Free Play!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sniper297]

Sorry, the bang key got stuck. :D

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/free1.jpg

Only one Free Play allowed per route, why do they give you the option to place more free roam scenario markers?

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/free2.jpg

Okay, I can set this for a different season & weather and add some trains;

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/free3.jpg

Select Free Play;

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/free4.jpg

Get whatever the first free roam is, what's the point?

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/free5.jpg

Give them different names and go in thru the Scenarios, Einstein, then you CAN have more than one! :eek:

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/free6.jpg

Nightime free roam;

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/free7.jpg

Winter snow free roam.

All three work the same as Free Play since apparently Free Play is merely a shortcut to the first free roam scenario in the list, go in the side door and you can have more than one free play! How many? Dunno, Otto and I will work this out and get some kind of test posted ASAP, probably about ten or twelve to start with. Good thing the windshield wipers work! :cool:

[OTTODAD]

Going to test that tomorrow, almost bed time for me now !

Looking at that night scene reminds me that I have not heard from anybody why there are no locos headlight beams showing at night !

Take care, O t t o.

[eaglefan9727]

Correct me if I am wrong Jim, But I or anyone else who gets the sim right now can only do the explore mode once and then you have to run the scenarios that are provided with the routes?

I ask this, Because I mostly run "explore mode" in MSTS as I very rarely run activities that others create. Sometimes, I create my own activities and run them, But not always.

[OTTODAD]

Could not resist testing this before going to bed, knowing damn well that if I did not I would be thinking about this and not be able to go to sleep ! ;)

There does not seem to be a limit of how many Free Roam or other Scenarios can be created:

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=587&stc=1&d=1200107931

The downside of doing this is that creating a new scenario wipes out all services of a previous one.

It would be better to use the default scenario with all it's available services and just change the weather and season as required !

O t t o

[sniper297]

Hmmm, how do we put this, Free Play or Free Roam is same-same MSTS explore route, difference being you're limited to whatever services are in there already, can't choose a consist, weather, season, and time of day, gotta go with what's preprogrammed. Good side is loose consists and as many different services as you feel like making.

"can only do the explore mode once", no, you can do it as many times as you want, up until now I was under the impression there was only one allowed per route and you had to play that one every time you wanted to explore. Not so, apparently, want different free play scenarios with freight or passenger trains, want different weather, seasons, or day/night, just create different free roam scenarios for each type and go thru scenarios to get there instead of clicking on Free Play. The default routes only include one "Free Roam" scenario for each (the "Free Play" button is merely a shortcut to the first "Free Roam" scenario in the list, and there being only one in the list for each default route, and only one automatically created for new routes, I assumed that was all that was allowed), so out of the box with no addons you're limited to that. Before the dev tools we had a "scenario editor lite" that would only do free play, not standard scenarios, and that's all I'm using here.

Good news here is primarily for computer dummies, instead of having to figure out how to use the editors to change time of day, season, weather, or available services (which really isn't that hard, but everything is hard for computer dummies :( ), the route developers can include enough different free roam scenarios to keep the dummies busy until the next version comes out. :cool: Eventually we'll include standard scenarios with AI traffic as well as an assortment of free roam scenarios, gotta get all the swizzled bools sorted out first. :confused:

[eaglefan9727]

Thanks jim for the explanation. I appreciate that.

[jivebunny]

Hmm, this is nothing new. All of the scenarios I have made have been free play. I have about nine or ten just for the Oxford - Paddington route..

[sniper297]

Hee-hee, that's why a lot of this stuff ain't documented, they assumed we already know all this. It's news to me, so what else do you know that you've been holding out on us, hey?! Ve haf vays of making you talk! :D

Hmmm, cloning, let's think KUJU here.

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/clone1.jpg

Start in my original (we'll call that one the "master" free roam, since that's the one and only scenario the Free Play button takes you to) free roam, got loose consist coaches everywhere and half a dozen or so services scattered about.

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/clone2.jpg

Place new free roam scenario marker, since this is new it's empty.

Well, let's see, all the labels, location, and assorted other info for every route is in the routes.xml file, so to clone a route we make a new, empty route with a different name, then copy the contents of the original route's folder to the new route's folder. Could the main scenarios.bin in the root of each route's folder be the same, having the name, time, season, and weather along with which subfolder of the scenarios folder to look in? Worth a shot;

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/clone3.jpg

Copy the scenarios.bin from the master free roam folder (it's the oldest file date) to the newest folder, which is currently empty since I saved the new scenario without adding any services. If I had added a service it would be overwritten, so it don't really matter.

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/clone4.jpg

Bang, my new scenario now has a different starting time, season, and weather with all the services and loose consists that the original had. :cool:

Obviously we'll want to make a few changes here and there so they're not completely identical aside from season/weather/time, but it will speed up the process of making new ones.

[jivebunny]

Huh?? Just place a new "Free roam scenario" marker down wherever you like and give it a new name! No need to mess about copying route folders etc!

[seaboardairline]

One thing I miss from MSTS Explore route that can't seem to be done in RS is that in MSTS you could start from a choice of start and end points for a given route. All the Free Roam points in RS seem to start somewhere in the middle of the route. Or have I missed something?
Arthur

[jivebunny]

In Free Roam you can simply go into edit mode and either move the original marker or place a new one down wherever you'd like it to start. For the London - Oxford route you could for example have a Free Roam markers at each of the main stations and place a couple of trains down around them, naming the markers Free Roam - Paddington, Free Roam - Reading, Free Roam - Didcot and Free Roam - Oxford.

The beauty of Free Roam is that whilst you are free to go wherever you like, you can also have AI traffic running about and although RSDL didn't design it to be used like this, it works fine. You could for example set up a comprehensive timetable with trains running between Oxford to Paddington and be free to take control of whichever train you like, or alternatively pick one up from a siding and slip it between AI services.

JB

[sniper297]

"Huh?? Just place a new "Free roam scenario" marker down wherever you like and give it a new name! No need to mess about copying route folders etc"

For cloning, as in making a similar but different scenario. Got six services and a hundred loose consists in free roam scenario A, "place a new "Free roam scenario" marker down wherever you like and give it a new name!", all the trains disappear when I place marker B. I want B to be similar to A except summer rain instead of winter snow, you know another way to do that besides going around and placing all them trainsets again after placing and naming the new marker?

" The beauty of Free Roam is that whilst you are free to go wherever you like, you can also have AI traffic running about"

Gonna need a step by step on that one, my understanding was you can't have AI service in free roam, only standard scenarios, since every service is a player driveable service in free roam.

[jivebunny]

Sorry I hadn't realised your aim was to clone the traffic, I thought you were simply copying the folders to create a new scenario. My bad! Shame there isn't just an MSTS-style "save service" option where you could then select a service and a start time. No you are right there is currently no straightforward way to have a copy of a scenario with different weather.

As for AI in free roam, it's simply a case of adding driver icons to the trains and giving them instructions as you would for the other types of scenario. Any trains with instructions will simply follow them unless / until they are clicked on, at which point control is is handed back to the player. If the player then selects a different train then the previously selected train will revert to AI control, assuming there are still instructions to be carried out.

JB

[sniper297]

Hee-hee, I've been playing with RailSim.exe rather than RailSimEditor.exe, RailSim.exe don't have the full featured scenario editor. Launching from RailSimEditor.exe to get the full toolset you can indeed set a destination for a service in a free roam scenario, wonder why they have standard scenarios at all? Probably something to do with setting the player path, from what I've seen AI paths work fine with manual switches, player paths don't. Jump into the AI service after it reaches the destination and I get success, end of scenario, haven't been able to jump in on the fly cuz even with "slow freight" selected as the type it takes off like my old '65 Dodge Polara and I can't catch up to it. :eek:

"One thing I miss from MSTS Explore route that can't seem to be done in RS is that in MSTS you could start from a choice of start and end points for a given route. All the Free Roam points in RS seem to start somewhere in the middle of the route. Or have I missed something?"

Nope, they start in the middle of the routes for the simple reason that's where the first one is, and early experiments with trying to place new ones just confused the hell out of me since clicking on the Free Play button takes you to the first marker, to go to the other markers you have to click Scenarios then select one of the other free roam scenarios to go to the marker for that one. Just tried that last night with the MSTS route, placed a new free roam marker in the New York station, and clicking on that scenario starts me in New York instead of Chicago. :D

[Capt_Scarlet]

Jump into the AI service after it reaches the destination and I get success, end of scenario, haven't been able to jump in on the fly cuz even with "slow freight" selected as the type it takes off like my old '65 Dodge Polara and I can't catch up to it. :eek:



Yes, on the AI train if you input a "final destination" for that service when it reaches that destination the free roam scenario will end. The trick is to not to input the final destination and just use the stop at instructions and or pick up passenger instructions.
To stop the train from taking off as soon as the scenario starts just change its start time to something appropriate.
Also if you set the trains % performance to a lower number you should be able to catch it up if you wanted to as the % affects the speed of the Ai train for the individual instructions.

John

[OTTODAD]

Hi John !

It's been while since I tested AI trains in a Free Roam scenario and found that using a Portal as it's destination did not end the scenario, the AI reaching it evaporating !

While this AI was on it's way and then disappeared at it's destination portal, I tested this scenario:

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=266235

To have more than one AI service running on the path of the first one, you would have to pile them up on the same track one after the other and then start them at different intervals, terminating at the same portal as the first or others further on !

A lot of work !

O t t o

[Capt_Scarlet]

To have more than one AI service running on the path of the first one, you would have to pile them up on the same track one after the other and then start them at different intervals, terminating at the same portal as the first or others further on !

A lot of work !

O t t o

Otto, Yes I agree it would be a lot of work to set it up correctly ( assuming one would want to in the first place ) and there are limitations in that at some point you would run out of AI trains if you just sent them to portals or the commands would run out depending on how long you ran the free roam scenario.
There are other limitations as well regarding jumping trains that are in the process of completing commands ( which may or may not be fixed in the patch ).

John

[OTTODAD]

Otto, Yes I agree it would be a lot of work to set it up correctly ( assuming one would want to in the first place )

Jim would want to, John ! :)

There is no way you can set up a busy main line AI traffic pattern in RS like this one from the WUPPER-11 ! :o

Take care, O t t o.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=606&stc=1&d=1200185632

[sniper297]

Well, in theory it's possible, create one service and attach it to a portal, then fiddle with the portal somehow to get it to generate the same train at ten minute intervals or whatever. I wasn't able to get it to work in the few minutes I played with it, didn't really press it since it's my understanding there's a bug in the portals or something that will be fixed with the patch. Oughtta know for sure in a week or so, meantime I'm gonna take a shot at the Captain's suggestion, see if I can get an AI train to run around the EL loop continuously. :cool:

[sniper297]

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=615&stc=1&d=1200190223

You sure I don't need to set a destination first? :confused:

[sniper297]

Well, tried to start simple, make one destination, that worked. Exit scenario editor and she takes off, drives to set destination, then stops and sits there. So try again, this time select a destination a little further along the same line;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=618&stc=1&d=1200199997

"TRY 1" was the first destination selected, and it ran the path I expected it to. So I clicked on the driver icon and set destination again ("TRY 2"), flew over to the subway and clicked on that platform marker, expecting it to take the same route (red dots) since it's the shortest distance. Nope, exit the editor and the little beastie took off backwards at the speed of heat, ran down off the elevated to the west interurban line on the surface, then down into the crosstown subway, back upstairs to the southeast interurban line and backed into the east subway line from the wrong end! :D Hee-hee, well, this is fun, but there's gotta be a way to make it change the path instead of being stuck with whatever it decides is the best route to a given destination. :rolleyes: Next step, see if I can get these bullheaded stop at or pick up passengers instructions to actually work, theoretically if it follows the instructions it should follow the route that goes thru all the places on the list instead of trying to tune in a VORTAC station for vectors to the ILS. :confused:

[jp 4712]

You can set via points, Jim - the 'pointing finger' icon. Leave the default for the via at 0 if you want it to stop there, 1 mph (or more) if you want it to go straight through. The order in which it visits the via points is set by the order of the icons above the train - thesey can be clicked and dragged.

Paul

[Paddington bear]

Hi,
Sniper, the only way I stopped getting that error was to give the driver a destination first and have the train never get there. The scenario would end if I clicked on that train once it was at its final destination on the list of stopping places. I too had a train not going where I thought it would and so have just begun experimenting with using siding markers as way points. I thought the train would go around and around on a simpe oval, but it decided to go back and forth. The pick up passengers is the next round of entertainment. Question.... how does one get a train to stop at a station for a longer period of time.

Ross

[jivebunny]

If you give a train a "drive to" command it will simply sit there once it has completed its instructions as it has nowhere else to go. If you need to move the train out of the way then it is a case of giving it further instructions to drive to a siding / station etc.

The order in which it visits the via points is set by the order of the icons above the train - thesey can be clicked and dragged.

You can add multiple via points to the same icon, there is no need for multiple icons unless you want the train to perform a consist or other operation between two via points.

@ Ross, as has been said, the solution is simply to leave the destination field empty. I have a scenario which starts with multiple trains arriving at Paddington before the user gets a green signal. Clicking on any of these trains once they have arrived does not end the session and simply hands the player's train back to AI control.

JB

[jp 4712]

Indeed you can JB, I was preoccupied by my own scenario design work this morning in which I started at York, put in Newcastle as the destination then afterwards included Durham as a via point - I then dragged the via point icon above the engine to come before the destination.

[Paddington bear]

HI,
JB, I was thinking more of sitting at a station for say, 30 minutes before starting the return journey. While one method would be to send it to a portal and bring on another one later, I was wondering if its possible to edit the start time on the "stop at" list.

Ross

[Capt_Scarlet]

You can change the start time for the service at the beginning but at the moment there isn't a wait command that you could insert into the stop at instructions etc.

John

[sniper297]

Hmmmm, still a few things to sort out, I tried switching to diesels instead of the DB 101, had a little better luck with that but it's still a crapshoot. IIRC when I first got the dev tools I placed a bunch of portals on a series of slip switches and used the "stop at" (I assume that's what you guys mean by "VIA") instructions to try to make it weave thru the slip switches, but the snotty little brat just bypassed all of them and took the direct route. :mad:


Haven't fiddled with typing anything in yet, either them blasted Redcoats are trying to sabotage my Yankee Doodle keyboard or I still got a bunch of exclamation marks stuck in the keyboard buffer, cuz I get overlapping text with !!! !!! in these fields somehow, see the error pic above.

Diesels seem to be persnickety about starting points, for example I start one in the underground yard in New York it just sits there, I start it in the station beyond the puzzle switches and it will go to a nearby destination, but there seems to be a limit to the length of the run. Start one in Chicago and send it to Englewood or Harvey it's happy to set a path thru puzzle switches and go there, so far I haven't been able to get anything to run all the way between New York and Chicago. One theory, the electric either crashes the program or just refuses to move most of the time, so I made a test layout for that;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=623&stc=1&d=1200259767

Doubletrack with overhead wires, made a break in the overhead wires where Doctor Who's Tartus is. Driving as a player service I set the throttle to 3% and left it there, getting 12.7 amps.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=624&stc=1&d=1200259774

Hit the break and the ammeter drops to zero,

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=625&stc=1&d=1200259781

Other side of the break I pick up the juice again. MSTS route is full of accidental gaps like this from uncooperative junctions that had to be beaten into submission, I didn't bother fixing them because it IS realistic to lose power in some spots on electric routes. Okay, so set destination for two electrics here on the parallel tracks;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=626&stc=1&d=1200259787

Service on the unbroken line takes off immediately, the one on the line with the break raises its pantograph and just sits there. Even tho there's a mile run up to the break and the break is only a few yards long, it appears that an electric engine running as an AI train requires an unbroken power supply from start to end or it won't even try. :mad:

We'll see what the patch does when we get it, for now (1) fix the electric lines so there are no gaps, and (2) double ended power on everything so if it decides to back up between stations it won't look weird. Either that or get somebody to make bilevel push-pull commuter trains with cabcars, since those DO run backwards full tilt boogie!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NjOmwvW2UHw