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SKID ROW presents A-TRAIN CONSTRUCTION SET System Information and Manual Addendum HARDWARE REQUIRED Amiga A500, A600, A1000, A1200, A2000, A2500, A3000, A4000 in NTSC, PAL or VGA. Requires 1 MB RAM for low-resolution: 1.5 MB RAM (1 MB of that Graphics RAM) for high-resolution. Two floppy drives; hard drive recommended. Printer option. SOFTWARE REQUIRED Requires Workbench 1.3 or later. Release 2.0/3.0 compatible. INSTALLING AMIGA CONSTRUCTION SET Double-click on the "Install Construction Set" icon on Disk 1. The installation program gives you three choices - Novice, Intermediate, and Expert. Novice provides a fully automated default installation on your hard drive, Intermediate allows you to direct the application's storage, and Expert gives you full control over every step of file creation and storage. See the Installer Help screens for more details. To install a printer driver on a floppy, double-click on "Install Printer" in the Utilities drawer on Disk 1. The Construction Set must be installed into the A-Train drawer. If you intend to print the Construction Set map landscapes, be sure to correctly set up your machine's Preferences for printing. Under Kickstart 1.3 or earlier, you must use the Preferences program for setup. Under Release 2.0 or later, you must use both the Printer and PrinterGfx Preferences programs found in the Prefs drawer. You can get clarification of these procedures by reading "Using the System Software" in your Amiga manual. To run the Construction Set from a floppy, insert Disk 1 into your machine and boot your computer. The example games must be installed onto a formatted blank floppy. To install, double-click on the "Install Example Games" icon. The installation utility will ask you where to install the examples. Insert the formatted floppy, select it, and then select Proceed. AMIGA KEYBOARD COMMANDS Command Action Arrow Keys Scroll Map, Scroll a List Shifted Arrow Keys Scroll Map or List One Page Esc/Space Bar Abort Track Laying "-" (minus sign); +,- (keypad) Scroll Open Windows Up or Down Open/Close Bracket Shift Satellite View S Show Satellite View H Hide Satellite View T Trains Running A-TRAIN CONSTRUCTION SET USER MANUAL FOR THE AMIGA After all, anybody is as their land and air is. - Gertrude Stein INTRODUCTION Welcome to the A-Train Construction Set, where you can carve every detail of your trains' terrain. With the Construction Set, you can take any of A-Train's existing landscapes and mold it to your pleasure- sculpt massive mountains, plant tiny trees, place offices on islands- until your map is precisely the way you want it to be. You can even completely obliterate every detail of a map- like a wheat farm after a locust swarm- and build everything from the ground up. Allocate the cash reserve you think you deserve, put in an additional railroad or two, and load your new map into A-Train. You can customize the challenges that different maps present in an intriguing way: research the original New Orleans streetcar system (if you desire), get looped in Chicago- even design a map after your hometown! The Construction Set lets you draft landforms and cities to experiment with form and function, or just for the sheer creative pleasure of it. Exchange maps with other users, design different difficulty scales, or just experiment with random elements: the Construction Set not only lets you be the master of all you survey, but you get to do the surveying, too. The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. - G. K. Chesterton MAP OUT YOUR PLANS, PLAN OUT YOUR MAP If you spend a little time before you begin considering what you want your final map to look like, you probably will save yourself some frustration and false starts (although a vote for an anarchic map can be a compelling vote as well). Map-making is a challenge, and the Construction Set has enough complexity and flexibility to complement many approaches to the cartographer's art. Consider in advance your basic look: flat, gently sloping, mountainous; consider how water can shape and define land. Do you want dominant black holes of urban sprawl or wide-open grasslands with scattered farms? You could try a map with a tiny amount of money and the same map with a huge amount of money to see how the territory challenges your bank account. You could fill a barren terrain with scads of running railroads and few people or have a teeming population getting around only on skateboards- it's a map of your mind as well. However you design your map, keep in mind that the integration of the total territory, from corner to corner, and off the screen as well (remember those trains, planes and boats). Oh yeah- have some fun, too. STARTING THE CONSTRUCTION SET Please refer to your machine-specific addendum for system requirements and installation information for the program. After you load in the Construction Set, you are presented with a dialog box that has a list of example games and all of your saved A-Train maps. The example games are explained under "Included Scenarios." For now, double-click on one of your saved games. On the Amiga, click on a saved game and then on OK; we'll take a gander at the Construction Set landscape. (See "Game Window (Amiga)" for the Amiga opening screen.) If you think it looks suspiciously like an A-Train screen, we'll hand you your hardhat now, but don't start hammering until you note the new commands at the end of the Toolbar: all of the Financial and Report window buttons have been replaced by map editing buttons that activate the terrain building and destroying functions. There are no Financial or Report windows in the Construction Set. Light, God's eldest daughter, is the principal beauty in a building. - Thomas Fuller When any of the Map Edit command buttons are clicked, a window with images of the chosen landscaping or building units will appear. The individual editing commands can then be chosen with your mouse; they will have a highlighted box around them to indicate their activation. (The CASH item works somewhat differently; see below.) You can then use your mouse cursor to select the map area you want to transform. As in A-Train, you will be given grief by all manner of message window advisors should you attempt wayward construction efforts. To jaunt around the terrain on the Amiga, you can use the keyboard arrows, or, shades of A-Train, move the cursor to any of the screen's borders and it will change into an arrow pointing in the direction your screen will scroll when you click or click and hold on your left mouse button. As in Amiga A-Train, you can see more of your landscape by making any active command windows disappear by hitting your right mouse button or the plus or minus keys on the number pad; you can still use the Map Edit and Subsidiaries commands with their windows hidden. Most of the Amiga windows are closed by hitting Return, which will activate the EXIT button. GAME WINDOW (AMIGA) The Game Window opens automatically at startup. The submenus and windows opened by the Game Window commands cannot be moved around onscreen. The example maps are explained under "Included Scenarios" at the end of this manual. You can access A-Train's original landscapes by opening them in A-Train and saving them under a different name. LOAD SCENARIO is the default button selected when you load the program, presenting you with a scrollable list of example games and saved A-Train games, if they are in the current drawer. The current drawer and path are found below this list. You can search for other stored maps on other available drives by clicking on DRIVES. Clicking on PARENT brings you up one level in the file-saving hierarchy. Clicking on a file name in the scrolling list will highlight it and place its name in the Drives ribbon at the bottom of the window. Click on OK to bring up the desired map onscreen or on EXIT to leave the window. The Load Scenario window will disappear after the file is loaded, but can be accessed at any time- as well as all System commands- by clicking on GAME on the toolbar. SAVE SCENARIO brings up the Save Scenario window, which displays the current path, names of already saved maps, and a scrollable list of available drives (through the DRIVES button) for map saving. You can type in a new name for an example map or a previously saved map in the File ribbon at the window's bottom in order to preserve your new map's changes and retain the old map as well. Click on OK to fix the changes to disk or EXIT to leave the window without any changes. Who built the seven gates of Thebes? In the books are listed the names of kings. Did the kings heave up the building blocks? - Bertolt Brecht GAMES OPTIONS displays a window with settings to customize your use of the Construction Set. GAME SPEED gives you the chance to fine-tune the speed at which your game clock (and thus your train operation) runs. You can choose to hear rhythmic ditties of the train's passage by clicking on SOUND ON or you can keep the peace by choosing SOUND OFF. DAY/NIGHT CYCLE ON/OFF switches between landscape lighting reflecting light's journey into night or consistent sunshine. All of these options are moot unless you click on TRAINS ON, which will energize your empire, letting you test the track placement and operation of your trains, which go through their paces of pickup and delivery. You can see if the map under construction is suitable for actual play. The game clock will run, as well as any trains, planes or boats. Letting your trains loose automatically brings the Satellite window down and also displays the Train Registry. You can toggle the position of the Satellite window by hitting the right and left bracket keys on the keyboard, and you can zero in on a particular train by clicking on its number on the registry. The financial operations of A-Train do not function in the Construction Set, so you will not gain any profits or incur any losses. Consider this a chance to go sightseeing on your map. (Map Edit commands will not operate when the trains are "on.") PRINT MAP will give you a suitable-for-framing hard copy of your Construction Set map. See your Amiga addendum for details. CREDITS will bring up the names of the noble souls who toiled for God, Country, and the Construction Set. QUIT quits the Construction Set. You must use the SAVE SCENARIO command to save any changes to disk, or they will be lost. You can cancel the operation by hitting EXIT. TRAINS AND SUBSIDIARIES MENUS TRAINS and SUBSIDIARIES have a set of commands and functions that perform essentially the same as their counterparts in A-Train. You can lay tracks, buy and place trains and stations, set schedules, and arrange trunk lines to cities outside the map for export and import. The trains will not run until you exercise that command option. You cannot make alterations to the map while in the "trains on" mode, though you can scroll. The Construction Set lets you be a true Robber Baron of the old school: all of the train purchases are free! However, you will be taxed for your rail assets once the game is loaded into A-Train. You can even buy and place two extra trains, #26 and #27, as long as their railroad lines are designed as trunk lines going off the map at two edges. The trains on these lines cannot be purchased, sold, placed, or removed while playing A-Train, nor can their schedules be set. These are the trains found in the original A-Train maps that couldn't be scheduled or tampered with. The Construction Set gives you much more control over their placement and paths. SUBSIDIARIES commands allow you to buy and place (or remove) as many properties as you please (well, 18 apiece, actually) so that you can begin a game without having paid the pretty pennies of today's real estate market. After you choose the type of subsidiary on the Amiga, its command window allows you to designate if you want the buildings to be owned by you or the simulator by clicking on YOURS or SIMULATOR (Computer). The familiar "owner's box" will appear on top of your buildings. Assets designated as yours are added to your net worth and become part of your A-Train Balance Sheet figures. MAP EDIT MENUS AND FUNCTIONS PAINT LAND gives you six choices of terrain types that can either be placed as a single unit by double-clicking on the designated block or "painted" on the landscape by clicking on a block and moving the mouse to define the new terrain placement. Place the cursor in the middle of a block, click, and move the mouse in any direction to highlight "strips" of blocks, or drag on a diagonal for larger squares of territory. The highlighted rectangle that results from this represents the area that will be replaced by the new, selected terrain after you click the mouse again. The terrain types are: Level Land - terrain that is completely cleared of any growth or development. (You can use this command to erase mistakes and begin anew.) Sea - a broad swath of water Uptown - mixed residential with small offices and shops Downtown - combines Uptown with larger commercial buildings Mixed Woods - land irregularly interspersed with clumps of trees Woods - heavily forested terrain Mixed Fields - grassy plots and bushes mixed with cleared areas Fields - grassy areas mixed with cultivated land, orchards and clearings Some elements cannot be painted over, such as mountains and existing tracks and stations. For example, if you place a band of water over a station with some large commercial developments nearby, you will end up with "peninsulas" of track surrounded by water, with the big buildings on "islands" of land. Actually, it can look rather picturesque. MOUNTAIN makes you king (or queen) of the hill by allowing you to build towering slopes or gentle rises (or tear them down in a fit of pique). You are given two development choices, Small or Large, and two options, Build or Remove. Selecting Small and then clicking on a block will result in a 2x2 square of raised land; Large produces a 3x3 plot. Both Small and Large mounts can be developed if you click several times in succession on the slopes, raising the height of the hills while only slightly spreading the hillsides laterally. Selecting Remove lets you contour new or existing slopes; you can click on the peaks to slice out sections so that the mountain's apex appears to have imploded, ala Oregon's Crater Lake, or you can just carve out crags. Ski buffs can make every valley heavenly. Other Paint Land command choices have no effect on mountainous areas. You can place mountains right up to the edge of buildings for a dramatic cityscape; mountains cannot be placed on water. TILE lets you place structural elements of the map block by block. just click once on the tile of your choosing and click on a site on the map to place it. The 64 block choices include a range of farmland and field units (including ranch houses and land with cows), woods thick with trees or with lone stragglers, ponds, various types of residences and small offices, larger offices, construction materials, roads, and even crossroads. You can "paint" tile elements in the manner of the Paint Land commands by selecting a tile and drawing the cursor with the mouse button depressed across the area you want to transform. Broad bands of tile images can be placed on the landscape. If you release the mouse while laying the tiles, the painting will cease. You cannot paint tiles over mountains, tracks and certain buildings. You can cycle through the 4 sets of 16 tiles by clicking on the Page Up or Page Down bars at the top of the block choices window. This command allows you a nice degree of whimsy in your choices: you can place a block of construction materials in the middle of a lake, a mound of trees in the sea, or some nice condos in a pond. Plow a road into the sea. Make some developments in league with the Devil- who's to stop you? RIVER places rivers, lakes or islands. Click on any of the three choices to activate them. Using River, you can drag the cursor individual blocks to place small stretches of water or cross the map with a serpentine Nile. When you move the mouse over the proposed riverbed, its highlight appears as a straight line, identical to that of the track-laying highlight, but when the river is placed, its curves and irregularities reflect its natural brethren. The rivers will fork and break in some spots. Putting a river into a larger body of water will sometimes result in an unnatural looking "wedge" of water surrounded by strips of land at the water's joint. You can create a more smooth juncture at the river's mouth by painting that spot with the Sea choice in the PAINT LAND menu or shape some irregular shorelines with the Island and Lake commands. If you choose Lake, you can place a 3x3 block of water surrounded by a small amount of cleared land. You can place a succession of contiguous lakes for larger bodies of water. Islands can only be placed in lakes large enough to accommodate them. Placing one in a small lake will divide it into small strips of water with land in-between. Placing an island over other types of terrain will result in a 3x3 square of cleared terrain. If you placed an island on the edge of a body of water, you can sculpt the shore for an interesting eroded look. Rivers and lakes can be placed over smaller buildings and residences, but not over large commercial properties or through or over mountains. You can design your rivers so that they easily accommodate bridges; laying a river over existing track splits the river in two. PORTS places seaports and airports. Selecting PORTS brings up a two- choice display of an airport and a seaport, accompanied by a Build and Remove command. You can even build a seaport in a lake, but you won't make many shipping profits off a few trout- no boats will float. The buildings on the seaport must be aligned close to at least one block of land (not necessarily touching- just align the preplaced port's highlight with at least one block of land before placement). Removing a seaport replaces it with blocks of cleared land. If you try to place water over a seaport, the port remains, but any attached land sinks beneath the surface of the waves (a good place to start looking for Atlantis). When you attempt to place an airport or seaport, the cursor will display a highlight of the port's size and alignment, but only a single highlighted block when you click on the Remove command. You can't place TILE objects on airports. You are restricted to one airport and one seaport per map. If the seaport is built in waters open to the map's edge, a freighter will enter. The freighter will proceed straight from the bottom edge towards the right edge of the map, but it won't be able to avoid obstacles, so design a smooth passage if you want to utilize a shipping route. You can place an airport in water but you won't thrill your passengers- no planes will arrive. It does look pretty at night, though. First, put down two parallel strips of land an airport's length (nine blocks), and then place the building. You can delete the remaining empty blocks for a clean look. Neither type of port can be placed over mountains, certain types of buildings, or tracks. CASH allows you to configure your cash reserves with which to begin a game. The + and - keys work much like the Bank Loan keys in A-Train. You can increase the total in increments of either 1,000,000 or 100,000 dollars up to 9,000,000 dollars- enough to put those silver cuspidors in every sleeper. This window will reveal the type and size of your city, reflective of your new development. CLEAR lets you cut selections from the map. You can selectively remove all of the trains, railroads, and mountains from your map. If you select All Trains, all of the trains you have placed or purchased will be erased. All Railroads will erase all the railroads in addition to all of the trains. However, the trains are merely removed from view in this instance- they are "stored," as when you use A-Train's Remove Train command, and you can place them later. The Clear All command gives you a fresh, clean map of flat land to work with- a blank canvas upon which to paint a mapping masterpiece. This also erases all purchased trains, placed or not. This is the command you should choose first if you want to construct a completely original map. HELP! The button with the question mark will remain one of life's little mysteries- I couldn't possibly be induced to reveal its secrets ... Oh, all right! Click on the question mark and you will see a window with icons of all game buttons, which, when clicked, will give you sage advice on the use of that tool or command within A-Train and the Construction Set. BITING THE BULLET One of A-Train's significant pleasures is making the Bullet Train appear by successfully developing your city. However, the Construction Set gives you the chance to alter your maps so profoundly that not even the mighty Bullet can penetrate your borders. Do not completely surround your city by mountains if you want the Shinkansen to come- keep at least one side of the city open. INCLUDED SCENARIOS The Construction Set provides you with six example scenarios that demonstrate a range of map-making options and concepts. You can use some of them as a basis for actual gameplay, or just as prototypes of design possibilities. Some of the maps have limited playability; consider them candy for the eye. Example 5 is a sort of terrain sculpture garden, a paint-by-numbers combination maze/miniature golf course/labyrinth with a start and a finish, but don't ask us how to play. Example 6 is a train ballet: a visual marvel of synchronicity and timing. The trains have an easy, organic quality, almost a neural network of the brain at leisure- this might scan well after a Long Island Iced Tea or two. (Hint: Don't try to set any schedules with this one.) Take the inspiration of these examples and make tracks! THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND The A-Train Construction Set gives you the ticket to ride- on the terrain of your own making. Every design decision is yours: Tilt your train's travel over perilous mountain passes carved by your cursor. Brighten up a drab landscape with an alpine lake, rustic ranchland, columns of condos. Make subtle additions or subtractions- set a doctor's office in the foothills, angle an airport to your whim, remove a length of unsightly roadway- you control the horizontal, you control the vertical. The prospects are infinite: water worlds, gardens of greenery, urban blankets of scorched earths- build the Land of 27 Trains or a towering Himalaya no locomotive could traverse. You've got the tools; make your mouse earn its cheese. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity. - Thomas Browne TRAIN CATALOG KIHA 40 - a diesel passenger train used on a local line in cold places. Coaches: 2 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Seats: 400 Price: 33,000 dollars Passing stations: incapable 201 - a commuter train with a large seating capacity. Coaches: 3 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Seats: 600 Price: 50,000 dollars Passing stations: incapable 415 - a commuter train with a stainless-steel body. More suitable for suburban travel than a 201 model train. Coaches: 3 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Seats: 580 Price: 53,000 dollars Passing stations: incapable 205 - a commuter train used in a metropolitan city. Coaches: 2 Speed: 3 blocks/hour Seats: 440 Price: 46,000 dollars Passing stations: incapable 211 - a stainless-steel suburban commuter train. Coaches: 3 Speed: 3 blocks/hour Seats: 640 Price: 70,000 dollars Passing stations: incapable AR - an electric commuter train with the largest seating capacity. Coaches: 3 Speed: 3 blocks/hour Seats: 700 Price: 80,000 dollars Passing stations: incapable KIHA 82 - a super-express diesel passenger train. Coaches: 2 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Seats: 420 Price: 53,000 dollars Passing stations: capable 113 - a direct-current electrical train used in suburban lines running by the sea. Coaches: 3 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Seats: 640 Price: 80,000 dollars Passing stations: capable FP 45 - a stylish suburban diesel express train. Coaches: 3 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Seats: 580 Price: 90,000 dollars Passing stations: capable 381 - a super-express passenger train designed especially for running on curved lines. Coaches: 2 Speed: 3 blocks/hour Seats: 470 Price: 98,000 dollars Passing stations: capable EF 65-24 - a long-distance night passenger train that has a small seating capacity and high ticket fares. Coaches: 3 Speed: 3 blocks/hour Seats: 470 Price: 180,000 dollars Passing stations: capable AR III - the most expensive but profitable passenger train. Coaches: 3 Speed: 3 blocks/hour Seats: 600 Price: 250,000 dollars Passing stations: capable KIN 30000 - a super-express passenger train with double deck coaches. Coaches: 2 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Seats: 460 Price: 50,000 dollars Passing stations: capable NISHI 5000 - a super-express passenger train. Coaches: 3 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Seats: 600 Price: 80,000 dollars Passing stations: capable MEI 7000 - an express passenger train used for tourism. Coaches: 3 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Seats: 560 Price: 90,000 dollars Passing stations: capable DD 51 - a freight train. Coaches: 2 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Materials: 2 Price: 46,000 dollars Passing stations: capable EF 62 - a freight train. Coaches: 3 Speed: 2 blocks/hour Materials: 4 Price: 76,000 dollars Passing stations: capable ED 76 - a freight train. Coaches: 2 Speed: 3 blocks/hour Materials: 2 Price: 73,000 dollars Passing stations: capable GP 40 - a freight train. Coaches: 3 Speed: 3 blocks/hour Materials: 4 Price: 116,000 dollars Passing stations: capable SKID ROW SKID ROW SKID ROW SKID ROW SKID ROW SKID ROW SKID ROW