PJay Construction - For all your building needs!

[PJay]

Seems PJay has too much on his plate at the moment, so we'll just have to hope his focus stays on RRT3.

My focus is on RT3, I'm just playing it for a change :D
I like the Alternate USA map a lot with all the haulage requirements, and I'm trying to monopolize as many cargo as possible, using only custom consist etc...

I have to agree I quited developping the building creator a little bit, because I had the feeling nobody would really use it a lot, and it would mainly be a waste of work. I really put a lot of work in it already, but there still is a lot to do. I currently have the feeling maybe 2 or 3 new buildings would be created with it, well I have to say, if that's all, it will be 10 times less work to create them myself by hand than to finish the program.

So, if you have any requests for a new building with a simple 3D-geometry, send me a picture for the skin of the building and the properties it should have. I guess it would take 3 hours to create it manually. Finishing my program would take at the very least another 30 hours.

If somebody can convince such a program would be used to create more than 3 or 4 new buildings, I might continue to work on it, but currently I'm enjoying simple, plain, playing RT3 :)

[Gwizz]

I'm waiting for a method to create structures, etc. I hope you do complete your program.

What I would like to create is a port that is also a small station and has the tracks and station on the dock.

The small station would supply and demand passengers and mail for the port.

Well you asked! :roll:

[kriss]

Pjay,
Thanks for replying.
I'd encourage you to complete your programme for purely selfish reasons, I'm doing an Ancient Egypt map at the moment & would love to be able to create a whole set of authentic buildings for that & I also have a couple of other ideas germinating which none of the current styles really suit.
I wouldn't say no to a few pyramids if that's possible.

Used your bmp2gmp prog for the first time & got superb results with an Egypt map which I found on the web. I created a TGA from the RRT3 map builder & played with the sizing in PSPro, worked a treat!

[PJay]

What I would like to create is a port that is also a small station and has the tracks and station on the dock.

The small station would supply and demand passengers and mail for the port.


How many mail/passengers/troops/... do you want it to produce/demand/... (a combination of supply only, demand only and supply=>demand IS possible)?
Should it be buildable/buyable/upgradeable/... ? And at what cost?
How do you want to call it?
Years when building is available?

I'll upload a modified version of the RT3 port this evening. (I'll just add the tracks on the outside of the port, just for testing).

[PJay]

I wouldn't say no to a few pyramids if that's possible.


=> Same questions as I asked Gwizz

I'll give you the building, but with a very plain skin, you'll have to repaint the skin a little yourself.

Is a simple piramid good enough, or do you want a funky 3D-model (with a sphinx in front etc...), if you prefer the latter, I guess I'll have less work to finish my program instead :D

[PJay]

For Gwizz:


http://studwww.ugent.be/~pbusscha/rt3/newbuildings/gwizzport/


A port has long structures that should go into the water/ground to look good, but I have a problem here with the tracks, because they are at 0 height, so, the complete port sticks in the air.

All the other things, however, work as intended. The port has 5 passengers from/to, 2 mail from/to and 1 troop from/to.

I don't think a player can build them. I also think it doesn't show up in events. I don't know if an event like : effect = place new Gwizz Port at (x,y) will exist. These latest 2 issues can be logically understood, because this is, in essence, a station with a different look. Stations don't show up in the event lists, they do not get placed randomly either. You can upgrade stations, but if you place the ports in the editor without a company active, the player won't ever be able to upgrade them if he wants.


Oh, to install : unzip the BuildingTypes.zip to your BuildingTypes directory. Existing scenario's won't be affected.

I also uploaded a very small map with a pre-placed Gwizz Port, so you can see how it really works.

[kriss]

Pjay,
Simple pyramids would be fine, I still think you underestimate the probable demand for your programme.

[Gwizz]

PJay excellent

Let me recap:
What you did was replace the small station building with a port dock and give the new port dock supply and demand of Passenger, Mail and Troops.
It still requires a beach to plant.

I can visualize a Steel Mill that comes with its own tracks, a Lumber Mill, etc.

How about a large station with tracks on both sides?

How about a Tutorial?

PS I figured out a way to reduce my frustration of the very slow loading of this site by my computer. I open a 2nd IE window and read and write to threads on another forum while I wait for this forum to load each part. I jump back an forth as needed. At least it seems like this site is faster for me now even if it is not.

[isii]

Gwizz, I decided to time the loading. I'm running on P-4 Mobile (my notebook) at 2GHz, running Netscape 7.0. I load the Forum in exactly 4 seconds off a Netscape bookmark. The exact same site takes 12 seconds on my computer using IE 6.0.

Does this help?

Hope all is well in Rainland.

[Gwizz]

For 3 days we were having indian summer weather. But tonight I hear we get rain again.

I timed the loading of this reply and it took just short of 3 minutes.
Normally it takes between 15 and 30 minutes to load this site, read a couple of threads and make one reply. I can't figure out how to light a fire under this computer. I am going through 2 ISPs to post. It could be that I'm always at the end of the line at the 1st IEP before Icehouse gets my request. But other UK sites load in seconds. ???????? It must be something in my computer.

I took some time away from unpacking boxes and went outside with the sun out to clean about 100 feet of neglected track. I can now move a car to load some rail piled under a dead tree. The tree may come down this winter and rail is too hard to find not to protect it.

Now I made a correction and added a line. Will repost this reply.

[Gwizz]

Well, the clock at the site didn't change with the edit. It is about 4:20 now.

[PJay]

What you did was replace the small station building with a port dock and give the new port dock supply and demand of Passenger, Mail and Troops.

Nope, I started with the port building.
Removed the checkmark "this is a port/warehouse"
Added the checkmark "this is a small station"
Added the coordinates for the track
Added passenger, mail, troop supply/demand

That's about it... Well, I had to retry a few time to get the track coordinates right. The first time I tried, they were right in the port building, and because you can't build a building on top of a track, you could never build the port :-)

It still requires a beach to plant.

Ofcourse

I can visualize a Steel Mill that comes with its own tracks, a Lumber Mill, etc...

Possible, but some remarks about this:
All of these will show up on the mini-map as yellow station dots.
All of these will have a catchment area, and will attract other cargo too.
The production/financial-info will be replaced with the station-info.

Another possibillity is to make them all watertowers or maint. sheds, but then they'll have tracks attached to them, but you won't be able to load/unload a train there.

How about a large station with tracks on both sides?

Not possible, there is only one pair of track-coordinates in the building file. I can't even change the direction of the track. If you want the track outside your port to be parallel to the port instead, the only thing I can do, is swap all the X and Y coordinates for the port. :shock:

What I could do however, is to create a station that takes up almost no space on the map. I could make it look like an extra platform. However, this will only improve the looks, and reduce the necessary space in the city for a double station. You'll still have the other problems with double stations (route all trains to one of the two stations, they won't automaticly choose the free platform 4 if they are routed for the occupied platform 2 etc...). And, there is no way I could prevent someone from using this tiny station alone (eg: not next to a big one). I'd consider that cheating.

How about a Tutorial?

The tutorial is, I believe, either hard coded in the exe file or in the scenario file, neither of which has anything to do with buildings.



And btw, this whole discussion doesn't have a lot to do with Arizona Open Range anymore, maybe Webmasster can seperate the relevant posts from this thread to a new one?

[Gwizz]

I like the platform station idea.
It could be used next to a saw mill etc. instead of a normal small station.

I was thinking of a tutorial on what can be done to modify RRT3, such as a platform station. I have a feeling that a tutorial like this would become very popular.

[bombardiere]

Hello

I know this comes very late, but I would be really interested in that kind of platform station. I love big hubs, but the traffic congests easily. I have played RRT3 only little, however in RRT2 the congestion was a major problem for me. When it became very serious, I sometimes put a second large station next to first one. This way I could have separate station for express trains and local/freight trains. Usually this solved the traffic jam, but a large station takes a lot of space. And in RRT3 this space issues seems to be even bigger issue. Second large station is not really good solution and this kind of platform station, which would take only little space, would be ideal solution for me.

[PJay]

hmm


Currently I'm mainly playing civilization 4 and modding it into alpha centauri. I intentionally "forgot" to bring the dvd with me, to be able to do some work this weekend :) , I also didn't bring my RT3 cd's.

However, as this is only a small thing to do, I'll probably make it sunday evening, to get a break from civ4.

[bombardiere]

Hello PJay

That would be great. However there is no rush. I am currently way too happy playing with the skinning and map making tools. And there is that thing called a real life lurking behind the corner. :lol:

I see that the plaform station should be a large station, as its usefulness is with large stations. Otherwise a small station would be enough. It probably wouldn't solve all problems with a major hub, but it would be very useful to me.

BTW I would like to thank you for those great gmp conversion programs. I was able to place rivers and major cities in few hours, instead of couple days what it took for me in RRT2. I haven't been able to get PK4 extractor working, but has been because I don't have functioning Java.

[PJay]

hmm, after trying a little, it seems like it's harder to do than I originally thought.


The platform station won't show up in the player's building list, because it's a station. The only solution I see would be to replace one of the existing architectures, but I don't want to do that. Maybe I can add an extra architecture, but I'm not sure RT3 can handle that.


Anyway, back to civ-4 modding for this evening. I'll probably come back to this tomorrow.

[Gwizz]

I wonder if you could use a large house as a station. Then have it randomly plant itself on startup. It might need a longer section of track so that it would only plant in the larger cities. Not sure how it would be owned, if at all.

I wish I wasn't so busy. I just have not had much time for RT3 or 2.

[ColdDarkParanoia]

like with the maintances shead a think that we should mos a new statoin that would cover the track making it an inclossed station refill the trains with sand oil and water then they stoped of whent through the station.

[EGC7]

Yo PJay,

Is there a way to simply "rename" an existing industry. For example, rename "Bauxite mine" to "Copper mine", rename "Aluminum mill" to Copper Mill", and rename the cargoes as well "Bauxite" to "Copper" and "Aluminum" to "Copper". And then I woud want to reskin the Aluminum cargo from gray to yellow.

Just curious. Thanks,

Eric

[PJay]

Yes, this is certainly possible.

What you need to do:

=> copy, rename and edit the bca and bty files in the "buildingTypes" directory
=> copy, rename and edit the cty files in the "cargoTypes" directory
=> unpack the pk4 files to a temp dir untill you find the 3dp and dds files for the buildings. Copy them to the "UserExtraContent" directory. Rename them. Edit the dds file (= reskinning). If you can't save as dds (I know irfanview can read, but can't write), you can save the picture as jpg too.


As for detail on what to edit in the bca, bty and cty files: use a hex-editor (eg: http://hexplorer.sourceforge.net/ ) to open them and look at the bca, bty, cty specs to know what you need to change (tip: you mostly need to change texts:
=> a new unique identifier for the mills and the cargo
=> an in-game name
=> edit the cross-references to the files you remaned/moved (ie: the reskinned jpg)
=> the cargo's your new mills use (copper instead of bauxite)
=> ... (maybe others)

[Wolverine@MSU]

Will these new files need to be supplied to the user to place in the "UserExtraContent" folder or will the modified files need to replace those in the "Data" folder?

[PJay]

Rule of thumb:
=> whatever is packed in pk4 files can be put in the "ExtraContent" folders. (=3dp, tga, dds, jpg)
=> other files have to be in the right directory under "Data". (=bca, bty, cty)

Is there a way to simply "rename" an existing industry. For example, rename "Bauxite mine" to "Copper mine", rename "Aluminum mill" to Copper Mill", and rename the cargoes as well "Bauxite" to "Copper" and "Aluminum" to "Copper". And then I woud want to reskin the Aluminum cargo from gray to yellow.

The renaming part is easy. A lot of renaming can be done in the RT3.LNG file. Just open it as a text file. Besides the names of cargo, there are a lot of other things in there, like headlines, the sports scores for the stadiums etc. I shortened "service tower" and "maintenance shed" to first word only, so that with town names, they wouldn't be too long.

But yeah, it would be nice to be able to reskin, like to make coffee into tobacco, etc. I have a scenario that would be better with a gravel haul mission, and I would like to use bauxite for it.