Path Confusion !?

[Ashraf Ahmed Khan]

Greetings, All !

I have been playing many activities recently in Open Rails. I have some queries regarding the paths set up by act makers.

In MSTS, when a path was setup by the act makers, it was locked ie players couldn't change switches and eventually tracks as per their wish.

In Open Rails, I have to first press Ctrl+M to switch the signals to manual mode, then press Tab for signal to change and then again Ctrl+M to finally change the path in order to perform a work order such as picking/dropping cars,etc
I mean, why this confusion ? I always get lost, in other words unknowingly shift to other paths that are outside the player path.

What am I missing ? Is this normal in OR or or we have a solution to this.
Please enlighten me. Thanks

[motormaster532]

I believe what you are saying is that when you have to shunt on some Activities it is necessary to go to "Manuel". When you do this as you have stated you have to press "Ctrl+M" in order to unlock the programmed route. After you have done this then in order to clear or get past the signal you have to hit the "Tab" key. At this point you can throw whatever switches that are required by using the "G" Key to throw switches in front of you and the "Shift+G" key to throw switches behind you.After you have completed your "work order" your train NEEDS to be facing the original direction of travel.Move up so that your train is back on "Path"Press the "Ctrl+M" again and your signals should clear and your train in the Track Monitor should be white. This indicates that you are back on "Path". It is very important to make sure that you put your train back on the programmed path as not doing so will result in you having to clear all signals with the "TAB" and probably either having a collision or going into Emergency for being off path. Hope that helps. Brian

[Vince]

(good advice above post)
Depends on how the activity author set it up either with or without using reverse points.
Yes, there are activities setup where you must use Manual Mode to perform shunting, The activity instructions should make this clear.
When leaving Manual Mode you MUST be back on the path designated by the author.

regards,

[geepster775]

Use of reverse points for shunting is an MSTS limitation thing. It should not be an Open Rails thing. In open rails, going into manual mode and venturing off path as required is what mirrors the real world the closest (honestly, the dispatcher does not open the industrial spur switch for you, as a member of the traincrew on the ground, you do that for yourself). Sorry if that 'feature' is confusing to some. Might I suggest to stop using MSTS activities in Open Rails, or venture into other non-train game platforms for the easily confused.

[Ashraf Ahmed Khan]

Thanks Sir

[Ashraf Ahmed Khan]

(good advice above post)
Depends on how the activity author set it up either with or without using reverse points.
Yes, there are activities setup where you must use Manual Mode to perform shunting, The activity instructions should make this clear.
When leaving Manual Mode you MUST be back on the path designated by the author.

regards,

Thanks a lot, Sir

[Ashraf Ahmed Khan]

Use of reverse points for shunting is an MSTS limitation thing. It should not be an Open Rails thing. In open rails, going into manual mode and venturing off path as required is what mirrors the real world the closest (honestly, the dispatcher does not open the industrial spur switch for you, as a member of the traincrew on the ground, you do that for yourself). Sorry if that 'feature' is confusing to some. Might I suggest to stop using MSTS activities in Open Rails, or venture into other non-train game platforms for the easily confused.

Thanks, Sir. Understood it completely after the real world example you've mentioned.

[dcarleton]

Use of reverse points for shunting is an MSTS limitation thing.

In addition (and slightly off-topic), many MSTS era route builders would place signals at every single turnout "so they could have AI traffic". The results often resembled a 'signal farm' (where they grow a crop of signals!), was totally unrealistic in most cases, and is unnecessary in Open Rails (for the same reasons that reverse points are not necessary for shunting in Open Rails).

[geepster775]

Reverse points should only be deployed very sparsely in Open Rails to change the overall directional flow of an activity. For example, you are running a local that departs the yard, goes 90 miles up the mainline, switching 2 customers located off various controlled sidings on the way out, then reaching the runaround/turnaround point, and then working 1 additional customer on your way back the originating yard. You only need one reverse point deployed at the turn-back location, and when it is triggered, it reverses the overall progress flow in the track monitor.

The role of the dispatcher is to use his CTC console to route you into the necessary controlled sidings along the 90 mile journey to access the customer spurs, but once you are in the sidings and out the way of AI traffic courtesy of the dispatcher, it is the players responsibility to switch to manual mode and operate industry switches and derails manually, with the player's engines venturing off path as needed.

This code is fairly solid if you have (European) dual cab engines, or two (North American) back-to-back engines and you can switch operating cabs at the turn-back location, but it still is a bit buggy if you run one engine only, operating short hood fwd on the way out and long hood fwd on the return (an operational practice that is common here in North America). The auto pilot part of the code collides with the reverse point directional flow change part as open rails still sees the sole engine still facing in one direction.

It will get fixed, eventually.

[R. Steele]

In addition (and slightly off-topic), many MSTS era route builders would place signals at every single turnout "so they could have AI traffic". The results often resembled a 'signal farm' (where they grow a crop of signals!), was totally unrealistic in most cases, and is unnecessary in Open Rails (for the same reasons that reverse points are not necessary for shunting in Open Rails).

...and short paths for AI trains, which causes problems when running OR, especially if you use "Activity Randomization" --- short paths causes AI to spawn in unpredictable ways.