New Map - US_Southeast

TMILLER · Post by **TMILLER** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 11:02 am

New Map - US_Southeast 1918-1985
Attached is a new 15x15 map of the Southeastern United States of America. This map covers the region formerly served by the Southern Railway (Washington DC to Jacksonville to New Orleans to St. Louis). The Southern Railway was formed over 160 years from the consolidation of over 150 rail lines, beginning in 1830 with the locomotive named BEST FRIEND OF CHARLESTON. This was America's 2nd RR owned and operated by the South Carolina Canal and RR Company. A military target of the Union during the US Civil War, it was reorganized by J P Morgan in 1893 into the Southern RR. Southern was known as a first-class modern RR with mottos: LOOK AHEAD - LOOK SOUTH, SOUTHERN SERVES THE SOUTH, and SOUTHERN GIVES A GREEN LIGHT TO INNOVATION. In the late 1980’s Southern merged with Norfolk and Western to form the Norfolk Southern RR.
I have re-skinned cars and locomotives to look like those used by Southern including, Norfolk and Western, Savannah and Atlanta, Central of Georgia, and Norfolk Southern Railways. Credits go to many others from whom I have borrowed game components including Jancsika, Karsten, Lowell, Slider38, and especially Bobby Rodea. I have used cars, and locomotives from Rodea’s Borneo and West Sumatera maps. I have also used engines and cars posted by Bobby (vzbob) as Building Blocks on the SMR Forum web site. The map includes a complete complement of version 3 cars and diesel locomotives from EMD F3, GP7, SW1200, GP38, SD40, and GE AC4400. The Victory Scenario has 5 Eras and should be a challenge to experienced players especially with 3 AIs. During Era 1 (The Roaring Twenties) move passengers, mail, food and cotton. Add coal during Era 2 (The Great Depression). Era 3 covers World War II when the railroad must move troops and ammunition to Army Forts and Naval Ports. During the post war Era 4, move manufactured goods. During Era 5 move passengers on some of the most popular Named Trains of the 20th Century. Good Luck.
I have played the game and met all victory conditions without crashes on Investor Level with 3 AIs. I hope someone will give it a try and provide comments and criticism so I can improve the game. The map is being submitted in 4 compressed 7zip files, each less than 6 MB as required for uploading to this forum. Download, unzip and install all 4 files to play the map. See if you can build and operate the Southern as well as J P Morgan did. - TMiller

TMILLER · Post by **TMILLER** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 11:07 am

US_Southeast Part 2 of 4 parts.

TMILLER · Post by **TMILLER** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 11:12 am

US_Southeast Part 3 of 4 parts.

TMILLER · Post by **TMILLER** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 11:14 am

US_Southeast Part 4 of 4 parts.

karsten · Post by **karsten** » Sun Nov 11, 2012 7:41 pm

This looks like an refreshing excursion into the US Southeast, with an impressive re-skinning bonanza. I still wonder whether the 4 asset files could not all have fit into a single post, but at least they are now in one topic, which is progress!

I have got to the troups (=troops) and ammunitions trains, which go on strike when the train composition is changed. I wonder whether you could not go back to the drawing board and start these from scratch, they seem too complicated for their own good. After all, the (goodlooking!) ammunitions car should be a simple reskin and rename of the goods car and should not really cause so much trouble. The various versions of the recruit car did not look any different to me, so are they necessary? Is there some confusion between recruits and troups?

TMILLER · Post by **TMILLER** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 2:29 pm

Karsten, Thanks for your comments on the map. I am glad you like the reskinned rolling stock. This was actually the first map I ever tried to do. While working on it I got the idea for my Gone With the Wind map and switched to that project. Then Japan, Arabia, and Canadian Pacific. I am just now getting back to this one. Before discoverying SMR I planned to build a model train set with trains and cars of the Southern RR. My father and grandfather both worked for Southern RR. I used to go to the train shop with both of them, so I have always felt kindly toward Southern and decided to do a SMR map of Southern's service area.

I will fix the spelling of troops and try to get future maps into a single post.

As per a suggestion you made, I am trying to develop this map following a historical theme of the region. In this case it includes Era 1 - Roaring Twenties, Era 2 Great Depression, Era 3 World War II, Era 4 Post War Development, Era 5 Passenger Travel on Named Trains (The Named Trains I used in Era 5 are actual Southern RR named trains and routes of this era). My troops car is just the recruits car from Slider38's My Old Kentucky Home map. In his map cities generated recruits which were shipped to Fort Campbell KY presumably for training. I wanted to ship passengers to army forts, then ship trained soldiers to Naval Stations for shipment overseas for deployment during the war. This requires that the player divert passengers from 6-8 cities to the army forts during this era. I called these "goods" troops since they are ready for combat. This is probably a distinction without a difference, but I that was my thinking. As far as "trains going on strike at military forts and naval stations when train composition changes", this seems an odd problem to me. Odder still, I was playing Choobacca's Basin and Range map a few weeks ago and had the exact same problem when shipping army tanks to a military fort. I use the same military fort (for army forts and naval stations) in the US_Southeast map that Choobacca used in Basin and Range, so I attribute the problem to the fort rather than the cars. Just like in my map, when tank cars were removed at the military fort the trains were stuck and would not move. If empty cars were left on the train, they would proceed to the next destination. I have never seen this problem before and have no idea how to fix it. Does anyone have any ideas?

I like the tank cars in Basin and Range and plan to add them to this map, further complicating the Era 3 WWII goals to include shipping tanks, troops and ammunition to naval stations. I am working on some other ideas too, but they are not developed. Thanks again. Best Regards, TMiller

laloha · Post by **laloha** » Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:13 pm

attachment=1]Red Lighthouse.jpg[/attachment]

Just had to try some textures for the Lighthouses.

Unfortunitly they wont load when rentering as Saved map.

karsten · Post by **karsten** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 9:07 pm

Hi TMiller, I played through Lowell's version of Basin and Range two days ago, not a hitch - so you might try replacing the fort with the one from that source and see whether that fixes the troops and ammo trains.

Anyway, I continued the scenario and I think the story is interesting. Only the last era loses its way in a bit of spaghetti, where connections crisscross all over the place in an unprototypical way. I am sure the historical passenger routes were nothing like the solutions I hit on

You could ask players to connect some of the main historical stops en route.

On the other hand, I liked the grand "Southern" routes with passenger trains and their loong carriages swooping by, as you can see in my screenshots. Hope you get the problems sorted out.

Lowell · Post by **Lowell** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 7:20 am

I have read through all your files. One thing that stands out with a big flashing red light...haha..is you are adding "new" train cars and engine plus one new annex and only listing them on scenario xml lists. All new game content must be listed on a global xml list. Then on the scenario list only list the items name title and leave the industries model and production info on the global list only.
This is why your "saves" are crashing.
See the game is loading all the old content from the main global lists because you did not make a "new" set of globals for the game to load each time it is turned on.

Like here...the game has no gasoline installed on the games main files. You placed a global listing for a new item only on a scenario list...hence...Crash!

RRT_TrainCars_US_Southeast.xml listing...
<TrainCar>
<szName>Gasoline Car</szName>
<szGood>Gasoline</szGood>
<szModel>POC_1752_Oil_Car.kfm</szModel>
<szDummyModel>poc_1752_oil_car_dummies.nif</szDummyModel>
<szGroundClackSound>AS3D_CLACK_PLANET_GROUND</szGroundClackSound>
<szBridgeClackSound>AS3D_CLACK_PLANET_BRIDGE</szBridgeClackSound>
<RunLength>30</RunLength>
</TrainCar>

That belongs on a RRT_TrainCars.xml list.

Then you place only this line on a scenario list like this...
<TrainCar>
<szName>Gasoline Car</szName>
</TrainCar>

Like so.
All lists need to be built this way. You "can" try and use "only" global listings on maps that have new game content, but I have had crashes and other gremlins when using only the master lists. So for new content use "both" lists and make sure you have the correct way of listing on each.

I can dig deeper if you wish or correct the file listings, but that would take me a bit.

Hope this helps...have a good one, let me know if I can be of any other help.

Lowell · Post by **Lowell** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 11:55 am

I should mention for the sake of others...I was asked to review the files, others...please do not think I just barge-in and make statements unless asked.

An after thought when I was reviewing my last post.

My thought is the listings of those train cars that are misbehaving and then the engines get stuck at stations. My thought is make sure that Goods and everything new should be placed on an RRT_Whatever.xml list. Then for the scenario save file…place the items Name only on the RRT_Scenario.xml lists.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 7:22 pm

Lowell - what TMILLER has done is made the map in the SAM style. There has not been a problem with SAM and SAM2 maps when loading a Save. I just tested a couple to be sure myself. Even early maps, before SAMs, were not all done as Globals, that type of structure came along later and Saves ran fine before them. The problem has to be something in the map itself, which would have to be torn apart and replacement of standard materials done one at a time until all the culprits are found.

Karsten - those forts have been used in several other maps without problem, so they cannot be the cause.

TMILLER - I'll see what I can do. My time right now is limited, but I can run a couple of quick tests to attempt to find the problem.

TMILLER · Post by **TMILLER** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 8:09 pm

I found the problem. In the Industries.xml under Production InputOutputRatio, I had "1.0" which should have been "0" (zero) since the Naval Station demands troops and ammunition but does not produce anything. After making this change I tested it and now the trains do not get stuck at the Naval Station depots. I have fixed this in the next version, but I am making a lot of other changes before posting a version 2 of this map. Thanks to all who have given help on this. - TMiller

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 12:15 am

Interesting find there. I'll have to add that to the Wiki. Will have to test In-city Industries also for the same effect.

karsten · Post by **karsten** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 8:31 pm

I found the problem.

Excellent! Looking forward to version 2 - with less spaghetti, please?

TMILLER · Post by **TMILLER** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 4:29 pm

Karsten, I am posting a revised version of the US_Southeast map on another thread, but I wanted to respond to your comments regarding spaghetti. I could change the map, but I wanted to make it true to the actual locations of cities, industries, and resources of the area. I included a map of the actual Southern RR route map (newspaper event after the first passenger delivery) which does show a bit of spaghetti, but a few track crossovers are needed to move all these goods to their destination. I have played the new map, completing all VCs 10 years early (Investor Level) with only one overpass bridge (matching terrain conditions) and 3 crossover switches. I have attached pics of my final route map, the one bridge and a typical switch. I retired some trains and rails after meeting applicable VCs to provide better right-of-way for future tracks. You can see these on the route map as empty roadbeds. I ended up with 10,500 miles of track, 28 trains, and $150 million net worth. Admittedly, it took me 5-6 hours to meet all VCs and I was laying track or retiring track most of the time. I think this is a pretty challenging map that some will enjoy, but many may not. If anything, the revised map VCs are more complicated than the original one because I have added Sherman Tanks to be added during WWII and student GIs to be delivered to a university in Atlanta at war end. This was added to further develop the historical story of the Southern RR during the 75-yr period of the game. To avoid overlap bridge spaghetti, I first dropped the overlap bridge type from the xml file, but this only resulted in tracks laid on top of each other at grade. So I put them back, but increased the cost to minimize their use. Now a simple overlap bridge cost about $3 million. This should reduce spaghetti, but it may make the game more work than fun. I don’t know. I enjoyed playing it, but I have tried a lot of different track layouts to get autos to Atlanta and paper to Washington, while still delivering passengers on all the “named trains”. Moving all the passengers, troops, ammunition, steel and Sherman tanks during WWII era is also tough, but I guess that’s the way it was. I will eagerly await any comments you (or others) have on the revised map. Thanks, Terry