TGA map borders? TGA/XML coordinate conversions?

[Stratagerm]

Hi gang,

I'm a relatively new Railroads! owner here, and very impressed with the Utah map which I've had great fun playing.

Now I want to work on my own maps and scenarios and have some questions.

There's a lot of information about using the Map Editor and working with DEM files, and that's great.

A couple of questions (I've looked all over the board and the wiki without finding answers):

1. When converting DEMs to the grayscale TGA, how big should the border be? In other words, if I want to include certain real-world places, how far in from the edge should they be?

2. How do you convert between XML and TGA coordinates? Apparently 0,0 is not centered, and I saw a post to the effect that values run from -200 to +600, but the Utah map has cities placed using a minimum of -396 and a maximum of 713. Does anyone know how the XML coordinate system works?

I'll edit the Wiki to include this information once I find the answers -- I really want to know.

Thanks!

[snoopy55]

Stratagerm - I'll reply to the second question as it refers to my thread. The numbers I put in there were from work I did a while back. Evidently the map size I was working on then and the one I did for the lesson were different. A standard, 10 X 10, 100 unit uses numbers around -160 to +470, which are -16,000 to +16,000 in the Editor. I do believe the 144 unit map uses the numbers I mentioned, if not, bring it up here. The Editor puts the 'Nameless City' at -7424, 7424 every time, no matter what size map you make, and it comes up 5,5 in the XML.
I'm sorry for the error, it has been corrected. Thanks for bringing that up.
Looking at the numbers I have, it's about 50 Editor units for 1 XML unit. Set up a map, put the four required start cities in and save it. Then go in and add several cities with either the X or Y at 0 and the other using some numbers till you figure it out. I'd like to know also, now that you brought it up

And welcome to the Forum, I hope you can help us in better understanding this game

[Stratagerm]

OK, I've figured some stuff out about the camera border and Pixel to XML coordinate conversions and as promised I've updated the Wiki page.

Still to come:

• A table with values calculated for each map size.
• Pinning down the Map Editor coordinate system.

It's way too late now, gotta quit for some sleep.

Later

[keotaman]

(Excerpt) ... and as promised I've updated the Wiki page. ...

Interesting. I've added a question on the talk page relevant to your contribution