A pile of requests and questions!

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:09 pm

karsten
btw: my tutorial on creating a new industrie is done,

have a look (it is simple)
http://www.hookedgamers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1374

ps: for traincars it is the same procedure except that you've got more files, there's a v1 and v2 version wich must be created both, otherwise it will not work.... and ofcource your traincar xml file

redknight, the main problem is that we can't control the date (begin and end date) or the probability,
yes i can in the xml-files but the game doesn't (read) it.

karsten · Post by **karsten** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:33 pm

gforce, great. Clearest tutorial I ever saw!

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 2:29 am

Thanx alot Karsten,
i must admit, i was motivated when writing it...

Something i (think) found out;
When you've got a good listed in your map_goods.xml file,
and you're not using it, fe oil, and there's no oil well;
then it (can) causes a ctd after approx 10min.

Is it true? I'm not sure, but after i deleted the reference to the oil good, no more ctd...
(and that was really the only thing i changed)
so anyway, be carefull with that and if it's true, it could solve alot of problems out there...

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:02 am

Snoopy made the Hill Valley Mess map for me so I could do some testing. It "has" every single good except fish in its Goods.XML. However, while Ore, Swine, and Cornmeal are in Goods.xml and show up on F5, they do not appear on the map. I've run it out to 130 years IIRC with no CTD. But Hill Valley Mess might be an exception; it might be that they don't show on the map because the game has run out of "slots" or something (IOW, more goods than the map can show).

gforce, that's a great tutorial. Any way I can talk you into posting stuff like that on the wiki? It can also be here, but if only one place, make it the wiki. Why?

Forums are great for on-going discussions. But most topics inevitably stop being discussed, and their great info is liable to be lost and forgotten. Sometimes folks make new stickied summary messages with links to good stuff, but those can get messy. Finally, we all know that message threads have little goodies here and there - often near the end of the thread, with the first stuff being bad info by the time you get to the end, LOL.

Wikis are just the opposite. They present all topics in a clearly organized manner, like an encyclopedia. Entries can be revised any time new info is found that updates it. It's never out of date, nor do you have to read through old stuff to find the few great points. It's all great pointers.

That's the theory.

So, to me, forums are great for discussion. But wikis are where things that are worth remembering, are well organized, and easy to find. Updated as needed. Forever.

So, please consider posting nice, finalized things like that, to the wiki. Please?

Off the soapbox here, hehe - RK

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 7:28 am

Redknight,
You're surely right, about the wiki,
but i hate it already to being busy too much with this forum,
instead of working on my own scenario, still so much to do or tune,
if you wanna help me, maybe there's some work for you

,
i'm changing alot of goods, how much they are produced and so on, it would be great if prices and costs of trains and costs of buildings are in that way set, that it will be more a good, tactical game... (i was just thinking about that right now, there you're into figures etc

)
Anyway, i never wrote anything on a wiki, is there's something like a guide on how to do so...

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 7:29 am

question: Retaining walls
Once I saw it in a map, don't know wichone, but is it in fact the same way handled as tunnels or bridges? That would be logic, but i see a reference in the scenario to it, what is it doing overthere then???
and how does it knows how high, wich side etc...
i saw it once... but where?
or do you see it always in that case?
It should be used when you've got a hill or mountain, next to the track

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 8:10 am

gforce, I've collected some data on how fast Ore is output... it's the only resource that doesn't have 1 (or 0) output. I wanted to verify that it's twice the output of other resources (2.1 cars/year at Small, 3.4 at Medium, 4.4 at Large). But I haven't tabulated the data yet... will do so soon.

I saw tunnels with wooden walls on the Southwest US map. Is that what you're talking about?

Thanks for considering the wiki. It's really pretty easy. There are some basics here and a very few HG-specific rules here. Past that, jump on in! Ask if you have questions. But you'll see, it's pretty simple.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:11 pm

If it's okay with gforce I could try to post his tutorials in the Wiki.

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:50 pm

yeah, sure, thanx alot dr. frag... that would be very good and nice

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:04 am

Here's what i've got on
what if you've got more then 12 industries
- It's not possible to have a longer list of industries to buy from (at this moment) in the game .
- It is possible to have more industries
- You can add industries at map-creation, wich are not listed in the list of 12 -> in that way you can have more then 12 industries in play (not in buy list)

What's controlling the 12 industries selected for buy =>
- it does not depend on the order they occure in the xml file!
- it does not depend on the order you will add industries (fe you've got already 12 industries, you add 1 and this new one will or will not get listed) (i tried this)
- THE FACT:
do you have more then 12 industries, then the list of industries will always be exact the same!
- HERE COMES:
It does depend on the INDUSTRIE-NAME
(but really, i don't see any logic in it, not alphabetic order (or something like that) (is there maybe a hex-order in characters different then alphabet, or sometihing???)

fe: Do rename a industrie once: fe "Textile Mill" into "ZZZ Textile Mile",
and you will see the industrie jump in the list to another position, or even get out of the list, or in the list (depending on the characters of the new name)

I hate this trial and error kind of shit, but it could end up just in that list that you want...

any ideas on that? or help? (karsten?)

ps: i tried to help other gamers to get easily their usermaps playable (you can read that in the posts of global files), i believe we are losing gamers overhere and gamers get lost and less motivated to try or play the user-maps-scenarios (someone the same idea? plz help)

(karsten?)

RedKnight · Post by **RedKnight** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:56 am

Dr Frag, that's really cool of you, thanks!

But do take a go at post tutorials directly into the wiki in the future, gforce... If you don't find it easy, I promise to copy it to the forum, laugh. And otherwise it saves it from being copied from the forum to the wiki.

That's an odd finding re: the industry name. And a good thought about encoding. However, I don't know of any encoding schemes that don't work in alphabetic order. (Some may put upper case before lower case or vice versa, but within a case, they all go A to Z.) I wonder what would happen if you put numbers in front of them?

I don't suppose there could be confusion over two-byte (Unicode) versus one-byte (ASCII) characters, because the XMLs are all one-byte.

I tried to see what language is used, in case it helps re: the character set. But I can't tell... Railroad.exe is encrypted; Setup_Railroads_Holiday_Scenario.exe has a few things showing at first and the rest is encrypted. Like "text data src". Anybody know what language they used?

All in all, it's not a real big deal to me. There are only about 16 in-city industries, so 12 isn't so bad a number. Note that having a lot of industries and resources:
* Makes it difficult to link resource to industry (without crossing over track or whatever),
* Causes Towns and Cities to have less open slots (while, at the same time, you wish you had MORE slots, so you can make an industry if they're far away), and
* Finally, there's the problem of what US vs. EU city types accept... they will not be able to deal with all the many types of goods, normally. But I suppose you could edit this in RR_City.XML.

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:23 pm

THe reason why i'm so intressed in having alot of industries is the following:
- it is not possible to create more then 1 output in a industrie, more inputs is possible
(so if you want to have dolls and teddybears, you already need 2 industries)
- The next thing i do is using industries as an input building (we saw already an example like this with the military basis(demands arms))
why this? well in this way not all the towns or cities will ask for arms (when a village grow) and in this way you've got easily control on where a specific good needs to be transported (instead of just the closest city or specifying this in the scenario), this makes tracking alot more intresting...!
- it's not always needed that those industries are buyable (fe you can have a only 2 preplaced newspapers and if you want to get them transported you've got to go to those pre-pointed cities)

- The result of this is that wool for example get to be shipped to 2 different industries, 4 different cities fe, that what they produce fe dolls and teddy bears and clothes are needed in other cities etc... so here you will have alot of trains needed just for 1 good transporting to different cities instead of taking all the wool to closest city, take all the toys to the closest city atc... you see...
anyway, you will see once my scenario-map is done...

btw: i've got a list of 21 industries, wanted to use them in 1 scenario,
i had only 3 wanted buyable, by using my technique of renaming industries (i added characters like * to there name) i've got now 10 out of 12 wanted industries in the buyable list
remark: the last 2 seems to be very hard because when 1 dissapear in the list, the change that it is replaced by another not wanted industries is 9/2 or something...
In fact: the buyable industries (12) is a list, means there's a no1 posittion and so on:
you can see it like this:
1 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 9 -11
2 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 10 - 12
in the interface,
SO yes there's must be a magic character that will repostion the industrie by 1 place, in this way we will have all control (space in the name doesn't change anything)

ps2:redknight, once i will refocus on adapting the traincars (more or less) the same as industrie-building, i will post it at that moment at the wiki

dwax · Post by **dwax** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:33 pm

gforce Are you making a new scenario with new train cars??

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 5:05 pm

Dwax,
YES and No,
WHat i'm doing is creating a traincar out of a copy (fe i've got 2 types of passengers (fe passengers(normal blue car) + elves(a passengercar model but in red))
In that way i can easily see wich-one is transported by the train!
This is fun, and easy.
so no, i'm not creating a model with new wheels but more the colors.
But this give already alot of oppurtinities, let's say you color the coal in orange, the car in yellow based on the coal car, and in this way you could create an oranges-car
Are you intrested in this:
have a look at the explaination on
1 - how to create a new industrie out of an excisting one
http://www.hookedgamers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1374
2 - post on traincars (you will see that's more or less the same as an industrie except you've got more files v1 and v2 versions are needed, so 2 nif files and 2 kfm files needs to be adapted here)
http://www.hookedgamers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1337
let me know what i can do for you, and have a look at the 2 posts!!!

gforce · Post by **gforce** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 5:19 pm

YES, i've done IT!

I've got exactly my 12 (wanted) out of 21 industries buyable!!!
Here's what can help:
BEGIN: You've got your list of 12 (some industries listed that you don't want)
STEP 1: Add characters to those industries (fe *) till the moment this industrie falls out of the list... (this means it will be positionned somewhere after postion 12)
- DO this for all your industries you don't want...
IN CASE OF: It can be that an industrie you don't want will reappear in the list, but it will appear at the last position (comming from 13 to 12)
- In that case: take an industrie that you want in the list an addapt the name of this one, till it appears in the list of 12
- WHat will happen: the industrie at position 12 will get pushed again at position 13
- So in fact try to position 2 wanted industries (not 1) in your list, so the not wanted industrie wil get pushed at position 14, before you start off again with the technique of step 1
Got it?
btw: if it works for me for 12 out of 21, it will work surely as well for less industries or less restricted wanted-list