SAM style maps discussion.....

[snoopy55]

This my birthday present to the creator of this map
Jancsika

And the maps creator thanks you

Maybe what you might want to do is work up a tutorial on how to go about making Victory Conditions so that others will understand better how to do it. And, while you're at it, maybe use a few of the maps that do not have Victory Conditions and they could be worked into the existing SAMs.

[mojos]

Sorry if this question isn't posted where it should be but the Valencia SAM map crashes for me whenever I purchase a brewery. Is there still a bug in that map and/or a fix I've overlooked? I am playing from a freshly installed game with nothing else in user maps.
Any help would be appreciated.

[snoopy55]

Thanks for finding that. 40 downloads...I guess no one else wanted to buy a Brewery.......

The repaired version in on the first page of "SAM style maps for downloading....". I'll send a PM to Tazz to update the one on the maps thread.

[mojos]

Thanks Snoopy. You are the man! (Assuming you aren't actually canine in which case my sincerest apologies and a hearty "You are the Dog!" )

[snoopy55]

Well people, with the big discussion going on about maps and whether they should be posted or not, 1 person, Jancsika, came up with a MAJOR problem in a SAM which had a download total of 80. And I'm not talking about some Engineer that isn't waving out the window. The Visitor Cars were PURPLE! Granted, they are only run from one place to another, but come on....no one noticed this? Of course Jancsika found it while trying to attach the Utah FPK file to his Hurricane map.....

And loads of fuss was made over the SAM posting of this map. And it could not have been because people had the missing file on their system because it was 'visitors_car_v1_diff.dds'.

What this shows is that a map may have a problem, but the users of the maps don't seem to notice them, or if they do, they choose not to report it.

Oh well, it's repaired now. Thanks Jancsika. When I looked at the FPK contents I failed to notice that the above mentioned file was missing, I was looking at the KFM name, which was correct. My apologies.

[karsten]

Well, I seem to remember that Dwax did report a problem with the SAM version of Utah, he said that the original was working fine, but not the SAM version, if I remember correctly. Perhaps his reports have been deleted in the mean time?

As you know, I have always said that I am sceptical of the value of putting .fpks in SAMs. But if Jancsika finds them useful...

If I were making a map, I would rather use the Snoopy building blocks, seems far more efficient to me.

[snoopy55]

The problem Dwax reported was that he could not get the map to load. Along with the Wisconsin map. Nothing else. The Utah map loads fine, and plays fine, the Visitor cars work fine also, they are just purple. That still leaves the other 79 downloads.

Dwaxs reports are still there, they just got split from the SAM downloads. They start at the second post. He never got into the map, and no reason for his problems were ever found. And I don't believe we ever found out what he had for a system....

As to the use of FPKs, the original game uses them, along with a number of the custom maps. Has there been a solidly grounded reason for not using FPKs found?

I suggested he use the Building Blocks also, but he had reasons for what he was doing. For him I guess it was the best way.

But all of that does not answer the question....why are problems with maps not reported? Do people expect their mechanic to just come to their house without being called when something goes wrong with their car? If you buy something and it fails or is defective, do you not take it back? You pay for these maps when you look for them, download them, load them to your system and get PO'd when they fail or are faulty. Hey, I failed at Mind Reading 101......

[Jancsika]

But all of that does not answer the question....why are problems with maps not reported?

The reason is simple.
Most people want to have a quick game, one to two hours at the most.
The real great games take couple days to do it right. People will play it, maybe once or twice and keep them on their hard disk in the hope that one of these days they will have the time and energy to play it again. They might even start it, but human nature being what it is, (they know the end) they never play it through, and the error will be never discovered.

Jancsika

[mojos]

Thanks for the reply Snoopy and for directing me to the right spot to post quieries. Unfortunately, my problem persists. I am using a clean install and have had good luck for virtually all the SAMS and CICs but this one keeps crashing. I downloaded 7z just in case winrar was bugging it up but after extracting it with 7z it still crashes at startup right after building up steam screen. I tried putting the fpk into custom assets but still not working. If it's just me, no biggie, there are plenty of fun maps to play, but in the interest of troubleshooting I thought I'd mention it in case there is a bug somewhere. Thanks as always for your help!

[snoopy55]

In looking AZ Canyon over I found some items that needed to be edited. I'll get it back up as soon as I can.

[mojos]

As always, a big thank you, Snoopy, not only for all your hard work but for your diligence in replying to posts. Heck, you're so good as this, you should like be a moderator or something!

[pumanator]

found a prob with america. it would not let me load gears and bombs after I built the industry late in the game...

[pumanator]

Question.

This had probably been asked so just a link is ok is so.

I have been using the sams and they work great...

Can I use the other maps like Sumatra under the old stlyle download and if so what do I have to do to keep it from becoming a mess

[snoopy55]

The simplest way would be to rename the 'Sid Meier's Railroads!' folder you now have to something like 'Sid Meier's Railroads!SAM' and start the game. It will create a new 'Sid Meier's Railroads!'. then go into the one you labeled as SAM and copy the 'Settings.ini to the new one. Now you can load non-SAM maps and play them. When you want to go back a run a SAM, rename the 'Sid Meier's Railroads!' folder to something like 'Sid Meier's Railroads!Old' and remove the 'SAM' from the old one and plat away....

Just a note, I have about 27 maps left to convert before I go on the the latest stuff, which will take a bit longer. 13 others are ready to be tested.

[dr3noodle]

Hey, thanks for the Florida SAM. Been waiting for that one!