AI traffic beginner's guide

[sniper297]

Been meaning to do this for a while, problem is Trainz AI traffic is so versatile you can do a zillion things with it, so it's hard to do basic basics without getting fancy in the process.

Download for this tutorial;

Yardwork,<kuid:522774:100710>

Simple one mile long double ended yard intended as a starting template or module for merging into bigger routes, for this demo I'm using it for a template. Open in surveyor, go to the north and south ends, add a baseboard at each end.




Next select the scenery icon, add two portals to each end, align, connect track, and name the portals by clicking the question mark then clicking on each portal. "Spawn South" and "DEST south" works, north at the other end, the idea is to give names that you'll easily know what's what when it's time to make the session.



On the two mainlines place a track marker about halfway, give it a name you'll understand.

Save the route and exit back to the main menu.

[sniper297]

Now select create new session. First thing is to make up a train, see this;

https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?306297-Beginners-guide-to-Trainz

Starting in post #3 if you don't already know how to do that. Save a couple of consists;



Then go to the portals you have chosen for spawning trains (which direction depends on your country, in general US railroads run on the right side of doubletrack, UK on the left side) and select the scenery icon and the question mark, click on the portal.



Set to produce new trains, set the frequency for however many minutes apart you want them to run, then click add new consist.



Add a driver to the new consist, click in his window to assign commands.



You can make up a train in here, but it's easier to just click use existing consist, then add a driver. We'll give him two simple instructions, navigate via trackmark south 1, then navigate to DEST portal south.



Do the opposite at the other end, add a different consist, add a driver, tell that driver to navigate via trackmark north 1 then navigate to DEST north.

Save the session and exit, then play the session, see if it works.



Once you have this down and understand how and why it works, the next step is to get more complicated. Try adding trackmarks on the yard tracks and others beyond the yard ladders, see if you can set up an AI to run past the yard lead, back into the yard on one track, then run forward on a different track.

Link wasn't working before but it is now;

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

That's a complete guide to laying track, adding and configuring signals, and more complex AI traffic.

[Boyerm25]

And If you have too many AIs you'll get a derailment every 5 minutes when a train tries to get off the third track but crashes into another train passing on track 2. Not on this route but whenever I run chicago metro 3 the AIs always derail.

[sniper297]

Welcome to Chicago, hand over your wallet and jewelry. Complicated route with complicated junctions, if you're trying to set up your own session from scratch instead of using one of mine for a template that could happen. Stuff like schedule libraries and trigger multiple signals is required for that kind of complication, outside the scope of a beginner's guide. Idea here is to start simple and work your way up to Western Avenue Interlocking and Tower 18.

[Boyerm25]

Where is tower 18?
Actually I used your 40th 3020 for a base but I added a bunch of AIs because many routes seemed to be lacking AIs, but then I discovered some more portals, so now I have double AIs and even though I am using schedule library, they still derail.
Whee is tower 18 again?

[sniper297]

Whadd'ya mean where is Tower 18, I didn't take it! Corner of Lake & Wells, right where it's been for 100 years!

Seriously, try CTRL F to find stuff, that's in the beginners guide.



Not gonna find it on the main route because it's part of the rapid transit route, not used in chimet 3 40th 3020,<kuid:522774:100014> you need Chicago Metro 3 sparks 10,<kuid:522774:100012> for that. I originally tried to have all the L/subway trains and all the freight/commuter trains running at the same time, but more than a couple dozen AI trains at once bogs down the framerates too much. 3020 on the main route is 30 minute freight spacing and 20 minute commuter spacing, with the commuters spawning from 3 portals at 20 minute intervals and freights from one portal every 30 you have 11 new trains per hour. I forget how long it takes for each pattern to finish the run but the idea is to keep it down to less than 30 AI trains running at once. When I did that same pattern using 10 minutes for commuters and 15 minutes for freights, it trashed the framerates down to about 5-8FPS after an hour, but I didn't get any derailments.

[Boyerm25]

My framerates aren't too bad, so I'm going to try the "L" trains at 12 minute intervals.
AI Trains I've Added:
Freights Northbound and Southbound on Milwaukee-Burlington
Southbound Soo Line Freight
IHB-PON REVERSE freight
BRC Northbound Freight
Yes, it gets confusing but I have good fps.
And considering my Trainz Computer can fit in backpack thats pretty good...
often I trainz on the school bus.

[sniper297]

Original L session has 10 minute spacing, wanna go nuts make it 6 minutes, which is about the same as the prototype was during rush hour.

"AI Trains I've Added:
Freights Northbound and Southbound on Milwaukee-Burlington
Southbound Soo Line Freight
IHB-PON REVERSE freight
BRC Northbound Freight"

That might be your problem, the trackmarks were set up for specific traffic patterns, if you're creating new patterns the routing needs to be debugged to keep the mayhem down. In other words either study the trackmarks and set up each AI to follow those trackmarks from portal A to portal B, or add your own trackmarks with some kind of sequence that makes sense to you. If you're just doing spawn at A, navigate to B, on a route that complicated you never know where the little beasties are gonna go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJb_8UywoRA

That required additional trackmarks to make them take the path which made the most sense.

[Boyerm25]

The freight that runs from Grand Crossing through Cicero to the PO&N section is the worst, and the fact that it runs on the passenger track instead of the freight track complicates things. They spawn every 20 Minutes, and by an hour into the session I had about 6 trains all stacked up between Grand Crossing and Western Ave., and about 5 other trains mixed in with them, blocking both southbound tracks.
The problem was a scoot that refused to leave the station so I had like 10 trains backed up behind it all the way to Grand Crossing.
The problem may be the driver, too. His name is Derpy Hooves, and he is, well, derpy.
In a typical session, this guy is the only one that passes signals at danger. He's the only one who keeps derailing. I think he needs some tweaking...

[sniper297]

Yeah, I'm working on a more complicated tutorial now, but basically if left to their own devices a limited number of AI trains will get where they're going eventually, dense traffic will nearly always go cattywampus. Trainz AI is very intelligent, but psychotic, so you need to guide it from trackmark to trackmark to keep it from taking the scenic routes. Open the schedule library for that session and look at all the drive to and drive via commands in it, that will give you a better idea of what it takes to route passengers on the inner tracks and freights on the outer tracks - complicated further by the fact the Burlington has only 3 tracks and the south track is not continuous.

[kin__3]

Thanks sniper297, as usual if I want to learn something new just find your threads.

[ajjonesx]

Ditto on the thanks, sniper. I learned 3 things while doing your tutorial: content filter, creating and saving consists and successfully running AI trains! My first attempts on my own didn't do so well. My first AI train had nowhere to navigate to so it stopped after exiting the portal. My second one successfully navigated to the portal but after it entered (exited?), the locomotive disappeared and the rest of the consist proceeded backwards on its own, crashing into the subsequent AI train that waited patiently at a signal!

Thanks again!

Andrew (SharkNose)

[sniper297]

You got everything running as per the tutorial, next step is to apply what you learned to other routes, then get more complicated. I'd love for someone to start a new thread on the trials and tribulations of getting AI to do more complicated stuff, my problem there is so much previous experience with other trainsims I have a hard time deciding what the biggest stumbling blocks for total n00bs would be.

[ajjonesx]

<snip> ...what the biggest stumbling blocks for total n00bs would be.

Well, I thought both ends of the portal had to be connected, Entry and End. So in my own test portal, I had the track start from the "entry" and loop around and connect back to the "end". I guess that's a no-no becuase that's what created my backward traveling consist with no loco. Plus, I think portals go hand-in-hand with trackmarks, track direction and signals. You have to keep all four in mind for them to play well together. When they do, the results are great!

[sniper297]

Yeah, I was astonished at how well it worked since I first got TS2010, been doing destructive testing throwing more and more challenges at it to see what it takes to make it blow up ever since. The portal thing is the kind of n00b problem I'm looking for, the first time I played around programming artificial intelligence was the first DOOM WAD editors 20 years ago, so that type of thing is intuitively obvious to me. Obviously not obvious to people with no previous game editing experience, hey? Signals are another thing, I set up model railroads with signals that actually controlled train movements in accordance with prototype practice when the first CTC control for model railroads came out, so I didn't have to learn basic signaling when I first got MSTS. If that's a problem for anybody else I should probably do a tutorial on basic signaling, the reason I haven't yet is because I thought the 0catch tutorial covered it pretty well in parts 4, 5 and 14. If not, I'd love to hear what parts aren't easily understandable so I can cover those.