Hints and Tips for getting better scores in Career Mode...

[NeutronIC]

Hi all,

Having completed a few career scenarios now I'm astounded at some of the scores that people are achieving. What are your secrets?

Take one of the scenarios on Bath Green Park, I forget the name, it's the easy 25 minute black 5 one where you have to cut a couple of rakes of wagons together, travel to the next yard and cut in a couple of cattle wagons, and then drop them off by reversing in to a siding at the next station.

You start with a score of 1000. In my run, I lost about 50 points through some minor carelessness when reversing light engine (bit too heavy footed) and not getting my speed bled off quickly enough on approach to the final yard. So I finished the scenario reversing in to the final siding with about say 950 score, and I was there about 90 seconds early. My final score was something like 1150 or thereabouts. Then I get to the ranking list and you need a score of 1350+ just to get in to the top ten - with the number 1 position being over 2,000! I'm not even sure a TGV would get me there early enough to earn that kind of score!

There are other scenarios where I've got in to the top ten ok but again the top three places are insane scores, I just can't see how to get even remotely close to them based on what i've seen so far...

So... i'm obviously missing something

Do you get a bonus for having no demerits?

Are there other ways of getting additional points added that i'm missing?

Thanks!
Matt.

[transadelaide]

There are two things I can think of, having done a fair few career scenarios.

1. The top scorers were probably using manual fireman and unrealistic techniques that would in real life cause significant damage to a steam locomotive to get maximum performance out of their engine/s. More recent Career Mode scenarios using steam do penalise excessive use of coal quite harshly and tend to have better timetabling of stops so the points gains available from driving it like it's an F1 car are smaller. This does have significant advantages, I did a scenario with a stopping train on Bath-Templecombe and had 2-3 minutes to wait at stations when using the auto fireman had me struggling to get there within the 60 second bracket of 'on time.'

2. There is a fair chance there is some cheating (most likely modifications that are not picked up by any of the MD5 verifications) of some kind going on. I know for a fact this is possible as a few people have managed to get scores of 1,001 showing on scenarios where you start with 1,000 points and only lose points for infractions with no gains for any successes. If they can (or already have) ironed out what's going on with this I would say the 1,000 point scenarios are the way forward (especially for freight) as it assumes that you do your job competently rather than treating successful completion of the required tasks as if it was something unusual.

3. Sadly there is no bonus for completing a scenario without picking up any infractions or less than a handful. Again, this could be a good idea for future freight scenarios when coupled with more of the 1,000 point style scenarios.


A TGV would be more likely to leave you with a score of zero than give you a performance boost on a scenario starting at Bath Green Park, the lack of electricity may be a bit of a problem

[Kromaatikse]

Shunting with a steam loco is always tricky due to the slow brakes. IRL you would use the loco's direct steam brake rather than the vacuum when running light engine, and in any case the vacuum pipe would charge and respond more quickly when the train is very short. So you either have to be extremely precise or very cautious, and the latter loses time.

There most certainly are people who treat Career Mode as a Nintendo game, so they go for the "pixel perfect" approach while bending the rules as much as they can get away with. I'm sure that's where at least a few of the implausibly high scores come from. There may of course be some others which are due to outright editing of the score between generation and uploading.

It might be interesting if RSC were to add a replay feature, and to upload the replay automatically after "personal best" Career Mode runs, and then to allow others to watch the replay to get tips on how to drive. The replay could also be cross-checked with the score in the case of seemingly outrageous scores.

[NeutronIC]

Must admit I was driving pretty hard in that scenario I was referring to - that's why I pipped the comfort meter and got a penalty, when starting up and stopping my aim was to do so with the max possible without hitting the limits, similarly when slowing for the final 15mph speed limit where I was just a little too tardy and clipped in to the 15mph still doing about 20mph hard accelerating.

I can figure that in a better run I'd certainly be able to get those 50 points back, I might be able to get to templecombe *maybe* 30 seconds earlier - but that still only puts me in the 1200-1250 score mark and nowhere near the top ten. I certainly don't see that I could get there 3 minutes earlier no matter how hard I push the thing.

You lose a bunch of time at the start when you get hit by the red signal right out of the first station, normally for anything up to a minute, due to the light loco that leaves in front of you right at the start. I was normally hitting around 55mph top speed, which seemed fast enough since around some of the bends the comfort meter was only a hairs width away from causing a penalty at that speed. I tend to shunt with the brakes on so that I can do it quickly (which i'm told is legitimate by an 08 driver anyway ) and again push hard on the accelerator to get moving quickly ahead of brakes coming off fully and so forth. So i'm really driving it harder than is my normal style and still nowhere near the scores for the top ten

So come on, you folks that are getting really good scores, fess up and let's hear your tips and tricks, i'm sure you're doing it properly and are just far superior drivers than I am (not hard ) - and i'd like to learn from you!

Matt.

[jp4712]

I believe I have seen, on the Steam forum, an allegation that some form of cheating is possible to inflate the career mode score. But I stress the word 'allegation' with no verification that there was any truth in this. But I admit, some scores are so way above mine I do wonder!

Paul

PS for the unproven allegation, and the sensible response from RSC, see http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... ?t=1733464

[yerkes]

And if anyone can let me know how to reach Abington loop on time in the Class 86 addon scenario from Mossend (I forget the name), without exceeding the 75mph limit for a Freightliner service, I'd also be very glad to hear from you! My tardy arrival was the main reason for my appallingly low score. I suspect those with incredibly high scores must have been racing Nintendo-style, as hinted at above.

[ightenhill]

Its quite obvious one of the top scorers is achieving impossible scores and has obviously found a way to bypass the system (theres also a clue in how he does it in the fact he has almost all first places for all CS's if you read through the threads).. There are two scenarios where the system deducts only and doesnt add for arrivals yet he has scores above the starting point..

On to tips.. You get the biggest bonuses for basically driving like a maniac and slamming the brakes on and off.. Arrive as early as possible. The systems so dumb it deducts points at a much slower rate for what would be considered unsafe.. IE slamming on brakes, speeding etc, yet it rewards points in multiples that can be considerable for arriving early so theres no incentive for slowing down to say cross a junction to the slow lines as the time taken to decelerate and accelerate whilst getting you in on time, is less rewarding in points than flying through the small distance of the speed limit at full speed and taking the penalty points and then stopping with an emergency stop early to get the multiple bonus points. Basically the systems broken as it is and should be renamed as speed trials.

If your after the achievements the easiest way is basically to buy the dlc the moment it comes out and get the high score before anyone else..

[FoggyMorning]

Things to avoid at all costs:

Emergency braking
Overspeeding; this is multiplied distance x time so even a short period over the speed limit can get you a massive and unrecoverable penalty score. Also, you should drive as close as possible to the line speed and treat any pop up descriptions (e.g. "This train is limited to 75mph") as wrong.

[Toldrabald]

Max out the speed limit: within a limit of 15 mph you can drive up to 15.9 mph and thus add several seconds to the "be early" bonus. For steam locos it's hard to control for me, but works fine for diesels.
Play them arcade style, not simming style. Brake as hard as you can without triggering that bouncing ball thingy as late as you can, same for acceleration. Maximum possible, regardless if its realistic or not.
And you need to drive every scenario at least twice to get a good score, so you know in advance which yellow signals you can ignore and keep your speed or to learn the brake points.

[SHEEP]

One trick i found, when shunting, don't use the brakes, use the reverser and regulator to stop and/or change direction
You need to treat Career Mode as a Nintendo game to get high scores,
and play a Career scenario 10 or 20 times in a row and do things that would wreak a loco in real life and get you the sack
The standard scenarios are more like driving a train to me.

[Kromaatikse]

I've just had a look at "Trouble With Goats", which is the scenario referenced in the Steam forum thread.

First of all, this is not one of those shunting scenarios where you start with a perfect score and get deductions for doing things wrong. It is a perfectly conventional passenger scenario where you start at zero and get points for stopping at stations nicely. So, in principle, a score of 1001 should not be very surprising.

However, this scenario is timetabled to Teutonic standards, ie. extremely tightly and without any slack whatsoever. Under anything approaching normal circumstances, you will not be able to arrive early at any of the five stops, each of which gives you exactly 200 points if you are less than a minute late and get all your carroages in the platform. Every other possibility for score adjustment is downwards.

And yet there does seem to be a loophole. Because Berndorf is operating on one platform only, you have to wait at a signal shortly before stopping there. And because Railworks always runs scenarios the same way every time, it is therefore possible to anticipate the time this signal will clear, and thus approach it doing 80.9 km/h. This *might* be sufficient to give a one-second early arrival at Berndorf, which if everything else is done perfectly, is sufficient to give a "legitimate" score of 1001.

Naturally, trying this in real life is very likely to get you killed.

It strikes me that there are three situations to consider here:

1) Those of us who like to drive a train realistically - even if we can't be bothered to learn the Rulebook, we try to behave as if we have done.

2) Those who use tricks like the above to get the best possible e-peen score. Somewhat despicable, but in theory they can be countered by improving the scoring system.

3) Those who outright fabricate their e-peen score using even dirtier tricks. These are the ones that Valve and RSC can theoretically take action against at the moment.

[bigvern]

I fall into Category 1 above, Kroma.

Let's hope career mode is currently still in the experimental stage and at some point RSC will review both the purpose and implementation.

Going back to Matt's OP, I do feel his pain. This was one of the first career runs I tried, did everything by the book - careful shunting and coupling up, plus running at 25 MPH as per the old rule book for an unfitted train. Came dead last or near enough dead last. Pretty much destroyed credibility of the whole process there and then.

If RSC want to do a career mode then take a look what TML are doing with Subways, or install the Amiga Emulator and fire up Train Driver 3.

[1S811985]

Have to say, I find some of the allegations being thrown around in relation to career scores to be little more than sour grapes.

It's been my experience that driving hard, carefully and to the signals can easily produce a score within the top 30 places. Knowing the characteristics of both the route and the traction pays dividends by allowing you, for example, to brake at the very last moment or to notch down the controller right at the start of a steep descent.

Personally I leave things at that and am content with a couple of top-ten, several top-twenty and many top fifty placings (last time I looked that is!). I am aware of course that if I wanted too then I could "cheat" by running the red's I know are going to clear, time approaches to junctions to hit them just as AI trains clear out of the way and so on, in order to boost my scores. I dont really see the point though as I prefer to compete only against myself.

Cheers

1S81

[metrobus]

I wonder what would happen if you drove the bath scenario properly I.e. Roughly 25mph speed limits, and only using minimal braking to simulate being unfitted
Regards
Edward

[growler37]

Hi
I have never tried, or ever wanted to try career mode on RW it does not really intrest me,so why am i comenting on this thread? well, a quick search on a well known search engine produced a number of ways to cheat RW career mode,but why anybody would want to cheat amazes me,the only person you would be cheating would be yourself!
Regards
Kevin