Career scenarios

[Terry]

I like a good challenge, but at the same time I find career scenarios somewhat annoying at times. Case in point: a scenario (#4) for the Kansas City - Topeka route that i finished with 1000 points that awards 0 XP. From what I read on the DTG forums, it's a common occurrence. Digging into the scenario with the editor and looking at the LUA script, there's nothing in the scenario itself to explain that. Even when I ran at breakneck speed (still within the speed limit) and ended earlier than the "expected" time, there's no explanation.

So here's my solution: clone the career scenarios, and in the process name the clone something like "Standard ..." - then using TS-Tools, mark the new scenarios as standard. in addition to getting credit for completing the scenario, you can edit the scenario to your liking. For instance, in the aforementioned scenario, I modified the standard version to remove a couple of unnecessary stop instructions.

I am curious: do people generally like career scenarios, and put up with these glitches, or do they find or create standard scenarios and run those? I have to admit that I try to stay within speed limits (speeding being the most common reason I get "dinged" in career scenarios), but in some cases, there's no advance warning of a speed limit change, or it seems not so serious to be going 16 mph in a 15 mph zone.

I have written a lot of scenarios over the years, so I don't have a problem converting a career scenario to standard and running it that way. I am more interested in the operation and in completing the work than doing it 100% perfectly (often only after multiple "mulligans" - save/resume after an error, or multiple tries.)

What's the norm? Do people run career scenarios because that's all DTG offers, write their own, or convert the career scenarios to standard ones and run those? Or ... do you go find scenarios that others have posted here or on other sites?

[AmericanSteam]

Because of on occasion finding a glitch that will not let you complete a 60 minute scenario, usually near the end and having to drive unrealistically like a mad man, I have taken to converting all Career scenarios to standard. It takes the pressure off and lets me enjoy the drive, and on occasion to stop the game, open the editor and plant a few trees, place some people and track side objects and go on my way.

[Terry]

I would much rather run a standard scenario and enjoy it than try to "beat" a career scenario, only to get "dinged" when my speed creeps 1 or 2 mph over the limit, or because the speed limit dropped by 10 mph without warning.

[mindenjohn]

Because of on occasion finding a glitch that will not let you complete a 60 minute scenario, usually near the end and having to drive unrealistically like a mad man, I have taken to converting all Career scenarios to standard. It takes the pressure off and lets me enjoy the drive, and on occasion to stop the game, open the editor and plant a few trees, place some people and track side objects and go on my way.

and so do I.

[buzz456]

Me three.

[harryadkins]

I never pay attention to the score in a career scenario. I run them like any other and just enjoy...

[jlms48]

I agree. I have been converting the career scenarios to standard and editing them for a few years now. It is useful to keep the original scenario as a backup copy tho.

[GreatNortherner]

Hi all,

My personal preference, both for running and writing scenarios, is also heavily biased towards standard scenarios.

a scenario ... route that i finished with 1000 points that awards 0 XP.

As far as I know, a likely cause for this is when the player doesn't follow the path and sequence to process the work order that the game dispatcher would have used. In the editor, this path is shown by the red line on the map in the timetable editor and you can follow it if you use the gameplay preview function in the editor and observe the player train's movements.

The main issue that I see with that is that the "dispatcher-preferred" path is completely invisible to the player during gameplay and often there is more than one possible way to complete an instruction but only one of which will be "right" as far as the dispatcher is concerned. The only fairly safe way to deal with this is to restrict the player's movements by using as many go to/via instructions as possible so that only one possible route remains open to complete each task. Which is pretty difficult and tedious to set up and test and in my opinion also a bit frustrating to play.

Cheers,
Michael