wallyweb wrote:I'm not familiar with Australian economics
Well, the realism bit doesn't matter as much as gameplay. No point in having the set being killer realisitically priced, if people can only get a single branch line going, which goes bust by 1950

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but I'll see what turns up. I play my games with no competiton, usually from a scenario. I'll see what I can come up with.
Any and all feedback is welcomed, especially from someone like yourself, who always seems to be constructive without being critical, as well as being tolerant for the fact that people have lives, and can't fix everything immediatly.
Very happy to see you testing the set, Wally

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Any work being done re Australian place names for the towns?
Well, Pikka posted a grf on his live-journal that took the Pineapple names, and made them into a standalone GRF, for which we are all very grateful. That is quite sufficiant, even though they are all QLD names

(NSW has a lot of English/Welsh names, and not as many Indiginous (sp?) names as QLD and some other states have).
I am also working on a "grab bag" of "random" maps to be released with the NSW Set, that try to typify a random NSW map, for those out there unfamiliar. Essentially, expect very rural towns, usually near a primary industry. Secondary and Teritiary industries may be in regional centres, and it WILL be ineffiant to link every town up with passenger trains, at least in early years. Only 1-2 towns per map will be able to grow larger than a normal TTD town too, as most NSW towns are quite small, with the exception of the regional centres.
I also have a nice grf Pikka made that lets his open-cut mine be built in temperate, instead of new shaft mines popping up. So, when starting a new game, all mines on the map will be shaft-coal mines, but any mines built DURING the game will be open cut ones. I'll have to ask him next time he's online what permissisons he gives for distriubtion (although, Pikka is so community friendly, that I'm pretty sure on the answer, provided due credit is given).
As to set progress right now, I wouldn't mind seeing some more freight wagons coded, along with passengers cars. Thats mostly my fault, I seem to remember a long time ago promising Whitehand a proper intro scheme for the freight cars, and only just delivering a basic one a couple of days ago.
So any comments about set balance, I can handle as well as Whitehand, becuase thats the bit I'm working on at the moment. Of course, Whitehand always has the freedom to change stuff as the coder, so I am very thankful he listens to me, rather than just buggering me off ('cause I imagine that would make coding the set a lot easier, not having me noisly badgering him constantly).
So Wally, any comments about gameplay/balance would be really appreciated, almost as much as bug reports. As for realism, steamers can be used for most anything (even 3801 has been filmed hauling freight in the last few years of service), and Whitehand has got a pretty good description happening under each loco as to what it can be used for. But really, mostly anything goes. I've seen 48's hauling passengers, 82's in Freightcorp livery taking a passenger train, etc etc. We don't have dedicated express passenger trains here, except for the XPT and Xplorer trains, and they are MU's anyway, so no big deal

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