Basin And Range map

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu May 17, 2007 4:04 am

choobacca - no, I can't claim any problems, but then, I don't do any saving except for testing. But the big thing is future newbees loading all they can find then finding the demo running but the great finished product not. It falls under not using the same name twice.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Thu May 17, 2007 5:41 am

I have the Save Game loading problem too. I thought I had fixed it yesturday but this morning I had to start a game first before I could Load a Save. I tried several times but no love from the Main Menu. I shut off my comp to go out to dinner and a movie and I just loaded a Save Game from the main menu without issue. I removed SDSmods.FPK. Is there anything in there that we need now?

dwax · Post by **dwax** » Thu May 17, 2007 1:48 pm

What happend to the demo version of this? I don't see it listed no more. I have not tried to load a saved game,but it's not listed no more.Will you try to fix the save game crash thing?:)

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu May 17, 2007 8:52 pm

The reason is that both maps have the same name. If you loaded the demo after the final map, you'd have no final map. I do believe they are working on that.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Thu May 17, 2007 10:08 pm

Dr Frag wrote:I have the Save Game loading problem too. I thought I had fixed it yesturday but this morning I had to start a game first before I could Load a Save. I tried several times but no love from the Main Menu. I shut off my comp to go out to dinner and a movie and I just loaded a Save Game from the main menu without issue. I removed SDSmods.FPK. Is there anything in there that we need now?

ChicagoToTheRockies uses SDSmods.FPK, but it should be happy with the FPK files from BasinAndRange and Mange's Tender mod FPK.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Thu May 17, 2007 10:10 pm

snoopy55 wrote:The reason is that both maps have the same name. If you loaded the demo after the final map, you'd have no final map. I do believe they are working on that.

I uploaded a new version of the BasinAndRangeDemo map that fixes this. Remove the BasinAndRangeDemo map folder, then just use the v0.2 installer to reinstall it if you still want to play the demo.

Lowell · Post by **Lowell** » Sat May 19, 2007 4:22 am

I tried using the Zebra dual on one of my maps...(great model)...what happens is that is pulls in your orange food car with it. Even though I specify a special food car for my map already. It can be cool having two different cars for the same good...but the game doesn't think so. After a bit the game will start crashing for no reason, then you can't get back to saved games....hint...

could these models be your maps trouble? Was there a proper global entry for "every" car, engine...even if the engine was a B unit?

I also noticed that a couple other dual models will cause a ctd if you start/build a new train with them, you can switch to them after the train is created but not from the start.

I like the way you have the "Decor" skins, but it seems to be causing troubles with other maps/cars. Like your BN grain car must have been made off of the default grain cars nif file name...it has replaced the standard car in game...which I don't want. We "must" use dynamic names for our new cars...or it will wipe out other peoples cars in the future. The BN grain car is also oversized and it looks like one great big car, with no spaces between each car. I think your scale is too big...<Scale>0.100000</Scale> the scale for the default cars in-game is 0.8... <RRTTrainCars><Scale>0.8</Scale> ... "?" ...

Also in the Decorations list for your gold-mail car the listing is like this...

<RRTDecoration>
<szName>Swine Car Decor</szName>
<Locations>
<Location>
<StartX>-215</StartX>
<StartY>-200</StartY>
<Rotation>0.000000</Rotation>
<Scale>0.100000</Scale>
</Location>
</Locations>
</RRTDecoration>

</RRTDecorations>

It's highlighted in green inside the xml listing. I am not sure if those arrows are supposed to be there...it's throwing off the cars listing. The swine car listed above is colored correctly inside the list...but the xml listing has highlighted your last cars entry because of the two arrow characters at the beginning and end of it's listing.

EDIT//I don't think the demo name conflict was the real trouble...I think we need to look at each model in the globals and find the needle in the haystack. Where did you guys find this way to show car and train skins with the decorations listings? Were all your new train Cars entered into a global entry...or...will they refer to those decor files somehow? If the game isn't letting you back into your "saved" maps...it isn't happy with something. All my new cars for my Florida map have global entrees...no way around that or the game won't be happy. I just went and looked...I see no global entries for your new train cars into the game....okay...back to my map...thanks again for such a great map...I hope mine will live up to you guys map.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Sat May 19, 2007 9:44 pm

Lowell,
Thanks for your feedback of your observations.

All of the car models are for the _bnsf variation. If you don't want you maps to use these new train cars from BasinAndRange (the orange food car for instance) you have to specify your engines to pull the _v2 train car variations. (Then you will see the yellow food car again.)

EDIT: The installer should have added global XML entries for the new car types. There were only 4 new car types added: Double Stack Container cars, Scrap Metal cars, Taconite Ore cars, and Taconite Pellet cars. All the other cars are already in the game, but I just substituted my models for them. :EDIT

The reason I added the decoration cars was to keep the game from crashing when I added a new train with new cars to my map while playing in the late game. I didn't have much trouble with crashes in the first hour or so of playing the map, but after this, the game would crash when I tried loading a new type of train car to the game. I deduced this to the fact the game took too long to find and load the car and crash. So I tried adding the train cars as decorations and put them on the map. They are very small (scale of 0.1). Did you even notice them on the map?
Once I added them on the map, I never had a crash that I described above.
So the decoration cars aren't substitutes for the global XML entries. They are there to keep the cars available in memory for when I create a train with them in. I will have to look into these as they may be causing the saved game troubles.

I commented the mail and passenger cars out of the decorations xml because they were causing the map to crash upon loading. I think I fixed that now.

EDIT: Adding new engines and cars is not always easy and obvious. There are lots of "i"s to dot and "t"s to cross.

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Sun May 20, 2007 5:12 pm

I'm back!

Geez, I go away for 2 weeks.... stepdaughters college grad in St. Louis and look what I almost missed.
Great looking map and equally great new stash of locomotives and cars. Makes my 2 weeks without a computer seem well worthwhile. Thanks choo and papa... you guys are simply amazing

universum · Post by **universum** » Mon May 21, 2007 2:08 am

Hi Choo-Pappa Enterprises,

nice map and wonderful models. I have just completed it on Investor level.

I was my 3rd or 4th attempt and all previous ended with crash somewhere in the 2nd era but I cannot pinpoint any circumstances, I was just watching trains when it happened. I also cannot load saved games. Interestingly enough, I was able to load one saved game from 1968 and complete the game with it, which was good because I was ready to give up on your map.

For some reason I cannot load that same saved game again. Weird. I would expect each saved game to either work or not but not this. I have problems with my scenario (UTAH) and saved games too but only when I try to load saved game when in the game. If it is fresh start, it seems to work fine.

I have installed the game manually.

I would love to try harder difficulties if you figure out the stability problem.

Little nitpicks:
- goal to distribute 100 manufactured goods is easily doable without using containers and distribution center (I have hooked oil to rafinery in Poison Mesa). I am not sure how to do it without placing the industry in the city. I have not even noticed the distribution center and harbor at first.
- I was overwhelmed by number of engines, I really like the way how you allow player to pick single or dual engine (with adequate effect on pulling power, prices and maintenance cost) but there is just too many combinations to make any difference except for the look (which, of course, is huge). I think I had less trains in the game than available engines.
- "cracked desert floor" texture does not look right on cliffs

Great work.

Big Papa · Post by **Big Papa** » Mon May 21, 2007 5:36 pm

universum wrote:"cracked desert floor" texture does not look right on cliffs

Can you post a picture of this? I'm not sure I understand what you are writing about?

Big Papa

edit:
I feel this is only your opinion. My opinion is that it does look correct using a touch of the editors "cliff edges". Depending on the variety of sandstone & weathering factors, the Western Deserts and Colorado Plateau yields an almost infinite amount of cliff textures. What you think looks like cracked desert looks a lot like "slick rock" to me.

Big Papa

Lowell · Post by **Lowell** » Mon May 21, 2007 6:01 pm

I did find the decoration skin/models the other day. Cool idea but somehow something is stepping on the maps foot. I added your Zebra dual model to my Florida map the other night...right off the bat I couldn't get back to my saved maps. Even if the engine was left in the list and not even used...it had to come out. My new map is for the Southern Railway anyway...I was just playing.

I added my new train cars into the global list with new nif models and the works. Never an issue. I didn't think there was any other way to add cars into the game...same for engines. I guess I could look at how they constructed CivCity Rome or Pirates and see if there are any new file tricks they didn't use on this game set. I have done a couple mods for CivCity Rome...kinda cool.

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Mon May 21, 2007 6:24 pm

I've run into the save game problem as well. It loads and then crashes in a few minutes. Not tried a second one yet or repeated the first save. Just not enough time as there's a lot of yardwork to catch up on.

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Mon May 21, 2007 11:30 pm

Got to within 5 years of the finish and it CTD'd..... doh.... I missed one goal in the first part and 2 were gonna be close in the second but I surely was having fun with all the new locomotives. Maybe I had too much track or maybe my computer just can't handle big maps.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Fri May 25, 2007 3:01 pm

So why did I create a new _bnsf car variation instead of creating new car types for the _v1 and _v2 variations?

1. Since I changed a number of cars (made them longer and gave them a BNSF paint job), it was easier and less costly to create a new _bnsf variation instead of creating twice as many files to support the _v1 and _v2 variations.

2. I didn't have to define as many new train cars in the global TrainCars.xml file. Only the brand new cars needed XML to define them. I could reuse most of the XML that already existed.

3. To make any train in any map pull the new BNSF cars is a one-line XML change to the <szCars> tag in the map's Trains XML file. Otherwise it would involve changing every car definition in the map's TrainCars XML file.

4. More variety. One train can pull a _v2 food car, and another train can pull a _bnsf food car, and another train can pull a _v1 food car. And if you upgrade trains properly, that train could pull all 3 simultaneously!

5. You can have as many variations as you want. So imagine having different train cars for BNSF, Union Pacific, CN, Norfolk Southern, etc. Then you can have different engines from these railways pulling their own train cars for grain, food, coal, ore, etc. The BasinAndRange map created the BNSF railway, so now we have BNSF engines and train cars. Next we plan to do the UP line with its own engines and train cars. And if someone is already working on the CN and Norfolk Southern engines and cars...

So can you imagine the variety all on one map?

You could set up a UP line hauling coal, a BNSF line hauling grain, a CN line hauling goods between cities, etc. etc.

Now we are turning this simple strategy game (as Firaxis released it) into a railroad modeler's virtual world.