Slow Moving AI Trains

[alcoiowa]

I have created an activity on Marias3, and in it, I meet 10 trains. I have noticed that the AI trains are moving incredibly slow. How do you speed up those trains? It sure looks weird to see a stack train lumbering along at 15 or 20 mph.
Thanks in advance.
Fred

[SkyRat]

what engine do you have and how many cars behind it? how is your frame rate? do you meet all the train at the same time?

Let's try to solve this, cause it does sound abnormal. but then most everything in msts is abnormal, so i guess you are experiencing a normal, yet new, problem. ugh msts has warped my thinking.. heehee.

SkyRat

[alcoiowa]

I have 1 stack train pulled by 3 Dash9's with 50 cars. I also have a Piggyback train with 2 Dash9's and an SD40 and 34 TTX cars. I haven't got the trains spaced the way I want them, so part of the slow running might be due to bunching.
Frame rate is 19 to 30, so it is not bad.
When it takes an AI train 9 hours to go from Whitefish to Shelby, that is crazy.

Fred

[SkyRat]

I think you are right, spacing. In the activity editor i use that time acceleration utility all the time to test the flow of my ai trains and see how long (in theory) the activity lasts. I don't base the length of my activities on that cause it don't pick up and deliver cars; but it does do a good job on showing ai train movement. i use between 16x and 64x.

i don't think there is anything wrong with your ai train configeration. if you space them farther apart (if you want them to start at the same time) or have them start a few minutes apart from each other may help.

If you would like me to look at your activity, i'd be glad to.

SkyRat

[EngineJoe]

You know, I discovered the same problem with a Kicking Horse Pass activity today. It was the Eastbound 2nd Section activity. I had just got an approach signal after a long wait at Eldon. The next signal was still approach, but the following signal displayed restricting. Shortly after that I saw the train that I was following stopped in front of me. Just as I came to a full stop it started to move so I released my breaks and proceided to follow it. However, it wouldn't go over 10mph. I got bored and shut it down. Has anybody else had a similar problem and is there a way to fix it?

Joe

[dvdhoven]

Hi,

I know a little bit about Activities and not much about AI's. But can it be that the performance for the AI must be set as high as possible.
I remember something from earlier postings that the performance setting influences the speed.

Dick van den Hoven
http://forums.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3c3739ad2f412aac.gif

[SkyRat]

i checked, the performance of all my ai trains is at 75 % and they run fine. What is the performance level of your ai trains?

SkyRat

[darkfyre]

2 Dash9's and an SD40 hauling 34 cars? hmm..I've got an AI with 2 Dash9's hauling 60-80 cars UPHILL alone..passed me at 50+ mph..

[hr]
Hauling cars is fun; but crashing them is even better.
http://www.guilfordrail.com/images/gti.gif
-Darkfyre

[gerdp]

Hi alcoiowa,

if you meet 10 trains, then they may follow each other very close. So what you see may be not a problem of MSTS, but simply due to the correct signalling. If you follow an AI train very close with a player train, you will also have "yellow" signals, or even red, and if the dispatcher gives you permission you may follow the train with max. 20 mph (if I remember correctly).

This is what I discoverd in one of my activities for the default Marias route. If you run the preview in AE, then the AI trains stop at red signals if they follow very close to another train. But in the "real" activity, it seems that the dispatcher gives permission to proceed, and the train moves on very slow, what is correct.

The applied power (that meens, how much HorsePower you apply to your AI train) does not affect the speed at all. I used default consists from MSTS (such as 2 Dash9 + 50 chemical) and they climb (default) Marias in AI mode with no problems. If you try as player train, you will stall for sure.

gerdp

[mauried]

Make sure that none of your AI trains have to pass a signal showing
restricting,as if they do they will slow down to 20 MPH and never speed up again.
This seems to be an original game bug.

[cbq311]

Considering this post is 5 years old, I think that has been figured out.