Ravenport

[Ruges]

To the makers of the Ravenport map. You made a beautiful map. You did an excellent job and it looks pretty realistically laid out. So many interesting sites to go explore and look at.

And here comes the however. However, Its a horrible map for farming sim. I almost feel as if you have never played the game before. And if you had defiantly never got into logging. I would say less then 40% of the map is farmable. Way to much fluff to farming ratio

So lets start with the fields. Your fields should always be at 45 degree angles. Fields 14,15,16,17 should have never been put in that way. Anytime you work them on the long side the ground changes in an irregular angle to what you are plowing/planting/.... The AI is dump enough, and does not needs allot of help. They cannot even work these fields and get more then 50% done without having to constantly manage them. While field 13, even thow its an irregular shape has the issue of bad headlands. The AI just loves driving over the cliff.

Now I am not saying to make every field square, But less then 20% of the farmable area is square. Its ok for a field to be off square at the start. But the player should have the ability to square it off. IE on a rhombus shaped field the corner that is not a field section should have a dirt road cutout, or a patch of trees, or maybe just shrubs. But it should be something that the player can plow under to make the field look square, But that the same time not map the map look bad once the player does that. Almost all of the fields on the map are just about to the max shape of the purchasable land. Meaning the player is stuck with the odd shape that the field is in and the AI is going to have troubles navigating it.

Sloped land. I love that the map is not flat. It really makes it look fantastic. But the machines, particularly the harvesters are having difficulties working on them. The fields dont have to be flat, go ahead and have some roll in them. Just be aware that the machines need to be able to operate on them without problems. Most of the elevation changes of the map should happen off field. And thats where allot of skill is needed to be able to make the map look as good as you do, but also make it functional for the game.

There are only two spots on the map that are decent for building without paying a fortune and making a mess of the terrian. Thats the starting area by field 24, and the area up by field 3. Unless you count some of the other large fields like 4 and 5 and such. Should be a couple more flat area's on the map, that are not fields, maybe just grass, maybe a couple trees and bush fields. that the player can buy and either place buildings or turn into farmland.

The trains are severely underused. But thats because of location. You guys put this really cool flat car on the train. Make it a bit more usable. Imagine if you had the train going threw the shop yard. and you had a dock that was the same height as the flat car. Players could then load pallets directly onto the train to haul to the farm from there. Or haul tractors or equipment from the shop to the farm. Granted then you would need to also build several of these dock area's around the map. maybe 3 other locations on the map that would have those adjacent flat area's that players could buy to start there farm. Railroad silo's should be right at these locations too, so the player can quickly ship grain by train if they choose one of these locations to start at.

Logging. a map full of the pine strait trees can be boring. I know you guys love the looks of all those squiggly trees. But you need to have sections that are full of the pines for good logging with the scorpion. You dont need to do the entire map like that, just a few sections.

Sell places. You have all these wonderful places to visit on the map, why not make more of them sell locations. Every item should have at least 3 sell locations. However 6 products only have 1 sell location. and all the crops can be sold at all 4 of the crop locations.

Despite all the issues I am enjoying the game. Have 69 hours played, and the game has only been out for what 102 hours?

[gilroy222]

For once I would just love it if they could make a map look like the ones they advertise with CGI trailers or at the main menu.... And no i am not referring to the actual graphics.... I am referring to the design of the map.

[Dexzilla]

I have certainly found this map hard to set up on. The placeable system sounds great but if it is so expensive to actually place something it isn't good. This seems worse on this map than the other.
It is hard to make a map that pleases everyone though.....

[Preble 818]

I quit this map for most of those reason. Felsbrunn is a much better map but I do have a big gripe about the trains same as you. 2 grain silos in the oddest place possible. Oh well wont be using the train on either of these maps it seems.

[PNW Farmer]

For once I would just love it if they could make a map look like the ones they advertise with CGI trailers or at the main menu.... And no i am not referring to the actual graphics.... I am referring to the design of the map.

gilroy22:

I wholeheartedly agree with you! Giants has made three attempts at producing a descent American map and all three have been utter disappointments. It is also frustrating that they include an old-fashioned American barn that is not functional as a barn -- they have always been just for decoration (FS15 and, now, FS19; FS17 didn't even have one).

Moreover, the map development team should have looked at the Midwestern part of the US for inspiration and have made the map with gently rolling hills instead of the mountainous terrain (Meadowbrook Farm, their first US map, was close to this but still a bit too hilly).

For the above reasons--plus the inordinate amount of bugs/issues with the game itself--I am putting FS19 on hiatus and going back to FS17 as I am getting too frustrated.

Hopefully, someone from Giants will read this thread and mention something about it: Ravenport needs to be re-vamped and re-released.

[Turbojugend]

It didn't click with me at first, but Ravenport is getting better with time. Starting with the southeastern corner of the map (where I believe you start by default), I cleared out the tree and sold the big red stage prop, connected all of the smaller fields, at least now I've got some decent space to work with.

As far as Californian farms go, Ravenport has a very Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez feel to it, which is an area more associated with vineyards than wheat fields. I'd much prefer something more central state, which is basically one massive expanse of flat terrain where large farms are numerous (think more Kansas and less Malibu). Maybe a mod will eventually come along and will solve that.

[Deadeye]

My dad and I both ditched Ravenport about 10 hours in, for some of the reasons above. It just got too irritating. I have since downloaded Estancia Lapacho, and he's playing on Felsbrunn. Ravenport is a nice map, but difficult to play the way I like to play. As far as Felsbrunn goes, great map, but I tend to prefer American maps. Just what I know. In a few weeks, there'll be a wider selection of maps surely.

[Jballak9197]

I've given up on FS19 for now and went back to FS17. I've spent 10 hours on trying to clear 5 trees and the game has crashed 4 times. I started out on New Farmer to get a good feel for things. I started combining the three smaller fields and made field 19 as big as I could. Sold all the decorations. But the trees have too many issues along with equipment attachments. So back to FS17 until further notice.