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Everything is more exciting with the Main Theme! What is a foamer? It's a rail industry term. This is a foamer. Locomotion? Locomotion is a 2004 Sequel to game developer Chris Sawyer's 1990s classic Transport Tycoon series. After his creation of the smash hit Roller Coaster Tycoon series, Sawyer returned to the world of transportation to make a definitive version of his original game. Unfortunately, after the excitement of Rollercoaster Tycoon series, the world overlooked the re-imagining of his original baby. The cartoonish RCT graphics didn't adapt well to the more muted look of Locomotion, and despite many quality of life features, detailed touches and even a few new features, the game was largely passed over. Importantly, looking from today's viewpoint, Atari did not allow the .exe file to be modified, so the fan patches that extended the life of Transport Tycoon out past 20 years never happened.  How do you play? If you've ever played the Transport tycoon series, this is the same, but bigger and better. You build roads and railways, and use trucks, trains, boats and planes to transport goods and passengers from towns and factories around the map. The faster and further you transport things, the more you get paid. Simple! The game has a simple supply and demand where every building produces transportables and accepts others. I'll go over the supply chains once we've sorted out a few things and are ready to start.  Why bother with a forgotten game the critics barely noticed? Remember when all the goons got stoned and played Euro Truck Simulator until borderline malnouishment? I do the same with this game. Despite all the flaws, it remains one of my favourites. I don't know how many times I've reinstalled it, certainly it's been on every computer I've ever owned. The world is immersive, the game is programmed immaculately and runs like a dream on any PC, and there is always a new challenge on the huge maps.  The Transport Tycoon series had crazy mods, are you using any? As I mentioned above, Editing the .exe was confirmed illegal by the publishers, so the game potential was never really extended like it could have been. However, lots of custom vehicles and the like were created by the small modding community that still exists. I'm going to be using a mostly vanilla game with a few custom vehicles to spice things up. For some reason, most modded vehicles come in real-life liveries instead of in-game company colours, so to many mods looks kind of garish.  How will we play? This will be an informal Goon-run campaign. You are welcome at any time to suggest routes, challenges or systems. Vehicles can be named, so suggest names on this spreadsheet. Short RPs are welcome. The only thing I don't want is incredibly detailed  on signals and rail intersections. Let me take care of that part, you guys worry about the big picture! Let's Play! Right. We'll be playing this map:  Link to full scale (enormous) map This is the city of Auckland, New Zealand, (mostly) as it was in 1900. Right now, most settlements are tiny villages which require several days walk to get to the outside world. The exception to this is the Great South Road, a dirt road originally built by the military during the Land Wars of the 1860s to gain access to the Maori strongholds of the Waikato Region. It's now a vital link from Auckland itself (Center of the Map) to several towns to the south. The Great North Road is a later road that runs from Auckland central around the harbour and towards points Northward.  There are opportunities here to use roads, rails, trams and boats, and later aircraft will become available. The scenario goals have been maxed out so we can play a sandbox game out to the year 2000. We can haul passengers, mail, processed food, finished goods, wheat, livestock, grapes, iron ore, coal, wood and paper (No oil on this map). More on how that works in a day or two. Starting credit limit is low and loan interest is high, so the first years might be a struggle. Vehicles are a mixture of UK and US to vaguely resemble what historically operated here plus a few surprises, so if you've played before, don't rely on a particular type of vehicle being there. Now, What I need from you: Do we want a computer opponent? They are stupid and annoying and will treat your carefully sculpted map like a sandpit of toddlers on a birthday party sugar rush. It is totally viable to just play to see how well we can do. That said, a computer will delay us from having everything our own way for a while and occasionally steal the best routes from us. Our company Pick any or all of the following:
Go to it! Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Jun 23, 2016 |
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Oct 23, 2015 23:36
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Strategy/Style Ideas: I'll try, it might be awkward at first as there isn't much road around at the moment, but as the city expands it will get easier. TheMcD posted:I've always found these games to be interesting to look at from a distance, but never really had the time to sit down and play one. I have enough problems building rollercoasters in Sawyer's game about that, a whole transport line and all that guff would probably have my head exploding. It's actualy a really easy game to play. There's no requirement to make a complex network, and it's quite easy to make a profit. I've set the starting conditions to limit our starting cash, but once we have a couple of profitable routes, it won't make a huge amount of difference. Construction and running costs are low so a route with a regular payout will often pay back its costs in a year or two. The game could be made a lot more difficult by simply upping the cost of construction and operation. TheMcD posted:Style idea: Central planning will bring efficiency to this inferior, inefficient transport system! Build a massive central line, branch off a few auxilliary side-main lines, then go from there. No idea if this is actually feasible, but the increased amount accidents will surely bring only the best and brightest railway operators to the top, the ones that screw up were probably plotting the company's downfall anyway. This is actually how the railroad in the area has worked historically. The North Island main trunk runs from North to South in this area with industrial sidings, a central loop serving a few inner city suburbs and two small spur passenger lines. When a 500m of new line was put in a year ago, it was the first new way laid since 1930s. If you didn't live near the line,(Such as the entire north shore of the harbour) you were stuck taking the trams (until they were closed) or the bus. Thanks for the ideas so far, feel free to vote for the ones you like best.  I'll do a rundown of the industries and haulage tomorrow.
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Oct 24, 2015 03:30
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ultrabindu posted:How does this game stack up against OpenTTD? I've never played OpenTTD but I played the versions of TTD (And the original Transport Tycoon) with the fan patches. The graphics are upgraded a great deal, from pixel art style sprites to renders of 3d models. Depots are gone (Actually a really good move) in favour of placing things directly on the track. Lots of the fan patch functionality was incorporated, like multiple engine trains, with no length limit, but signals mechanics remain unchanged. I feel vehicle selection could have been more creative. (Why no service cars, water taxis or Rotodyne?) Poil posted:I remember building tracks to be horrible and wearing out my mouse left click like nobody's business. Especially trying to build two tracks alongside each other like a proper train system. In OpenTT you just click and drag but here you have to manually click each piece? Supeerme posted:poo poo I remember playing the Demo of this. No wonder I couldn't find it in the stores. Let's have a look at how we make some  . You get paid for taking stuff from where it's produced to where it's wanted. Your payment is basically the amount of cargo hauled times the distance carried. This is then modified by a rate based on the cargo type and the time it took to get there.Passengers and Mail: Passengers are produced by all town buildings. Large ones also produce mail. Any station put within 4 squares of a building will receive a small stream of passengers from it that can be picked up by passenger vehicles. However, to deliver them, you need to take them to a place that will accept them. You can see that the big building below only accepts a fractional amount of passengers, so to get a workable station, you need to put it near multiple buildings that add up to more than one 'passenger'. You can also see that the building accepts small amounts of other cargoes so if there's enough buildings around, a station near the center of town will be a good place to deliver mail, food and goods to. Once the station accepts a type of cargo, you can deliver as much of it as you like.  Unfortunately, many of the towns in our region are more like this  : We'll need to wait for them to grow before they are usable passenger options. Passengers pay well if they are carried fast but the pay rate drops off rapidly if they are delayed. Mail has a similar pattern but at a lower rate, so it's usually only a sideline. Farm based: There are a few kinds of Farm. Some produce Livestock that can be taken to a food processing plant. Livestock have a low pay rate with a slow tail off. Livestock is usually carried in a special type of carrier.  Grain farms can deliver to a food processing plant, but can also deliver to a brewery. Grain pays and tails off ever so slightly more than livestock. Grain is carried in hopper trucks, bulk ships or covered hopper rail wagons.  Food plant:  Brewery:  When the produce arrives at the processors or breweries, they produce food that can be taken to towns that have enough food receiving buildings. Vineyards produce grapes that go to Wineries to produce food. Grapes pay a little less than mail and tail off to nothing very rapidly.They are carried in general goods vehicles or boxcars.  Winery:  All farms tend to produce relatively small amounts of goods, and tend to close down if the fields around them are eaten up by developments Mining based: Coal mines produce coal that is carried in hoppers. They tend to cluster in a few areas of the map. Coal pays fairly well for a non-perishable good. Well serviced coal mines will often increase production.  Iron mines are like coal, but pay a significantly lower rate.  Both iron and coal get transported to a steel mill. (Coal can also go to power stations that produce nothing, but there are none on our map) If a steel-mill gets regular supplies of coal and iron, it will produce steel, which is carried on flatbeds and pays very well.  Steel is transported to factories, which then produce goods that are accepted by office buildings and shops. Goods are carried in general cargo vehicles and boxcars and pay more than coal but less than steel.  Plantation forest ('Managed forest' in-game) supplies lumber in similar quantities to the farms. Lumber pays about the same as coal.  Lumber can be taken directly to a sawmill to produce goods:  Or to a paper mill to produce paper, which pays less than goods but more than coal. Paper is carried on flatbeds to the printing works to produce goods. Paper mill:  Printing works:  Other Oil is a common commodity that isn't on this map. It pays well, is produced in large amounts and is carried in tanker cars from oil wells (land and sea) to oil refineries:  Chemicals are also missing from this map (You can only have so many industries in a scenario). They pay lousy but in bulk, and ship in tankers directly to factories. Flour mills work with the same cargoes as breweries, and Ski fields that accept and produce passengers are also available.  Finally, here's a reference to the payment rates. They stay the same relative to each other, but the prices go up over time due to inflation. 
Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 02:07
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Zyrden posted:... This is a very common sight with many AIs! it also shows how cheap bridges are. I wonder if making bridges cost more would make the AI hug the ground better, but on the other hand the computer doesn't terraform very well. You can also see some progression from the older games here: you can see small and large radius curves and a chicane near the green station. Glazius posted:... TBH, in a decade or two we'll be as rich as Croesus (Which suits the robber baron vibes I've seen in the submissions so far) so most challenge will be engineering related. Anyone's welcome to suggest one at any time. Pierzak posted:I have only one request/challenge: Can definitely do! Goodbye pristine native bush!  ArchWizard posted:Is it possible to make AI opponents start significantly later in the game than us? It would be neat to see how the computer acts and I'd like you to show off ways to clown on other players, but we should give ourselves a head start. Yes, you can delay them by up to about 5 years, IIRC. I think trains just pass through trucks stuck on the crossings now. There used to be an exploit where you could build a tile of rail connecting to your opponent's station, build a train engine and start it for a second, making it overlap the opponents rails and blow up any train arriving in the station. I think that one may still exist. E: This is the same exploit Poil mentioned above. oystertoadfish posted:do you run ferries in this game? i took the ferry to devonport once, really pretty area with easy hills to hike over it for great views. maybe you can turn it into a hellhole of suburban sprawl and industry? Yes! The earliest type is in one of the pictures in the OP. I think it comes about 15 years after the start. At the moment, we're stuck with the clipper for sea transport, which can only carry 30 passengers. Devonport is a fun area to visit! When I was a kid, I loved to climb North Head and see the disappearing guns. Next up, I'll get the info for the vehicles we have available, and then we'll have a better look at the map so that you can decide what to build. Hopefully I'll be able to play the first few years later in the week and write the update next weekend. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 21:08
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thedaian posted:I wanted to love this game so much, since it had some really nice improvements on Transport Tycoon, and even now, OpenTTD is missing a lot of said improvements (mostly in terms of building on multiple layers instead of flat ground, or straight tunnels and bridges). And the trains looked really nice and long. I never minded too much, possibly because I like to build rails that follow the contour of the terrain closely and therefore curve frequently. But I seem to be the exception, apparently  And it would have been such an easy fix, too.Pierzak posted:BTW, by developing I meant stimulate the towns' growth through regular transport services and possibly invest in industrial complexes (I forgot if you can buy those in Locomotion?), not just "build a bunch of poo poo and call it a day" No worries mate, Ya didn't think I was gonna clearcut the lot, did yer? There's a couple of areas of forest that I'm thinking of a soft ban on development. If you know the real life area, Little Barrier Island (Island with entirely forest) and the Waitakere and Hunua Ranges (The two largest forests) will be off limits to excess developement - Only routes to towns/industries in those locations, perhaps. tomanton posted:This brings back fond memories of griefing OpenTTD, which to the best of my recollection had no AI. One AI would be cool just to see what happens. That payment graph also seemed to suggest that some types of cargo are worthless if they take too long in transit, is that a common hazard? Yes, all types of cargo eventually pay nothing if they've been delayed too long in transit. This normally only happens when the network jams or the train pathfinding can't find it. Train pathfinding sucks and last time I played it I realised that will always take the branch closer to the destination, even if that branch doesn't lead anywhere near it. Think of a car staying on the motorway instead of using the offramp and crossing the motorway on a bridge. The AI has improved over the old transport tycoon versions. It doesn't have the same tendency to have a design board aneurysm every kilometer or two like the old ones:  (From the gallery of AI quirks at The wholly-holy Church of Transport Tycoon) Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 10:06
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Poil posted:One of my favorite stupid things the AI did in TT was if they decided to go with airplanes and built the airports at realistic distances from the cities. Meaning they never accepted mail and only produced the tiniest trickle of passengers. The planes were of course set to full load so after half a year or more they usually had filled all the passenger spots but mail remained at 0. The AI just took more and more loans to expand their non-profit airline until they went bankrupt. Veloxyll posted:I think a limited terraforming rule might keep you on your toes. That's tough alright, but I'm willing to take it on. The only exception might be some tunnel portals, although I most of the time I should be able to cut/fill without any problems. Veloxyll posted:... Lomo has waypoints, you can just click on the screen while you're setting the vehicle orders to create one. My usual style is to create an up and down line that are next to or quite close to each other. Usually it's just the two lines, even on quite busy networks. I quite often make stations unidirectional loops as well. I try and keep the footprints of my routes light. Pierzak posted:gently caress you Jaguars, I reinstalled Loco and lost an hour just because I wanted to check something I just checked and yep, exactly as per Veloxyll's post. Vehicles I'm going to set one opponent with high intelligence, low aggresiveness and competitiveness, with a start delay of 5 years. Financially, we're going to start with a loan of $10,000 and a credit limit of $30,000, with 10% interest p/a. This should be enough to just build a single line railway from one side of the map to the other if we avoid excessive engineering. Here are the vehicles that will be available at the start. There are three predefined vehicle sets available - US, UK and Central Europe. I'm using a customised mixture of each designed to represent what actually operated in NZ but also keeping some of the more outlandish items that never made it down here. Road: Unpaved road currently costs $22 a square, the maximum speed is 48km/h. Paved road is $44/square, not speed limit AFAIK. We can also build one-way roads for $44/sq if we want to get into dual carriageways. Not much choice. For passengers, we only have one type of bus, whose main alternative is a tram car. WMC Bus:  The WMC is about as good as you'd expect a 1900 vehicle to be. One big advantage of the bus is that we can use existing roads to save on construction. It's quite a good bus for doing the rounds of small towns a bit too far apart for trams. Various Trucks:      Current trucks aren't very capable and we'll need dozens to hande the output of a single industry. That's not to say that they can't turn a profit, they'll do just fine for short and medium haul jobs. Rail: We're still in the railway age, so the serious money at the moment lies in rail. Tram tracks cost $32/sq, whether over existing roads or new ground. Rail costs $22/sq. Ce 2/2 Tram:  This tram is more efficient than the WMC bus, but slower. They'll be able to handle the traffic generated in our largest towns early on. Special 2-4-2  A good workhorse engine for the early years. Reliable and with a good mix of top speed and power. US 2-6-2  Our first mod vehicle, so it will always look like this, no matter what the company colours. (I'm thinking of going with filthy coal black steam engines anyway) Ever so slightly more powerful than the Special. SLM C3/3  A European model thats lighter but less powerful than the others. I held my own little version of Stephenson's locomotive race and it accelerates significantly faster than the others with two light cars but struggles to start with five heavy coaches. Rail Wagons:         Not much to say here, they'll haul the various types of cargo. Our only choices are in the passenger department, where we have large US style car, or smaller UK style cars that can also carry a little bit of mail. Rail is the best method of long distance passenger transport. [edit:] Can you tell that these are the first GIFs I made? The price of the mail car is $256. Ships: Clipper  The clipper can carry 30 passengers, or refit to hold 12 units of mail, food, goods or grapes. We can't carry the other raw materials by sea yet! Air: The sky is only good for falling out of hot-air ballons just at the moment. I did the final tweaks to the scenario tonight, but I'm still open to company suggestions and vehicle names for the next day or two. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 10:46
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The clipper is definitely an anachronism. Based on my cursory research, it seems like typical ships launched in the 1890s looked like early 20th century steamers, but usually still had masts, some were still being built fully rigged. Some passenger ships were being built for pure steam, and looked like little  ocean liners. There were still a lot of sail barges well into the 20th century, and lots of ships left over from earlier in the 1800s that all seem to look the same with flat lines, sails and a funnel.Early trucks are best at short hauls over very easy terrain between industries that produce a steady flow of goods. Except mail trucks. I don't think I've ever made a profit with an early mail truck. Anything done by a 1900s truck can be done better by a train. The small carriages are useful at the moment because our engines have no power and a light engine/carriage combo will handle hills better. E: xelada, the fractional passenger numbers are only used when determining if a station accepts passengers or not. So if there is a 'œ passengers' office building and two 'Œ passengers' houses within 4 squares of a station, then the station will accept passengers and you can deliver as many there as you want. All buildings also produce a small amount of passengers for pickup. Sorry about that, even when I wrote that I couldn't find a way to explain it clearly. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Oct 28, 2015 |
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Oct 28, 2015 06:42
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Alright, the last thing to go through before we start is a proper rundown of the map so we can plan some projects. The map roughly represents the Auckland city limits and is about 90km x90km in real life. Here's the in-game terrain map.  Luckily, I have a map from before I put the trees on which shows the hills better:  Here's the industry map. Note that there is no difference between the two types of wheat farm - it was an oversight on my part where I selected both the UK and US styles during scenario creation.  One reason why I chose a real life area is because we can grab a real map when necessary. If you find the in game map a little crowded, here's an industry by industry breakdown. First up, here are the towns that are big enough for a station that accepts passengers.  Only two towns - Auckland CBD and Pukekohe - will accept mail and food at the moment. Auckland CBD is the only town on the map that accepts goods. Here's wood and paper. The arrow represents large paper mills in the central North Island. In game, it's just a paper mill on the edge of the map, nothing special about it.  Iron, Coal and Steel.  There are a lot of places that will accept wheat, livestock and grapes. I haven't shown the farms themselves because there are so many of them. Most of the wheat farms are on flat land to the South, vinyards are to the Northwest, and the livestock farms are all over.  Link to full scale (enormous) map Hopefully that makes it a bit easier to plan some routes. Where shall we focus on? Here's the challenges received so far:
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Oct 29, 2015 10:52
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Now it's getting interesting! What shall we haul where? Give me some starting routes to try. Also vehicle names, I'm gonna need a lot of them, and I can't think up funny names for all of them! I had a look at my source data and the map is 90x75km, so it's a little squashed in the North/South direction. Each tile represents an area 234.375m x 195.312m. There are 384x384 tiles on a Locomotion map.
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Oct 29, 2015 20:35
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Late breaking addenda: Ack! We need a HQ location! Waiuku and Henderson now accept passengers! Some more IRL area names and a couple of park areas off limits to development:  IRL railways:  Poil posted:... (OK OK I'll just do it.)Jobbo_Fett posted:... 30 Characters. I'll play tonight and write up tomorrow, if I haven't fouled up anything in the scenario setup. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 06:54
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Oh god, It's 1903, I have three trains and The one with the racist name KEEPS GOING THE WONG WAY
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Oct 30, 2015 08:21
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diarmuidqq posted:Dude Chowick is a great neighbourhood, and even the victims of the name call it that  I know, We're hardly the only guys who know a couple of Asians from Howick, and I'm not remotely offended.Anyway, right now, that train is in danger of being renamed "The little bastard". Although it is somewhat my fault for trying a very cheap network design. Anyway, I've played through to 1905 now. There's a lot to sort through, so the update definitely ain't coming tonight. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 08:58
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It's a nickname for the town of Howick, because lots of Chinese people live there (These days it's more correctly Asian people in general). As diarmuidqq pointed out, its perhaps most often used by ...Asians from Howick.
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Oct 30, 2015 21:06
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xelada posted:If you are still taking challenges I'd like to submit one: Glazius posted:Start off our rail network by building some passenger tram lines to Pukehohe, up Papakura way. HQ in Pukehohe for preference. Yep, you can nominate routes at any time and I'll try and build them. HQ is now in Pukekohe! I had a big reply typed out to your other questions but I accidentally hit the back button and lost it to the interweb. I think I'll revisit it after I do the first update. Speaking of which, the Rugby world cup happened  Condolences to our Australian friends It's now 10.30 and I've got work in the morning and I've only extracted the screenshots up to 1903, so I'm thinking more, smaller updates is probably the way to go.
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Nov 1, 2015 11:10
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Should be here, If I've got the hang of dropbox properly: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cq7tucmx009gwtt/Locomotion%20LP%20Challenge.SC5?dl=0
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Nov 1, 2015 11:14
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Yes! I just started doing it one day and the idea grew from there.
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Nov 1, 2015 11:23
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1900 - 1903: On time in the age of Ragtime Locomotion Soundtrack - Eugenia   It's January 1st, 1900 in this peaceful backwater of the Empire. Hot issues of the day include the contribution to the Boer war and nursing massive hangovers. Poil posted:Company name: McDuck Enterprises   But noted local financier Scrooge McDuck has been busy. The runaway winner with 3 votes.  Backed by a shodowy cabal of financiers, Mcduck sets his sights on the forestry operation outside Otaua, near the mouth of the Waikato river.  The first rails go down.           Meanwhile, clearly a great many people have decided to make good on their New century's resolutions, creating a building boom in towns close to the center of the region.   Work proceeds into the swampy flats near the river.   Rails approach the destination near Pokeno. The rolling hills make things a little awkward. Scrooge saves some money by using earth fill instead of bridgeworks.   The line is finished, but a new locomotive is beyond Scrooge's means. He goes cap in hand to the bank.  The manifest is filled out...     Done! The new engine has a tough time with 100 tons of logs aboard, skidding and struggling to build speed, but it works!       Speeds the like of which have never been seen in this land! The sawmillers brace for a busy week, but there'll be no shortage of work now. McDuck shows us why people from the 1800s didn't smile in photographs.    The wisdom of opening a wheat farm in a subtropical rainforest is debatable. The other new farm, to the north, has less problems. The new iron mine at Riverhead is operational.  While the forest at Paparimu has been clearcut and not replanted. Carting the wood out of the hills and into town just wasn't viable.  With empty wagons on the return run, The land speed record is broken again!  McDuck celebrates by having some new business cards printed. Your title is actually based on your company rating. We just hit 10%  But there's no rest for the wicked. There's more wood than one train can handle here, and Scrooge sets his sights Northward.  Come to think of it, The lads on the line won't be able to just keep calling it 'The engine' when there's more than one around, can they?  Lumber from the forest makes for a cheap and convenient building material!  Things start getting more crowded as the line approaches the great south road.  But there's a convenient gap between the two sides of Papakura town. Funny that.  The line snakes around a bit to avoid a bridge over a nearby estuary.    Occasional extensions of credit are necessary.  A forest on the other side of the river from us goes under. Scrooge hopes the rest can hold out until he can get there!   Another constriction. This one's gonna be a toughy. A house near the factory is acquired and demolished to make room.  This monstrosity of engineering is the answer.  Itineraries have to be updated carefully to ensure that the trains head to the right places. There's a trap for the newcomer here. We also have to make sure the Paper mill train doesn't fill up with rolls of paper and carry them around uselessly.  Another touchstone of railways everywhere - junk rails laying around just in case they might be useful later...  Another expensive locomotive.  But soon it's all go.   It's been a good couple of years. Time to see what our customers think of us.  "Eh, it's better than the horse and cart."  But the mill is annoyed that they have to cart their goods into Auckland.   McDuck soon discovers a disadvantage of all those wooden bridges!  But he's not even waiting for the new train to arrive before starting some more work.       The latest line is almost finished. It goes from Auckland to Howick, sharing part of the line in the middle with the Henderson line.    Land in Auckland is Expensive, and sweeping high speed curves are out of the question. A second household falls victim to McDuck's ambitions.   Sharing more lines means more complex orders.       The passengers on the train to Howick likely won't understand the name for oooh, 70 years? Scrooge is ahead of his time, I guess. The passenger train is a success!  We improve signalling technique by removing signals from the shared bit of line. This way, no train can move into the intersection and block ones moving on the shared bit. There's no fancy distance signals in Lomo. Trains simply cannot enter any sector where another train is. That's all they do. You can also get one-way signals that force a train to turn round if they approach it from the wrong direction.   Everything's looking pretty rosy. But wait, Whats this?  You shouldn't be going this way... Houses demolished: 3 Next time, the sailing gets just a teensy bit less smooth in Locomotion! No business status or tasks for us today, as I already have a backlog of 1904/1905 to clear! As always, you can suggest routes, vehicle names and strategies, but they won't be incorporated until after the next update. P.S. Should I timg the full size screenshots? Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 21:16 on May 3, 2016 |
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Nov 2, 2015 12:13
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It's not entirely unrealistic. Most railways will take the long way round to avoid steep grades. For example, If you look at the real life lines: The rails don't go directly south after leaving Papakura, because they would have to climb 100m and then go do a steep slope on the other side. Instead, they go round the edge of the ridgeline. It's the same leaving from the north, where the rails follow the valleys. This is important at the moment, because our log trains will slow to a crawl at any point where they're occupying two inclines or a an incline with sharp curve nearby. There are trams. We diversify a bit in the next one, but we still haven't made it out to the islands yet. I was surprised at how quickly the game time went, it took all 3 years to do three lines! I think the smallest backwater was Clark's beach, Kaiaua or Miranda. I'll have to check. I know that at game start, it only had 13 residents.
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Nov 2, 2015 21:05
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Bonus mosaic of the Bronze Horse line shortly after operations began: Challenges received:
Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Nov 3, 2015 |
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Nov 3, 2015 06:25
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Yes, afraid so. I think that's a sacrifice to the playability of the game, because it wouldn't be much fun if the optimal choice was a 10 square long railroad. It's logical that a company transporting over long distances will charge more, but the game diverges from real life because the industries must accept unlimited quantities of goods, instead of picking the cheapest ones. The competitive advantage a short line has in game is that the short line will see more frequent trains, which means a better station rating, which in turn means that the industry will allocate more cargo to your station.
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Nov 3, 2015 06:39
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Locomotion Soundtrack - Chrysanthenum Locomotion has an option to play only contemporary tracks, hence you're getting a lot of ragtime at the moment. 1903-1905: Things come unstuck  When we left McDuck Enterprises last time, Passenger train The Chowick Express had slipped the confines of it's itinerary and was heading south.  Train control immediately stops the train and it is brought back to the Howick subdivision. Stopped vehicles can be lifted from the line and dropped elsewhere. Doing this removes all cargo, so you don't want to do it on normal operations.  For some reason, Spotted Train opts to head for the Auckland station. No big deal, but on it's way out again, it decides to go back to the line it just came from.    The Express is restarted, and immediately heads towards the southern sector again!   The Trunk-Howick junction is modified. Now trains from Howick must choose to go directly left or right, instead of veer right/straight ahead.   This time, Spotted Train is able to negotiate the junctions correctly.  Another Industry shuts down.    We try again with Chowick Express. It successfully negotiates the junctions.  This is good. We'll be able to set up a station to collect coal from both of them and never be short of something to haul.   This bloody machine has no sense of direction!   So this junction, we adjust to make more rectilinear.  The lines are open!   Despite all this, the Bronze Horse has been steadily delivering payload to the mill at Pokeno, and Mcduck can begin to pay off his debts.     With things back to normal, McDuck Enterprises goes in search of new revenue. I have no idea what this name references, but I have no doubt that within a year or two the locals will be calling it the 'Transit Tram' In the first shot, you can see a blue overlay showing the proposed station's catchment area. Unfortunately the passenger stop signs are very hard to see. In the game, they are much easier to see.   Unfortunately, the new normal is all fouled up. the situation is dire!  This time, we simply rip a movement out of the junction!   Thankfully, Bronze Horse not only pulls us through, but is growing the company      It seems the parsimonious McDuck has built a railway that works fine if the trains don't interact with each other and all the signals are operated manually.   Bronze Horse Again!  Our tram is contributing as well. Here you can see why trams are a great starter vehicle.  As 1904 arrives, the ghost of christmasses present help Scrooge review what people think of him.  Bah! We only bowled one cottage! We're sure the evicted family is happy nobly toiling in the workhouse.      Most other places have better opinions of us. Wait - Top marks for mail!? A house near the Pokeno sawmill must have just posted the station's first ever piece of mail, ratings start at 100% and drop over time if the cargo isn't delivered.  The jams are beginning to have an effect.    Scrooge takes his mind off his train problems by picking up a cheap boat from a man in a pub. A ferry service crossing the Waitemata harbour is set up between Auckland and Devonport. The Auckland dock is cunningly set up to connect to the Auckland rail station. On the second try    Unfortunately the nameplate is to short for the new bote's grandiose name.   Revenue is coming in steadily.   The harbour ferry is operational   Meanwhile...    Ah yes, still normal.  The Chowick Express has taken an unscheduled day excursion to the Port Waikato Station. Commuters remained calm and polite, but on some newspapers knuckles could be seen turning white and a single case of a ripped paper was reported.   Of course, with the lower line occupied, the flatbeds returning from Henderson paper mill are forced into the very line that the express was supposed to be heading for, blocking it.   The new ferry is helping keep our heads above water.  And the tram has been a success.  But as the year 1904 draws to a close, drastic action is planned on the shared sector of the Auckland line.  Everywhere has grown a lot in five years. Virtually every town is big enough to support a passenger line now.  Scrooge celebrates harder than ever this Hogmanay. The next day he moves out of his mother's parlour and strikes the earth in a newly purchased allotment near the bustling town of Pukekohe.  We're up to date! I have all challenges and routes listed so far saved. The railway causing the problem is already going to get a big rework next time, so I don't need suggestions to fix that. You can still suggest new destinations coming off that line and they will be incorporated. Other than that, business as usual! Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 11:26
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January, 1905: Five years in review        Inflation has driven prices up. Rates do not change relative to each other.       Next time I'll arrange this in population order  Only one industry on this list above 0%  Our network  Updated industries map. Prices have inflated a bit. Special 2-4-2: $2,686 US 2-6-2: $2,726 SLM 3/3: $2,686 Wagons: $250 - $334 Carriages: $502sml/$586lge WMC Bus: $1,048 Trucks: $1,048 Ce2/2 Tram: $880 Clipper: $1,090 Rails: $28 Road (Unpaved/Paved): $28/$56 Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 11:41
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The Casualty posted:I see they never really did fix train pathfinding between Tycoon and this game. At least in OTTD they modded in nice features like better signals, and waypoints to help prevent trains from getting so lost. Galaga Galaxian posted:So creating a dual-track layout will fix some of that pathfinding, right? Pierzak posted:Yes, and be a wonderful opportunity to gently caress up in many new places. Yes, things should get better with some dual tracking. Things will start geting claustrophobic in the isthmus though. As you may have noticed, I like to avoid knocking down houses, but I think there might be some "For the greater good" going on soon. There are waypoints, you can see the 'Go to 3' lines on the orders manifest in a few places in the first update. The problem is sometimes the trains choose to go up a different line for reasons unknown. And if the trains get out of sync, (if the train passes the waypoint, gets lost and then comes back the same way, for example.) then all bets are off. Cooked Auto posted:If you are curious about the name that's Swedish and it pretty much just means "Silly stuff": Neat! I thought it was just the name of a tram system in Europe or something. Goons, your first choice for a stealth pun
Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Nov 4, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 20:19
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quote:Pathfinding Veloxyll's model describes my railroad to a T, although I've never thought of the one-way holding chute idea. There is a total of eight signals throughout all three lines at the moment. I made a simple railroad to avoid an early update being about network minutae, but I ended up doing the second post on a two year long traffic jam I have a feeling that by the end of the game, I'll know a lot more about the maths of transport tycoon. Much good may it do me. I'll keep an eye out to try and formulate some rules for how it operates as we go. MooCowlian posted:Could you put spaces where you've got one screenshot directly after another? Having them rammed up to each other just makes it slightly harder to read. The person responsible for calling the station that is NZ's lifeline to the Pacific "Auckland Lakeside" has been sacked. What should we call the central Auckland station? Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 00:10
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Now that I'm not concentrating on getting the first updates out, I'd like to answer a couple of questions that I wasn't able to at the time.xelada posted:... As you've now seen, I went with the small ones for the starting passenger train. Part of this is because I fly by the seat of my pants rather than by calculation. The main advantage here is that I don't have to tack on an extra 15t mail car which would never be full. In the early part of the game, the hard part is not transporting enough passengers, it's finding places which supply enough passengers to be worthwhile. To be honest, I didn't realise that it would be so marginal to take two small ones over a big one, but I think that now we almost have a mail service operating, I'm going to stick with it. If we do more lines to small towns, especially if they go up hills, I'll buy small because for the same running cost and with excess capacity, the train will be lighter and therefore faster. Top speed doesn't matter right now because we don't have anything faster than 72km/h. However, it won't be long before the towns have grown enough that the big ones will be a no brainer. Passengers are definitely better than Mail. Passengers are one of the best cargoes to carry, mail is usually a source of poor ratings and a pain in the arse to find a place to deliver to. Mail is usually a sideline at best. The small carriage is the standard one for the UK tileset, while the large one is for the US one, so they aren't usually directly compared. One problem with your calculations is we don't know how much passengers weigh, so I investigated, and the results were... ...odd. The small carriage weighs 16t empty, and total full weight (20 passengers+2 sacks of mail) is 17t. The large one (48 passengers) weighs 34t fully laden. Both seem to get one person free, and then weight goes up 1t every 10 passengers. Mail weighs 1t per 16 bags. xelada posted:... Glazius posted:Start off our rail network by building some passenger tram lines to Pukehohe, up Papakura way. HQ in Pukehohe for preference. You are somewhat forced to do this by the game. At the start most of the towns were only good to produce a dribble of passengers and about 5 mail per year, and were not large enough to be a destination for passengers. Everywhere has grown somewhat, but only Auckland and Mt Eden are large enough to consistently accept goods at the moment. Some other towns such as Remuera, Pukekohe and Mt Roskill have just enough office buildings to start accepting goods, but the towns naturally fluctuate and may stop accepting goods at any time. Another problem with goods hauling is that you need to get a station into the center of a developed city, so you may have to bust some houses. As above, we need to produce goods/food as well. Right now the sawmill at Pokeno gets a delivery of lumber about once a month, which means that a train waiting for goods will probably only run about every month and a half, because not all of an industries production is given to you (What you get given depends on you and your competitors' rating). President Ark posted:This has very little to do with the LP at hand, but: Was this the railroad/business/transport tycoon type game where one of the scenarios was set in the near future and required you to transport a bunch of concrete to a geothermal power plant that blew up because it was spewing greenhouse gases and which had gradually-rising water levels as it went on? Because I played that from some gaming magazine demo disc years ago and seeing this thread suddenly reminded me of it and now it's driving me nuts. This sounds incredible. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 11:31
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Hop in the scenario editor and set one up. There's an option at the landscape generation phase to always set up randomly, or you can generate a one off. If you want to set it up quickly, any of the generic vehicle sets work fine.
Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 6, 2015 21:35
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OK, here's how you get the scenario. Let me know if there are still files missing. 1. Get the items in https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z7v9mymjatvb2f0/AADGNxwmDT3H2j-k86jVcQJla?dl=0 The scenario file goes in Locomotion/scenarios. The DAT files go in the Objdata folder. I't's good practice to back up your objdata folder before fiddling round with mods. 2. Get this North American Mega-pack(136mB) which will install about a million billion SD-70 variants. Follow the install instructions, for my scenario, you should only need the cargo vehicles pack. The mod vehicles don't show up in the vanilla scenarios, if you want to use them, you go into the scenario editor and enable them. You should be able to load up mine and play straight away If I've included all the right mods. I also ask that you please don't talk in the thread about vehicles that will come up later in the scenario. About 3/4 of the way thruough the 3rd update at the moment.
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Nov 7, 2015 22:16
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I'd never heard of Train fever before. Given no one else has successfully done a TTD like in 3D before, I'm not surprised that there are severe quirks. I might investigate further, because if it's had good post release support and the price is right, I'd give it a go. I have to smile, I searched it and one of the first trains I see is one of Kiwirail's brand new locomotives. I wonder if that's mod content. Interesting the way it was funded - It was crowdsourced on a different site from kickstarter and the backers all got a cut of the sales for 5 years! Paul.Power posted:...  Have I mentioned yet how pathetically grateful I am that people actually replied to my first SA OP? I was so worried that after all the effort in the lead-up, it was going to just disappear into the ether. Thanks for replying, everyone  I did up until the end of 1908 last night, all screenshotted and written up, and I've run out of specific routes. (I haven't addressed all of the broader goals yet). We have lots of truck names on the board, so time for a trucking line, I think. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Nov 8, 2015 |
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Nov 8, 2015 21:31
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Running costs really are quite cheap in this game. Port Waikato Forest to Pokeno was a good choice of first line, going across flat land, and in a sweet spot for distance where one train can do it's run and by the time it gets back, there's about 100t of logs waiting for it. Bronze Horse has been the powerhouse so far, delivering 100t of logs every 2 months without fail. You can see here that the two log trains we had running regularly in 1901 paid for the construction of the Henderson papermill line and running costs of the trains barely figure. Then the great jam in 1903 puts a big dent in our Income, and Bronze Horse keeps us afloat by itself for a while. Single track halves the cost to get a line running, but as you've seen, you can't really share a decent length of line. You can then double track while your trains are running, and avoid borrowing money. Single track with frequent passing bays is viable, and the computer sometimes uses it. Ours is taking some of that character at the moment because I'm prioritising hooking up destinations over network efficiency. One thing I have checked the mathematics of in the past is the cost of engineering. There are a couple of screenshots in the first update showing the price of a medium radius curve. If any part of it is elevated, then it costs $470. If it's all on the ground, then it only costs $86. Therefore it's usually worth terraforming to save cost. This goes even for a straight railway, it's cheaper to build a 1 level high embankment than a 1 level high brick viaduct. For tunnels vs cuttings, I think the tunnels become cost effective at about 4 levels deep.
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Nov 9, 2015 01:34
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1905-1910: McDUCK III: First Blood Locomotion Soundtrack - Easy Winners The final 'Starting Era' song. Click here to name a vehicle!   The first order of business after the holidays is the shared trunk of the mainline. Double-tracking work begins immediately.   New junctions are fitted.   Meanwhile, rumors fly about a competing transport company, but nothing concrete is spotted.  The double tracks have a designated up and down line.  Construction completed!  Construction is then followed by a six months of checking the services and reworking train orders. You can see waypoints in the screen with the train orders. The Chowick express carries it's first paying passemgers since goodness knows when. Ratings at Howick were so bad it was empty most of the time. For some reason, it was completely failing to register waypoints and stops that it passed, shich is a bug I've never seen before. A complete redo of it's orders fixes things.  The line upgrade is a success and as soon as it's finished, all misrouting problems stop.   Another farm in the worst terrain on the map! The lives of these lunatics will one day be immortalized in the film The Piano.    Trams are installed on the prosperous farming supply town of Pukekohe.   Off they go. I couldn't do the accent on tramptåg with an alt code or copy and paste. I don't know if there's any other input methods that the game will allow.  Plenty of people want to emulate McDuck's success, but still no competitors have turned sod.    With things running smoothly, the maritime department eyes up the islands of the Hauraki gulf. A service is inaugurated between Devonport and the town of Oneroa, on Waiheke island.   After a couple of tries, an offering to the deep ones gets a correctly spelled name.  Boats need a highly controlled course to avoid cruising along every indent in the coastline. The also don't sail in diagonals! Frustrating.  To avoid boats going back and forth without passengers aboard, they are ordered to wait for a full load at Oneroa. This does mean that the passengers are delivered slowly, and boats may queue up at the docks.   Now here's a feature that I absolutely love! If you have multiple vehicles on one route, you can click on the line at the end of the route manifest to copy it over to your current vehicle. I believe this was new in Locomotion.  After dinner every night, McDuck goes out to his shed and wades around, ankle deep in ha'pennys. If he wants to swim, he still has to go to one of the region's many fine beaches or rivers.   While the sailors sort out the workings of the boat line, Scrooge turns his attentions to the town of Hunua. Nestled in a valley towards the East side of the map, It was the smallest town at game start, although it has grown considerably in the six years since. The current smallest town is Clark's Beach, with a population of 89.  Scrooge will double track the line further South,  start a branch somewhere between Manukau and Papakura to use the valley floor out near Ardmore,  and follow the stream gullies up into the valley between the Drury Hills and the Hunua Ranges.    Work begins with only the occasional speedbump.    But this has never happened before!  Seems that the Papatoetoe town councillors don't think much of our services.  We are forced into a constriction.   News arrives that the Island line is working well.  At least the next town along the way is OK with us.   It proves impossible to double track through Manukau city without demolishing houses, filling in the harbour, small radius curves or excessive flattening of the ridges, so it is left as single track. At least the track is straightened out.  The Hunua line will branch off here.  Progress along the valley floor at Ardmore is quick.    And McDuck is able to negotiate the rise up into the Hunua valley with ease.  At the other end, provision must be made for Auckland station to take multiple trains at once. It's immediately apparent that further work will be necessary.  Meawhile, at the other end of the line.  The single track near Manukau works, but it can result in long waits if there's traffic.   The Hunua Line train.  With the line running, it's time to improve the newly named Auckland station. Apologies, no old swedish style øs are available at this time.   Another one of those curious anomalies, in real life there is a tunnel in pretty much the exact same place.  Just a fluctuation as an old office building is replaced, but get used to seeing this type of notice, there'll be more of them as we get more stations.  Next target is a wheat farm conveniently close to the Tuakau Food Processing Plant. The South is becoming a bastion of our operations.    A mighty road network using the latest in roading technology is constructed.   Ready to go.         Oh, what a lovely day. Chrome shines outside the goods depot at Tuakau.  The Copy orders command is a godsend here.  "Righto, Trev, Kick 'er in the Guts!"   Tryhard Deliveries tries harder!   Instantly there is a backlog.     Straight away we have to expand the stations, the trucks are queuing up. The loading station is expanded without incident, except that one of our trucks nicely demonstrates it's manoeuvreability.  But when it comes to the other end, the road crews get lazy with their warning signs...     The union is not going to be pleased. Those involved in the clashes between the McDuck and the Union in the next few months will forever know this bit of highway as 'The Fury Road'.    Normal service resumes.  It's piling up on us!  This is 1909 and we refuse to countenance such blue language, sir.     Reinforcements are called in!   "You've increased our transport capacity one hundred-fold, but we wanted two hundred-fold."   Service is occasionally interupted. Sometimes when the drivers get tired of waiting, they go hunting for a way around, but are forced to turn around when they hit a corner.    McDuck's is sucking up every trained driver in the region.  And are starting to flood the road.  So Scrooge raises the capacity of the problem station.  It's 1910! Time for a smoko break. Damnit! I really didn't want to demonstrate that mechanic until later. So far the only time I had to stop a vehicle during works was when I changed the layout of Auckland central, but obviously I'm going to have to be a lot more careful. Strange coincidence, I was doing that last bit about the time that Galaga crashed his trains. I'm not sure what causes an opponent to make a start. They often lie idle for a while. I did a test load where I put it on fast forward and they started about 1907, so maybe they only start after when the player isn't actively building or something. I was also hoping rename the competitor after one of our other transport companies and name some of the new industries for the others, but you can't do that! Apparently I've spent too long in the scenario editor. Speaking of which, has anyone managed a successful download of the LP scenario yet? Stats update tomorrow, hopefully. Time to think about the grand strategy of our line. If we want to swim in our money, then we need to transport all the goods and passengers, and at the moment I favour a twin track S shape that wiggles through the isthmus, with branches off to all the cargo sources. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Nov 10, 2015 |
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Nov 10, 2015 09:34
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Poil posted:Those trucks look like a mess. Can't the game handle them? Veloxyll posted:Did not realise the trucks drove off the end of one way streets like that. Never thought of doing a through station for the roads! Our railways are all single train lines at the moment except for Auckland Central, which is too crowded. Expect to see them when we have most of the industries hooked up. Galaga Galaxian posted:The Auckland station just has no room for a RoRo. Jobbo_Fett posted:So glad to see my little Tryhards delivering all they can hold, and occassionally crashing into nothing. It would have just been so much effort to stop all those trucks to a stop. One thing that'll be fun is when the next generation of trucks come allog and suddenly that route will massively increase it's capacity. Galaga Galaxian posted:I got a quick question because I haven't messed with a very complex network in Loco yet. Can Loco do cargo transfers? That is I ship freight via rail to a central railway near several industries then use trucks to move it to the industries themselves (or vice versa)? Hmmm... ...I don't know myself! Time for an experiment!
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Nov 11, 2015 08:41
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I've never really done this type of network before, running a single large network is already complex enough. I set up a custom scenario with a bunch of iron/coal/steel industries in complementary positions, since iron ore and coal can both be transported in open wagons. (Plus a bunch of easy single train runs because I have to support a bunch of experimental trains.) A detail of the collector station, where the coal and iron ore is taken to before being collected and taken to the steel mill  The first test, with two trains going to different coal mines and one collecting at Swinebourne works fine. Just like Galaga, the mine trains are ordered to run between the two stations and unload at Swinebourne. The collector simply has orders to run between Swinebourne and the steel mill. The cargo is paid when the collector arrives at the steel mill. The collector gets the 'credit' for the run, the supplier trains do not record any profit.  Adding in an iron ore train produces funny results on the second trip, as the supplier trains start collecting the cargo at Swinebourne and taking it back to the mines (which don't accept it, so it's deadweight)  For example, this train should be carrying coal. The solution to this problem is to add an extra unload order for the unwanted, so this coal supplier should have an "unload all iron ore" order for the Swinebourne station.  Under normal orders, the collector will pick up both types of goods. Adding a "Wait for full load of X cargo" order means that the train will only take that cargo type.   In the hopes of getting the train to take a mixed, full load, I tried putting a "fill with iron" order after a "fill with coal" one. But this results in weirdness where the train arrives, takes all of one type at random (Probably the one that's been waiting the longest or has the worst rating, I think) and then waits for a full load of that type.  And then there's the primary weirdness. Any cargo taken by the collector instantly counts as having been in transit for 255 days  Steam trains tend to take about 20 days to travel 100 squares. Your profit tanks, it's still in the black, but it's way lower than what a single leg delivery would get. I tried all sorts of variations like refreshing the orders or buying a brand new train, but this did not change. Collector stations do allow a you to run very long trains.   Top two are collector trains, vs a single leg journey by another Iron route. Summary of findings. Sorry if any of this is wrong, It's getting really late again, so I'll have to check it all tomorrow.
NewMars posted:
And yes, it is a barren wasteland punctuated only by lush native forest and the friendly call of the Tui-bird and the screams of the rodent victims of the Morepork.  No financial report today, because of the experiment. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 12:05 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 11:53
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I sometimes wonder if this game was pushed out before it was ready, because of stuff like that. I guess it's also possible that with the upgraded graphics, they needed the memory for other things. The game runs very smoothly, but when you get up past 50 trains plus what your competitors have, things definitely start slowing down. I'm interested to see how well things run in the later stages of the game, I've never run a really large scale company on my current computer.
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Nov 12, 2015 00:57
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Eh, we're still talking transport sims so that's hardly off topic.Galaga Galaxian posted:Well, in OpenTTD there is a minimum payment value for cargos instead of eventually dropping to nothing, which is why I was wondering. I knew exactly which forum you were talking about from the start (tt-forums.net, for those of you who dont follow links.) I like it how the one scenario I posted there two years ago is still on page four. I'm glad that that the one guy liked it so much that he downloaded before installing the game. I wonder if he ever played it? I was interested in mod making, and dabbled with a bit of 3d moddling at one stage, but the documentation was so poor that I never got near making anything. The mods I'd like to see would be some indestructible trig beacons and trees that could be placed on top of hills to prevent the computer completely demolishing them, some tropical themed trees and buildings, and some smaller coaster type ships that would complement the vanilla ship selection, which doesn't provide any choice. Oh, and the pokey little stadiums that used to pop up in ttd in the 30s and 40s
Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Nov 12, 2015 |
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Nov 12, 2015 10:08
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"Hey guys, I'm a newbie. Are long train with lots of cars worth it?"
"What are you babling about, its very obvious! *doesn't explain anything at all*"
Mod: Downs, don't post replies that add nothing to a topic!
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  Opponent still idling in the background. Sooner or later we'll have proper competition. Operations Department:    Overall, looking good. News from abroad is that a number of manufacturers have successful research and development programs and new technology should reach these shores in the next few years.  Trains are bringing in the majority of our profits. Our logging trains carry 100t of wood per trip at the moment. We will have to spend money next year on replacement locomotives because reliability will start to affect delivery times. Think of it as a refurbishment because we'll won't change the configuration of the trains. Steam trains are the least reliable type of vehicle, and consequently have the shortest life.  Our new Hunua service shows a monthly loss, but this is not alarming as records show it's still delivering regularly and makes enough deliveries to cover it's cost long term.  Our truck service is too new to be stable, and disruptions late last year affected the month-to-month profitability of the line. Stable conditions should improve the outlook of these services next year. A typical truck trip brings in $22, well in excess of the cost to run the truck for the month.  Our trams, with reliable passenger sources, little running cost and few breakdowns, are continuous small scale money earners, giving us good will in two major towns in the region.    Our Oneroa service needs modification. Clearly, waiting for full loads is impractical because the towns on the island do not produce enough passengers. We will consider changing to a more frequent service from a town nearer than Auckland, allowing the ships to transport small loads regularly, improving ratings and growing the towns. We also hope to strike out for the towns on Great Barrier Island (Okiwi and Tryphena) soon, with either a intra island service or a service to the mainland.  Our influence is spreading through the region. Accounting Department  Our Income supports an expansion of our network each year. Our biggest cost is easily construction, followed by vehicle purchases.  Inflation raises our payment rates.  Company performance is based on a mixture of Cargo x Distance and Monthly Profit.  Good to see that we are now delivering something every month.  The large spikes are likely when the Henderson and Pokeno Logging trains reach their destination in close succession.  Return of value to shareholders would be good, if we had any. That'll happen over Scrooge's dead body. Marketing Department  The region has experienced spectacular growth in the last decade. Virtually every town in the region is a viable passenger market, and with proper service, mail, food and goods deliveries will be made possible too.  We're barely scratching the surface of all the money we could be making through industry.    Most stations are reasonably efficient at clearing their cargo regulary. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Nov 12, 2015 |
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Nov 12, 2015 11:31
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Yes, everything in the game is affected by inflation. I think is might also increase based on company value.
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Nov 12, 2015 20:14
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Ashsaber posted:You know what, I was just going through my YouTube Favorites, and discovered something I had forgotten; an interesting possibility in another game with a big focus on trains. Apart from Transport Tycoon, I've only ever played one other train game, Trainz, which was a sort of knockoff of MS train simulator that I picked up for $10 for some reason. I built a railroad, but when I tried to drive it, it was so bumpy that my train derailed. I must still have it hanging round somewhere. I'm also looking forward to seeing what happens, we're just coming out of a sort of Embryonic stage at the moment. Galaga Galaxian posted:Also, as a cheap(?) business expansion project, you might want to consider bringing Iron Ore from the mine near Port Waikato and coal from the mines near Mercer to the steel plant near Waiuku and then ship that steel to the factory in Weymouth. This would require mostly just addition locomotives/wagons and minor expansion of rail lines. I just noticed that my financial report doesn't include cash on hand! We have $28,000 in the bank, and a credit limit of $44,000. In any case, the main limit is the time I have to spend building rather than the money. Certainly we can do that, and it's a logical thing to do. The main cost will involve double-tracking more line, which was going to happen anyway. I include all industry openings and closures, it's just not much changed in the last update so I didn't bother with the industry map. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Nov 13, 2015 |
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Nov 13, 2015 06:13
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It's not quite as important now as it was early on, but I wanted to show some of the buildings that are around the place, as a guide to what we can use our towns for, and also because Locomotion also has a variety of cool buildings.  Stations have a catchment distance of 4 tiles. If you want to see if the location will accept a cargo without building a road or rails, you can mouse over them to see some transit related info.  Here's some that a typical town has. It's a safe assumption that buildings produce passengers and mail in proportion to what they accept. If you add up the values of the buildings in your station catchment area, and they equal more than one, it will pay for that type of cargo to be delivered there.  Small towns have proportionally more cottages. These little apartment buildings are quite ubiquitous.  Some buildings come in in a few varieties of colour and even size. These buildings are technically the same type.  Thees offices are the most common for the first part of the game. If you have a group of them, you can often start shipping food to that town.  Some pillock has knocked down the Auckland courthouse and replaced it with a generic office building, but here's what it looked like in 1900.  Churches don't deal in freight goods, but give your passenger lines a boost.  This cathedral is a mod building that accepts passengers and mail all by itself. It's quite hard to find places that accept mail in the early game, and low mail ratings can lead to low ratings with the local authority. Therefore it's potentially quite useful.  There are a couple of concert halls around the map.  Not to many of these to be seen, but they appear to be a useful source of passengers.  This is the first new building to be introduced. we can expect lots more new types as time goes on.  An enterprising local authority has built the Auckland harbour bridge 49 years early! Pity about the 24km/h speed limit, but it's still faster than going round. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Nov 15, 2015 |
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Nov 15, 2015 02:23
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Tyty posted:Looks like one of the car rides from RCT2, or someone going crazy with the transport train. I see no reason why not, if you did that and established a few lines near it it would probably experience quite a boom. I think the main thing that limits town growth is having a line that has a bad rating or fails to move any passengers/cargo. The Opponent has made their debut now, and lets just say that I'm very glad we didn't go for 8 of them...
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Nov 19, 2015 10:13
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