jcco

These were data collected by Akuenzi but I used the same method as he did to ISOLATE the distance factor: I looked at the theoretical value of the cargo as the train was just leaving the station. Of course, in a real game you'd have to take into account acceleration and time it takes to go from one station to the other to correctly evaluate your profit/unit of time. (though, for very long distance, acceleration would not change the result by too much). But in these tests, we just wanted to understand the influence of distance on the value of a given cargo. Since the value was checked immediately as the train started on its destination, speed, acceleration, even the rot factor of the given cargo was irrelevant. These data just show you that, in 1820 for example, a car of lumber leaving its station at 20 cells from its destination is valued 6.5 times more than the same cargo starting from 5 cells.....what you actually get on train ariival might be different of course, since it will depend on train average speed and rot factor of the given cargo for the time period. But, that's not the point here. EDIT: And also, before you ask, I only checked the value of freshly created cargo immediately picked up by a train before it had time to rot at the station. And since Akuenzi's data is quite consistent with mine, I guess he did the same. By the way, I just started playing your US History scenario. I'm having a lot of fun with it. Date is now 1846 and I'm the only railway left in northern US after I merged Cleveland/Columbus. I have no more room for expansion at the moment (I'm waiting for some territory to open). my PNW is 12M after 11 years playing and I'm in the black (I no longer risk a margin call from now) so I'm not doing too bad. I started very boldly by creating a company with a minimum of outside investment ( I don't do that usually) but I wanted to own as much of my company as I could from the start....It paid off in the end, since with only 700 000 in cash at the begining I was still able to create an extremely lucrative line between Chicago and St Louis, with enough left to plop a depot in NY and Boston to keep the AI away for further expansion on the East coast, which happened 2 years later. St Louis is now the largest city on the map and has outgrown NY. Boston is still a village of only 3 houses, but Baltimore has grown quite big as well. I still need to connect the coast to my main line which extend from Kansas City to Pittsburg and Buffalo, via St Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Cleveland and so on. Bye, JC

Ok, I'll do that. Sounds very interesting. it was not very difficult : only 8 occurrences of the date 1880 in the whole EXE and only one occurrence for 225 000 (cost of double tracked steel bridge) I just don't know. I did not even find the flag to enable the double tracked wooden bridge. All i know is the fact that there is a cost associated with it. Bridges data seem to be scattered all around the EXE file. Hello Akuenzi, I just had some time yesterday to look closely at the data you collected about lumber. It matches closely what I found for coal (this is not very surprising since their distance factor is nearly the same: 0.21 for coal and 0.25 for lumber). Indeed, even in your own data there IS a DROP in the rate at which the value increase with distance after 20 cell. Here is what I get using some of your data points: What follows is the value for one single car of lumber, starting at 5, 10, 20 and 30 cells from its destination, at 2 different dates ( I chose 1820 and 1900). - 1820: 5/7k 10/17k 20/47k 30/65k - 1900: 5/6k 10/14k 20/33k 30/39k Here we can see that, in 1820, going from 5 cells to 10 cells (100% increase in distance) the value went up from 7k to 17k ( 142% increase in value). and from 10 to 20 cells (again a 100% increase) the value went up from 17k to 47k (176% increase). All in all, going from 5 to 20 cells, the distance travelled increased 4 times while the value increased roughly 6.5 times. we can make the same calculation for the year 1900 : from 5 to 20 cells, the value increases 5.5 times. This is consistent with what I had found: from 0 to 20 cells, whatever the cargo hauled, the value increases steeply. However look at what happens after 20 cells: In 1820, the value of lumber goes up from 47k to 65k (38% increase) while the distance increases 50% from 20 to 30 cells! It's even worse in 1900 with the value increasing only 18% while the distance is increased by 50%. To put it in another way, in 1900, you get 19k for traveling 10 cells between 10 and 20, but only 6k for traveling 10 more cells up to 30 cells! This is what I call a drop in the rate of increase of the value with distance. You only tested up to 30 cells but I went as far as 450 cells in increments of 50 cells. I found the exact same behavior for coal, that, after 20 cells, the increase in value is much slower than the increase in distance and the rate of increase gets worse as the distance increases (though it quickly tends toward an asymptotic value). Bottom line is: don't haul coal or lumber on the other side of the map it's not worth the trouble! Note that this is not true for all cargo. As I said, early on, value for PAX and mail increases much faster than distance. After 100 cells it rises exponentially. Example: in 1820, value for one car of mail is 344k at 100 cells and 3.766k at 450 cells....more than 10 times the value for only slightly more than 4 times the distance! However, whatever the cargo hauled, as time passes there will be a point when all cargo shows the same behavior as coal or lumber. the higher the distance factor, the later this will happen but it will eventually happen. For example, in 2000, even the value for mail increases slower than the distance travelled, though, by this time engines are so fast that you'll still benefit from long distance runs ....but this time it's not because of the increased value but rather because by keeping distance long enough demand level will not drop as fast. Will post more about this later. BYE, JC

True. At the moment though, I'm in the middle of creating a new map to be used with Vanilla RRT2 (so that everybody can play it), and I want first to correct the most annoying bugs in the EXE file. I will try your historical US scenario as soon as I'm done with it and will use your modded EXE file (with some corrections that are needed like 2nd input demand in factories). By the way, I just found where some of the data blocks for the bridges were located. I think this might be of interest to you. Saddly, the data for bridgrs seem to be spread all over the EXE file and so far I can only mod the starting date for Steel/Stone bridges as well as the cost of all the bridges. at 0x69EF7 you will find the starting date for the steel bridges 58 07 (1880) and 16 bytes further the starting date for stone bridges 30 07 (1840). There doesn't seem to be a starting date for the wooden bridges in the same area (maybe wooden bridges are on by default). I tried it and it works. I was able to get steel bridges in 1820. I quickly looked at the other blocks of data around but did not find anything of use. starting at 0x13CE78 you will find a block of data containing all the prices for the different types of bridges. Each is stored in a block of four bytes and there are four types of bridges (Wood, steel, stone, over the sea) each with double and single track version (YES! Even the wooden bridge has a cost for double track which is 90 000 but I haven't yet found how to enable it in the game....must be a flag somewhere. So the whole block is 32 bytes long (4bytes x 4bridges x2 track versions) It goes Wood/double , wood/simple, steel/double, steel/simple, stone/double, stone/simple, sea/double and sea/simple. EDIT: I might have inverted the order between the steel and stone bridges (can't remember and do not have the EXE file opened just now) but you get the Idea. Hope this will help you, bye, JC

Helllo, just played this one quickly last night (it had been years since last time I had tried it) and made gold by 1882. Didn't run into much trouble. Here are a few things you should keep in mind as you play this scenario, which should help you greatly: - You don't need to have all your tracks connected until the very end. You can build anywhere you want in this scenario so you should try to avoid going over mountains. Concentrate on building several small profitable lines wherever the terrain is flat enough...the Shay is useless in this scenario for that very reason. - There is no AI and your personal net worth is irrelevant in this scenario : Don't forget to issue stock every year! you won't get much money at first (but this can help you buy that much needed second Vulcan) but as time passes and you make some profit, you'll make good money selling new shares EVERY YEAR. - The Vulcan is not the fastest nor the most reliable engine BUT it sure is THE CHEAPEST one around! It is a very valuable asset in this scenario. Try dead-heading iron to a steel mill with an Iron Duke and you'll soon be broke. The Vulcan on the other hand can turn a profit out of anything (albeit small) even dead-heading grain to a cattle ranch or moving goods between two very close city. So, keep the Ten wheelers for long to medium Pax/mail runs or fast freight like food or goods, but keep to the vulcan for stuff like Iron, grain or when doing very short runs. Here is a step by step account of what I did to get gold in 1882: - I chose the +50k bonus because the shay is pretty useless if you don't go over steep grade and the +10% speed bonus won't make much of a difference (and will increase fuel cost by roughly the same amount!). Starting with 350k will give you a lot more flexibility at game start. -1870 : connected FUKUI and KANAZAWA. Both cities had a port. Bought 2 vulcans: one for PAX/Mail the other moving food Back and forth between the 2 towns (had to issue stock to buy the second engine). I had to micromanage the PAX train for maximum profit. was able to buy water and sanding towers after arrival of second train. PROFIT: 177k . -1871: Issued stock, managed my 2 trains as best I could. Bought a roundhouse. PROFIT: 194k -1872: Issued Stock, paid 80k to get access to better engines. PROFIT 97k (after deducting the 80k from event). -1874: Issued more stock. Was, at last, able to connect OSAKA/KYOTO. Replaced my "Fukui Cannonball" with a ten-wheeler and started to run pax between OSAKA and KANAZAWA/FUKUI. Bought a second fast engine to move food between the 3 cities (all had a port) and used the vulcan to move Iron to the steel mill near Kyoto (built a depot there so I could also sell the iron from the port of OSAKA). Soon added a second vulcan because there was far too much iron. PROFIT: 498k -1875: Issued stock. was making some money at last. doubled the tracks between OSAKA/KANAZAWA. connected KITAKYUSHU to OITA and got 300k reward. Put 2 vulcans on this line (one PAX, the other dead-heading Food/Iron) which kept making over 100k/year until the end. Connected the Osaka line to NIGATA for a second 300k reward. added a Ten WHeeler to run OSAKA/NIGATA with PAX/Mail and extended the route of my food train to reach Nigata as well. Waited for the arrival of a few trains to be able to build some more. Connected TOKYO to SENDAI, only running a PAX/Mail ten wheeler between the two cities (no freight to move around there). 1875 PROFIT : 1. 560k (including the 600k rewards and stock issuing). -1876: Issued stock. Connected NAGOYA to HAMAMATSU and put 2 vulcans on the line (PAX, COTTON/FOOD/GOODS) and AOMORI to AKITA and also used Vulcans on this very short run. Also bought some improvements for the other lines (sanding towers, roundhouses) and doubled tracks where necessary. Invited the guy who cut construction costs to come over (can't remember his name). PROFIT: 997k At this point, I had 5 disconnected railway lines: OSAKA/NIGATA was the big money maker (over 500k/year) with 5 trains (including 2 vulcan). TOKYO/SENDAI with only one train and some station improvements was making around 250k/year. KITAKYUSHU/OITA, AOMOR/AKITA and NAGOYA/HAMAMATSU were very small lines served mostly by vulcans moving PAX and dead-heading stuff like iron or food, BUT all in all, the three lines together brought in a profit of around 350k per year. Bottom line is, I was now making over 1.000k/Yearly and my credit rating was AAA (I had not yet Issued a bond). I was quite confident this was enough to stockpile money to finish connecting all the cities before the end date, but there is a second requirement to haul at least 50 loads in a single year. I guess I was already very close to this number but I decided to build some more links between a few towns and industries to make sure. 1876-1882: continued to issue stock every year (I was now getting over 200k each year). Connected a logging camp near NIGATA and dead-headed logs with a vulcan for the sawmill there, while a consolidation took care of moving the lumber to the OSAKA/FUKUI area, bringing back food. connected HIROSHIMA to KITAKYUSHU/OITA to move some more PAX and replaced the PAX/mail vulcan with a 10 wheelers running between the 3 cities. connected TOKYO/MAEBASHi. Made some station improvements. At this point, I was fairly sure I had been moving at least 50 loads in a year...all I did from this point on was wait and stockpile money still issuing maximum stock possible every year and replacing a few crashed vulcans. By 1882 I had over 4.000k in hand. Issued a few bonds and "connected the dots"... THat is, built a single track between KAGOSHIMA and OITA, another one between HIROSHIMA ans OSAKA, then one between OSAKA and NAGOYA. I finished the track between NIGATA and AKITA then AOMORI to SAPPORO. Finally I connected TOKYO/SENDAI to FUKUI. I just put a depot in KAGOSHIMA and SAPPORO to get the connection there, waited the end of the month for GOLD. I guess I could have finished this one before by taking bonds earlier instead of waiting to stockpile money. You can end this scenario with a debt, so this would not have been a problem. Hope this help. Of course, your game might be slightly different from mine since there is some randomness in the placement of ressources and the economic state of the game, but it should be feasible before 1899 in all cases. Just concentrate on profitable routes, don't take bonds early because these would kill the very small profit you get out of the vulcan (a slow start is better here, took me 3 years to get out of the FUKUI/KANAZAWA area but afterward it was a piece of cake). Don't forget the Stock (and put dividend to 0 by the way) and everything should be fine. when your credit rating is AAA you can take a pile of bonds for the finish....if everything else is ok, then you'll never have to pay the interest since it is endgame! BYE, JC

Hello, thanks for your answer. Yes, I can understand that. I, myself, do not try to mod the game but just correct some obvious bugs (like demand for milk in cities and the like). So far, I prefer to keep the game as it is until I really know what I'd like to change...that's the reason why I still do not use your modded EXE file I downloaded with the rest of the docs. Sorry to contradict you here, but I was well aware of the dates problem and took great care of testing this behavior when fertiilizer should be available and demanded by all the farms....even in 1950 I still couldn't get a demand for fertilizer in any farm without a plant on the map. Never said it was a general rule! I know that rubber, or coffee and many other stuff can be supplied through ports only without the need for a plantation...so far, only fertilizer reacted like that, that's why I wrote about it since it seems like a strange bug. will run some more tests this afternoon... maybe this is only true for transformed goods (like goods, food, fertilizer...) but not for raw materials like logs, rubber, Iron or wool? EDIT: Just ran some more tests....only fertilizer shows this strange bug. If you click on a farm it will still display the text saying that production will be boosted if you deliver fertilizer, but no demand at the station and they pay peanuts for fertilizer deliveries! However, I found a way around it : If, while working in the editor, you put a fertilizer plant on the map and save, then, you can go back to the map and erase the plant, save again, and this time everything works as intended (as if the plant was still there). Ok, just wanted to make sure you got it right. All right, good to know. Bye, JC

Bonjour and merci for your comments and answers. yes, you need a Hex editor (which you can find on the web). I use Hexedit which is very basic but gets the job done and is quite simple to use. However, if you've never done this before, you should be very careful before tinkering with your EXE file (make a backup). you should learn how to convert different kinds of decimal numbers (signed and unsigned integers, floating numbers) into hexadecimal and vice versa. When you open a file with Hexedit you should have a main window with rows upon rows of 2 digits number looking something like this : 00 0A 3C 22 01 00 00 10 0B 02 31 F0 and so on.....all these 2 digits numbers represent one byte of Data and have a value between 00 and FF (that is between 0 and 255 using decimal numbers) however, most datas are stored in blocks of more than one byte (most commons are blocks of 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 bytes). On the left of the main area you should have one column of numbers, starting at 0, this is simply the adress of the first byte of the adjoining row. on the right of the main area you should see some strange symbols and letters or dots, this is simply the translation of the hexadecimal numbers of the main area into ASCII symbol.....don't bother with that, this is here because sometimes the hexadecimal code does not really represents hard data but text which is encoded in hexadecimal numbers that you can read using the ASCII symbols. What you want to edit are the 2 digits numbers in the main area. Of course, you need to know WHERE to make these changes (that is, you need to know the address of the byte or blocks of byte you want to mod) and WHAT to put in there (that is, you need to know what those numbers represents). This is of course the trickiest part : It's usually a game of guess, trials and errors, patterns finding and so on... It can takes a lot of time and sometimes you won't even find what you're looking for! However here, as I said before, Jeffryfisher has already done most of the hard work (thanks again!!) and you can download some documents in the OP (you'll need open office to read these) where you will find the addresses for most of the relevant datas and how they are organized (that is, number of bytes, type of data (integer, floating number) and so on..) VERY HELPFUL !! (you should look at the EXE data.ods file, keep in mind it is valid only for the platinum version of the game). Now, some other important things you should absolutely know: - in many hexadecimal programs (and it's the case here) data that are stored in blocks of more than one byte are written in reverse order, starting with the byte of less weight! Sounds complicated so I just give an example: the decimal number 1800 ( you find it a lot in RRT2 since it is the starting date for most of the industries) converts to 708 in hexadecimal. since you need to write with bytes of 2 digits it should be coded 07 08 if written within a block of 2 bytes, or 00 00 07 08 in a block of 4 bytes.....but, here, it is written in reverse order! that is 08 07 (if 2 bytes block) or 08 07 00 00 ( 4 bytes block). So, if you want to replace all occurrences of the date 1800 (708 in hexadecimal) into 1820 ( 71C in hex) you will first have to find all blocks of data containing 08 07 and overwrite those with the value 1C 07 (which is the reverse of 07 1C or 71C) - When I say "go to address 0x8703" 0x is not part of the number. It is a convention which means that I'm talking about a hexadecimal number.....the number is 8703. For example, in the documents provided by Jeffryfisher, it says that the blocks of data concerning the different cargo types start at address 0x1404B0. this means that the starting address is 1404B0 written in hexadecimal numbers....when using the function "go to address" with Hexedit, you just type 1404B0 without 0x. - There are two ways to edit the main area when using Hexedit. The first one is to overwrite the bytes of data as you type (which you should use) however, by default, the program use the second mode which is to insert what you type and just shift all the following data blocks .....This can be extremely dangerous and can have some very strange results! make sure you use the overwrite mode. Hope this will help you making your first steps in game modding. You are right here. I ran tests with Pax, mail, produce, milk, food and coal. Depending on the value of the "distance factor" results can vary greatly even using the same game year. That is, passenger and lumber or food reacts differently to distance. As I said in my previous post, I'll open a new thread to talk about this as soon as I'm finished testing and have some time. Hello Jeffry, I already knew about the milk and this is one of the first thing I corrected after I downloaded your precious documents. All the industries with 2 inputs showed this behavior except for the steel mill which always worked perfectly. Try with a cannery if you wish and you'll see that demand for steel or aluminium stays tanked at 0 after the first delivery. Was easy to correct though, since data blocks for second input have a perfect symmetry with data blocks for first input....all these industries had the demand in place of the boost factor! (steel mill is the only one with demand at the right place). You got me curious so I did some more tests today and just solved the problem you had with house not recovering their demand for goods! I discovered that, for all the industries (houses included), demand will drop to 0 and never recover if demand value is less than 1.00 !! you had set the demand for goods at 0.5 and that was the problem....I changed it to 1.00 and several other values over 1.00 and it worked perfectly....mail production was boosted and even villages with only one or two houses would demand goods and the demand would recover with time.....So, demand just need to be set at 1 or over, not 0.5. However, the cure might be worse than the illness here because with a demand value of 1.00 even the smallest village will crave for goods so much that the demand is very hard to quell !! with cities and metropolises it is even worse since the overall global city demand is added to all the demands from all the houses!! Might be a balance breaker! This also led me to discover that some industries like produce farms or rubber plantations shared the same problem. Demand for fertilizer was set at 0.5....I ran some test and discovered, as I suspected, that demand for fertilizer also stayed tanked at 0 after the first delivery (must confess that I had never noticed this before, but all tests proved it was the case! ). I changed the demand to 1.00 (like grain farms) and now it works perfectly. I then proceeded to change all demand value of less than 1.00 into the minimum of 1.00 (was the case for rubber in weapon factory, sugar plantation etc...) I also made a bonus discovery while running tests on this topic: No matter how high you set the demand for fertilizer, none of the farm will show a demand for fertilizer until you have placed at least one fertilizer plant on the map! That is, even if you allow the industry in the general settings, then set your ports to produce fertilizer, farm will not demand it as long as there is not at least one fertilizer plant on the map. You CANNOT create a scenario where all fertilizer is produced abroad and shipped in through your ports....there MUST be at least ONE fertilizer factory somewhere. I've never noticed this myself....this being said, I hardly ever use that feature of the game...I usually looks around the map "the hard way" while the game is on pause. I'll try to look into this when I've got time. Note that the address I gave refers to the Map file, not the EXE file....I found no way to mod the behavior of ports from within the EXE files.....need to edit every single map after completion for ports to work properly. That's all for today folks....hope this post is helpful to you. By the way, I'm french, so I just hope my english is correct enough for you. Au revoir, JC

Hello everyone, this is my first post on this forum. First, I'd like to thank jeffryfisher for uploading all these docs which helped me experiment with all the datas in the exe file and helped me solve a few problems with the industries and also experiment with cargoes datas and discover a few neat things I'd like to share with you. First, Industries : Some of you may have noticed that, with the exception of steel mill, all the industries in the game using more than one input cargo (cannery, auto factory, munition factory etc..) had a demand for the second input that immediately dropped to zero after the first delivery and never recovered. This is because, the floating number for demand of the second input is in the WRONG place! Look at the EXE Data.ods provided by Jeffryfisher in the OP and open the CONVERSIONS table. The column N which is labeled as "Demand?" of input 2 is in fact the "BOOST" factor of input2! Demand for input2 should go in column P (look at the steel mill)! In fact, Datas for input 2 match exactly datas for input 1, that is, columns L to P for input 2 works exactly the same as columns G to K for input 1. So, for exemple, if you take the auto factory, the demand for tires (which is 2.5) should be moved into column P, that is 5 bytes further.....As it is now, tires would provide a production boost of 250% more autos, if only the auto factory was set as a raw producer (with a 1 in column D) wihich it is not, hence this number has currently no effect. I tried it, and it works like a charm.....just move the datas for the 2nd input and now all factories works as intended BUT ports! PORTS: ok, we solved the problems with all factories, however ports as well have their demands dropping to 0 on first delivery and never recovering afterwards and THIS cannot be solved by editing the EXE file.....However, I found another way around this problem. The thing is that production and demand for ports is determined through the editor as you create a new Map....That means that the table governing production and demand for ports must be written somewhere in the MAP files. I searched a little and BINGO: On each MAP file there is a data block, starting at 0x8703, wich looks exactly like the data blocks for other industries. And, as I suspected, I discovered that the editor failed to write anything where there should be a floating number governing the demand for input cargoes! If you want ports to work properly you then need to open the MAP file before playing the scenario and enter the demand level for each goods manually.....tried it and it WORKS. Best thing is you can do stuff that would otherwise be impossible with the editor: You can for exemple set your ports to behave like other transforming undustries, for exemple producing 2 goods out of one cotton and one wool, or set your ports to produce a set amount of goods (let's say 2) and at the same time demand other stuff that acts like production boosters (like grain for cattle ranch) etc... Finally, I recently started experimenting on the "Rot factor" and the "Distance factor" (that is, how much the vlaue of a cargo increases with distance travelled) . This is still a work in progress and I'll post more about this in another post. However, what I discovered is that the formulas that governs these are extremely complex and also depends on game year and many other parameters (more on this later).....Anyway, all this led me to experiment with the cargo datas and I discovered a few things that might be interesting for some of you. Now, look at the cargo table in the EXE data.ods. What is labeled as "Rot factor", in column F (0.54 for mail; 0.45 for PAX) , IS NOT the Rot factor! I discovered that this number is the DISTANCE factor and governs how fast the value of a cargo increases with distance, everything else being equal (that is economic state, game year, demand level and cargo type and so on...). Sadly, you cannot directly calculate a value for a cargo at a certain distance because it is not a simple linear formula...as I said, the shape of the curve depends very strongly on the game year. For exemple, in 1820, for pax, the value would sharply increases in the first 20 cells, then increases linearly with distance up to about 100 cells (that is at 100 cells cargo value is about 5 times the value for 20 cells) and then suddenly increases exponentially after 100 cells. However, in 1900, it works very differently, the value increasing linearly up to about 400 cells. and after 1950, the value of pax does not increases as fast as the distance, that is, for 200 cells value is less than twice what you'd get for 100 cells! Anyway, still this number is interesting because, everything else being equal, it shows how fast the price increases with distance...so we can see at first glance that PAX with a distance factor of 0.45 holds its value with distance much better than coal or logs which have a distance factor of 0.21.....this means you can move pax on long distance with good profits while you should avoid if possible delivering your coal at the other side of the map ! Food and Produce will make also a nice profit on medium to long run, but not Iron or Lumber. Just one warning though: If you play with these numbers and put too high of a value for the distance factor, then there seem to be some kind of overflow in the formula and value will drop to 0 whatever the distance...don't use anything over 0.54 (the distance factor for mail). And now, the Rot Factor. SInce what is labeled as "rot factor" in the table is in fact the distance factor, where is the actual number that giverns how fast the value dops with time? Well, I found the answer with a little experimenting. The "Rot factor" is in fact closely linked to the "DAys to deliver" number. In fact, these two aspects are the same....by putting 50 instead of 500 for PAX I discovered that ,everything else being equal, the value of pax with time would drop 10 times faster. and by putting there a very high number instead, the value of pax would never drop with time (nor would the cargo disappear from a station) but for the decrease in value, each january, due to the change in game year (see distance factor above). So, the "days to deliver" number governs both how long a cargo will stay in a station and also How fast it will rot.....in fact I discovered it is the same thing. The value of a cargo left unpicked at a station will drop with time (rot factor) and will disappear when it reach a certain percentage of its value without being picked up....in both case, this is what should be called a "rot factor". You can use the table to see which cargo needs to be delivered as fast as possible. Milk for exemple, has the same rot factor as mail! Note that like for distance, the way the value of a cargo drops with time, is also dependant on Game Year (it goes much faster as time passes) and is ALSO dependant on the distance a cargo starts from its destination (it goes much slower, in percentage of total value, if the cargo starts at 450 cells rather than 100 cells of its destination)....this means that the farther the cargo starts from its destination the more time you get to deliver it. Example : At 100 cells, the value of a cargo might drops by 20% in a year, while at 400 cells, it might only lose 5% of its value in the same time. Note, that this is only true once the cargo has been picked up by a train and the destination set.....also, this behaviour changes with game year and I'l post more about this later. Ok, sorry for this long post. Hope it is helpful for some of you. Bye, Jean-Christophe