loco_motive

Thanks outofmage, I needed to be attacked over that rude post. loco, the information of this thread is indeed very much for someone to comprehend over one night. I can sum it up our solutions for you. lol you misunderstand me outofmage. My point is that I can't be bothered. If I cared, I could comprehend it easily, Everything after my post #7, if you bothered to read it, except for the op's post #15, is just a bunch of convoluted digression. I will say more about post # 15 below. The OP's question is how to give #2 player some cash at a particular time not get the money he has. Have you such a poor attack on me that you attempt to quibble over whether the slider moves to the left or the right? Nowhere in my posts did I say anything about getting the money he has. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is an ESL issue and not another careless oversight. In any case I'm glad you agree that was the question, answered in my post #7 (if you bothered to read it). I solve this problem in post #12 and #16 introducing two methods. They are all working, I've tested them. Good, not exactly elegant, but I'm glad you're happy with them. I notice #16 was posted after you admit that the case was already closed. I wonder what the significance of that is. Admit it, digression is more important that closure (lol). In post #11, jeff introduced a method to go around the player Id issue, he just give some money to the player who is running low in cash not directly to a particular player id. Because akuenzi's intention is to give this computer some money so it can come back to the game. Akuenzi simply does not want a dead AI. Since I see also a proliferation of events in Jeff's posts, I also assume a lack of elegance or dealing with the wrong question, just like with yours (no offense to either of you intended). For example, it turned out that what akuenzi actually wanted was to give each AI successively at one year intervals the money to be able to start companies, not as you state above at all. In post #15, akuenzi adopt jeff's solution and this case is closed. But in this post, he also mentioned how to apply effects to a player with certain Id, which is solved in #16 by me. I think akuenzi adopted his own solution here. Lets give him some credit. Akuenzi's post #15 of unfortunately addresses a different matter altogether than his opening post. Also, it is possible for a player that has already started a company to have zero cash, so it would be better to add a flag on each player that has been given money, if this is the method he decides to use. Not the way I would do it. I would have 1 event assigning successive playervariable1's and one annual event allocating cash with a trigger something like (current year-start year+2)=PV1. Extremely simple solution for extremely simple question, if properly asked and answered. Other things are also mentioned such as assign territory access to a company, not a player; replace Game Variables with Territory Variables to expand game-scale variables; player Id bug seems not fixable by modding EXE file and so forth. That's part of my point, really. Too much digression Jeff has lots of posts explaining his thought process trying to solve the original problem, but with no direct solution but confirm the Player Id does not work. I'm glad Jeff confirmed that and have altered a previous post to acknowledge it. Of course my final solution in #16 is not perfect, it can be improved with some adjustment. Not perfect? That is unacceptable. See, even you're not happy with your convoluted solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------ OK, that was fun. Everything above is rhetorical. No rebuttals are necessary. Let's hope not a lot of crap follows this post.

How to assign successive values of playervariable1 to each player. Trigger: (playervariable1=0)*(gamevariable1+1) Effect: Gamevariable1: set equal to trigger Playervariable1: set equal to trigger This obviously cannot be a one-time event and should be cycled on players only. This event will never trigger true again unless some PV1 is set back to zero, so GV1 can be reused. If GV1 has already been used, you will of course need to initialize it.

OK, this might take a couple readings to understand the following test results. I have encountered no problems with companyID but playerID is another matter. 1. If your event cycles through just players, then playerID is zero, or more likely, empty. So only the human player and first AI player are immediately accessible at the exclusion of all others. For the human, just cycle on human players only, For the first AI just cycle on computer players and make it a 1-time event. It is possible to assign a successively higher value of, say, playervariable1 to each successive player. Thereafter they would be accessible using PV1. This is easily done with a single event as I'll show in the next post. 2. If your event cycles through players and companies, then it just cycles through companies but sets playerID=companyID. This is an odd result. For 4 players and 3 companies, you might expect to get 12 entries in the status report, one for each combination, but you will get only 3 entries, one for each company. Note that the status report entries in your company are only going to be for certain types of information such as (allowable bracketed items), gamevariable and territoryvariable items. So here, if your trigger is playerID=4, you can give money to the player whose companyID is 4. Of course this requires that the player has a company that was created at the right time and you have the right companyID. Adding a variation like this to an existing scenario would require you to first test that the original author had not created and destroyed any companies in the process and that the target player created a company in the expected order so that it had the right number. Just to test your understanding of the above, a trigger of companyID=4 would also work in giving money to that player. Also, the playerID assignments only persist within this event. 3. If your event cycles through just companies, you will not be allowed to do any player-related things. I didn't bother to test this.

Wow, this thread has exploded overnight into a nightmare that probably has nothing much to do with the original question and which I certainly have no interest in wading through to see whether I have a response. What was that question now anyhow? Was it how do I get $$ to the first AI? Answered above in my first post, done easily. PlayerID not needed Or was it how do I get $$ to all AIs? Easy, just test how much they have and give them some. PlayerID not needed. Or perhaps it was why does playerID=2 take a value of zero? Because incorrect programming perhaps. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I'll start a new thread on my observations of playerID because I wouldn't want it to get lost in all this. Again, without having waded through all of the above, so excuse me if I repeat something already said.

PS: Jeffry, thanks for the retraction.

Write a status report event with: always trigger: playerid frequency: status report message text: (trigger) (player) (company) You will see that all the player IDs are zero, but that they are still listed in order. Actually, for slot #2, that is the first AI. Just make it a 1-time event on computer players with a trigger of GameYearMonth=188101 and give him some cash. Since its 1-time, it will only do the first AI. (I had this same situation with James Hill in Heartland Heaven to get him to start a company late in the game)

I don't know about PS1 but there sure is a lot of dialogue here... On PC, gold requirements must be completed before the end of 1878, not 1882. -Company book value >= $10M -Personal net worth >= $8M -The stations to be within the hidden territories of L.A. and N.O. as defined by the author. The territories are fairly large so it would be hard to miss them, but it can happen. -The loads, 6 or more BETWEEN the territories, but the trains must not stop at any other station along the way. Else that station will be designated as the originating station. -Not sure about going through a waypoint. You probably don't have waypoints anyhow. On PC we don't have to do the scenarios in order, and can even redo any of them as long as we leave the last one for last.

In the spirit of aouofmage's apt comment, "descriptions in this game sometimes can be ambiguous or even wrong, don't trust them", I thought I would reply what I recall, right or wrong, just for the difference. And of course, you should read all the documents in your TSC package, both paper and in the RRT2 subdirectory anyhow. And do some testing of your own to supplement everything you read. All my comments are based on full economic and industry models and recollections only. --------------------------------------- 1. I agree with outofmage. --------------------------------------- 2a. Industry income is generated when (1) finished product is delivered to a site that demands that product and (2) input cargo is delivered to a 2-input industry. Industry income grades from one level to another over time, either up or down and is probably based on several other factors besides delivery quantity and timing to a minor degree. Whether delivery of grain to a cattle ranch creates industry profits for the cattle ranch, I don't think so. The increased delivery of cattle certainly does though. Since grain fields produce 2 rather than 3, I can't recall if they can be as profitable as cattle. It should also be noted that gross oversupply of grain to cattle will make all the grains fully profitable, since there is a demand. The demand level (0-9) is irrelevant. I have never tested the effect of particularly old cargo delivered from storage on the industry income of the source of the cargo. About all I know about that is cargo income is preserved correctly but pickup source is changed, so effect on industry income could be none or something unexpected. All industry income for the year is paid at year-end so it matters not when during the year you purchase the industry, as long as you beat the AI to it. (Certain events must actually be written beginning of next year to pick up current year industry income.) ----------------------------------------- 2b. I assume you are asking about industry income and not cargo income here. As an example of industry investment yield, it might run as follows for annual requirements. These of course are only guidelines based on annual requirements. By doubling the annual requirements for the 2-input industry you might push the 25% to 30%, for example. I don't recall economic level being a factor. Distance shipped is not a factor. 2-input industry Getting one of 2 inputs 8 1/3% Getting both inputs, no deliveries 16 2/3% Full inputs + Delivering all product 25% 1-input industry Cattle getting no grain, food delivered 16 2/3% Cattle getting grain, food delivered 25% Of course there is a standard formula, we just don't know what it is. Various members have been trying from time to time to get the code for years, but to no avail. ---------------------------------------- 2c. Agreed, no overhead. That is, no non-proportional industry expenses. --------------------------------------- 3. If you're versed enough to know those two and no others, probably not. None come to mind anyhow. Not to say you can't take Heartland (or any other map) and try it that way if you want. Although I'd probably loosen up the connected track requirement first, maybe allowing connected to any track. Otherwise nothing stopping you from doing whatever you want. Certainly get familiar with the editor if you're not already. Its very straight forward (for some of us anyhow). In late date scenarios, like TSC Campaign 18 Antarctica Rising, passengers and mail are likely the least profitable item on the menu, so any of these might suit your fancy. --------------------------------------- 4. Just the time until it disappears if its in the originating station at the time. This cannot be delayed any further. If you transfer cargo to a train, and then do a re-consist, the cargo could disappear, something we are all too familiar with. The length of time a cargo survives in a station is called "days to deliver", badly named, should be called "days to pickup". Rot rate is neither effected nor related. --------------------------------------- 5. Rot relates to cargo income, not industry income. I believe rot is calculated on each piece of cargo independently and that the oldest cargo is loaded first. Basic rot rate is a function of cargo type, and is quite flat, ie; say, 1 per interval, although it may scale slightly for shipping distance. It may scale more fully for economic level and demand level. Rot does not vary by where the cargo is; in the station, in storage, on a slow-moving or stopped train. There is a residual limit to cargo value, where the rot stops, at around 2/3 iirc. Factors such as game date may effect that linearity slightly, hard to measure. Rot was also shown in a past study to likely be less for various statuses of company ownership by the AI.

For deliveries to an industry, as seems pretty clear to me from my testing details above, that distance from station is not a factor. I don't understand the basis for denying this. For things like grain and cattle, I suspect that they are picked up in the order they are produced, as they would also be assigned at that time an initial value for rot (deterioration of sale value over time) and days to deliver (length of time it will survive in the station). So efficient pickup and eventual industry profit if delivered to a demand location would have nothing to do with location within the station's zone. If it can even happen that 2 items can be produced at the same time, there may be tie-breaking rules if only one of them is picked up. But that is going to second order precision, not really necessary. Do the testing to prove it's wrong, but don't just say it's wrong in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Done.

We've been trying for about the past 8 years to get this done, but no.. Guess why. I would advise you to get it posted at Hawk's if you haven't done that already.

Going one step further into the murk: In distributing 6 grain per load between a distillery and a bakery, the bakery was favored about two to one, based on 48 runs and 288 deliveries. Note that food is ID# 10 compared with ID# 35 for alcohol, probably significant. The distillery got more grain than the bakery only 5 out of 48 times. In this case of mixed industries, neither the position of the industry nor the station nor the economic state appears to be relevant but perhaps just the ID # of the manufactured product. Test 1. Food 7 squares away, distillery 2 squares away, everything shipped, 8 trials: 30F, 18A. Test 2. Food 2 squares away, distillery 7 squares away, everything shipped, 8 trials: 32F, 16A. Test 3. Food 2 squares away, distillery 7 squares away, nothing shipped, 8 trials: 28F, 20A. Test 4. Food 7 squares away, distillery 2 squares away, everything shipped, 8 trials: 37F, 11A. Test 5. Like 1 except economic state at 4 throughout: 31F, 17A Test 6. Like 1 except economic state at 0 throughout: 33F, 15A Here is the distribution respectively of 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 food per load: 5 9 19 10 5 0 0. This is approaching some kind of statistical distribution which they could have easily applied. So in any case these results for these runs are 191 food, 97 alcohol, very close to 2:1, but there's a fair variation shown. For example, test 2 had a run of 5 3-3 combinations and test 4 food had all 4's 5's and 6's. I wonder if the grain from the 6 fields I planted is picked up in any order. I wonder what happens for steel to a T&D, steel mill and cannery. Anyhow, it seems like its always going to be better to maintain control of resources through the use of separate stations as the game progresses. Then you don't need to know any of this stuff, but you still may need to continually bull-dose that pesky T&D that keeps popping up and stealing the iron from your steel mill, or the steel from your auto factory, or build some track onto that location. ------------------------------ In view of Myrth's remarks about my previous post, I think it might be a good demonstration of how careful you have to be in doing this kind of statistical analysis, drawing results from such a slim sample. It was stated as just a hypothesis though, based on those slim results. I do, however, continue to feel confident that the bakery with the lowest x, then lowest y coordinates gets the most grain, just not as much more as the previous results show. For example, I went back and did 16 more runs and got a 54/42 split for the bakery furthest away with the same x but lower y-coordinate. It included two 2/4 splits, unseen in the first tests. This combines with the 26/10 and 28/8 of the first tests to produce 108/60, getting closer to the 2:1 range observed above. .

"Not so bad" scenarios not included on the Platinum CD, but which might be good candidates for an additional CD. This list is made mainly for those "players" that have not been in the game all that long and may not be that familiar with the huge library of scenarios we have available. None of my own notes on these scenarios are included. This is strictly a playlist selected from some 483 maps listed in my files.. As a group, these scenarios all have objectives except DragonIsle, which is included for the beautiful rendering of a dragon. They are not markedly better or worse, easier or harder, than the player scenarios on the Platinum CD. Nor are they any more or less devoid of errors in key events. In particular, some have to be played just because they are interesting, others are easily fixable by the player if desired. Some of the scenarios may not be immediately available, some may be on the list by accident and there are certainly scenarios missing from the list. In any case, I guess they can be found in The Terminal Map section or at Hawk & Badger . Afghanistan TSC Ben Sauer AsiaAmtrak TSC Benjamin Sauer North AmerColorz! RT2 Bill Ingram ImaginaryTasmania TSC Cam Hills AustraliaClosa 1950-1985 RT2 Darrell ImaginaryCanadian Pacific TSC David Gross North AmerPacific Northwest TSC David Masters North AmerEsquimalt & Nanaimo RT2 E. Collins North AmerAlt Baden RT2 Erwin Hiesl EuropeApple War Ooze TSC Gwizz ImaginarySeattle Street Railway TSC Gwizz North AmerScorpion Mountain TSC Hawk(dawg) ImaginaryUS History TSC Jeffry Fisher North AmerBritannia RT2 J Sylvest and GS Bales ImaginaryCanada Bound RT2 Joe Fitzpatrick North AmerKootenay to Coast TSC Joe Fitzpatrick & SM North AmerKVR251 TSC John Schwarz North AmerYosemite Valley Railroad TSC John Schwarz and Paul Bamberg North Amer20th Century Limited TSC Lars Maischak North Amer20th Century Unlimited TSC Lars Maischak North AmerBroadway Limited TSC Lars Maischak North AmerCoastline TSC Lars Maischak ImaginaryGreat Passenger Trains 3-pak TSC Lars Maischak North AmerReich Chancellor TSC Lars Maischak EuropeMason County RT2 Mike Gasaway ImaginaryCascadia TSC N. S. Bennett North AmerCascadia-sm TSC N. S. Bennett North AmerOregon and Empire TSC N. S. Bennett North AmerRenewed Zealand TSC N. S. Bennett AustraliaThat Toddlin' Town TSC N. S. Bennett North AmerMorocco TSC Paul Bamberg AfricaNew England TSC Paul Bamberg North AmerMorocco (SM version) TSC Paul Bamberg AfricaBound for South Australia, v2 TSC Peter Bennet AustraliaPilbara Iron, ver 2 TSC Peter Bennet AustraliaWesternport v2 TSC Peter Bennet AustraliaVancouver Island TSC Profish North AmerCuba (2000) RT2 Ras North AmerBen Franklin's Kite TSC Sirian ImaginaryBristol Cars RT2 Steve Banks EuropeIsrael 1952 TSC Steve Banks AsiaItaly and the Alps TSC Steve Banks EuropeManchester Sheffield TSC Steve Banks EuropePoland 1945 TSC Steve Banks EuropeThe Philippines TSC Steve Banks AsiaWoodstock RT2 Steve Banks EuropeAlaska TSC Steve Lorenz North AmerAlaska RT2 Steve Lorenz North AmerAmerican Flyer (SM fix) TSC Steve Lorenz North AmerChina TSC TSC Steve Lorenz AsiaGreat Northern TSC Steve Lorenz North AmerHawaii RT2 Steve Lorenz North AmerRail Baron V2.0 TSC Steve Lorenz North AmerHeartland Heaven TSC Steve Martineau North AmerHeartland, USA Auto Industry TSC Steve Martineau North AmerPine Valley TSC Szabla North AmerOntario Northland TSC Ted Kocyla North AmerBulvanian Petroleoum TSC Toni Ronkko ImaginaryDragonIsle RT2 Unknown Imaginary

outofmage, interesting post. Good to know you. Does your moniker, outofmage, have some special derivation or meaning? I note it is searchable for some RRT2 videos. So would it be possible for you to select one of the better original Chinese scenarios and do perhaps the minimal amount of translation for it to be playable in English? No worries; a young fellow like you has a life to lead. PS: If you really want to get in touch with Nick Bennett, there is an email address in his note in the Cascadia attachment in the other thread, if its still good.

Note I have edited the previous thread to, I hope, clarify the gold trigger situation.

FROM DIFFICULT TO INSANE Among other things, delivery schedules for Albany and Grant's Pass must be completed. It was Nick's original intention to include Warm Springs as a 3rd depot. But that would have made the scenario insanely difficult. Nevertheless, some months ago I attempted to do just that and have enclosed the resulting scenario in the attached zip file along with a short technical note. I never played very far into this one so it is not fully tested. As I recall it just seemed like such a daunting task at the time. Nevertheless, here it is. Note that I never intended to distribute this so it may have some odd things in it, for example, 2 or 3 variables strung into the same variable in the status report either as xxx,yyy xxy,yzz (can't get rid of the comma). I just looked and saw that I disabled gold so I may not have even expanded it to include the additional connection, so you'll have to keep track of your own results. The event will trigger a report but with no gold effect. The gold effect in the gold trigger has been removed. It was quite likely just as it says in the dialogue, so you could continue playing. I have no reason to believe the trigger is incorrect, but however the silver, etc effects have not been altered so they might still trigger even for a gold win. A player may want add back the gold effect or remove the other medal events, but its not really necessary to do so [Ed.] Hoping this gives you a good challenge, outofmage & MaglevForever, and that you will report your views/results and upload your post-gold game if you get one. Note that I didn't state when I got gold in the above narrative, it seemed better not to at the time for various reasons. And I don't remember any more. I can tell you though, that it would have been a no-tricks honest play because I always disclose anything like that and anyhow wanted an honest play so I could write the review. But then (lack of) trickery is oft in the eye of the beholder. Good Railroading Cascadia-NSB.zip

Cascadia was created by Nick Bennett back in the earlier days of RRT2 and I attach (in the 2nd post) what is probably the original zip file created on his own Apple computer of the day, to which I have enclosed 3 additional files of mine. That's me, SteveM, back then, my first ever online moniker. Here is my original review of this scenario from April Fool's Day, 2001. The full thread is enclosed: ------------------------------ Congratulations Nick Bennett on another excellent scenario! There's lots of play time here: a fun very involved delivery schedule, a limited choice of engines with heavy "real time" R&D costs, development of industrial income for the MIC, loan rates starting at 18%, a cumulative earned track allowance, a reservoir that fills over a course of years after repairs are made (to be watched), the development of enough cash to electrify all your track, and a multitude of other objectives. Wow! There's a delivery schedule to boggle the mind! Early on, I had only 1 coal mine in the hills south of Veneta (but 2 OK chemical plants in New Salem and Eugene), but decided to go with that even though I wasn't sure I would be able to develop enough steel. My only other reasonable coal was near the Oakridge weapons factory and it would be a long time before I would have track to there. Having oil refineries only in Roseberg and Bend was a little scary but that worked out fine too. Some expensive R&D costs must be paid as the research team continually explores several engine choices, with the engines only becoming available after some time and company growth takes place. This time delay idea worked quite well. Making money for the MIC was a bit scary as it started off pretty slowly. You can't ignore this by any means but must keep a reasonable balance with other objectives though. Anyhow, it played out fine. Its definitely on my favorites list. The objectives seemed well balanced. I finished the military delivery schedule in the same year MIC Industry Income broke $15000M, and went gold the following year-end. ----------------------------------------------------------- PS: Here is my crash record (not as bad as I thought, now that I write it out): Nov/10 #2 crashed, 11 years old, passengers and mail Mar/21 #14 crashed, 5 years old, bare engine Jan/27 #55 crashed, bauxite maiden run, 6 years old, must have been stuck in traffic. Jun/28 #3 crashed, 2 yrs old, carrying 4 milk. Jan/34 Another crash, weapons cargo lost. Hah! It matters not! Never! A required delivery train. Because I ran spares of course. Hah again! -------------------------------------------

A "just plain good" list? I should just upload my old incomplete Excel list of 483 maps, most of them with my comments. Unfortunately some of the comments would put me in the bad graces of the community, but the worksheet becomes pretty meaningless without them, and I am not inclined to go through and edit them. I will start a Cascadia thread and upload that requested map though.

I pleases me to say that it was remarks made by myself that caused Nick to write the fantastic supply chains in this scenario. I would also say that among doable scenarios, this may be the hardest one, even without a third depot in Warm Springs. I still have my review from April 1, 2001 from CeeBee's old site in my files. Nick thought my win was an April Fool's joke lol! Wow, I can't believe it was that long ago! If your play leads to exciting thoughts, etc, I would think it would be commendable to start a new thread for it with a good searchable title, Good luck in you play. I don't think anyone besides yourself would actually give such a hard scenario a play, so I wouldn't think it was worth translating for anyone but yourself. But if you can't get hold of Nick, I'm sure you wouldn't get in any trouble as long as you give him proper credit for the scenario and of course distribute it completely free of charge. Nick has written a few other scenarios, they are easier but very well done and well worth playing. My forte was playtesting and suggesting improvements/fixes but I believe all his maps were made from scratch. They are: Cascadia, Oregon and Empire, Renewed Zealand, That Toddlin' Town. I don't know your play history, but even so I recommend a couple other maps with a degree of difficulty, 2 similar but very different ones that cover the same general territory, namely John Schwarz's KVR251 and Joe Fitzpatrick's Kootenay to Coast. There are other maps and other authors worth playing because they are just plain good.

Did a small test anyone could easily do of deliveries of grain to 2 bakeries approx 2 and 8 units from the station. First delivery; closer got 3, further got 3. Second delivery; 1 & 5. Third delivery; 0 & 6, followed by 3/3, 2/4, 1/5. An apparent 26:10 preference for the further bakery. But wait a minute! Since when does anything in this game work sensibly? In the first test, the further station had the lower y-axis coordinate. I reversed the situation so the closer station had the lower y-axis coordinate and guess what? The situation reversed and deliveries were distributed 6/0, 5/1, 5/1, 6/0, 3/3, 3/3. An apparent 28:8 preference for the closer bakery. I would formulate that, for 2 bakeries, the one with the lowest x coordinate, then the lowest y coordinate in case the x coordinates are the same, gets at least half the grain, the other one gets the rest. [Ed.] Now I guess if grain was delivered one at a time, it would always go to the same bakery, but that's untested. This follows somewhat my theory of successive barrels of water in this game, when the lowest ordered barrel is sated, water starts running into the next barrel, etc. in some manner. Something similar happens when a huge increase in supply occurs where there are several AI stations; the lower numbered company buys a s***load of engines for starters. Also something similar happens in train-filling order when several are waiting in the same station Well, who wants to pursue this any further. BS is where you find it.

One station to increase demand also works for different industries using the same inputs, although that can require some micromanagement. I find multiple stations are better used for traffic control, especially when all the demands have likely been reduced to zero anyhow. As far as who gets the delivery, playing on Expert, if you deliver all the wool to the one station but build two other stations covering one mill each, you can see that they both produce goods, and even without the stations, they clearly both will become profitable eventually. Do it for a long time and see what statistics evolve. It would also be interesting to see the results for grain to bakery and distillery, with both cases of which one is furthest away. Steel to T&D vs Auto, which requires 2 inputs, would also be interesting. Also one might question whether results would differ if the wool was delivered one at a time or 6 at a time. The profitability of an industry, on the other hand, is strictly a function of its own supply and delivery to a demand site. Station demand level and the distance shipped are irrelevant. Depending on various things this can range roughly from 8 1/3% for supplying one item to a 2-demand industry to 25% for a fully developed delivery system for the same industry. Etc. ------------------------- Here is a demand anomaly that has to do with ports, at least in the TSC campaign scenario #18 Antarctica Rising. Coal, as the first of 4 demanded cargos listed at the ports, gets a small bonus in demand for a station covering one port (4,3,3,3) but a huge bonus in demand from a station covering 2 ports, where the other items don't get any increase in demand at all (9,3,3,3), and it sustains its demand level very well. I tested this by switching iron and coal, but have not tested this in a completely different scenario.

You're so funny. Its so easy to write an unbeatable gold trigger, or for many existing scenarios, an incorrect gold trigger, ie, that won't trigger. I can't really tell what you're looking for here but hopefully for a legitimate play challenge. But lets get back to reality, shall we. Have you ever tried either of my Heartland maps? Another you might try is Nick Bennett's Cascadia. If this proves too easy for you, you might try to complete it with his original plan to include Warm Springs as the 3rd depot. Another you could try is Dave Gross's Twelve Days of Christmas. You might also try a couple of my fewest trains scenarios (search fewest trains and the threads should both pop up), namely TSC campaign #5, Trans-Siberian, with 3 trains and #16, Island of Hope, with 3 trains. Heartland Auto & Heartland Heaven can be found at Hawk & Badger in NA section. Heartland Heaven thread is still here and the download link apparently now works. I suggest you try to beat my game results rather that the somewhat easy gold conditions. Cascadia can be found here and at Hawk's in NA section. If this proves too easy for you, I can post the harder version including Warm Springs if you ask for it and I happen to pass by. Twelve Days can be found here in Europe section. Even though Hawk did a fairly comprehensive amalgamation of The Terminal's maps several years ago, I could not find it there. This is one as I recall, you will definitely need to study the events in the editor beforehand to have any chance of winning.

I knew I had a picture somewhere. Unfortunately the link above no longer works, but simpler explanations are better anyhow

Akuenzi's answer is also concise and to the point for win 8. After you find the files with a search of *.gm2, you can right click and drag from the subdirectory name and make a shortcut on your desktop and place it in your RRT2 subdirectory if desired. Interestingly but not necessary for the above, AppData is a hidden file. If you want to find it, click on "view" at the top of your files window and check "hidden items" over on the rhs. Then you may have to exit and reload the window.

I'm guessing I probably used them to relay coal from one train to another, but in pairs? Who knows?