Knowledge request: How to change reporting marks on inbound cars

[Kerry]

So I noticed that Hyce is running a mod that changes up and adds new reporting marks on some of his cars from the interchange. He added some of his friends' railroads, some real-world preservation roads like the East Broad Top, and the museum where he works, the Colorado Railroad Museum.

I was wondering how you do that as I want to do it on my own install.

I want to change the reporting marks and their frequency, making some rare, some extremely rare, and others frequent.

EDIT: This isn't about prototypical operation, and the prototype's setting in Western North Carolina is completely irrelevant to what I am asking.

It's a personal customization for my own railroad. I want to remove or make some reporting marks very rare, and add a few others as well.

I'm running my railroad like it's a present-day (2024) Strasburg-esque shortline using preserved locomotives to power freight runs and passenger services. I'm also changing the setting to a proto-lance one, as modelers do, since the game is basically a model railroad.

Whoever gave me the joker and the hilarious awards, let me run my railroad the way I want to, please. I'm not trolling or trying to be funny so the awards in question are not warranted.

Just answer the question without getting off topic, please. I've already reported one guy for posting an off-topic response.

[Axehandle]

The setting is some 40 years before BNSF was formed in 1977, but you would see predecessors, Santa Fe, GN, and Northern Pacific even in Western North Carolina.

[Kerry]

Originally posted by Axehandle:

The setting is some 40 years before BNSF was formed in 1977, but you would see predecessors, Santa Fe, GN, and Northern Pacific even in Western North Carolina.

This isn't about prototypical operation though, and it's not something I'm going to publish. It's a personal customization for my own railroad - I want to remove or make some reporting marks very rare, and add a few others as well.

I'm running my railroad like it's a present-day Strasburg-esque shortline with attached museum, running preserved locomotives to power freight and passenger excursions.

[Axehandle]

Very interesting and creative...

[Kerry]

Originally posted by Axehandle:

Very interesting and creative...

I still want to know how to do what I ask. Can you tell me?

[MrAnderson]

Originally posted by Axehandle:

The setting is some 40 years before BNSF was formed in 1977

Lmao what, BNSF wasn't formed until 1995 when the ATSF and Burlington Northern merged.

[Kerry]

Originally posted by ToyotaWeeb:

Originally posted by Axehandle:

The setting is some 40 years before BNSF was formed in 1977

Lmao what, BNSF wasn't formed until 1995 when the ATSF and Burlington Northern merged.

Off-topic. Can you tell me what I want to know? Or not?

[teiubescmicutzamea]

search into your game folder ... Steam\steamapps\common\Railroader\Railroader_Data\StreamingAssets\
the file ReportingMarks.txt
and delete all data from it then write the ones that you like
if you want ones to be more frequent just duplicate them
don't forget to backup the file in case you want to switch back to original

i hope this helps

[Kerry]

Originally posted by teiubescmicutzamea:

search into your game folder ... Steam\steamapps\common\Railroader\Railroader_Data\StreamingAssets\
the file ReportingMarks.txt
and delete all data from it then write the ones that you like
if you want ones to be more frequent just duplicate them
don't forget to backup the file in case you want to switch back to original

i hope this helps

Thanks, I'll see whether it does or not. I'm just waiting on a mod by Cjane142 to be done, the Parlor Cars and other Passenger Car Upgrades mod.



And for the record, I intend to keep all of them, just add a few more. Some will be changed, and others will be significantly reduced in frequency of appearance to a point where I rarely see them. You can still see some extinct railroads' reporting marks in 2024 on the Virtual Railfan cameras and in their Grab Bags after all!

[Kerry]

Originally posted by Axehandle:

Very interesting and creative...

Thank you for the complement. Sorry about before, I'd love to chat more about my railroad if you want to DM.

For now, just know that it's in a fictional setting. The year is 2024, the state is Texas, and the line is protolance, with operations based on the real-life Strasburg. Interchange is with the BNSF, the Union Pacific, the Fort Worth and Western, and the Texas and Eastern (formerly known as the Rusk, Palestine and Pacific.)

Funnily enough, the T&E/RP&P seems to be the IRL equivalent of what I'm doing here.

Anyway, all the locomotives are supposed to be preserved examples, even if none were preserved IRL. I have a museum attached in the roundhouse at Bryson where some of the more famous locomotives go when I'm done using them, instead of being sold. (Lore is that I'm selling them to other railroads or museums, not to scrapyards.)

I have a few in in the museum already:

The logging tender mikado is based on the Oregon Pacific and Eastern's No. 19, aka McCloud River Railroad 19 - famous for being Shack's train in Emperor of the North. So I have one of those in the museum.

I have a Ten-Wheeler in there as well, re-lettered and numbered as Illinois Central 382. Casey Jones's locomotive.

The in-game Atlantic (which I used to use on my passenger trains before I got my current Pacific) looks similar to the modern Virginia and Truckee No. 29, so that's what I have her lettered and numbered as.

As for future museum plans, when I eventually get a new passenger engine for my main line, replacing my Pacific, it will go into the roundhouse as the Southern Railway's PS-4 1401. (Lore will be that she's on loan from the Smithsonian. Too bad we can't paint our steamers.)

The C-55 locomotive looks much like Western Maryland Scenic's 734, so I intend to park one of the two I'm using in the Bryson roundhouse when I'm done using them.

I might end up getting another Ten Wheeler as well to number 2248, after Puffy (aka the William S. Davis), the old SP locomotive used by the real-world Grapevine Vintage Railroad.

And I currently have the Decapod which resembles Strasburg 90, so that's what she'll become when I eventually put her in the museum.

If we ever get a 2-10-4, a Texas-type, that'll be my T&P 610.

[DorniNerd]

Originally posted by teiubescmicutzamea:

search into your game folder ... Steam\steamapps\common\Railroader\Railroader_Data\StreamingAssets\
the file ReportingMarks.txt
and delete all data from it then write the ones that you like
if you want ones to be more frequent just duplicate them
don't forget to backup the file in case you want to switch back to original

i hope this helps

The way mentioned here is one way to do it. Be warned to save this file elsewhere between updates as it will be over written now and again when Steam updates files.

[Kerry]

Originally posted by DorniNerd:

Originally posted by teiubescmicutzamea:

search into your game folder ... Steam\steamapps\common\Railroader\Railroader_Data\StreamingAssets\
the file ReportingMarks.txt
and delete all data from it then write the ones that you like
if you want ones to be more frequent just duplicate them
don't forget to backup the file in case you want to switch back to original

i hope this helps

The way mentioned here is one way to do it. Be warned to save this file between updates as it will be over written now and again when Steam updates files.

One way? What about others?

[DorniNerd]

Originally posted by Kerry:

Originally posted by DorniNerd:

The way mentioned here is one way to do it. Be warned to save this file between updates as it will be over written now and again when Steam updates files.

One way? What about others?

If you put a `ReportingMarks.txt` file in the appdata `Railroader` directory (same directory as the player.log files), it will read them out of there instead when the game starts – and they won't get overwritten if we change the file in future game releases.

[Kerry]

Originally posted by DorniNerd:

Originally posted by Kerry:

One way? What about others?

If you put a `ReportingMarks.txt` file in the appdata `Railroader` directory (same directory as the player.log files), it will read them out of there instead when the game starts – and they won't get overwritten if we change the file in future game releases.

Very well, but how do you make it so that some reporting marks appear more often than others?

Like if, for example, you're trying to run a modern road where certain reporting marks are almost extinct while others are still somewhat around, but the most frequent are the big Class Ones (Union Pacific, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CSX Transportation, Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian National, and Norfolk Southern).

In such a case, you want reporting marks like the RF&P to show up like 1% percent of the time, marks like the B&O to show up 5% of the time, and marks like Union Pacific to show up 50-75% of the time.

That's the kind of road I'm running in my game, as I stated in my OP. How do I make that happen?

[DorniNerd]

Originally posted by Kerry:

Originally posted by DorniNerd:

If you put a `ReportingMarks.txt` file in the appdata `Railroader` directory (same directory as the player.log files), it will read them out of there instead when the game starts – and they won't get overwritten if we change the file in future game releases.

Very well, but how do you make it so that some reporting marks appear more often than others?

Like if, for example, you're trying to run a modern road where certain reporting marks are almost extinct while others are still somewhat around, but the most frequent are the big Class Ones (Union Pacific, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CSX Transportation, Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian National, and Norfolk Southern).

In such a case, you want reporting marks like the RF&P to show up like 1% percent of the time, marks like the B&O to show up 5% of the time, and marks like Union Pacific to show up 50-75% of the time.

That's the kind of road I'm running in my game, as I stated in my OP. How do I make that happen?

Right now the game does not have the ability to do that, it is totally random at the moment. Perhaps in the future!

[Kerry]

Originally posted by DorniNerd:

Originally posted by Kerry:

Very well, but how do you make it so that some reporting marks appear more often than others?

Like if, for example, you're trying to run a modern road where certain reporting marks are almost extinct while others are still somewhat around, but the most frequent are the big Class Ones (Union Pacific, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CSX Transportation, Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian National, and Norfolk Southern).

In such a case, you want reporting marks like the RF&P to show up like 1% percent of the time, marks like the B&O to show up 5% of the time, and marks like Union Pacific to show up 50-75% of the time.

That's the kind of road I'm running in my game, as I stated in my OP. How do I make that happen?

Right now the game does not have the ability to do that, it is totally random at the moment. Perhaps in the future!

I see, and thank you for the information!