Paging Sniper ( the COCONUT GOD one )

[CWA13000]

Hi, Pal, I was thinking I might try to infuse some of that great AI traffic that you say is the best feature of our newer Trainz.

I want to knlow where to go to get the best/easiest to understand info on exactly how to do this.

Was the:

" Huge, expanded manual
Get all of the information you need in this expanded, detailed manual. Over 240 perfectly-bound pages for long life durability. "

that came with Trainz 12 as usefull as they made it out to be??

I don't think I'll buy a copy of that annaversary edition just to get that manual but either online or on disk documentation or someones tutorial should do I suppose and you seem to have an understanding of how to keep AIs from wandering off on their own, is that by giving them frequent waypoints that they have to head for??

Thanks

Wild Willy the Wacko

[sniper297]

Nobody home, leave a message at the tone



WHO DARES TO PAGE THE GOD OF COCONUTS bzzzz PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, I AM THE GREAT bzzzt! POP!

Rats, the microphone shorted out again.

Well, actually I think the main selling point behind the anniversary edition was the tin lunchbox with the gold paint signatures of the trainz dev team instead of a Thomas the Tank Engine picture, the manual is a handy reference sometimes but really doesn't have anything that's not in the PDF file. You can buy a lot of printer ink for $100 buckazoids, so I would say buy the regular plain vanilla TS12 and print your own manual if you don't know how to ALT TAB. The 150 buck anniversary edition does come with a 3 month first class ticket which the regular TS12 don't have, and of course there's the possibility of getting the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket where you could Win Valuable Prizes, but I haven't heard of anybody actually finding a golden ticket yet.

Tutorial, what I've been going by;

http://trains.0catch.com/tutorial.html

It's titled "Tracklaying and troubleshooting" which makes people think it has nothing to do with AI traffic, but the general theme is how to lay track, where to add signals and track markers, then goes into excellent detail on making the AI work correctly. It does all tie together, in any trainsim track layout and signals affect how you set up AI traffic.

Other item is search in content mangler for author = philskene, the Jedi Master of The Dark Side of AI traffic trains, and reverse engineer how he doneit.

Gimmee an hour or so, I'll Humyo a beta of Chicago Metro for you to test.

[sniper297]

And we're off!

Here goes nuthin', FIRE IN THE HOLE!

http://www.humyo.com/FChMvwQ/chimet46test.zip?a=TAM4SWnrsFQ

Easiest way to get a Humyo link is right click, Save Link As. Unzip, open content manager, click File, Import CDPs, import those two. Then select them, right click, view dependencies, view in main list. CTRL A to select all, right click, Download, better have a first class ticket. Might need to clear the download list occasionally and select whatever has the "missing dependency" puzzle piece to download whatever that needs, this automagical helper often drops the ball by downloading all the engines that the session needs and forgetting the cabview that the engine needs.

One test session here, starts you out way down south in Port Ogden, with WWW's favorite rustbucket;



Drive on ahead, cross over to the right hand track after leaving the yard, across the drawbridge;



And that section is a variation of the infamous #8 bookshelf railroad. Those of you not into teakettle driving, hit the #4 key and fly north a couple miles to the south end of Chicago Metro, the CB&Q yard at Cicero, Illinois;



And you'll find two GP9s and an RS11 you can drive instead. Or hit the F6 to bring up the driver list, find one of the commuter trains and order him to Abandon Schedule to hijack a scoot. Cicero, Proviso, and Grand Crossing all have coal, water and diesel fuel, dunno how many days it will take to empty all those but I'm sure Willy will find out.

[sniper297]

And furthermore...

Just checked it out by installing into TS12, works as advertised, even the coal and water fillerupperthingamys.



After switching some cars around unnamed yard, Port Ogden, and Saint Marys, ran a train up to the Burlington yard and dropped it. CTRL right click on the tender, view details, used up a little.



Stop near the water tower, check the tender again, got liquidated.



Stop under the coal loader, got black diamonds.

Anyone finds bugs let's hear it, if I upload and one of the switches constantly derails it ain't my fault if nobody told me about it.

[CWA13000]

Hey, Phil, are you listening in on this?

First off, I found that tutorial and was trying to use it last night. Everything seemed easy to understand. I figured that if there was a better source, you would know, so, thanks for that.

In conjunction with the tutorial, I did try to reverse engineer the use of Portals by examining all the AI on Phills Port Ogden & Northern2a. I noticed that he seemed to have things well in hand. For instance, if he sent AI traffic from Portal aB to cB there were these points along the track on the map that seemed like waypoints aB01, aB02, aB03 and aB04 and I thought it was very kool that he included that in his route, other wise, it would be another thing that would not work for us Dummies cause we may not realize that the AI could get lost and not being a route builder, I would probably hose up the whole route trying to add waypoints.

SOooo, and here is where Phil might come in; I didn't find any traffic way up at the top of Van Den Haven on the N Bound and S Bound AI tracks but thinking I understood, I tried to creat some and as with the industry properties box, I could not save session only. I know what the fix is for the industry properties box is but it didn't work on those Portal properties boxes.

I have been very carefull not to change the route and I wonder if there is something wrong with those Portals and that is why Phil has no traffic up there or, is messing with AI traffic something that can't be saved in session or is there another trick to getting AI traffic to save in session????

I was up late and when I could not save, I just left it alone for my mind to smolder. My next feat was going to be to try to duplicate in my own session, some of the traffic that came with the original sessions. By the way, I guess I may have answered one of my questions, that is, if there is different AI traffic in different sessions then one must be able to save just to session unless those sessions are actually saved as " ROUTE and SESSIONS " and not just " SESSIONS ".

I guess I have to get your new route. I have dabbled with other routes like when Phill enticed me into trying the Crash and Burn, but basically I've been playing the crap out of his Port Ogden & Northern2a. Some day the track is going to need replacing and I'll be screwed!! I'm still trying to figure out which cars and industries work together right on that route.

That reminds me of another question for you; those repaints in PO&N, a lot of the cars show up as carrying " DEFAULT " loads but so far I can't seem to change any to a specific commodity and I have not seen them pick up anything. Whats up wit dat!!! Only a GOD knows some of this stuff!!!

Thanks a bunch of coconuts

Wild Willy the Wacko

[CWA13000]

Something I forgot!

Those steamers you re-skinned with the PO&N logo are my fovorites, I haven't been using my Raildriver much cause I'm trying wear-out them steamers. I don't like that shiney new one as much as the other two and so I decided to make that my AI traffic engine. I've been running all three at the same time. Sometimes on long runs, I just set them up and check on them once in a while or do the "navigate too" thing. A couple weeks ago I lost one when the "navagate too" did not work right and it ran off the end of some siding! When things are complicated or hectic I just park the other two at re-fuel points with the blower running and I go do some switching with one of the others.

Wild Willy the Wacko

[sniper297]

It gets more complicated as you go along - Phil used the Central Portal Control rule with Emit Train Now and Emit Train on Trigger, to hack that you need to edit the Central Portal Control rule in the session rules, rather than tinkering with the portal itself. I played with that a bit, but discovered the subroutine to ignore the number of current "trains" on the route doesn't work, and the max number allowed is 99. Since it counts every loose consist in every yard and spur as a "train" it won't spawn anything if there are over 99, so I went back to the regular portals. To make it easier I used the Schedule Library rule, so you set a train to spawn from the correct starting portals (downtown Madison station for scoots, Proviso for freights) you just add a "wait for 10 seconds" command, then "insert from schedule library freight" and it will load the 50 some odd instructions after spawning and waiting 10 seconds. Not sure why the wait, apparently it's too stop the AI from getting confused and losing the instructions or something.

Interactive industries I've only played with a little to test the "sleep script" and make sure that didn't screw up the animation scripts on stuff like the coal hoppers and reefers, otherwise I haven't really tried it.

"Those steamers you re-skinned with the PO&N logo are my fovorites, I haven't been using my Raildriver much cause I'm trying wear-out them steamers"

Lost me on that one, the main reason I selected that C-41 to reskin is because it's one of the few steamers that DOES work perfectly with Raildriver (GOTTA have my Raildriver!), are you saying it's not responding tor raildriver for you?

[CWA13000]

It gets more complicated as you go along - Phil used the Central Portal Control rule with Emit Train Now and Emit Train on Trigger, to hack that you need to edit the Central Portal Control rule in the session rules, rather than tinkering with the portal itself. I played with that a bit, but discovered the subroutine to ignore the number of current "trains" on the route doesn't work, and the max number allowed is 99. Since it counts every loose consist in every yard and spur as a "train" it won't spawn anything if there are over 99, so I went back to the regular portals. To make it easier I used the Schedule Library rule, so you set a train to spawn from the correct starting portals (downtown Madison station for scoots, Proviso for freights) you just add a "wait for 10 seconds" command, then "insert from schedule library freight" and it will load the 50 some odd instructions after spawning and waiting 10 seconds. Not sure why the wait, apparently it's too stop the AI from getting confused and losing the instructions or something.

Interactive industries I've only played with a little to test the "sleep script" and make sure that didn't screw up the animation scripts on stuff like the coal hoppers and reefers, otherwise I haven't really tried it.

"Those steamers you re-skinned with the PO&N logo are my fovorites, I haven't been using my Raildriver much cause I'm trying wear-out them steamers"

Lost me on that one, the main reason I selected that C-41 to reskin is because it's one of the few steamers that DOES work perfectly with Raildriver (GOTTA have my Raildriver!), are you saying it's not responding tor raildriver for you?

1. I have not even touched " rules " I have a feeling I'm going to need to learn that some day. I take it that, that is how you can make industeries dependant on each other like you need to provide grain, otherwise the feed lots don't provide livestock or coal to the power plant or the lights go out?

2. Your saying there is a 99 train limit? I wonder if I have a problem there, I kind of think not but maybe I should take it easy on breaking up consists?

3. I mostly just never got the connection in my mind that the Raildriver resemboled steam controls. But, when I have dabbled with it in steam, the feed back on the HUD ( if I may use that term here ) always wildly varied, throttle would be jumping up and down all over the place. PI said that they were going to fix things for Trainz but I have been so busy that I have not checked for updates for a long time and I'm used to using my mouse and keyboard for the steamers.

Thanks

Wild Willy the Wacko

[sniper297]

If the throttle jumps around, run the calibration once in a while.

2. Your saying there is a 99 train limit? I wonder if I have a problem there, I kind of think not but maybe I should take it easy on breaking up consists?

I'm saying there's a 99 train limit if you use Central Portal Control, if you're not using Central Portal Control there's no limit that I've found yet. Download the beta, count the number of loose consists, I'm too lazy to do it myself.

As for industries, like I say I haven't played with them much - with RW they were pre configured, park the train at the spot, T to load and SHIFT T to unload. With Trainz you gotta select the house icon tab in surveyor, then the question mark icon, click on the industry and activate all the stuff in it - I just type in 99999999999 everywhere and it all reverts to whatever the max is. After that save and exit, start the session, park the train at the spot and it loads or unloads automatically. Some industries have a built in delay before the loading starts, some like the coal unloader start dumping even if you're still rolling, some box cars have animated doors so you can see it, others you gotta CTRL right click on the car to find out whether it loaded or not.

[philskene]

Hi Willy --

Way back before Adam's time I did a illustrated tutorial about configuring interactive industries and freight cars. It can be downloaded here:

https://rapidshare.com/files/438627468/LARS_ProtoLARS_MIN_Tutorial.pdf

You might have to wait a moment for a free RapidShare download slot - and you might have to search around to find the "free" button.

The other useful feature with interactive freight cars is the commodity picker, used to control what is loaded or unloaded at an interactive industry. Watch this video (best viewed in High Definition and full screen):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtotZjFbaZQ

The AI on PO&N is setup to "stutter" from one track mark to the next. An AI train approaches the end of one of the loops, passes the first signal and then comes to the track mark. The track mark gives the AI train an instruction to proceed to the next track mark. When it has received this information the AI train sets the switches to the entrance and exit of the single track squeeze point. Once the switch to the entrance of the single track is set for the AI the signal that has stopped the AI train clears and the AI train proceeds to the next track mark where the process repeats.

The first signal that the AI encounters (the one preceding the track mark) is to speed up the approach of the AI train - the AI train sees a caution rather than a stop ahead and so moves at a higher speed.

All of the above is to give greater freedom to the player train. It prevents the AI from locking switches ahead and gives the player a better opportunity of transiting the squeeze points.

It wasn't until relatively recently that Trainz shunted the AI off to the second core of a multi-core processor. Before this AI used to really hammer frame rates. So with the PO&N sessions, some of which actually date back to TRS2004, I didn't bother about AI trainz in areas where I didn't expect the player to visit. Hence not all portals are configured to produce AI trainz in the sessions.

Now if you want to see something better, if you have TS2010 or TS12 try my Krashnburne or IntenCity routes and sessions. Make sure you get the version for whichever edition of Trainz you are using. On both these routes the AI operates in both directions, unlike PO&N where it is only in one direction.

This is a video of IntenCity before all the scenic details were added:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv3iEH0CPak

It shows AI trainz running at 4 minute intervals in opposite directions on a single track with crossing loops. Until the 4 minute mark we are following one of the AI trainz. At 4 minutes into the video we jump into and control the green locomotive with two NP box cars. With a blast of the horn we are away, picking up an additional box car along the way.


Jim --

You seem to have more influence with Justin than me. I've asked a couple of times if he could upload his Signal Linker to the Download Station - I've worked out how to use it to excellent effect to allow a player train to take control of a single track section against an on-coming AI.

Can you do me a favour and persuade him to upload it? Thanks.

Phil

[sniper297]

Dunno if I have any influence on anyone, currently two jointed rail things hanging fire - fix for dirty windows on that boxcab cabview mesh, and the library built into 12 that's an unknown dependency in 2010 for the F7 units? Can't remember off the top of my head, too many projects on back burners. Justin has back burners piled 10 deep on all his back burners, so for the most part we just gotta wait til he's not busy.

Speaking of back burners, I've given up reporting this as a bug because they want to blame user error - non default rules do not add themselves automatically to the KUID table, so for the route above you need;

Trigger Multiple Signals,<kuid2:116387:26:1>

Gotta remember to manually add that to the KUID table for all sessions before I upload.

[CWA13000]

I got one little problem with what you said here!

If the throttle jumps around, run the calibration once in a while.

2. Your saying there is a 99 train limit? I wonder if I have a problem there, I kind of think not but maybe I should take it easy on breaking up consists?

I'm saying there's a 99 train limit if you use Central Portal Control, if you're not using Central Portal Control there's no limit that I've found yet. Download the beta, count the number of loose consists, I'm too lazy to do it myself.

As for industries, like I say I haven't played with them much - with RW they were pre configured, park the train at the spot, T to load and SHIFT T to unload. With Trainz you gotta select the house icon tab in surveyor, then the question mark icon, click on the industry and activate all the stuff in it - I just type in 99999999999 everywhere and it all reverts to whatever the max is. After that save and exit, start the session, park the train at the spot and it loads or unloads automatically. Some industries have a built in delay before the loading starts, some like the coal unloader start dumping even if you're still rolling, some box cars have animated doors so you can see it, others you gotta CTRL right click on the car to find out whether it loaded or not.

This;

"I just type in 99999999999 everywhere and it all reverts to whatever the max is."

I did that too in the beginning because someone else said to do it but then you never catch up with your deliveries. The Aumor power plant would gobble up coal as fast as I could bring it but I adjusted the levels at the mine and the power plant a little and now I got cars sitting and filling at the mine and cars at the plant sitting to be unloaded, although it isn't working perfectly yet, I kind of caught up with supply and demand and I moved on to other things like taking corn to the feedlots and cattle to the Armour meat packing plant. Someware there's got to be someone that has figured out the perfect numbers and I wish they would publish their findings. I'm working on it but, as you see, I'm very slow. I haven't even delivered the beer to those MOW guys that are repairing the tracks up on the pass yet.

I think it would be kool to figure out just how to make it work like; unless you get the prper amounts of various grains to the brewery then the guys get no beer! etc etc....

Wild Willy the Wacko

[sniper297]

Rather than tinkering with the commodities exchange and playing railroad tycoon, here's one that will run you ragged -

Set up four portals, one at each end of a yard. Portal A spawns a train that waits 15 minutes, then couple at trackmark on yard track 2, navigate to portal C. Portal B spawns a train that navigates to a trackmark on yard track 1, uncouplez from 0, then navigate to portal D. Set the spawn rate for 30-40 minutes. The player's job is to take the dropped off cars from track 1 and move them to track 2, then get out of the way before the pickup arrives to haul them away.

Trying to keep up is a challenge, and it works best in a double ended yard. Train A can't navigate to trackmark on yard track 1 if you didn't get the previous dropoff out of the way to leave him a clear track, and train B can't couple at trackmark unless there's something to couple to, so the whole thing breaks down if the player can't keep up with the pace.

And don't take any beer to them MOW guys, how do you think that track got fouled up in the first place?

[CWA13000]

Hi, Phil and thanks for your contributions to this sport!

Hi Willy --

Way back before Adam's time I did a illustrated tutorial about configuring interactive industries and freight cars. It can be downloaded here:

https://rapidshare.com/files/438627468/LARS_ProtoLARS_MIN_Tutorial.pdf

You might have to wait a moment for a free RapidShare download slot - and you might have to search around to find the "free" button.

The other useful feature with interactive freight cars is the commodity picker, used to control what is loaded or unloaded at an interactive industry. Watch this video (best viewed in High Definition and full screen):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtotZjFbaZQ

The AI on PO&N is setup to "stutter" from one track mark to the next. An AI train approaches the end of one of the loops, passes the first signal and then comes to the track mark. The track mark gives the AI train an instruction to proceed to the next track mark. When it has received this information the AI train sets the switches to the entrance and exit of the single track squeeze point. Once the switch to the entrance of the single track is set for the AI the signal that has stopped the AI train clears and the AI train proceeds to the next track mark where the process repeats.

The first signal that the AI encounters (the one preceding the track mark) is to speed up the approach of the AI train - the AI train sees a caution rather than a stop ahead and so moves at a higher speed.

All of the above is to give greater freedom to the player train. It prevents the AI from locking switches ahead and gives the player a better opportunity of transiting the squeeze points.

It wasn't until relatively recently that Trainz shunted the AI off to the second core of a multi-core processor. Before this AI used to really hammer frame rates. So with the PO&N sessions, some of which actually date back to TRS2004, I didn't bother about AI trainz in areas where I didn't expect the player to visit. Hence not all portals are configured to produce AI trainz in the sessions.

Now if you want to see something better, if you have TS2010 or TS12 try my Krashnburne or IntenCity routes and sessions. Make sure you get the version for whichever edition of Trainz you are using. On both these routes the AI operates in both directions, unlike PO&N where it is only in one direction.

This is a video of IntenCity before all the scenic details were added:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv3iEH0CPak

It shows AI trainz running at 4 minute intervals in opposite directions on a single track with crossing loops. Until the 4 minute mark we are following one of the AI trainz. At 4 minutes into the video we jump into and control the green locomotive with two NP box cars. With a blast of the horn we are away, picking up an additional box car along the way.


Jim --

You seem to have more influence with Justin than me. I've asked a couple of times if he could upload his Signal Linker to the Download Station - I've worked out how to use it to excellent effect to allow a player train to take control of a single track section against an on-coming AI.

Can you do me a favour and persuade him to upload it? Thanks.

Phil

1. I believe I have that tutorial:

https://rapidshare.com/files/4386274...N_Tutorial.pdf

and it is very usefull but things don't always work on my machine like they are supposed to. Take Oil Field A in PO&N2a, I have never gotten a drop of oil out of it and I'm using cars that will get oil from other places. I even ran a tanker around the wye thinking it may only load from one side and that didn't work. I posted about it and some guys said it works, but not for me!

2. I have kind of figured out the commodies picker but a lot of the cars I have in my session will not accept input from it. They remain set at default and a lot of them I have no idea what their default commodity is but I drag them around to all my industries and they load nothing. I have a steak-bed flat car that accepts a lot of different commodities but I recently noticed that it must have the bumpers and couplers like old British rail cars but they do work and now I'm using them to go around and check which industries are working.

3. Sorry, I keep misspelling Krashnburne, I think I've been refering to it as crash burn. ( my appoligies ) I think it is a really kool route but kind of small and stressful. I realize that the stressful part is intentional but I don't handle stress very well. I played with it for about a week and then headed back out to the wide open spaces of PO&N2a. There is no stress there cause I have no AI yet and I like natural scenery better than the blighted intercity.

4. Are you through messing with PO&N2a??

5. Are you aware of any strange track problems in PO&N2a?? I was going around with containers to determine which container industries worked and which not and on my way down through Port Ogden South, heading toward 09j and 09k, my engine derailed on the main line right around between 09d and 09g. I guess I should have made a note of the exact spot. I remembered that the same thing happened a long time ago and I remember thinking that there was a small part of the map beyond that point that I'll never be able to use!

Keep doing what you are doing, Phil, there are a lot of us out here that really appreciate your work!

Wild Willy the Wacko

[philskene]

Hi Willy --

" ... I have never gotten a drop of oil out of it ... ."

When making a session click on the "?" in the "Objects" flyout, click on the oil field, click on each of the variables and set them to the maximum.

Now if you have a tank car that will carry crude oil it should all work. Not all tank cars are configured to carry crude. One that is is the HTCX 38' X-3 on the Download Station.

" ... I have no idea what their default commodity is ... ."

Place them on the track when making a session. Click on the "?" in the Trains flyout and click on the freight car. The new screen will show what they are configured to carry.

"Are you aware of any strange track problems in PO&N2a??"

Could not replicate that. Did you have the switches set correctly? What derailments setting were you using?

"Are you through messing with PO&N2a?? "

As long as Auran seem to bugger it up with new releases and patches I'm never finished messing with PO&N. There is now a TS12 version + three sessions on the Download Station now.

Phil