SD45

There's large regional sections of the United States as maps, and there's also a map encompassing the entire contiguous US. It's very much like RT2/RT3, with the maps covering a larger area being a macro view, and the areas covering individual regions being a micro view. Even these "micro-maps" are rather large themselves. Here's the South(West) map in sandbox mode, showing a line between a cattle ranch and Albine. The line out of Albine heads to Austin, which then goes onto Houston. I should also mention that while one chooses a starting city in this game, one does not actually need to start at said starting city. It's just the city the camera focuses on when you start.

Some time ago, Kaylpso, the owner of the Tropico series, released a railroad tycoon-esq game called Railway Empire. This year, they released the complete collection, with the base game and all the DLC they made for it for around $40.00 The base game is free on the Epic Games Store till September the 17th, though you need a Epic Games account and the launcher. https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/railway-empire/home If you don't care too much for anything Epic, it's still a good way to give it a swing and see if you want to buy the complete collection on Steam or GOG. I'll post my thoughts on it sometime later after playing it a bit more.

Well peeps, I did some digging a time ago, and I can confirm Railroad Tycoon 2 was written in C++. Not that it matters all that much, but it might be useful regardless.

Jeffery. I did notice something rather peculiar when I decided to set up a map so I can start in 1800. When you start in Jan 1800, all you can do is lay tracks and build stations. You can't upgrade them, and you can't buy any locomotives. You're going to have to wait until the Trevithick-1 comes out at the standard engine introduction month (Edit: June), and you can start to buy station upgrades at the standard introduction month for those (Edit: August). Kinda freaked me out when I was told I had all the available station upgrades when I had no facilitates, and a medium station.

About that... The earliest locomotive available is the Trevithick-1, avalible in 1800. However, by the default engine lists, it is not available in North America. Because the next available locomotive is the Rocket, which is everywhere, the minimum start date becomes 1830 on the maps where the Trevithick-1 is not available. You can turn it on yourself in the map editor of course, by modifying the engine pool. As for maps, I don't recall any maps that have you start that early, because the trains are sloowwww until the American-C pops up. Edit: While it has a minium start date of 1823, the map "Local Industy" allows you to play with the Trevithick-1.

No offense, but I think our opinions may have been skewed somewhat thanks to the passage of time. Reading up on it, multiplayer was rather popular back in the day when it was released. There were a few well-know game services that allowed it, such as HEAT.net and GameSpy. Evolve was a more recent option. But we're in a different situation these days. All those services have been closed, and we're also now pushing the game rather hard, peeling back the layers of the onion, trying to get the most out of RT2, and finding some rather interesting bugs in the process. So, yes, it can seem that multiplayer was a worthless addition, but it's just a victim of bit rot, like many things. There's still a interest in multiplayer transportation simulation games. The OpenTTD mutiplayer servers are quite active last time I checked.

Now that makes sense. Because it was in such sad shape, it would've ended up with a net negative equity eventually, and I would've had to build that portion of track. (Not that it would've really mattered, I was rolling in cash.)

That might not be entirely the case. It's still very dependent on passengers. There's a map in the Platinum edition called "Local Industry". A few set-up events insures that there's no passengers to haul, and a extremely low amount of mail. (The point was to haul freight, lots and lots of freight.) Result - When the AI encountered this, it ran itself into the ground, with no cash, trains totally stationary waiting for cargo that never came, and it declared bankruptcy twice. (Why it didn't disappear at that moment, I have no idea.) The company was worth next to nothing. Because it had some useful trackage (the map was rather flat), I bought it for pennies on the dollar, leaving no money for its president to start another company, and then I threw away all of its trains (I know this can cause problems, but no bugs reared their ugly head, and I was lazy.). I eventually won the sliver, using said trackage to span across the map.

A mini update from me: After doing some reading, I did manage to get multiplayer working over a LAN with my laptop and desktop. I used IPXWrapper - http://www.solemnwarning.net/ipxwrapper/ to emulate an IPX connection. Once that was set up, I used the IPX option to connect my Laptop and Desktop together over LAN, set up the game, and I was playing on the Heartland map against myself on my desktop, a less than ideal setup. Still need to work out a few bugs though. (Stuttery, jumping trains for no clear reason. I think this might be some sort of memory issue resulting from a overflow.), but it's a start. The next step after this is to figure out a way to bridge the gap between networks. Honestly, playing Railroad Tycoon II with multiple real people is rather appealing, and I understand the circumstances. I'm rather used to thinking on my feet in RT2, and I know it's not common and possibly not kosher, but I usually don't pause to plan out routes, because I know what to look for. But based on what I've read, I think small to medium sized maps would be good for multiplayer.

Thanks for this, but I'm having a little trouble using the switches. (I'm using the Command Prompt that comes with Windows 10.) I'm able to read the data of a map file, but I'm not sure where or how to place the switches to get the desired effects.

That is quite understandable sir, seeing you in other places on the internet. I'll figure it out eventually.

Jeffry, I'm pretty sure the GG1 had the same stats in real life for it's entire 50 year service life. But they still seem kinda exaggerated, I'll admit. And while we're talking about overpowered locomotives, let's talk about the FP45... I can't really remember right now, but the real-world FP45 didn't seem overly impressive. Could I also submit some changes for your EXE? Mainly, I plan to boost the reliability of the SD45 and possibly the SDP40 to good or above. (The SD45 being a expy of sorts for the SD40-2.) I also would like having the SD45 available in the end-game as a mid-powered locomotive for lines with lighter traffic, and to reflect the SD40-2s longevity. I will try that tactic with electric-freight and diesel-passenger when I can sit down for a while. Edit - I'll think I'll hold off on those locomotive mods until I can remember how to use a hex editor...help?

A lot of the commentary and strategies on most scenarios in RT2, nobody ever seems to use diesels in any capacity, and jump to electrics as soon as the GG1 arrives, and never use diesels, I can definitely see the economic advantages of electric locomotives, and I have used them myself. But it's alongside a diesel or steam fleet. Is there no viable reason to use diesel locomotives in RT2? I'm considering boosting the reliability of the SDP40 and SD45, which aren't so hot, and aren't reflective of their real-world counterparts. (Especially considering the SD45 is supposed to represent the SD40-2 witth its 1972 intro date, which has been in service for 40 years now, and still has superb reliability.)

If you're still here... You'll be looking for the part of the Classic campaign, called "When Walls Come Down". There's a series of Maglev events, in a very simlar wording. It's not a seperate level though, and thus has no video.

Reailbility is a major issue too in my mind. Getting back to the SDP40 and SD45, the 645 engine is one of the most reliablie engines in the world. Sure, the SD45 had some problems with it's crankshaft issues. But the SDP40 had none of those issues. Their reliabities should be raised to at least good or above. The dates may need to be shifted around too. I'm gonna say that the SD45 is a analog for the SD40-2, which still means it's reablitiy needs to be raised. Same problem with a lot of steam engnies. What's up with the Ten Wheeler and the Mastadon? Sure, the 4-8-0 wasn't partiucallry popular, but the Ten-Wheeler was. And both were pretty reliable, with N&W using tons of 4-8-0s for pretty much everything. I tend to avoid using both engines for those reasons. And this wouldn't be a complete dicussion without mentioing the Pacific. I think Jeffery's mod fixes this, and I haven't had one blow up on me, but I read that Pacifics are not dependable in the game. The Pacific in the real world was basicly the Mikado's Passenger Cousin. Mid-powered and reliable. That should be fixed. Anyway, time to start breaking my EXE.