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I mean, specifically, LowellDND's Rogue Trader CYOA and Diogenes' pre-historic moron simulator (and I mean that with all my love)
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Nov 26, 2015 05:17
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Busy today, so vote's still open until tomorrow night. Meantime, here's the near end of Maraetai viewed from Beachlands yesterday:  And here's the view across to Waiheke Island. The new clipper route for the SS Fhtagn brushes the left hand side of the photo. 
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Nov 26, 2015 05:33
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I got a cool picture to share too! Southern Pacific Locomotive #2852. A C-10 class (2-8-0) Consolidation, oil-fired steam locomotive. Over 200,000 lbs of fine American engineering and steel.  I'm up in Northern California helping my grandmother at a craft sale and this beautiful beast is one of the highlights of the trip for me each year.  If the scenario features any American 2-8-0s I want one named after this. It was built in 1919 so we're close to when she was born. Not sure I can edit the document on my phone.  I'll take some better pictures with my actual camera tomorrow, when I'm less needed at the craft booth. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 00:18
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These feature in the default American tileset as the Baldwin 2-8-0: Part of the game with them is deciding if the extra power is worth the lower top speed v. the Special 2-4-2. Unfortunately I didn't include it in this game because the SLM 5/6 obsoletes it pretty comprehensively. I was also at my granddad's yesterday (90th b'day) and I took the opportunity to have see if some of these early trains are in his trains of the world directory. It wouldn't surprise me if the colour plate was of that particular loco. I didn't find any others, but I did have a look when I got home and found the 5/6 on Wikipedia.(It's a Swiss loco, not German as I stated at the end of the last update.)
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Nov 29, 2015 03:39
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Inspired by this thread I fired up Locomotion the other day and realized that my typical TTD strategy of using the early small planes to ferry finished goods to towns across the map is simply not possible. Locomotion demands that you build up the world before letting you play with planes, I think a 707 was something like a million dollars and a large airport might have been three times that. Even the earliest planes (Ford Tri-motor for example) were barely profitable as the towns really couldn't support them. I'm surprised someone is doing a Let's Play of this, I considered the game long forgotten.
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Nov 29, 2015 17:27
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It's one of the main reasons I decided to do it. I'm always interested in LPs of rare or oddball games, so I decided to do one of my own 
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Nov 29, 2015 20:17
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1913-1917: The Steel Project Not the Locomotion Soundtrack - Pokarekare Ana Chrysanthenum, Easy Winners and Eugenia will have been looping in a normal game now for, ooh, 2 hours now. Sometime about now is when I dump the music by era option. Have a NZ standard that was written conteporary to this update instead. Click here to name a vehicle!  1913: A one year break-in period is decided upon. Scrooge quietly circulates a memo among the senior managers. In it, he outlines his aims for the forseeable future. South Auckland is now McDuck country, and he wants it locked down by 1940. Any rival companies will be ousted. By 1950, he wants every industry on the map connected to transport.  The existing South Auckland steel transport scheme, will tie in nicely with these aims as it will provide a flow of steel to the Weymouth Factory. It's going to require a lot of work. The existing lines are single track and will need to be upgraded to allow trains to run on all sorts of different routes.  Work starts out the back of Pukekohe.  The first stage is running coal from the mines near the Waikato river to the steel mill at Glenbrook.    Near Tuakau, some more room is needed to for smooth running, so all 17 trucks have to be stopped to allow the cargo bay to be converted to a more efficient design.    Near pokeno, we try to avoid demolishing houses, but we can't cross the inclined road. The apartment building is aquired under the Public Works Act.   We have to figure out how to turn this terminus into a station capable of taking large amounts of trains with two cargo types as well.       Modifying a line that already has multiple trains running on it takes a long time. Generally I build the parallel route and directionalise it while the main is still running. Then I connect the 'out' juction where the one way track leads to the station, then the 'in' track. Care must be taken if the existing line has to be relaid or signals replaced, because nearby trains may be allowed to proceed into a danger sector and crash. Once the existing trains are able to use the one-way section, I directionalise the other side. When the planned trains are running all at cross purposes like this, it takes a long time as more movements are slowly brought into operation. The advantage is that revenue is not interrupted, in this case, I only had to take control of trains three times. This is the junction where the Otaua-Pokeno line meets the line north, which will need to cope with trains coming and going to any of the other branches. It's certainly ended up characterful, although as the lines get running, it will probably be altered to a more efficient design.  The steel mill station is laid out.   For now, a small branch from the Pokeno sawmill will get things running. Meanwhile:    The train replacement program is delayed a bit by the line construction, but eventually goes ahead. The new locomotive proves to be more reliable than the old ones at 83%.   The Dungeon Master, on the isolated Kaiaua Railway provides a good test case for the new locomotive.   Luckily, the longer locomotives still fit into the cramped auckland station.      The log-haulers are less affected as they spend a long time waiting for a full load, but the long distances they travel do mean that much time is saved.   Haha! we have leached their passengers!    The new trains provide scrooge with an ego boost!  But what's this?       Evelyn Eggburt has not been Idle. While they're making a mess of town, McDuck has to complete the conversion of Port Waikato station. By building platforms one square apart, he can migrate the station to a new position.  Burgundy Transport adds insult to injury.   News:    An oversight here meant that the train was only carting passengers one way.    These small announcements show what your rivals are up to.  There is still some work to be done, but soon we shall see how a real railroad is run. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Nov 30, 2015 |
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Nov 30, 2015 23:02
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Yes, it's all coming together nicely. Just as planned. This video is related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLL2Txs8kCg
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Nov 30, 2015 23:30
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Man, the competition is NOT sitting idly by. Their stuff doesn't look as terrifyingly disruptive or spaghetti-tastic as I had expected, though. At least, not yet.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:13
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Oh my god those...bridges...please buy them out as soon as possible so this insanity can end. Can you even buy your competition out?
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Dec 1, 2015 20:35
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nnnope! IIRC, even in TTD, that just resulted in a new company starting up a few months later. You can set up scenarios where the computer is not allowed to build a certain type of transport, so banning rails and roads will eliminate most of the clutter. In that case the AI will prioritise building trams and aircraft.
Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 04:03
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Jaguars! posted:nnnope! IIRC, even in TTD, that just resulted in a new company starting up a few months later. You can set up scenarios where the computer is not allowed to build a certain type of transport, so banning rails and roads will eliminate most of the clutter. In that case the AI will prioritise building trams and aircraft. Yeah, when I do play with the AI I usually just restrict them to those modes of transportation. They can still make a mess with the streetcar tracks and will bankrupt themselves endlessly with unprofitable airlines but it does results in less immediate clutter. The side effect of that is that there's usually streetcar tracks built everywhere (which can impede running normal rail lines) and they'll encourage city growth to such a degree that cities will encompass the entire map by the end of the game, over running every forest and farm and leaving literally nowhere for any new industries to grow. The AI and town models in this game are really rather hard to play with...
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Dec 3, 2015 01:43
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Psychotic Weasel posted:and they'll encourage city growth to such a degree that cities will encompass the entire map by the end of the game, over running every forest and farm and leaving literally nowhere for any new industries to grow. Sounds a lot like modern Auckland if you ask me.
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Dec 3, 2015 03:02
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1917-1920: Trains of Steel Locomotion Soundtrack - Get Me To Gladstone Bay Click here to name a vehicle!  I forgot to mention this little guy in the last update - he's the first train to run steel from the Huntly Coalfields.  That scrap rail we left lying around during the first update turns out to be useful.  Once the Waikato/Otaua Station is finished, if can take 6 trains before spilling into the main line.  Have I mentioned that you guys are all class?  We look at replacing some of the aging trams.  Both type of good piling up at the new station.  We prep the steel mill station to allow a steel train to wait for deliveries. (Note the mistake that will be discovered when the next iron train gets trapped in the station for a month or two.)  The ships are aging too.  Of course they break down right when they're about to cough up their last payload. Still better than nursing a 1% reliability train to a depot in the original games. The Campbell Newman gets an upgrade to a steam ferry.  The Enterprise remains as a slightly faster clipper for now due to the length of the route out to Waiheke Island.   With that done, the focus returns to double tracking the mainline.  While traffic is still low, many of the original wooden bridges are upgraded to steel structures with a speed limit above 24km/h.   Upgrading the capacity of a double line is much simpler and often just involves putting in more signals.  March 1918 and something important happens - A new song comes on! Thank goodness!  With some more double track North of Papakura, there are only a couple of sections still single track - Ramarama to Papakura, and Manukau to Papatoetoe.  The factory at Weymouth receives a tight but efficient loading dock.  New Steel train.   Tuakau constantly resounds with the pops of engine failures, so the Grain trucks get their replacement time.  The station is further refined. The trucks just don't seem to want to use more than one approach to the cargo bays.  Of course while that's happening, the trains have a minor snarl up. This end of the line still can't really handle much traffic and one extra train screws things up.  I think we're doing pretty well to handle this much cargo with our primitive trucks. The yellow rating you can see on the tab indicates that a good portion of the cargo is successfully transported.   The Glenbrook steel mill is fixed to further raise capacity.  Another minor snarl at Papakura, probably caused by the works at Weymouth. And now it's time for the News!   Just a fluctuation as a house nearby is rebuilt.   This is the farm near the steel mill.   The far off war ended, flying machines come available!  This is the Weymouth Factory.  Burgundy transport is  See, told you so.   Another option opens for us!  And another engine. This one is faster than the 5/6, but not as powerful. It's also smaller, which could be useful at our crowded stations.
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Dec 3, 2015 10:30
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or for passengers
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Dec 3, 2015 10:34
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Veloxyll posted:or for passengers Speaking of which, yay, first Brit train!  Sources: Wikipedia, geograph, Ashley Dace Fowler 4F Company: Midland Railway and later London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and British Railways (BR) Designer: Henry Fowler Wheel Arrangement: 0-6-0 First prototypes: 1911 First production models: 1917 (yeah, WWI kind of got in the way) Total built: 772 Total preserved: 4 The Fowler 4F was one of the better engines to come out of the Midland Railway's "small engine" policy - the theory that it would be more economical to build underpowered, cheap-to-maintain locomotives and double-head trains if necessary, in contrast to say Nigel Gresley's "big engine" policy over on what was then the Great Northern Railway (the Midland would be grouped into the LMS in 1923, as would the GNR into the LNER (London and North-Eastern Railway) - with Fowler and Gresley becoming the first Chief Mechanical Engineers (CME, "bloke wot designs the engines") of the LMS and LNER respectively. Ultimately, Gresley's big engine policy won out - Fowler tried his best with designs like the Royal Scot, but Midland's doctrine (carried over to the LMS) kept him limited in what he could achieve. It was only when William Stanier took over as CME of the LMS that they mounted a serious fightback. Saying that, the Fowlers did useful if unspectacular work as light freight locomotives, upgrading the Midland's previous batches of 0-6-0 goods engines, and they continued to fill a role even as Stanier's Black Fives and 2-8-0s brought more power to the LMS's lines (indeed, Stanier still managed to build 45 more of them during his time as CME). All 772 of the 4Fs made it to nationalisation, with withdrawals beginning in 1954 and finishing in 1966. Another fun fact about Fowler: he designed the "Jinty" 3F 0-6-0T of original Transport Tycoon fame, which is sort of the 4F's "counterpart" tank engine. Although that might be spoilers, depending on which locos Jaguars! uses. Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 11:36
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Ah, Jinty - the angel of death in TTD The cheapest engine, the best to assassinate enemy trains or block enemy roads with.
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Dec 3, 2015 12:39
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The Jinty wasn't in Transport Tycoon Deluxe - TTD moved up the start date to 1950 whereas the original had 1930, and the Jinty was a casualty of the two amputated decades. A pity. It was, as people said, a fun teeeeny teeeeeny little twain.
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Dec 3, 2015 13:11
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oops. force of habit. It's been a while since it has been just flat Transport Tycoon
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Dec 3, 2015 13:29
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The 4F is like the platonic ideal of what a steam loco looks like. If the railways themselves designed the locomotives, did they build them as well? And if they built 772 of them and never lost one, that's an incredible record. I did a lot research using the Wiki for NZ locomotives and half of them end up being lost in accidents, scrapped early or cannibalized for spare parts. Not really related, but in the Trains of the World guide I mentioned the other day, I was skimming through it and one of the entries had a reference to 'the narrow gauge disease' that I found amusing.
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Dec 3, 2015 21:29
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I know SP-2852 was built in Southern Pacific's (owned by the point by Union Pacific) own shops in Sacramento, CA.
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Dec 3, 2015 23:36
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Jaguars! posted:The 4F is like the platonic ideal of what a steam loco looks like. If the railways themselves designed the locomotives, did they build them as well? And if they built 772 of them and never lost one, that's an incredible record. I did a lot research using the Wiki for NZ locomotives and half of them end up being lost in accidents, scrapped early or cannibalized for spare parts. Looking at Wikipedia articles, there were a few accidents - some of them fatal for the people involved - but apparently the locos involved were restored to working order.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:49
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It's been a busy couple of weeks, but I've finally played up to 1925 today. Heres a composite showing the state of the South Auckland area at start of play:  All primary industries produce about 200 tons per month. If a town doesn't have an approval rating on the label, they don't have an opinion of us.
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Dec 13, 2015 10:45
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I feel you should at least build some bus routes for the low approval towns, just to get that rating creeping up. Also, only 1 house stands between us and a vinyard -> winery route. Could also hook a farm up to a food processor or brewery with trucks. If only they weren't so questionably effective at this time. Though it must be getting close to the next grade of trucking.
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Dec 15, 2015 04:57
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Veloxyll posted:I feel you should at least build some bus routes for the low approval towns, just to get that rating creeping up. Also, only 1 house stands between us and a vinyard -> winery route. Could also hook a farm up to a food processor or brewery with trucks. If only they weren't so questionably effective at this time. Though it must be getting close to the next grade of trucking. Road vehicles can become such a colossal pain in the rear end after you've built enough of them (why, why do I need to issue them orders 1-by-1  ). The same tree spamming trick on TTD works here too; just plop a few down in the vicinity of the town and plow all the train tracks through as many homes as you like.I like running really long trains though, so using trucks to feed resources from multiple, nearby sources can really help. Just hope you like listening to the sound of a dozen or so trucks breaking down every few seconds.
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Dec 15, 2015 05:21
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Really?! I could swear that I tried the tree spam trick and it didn't work. Most annoying feature is trying to stop the trucks for route modification- stopped trucks start again after about 30 seconds! Their queue behaviour on one way roads is also really weird.
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Dec 15, 2015 06:42
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It seemed to work in the latest game I had been playing. It's the 1960s and already cities are getting too big to divert around, so it's pretty much necessary to use since you can't bribe them otherwise. It just may take a lot of trees since there's no 'fill area' brush like the other games.
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Dec 15, 2015 13:33
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Playing OpenTT with a friend we found a neat way to solve the blocked track problem, whenever town buildings were in the way of our glorious and overcomplicated tangled spaghetti of a rail network he just left our coop company and started a new one with which he demolished away. It doesn't work very well in singleplayer however.
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Dec 15, 2015 14:05
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1920-1925: Lost and Confused Locomotion Soundtrack - Sandy Track Blues Click here to name a vehicle!  Scrooge starts by creating a new tram system to raise the Papatoetoe local board's opinion of us.  Continuing the theme of Bilingual tram puns?  Another major bottleneck is reduced.  Our coal pickup is expanded at mercer to allow multiple trains.   The truck stations at Tuakau are further refined to allow trucks to queue on the other side of the railway.  Scrooge starts putting extra services on the the raw coal and iron routes. THis is the first.   Although our trains have been delivering a profit, the amount of raw materials arriving barely makes a blip on the radar. Steel is only produced when we get both iron and coall in the same month.  The biggest junction on the line is further rationalized after a train is seem waiting at a signal for itself to clear the line    Burgundy Transport, devoid of their own ideas, further shits up the landscape with this copycat monstrosity carrying iron ore from Waiheke Island to Mangere.     Manukau City is large enough to accept goods, so Scrooge creates a road route to deliver the tiny amount of goods we currently produce. The one level rule makes it tough to find a decent place for a tunnel portal.   A quick ferry route connects Weymouth and Karaka on opposite sides of an estuary.   By this stage there is a constant stream of deteriorating vehicles that need replacing. Hopefully future vehicles will be more reliable.  Our rating in Papatoetoe finally lifts off the ground!  Another raw materials train is named after upstanding local scrap merchant Mr. Eugene Hitler.     On impulse, Scrooge sticks in this tiny little setup to make a local delivery in the centre of the South Auckland traffic. To everyone's surprise, it works first time!   A Bus service is tacked on one end to handle passengers turning up at the rail station. It will also prevent Burgundy Transport from tearing up the roads in the area.   Plans are made to double track our largest branch line, the Hunua line.  Steel production is slowly ramping up.  We also discover our steel man is completely useless. So little steel is being made that it misses out on pickup, so the train is made smaller and told to wait for a full load.  I can't remember what happened here, it was just a fortuitous screenshot.  Somehow, the bronze horse escaped, and exposed some design flaws in our little grain line. The train in the station was waiting for the train approaching the station to clear because both approaches to the station were in the seme signal sector.   Since the grain train is providing a steady flow of food, we are able to supply the shops and offices in Manukau and Manurewa.  The Manukau station is proving very popular and another tram helps with the demand.   On refit, the Auckland - Hunua train is tweaked to provide a faster passenger train using one of our newest locomotives - the humble 'Jinty' tank engine. Although it isn't very powrful, it's high top speed will improve service on our longest line, but it's also compact enough to fit into the short sectors near Auckland central.  Burgundy Transport is obsessed with Bridges   The new steel setup is more sucessful.  Have I mentioned that Pukekohe is now huge?!  With the success of the food deliveries to Manukau and Manurewa, we can deliver mail between the two as well.   And finally, the ratings in Papatoetoe have risen high enough to allow us to double track most of the rest of the line.   Notable in finance: Trucks have been making a loss, Trains bring in the most cash, and Trams have the best ROI.  And now it's time for the News!       Evelyn Eggburt has been busy.      Burgundy Transport beats us to flight!             New Plane!            Unfortunately the accounting department has bad news.     Burgundy Transport is kicking our arse  At least what we carry has diversified a great deal in the last few years.
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Dec 19, 2015 03:31
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Jaguars! posted:
Working as planned That grain run is perfect, too.
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Dec 19, 2015 03:40
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I thought the AI was dumb as bricks and struggled to turn a profit?
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Dec 19, 2015 03:40
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It has a hard time when it isn't allowed to build trains or buses. The first air route it build, between Patumahoe and Onehunga, only lasted a couple of years. I must admit, it's done a lot better than I anticipated.
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Dec 19, 2015 04:04
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 Sources: Wikipedia, G-Man Fowler 3F "Jinty" Company: London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), and later British Railways (BR) Designer: Henry Fowler Wheel Arrangement: 0-6-0T First produced: 1924 (but based on earlier Midland designs, also known as Jinties sometimes) Total built: 422 Total preserved: 10 A simple, proven design for all of the LMS's unglamorous jobs - shunting, piloting, banking, local freight and passenger work, the Jinty was straightforward, easy to maintain and well-liked by crews. It was initially considered for use as Britain's standard shunting engine for World War 2, and eight of them would eventually find themselves enlisted into the War Department and sent off to France, but that role instead would go to Hunslet's Austerity design. Nevertheless, the Jinties lasted well into BR days, although eventually they were all sent for scrap by 1967. As previously discussed in the thread, the Jinty (also known as the "Chippie" in the scenario editor expansion) is famous in Transport Tycoon circles for being the first and cheapest (and cutest  ) train available in the original Transport Tycoon (Transport Tycoon Deluxe, with its 1950 start date, had the GWR's Collett Pannier Tank/"Kirby Paul Tank" in the same role - the pannier tank also featured in the original TT as well, mind). Using Jinties to deliberately run back and forth over competitors' road routes and explode their cars is an old trick (then again, in original TT, so was bulldozing competitor's roads by building level crossings on them to "claim" full control of the land...).
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Dec 19, 2015 10:15
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You forget the other trick of building a depot on the end of a competitor's station, then telling your Jinty to go and ignore signals. It would travel far enough into the next, occupied, rail to crash into the parked train. both costing the opponent a train, and tanking their transport ratings at that station.
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Dec 19, 2015 10:31
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So is this where we say "gently caress IT" and sabotage Burgundy mercilessly with every dirty trick the game allows us to use?
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Dec 20, 2015 00:43
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PurpleXVI posted:So is this where we say "gently caress IT" and sabotage Burgundy mercilessly with every dirty trick the game allows us to use? I don't think many of the exploits from the previous game still work here... it's virtually impossible to get road vehicles hit by trains (they will never stop or breakdown over tracks) and I don't know if the 'ram your train into competitors station' exploit still works. It's been forever since I actually last played with a competitor that I allowed to build trains. It's also really hard to hem them in, because as you've seen the build poo poo anywhere and everywhere.
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Dec 20, 2015 04:45
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Psychotic Weasel posted:I don't think many of the exploits from the previous game still work here... it's virtually impossible to get road vehicles hit by trains (they will never stop or breakdown over tracks) and I don't know if the 'ram your train into competitors station' exploit still works. It's been forever since I actually last played with a competitor that I allowed to build trains. Don't I know it. My current priority is to connect all freight in the South Auckland Sector, and then look at some air travel, because a couple of people requested it. If I can ever get the SA sector connected properly, then I want to try and fight burgundy in it, including finding some dirty tricks if we can. The steel mill scheme is also ripe for exploitation now that the logistics chain is complete, we should be able to get a constant flow of steel production running with flow-on effects down the chain. Also, I'm away down south in two days, so there won't be any updates for the rest of the year. I have some time off with nothing much planned post new years, so I really want to knock out a couple of decades there so that this thing won't go on forever. P.S. Paul, I love your little summaries, they're very pleasant to read.
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Dec 20, 2015 10:58
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See you next year, where I hope you'll be able to answer this question: why is the AI kicking our asses so very, very bad?
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Dec 22, 2015 00:38
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Glazius posted:See you next year, where I hope you'll be able to answer this question: why is the AI kicking our asses so very, very bad? The Holidays can't come soon enough  Packing right now.As to why the AI is kicking our rear end, there's a few reasons. I specified smart but slow and non-competitive, which is why most of their holdings are on the North Shore and other places that aren't right on top of us. I guess that the Intelligence means that they evaluate the distance*cargo of lots of potential routes and pick ones that are optimal. It's probably better at it than us, since we don't really do the maths. We're also a bit limited by having everything in one system, because adding in an extra train can affect every other train, and having too frequent interchanges results in congestion. This all takes up game time that could be spent building. Lastly, since I'm recording for an LP that means that I have to try and see everything that happens in one take, even if most of it gets cut.(I do have backups, but obviously if I play the update over, the rest is obsolete.)
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Dec 22, 2015 07:32
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Time to kick 'er in the guts again. Hope y'all had a good break. Godammit, there's a Bristol Freighter mod available! Why was I not informed of this?!
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Jan 7, 2016 07:53
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