Basin & Range Demo map

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:51 am

Basin & Range Demo v0.1

This is a one-Era demo of the new map under development by Big Papa and Choobacca.

This demo map introduces:

*NEW ENGINE SELECTIONS (in the roundhouse)
--Santa Fe Super Chief A-unit
--Santa Fe Super Chief A + B-unit
--Santa Fe Yellowbonnet Paint Scheme on GP-38
--Santa Fe Yellowbonnet on GP-38 Dual A-units

*NEW TRAIN CARS
--Longer Santa Fe Passenger Cars
--Longer Mail Cars
--Double Stack Well Cars
--Box Cars for manufactured goods

*NEW GOODS
--Double Stack Containers

*NEW INDUSTRIES
--Port (Supplies Containers)
--Distribution Center (Demands Containers / Supplies MFGed Goods)

Since this is a demo, there are a couple areas where the graphics/animation isn't yet complete, but other than that it should play fine.

We are still working on v1.0 that will introduce a lot more goodies.
In the meantime, enjoy this little demo scenario.

Edit 3/14/07: Make sure your Shaders are set to Medium in your graphics settings or you will see unexplained terrain problems. Plus the game looks MUCH better this way.

Edit 3/26/07: Attached GP38Dual.FPK file so you can add the generic GP38Dummy model for any map.
Put this file in your CustomAssets directory after installing Basin And Range Demo.
Then add the following XML to your map's Trains.xml file:
<Train>
<szName>TAG_NAME_GP38_DUAL</szName>
</Train>

and the following to your map's TrainCars.xml file in the TenderCar section:
<TenderCar>
<szName>GP38Dummy</szName>
</TenderCar>

and the following to your map's Names.xml file, or to your global Names_XXX.xml file:
<TextKey>
<Tag>TAG_NAME_GP38_DUAL</Tag>
<Text>GP-38 Dual</Text>
<Gender>M</Gender>
</TextKey>

and that's it!

EDIT 05/16/07: Uploaded version 0.2 of the demo map that renames the map files to BasinAndRangeDemo to avoid conflicts with the released BasinAndRange map.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 3:38 pm

dwax wrote:Can you fix the XML's for me to get the double Loco's? Then I can add them to this map to see if it will work.

Sure. Which locos are you talking about? Send me your XML in a personal message (or attach them here if you want) and I'll have a look.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 4:57 pm

dwax,
Glad you see them now.
I made the single engine and dual engine selections separate in the round house so you have different power and cost options. That is why you see the duplicate engines there, but read the description and charts to compare power graphs and costs before making an engine selection.

Big Papa · Post by **Big Papa** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:13 pm

On the graphics Rip/crash & Ocean:

We have been battling this for some time now. It has come down to the graphics settings and may be related to map size but I cannot prove that. Shaders set to medium fixes this problem for Choo & I. We have ATI x850 & 9700pro cards updated to the latest Catalyst 7.2. This problem is devastating when it occurs. It makes you want to through the computer out the window. Basin & Range started as a large map but I thought map size was effecting the rip/crash, that is until we started experimenting with the graphics settings. Note that I minimized the painting on the edge of the map as well. If you get the rip you will need to restart Railroads! and try the medium settings on shader.

Big Papa

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:49 pm

K-class wrote:Dont want to seem picky but the double loco is back to back (should this be nose to tail) and the logo Santa Fe is reversed on one of the locos, seems to be like a mirror affect.

And one loco is healthier than the other, at times one puffs white smoke the other black. (im sure you know this and as you said just a tast of whats coming.)

K-class,
Thanks for your comments.
We have seen the double locos in either orientation. It is just a personal preference to see them back to back.

I haven't seen any reversed text on any of the models. Could you attach a screen shot of this?

The smoke affects are driven by the game when it sends the event codes to the models to perform different animations. I don't know if there is anything I can do about this. But thanks for noticing!

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:51 am

Awesome map, but the best part is the installer which works flawlessly and for the first time let me double head engines and run new skins to boot!

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:21 am

Not so fast buckaroo, the installer doesn't work right if you don't have Railroads! installed in the default location. Even though I pointed it to the right place it still installed it in the default location.

K-class · Post by **K-class** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 11:14 am

Just a example of double heading what I think looks better.

http://www.trainnet.org/Libraries/Lib018/TN_459.JPG

http://www.trainnet.org/Libraries/Lib018/ZR-4.JPG

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 4:34 pm

gforce,
The screen shots you took were with Low Shaders. The map requires Medium Shaders. Sorry, we are doing the best we can with what the game gives us.

All,
I don't know why this map requires Medium Shaders while others don't. If anyone can look at the map and figure out why, I'm sure we would all like to hear it.
The map was done using DEM data and painted in the Terrain Editor. Big Papa could provide more details. Maybe one of the pixels in the map.tga file is of the wrong color or something?

But with the vast difference in quality, why wouldn't you play with Medium Shaders for all maps?
Try decreasing your resolution or upgrading your video drivers if your system is crawling.

I am running at 1024x768 with High Textures, Medium Shaders, No antialiasing and look at my humble computer specs:
Pentium4 1.9GHz with slow mainboard bus speeds
1GB RDRAM (PC800)
Radeon 9700Pro 128MB
120GB ATA IDE hard drive 7800RPM
Windows XP

Ok, stop laughing as I know most of you have systems that put mine to shame, yet I am running Medium Shaders fine. This demo map looks beautiful and never crashes on me. I do see radioactive water occasionally, but I can overlook this as I am more concerned with how the trains look.

K-class · Post by **K-class** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:22 pm

My graphic issues went away with the change to Medium Shaders and I completed the game with no slow down or CTD. Mainly because this map is still small at present and hasnt got 30 odd trains running. (see my sig)

Thanks Big Papa any double headed trains is good and I like the longer train lengths and the different cars.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:33 pm

I cleaned up the TGA a little bit. There was some color in the grayscale heightmap area that might be causing trouble. Someone will have to test it as I'm at work and my PC here won't run SMR.

DF
EDIT: made a minor change to clean the height map a little more

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:06 pm

Dr Frag wrote:Not so fast buckaroo, the installer doesn't work right if you don't have Railroads! installed in the default location. Even though I pointed it to the right place it still installed it in the default location.

Dr Frag,
Where do you put your maps, FPKs, and global XML files? The installer can be adjusted to put the map folder in a special place, but where would you like the FPKs and global XML files placed in relation to the map folder?
Right now they are hard-coded in the install script, and unless Atani changed this, it is like this for all the map installers.

atani · Post by **atani** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:26 pm

choobacca wrote:
Dr Frag wrote:Not so fast buckaroo, the installer doesn't work right if you don't have Railroads! installed in the default location. Even though I pointed it to the right place it still installed it in the default location.
Dr Frag,
Where do you put your maps, FPKs, and global XML files? The installer can be adjusted to put the map folder in a special place, but where would you like the FPKs and global XML files placed in relation to the map folder?
Right now they are hard-coded in the install script, and unless Atani changed this, it is like this for all the map installers.

The installers all default to MYDOCUMENTS/My Games/... As that is the path that the game uses by default.

Mike

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 1:51 am

Technically the install dir is not My Games but the directory just under that which is Sid Miers Railroads by default. I installed my game into C:\Games\Railroads! so the folder under My Games is Railroads! not SMR. When I tried to install, I pointed it to C:\D & S\drfrag\My Docs\My Games\Railorads! yet it still installed to C:\D & S\drfrag\My Docs\My Games\Sid Miers Railorads! The installer seems to assume the Sid Miers Railorads! folder will always be the install dir.

Big Papa · Post by **Big Papa** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 3:15 am

If you are having problems with the map ripping, download this version of the .tga file and replace the original. I have tested it with low settings and have good results so far. The original .tga file does have a pixel overlap between the elevation data and paint. This is our error, but after testing the terrain rip still occurs after correcting. This error is not related to the elevation portion of the map. The gray scale elevation part of the .tga is the first part I create. I paint in the editor, and this error only occurs when a map is about 2/3 painted (after many, many, many hours). It seems not to like cliff edges, but the Arizona map has a lot of tan/brown cliff edge paint, so I have not made a conclusion if I particular color is to blame. If this .tag file works, we will keep this in mind and release a regular version of our maps & a "low" version.

Big Papa

edit: Tested on low settings for about 40 minutes. Completed the objectives and ran as many trains and track as I could put down in "Tester Mode". The only graphical error I saw was one of my tunnels did not have the proper opening on each end (Low-tunnel-error.jpg). This occurred early in the game and did not happen again.