Does the game have a problem with pre-placed industries?

[snoopy55]

stormfather - The placement of resources seems to be ok, tho as you have them placed, they're not Random, unless you're refering to your random placement. And everything seems to be evenly placed. And yes, you do have to at least allow every start location to be able to have a chance. For example, if you started in Toronto, you have 25 miles for wool, which cost over $260 to build, or $125 to the nearest town and thats just for mail. Even making the wool, how far do you go to get rid of it? Now if you start in Port Jervis, you're rich. I've seen it mentioned once or twice about someone dropping out of a game cause they didn't like where they started from.

My screen allows 12 in-city Industries. As to selecting Hospitals, to make Medicine in the upper left and the only place to deliver to is the lower right, I think you get my drift.

And yes, I do think an icon showing both Fish and Grain would be better as some people don't read Readmes and after playing alot of other maps, you may forget that this one's different. The Iron Ore Icon has been kinda done. In d53642s Mid East map he has Iron Ore, but he states he didn't quite finish it. It's all in folders. I've tried to add it into an .FPK file, but all I get is crashes. Someone needs to figure that out and volenteer to do the adding.

As to a final in-city, the cannery is not needed if you're using the Fish/Grain combo. The hospital would be good because during the war troops are coming back and need a place, whether for physical or psycological. So many hospitals in so many coastal towns by a certain year.

The mines do look simaliar, but if you are going to make an Ore Mine, give it a reddish roof. As to Ore and Coal both going to a steel mine, if you can get it to require both, go for it, otherwise it wouldn't make any difference and would kill the need for Ore.

And finally, yes, the uploaded map does contain those engines, tho I don't always worry about passenger/freight engines, as long as I get my transportation where it has to go.

Something I learned from your map. I ran it thru XML Notepad 2007 and translated it. The map seemed to crash. I put your original back in and no problem. Tranlated it and crash. I looked thru the Industries I had Transed and found some of the letters converted to (Return). No certain letter, but only 3 different letters and only about 3 - 4 times each. Once I corrected it, it ran fine. I've made changes in other maps and transed them and got a crash, so now I know why. I wonder how you guys can check out a map if everything is all clumped together.

Also, put your name and a version number at the top of each XML. I had to search for who did this and then you were not even under Maps! I thought I'd gotted it from another Forum. A version number in the Tital also lets us know if we have the latest or not.

And as to the testing, it's really learning what to do and not do on that Wisconsin map I want to get back to.

[stormfather]

stormfather - The placement of resources seems to be ok, tho as you have them placed, they're not Random, unless you're refering to your random placement. And everything seems to be evenly placed. And yes, you do have to at least allow every start location to be able to have a chance. For example, if you started in Toronto, you have 25 miles for wool, which cost over $260 to build, or $125 to the nearest town and thats just for mail. Even making the wool, how far do you go to get rid of it? Now if you start in Port Jervis, you're rich. I've seen it mentioned once or twice about someone dropping out of a game cause they didn't like where they started from.

My screen allows 12 in-city Industries. As to selecting Hospitals, to make Medicine in the upper left and the only place to deliver to is the lower right, I think you get my drift.

I'd release the 'random' map with random resource and industry placement as well as expanded start locations (I guess Toronto isn't that great of a start location, as you pointed out.) I don't think that the lack of hospitals would adversely affect it much, a sheep farm would still be good for wool; medicine, like machinery, would only be shipped to metros.

And yes, I do think an icon showing both Fish and Grain would be better as some people don't read Readmes and after playing alot of other maps, you may forget that this one's different. The Iron Ore Icon has been kinda done. In d53642s Mid East map he has Iron Ore, but he states he didn't quite finish it. It's all in folders. I've tried to add it into an .FPK file, but all I get is crashes. Someone needs to figure that out and volenteer to do the adding.

Do the icons need to be added to .fpk files? I remember going through icons in the Santa scenario's folder, and they were .tga files. I was sort of counting on being able to implement the icons in that manner, in fact I'm not quite sure what a .fpk file is, exactly.

As to a final in-city, the cannery is not needed if you're using the Fish/Grain combo. The hospital would be good because during the war troops are coming back and need a place, whether for physical or psycological. So many hospitals in so many coastal towns by a certain year.

I might go with hospital in the end, since some cities in the area are famous for their hospitals (Pittsburgh comes to mind.)

The mines do look simaliar, but if you are going to make an Ore Mine, give it a reddish roof. As to Ore and Coal both going to a steel mine, if you can get it to require both, go for it, otherwise it wouldn't make any difference and would kill the need for Ore.

I don't have the XMLs in front of me right now, but I'm pretty sure can set it up to convert iron to steel at a 1:1 ratio, as well as coal to nothing.

And finally, yes, the uploaded map does contain those engines, tho I don't always worry about passenger/freight engines, as long as I get my transportation where it has to go.

Something I learned from your map. I ran it thru XML Notepad 2007 and translated it. The map seemed to crash. I put your original back in and no problem. Tranlated it and crash. I looked thru the Industries I had Transed and found some of the letters converted to (Return). No certain letter, but only 3 different letters and only about 3 - 4 times each. Once I corrected it, it ran fine. I've made changes in other maps and transed them and got a crash, so now I know why. I wonder how you guys can check out a map if everything is all clumped together.

I do it the hard way: back-up every five minutes and check for crashes to desktop. Probably not the most efficient use of my time, but I'm not all that computer savvy and it's tried and true.

Also, put your name and a version number at the top of each XML. I had to search for who did this and then you were not even under Maps! I thought I'd gotted it from another Forum. A version number in the Tital also lets us know if we have the latest or not.

And as to the testing, it's really learning what to do and not do on that Wisconsin map I want to get back to.

Good idea, I'll do that tonight while I'm working on the map. Hopefully I can get some changes done and get this thing fully playable soon; I hope to get my home computer online by the weekend and as soon as I've got that taken care of I'll do as you suggested and set up a beta thread in the maps forum. Thanks again for your continued input!

[snoopy55]

stormfather - my Bro was playing your map and was drooling over a track to Montreal...had the track run and the station in and up to terminal When he went to set up the train, no-go... It sits to high up at the top to be accessed. I ran the map thru Table-Top and it's the only one not accessable.

I believe you could call FPK files 'Zipped' colections of the data needed to create the images used in the game, the mine, the loaders, the farmers, etc. An Unpacker can be found here:
www.dragonunpacker.com
It will be in French, but in the upper left corner you can kick it to English. And it's free You can unlock some of the graphics you want to use in your files. Seeing as d53642 is using folders, you probally don't have to use FPK files.

If you run Coal to nothing, it would be wasted, and 1 load or 100 loads would not make any difference. See if Daryl (d53642) minds you playing with his Ore files in the MidEast map. He said he didn't quite finish them, maybe you can finish them for him.

[stormfather]

stormfather - my Bro was playing your map and was drooling over a track to Montreal...had the track run and the station in and up to terminal When he went to set up the train, no-go... It sits to high up at the top to be accessed. I ran the map thru Table-Top and it's the only one not accessable.

Already fixed, on my copy of the map at home. I can't upload it till I get my home PC hooked up to the net, though. Hopefully I can post a viable beta sometime over the weekend.

If you run Coal to nothing, it would be wasted, and 1 load or 100 loads would not make any difference. See if Daryl (d53642) minds you playing with his Ore files in the MidEast map. He said he didn't quite finish them, maybe you can finish them for him.

The coal plant also converts coal to nothing. It provides income, at least. If I did this, I would probably up the price of coal, so even though you wouldn't get any product, you would get more money.

I'll look into my options for iron once I get a beta up and running and can get on the net.

[snoopy55]

Hey my Man, did you get any further with this one I saw your posts on your full USA map. Got my Wisconsin up, but like you, I need a couple of things to really finish it. Wisconsin had or has Lead Mines. I figured do a Pit-like thing with a 'Mine'pile next to it and ore the color of Lead Ore. I also want to look into a Shipping/Recieving Dock for shipping Iron Ore and maybe recieving cars from Detroit or Steel. I think I have the programs to make the stuff, I just have to figure out how.