Best tool or tools to help create trains

The built-in train tool of EGST seems rather straightforward. I can't vouch for it though as I don't do trains I give my keys away as soon as I get them.

My original search was using the built-in forum search mechanism. It's looking like that was not my best option. Using an outside search engine has returned several interesting threads that I am reading thru.

Can someone confirm that I have the basic process correct:

1. Create all giveaways on Steamgifts.
   • Important! In addition to any other settings you place for your giveaways you must make them "Invite only"!
   • There are tools to help in doing this. I have especially seen SteamGifts Multiple Giveaways Creator mentioned.
   • Having the exact, literal name of games titles is very important for these tools to function "automatically"
2. Maintain a listing of every contest
   • the list should must include the www.steamgifts/giveaway link for each giveaway contest
   • a spreadsheet is likely the best way to create/maintain this list although an export to a text file will be required before step 3.
   • the order of that list (line by line) will determine the order of your train
3. Run the list of giveaways thru your train-building tool of preference. The two options I have seen that seem to still be in use are sgtools and esgst (discussion here).
4. [3b] sgtools: will protect your giveaways from people finding the links via software or otherwise without going thru whatever protection, puzzles, etc. you may desire to put in place.
   • It would seem that once you start with sgtools, it will create your train. So if perhaps you wanted to use sgtools to "harden" the contest links and then create and/or manage your train with a different tool or even manually, you are out of luck.
   • Important! Get it correct the first time. If you mess up and leave games out of the train..... you will NOT be able to add them to that train. You would have to create a new train for those games.
5. [3b] esgst: Still to be reviewed.

Assuming I am correct to this point...

Question: Referring to #2 above, how would one format the the list to have multiple keys for the same game to create one and only contest with multiple keys instead of a separate contest for each key?

Question: I believe I have seen sgtools verification protection for some contests within a train (although I might be imagining that). Would that then mean that the train creator used sgtools to create the train, or is there the ability to insert the sgtools verification into certain train cars within a train created manually or via a different tool?

Question: assuming that the creator wants puzzles inserted instead of a simple "Next" link... how would that be accomplished. Does sgtools, esgst or other have built in support for this?

Question: I have not yet investigated esgst's train making. I had started out thinking that I might be able to combine sgtools and esgst in my train building, I am now thinking that is not possible. Which leads to the question, is one of the two the better option? In my case, I would like to create a 3-tiered train will all 3 tiers originating on the contest page without the 3 tiers being readily obvious. The three tiers would be.

1. a simple puzzle up front with "Next" linking to the following car for those who are novices or not inclined to like puzzles.
2. simpler or mildly difficult puzzles for those who are somewhat skilled at puzzles between train cars
3. difficult puzzles for those who are talented at solving puzzles between cars - assuming that I find the time to construct the puzzles before my patience runs out and I send the train on its way. ;)

Honestly, I've always just done it manually. Make the giveaways as normal, as mentioned they must all be Invite Only. Keep each new giveaway open and create a new one in a new tab each time (simple middle-button click). Edit all the descriptions. Copy/paste a little Prev/Bump/Next thing. Copy the link from one giveaway, paste it into the ones before/after it. Post/edit again the description on each. Make the discussion post. Copy/paste the discussion post link into all the bump spots and re-post the new description. Done.

I did try to use the ESGST tool, but it was actually more work than doing it manually and I never did get it to work properly. And, for reference, when I do a train, it's typically two (sometimes bits of a third) complete Mystery Bundles from Fanatical, so we're talking 20 to 25 cars. I even got fancy at times and did something that actually looks like a train (using emoji/icons copy/pasted from elsewhere on the internet), complete with actual train cars each linking to a different giveaway and an engine for the bump (couldn't find a caboose emoji/icon), and it was no harder except for the fact that the way I did that I had to paste each link into the first car, then copy/paste the entire thing into each other car. I chose to go back and put {{ }} around which car was that particular giveaway to give a more visual indication of which part of the train they were on:

Example, with links and internal formatting removed:

🚈🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃{{🚃}}🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃

Sgtools don't work for me(

This is my personal taste, but may apply to other folks too. I like to see a train where a medium-to-hard puzzle is used to get into the first car of the train, but I would not want to keep solving puzzles for any of the other cars in the train, because I'd rather spend my time playing games I win/own than spending my time solving puzzles on multiple cars. Just something for you to consider before creating a lot of puzzles.

Thanks for this topic however. It is very useful. Have a great day!

I am getting closer to sending a train out of the station.

To this point for lack of confidence in the tools I have seen, I am handling the creation of the train myself. My first thought was to handle this within Excel. But I am bumping into a few inconveniences.... the biggest so far is the text (with sg's formatting) and the images I want to include. That could get cumbersome in Excel.

But I am prepared to go that route. But not without asking one last time. :) What software/system did you use to manually manage/create a train with more than a few cars in it?