Casey

You have hit on the most distinctive difference between RRT2 and #. It is now possible in RRT3 to drive demand down to nothing (and then nothing further will ship). We can no longer set "ultimate" trains that will always go the the same town taking the same cargo "ad nasueum". OR if we do we can no longer assume that they will always run. They may just sit idling in the station waiting for demand to build up, OR depending on how the consist is set, they may just run EMPTY between the locations. You really need to pay close attention to the various area's "coloured" demands. Red and Yellow areas will ship to green areas, but it is often very difficult to either ship or to get any money going from "green" to "green". This was one of the hardest thing for me to get used to after years of RRT2. All the best "Casey"

They do not usually deliberately stop at every one. You must be spacing them very skillfully. I think they usually have tobe down to 40-50% left before they will stop. Others can correct this impression. Some have studies this very closely. All the best Welcome to RRT3 Casey

Dear Conomark: I have been enjoying your map. It has been a little challenging in "re-learning" RRT2. I keep expecting the landscape to "tilt-a-whirl" like RRT3. Still early days trying to connect to coal supply locations. Thanks "Casey"

Dear Gwizz: I also had a copy of your CW map, but I've lost it, I think. And I can not remember if it was "slow" time or regular time. I liked the map's idea and I liked the heavy historical content included. BUT, as you say, it was before RRT3 came out, and many of us were working with very low end computers. Mine was a P1 or P2 with about 200mhz. Most were too small to handle the computational load plus all of the constantly occuring newspaper articles. I believe you may have added a feature the removed some of those. Because it completely bogged down the processor there was no way to give it a fair try. If we knew then how much extra speed and video that RRT3 would be needing it would have been hard to believe. Now on my upgraded machine I can play RRT2 with all of the game's sliders set at the highest levels. And this P4 machine with 1.25Ghz is still really not powerful enought to really play RRT3 without glitches. (because the game always froze up my previous machine, I may have eventually just deleted it. If so, sorry. I just can't remember back that far.) Take care Casey

I guess by now folks have found that "Gathering" has returned. It does seem much quieter however, after the absense of a month. Perhaps folks have moved on. Casey

The 1.5 patch (for use with or without CtoC)is here: http://www.gathering.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=65&sid=41a1014a99e87cc707acc1c162c40cbf Casey

Dear Lama: Yes, when the station was in the box the barracks appeared fairly close by. Earlier when the station was half out of the box, if the barracks appeared it was almost too far away to be included in the station's "footprint." I'll have to try harder re beach railways. I did look in the editor to see where the water was versus reserve cells etc and there is not much room to manoever! Even then I still have not been sucessful. Casey

(Hopefully a final commetn) I did figure out how to get around the names. With the stations in the right "boxes" on the sand bars I just renamed them eg. from Merlin Junction etc to Rehobeth Beach and they then were recognized and all planted a barracks. I never could get a total "beach" railway going. I kept getting warning messages about laying bridges in the water.I now come in from the land side to some of them and just connect that line back off from the shore. Casey

Again your suggestions are working well Lama. I made it to the beach in ten years. But I am having some problems properly siting my stations. I have been using the largest station, which in a couple of cases has covered the nearby barracks. But a couple of the resorts are not seeding barracks. And a couple just will not "name" themselves properly. They take on the name of a neighbouring community. Sometimes this doesn't matter for the computer does recognize them anyway, but not always. The other challenge is with these bridges having to have some footing on dry land in order to generate. It would have been nice to see the "connect" message etc when hovering the station over the tiny square, or in the case of the one, just guesssing on the location in the middle of hte sand bar. I did get a few service buildings to work on the beach but it was very challenging. Different topic: Don't worry to much about those of us having problems., The "whizz bzng" guys are all testing "things" right now. I'm sure they will all manage to defeat the map on their first try in less than 10 years on Hard-expert with millions of $ and many loads to spare. :D Casey

Dear Lama: Thanks so much for the quick reply and for the suggestions. From your post it appears that I was running too many trains too soon. I had tried the Baltimore - Havre route etc but not down to Annapolis. I was also concerned about the "express" mph condition so was trying to separate that from the freight cargo right from the beginning of the scenario. The other thing that worried me was that if I sat on my hands for ten years at the beginning waiting for my industry to provide money that I would run out of my 25 years time too quickly. Casey

Hey Lama: Nice graphics and a very creative idea, but I usually play on Easy (I even took the later 1890 date) and I'm still dying here also. When I build railways there is nothing to haul after the first couple of trains. If I try industry it takes ten years to get my money back. How are the experts handling this one? Casey

Dear Gwizz, I just caught your comment over on the Gathering Board about the Loan Shark events. Great work-around to leave it as a "gamble." I hadn't wanted to put anything in public in case it was a "surprise.' All the best, Casey

I was just out looking aroundon the Web for RRt3 stuff and found your re-born location. I look forward to dowloading maps, especially those with Canadian content. Thanks again for the site Casey