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Some of the "game rules" were designed for the Metra-scale maps (where a single industry/station building really can fill multiple squares), but they're enforced on even continental-scale maps (where multiple stations and the largest railyard in the world could fit inside a single square). Perhaps the game could benefit from giving each map some metadata that includes its scale so that the blocking and turning rules can change.

My feedback is "Thank you." With all the talk about AI decompiling and reverse engineering I see daily (Pokémon just yesterday), I had the idea of coming to this forum and I'm glad I see someone making some strides. I think fixing little annoying things will be a big improvement. I haven't played for 2 years but off the top of my head: Each 45° turn has the effect of 2% grade when it should be 0.5% at most for any curve, no matter how close together they are. The fact that trains obstruct intersections feels excessive. Same for broken down trains. Is it true the economic cycle follows your personal situation in order to harm you? I couldn't believe it when I first read it but with time found it more convincing. A second station in the same city/industry creates its own demand. Silly! Irregular production rates. I don't have a big imagination so I will leave new features proposals to others. What Jeffry said about fleet management (or just the auto renewal of locomotives) sounds great.

My ideas are laid out from the beginning of this thread. Off the top of my head: Bug fixes, like not jamming a train when its engine is replaced during a reversal (train turning around and overlapping itself). Also: When passengers become scarce, make sure that various cities produce them slowly but steadily instead of all at once rarely (i.e. randomize the houses so they're not synchronized). And then there's the phantom farm crash, and train-list data corruption after a train is deleted. Also: Computer players should replace engines based on *engine* age, not *train* age (after a few years, they replace engines *every* year!) Then there are productivity enhancements like being able to filter the train list by age and engine-type and then select-all or select several to replace many engines at once. It would also be nice to filter for various common train problems (like waiting empty). Document trigger & event mechanics (or internally comment code) so scenario designers can properly tune events. For instance, if I execute a series of events that discount track-building cost by some percentage, how do those percentages stack? And after the game has stacked several (maybe a lot of them), how would an adjustment the other way affect the total? And then there's the mystery of which adjustments scan be applied per company / region / global / player, and then how they stack if applied at more than one level.

"I plan to release the project as open source if I can obtain permission from the rights holder." I first tried to identify the "rights holder" over a decade ago, and the likely companies deferred to one another. Take2 supposedly bought out PopTop, but when approached insisted they'd sold the rights on to a Sid Meier project (that eventually became his quickly-forgotten model-RR type game). When I contacted Sid Meier's company (forgotten its name), they insisted that they had zero RT2 interest, ownership or original source code. That leaves only Steam (and any other distributors of the original game) as stakeholders. They have contracts with somebody, so they're the ones who might complain if RT2 is re-released. You might approach Steam and at least one vendor of the disc-based game, pitching your open-source idea as an expansion that would drive new sales. The knee-jerk reaction will always be cease-and-desist, because that's how lawyers "think", so don't be discouraged. However, if you can get past the non-thinking lawyer level, then you might get an intelligent reply from an actual business person who thinks in terms of opportunity rather than status quo. If you're outside the US, you have more flexibility to go for an "asking forgiveness is easier than permission" path to the open-source add-on result.

levels 3 & 4 are finished. the link in the OP is the same, but the zip was updated now for some info. first, here's a changelog for general adjustments and levels 1 & 2: SARD 03: Cutter Teeth SARD 04: Skullcracker oh yeah, and although Nguyen or other testers haven't recorded runs just yet, I've got some test runs right here. streamable links will expire eventually, but by whenever it is that that happens I'll surely have edited this post with Nguyen's runs. he always comes through level 3: https://streamable.com/rfved4 level 4: https://streamable.com/j4oegl these clips were of earlier drafts. certain things are different in the current result have fun! there's a lot to play around with on level 4. even if striking out early on hard mode isn't really feasible, it's possible on normal and especially doable on easy mode EDIT 10/15/26: uhh... it seems I forgot to include the SOUNDS.RS in the zip. whoops. that'd be why a buncha sounds are missing. I'll patch it properly later; for now, just drop this under CustomCampaignData > FeyArkanon > Ark01IS > GAMESFX and/or GAMESFXEng SOUND.RS friendly reminder that this file, being attached directly to the forum, will appear to be missing or unavailable unless you're logged in  if that's a problem, swing by the Landsraad Discord server pinned at the top of this forum and poke me there if ya want. I listed it there first when this issue was discovered I was also made aware that level 4 accidentally calls for the wrong color file. it won't stop the map from launching or anything, it'll just make the AK gray instead of pink as the vanilla color is used instead. so dw about it lol