Transport Tycoon Forums

Espee wrote:

Baldy's Boss wrote:I note that you stopped buying steam locomotives in 1938.I try never to buy a diesel at all and go straight from steam to electric,so we have different rolling stock philosophies.

I do make more extensive use of electric locomotives when using European NewGRF sets such as 2CC or DB Rails but most of my gaming is with NARS, which accurately reflects the fact that long-haul freight electrification in North America outside of the Northeastern US and the Rocky Mountains (Great Northern, Milwaukee Road) was pretty much non-existent. Around 1940 when most of my bread-and-butter drag freight locomotives (2-8-0/2-8-2/2-10-2/2-8-8-2) are ready for replacement, the only real option is the GG1, which is rated around 80,000 lbs tractive effort at 90 MPH, the lowest gear ratio available. However, a 3-unit set of F units geared at 65:12 for 55 MPH speed (max speed of coal hoppers and iron ore jennies) has over twice the tractive effort at about the same horsepower rating. Make it a 4-unit set and I can pull a 5000-ton coal or iron ore train up and down my mountain grades without losing any appreciable speed. It only gets better once six-axle diesel-electrics such as the SD9 and Trainmaster get introduced a decade later. My motive power assignments are based on the ideal unit for the job, and given that here in the States (and Canada as well) we have tailored the diesel-electric for the job...

Baldy's Boss wrote:That issue apart,I think I could benefit from your expertise on my games,so if Mr. Jones has some personnel available to consult...?
(One's in need of integration after growing overwhelmingly by acquisition,no trunk lines when I'm sure they'd help;
one has massively crowded passenger platforms in very early going;
one's in the same time period & world size as Landsborough but vexed by low ratings).

I will be happy to help where possible. How about uploading one of your games so I can take a look at it?

I see you already commented on Western Orange (the one formed mainly by buying lots of other companies).
I'm attaching saves of the other two,Green Victory where the novelty of the iron horse has the Nantford platform packed with more passengers than I can serve,and Wardwood Western where the most profitable trains nonetheless draw low ratings.
Also the most recent Western Orange (maglev conversion has proceeded,but I don't think that wood train line you redesigned is covered?

Espee wrote:

kamnet wrote:

Espee wrote: Please explain your request a bit more clearly, and I will do what I can to help.

A video which shows you laying out and building your network.

Espee wrote:Are you referring to an actual video screen grab showing me playing? Please let me know what software is available, as I'm not very familiar with this - thanks.

Yep, that would be it. Open Broadcaster Software is an easy-to-use package for Windows that you can use to record your games, and then upload them to a service like YouTube or livestream and record through YouTube, uStream or Twitch.

Thanks, I will look into it...

I was hoping you might be willing to record some of your play-time like a Let's Play on YouTube. I just find the way you lay your networks out to be really interesting and I just want to hear your thoughts behind it, And I want to copy you

Sorry for bumping an old thread. Espee, can you post some of your other savegames? I've had a lot of fun playing with this one. You have a very interesting style of play.

roadrunner wrote:Sorry for bumping an old thread. Espee, can you post some of your other savegames? I've had a lot of fun playing with this one. You have a very interesting style of play.

Thanks, glad to see that people are actually interested in my games. Give me a couple of days here - we're coming up on New Years, so I should have a chance one one of my days off to dig up some other games that you will (hopefully) find of interest.

SP

Baldy's Boss wrote:

Espee wrote:

Baldy's Boss wrote:I note that you stopped buying steam locomotives in 1938.I try never to buy a diesel at all and go straight from steam to electric,so we have different rolling stock philosophies.

I do make more extensive use of electric locomotives when using European NewGRF sets such as 2CC or DB Rails but most of my gaming is with NARS, which accurately reflects the fact that long-haul freight electrification in North America outside of the Northeastern US and the Rocky Mountains (Great Northern, Milwaukee Road) was pretty much non-existent. Around 1940 when most of my bread-and-butter drag freight locomotives (2-8-0/2-8-2/2-10-2/2-8-8-2) are ready for replacement, the only real option is the GG1, which is rated around 80,000 lbs tractive effort at 90 MPH, the lowest gear ratio available. However, a 3-unit set of F units geared at 65:12 for 55 MPH speed (max speed of coal hoppers and iron ore jennies) has over twice the tractive effort at about the same horsepower rating. Make it a 4-unit set and I can pull a 5000-ton coal or iron ore train up and down my mountain grades without losing any appreciable speed. It only gets better once six-axle diesel-electrics such as the SD9 and Trainmaster get introduced a decade later. My motive power assignments are based on the ideal unit for the job, and given that here in the States (and Canada as well) we have tailored the diesel-electric for the job...

Baldy's Boss wrote:That issue apart,I think I could benefit from your expertise on my games,so if Mr. Jones has some personnel available to consult...?
(One's in need of integration after growing overwhelmingly by acquisition,no trunk lines when I'm sure they'd help;
one has massively crowded passenger platforms in very early going;
one's in the same time period & world size as Landsborough but vexed by low ratings).

I will be happy to help where possible. How about uploading one of your games so I can take a look at it?

I see you already commented on Western Orange (the one formed mainly by buying lots of other companies).
I'm attaching saves of the other two,Green Victory where the novelty of the iron horse has the Nantford platform packed with more passengers than I can serve,and Wardwood Western where the most profitable trains nonetheless draw low ratings.
Also the most recent Western Orange (maglev conversion has proceeded,but I don't think that wood train line you redesigned is covered?

Sorry for the delay, I downloaded your savefiles and will take a look over the weekend...

SP

Espee wrote:

roadrunner wrote:Sorry for bumping an old thread. Espee, can you post some of your other savegames? I've had a lot of fun playing with this one. You have a very interesting style of play.

Thanks, glad to see that people are actually interested in my games. Give me a couple of days here - we're coming up on New Years, so I should have a chance one one of my days off to dig up some other games that you will (hopefully) find of interest.

SP

Ok...cool.

One of the changes I made was to the station at Reestock Heath Chemical Plant:

This station has trains carrying fruit and cereals passing thru from the north, and returning to the north, as well as trains carrying oil passing thru from the south and returning to the south. This is in addition to the trains loading, and dropping off at the platforms. I redesigned the station so that there are separate tracks for thru traffic, and separate platforms for loading and unloading, completely offline from thru traffic. I can post a screenshot if you want. This is your screenshot thread, so I won't post it without asking.

roadrunner wrote: This station has trains carrying fruit and cereals passing thru from the north, and returning to the north, as well as trains carrying oil passing thru from the south and returning to the south. This is in addition to the trains loading, and dropping off at the platforms. I redesigned the station so that there are separate tracks for thru traffic, and separate platforms for loading and unloading, completely offline from thru traffic. I can post a screenshot if you want. This is your screenshot thread, so I won't post it without asking.

Go ahead and please post it. I'm interested in seeing how others would have modified/improved upon what I was doing...

SP

Espee wrote:

roadrunner wrote: This station has trains carrying fruit and cereals passing thru from the north, and returning to the north, as well as trains carrying oil passing thru from the south and returning to the south. This is in addition to the trains loading, and dropping off at the platforms. I redesigned the station so that there are separate tracks for thru traffic, and separate platforms for loading and unloading, completely offline from thru traffic. I can post a screenshot if you want. This is your screenshot thread, so I won't post it without asking.

Go ahead and please post it. I'm interested in seeing how others would have modified/improved upon what I was doing...

SP

Apologies for late reply. I've been busy all week. Here's a screenshot of the station.



The two inside tracks are for serving the station platforms. Each set of platforms is a separate station. Trains waiting for full load can occupy all shipping platforms, and supply trains have their own dedicated platform, thereby preventing a deadlock. The outside tracks are for thru traffic, and reconverge past the bridges, and at the tunnel. I also removed all of the depots in the immediate area, and redid the signals to improve throughput.

Sorry for the huge image. I play at 1920x1200 resolution, and couldn't get the image to scale any smaller using Gimp, without distorting the fonts.

roadrunner wrote:

Espee wrote:

roadrunner wrote: This station has trains carrying fruit and cereals passing thru from the north, and returning to the north, as well as trains carrying oil passing thru from the south and returning to the south. This is in addition to the trains loading, and dropping off at the platforms. I redesigned the station so that there are separate tracks for thru traffic, and separate platforms for loading and unloading, completely offline from thru traffic. I can post a screenshot if you want. This is your screenshot thread, so I won't post it without asking.

Go ahead and please post it. I'm interested in seeing how others would have modified/improved upon what I was doing...

SP

Apologies for late reply. I've been busy all week. Here's a screenshot of the station.

The two inside tracks are for serving the station platforms. Each set of platforms is a separate station. Trains waiting for full load can occupy all shipping platforms, and supply trains have their own dedicated platform, thereby preventing a deadlock. The outside tracks are for thru traffic, and reconverge past the bridges, and at the tunnel. I also removed all of the depots in the immediate area, and redid the signals to improve throughput.

Sorry for the huge image. I play at 1920x1200 resolution, and couldn't get the image to scale any smaller using Gimp, without distorting the fonts.

Good work, but I'm sure you're keeping busy just trying to maintain everything I missed or neglected. When you have 200-300 trains in one game, it's a full-time job just maintaining your existing network...

Espee wrote:Good work, but I'm sure you're keeping busy just trying to maintain everything I missed or neglected. When you have 200-300 trains in one game, it's a full-time job just maintaining your existing network...

Yeah, it gets pretty busy maintaining that many trains on a large network. Some of the things that I've done with your savegame are:

Updating and realigning signals so trains don't block junctions
Making use of shared orders and automated timetables
Rethinking and redesigning some stations
Balancing cargo input and output
A little terraforming
I like steam locomotives and old rolling stock! (just ignore the date and pretend it's perpetually the mid to late 40's - early 50's)

I like that your network is really realistic, within the scope and limitations of the game, and I'm having a lot of fun playing with and modifying it.

Shared orders are your friend. They're really great when used with automated timetables. You can use both together to keep your passenger and mail trains evenly spread out. I also use them with some freight cargo, as long as there is always a full load waiting.

I have made some modifications to the openttd source code that allows me to pull more realistic train weights with the locomotives in the NARS2 set. I have the weight multiplier set on 7, and grade percent set on 4. Just as an example, a 15 tile ore train lead by a 2-10-2 Santa Fe locomotive has a total weight of 8791 tons, and pulls at what I consider to be fairly realistic(within the scope of the game) drag freight speed. It works for faster trains also. A 12 tile oil train headed by 3 GP-9 locomotives has a total weight of 5618 tons, and pulls quite well at 65mph. This was accomplished by commenting out the "axle resistance/rolling friction", and "air drag" calculations in the source code and recompiling.

I am playing with the OpenTTD Spring 2013 Patchpack, maintained by forum member pi1985. It has some interesting features that regular OpenTTD doesn't have. Such as:

*Automated timetable separation - will automatically keep vehicles with shared orders evenly spaced out on the network(road, rail, water, air)
*Automatic advertising campaign - open town properties, and ctrl-click on advert campaign of your choice (will repeat monthly)
*Improved breakdowns - much better than default, if you play with breakdowns on
*A parameter in advanced settings to control town production of passengers and mail(towncargofactor)
*A parameter in settings to distribute cargo to all industries around a station
*If you hover over an industry with your cursor, you get a tooltip with production values
*You can easily find out the length of a train by clicking on it and looking in the properties dialog (no need to send it to a depot)
*Departure Boards - Fancy info window about your vehicles, and their scheduled arrival and depart times, and status
*Enhanced vehicle purchase dialog - You can buy and refit at the same time. Quite handy
*Signals on bridges, and in tunnels - you have to place a block signal on the tile before the bridge or tunnel, as well as on the bridge/tunnel head for it to work
*Programmable signals - not sure how they work...I've never used them
*Infrastructure sharing

These are some of the features. The rest are outlined in the forum topic.

If you're interested, the forum topic is here:

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=66892

The binaries and source code are available here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/emb1vdfqc6rj ... y%20PI1985

The latest stable version v2.1.143 is in the folder marked "v2.0 Full", then click on the folder marked 2014-03-04
It's based on trunk version 26169? (That's the highest version number shown in src/saveload/saveload.cpp)

It's quite an enhancement to default OpenTTD, and I like it a lot.

/end long random post

Espee wrote:

Baldy's Boss wrote:

Espee wrote:
I will be happy to help where possible. How about uploading one of your games so I can take a look at it?

I see you already commented on Western Orange (the one formed mainly by buying lots of other companies).
I'm attaching saves of the other two,Green Victory where the novelty of the iron horse has the Nantford platform packed with more passengers than I can serve,and Wardwood Western where the most profitable trains nonetheless draw low ratings.
Also the most recent Western Orange (maglev conversion has proceeded,but I don't think that wood train line you redesigned is covered?

Sorry for the delay, I downloaded your savefiles and will take a look over the weekend...

SP

It's been some months since that weekend...still no comments?
I have since taken Wardwood Western forward to 2015 but can branch at many saves depending on advice...