New Discovery!

[darthdroid]

So I was playing another veteran onliner today... and he mentioned how the shortest track always wins. I said "Not Always" and pointed out a system I had between Portland and Salem, I had 3 trains running parallel between these 2 cities. Track 2 was a little shorter than Track 1 and Track 3 was a little shorter than Track 2, thus it was the shortest.

yet the longest track, Track #1 was making 10 times more than the other 2. So it was like 950k/year for track 1, 80k per year for track 2, and about 50k per year for track 3. This logic didn't add up... By logic, Track 3 should make the most, then track 2, then track 1. They all are parallel, they all have same cargo.... they all have the same grade... the only true variable was distance-so this didn't make any sense.

The other player, "Pogler" asked if Track 1 was the first one laid. I said it was. So old Pogler may have discovered a "Loyalty Variable". That is the only thing that could make sense. That the first track laid has some preferential treatment over all the others. He also had 2 rails of similar length between these 2 cities and his best one was about 300k per year, the other about 150k.

If anyone has noticed this or can offer a better explanation than the "loyalty variable" I'd love to hear about it.

[oak37]

I did noticed this "Loyalty" anomaly last week when someone started a shorter stealing line between two of my preforming cities. I was making 800K on my train to his 300K (aproximately) and my train was an EARLIER SLOWER model. Thinking I would improve my return, I upgraded my train to the more modern train, which turned out to be a bad idea, as the "Loyalty Reward" was issued to that specific train. (As note, this was indeed an upgrade, and not a delete train / buy a new train).

Interesting find... I look forward to understanding it better. Thanks for bringing it to light.

OAK37

[darthdroid]

I did noticed this "Loyalty" anomaly last week when someone started a shorter stealing line between two of my preforming cities. I was making 800K on my train to his 300K (aproximately) and my train was an EARLIER SLOWER model. Thinking I would improve my return, I upgraded my train to the more modern train, which turned out to be a bad idea, as the "Loyalty Reward" was issued to that specific train. (As note, this was indeed an upgrade, and not a delete train / buy a new train).

Interesting find... I look forward to understanding it better. Thanks for bringing it to light.

OAK37

So perhaps I should edit to "first train laid". Seems strange that you lost this hypothetical bonus on an upgrade though. For example, when you win the "fastest train" award-it stays there and you know it as it's still yellow and renamed and so forth... so if this loyalty bonus exists, one would assume it "sticks" to that train and its upgrades. Did you see what the outcome was after you upgraded numberswise? Like what his was making vs your new upgraded one? Maintenance differentials could explain this... to some degree, but sounds like it was beyond that perhaps. I do see though that certain routes seem to have a sweet spot for certain engines, and that sometimes what matters is what engine YOU have vs the one competing. Either way, this is an interesting question or set of questions. I hope others chime in with additional knowledge.

[darthdroid]

K, I have a new theory.... Gotta scrap the train or track theory. Now I think it's based on cars. I tested the upgrade hypothesis and in my case it made no difference. I was running 2 trains, both Moguls. I upgraded them both to the Ten Wheeler engine, first the original train, then about 2 years later-the 2nd train. The profits really didn't change much and they changed about the same (less than 5% for both). So I don't think upgrading effects this.

BUT... So my first train was making about 2M per year, the other about 1/3 that, 650k per year (the 2nd one laid). So I decided to fiddle with it: I took train one and dumped all the cars except the mail car and added 7 more mail cars and let it roll. So sure enough, train 2 was making about 2.5M next thing and the original train had dropped down to like 700k. So then I changed it back, exact same cargo again on each (2Pass, 1mail, 1MG, 1Steel, 1Food, 2Cars).

And train number 2, continued to win.... train #1 now got the scraps instead of the opposite which is how it originally was.

So it almost seems like there is a bonus or they reserve the full carload for the first car that shipped. And the bonus would be attached to that car-so if you scrap that car (like get rid of it and change it to something else like I did) it loses its bonus... the bonus is then up for grabs again.... or something. Ya, I just checked it again, still a 3 to 1 ratio (700k to 2M) which is about what it was in the first place (except in reverse) before the fiddling.

And if you watch the numbers you'll see 3 to 1 profits when it unloads each car. It's clearly not random as ONE train continues to get like 3x more money for every type of car. I let it roll 10 years and really no change, got almost to 2 to 1, but still a huge (1.2M) differential.

it was hard to tell... but it looked like the weaker train was maybe getting more $ for passengers tho. Hard to read those numbers on a short track. But there is no question the 2nd laid train was getting certainly the majority of overall $ consistently. Like every single time, it got $32k for an auto car, where the 1st laid train only got $17k (again about 2 to 1).

Too bad red knight aint around to do some serious testing.