Blue Mountains revamp

[Gumboots]

More tyre kicking. This time related to a possible "Across the Blue Mountains" update. It's still NSWGR ideas, so might as well go in this thread to save hijacking the existing scenario's thread too badly.

Taking the actual start year of 1855 and running for the standard 25 RT3 years until the end of 1879, same as the existing scenario, I checked out what had been laid in the way of track up to that point. It looks like the following shot. The pale blue rectangle outline is the near-as-I-can-get-them limits of the existing 448x448 map, which to be strictly correct for proportions should be 448x512 at the same east-west scale.

The pale green outline is the required limits if you wanted to fit the actual NSWGR network on a map, and at the same east-west scale would be 704x576. You could save some off the width by chopping the east coast in the northern corner, and get it down to 576x576 if necessary, but 704x576 is still fairly compact anyway.

Network_to_1879.jpg

There's not much track for an RT3 game, even though it was pretty good going in real life at the time. One noteworthy point is that Queanbeyan wasn't connected, whereas Yass was, and Yass is within the limits of the existing 448x448 map so I'm not sure why it was left out. Anyway, keeping the same map limits but looking at what track had been laid up to 1884 (ie. another 5 years) you get this, with the yellow track being the new bits:

Network_to_1884.jpg

Which brings up another point: the town of Kandos didn't even exist in the 19th century, so I'm not sure why it was included in an 1879 end year map. By 1884 the southern main line had reached the Victorian border (basically, bottom left corner of the screenshots) but including that would require an even larger map. The northern line had reached Glen Innes too, meaning even bigger again if you wanted that included. When making the existing ATBM map he seems to have focused on the idea of the Blue Mountains (directly west of Sydney) and not worried about the actual extent of the network at the time. Which is fair enough, but I'm still wondering why he went for Queanbeyan instead of Yass.

Anyway, moving right along and taking another five year interval, more track was laid in the period from 1884 to 1889. That looks like this, with the orange stuff being the latest:

Network_to_1889.jpg

This is when the south coast line and the Sydney-Newcastle connection were built in real life. But there's another oddity, in that the south coast line only goes to Nowra. It has never extended as far south as Bateman's Bay, and didn't even reach Nowra by 1889, so beats me why Bateman's Bay is a required connection in the existing map. The map could have been cut just north of Canberra and been more realistic (at the time Canberra didn't exist either). Anyway, for the last decade of the 19th century there are the following bits in red. Anything more extensive than this was built in the 20th century.

Network_to_1894.jpg

The differences are that a start was made on the line out to Broken Hill (at the middle of the western edge) and the final short section of the south coast line, from Kiama down to Nowra, was completed.

[Gumboots]

Just for a trial run I made a map the same size as the original (448x448) but with the latitude and longitude corrected to give the same north-south and east-west mileages. This involved trimming off the southern section of the original, since there's no (real life) need to build rail south of Nowra. The result is that east-west scale is the same as the original but north-south scale is about 14% greater, but both scales match on this map. IOW, 50 miles in any direction will be the same number of map pixels.

I also moved the map area west to bring in a few extra towns that were relevant to the rail network in this timeframe, so there's a bit less ocean to the east and a bit more land area. It was exported with the 5 metre scale DBF's, and those give topography that is pretty good for a first stab at it. It would obviously need some route smoothing, but not much. It's not much like the original map, but is a lot like what the region looks like in real life.

Having the actual topography makes it clear why the railways ran where they did. In most cases it was impossible for them to go anywhere else. The Illawarra escarpment is a total mongrel of a thing, and really demonstrates why getting to Wollongong by rail was such a difficult job. Ditto the section north from Sydney to Gosford (another mongrel in real life) and of course the Blue Mountains themselves. It's all playable, but some parts of it aren't going to be easy or cheap.

Screenshot and zip attached. Note that this is just a test map. It has cities, but no sizing of them for population and no economy details done.

448x448_shot.jpg

[RulerofRails]

Well, I spent a moment of my spare time to see what this feels like. IMO, it's rough at low level. The only thing that made it possible for me to imagine an ideal maxium grade of 8% (some places it's impossible) was that sometimes you can follow a spine of vertices of similar heights. I would imagine this is a smaller ridge in real life? What I can imagine the railroad normally doing in real life: going from one valley to another isn't IMO possible like this because we can't imitate to scale the curves possible in real life.

But I'm going to say that the price map doesn't transmit price through too much uneveness. If you setup the map for that it will be fine, but I wont expect it to play "normally" with a basic setup. Look how sharp the transitions into red price are:

Harsh red squares.jpg

This is what my routes look like:

The climb.jpg

Gosford.jpg

Wollongong.jpg

[Gumboots]

Like I said, it needs some route smoothing, but not much. The northern, southern and western areas are fine as is, or with very little change. The three problem areas are the Hawkesbury (between Sydney and Gosford), the Blue Mountains, and the Illawarra. Taking them in order:

The Hawkesbury is a jumble at this scale, and there's probably not a lot that can be done about it. In real life the area crossed by the railway is surrounded by 600 foot high sheer cliffs at the river. The railway runs down one of the few shallower slopes, then across the river, then follows Mullet Creek (a tributary) north. But, there are tunnels. Quite a few of them, north and south of the river, because they were the only way you could get through. At this scale those don't really fit, so you'd probably have to do some route smoothing over the top of the hills and just big bridge the worst of it.

The Blue Mountains are really represented quite well by this test map. They are that bad for rail. And yes, they are a big break in the economy of the period. That's why they wanted to figure out some way to cross them.

The canyon just to the south of Katoomba really is like that, and the railway does not run up it at all. It simply can't. It more or less follows the route you took. One difference is that there are a succession of tunnels between Katoomba and Lithgow, but again those don't really fit at this scale so you'd have to smooth the route to make it workable. The climb up to Katoomba would be workable with minor route smoothing too.

My main concern when checking this out was the areas available for Katoomba and Lithgow. I have been thinking that if you really wanted to go ahead with this revamp it may be better to scale the map out to 512x512, or possibly even 576x576. At the current scale those two townships are larger than the available area, although that would be less of a problem if they were sized for relative population rather than just being RT3's default city size. I need to test that. Katoomba was quite tiny in this timeframe and Lithgow wasn't very big either, so they might work at this scale. You'd also need to pick industries carefully to prevent weird things happening, but that's not much of a problem.

With the Illawarra escarpment, I was thinking it would be necessary to have a no-access territory along part of it. Without that you can capture Wollongong and Port Kembla with a large station on top of the ridge, so no need to go mountain goating at all. If the eastern face of the escarpment was given very minor smoothing (and by that I mean the eastern face, not the edge of the ridge) it would be possible to mountain goat up the face to the top at reasonable grades, or you could simply bite the bullet and put in a longish tunnel. Either would do a good job of representing the actual situation in the area. The line does have tunnels and it does have quite severe grades in parts.

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Re tweaking the existing map: the existing map's terrain is somewhat borked (lumpy rivers, terrain doesn't match real life so won't match satellite shots, etc) and "fixing things" could end up being quite a mission if you got into it. I could try a simple "add sat shot and forget about it" and see how it looks, but my gut is telling me it's going to be pretty rough.

The good news is that having the ports produce steel in exchange for coal seems to work well, with a basic 1:1 conversion and maximum production set to 3. It gives a reasonable market for coal, adequate but not excessive steel supply, and the ports are happy so tend to upgrade over time.

The overall economy is unrealistic to some extent, which naturally bugs me to some extent but it's well-balanced in terms of overall playability. I'm dubious about the value of some of the events. The "reduced fuel cost" is an obvious flaw, but the chance to reduce credit rating is also hardly worth having as it comes too late in the game.

That event would be better some years earlier, and possibly only for lower difficulty levels. By the time I see the notice for that event I'm always thinking of paying off my bonds just for the heck of it. Past a certain point there's no need to hold bonds anyway, since CBV is not part of the goals and cash flow is already adequate for laying the available track.

The other events are of minor interest if you happen to feel like chasing them, but usually there's too much else going on. They're the sort of thing you might do one time just for something different, so probably worth having just for that.

BTW, played the slightly tweaked original again last night, and knocked it off in March 1875. Earliest I've ever clocked it. The big difference was that I went for a rail start, and only acquired industry gradually. This made keeping up with the overall haulage quota easier for longer, so bigger rail bonuses, so more railway running, etc.

[RulerofRails]

Took a little look in the editor. I think this event will cause buggy behavior (in current map):
Blank bonus
This event is active but does nothing. It will block other bonuses for 3 years when triggered. It can also fire more than once.

Maybe it's too much info for the scale, anyway as I said I wasn't that impressed when seeing it for the first time. For sure, it's a nightmare to think about running a railway through those areas. But with limited tracks and a follow-the-historic route stipulation I can see it being workable even if not attractive visually to my eye.

Anyway, what I remembered about SEEDED ports stands-true (we have Milo to thank for that info, don't have time to find the link). You can do a special supply of any cargo you want by setting a port to supply it. Then pick an inland town and set the port to 1+% chance (doesn't matter the actual percentage, the point is that it's impossible for the port to appear without sea/ocean cells nearby).

Reserve cells are generally a decent way to control where buildings appear. JSS was pretty liberal with them in SCBC. Also, to have a no-access territory you will end up with a visible border (as SCBC used to have the water hiding). With a hidden territory, you could check for connection to it. Then get the player in some trouble or whatever. Maybe loading time is forever since everything has to be pulled up the cliff with winches?

[Gumboots]

I saw the blank bonus event but didn't pay much attention to it. I assumed it was a dummy that was left over from testing. I'll check it out in more detail.

Edit: Took a look at it. I'd say it's working as intended. He obviously wanted to randomise the bonus events, and the blank bonus appears to be just extra randomisation, giving an extra three year gap even if one of the other bonus events hasn't already reset GV4 for three years. The whole lot work well in practice (apart from the caveats about fuel cost events being broken, and the possibly too late credit rating adjustment).

For the no access territory I could just call it a national park. Or have a sign saying "Keep out. Here be drop bears". Neither are strictly true to life, but what the heck.

(Drop bears are mythical killer koalas, that drop out of trees and rip your head off with their claws. Great fun for winding up gullible tourists.)

Edit again: It just occurred to me that there's a very simple solution for the mountain goating thing. The scenario already tracks wool deliveries to a Ports territory that includes Newcastle, Sydney and The Gong (or Woggalong if you like, which is its other nickname). So all it needs is to have Wollongong split out to its own special territory, and have a medal requirement for Comp. stns. connect Terr.(Wollongong) to City(Sydney). Or you could have a loads, or revenue, requirement to the Woggalong territory. Any of those three options will take care of it.

You could be right about too much info for the scale. The unsmoothed version is exceptionally jagged, much more so than real life. Australia is a very old continent and consequently very weathered, so tends not to do jagged so much. But for overall feel of "Oh @&#^@ I have to build a railway through that" it gets the general idea across. By 19th century colonial standards it really was a nightmare, not so much for pointy peaks but just for grades on feasible routes.

Anyway I was thinking about it so imported another version, with the same height export tables (5 metre scale) and the same default value=1 height modifiers, but with the default RT3 smoothing value of 1 this time instead of the 0 used before. I was worried it would "blobbify" things too much but actually it's not bad. I do think it could probably do with an overall height increase of 10 or 20%, as at the moment I think the gnarly sections are a bit too much of a no-brainer, but in general it works pretty well.

I threw all the cities on it, with no industries in most of them but with the correct relative sizes, and laid track approximating the actual network of the period. This was a quick and easy process, so I'd say it's definitely playable in this form. There's a zipped sandbox attached if you're curious. No locos purchased, so compatible with any installation.

The other possibility, which is quite easy in the scheme of things, is to import with 0 smoothing and then just run a smoothing brush over it where advisable. That's less of a big blunt instrument than the default walloper, but is still a relatively quick and easy process.

[Gumboots]

After giving it some more thought I'm going to tweak the map proportions. I like the idea of keeping to the same 448 height as the original. This will keep land area and distances in map pixels much the same, so the current economy should transfer over without problems. It's basically a well-scripted map that has good playability and good replay value, so it makes sense to take advantage of these good points. I'm keen to add a bit more historical accuracy (ie: Yass instead of Queanbeyan) but don't want to completely trash the existing scenario.

However, there's still room for bringing the lower edge further north (ie: closer to Nowra). If I adjust the lower edge further north this will reduce the latitude range, so will increase the pixels-per-mile scale of the map. The difference isn't huge, around 8-10% depending on how far I push it, but the pixel density is the square of the linear dimension so that means 17-21% increase in resolution of topography. That will help the detailing around some of the critical areas without screwing anything, and ties in with something the original map's author said in his readme file:

Geographical note: I’ve made the map as accurate as I can, but I started with a heightmap from the Mapbuilder which is probably not detailed enough at this scale. Most of it looks right, but I had real trouble resolving the area around Springwood, Katoomba and Lithgow and ended up shifting these slightly to make the climbs more real. If anyone who knows this area (which I don’t) is offended by its inaccuracy, I’m happy take submissions!

So we can call this revamp idea "a submission which he would have been happy to take".

The only catch with adjusting the scale in this way is that it would cut the eastern limit a bit too close to Newcastle for comfort. The possible ways around that are a/ ditch some of the western cities, which I'd prefer not to do since they will be good for the story line, or b/ make the map a tad wider to give a bit more breathing room at the coast. I like the second option, and think bringing it out to 512 x 448 would be the best all-round compromise. That's still compact and "spinnable" on screen, and near enough to the original land area that it won't require a complete re-scripting from scratch.

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On a related note: playing the original map with only Baldwins available for early freight reminded me of something. The Baldwin is too fast. A 0-6-0 with large and inclined outside cylinders would be wildly unstable at 40 mph. In real life it is unlikely to have ever exceeded 25 mph. The NSWGR A93 0-6-0 class, which had inside cylinders and a longer wheelbase, was regarded as unsafe over 25 mph. From what I can gather 25 mph also seems to have been the speed limit for the DX Goods.

I think the Baldwin can be kept useful if the nominal top speed is reduced to 30 mph, but free weight and pulling power are increased to keep the default performance up grades. A quick play with the spreadsheet last night indicates this will be easy to do. It's possible a one level increase in acceleration could be required too, but I'll know more after testing. This will also be a good test case for setting DX Goods stats, since it's effectively the UK equivalent for RT3 purposes.

[RulerofRails]

I saw the blank bonus event but didn't pay much attention to it. I assumed it was a dummy that was left over from testing. I'll check it out in more detail.

Edit: Took a look at it. I'd say it's working as intended. He obviously wanted to randomise the bonus events, and the blank bonus appears to be just extra randomisation, giving an extra three year gap even if one of the other bonus events hasn't already reset GV4 for three years. The whole lot work well in practice (apart from the caveats about fuel cost events being broken, and the possibly too late credit rating adjustment).

It's possible that it was intentional. But, why put it in the middle of the others? That will favor those above it, and make the lower ones a fair bit less likely to appear. The other thing which has me less than convinced is that this "nothing happening" period has the same duration (3 years) as the actual bonuses. Surely using something different like 2 years would be better randomization? Anyway, if I were tweaking I would at least arrange it so that this "nothing happening" event can't fire twice in a row. For example, *free-up GV4=1 which is currently used for the Alcohol to Katoomba bonus (use anything else not already used there). Then use a permanent effect to set GV4=1 before the temporary one that sets GV4=10. The other bonuses would then all check GV4<2 (instead of GV4=0). And have a new effect added to set GV4=0 BEFORE the temporary set.

In regards to the Coal event. As a replacement for the broken fuel adjustment, you can fudge by reducing maintenance costs a bit. If you do it by territory the player wont "see it" in the read-outs, but the main benefit of the by-territory application is that it wont mess up any of the various engine cost displays. (I used that trick in SCBC.) Alternatively, power could increase too. If you are getting cheaper Coal but spending the same amount, wouldn't that give you more power?

I tried the sandbox. I can't tell how the economy will work directly in sandbox mode. But obviously being smoother means the overland transports will be more normal. I would agree with you that maybe it's smoothed a bit more than needed, but obviously it's not so much of a headache to look at the terrain now.

I did think a bit: If there is a fixed path based on history, it's interesting how to put practical difficulty there. The general bugginess of track laying especially when achieveing super tight radius turns, bridges, tunnels, and the fill under the track can often give "outs," letting the player avoid rather than confront many of the obstacles. And therefore I believe there is some setup work to do before such a challenge would be classed "defined." Unless, you force a tight route like SCBC does in the beginning. The other thing is that it's harder to balance difficulty of this practical kind for less experienced players, they wont know all the tricks.

Funny thing, I have a 30mph tune that seems to be attirbuted to you in my spreadsheet. I don't remember the exact story, and it's possible that the text was there by mistake. But I also seem to vaguely remember talking about it way back in PMs. Idk if I'm happy with the running cost on it. I see also in my sheet a high-weight experiment for the Mogul (IIRC this was conceptual, I didn't run it in test games), which goes along with my thinking that the running cost for these engines is so low compared to potential profit that they can just be spammed and long-distance, low-value hauls made with little economic consequence.

Baldwin@30.jpg

*Edit: I realized there was a flaw in my logic, I blame tiredness. It's corrected now.

[Gumboots]

It's possible that it was intentional. But, why put it in the middle of the others? That will favor those above it, and make the lower ones a fair bit less likely to appear. The other thing which has me less than convinced is that this "nothing happening" period has the same duration (3 years) as the actual bonuses. Surely using something different like 2 years would be better randomization?

You could be right. It is a bit funny having it in the middle, but without being able to talk to the bloke it's hard to be sure. Can be tweaked easily enough anyway.

Alternatively, power could increase too. If you are getting cheaper Coal but spending the same amount, wouldn't that give you more power?

Not necessarily. I can think of a range of reasons why it might not. Although you could spin the story so that you would get higher grade coal for the same price, and therefore get a slight power boost. In real life NSWGR used a range of coal types, with the best stuff meant to be reserved for the express locos and cheaper stuff being used out west where there were no grades.

I say "meant to be reserved" because sometimes crews hauling freight, who were given crappy coal, would throw one shovelful in the firebox and one off the side of the train, timing it so they just happened to run out of coal when they arrived at a coaling station for the express choofs. Then, oh dear, they'd just have to fill up with good stuff to keep the freight rolling. Real bummer, that.

Yes, this really did happen sometimes, although they would be in serious trouble if they got caught doing it. Amazing what you find out by reading old crews' memoirs though. There was even a grade of coal nicknamed "dynamite", because chunks of it used to explode in the firebox. Not big enough explosions to do any damage. Just a bit of a fireworks show for the crew.

The only catch with increased power, which in RT3 means pulling power tweaks, is that it tends to play havoc with carefully chosen custom loco stats. I might be more inclined to give a bit of a range increase instead.

I tried the sandbox. I can't tell how the economy will work directly in sandbox mode. But obviously being smoother means the overland transports will be more normal. I would agree with you that maybe it's smoothed a bit more than needed, but obviously it's not so much of a headache to look at the terrain now.

TBH I'm thinking that if the idea is to keep this as a low stress and fairly simple revamp, I might just go with the default smoothing and not worry too much. The main problem with default smoothing is things like river valleys. It tends to "smooth" them into a series of lumps down the river course, so you have to trade off fixing that against not having to fix other things, but this map should be pretty easy for rivers.

I did make another map with some changes I was thinking of: trimmed latitude range, height kept at 448, width extended to 512 and the map area shifted east slightly, smoothing on the default 1.0, and height modifier set to 1.0, but exported with 4 metre scale on the DBF tables. This seems to be a very good one. The climb to Katoomba is gnarly without being ridiculous. A few little touch ups here and there and it'll be good for a max of 6% if laid carefully, but with a fair amount of 6%. Lithgow makes more sense with these changes too, although access to it is easier than in real life. The Illawarra escarpment also works quite well. You can get up the face with nothing over 6% if you take a bit of care, although most people wouldn't get it that good. Or, if you don't mind spending the bucks, you can easily bore a 3% tunnel of reasonable length.

I did think a bit: If there is a fixed path based on history, it's interesting how to put practical difficulty there.

I wasn't thinking of getting carried away with this. The original is fairly loose on history. I was going to make it a bit more historical, but still keep the feel of the original. If you want to lay a line which was never laid IRL you can just go ahead and do it, or you can try play strictly historical lines if you want to.

I don't know where you got the Baldwin tune from. Possibly was one of mine, but if so I had forgotten about it. I'd be fine with increasing running costs a bit too.

[Gumboots]

Had some more thoughts while I was asleep (amazing how often this happens).

Importing a heightmap without smoothing means you need to apply a smoothing brush over large areas. Importing with smoothing usually means your river valleys (and possibly some other features) are a mess, and need to be re-cut from scratch. Since rivers are a nuisance to cut in, the sensible way to approach it would be to import two identical heightmaps: one with default smoothing and one without. If you know what rivers you are going to want on the map, and where they run, it should be fairly easy to compare the two imported maps and decide which one is going to be easiest to turn into a finished product.