Firaxis -- Let us hold cargo at stations

[snoopy55]

Lowell, you keep speaking of reality in this game, like having this Distribution Center. Well, here's the unreal part. let's look at your Food, and let's make it come from Livestock and use middle prices. A train loads up with 8 cars of Livestock. It drops them off at City As' Stockyard and recieves $15,000 x 8 = $120,000. It picks up 8 carloads of Food, from a previous shipment of Livestock, and drops it off at cit Bs' Distribution Center and recieves $18,000 x 8 = $144,000. It then picks up 8 loads of Food, again from the previous shipment of Food to the Distribution Center, and takes it to City C and recieves $18,000 x 8 = $144,000. It then returns to the cattle Ranch for more Livestock. That's $408,000 for 8 carloads of Livestock. Keep that train running and you won't be long reaching Billionare. and you can do more like that also. On top of that, if you have more that on Distribution Center, you can take the most expensive Good that they will take and just run a train back and forth between them, collecting pay for it.

If BNSF takes a car of goods from Chicago and drops them off in Springfeild, then on another train runs them to Knoxville, they don't get paid twice, they get paid once.

No, a Distribution Center like that is not such a good idea.

[CeeBee51]

Why does it matter if there's a distribution center or not? It just makes the game differesnt and "maybe" more fun. Lots of maps have new twists to make them different and that's probably all thats keeping anyone doing anything much around here. Personally it doesnt matter either way to me as my biggest problem is CTD's on a continual basis to the point of playing RRT3 instead of SMR and that kinda bites but the little I did get to play with the distribution centers certainly didn't put me off or anything

[Tijer]

CeeBee51 - So long as you are not playing the maps competition that is fine, but at the same time the maps are not listed no competition maps. So what happens is the person who does play with competition as the game was intended gets frustrated since they can not come close to meeting the goals. So in turn they uninstall the game and dump the disk assuming that they are just to stupid to play the game, when the fact is everyone else is cheating by playing the map by themselves.

As for CTD issues, I am still working on that. After discovering the missing audio bites and correcting that problem. I have moved to rebuilding the duals since they are the ones giving me the problems. It is my belief that the trouble with the dual steamers stems from the fact that they are listed in the traincars and the trains XML. This problem I think is causing my computer to freeze or lock up. I also have a few other ideas but until I produce something that is clean I can not correct the problem. Since not all systems are having the problem, I am on my own since no one else cares.

My point is that things are being done in all issues, or at least as many as we have volunteers for. What we do not need is for people to get PO'd because they are constantly tagged a Hobo at the end of the scenario and they can not figure out why. Well the why is, not everyone is playing the map the same way or the way it was intended. As well many are highly competitive to start with. What the DC allows for is the ability to move the same load of food back and forth from a city that produce food. You collect the same amount both ways, while at the same time not distributing the food to the other cities. This keeps the cost per car high since only the city producing the food is getting supplied, unlike under normal conditions you would supply at least 2 neighboring towns. The only solution to this is as Snoopy stated was to have rail cars for thing shipped to the DC and different pricing at the DC. Otherwise you have the situation that Warll stated in his argument of getting paid double for what is actually one delivery. Now none of this may be relevant for the way that you play the map, but for others it is. Everyone deserves a fair shot, but before that, they need to know the ground rules.

[CeeBee51]

re the missing sound files: yeah, got those errors in the log since day 1 but according to the log they don't seem to be my problem as the CTD seems to happen long sfter the sound errors show.
dual steamers- Been awhile ao I may have to try a few maps that have them but I can't say that those maps CTD any worse than the rest.
For example my BCGold map used to play fine for me and now I'm getting mostly CTD's all the time. My take is that maybe the global xml's have gotten so big that I'm getting run out of memory as the hard drive seems to run almost continously swapping files and stuff. For a game thats so much fun it sure gets to be a PITA with all the CTD's. Firaxis surely deserves some kind of award for SMR. Maybe the buggiest game of the decade or something
I think they got mixed up and used killex instead of RAID when they were testing.

[snoopy55]

If you search for it, you may find fixes online for a few things. That's all i can say on that.

The Events may also be a problem. As it is, the map loads all of them and uses few. I don't seem to get all the crashes that are talked about here, but then that could be my system and/or my editing of maps.

There are other ways being looked into, but as to when they'll show, I can't say, but they're being worked on.

[Tijer]

As far as the sound error goes, my computer ignored it for a while and then it started to lock up on every event. Sometimes it would go past the event in game play but in the log it never past that point. the solution to that is simple since all you ave to do is find "BigClick" in the FX folder and make a copy of that with the name "smallclick", simple.

What Sid and the gang did was declare all their FX instead of using the default as most mappers do. So this is how problems are created.

As for problems with BC Gold is to reinstall the main game and the patch to 1.10. Then install your map as you made it. Do not install anything else except what you need to run the map. Then play the map a couple of times. If the map runs like it did then, then there is a problem with what was installed after you made it. Then you can start reinstalling maps that you had on your system prior. In the case of SMRI, do not install the package but the individual maps. Preferably in the order in which they where created. Then play the BC Gold between each install. Make sure that you do a good run between each install. The map that fouls BC Gold is a problem map. You should be able to review the XML and find the conflict.
Regardless if you find the problem or not post which map is tripping you up so that it may be reviewed. Then uninstall that map and go to the next until you have gone though your list of maps. That is the only way to find an error.

[Lowell]

Well Snoopy I wasn't talking about the distribution centers on my last post. I was asking what about letting cities hold goods for others...guess you didn't read through what I said before you rifled off.

Just forget it. I'll finish the ones I have posted and put the rest on my web site.

[snoopy55]

I have read it and basicly it's the same thing, a DC seperate from the city or one in the city after reaching a certain size. They both allow you to do the same thing.

Do you have the cities recieving the Good before you get to this input/output point? You get paid for dropping it off then. Do you get paid for two dropoffs when you allow the input/output? If so, you're just about doubling the amount you recieve.

I tried it in the CttR map with this in City:

<Resource>
<Input>Food</Input>
<Output>Food</Output>
<InputOutputRatio>1.00000</InputOutputRatio>
<MaxStorage>8.000000</MaxStorage>
</Resource>

and Chicago was the first to get it. It took the Food in, but did not release it. Were you running any other Goods into your town that were making Food?

Do this on another map, like Chicago to the Rockies, and upload the RRT_Cities_ChicagoToTheRockies.xml file. Then I can run it on mine.

[Lowell]

When you first drop off the food or whatever good...it takes awhile before it lets you take a few cars...it has to built up. It works for me, the city has to want the good first. I didn't see any "extra" money being made either, but I could be mistaken.

I've used it on larger cities, it saves from having to send a train for every good to every town. Holding goods in one town for anouther to drop by leave something and take something back.

I've used it on a couple maps and it works fine. I haven't published those maps as yet. I still have that map...I'll alter the cities file and try it and let you have it to see. It's worked before, I don't see why it shouldn't on your map. I'll give it a go...

[snoopy55]

In Cttr, Chicago wants the Food right off, and I put the Food to Food entry in there. Chicago showed Food>Passengers and Food>Food. I then ran a train of 4 cars of Food to Gary and back. The Food cars were leaving empty. I ran about 20 cycles with Food coming in from Milwalkee. No luck

[captaintractor]

Could someone make something like a Wharehouse mod, and depending on the size of the wharehouse it could store carloads of goods to be picked up by another train or picked up at a later date Input=Output?? input Grain-grain, goods-goods, steel-steel etc, or would you have to make a wharehouse type for each type of commodity? would be neat.

[Lowell]

Several of mine have distribution centers. Towns deliver what goods they make, then take back to their town what they need that other towns deposit at the centers.
I am adding new content and making some changes. It seems that I can now return them to this forum, so I should be posting them soon. Mud Skippers is one like that, it should be posted first in a couple days.
They are all self contained maps.

[Rodea2007]

I am adding new content and making some changes. It seems that I can now return them to this forum, so I should be posting them soon. Mud Skippers is one like that, it should be posted first in a couple days.
They are all self contained maps.

I must say "Welcome Back" to this Forum Lowell.....

[Jancsika]

Could someone make something like a Wharehouse mod, and depending on the size of the wharehouse it could store carloads of goods to be picked up by another train or picked up at a later date Input=Output?? input Grain-grain, goods-goods, steel-steel etc, or would you have to make a wharehouse type for each type of commodity? would be neat.

Oh!,but there is such a thing right in this forum:
http://www.hookedgamers.com/forums/view ... =50&t=2427

...and they are used by various mapmakers extensively in the SAM (Stand Alone Map) type maps.
And of course there are new ones created all the time as Lowell and Rodea indicated.
It works like a new industry, the mapmaker can specify which products to use.
Jancsika

[snoopy55]

well Jancsinka, what you forgot to tell him is that he's looking for a Distribution Center.

The picture you see there is close to what it actually looks like, and there are a few other skins that have been done for it. I think there is a way to either add multiple skins from which you remove all but the one you want in your map, or it can be done as several different BBs, each one with a different skin. I have a few I've done myself but never used.