ylsul@athena.mit.edu (Young Sul) (06/25/91)
Hi! I just bought Railroad Tycoon, and its great! I only wish it were a little better: I'm playing on a 4mb Mac SE (its realllly slow), and the game does strange things after a while: -After several years, I no longer get reviewed. I don't know how many miles of track my opponents have, and I don't know how happy/sad my investors are. -I can advance to the "Captain" level, but even after 40 or so years, I can't progress any further. -Sometimes I am unable to remove track, but I will note (what I think to be) the appropriate deduction from my funds. -In the most basic level, I can watch trains go through each other on single track, rather than one stopping to let the other pass....so what good is doubling track? Has anybody else had these problems? Young Sul Project Athena, MIT ylsul@athena.mit.edu
jonesie@cbnewsm.att.com (charles.e.jones) (06/27/91)
In article <1991Jun25.143143.3957@athena.mit.edu> ylsul@athena.mit.edu (Young Sul) writes: > -After several years, I no longer get reviewed. I don't know > how many miles of track my opponents have, and I don't > know how happy/sad my investors are. [I'm sure this is in the manual somewhere, but I missed too.] Sounds like you've set the 'Game Speed' to 'Turbo.' The only difference between 'Fast' and 'Turbo' seems to be that the 'Turbo' setting suppresses *ANY AND ALL* informational dialogs. (Turbo seems to be the 'walk away' setting - the diaglogs suspend the game until acknowledged, so the 'Turbo' mode suppresses them and keeps rolling.) First time I realized this was when I wasn't getting any information about a rate-war - first thing I knew about the outcome was when I was presented with a "zoom" of the station with the other railroad gone, accompanied by the "happy music." I am left wondering what happens when a bridge goes out while the program is set to 'Turbo.' > -I can advance to the "Captain" level, but even after 40 or > so years, I can't progress any further. Well, the game gives you 100 years, so you aren't even half way there. ;-) Work harder to raise the net value of your railroad. Also, you may not be able to reach higher levels without raising the difficulty level. (I've made it to 'Congressman' at 50% difficulty after 100 years.) > -Sometimes I am unable to remove track, but I will note > (what I think to be) the appropriate deduction from my > funds. Sometimes (switches, etc.) the section of track must be removed from both directions. (Sometimes even when it doesn't make sense.) > -In the most basic level, I can watch trains go through > each other on single track, rather than one stopping > to let the other pass....so what good is doubling track? It's not worth as much with the 'no collision' option in effect, but if the track were doubled, the train would not have stopped. Now, for a bug I've come across. Try removing a station from the middle of your network. It seemed to *really* confuse the train routing for me. All the stations in the routing window claimed to be some other city, though I could still schedule after a fashion. And the distance between stations became just as confused as the routing. (A 'Pacific' powered three-car passenger train set a speed record of 280 mph!) (I suspect that if you 'patch' around the station with track, *then* remove it, keeping your network intact, you may not have this problem, but haven't both ways with the same set-up.) Chuck Jones cej@ccsitn.att.com (Hey, I thought it was two shorts *and* one long when passing through a station without stopping!)
coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge) (06/28/91)
jonesie@cbnewsm.att.com (charles.e.jones) writes: > Now, for a bug I've come across. > Try removing a station from the middle of your network. > It seemed to *really* confuse the train routing for me. All >the stations in the routing window claimed to be some other city, >though I could still schedule after a fashion. And the distance >between stations became just as confused as the routing. (A 'Pacific' >powered three-car passenger train set a speed record of 280 mph!) > (I suspect that if you 'patch' around the station with track, >*then* remove it, keeping your network intact, you may not have this >problem, but haven't both ways with the same set-up.) I've seen this too. It seems to be a pretty catastrophic failure; I've gone on for a couple years with such a messed-up world and it never recovered, even when I tried patches, deleting stations, etc. On the plus side, I've never seen this happen if 1) you remove the station in pause mode and 2) you put another station in its place. I'm not sure how necessary step 2) is, since I've done it a couple times without replacing the station and it hasn't crashed, but I think it helps. My favorite misfeature is the 32 station limit. Takes a great deal of the fun out of the game (I've got a very dispersed railroad in the northeast --- resources seem to be more sparse than usual in this world. It's doing great, but I'm out of stations :-(). My number one priority for the next release (ahead of speed, even ahead of the bug fixes) is removing stupid arbitrary limits like 32 stations... --John -------------------------------------------------------------------------- John L. Coolidge Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself) Copyright 1991 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed. You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.