New Map: Greening the Red Planet

[JayEff]

Gravity got you feeling down? Need a change of scenery? Mars beckons.[attachment archived by Gobalopper]

[belbincolne]

My first bash at this was pretty disastrous. You probably need a few attempts to get the hang of it. Do you only need to run seeders along a route once or does it improve every time they run? (Not that you can avoid running them a lot anyway). same comments on C to C as I've just posted on Soif. Brilliant map and idea though.

[JayEff]

You don't really get a choice about the seeders. If your train is below max consist, you will get seeder cars so you have your maximum number of cars. Seeding again doesn't help much.

Yes it takes a bit to get the hang of it. The economy is kind of whacky and the missions can be a bit unnerving. 

Some hints:

1. The mines are active so you could try owning a few uranium mines at the start, and shipping to the reactors.

2. Realise that hills are not such a handicap, you are in low gravity. I usually connect the lowland mining towns to the agricultural cities of Tempe Arvens and Sacra Mensa early in the game, with some fairly steep hills.

3. When you have built the greenhouses in a city, the money losing farms will suddenly be productive, so you can buy them cheap. Each greenhouse activation creates a kind of miniboom.

4. Ship chemicals and fertiliser early and often. Tempe Arvens is key for this. It is in limited supply.

5. You can repeat the university course any time after completion, or you can print the lessons from the accompanying text file.

6. Remember to replace your locos. Maintenance on Mars is expensive, and the locos go downhill faster than on Earth.

7. Learn which cities do not need greehnouse construction, and connect to them. They are older cities that already have a food supply, so should have more cargo available. Sacra Mensa is a good food source.

8. Some cities have double passenger production. Connect to them to get more express business.

9. One city has high factory production. Find it and create jobs for the citizens, and the factories there should be very profitable.

10. I have messed a bit with electric vs H2-CO2 (diesel) but have not seen one being much better than the other.

11. You have to deliver plastic and aluminum. Pay attention to where these are produced and where they are most in demand. There is a delicat balance. To be sure of greenhouse activation, have dedicated trains to deliver these cargoes. The activated greenhouses help to increase your industrial base, and your ability to ship both raw and finished materials.

12. The seeding mission is a pain, I know, but it is why you were sent to Mars, to paint it green.

[belbincolne]

Well using your above notes I had my second try - equally disastrous as I got nothing but I was awful near Silver -  111704 acres against 120k and 493 fertiliser against 500 so another year might have got me there (but then again it might not - building useless lines to green is mighty costly!)

A few comments for you to think about.

Bonestall needs business - but the business I put there just lost money. It also never wanted aluminium.

The towns in the south-west similiarly never had a demand to get greenhouses despite trying to run coinsist trains, Echus/Sacra Dom had no demand for either. Thasris/Uranius had no demand plastic.

Trains run uphill just as slowly as on earth - possibly slower because they are always pulling 8 wagons and on grades like this I'd normally put a 4 or 6 maximum.

I ran electric but wonder if the extra cost of the lines outweighed the faster/cheaper trains benefit.

As you said trains do wear out fast!

Anyway I still enjoyed playing it :D

[JayEff]

Here is 1.1. With price increases for chemicals and fertiliser, they should be produced more quickly, and pay better when you move them.

Some more hints:

13. You must ship or the factories will slow down. Where there are chemicals, fertiliser, aluminum and plastic piling up at source, haul them away to someplace useful.

14. You must activate the greenhouse cities with plastic and aluminum before the farms there will consume fertiliser.

15. If you are down to your last few unactivated cities, and there is no aluminum and plastic receiving warehouse, build a tool&die there. Bulldoze any buildings (unneeded warehouses, tool&dies) that are interfering with your missions.

16. Make alcohol and bring it to Tempe Arvens to get more chemicals, and ultimately fertiliser.

GreeningtheRedPlanetv1.1.zip

[Barefootgal]

Just wanted to tell you that I love this map!  I managed to lose it while sorting/cleaning/reinstalling my RRT3 files, so had to come back to download it again.  Kudos!  Good map!

[Gwizz]

bump

[Hawk]

You can get version 1.2 at this link: http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/map_arch/rt3_other-lands.htm

[MisterHinton]

In playing 1.2 (w/new lng file "installed") I got an odd glitch- a poptop bug? All fertilizer was being counted as half. I shipped 3.6 and was credited with 2; hauled another train of 3.88 (total 7.48) and was credited with 3; shipped another car (100% = 8.48) and the status page said 4. So you really have to haul 1000 to get the 500 credit. Very weird. Got bronze (colonies) then silver (short only 8k acres greening). Nice concept though. Ever thought about doing the mariner valley?