basically an exercise in track building and layout almost sandbox style, and I have two stations per city, sometimes three, and only a couple on the edge of the map with one station. All double track, stone bridges, and many crossings of the Mississippi (8).

I am pretty decent at optimizing the economics, but the finer stuff about using the spurs a player with more experience with them like Gumboots would optimize far better. Throwing money at things helps me absorb this deficit to some degree. Because this ends up turning into a question of how many trains your computer can handle, there is a chance that it is possible to do the Instant Gold faster than the normal Gold, but I doubt I will be the one to do it. I enjoy trying to at least be able to get a glimpse of where the limit is in the distance (you would have to be crazy to actually think you are there), but for these reasons I wont come anywhere close.

Keep in mind this is a TEST play, the way that I would normally play a map like this is shown by how I first approached it (special personal conditions I play with like, trains only start, minimum possible industry, etc). This way I will get to see most of the events on the map, and still think I could get a glimpse of the limit without things getting unwieldy with hundreds of locos and stations and warehouses covering the map. I don't keep playing the game to build unwieldy empires that are inefficient and sprawl uselessly all over the map. I enjoy the strategy and there isn't much strategy available for me once my company becomes massive and I have connected everywhere and run maximum trains.

I wouldn't play a flat out challenge for maximum worth over 40 years (late game would be too unwieldy for me). Lower the count is a good idea. I would consider lowering this to maybe 50,000 loads. This should be possible faster than normal Gold pretty consistently without over-doing train count. After all, anything that has a huge number in the game tends to get boring especially if it is disproportionate in difficulty to the other goals. I would prefer wsherrick's approval, but I like the higher average speed of 40mph anyway.

I agree the warehouses are strong, but wsherrick made them on purpose so just a couple could be built to create and manage the traffic needed for the haul goals. For this purpose they work well and obviously took lots of thought as they are nicely engineered as well. I give him top marks for making some good strategy with them. The problem with toning them back is that they wont have the large demand that is really helpful when they are strategically placed and helps avoid the temptation to re-ship. There is no way to avoid loopholes, the ease in 1.06 to fudge the load count which could also be used to keep your trains always full for max loads is always present and for this reason it is up to the player to make a fun game for himself. I am happy with them the way they are.

[RulerofRails]

Really 70,000 loads.jpg (93.49 KiB) Viewed 216237 times

This is the message I received after just hitting 70,000 loads hauled. Also, I didn't see any new status appear for the instant gold goals after 1918, if that was supposed to happen.

I decided to limit my train count to 400. I always wondered how people said they always put maintenance spurs at the end of the line right near the station. Well this time I made it work. Essentially most cities aren't connected here. Whether or not this is the cause (it's definitely something I haven't done before), the neat thing is that the game is running normal speed at 60fps without a stutter with 400 trains!

The way I am using the stations is limiting each station to 3 connections. I have really criss-crossed the map here, with only 3 overpasses total (I haven't bothered going for the haul goals). This is keeping traffic pretty free and fast. On 4-5 year old Pacifics running cabooses I had about 100 breakdowns per year in the war years. Load count down from 8,000 to a little more than 5,000.

If anyone wonders how I am making unconnected stations so often, the answer is the bulldozer. I will normally extend the line past the last spur in a zig-zag that is as short as possible but ends with a few pieces in the desired direction of track for my next station. I then keep those pieces and bulldoze the rest. It really isn't that much I waste each time. Also, if the game isn't giving me a nice smooth curve like I want, the bulldozer can help a lot in certain situations.