ORTS / Passing Routes?

[Der_Hans]

I'm curious about the correct usage of Passing Routes with ORTS. I usually make my activities with the existing MSTS activity editor but plat them in ORTS.

I have run into a few odd occasions where, while waiting at a red signal, the player train gets a green and then finds an AI train coming head on.

I wonder if I have screwed something up or if it was some other glitch involving the routes, but the first thing I realized is that when setting up my AI path, I never checked that the longest AI train would actually FIT in the shortest siding I defined as a passing route!

Does ORTS consider train length when assigning a passing route, or is it possible for things to go wrong if a siding is shorter than the train trying to use it?

[ZachBell4400]

I created an activity with a passing siding, where both trains approaching the ends of each siding must stop. This actually is a crew change point so I have both trains stopped prior to any signals being cleared.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNDeoxHYhQ4&t=317s

[R. Steele]

...Does ORTS consider train length when assigning a passing route, or is it possible for things to go wrong if a siding is shorter than the train trying to use it?

<<< yes, it does...provided you have selected "Location-Linked Passing Path Processing"

From the manual:

6.4.9 Location-linked passing path processing
When this option is NOT selected, ORTS acts similarly to MSTS. That is, if two trains meet whose paths share some track section in a station, but are both provided with passing paths as defined with the MSTS Activity Editor, one of them will run through the passing path, therefore allowing the meet. Passing paths in this case are only available to the trains whose path has passing paths. When this option is selected, ORTS makes available to all trains the main and the passing path of the player train. Moreover, it takes into account the train length in selecting which path to assign to a train in case of a meet.

For content developers
A more detailed description of this feature can be found under Location-Linked Passing Path Processing in the chapter Open Rails Train Operation.

[Der_Hans]

Enabling location linked passing paths seems to have solved all of my problems so far!

One more question has popped into my head here: Is Open Rails able to determine when one train should overtake another, and if so, how does it tell?

So far I don't think I have seen any activities where, for example, a high priority train made a low priority train wait in a siding, or a freight train waited for a faster passenger train to pass, but the thought has occurred to me to make one, I'm just not sure how.

[geepster775]

If you bought the OR version of BNSF Seligman 2 route (different from the MSTS version), just about every supplied activity featured tons of AI traffic where the slow trains took sidings to allow faster trains to run around them. In fact, they actually had to break the TDB between MSTS and OR versions to lengthen some sidings to allow this scheme to work, so none of the prior MSTS version acts will run on the OR version without path adjustments. Not that those MSTS version acts were as sophisticated to begin with.

That said, my feelings on the result was the end product was a little too predictable, a little too scripted, a bit too 'siding-based' and not enough random elements. If the player was coming up behind a slow train, there would be a short passing path established between East and West Darling, for example, where the slow train would cross over and stop between the switches, and the faster train overtakes it. It was not designed to allow one train to cross over, get out of the way of the faster train while running 15-20 miles of "double barreling" to some distant crossover down the line. I actually modified some of the acts to delete some of the specifically timed oncoming AI traffic to allow some double-barreling over a greater distance. But that required me, the activity modifier, to design a specific move between two specific crossovers many miles distant. That wouldn't happen randomly. The only overtake location randomization would apply with these short overtakes as originally supplied where a short section of the double track was defined as a short siding. But then again, these supplied activities were built without using the 'location linked passing paths' option checked, per the supplied docs.

I also built a Green River activity where I put a damaged/disabled train into a siding to wait on a following train to arrive and swap out a AI train's trailing unit for the player train's new lead unit. In the meantime, Amtrak and other traffic sails by in both directions. But again, that was not random location overtake, but rather a scripted location event, designed to happen at one siding location over a 2 hr window in the activity.

The OR dispatcher does not quite have that much 'brains' yet, and if it did, you could not create these kinds of acts using the MSTS AE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbquYyThgV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlFmEQ15LPA

P.S. the people who only buy payware for the locomotives and think 'they already have the rolling stock stuff' because they bought the MSTS version are really missing out on the other aspects of the OR grade routes/activities that have come along. Their loss.

[bigmak1313]

Did you ever release that activity to the F/L?

[geepster775]

If I remember, it was released on a discretionary basis to those whom I knew to be 100% payware patrons only. Kind of a bonus to those who fully support the payware economy by purchasing every release. If you are someone who chases ancient Danny Beck freeware from file libraries, or someone who only shows beautified freeware routes in their screenies and never shows beautified payware routes, then you probably didn't make the cut. If you are someone who buys the Mullan expansion just for the ES44C4s but bypassed purchasing the route, then yea you likely didn't make the cut either. Some people never show payware screenies/vids at all because they are afraid of being unable to reliably sort out on the fly their legitimate payware from illegitimate payware on their hard drives, so they kinda live forever in the forum shadows. Yea, they likely didn't make the cut either.

[niknak]

Well I don't post screenshots but I have bought every one of MLT's, 3DTrainStuff and TS's routes ( seriously...cross my heart and hope to die)
Does that count and if so could I please have the activities?

[CSRX]

Well I don't post screenshots but I have bought every one of MLT's, 3DTrainStuff and TS's routes ( seriously...cross my heart and hope to die)
Does that count and if so could I please have the activities?

Likewise, I own everything legitimately from Trainsimulations, a handful of items from Tiger Trains, Toronto Mainline Trains, Diesels West, and BLW/ZT.
However, much like walmart, the receipts get tossed out after a while, as I have zero plans to return for a refund.

[tarrant75]

Likewise, I own everything legitimately from Trainsimulations, a handful of items from Tiger Trains, Toronto Mainline Trains, Diesels West, and BLW/ZT.
However, much like walmart, the receipts get tossed out after a while, as I have zero plans to return for a refund.

I have all the SLI/TS stuff legitimately... I promise!!!!

[CNW 5099]

This is fair actually but you have to remember access to Diesels West stuff is limited, even for those of us in the members area.

[CNW 5099]

If I remember, it was released on a discretionary basis to those whom I knew to be 100% payware patrons only. Kind of a bonus to those who fully support the payware economy by purchasing every release. If you are someone who chases ancient Danny Beck freeware from file libraries, or someone who only shows beautified freeware routes in their screenies and never shows beautified payware routes, then you probably didn't make the cut. If you are someone who buys the Mullan expansion just for the ES44C4s but bypassed purchasing the route, then yea you likely didn't make the cut either. Some people never show payware screenies/vids at all because they are afraid of being unable to reliably sort out on the fly their legitimate payware from illegitimate payware on their hard drives, so they kinda live forever in the forum shadows. Yea, they likely didn't make the cut either.

Also would you be willing to take paid commissions for activities? If not I'd like to buy whatever you've already made.

[R. Steele]

Also would you be willing to take paid commissions for activities? If not I'd like to buy whatever you've already made.

You know, this may have been proposed by in the early MSTS days....my experience does not go back that far....but payware activities...not a bad idea. Although there may be pitfalls I'm not aware of.

I am fortunate enough to have a couple of geepster's creations....they are superior in my estimation.

[SD40-2]

You know, this may have been proposed by in the early MSTS days....my experience does not go back that far....but payware activities...not a bad idea. Although there may be pitfalls I'm not aware of.

I can recall two sets of activity-only payware addons. The first was a TS Activity Pack that only worked with the default stuff, that is no longer available.

The second one that is still on sale is 3DTrainStuff's End of An Era addon that was for their Donner Pass route with the Storm of 1952 expansion pack.

http://www.3dtrainstuff.com/products/usa-branch/donner_pass_ao2.html

There's also various activity packs for TSC that are tied to specific routes.

As to me, I have some mixed feelings about them. One the one hand, they're probably going to be very good, and will let you get a little more value out of a route.

On the other hand, I'd prefer any activity packs come with at least some new stock, or vise-versa. Example being the original release of the SLI, now TS, 1990s Southwest Chief pack, which came with a new activity for V1 of Seligman. I kinda wished they'd updated that act for Seligman 2.0.

Regardless, people will probably be receptive to activity packs, especially if they're good, and require only a small selection of addons, say combining Green River with one of the UP Packs, or in theory, Shasta could have an activity pack that uses the SP GP40-2 Trainset, and possibly another route addon, say ATSF Seligman or Green River. That's one I might actually pick up.

Just some thoughts on the matter.

Edit: Possible pitfall, but you've got to ensure your content has not be modified in a way that breaks compatibility, to ensure it works for all users of a addon. That, or incorporate your changes into the pack.

[niknak]

If we're stating an interest here then for what it's worth I would snap up any payware activity packs that came on the market. I already have the "Storm of 52" and "End of an Era" that were for Donner Pass.