Artificial Ignorance [Archive] - Train-Sim.Com Forums

sniper297

02-25-2008, 07:47 PM

Fiddling with AI service traffic on a test route, clone of the PO&N which has no signals and all manual switches. Added a few portals to use as destinations, because if I use destination markers or siding/platform markers for an AI service destination it just stops there, if I use a portal it gets removed. First problem, you can't add track markers underground, so you can't put a portal inside a tunnel. Option 2, add portals just outside the tunnels so it isn't so obvious when they spawn and disappear? Okay, try that.

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/8140/60928762wg5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Make an AI service set to go thru this tunnel and set destination for the portal at a different tunnel, so it runs from one tunnel to the next. That works okay, what about this thing where you "add" an AI service to a portal?

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6607/33340911hb3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Click the portal marker, click the add button, then click on the engine, the train disappears, where did it go?

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/8623/30840407xx1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Unselect and then reselect the portal marker and it gets updated, but no way to duplicate the service starting at a different time that I can see. Okay, so make a new service starting ten minutes later and add that to the same portal;

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/4562/46878660im1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

And that works. Okay, let's try it in the game!

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/1355/92679770nd3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Lemee see if I got this straight, I set a destination and you set the path automatically, why did it leave the path? Who's supposed to be setting the path and insuring that it stays on the path? Well, alright, so I go to the first portal (in Northland Grain) and remove service 1 from that, place it on the tracks again and reset the destination.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/7100/99903339su9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

That works, service 1 now stays on the path but stops short at the switch where the east and west tracks come together, and at 10:10 I get another one of those "left the path" for AI service 2. Okay, so remove service 2 and service 3 from the other portal, guess the bit about adding trains to the portal isn't quite finished yet.

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/3635/86899549jq7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Now the odd part, this time service 1 takes the other track and continues to the destination portal and vanishes, but service 2 never shows up.

Obviously need a bit more work on this, hey? Next option to try, if the routine for adding services to portals is buggy, maybe place service 1 starting at 10:00, run the VCR to 10:10 to get it out of the way so I can add service 2 spawning in the same spot at a later time. Need a better way to set the speed too, "low speed freight" buckets along at a pretty good clip for a "low speed" freight.

Paddington bear

02-25-2008, 08:34 PM

Hi,
Just last night I happened to be playing with the same thing and it worked just fine. I have a route with 4 trains spawned from and going to 4 portals on my route. They appear and dissapear. Mind you I did discover that they will not appear if there is no path for them at the time they are meant to appear. That was sorted by altering the timing so as not to conflict with another service.

The question of where the trains go to once you add them to the portal is a good one, all I know is that you can get them back if you want to modify them so they cant have gone to far. The remove option brings the service back to the track where you added it from which answers some body's question about how does one modify the instructions for a service once its been added to a Portal.

I do agree with you on the apparent lack of ability to duplicate a service and give it a different start time. I think this is true for RS in general and not just a portal thing though because setting up the service has nothing to do with the portal. The Portal is just an invisible storage facility really.

Another thing that needs checking out, can a service have a path through a portal without the portal having some effect, when the services destination is further on, past the Portal?

Ross

philskene

02-25-2008, 09:09 PM

Hi Jim, Ross --

A question from one who has tried the UK version but not experimented with the details like you two guys have.

Is it possible to start the AI trains before the commencement time of the scenario ?~?

MSTS does this extremely well - for example, set an AI train to spawn at say 0730, start the scenario at 0800, and the AI train is at the correct location as if it had begun its journey at 7:30.

Trainz will NOT to this, and it's a damn nuisance - if the session starts at 8 the earliest an AI trainz will commence its journey from a portal is 8 o'clock.

For a long route, like PO&N, this means that it may take a couple of hours for the first AI train to reach the far end of the route. Bit of a bummer. The only way that I have been able to compensate for this is to place a number of portals along the route, each emitting an AI train at the commencement of the scenario.

Phil
_____

Postscript:

Jim - I take it from an earlier comment that Trainz does not appeal to you. I'm in the process of re-working the "Austral Bay" that I did in Trainz. Austral Bay is a (possibly improved !~?) clone of PO&N. Do you mind if I re-name the Trainz version "Port Ogden & Northern" ?

Paddington bear

02-25-2008, 09:58 PM

hi,
phil, the short answer is no. As this is "Rail Simulator" all life starts at the beginning of time or there after. So far as the scenario is concerned, life starts at the time specified in the scenarios set up.

My turn, Why have Portals all over the place just to start the scenario? Just have the service on the track where you want it to start, and its start time set the same as the scenarios start time and away it goes, less complicated. (based on what you said you used them for of course)

Ross

sniper297

02-25-2008, 10:14 PM

Who let all these Aussies and New Zealanders in here, and where exactly is "Old Zealand" anyway? Hang on, gotta turn my monitor upside down so I can read what you're saying. :rolleyes:

" A question from one who has tried the UK version but not experimented with the details like you two guys have." Does this mean we get you back from "The Dark Side"? :eek: Well, I dunno, one flaw with MSTS was if the AI train ran the full path and reached the end before the start time it would generally crash and refuse to start, and even staying within those limits changing the start time by a few minutes either way often resulted in Stop For No Reason Syndrome. Get everything working okay (little like playing with nitroglycerin) and you got "failed to create SMS object" after a while no matter how carefully you tweaked it. So my answer here is; dunno yet. Seems to be about as buggy, after restarting from scratch I placed some cars and an engine, saved as a consist (off to do a tute on that next) and attached a driver, set a destination and saved, then went to place the new consist I just created in a different location, placed a previously saved consist on the track next to that and it promptly crashed. Restarted Railsim and the service was gone, so I went back to the location I had the crash and tried again, placed the new consist and placed the old one next to it, no problem that time. Went over to where the player service was, clicked the triangle to exit scenario editor, something about a hit box collision. Okay, restart railsim, start scenario, hit box collision again, this time with a quick flash of the player engine flying up in the air. Single engine, not coupled to anything, miles away from the other fooling around, so who knows. Getting a few AI trains set up and running without errors is proving to be a bit of a challenge, maybe having signals will alleviate that somewhat. I fervently hope I don't have to go into the dedicated AI tracks like I did with MSTS PO&N, but for heavy traffic it might have to be.

"Jim - I take it from an earlier comment that Trainz does not appeal to you."

Nope, tried the demo, didn't like it, can't really put my finger on exactly why.

" I'm in the process of re-working the "Austral Bay" that I did in Trainz. Austral Bay is a (possibly improved !~?) clone of PO&N. Do you mind if I re-name the Trainz version "Port Ogden & Northern" ?"

Wouldn't bother me, but you don't need my permission in any case. Port Ogden & Northern is not MY property, the original route and name belong to either Linn Westcott or Kalmbach Publishing, I don't have any claim to the name or the logo (which probably actually belongs to Nickelodeon if anyone! :D )

Paddington bear

02-25-2008, 10:43 PM

hi,
To the best of my limited knowledge, old Zealand is in fact the Netherlands / Holland, based on the fact that the doode who first discovered this place came from over there someplace.

Ross

sniper297

02-26-2008, 12:10 AM

Yup, look at some of the really old maps and Australia was labeled "New Holland" or something.

Well, still haven't really gotten to question 1 yet about the multiple portals, got another weird one to sort out;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1824&stc=1&d=1203998626

Otto first ran across this one, since the scenario editor don't allow you to set an actual path, instead making you choose a destination and setting the path for you, it picks the shortest distance even if that means running in reverse the whole way. If they don't do something to fix this, we'll pretty much have to create stub tracks with "spawning areas" for AI trains to enter the mainline at strategic places in order to control where they actually run. Been wondering about all these guys fiddling with single direction tracks, that's probably also gonna be needed.

Paddington bear

02-26-2008, 12:27 AM

Hi,

I had similar problems getting the AI services to stick to left hand running on double track and contemplated using directional track but some nice person suggested that it was a no no in reality as it would become permanently restrictive so I followed their suggestion as follows....
One answer is to force the service to go where you want by having very short Siding track markers at strategic points all over the route and simply listing the ones it must pass on the way on the services destination markers with a go through speed well above zero so it doesn't stop at them. You are then in effect setting the path by another means.

A by product of this seems to be that the signaling looks sort of closer to prototypical in appearance.

Looking at your pic sniper, I wonder if the best thing is to have Portals on stubs anyway.

Ross

sniper297

02-26-2008, 12:44 AM

Thanks, that works!

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1825&stc=1&d=1204000688

Didn't fiddle with speeds or instructions, just added one of them "Stop At" gizmos and set for the siding marker. Ran to the marker and stopped for 20 seconds or so and continued forward to the destination portal as advertised. Hee-hee, I half expected the contrary beastie to stop at the siding marker and then reverse direction to back up around the circle, but it did go forward after stopping. For this sort of thing I don't think it's necessary or desirable to fiddle with it so it doesn't stop, the whole point of having AI traffic is so the player sees it, and the more time it takes for the run the better chance of seeing it. :cool: Guess that answers the other question too, it do indeed run past any portals that it doesn't have anything to do with as if they weren't there.

RSDLadam

02-26-2008, 09:34 AM

Not seen in mentioned in the topic sofar, but to turn a stop at instruction into a waypoint and have the AI or Player train simply pass through the marker, change the speed in the instruction to greater than 0mph. Just click on the speed and you will be able to delete and retype it.

For AI trains, if you set the speed to higher than the line speed it will sail through as fast as it can. If you set it lower, it will use the speed you enter to pass through. So you could get the train to slow down as it goes through a passing point, station, or even a temporary speed restricted zone.

sniper297

02-26-2008, 12:47 PM

So when's the beta version of the scenario editor coming out? This pre-alpha version just isn't working for me. :rolleyes: Pray tell, what's the trick to getting more than one AI service to run? Adding to portals doesn't seem to work, I've even tried simplifying the whole thing by running two AI trains 30 minutes apart on different tracks with different starting and ending points. One AI train, either one, starting at 10:00 and ending at 10:04, runs fine. SHOULD be able to add a second service starting and ending the same place and running the same path at 10:10, six minutes after the first one is no longer in the game world, but "scenario failed to load" (useful and informative message) every time. Finally in desperation I tried running 30 minutes apart in two different areas, the paths never intersect but I still get "scenario failed to load" with a player engine and two AI services whose paths never intersect. :confused:

OwainGlyndwr

02-26-2008, 01:16 PM

For the two mainline UK routes, it is impossible to re-create the frequency of services required, using AI trains.

They either SPAD and start running at snail speed or the scenario just fails to work altogether.

I only tried to add 16x AI to the Sunderland Portal, to run direct to the Doncaster Portal, over the length of a 4hr activity and it just bombed to the desktop.

Wouldn't even allow me to remove AI from the Sunderland Portal to try and get it to run "Send Don't Send", every time.

With that level of playability, frustration sets in very quickly and the delete button gets used often.

Anyone can create a scenario............. A - B...............stick in a few statics and 4 or 5 AI. Some of us would like to be able to create something a bit more realistic and involved.

I have TRS2006 on the pc. I installed a route the other day and a scenario for it. It ran for six hours and eventually 101 trains were being utilised in the scenario. Either running around the route, or being emitted by portals ( that work ) or running into portals. The AI shunted on their own without player control and i could choose to control any one of the trains at any time.

So much for RS being the most realistic trainsim to date.

Very disappointing and this is from someone who wanted to see RS succeed from day one.

Mike.

sniper297

02-26-2008, 01:39 PM

You can't start bashing the product now, Mike, then you and I wouldn't have anything left to fight about, and there goes all the entertainment! :( This is supposed to be fun, I'd have to start defending it and that would be just too weird. I'm surprised I have to explain these things, me bash, you defend, savvy? :D

Heard that term before, what is a "SPAD" (related to railroads, I know about the WWI airplane)?

"Anyone can create a scenario............. A - B...............stick in a few statics and 4 or 5 AI. Some of us would like to be able to create something a bit more realistic and involved."

Love to know how, one player service engine only, zero loose consists, one AI train with one engine and half a dozen cars works okay, but I can't get two to run even on different paths at different starting times. Never had a day's luck adding anything to a portal, get scenario failed to load, service left the path, collision hit box, and/or the little beasties just disappear on me. I dunno, this is all with repaints of the default SD40 and stock US freightcars, maybe this is part of the object filter bug and I should try it with EU rolling stock (dadblasted furriner dinkytoy bumpercars)? And what would cause an AI service to leave the path if I never threw any switches after the scenario starts? One AI service runs the path, add another one 30 minutes later and save, if I don't get scenario failed to load the addition of AI service 2 at a different time on a different path somehow causes AI service 1 to decide it should take the scenic route to nowhere land. :confused:

jp 4712

02-26-2008, 02:19 PM

SPAD = Signal Passed At Danger, Jim.

Paul

sniper297

02-26-2008, 04:25 PM

Merci, that explains that one. Not relevant to my stumbling around tho, don't HAVE any signals other than the dwarf shunt signals which don't show block occupancy, only switch position. Just looked in the file library, Tom's scenario is in there now. My thinking was to enhance that with "dark territory" style AI, add player instructions not to enter the mainline between 10:00 and 10:04 or 10:10 to 10:14, and so on, the idea being to add interest with a time window for the switching (guess I should say "shunting" since I seem to be the only Yankee Doodle in here! :eek: ) that needs to be done on the mainline. Like teaching a snake to tapdance tho, first you gotta get the shoes on him, so my immediate goal is to get more than one AI train to follow the same path at 10 or 15 minute intervals. If I can accomplish that then I can start testing to see if the player can enter the mainline between trains or not.

OwainGlyndwr

02-26-2008, 05:18 PM

Hahahahahahahaha, i don't fight Jim ( well not on a forum ). :D

You might like defending for a change, makes for a more varied outlook. :)

SPAD, is as explained already. I did have a scenario up on the ukts file library, which had many AI running in it, but with very limited use of the Portals.

I removed it as it was totally broken by Upgrade MK1.

It is possible to get AI trains running at 15 min intervals Jim, but i think you would need to signal the route to achieve it. I have two scenarios i am working on at the moment, the one on the Newcastle - York line, has them closer together than that. My real gripe is with these damn Portals, they are next to bloody useless for reliably producing AI trains.

cheers,
Mike.

sniper297

02-26-2008, 07:27 PM

Yeah, that was my experience prepatch, portals generated more messages to Microsoft than they did trains. Thought the patch was supposed to fix them. Like I said tho, this whole thing is apparently an alpha version, not really ready for beta yet. No way to directly set a path for AI trains, no way to directly set the speed, and the priority settings don't really seem to do anything.

"It is possible to get AI trains running at 15 min intervals Jim, but i think you would need to signal the route to achieve it." Hmmm, but why? It's a really short path that takes about 4 minutes for the AI train to run, service 1 spawns at 10:00 and is removed from the route at 10:04, what could service 2 spawning at 10:10 be conflicting with, the six minute old memory of service 1? If there were signals on that path they should all be green since service 1 no longer exists! And how do you explain setting service 1 to run from A to B at 10:00, and having it going crazy from the general idea that service 2 will be running from C to D on a totally different part of the route at some point in the future? Either I'm doing something wrong here or the scenario tools ain't finished.

OwainGlyndwr

02-26-2008, 07:43 PM

Yeah you bought the Alpha version along with us in the UK. North America got Beta1, so things are progressing, Jim. LOL

Just a shot in the dark, as Peter Sellers would say, but maybe the Portals need to see signals, in some spooky out of this world way, so that they can despatch the trains. Just a supposition, but no signal = no path to destination................MAYBE. :)

Off to watch the Sopranos anyway, had enough of trainsims for today. ;)

cheers,
Mike.

sniper297

02-26-2008, 09:46 PM

Yeah, Sopranos is great, back in Chicago we always got a big kick out of watching a bunch of New York sissies trying to act tough. :rolleyes:

Well, I think Ross may have something here, after giving up on the idea of attaching AI services to the portals I was running some of them THRU portals to get to other portals, possibly that's part of the "scenario failed to load" deal. Deleted that route and cloned PO&N again, this time added siding markers in Topatchamee and Churchtown yards, let's try pure destinations with no portals.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1838&stc=1&d=1204076030

Start one AI service at 10:02 on TP track 1, run to CY track 1, takes about 7 minutes to arrive. Not a portal so it just sits there on arrival.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1839&stc=1&d=1204076037

Add service #3 (AI #2, service 1 is the player) at 10:15, running from TP 2 to CY2, see what this does.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1840&stc=1&d=1204076045

Whaddya know, service 2 starts on time, no failed to load, runs the path all the way to the end without getting lost! :D

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1841&stc=1&d=1204076051

Then service 3 tries to follow the same path, supposed to take the previous switch to CY2 instead of following service 2 to CY 1. :mad: When I first got this game that was one of the first things I noted, gotta deal with that whole manual VS automatic switch nonsense again, so I'll probably end up having to do like I did with MSTS PO&N and make dedicated AI routes. :(

Paddington bear

02-26-2008, 10:48 PM

Hi,
reminds me, a while ago I did read over at UKtrains, the need for signals in front of portals
else the track is still seen as occupied by the "Game" even though the train has vanished.
A three colour light signal turns red when the train passes it and turns yellow when the train disappears at the portal,
haven't tried a 2 colour one
Ross

paulhydey

02-27-2008, 07:50 AM

@ sniper297

I notice that you have a circular route. Do you remember in MSTS explore mode if you got onto a circular route and set the points/switches for a continuous circle (as could happen on MT Springfield, UK freeware route from Making Tracks) then you where locked into the circle and couldn't change the points?

Maybe something similar is happening when service 2, in your previous post, sets off it sets the points to a circular route and service 3 can't change the points to break the path so goes off path. Try pausing the scenario editor as service 2 leaves and "fly" around the route to see if the points are set in a circle. This may be why service 3 can find a path when the scenario initiates (and hence loads) but goes off path later.

I haven't tried to put in AI traffic yet, my limited time so far has been spent trying to get my player service to run correctly, but I thought it might be worth at least eliminating this possible cause of your problems.

Hope this helps.

Paul

OwainGlyndwr

02-27-2008, 08:41 AM

Portal to Portal is supposed t o work as far as i know Jim.

Sopranos is New Jersey not New York, tut tut tut........you wait untill i tell "T" what you said. :D

cheers,
Mike.

sniper297

02-27-2008, 12:38 PM

I was in New Joisey about thoity years ago, in Lakehoist. From what I could see most of New Jersey was actually a suburb of NYC. :D Hee-hee, I was in a US Navy heavy ASW helicopter squadron, and our SH-3Ds were DWARFED inside those huge blimp hangars. The big zeppelin hangar they used to store the Hindenburg and the US Navy zeppelins was still there at the time, altho no more zeppelins, instead they had a 400 foot long mockup of an aircraft carrier flight deck with real aircraft on it, used to train flight deck crews. See the opening scene of "Top Gun" for an idea of what that was like. :eek:

Ross may have hit it again, with no signals spawning more than one train from a given portal that's probably it. Tried a new experiment here starting wth the above, added one and only one portal on the mainline behind the roundhouse, set both services to run to that portal. Both worked okay, so for the next trick, can you pull the player service out of the roundhouse, wait for the first AI service to go by, run over to Topatchamee and into a different yard track before the second AI service starts moving? Yup, one flaw - the switch from the Churchtown industrial area will set for the curve when you come out (pre patch that would derail you if you didn't set it beforehand, post patch it moves the points as you drive thru), but when service 2 starts running it don't reset the points. You CAN click on the lever and reset the points manually so the second AI service goes the right way instead of into the industrial district, but the AI dispatcher doesn't do it automatically. So apparently HAL 9000 has been reinvented for railsim, got the same flaws as MSTS with the whole manual VS automatic switches, HAL sets the path once and only once and never goes back to reset it if the player changes it. I suspected that might be the case as soon as I saw there were automatic switches that couldn't be changed by the player in a standard scenario, after all the only purpose for something like that would be to lock the player out of doing something that would screw up the traffic pattern. Doubtful this will ever be fixed since we're never gonna convince a bunch of high speed mainline passenger train drivers that it's broken, so we'll just have to work around it.

OwainGlyndwr

02-27-2008, 06:49 PM

I don't know Jim, but what i gather from the show, the two are seen as seperate places. :)

You were in the US Navy, what was it like being in the second best navy in the world. :D ( sorry standing joke from WW2 ).

Yup that is what i said, you need signals for the Portals to operate more than one train from. If you don't, the block section that the Portal sees, never clears.

regards,
Mike.

SurvivorSean

02-28-2008, 12:00 AM

Excuse my ignorance as I don't have the program at this time, but just a point to ponder.

In MSTS when I ran SLG activities with AI in the area one of the difficulties I had was once you through a manual switch the player may not be able to switch it back. For example your a service leaving a mainline into an industrial park facing point or trailing point.

In prototypical practice unless you were to hold the mainline, if you were leaving the main for a period of time you would lock the main back to the normal position, contact the dispatcher that it had been done (or use an electric lock where the dispatch would see he had control again).

The problem I found with MSTS was that because you could only hit G or Shift G you were never able to lock the main back and allow AI's to continue on it's merry way. But am I right that KRS has the ability to allow the user to set up any switches in that map mode thing (thought I seen this in a video somewhere).

Assuming you restore the switch to the normal position would HAL then take it as an OK to approach? This would be a huge improvement asside from the fact that HAL-AI engineer in MSTS forgot the rulebook on what a restricting signal means, and plow in to you when your still holding the mainline.

Thanks in advance for the clarification, I hope I'm not too far off topic here! :)

Thanks

Sean

sniper297

02-28-2008, 01:47 AM

Well, sort of. I did make one where I ran two trains ten minutes apart, ran the player train up the mainline after the first passed, then switched to the #8 view and flew over to the mainline switches and reset them with the lever before the second one started, and that ran fine. Didn't do it in the 2D map because the 2D map originally had big fat red and yellow path tracers that made it impossible to see the dark blue line for the player path on the gray track line, and they "fixed" it by eliminating all the path tracers so you don't see any path for the AI train in the 2D map now. :rolleyes: But yeah, it is possible for the player to run thru half a dozen or more manual switches, then park and leave the engine to fly over to each switch and reset it. Kind of a moot point if I can't get the farfignewton AI trains to work tho, tried a portal and added what I think were block signals, scenario failed to load, R6025 virtual function call error, program tried to address non existent memory, yada yada yada. The reason I gave up on this earlier was cuz I was waiting for them to fix the blasted thing, guess I gotta go back to waiting. Tried deleting the portal and signals after removing the AI trains from the portal and setting them on different starting tracks, scenario failed to load, deleted both AI trains and made a new one, that works, okay so make a second one on a different starting track at a different time, scenario failed to load. Doing nearly the exact same things in the exact order that worked before only now it don't work, that would be MY definition of buggy software. :mad:

sniper297

02-29-2008, 11:55 AM

Well, it appears that Ross is dead on, adding AI services to a portal is definitely dependent on having a clear block for the AI train to spawn into. The crash seems to be related to the portal trying to shove the next service into a block that isn't "clear", definition of "clear" in this case being one which would show a green if the portal itself was a signal. If the first AI train runs to the second portal without passing a signal and clearing the block, it don't matter that the AI train no longer exists anywhere on the route, the block is still considered occupied in the absence of signals.

After poking around in Cajon for a while, I made a clone of the PO&N and added a whole bunch of Short 1H 0T signals, which appear to be plain vanilla block signals similar to the MSTS interval signals. Then I added two portals, made an AI service and set one portal as the destination and added it to the first portal, made a second AI starting 10 minutes later with the same destination and added that to the first portal.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1896&stc=1&d=1204299633

That works, scenario started with no errors and the portal spat out the first AI service about 30 seconds later.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1897&stc=1&d=1204299639

Obviously interlockings will be needed at junctions, the ABS is showing green for the left track even tho the switch is set against and the block is occupied. I was just throwing ten zillion signals in to see if I could make it work at all, 90% of them are probably unnecessary.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1898&stc=1&d=1204299645

Second AI service spawns on schedule, even tho;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1899&stc=1&d=1204299650

The first one is still running, hasn't reached the end portal yet. Map shows where I expected them to go, they didn't go that way so I stopped and added the block signals to the line they preferred to run and just let them go. Next trick is to add the complication of "stop at" instructions to route them where I want them to actually go, and figure out some way to designate mainline switches so the player knows to reset those to whichever way they were originally set when he went thru them ("mainline" is a slippery concept on the PO&N since the whole thing is actually a bunch of branch lines) and work out the how and when of meets. Still a lot of work to do here, but you might see rudimentary AI traffic on PO&N US 3. :cool:

sniper297

02-29-2008, 10:55 PM

Okay, so now I add another train in between the 10:00 and 10:10, starting at 10:05 and going to the same place but via a different route. To force an AI service to alter from its preferred path we need to add "stop at" instructions. Plunked down more signals and a few platform markers, let's see what happens if I do THIS! :eek:

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1917&stc=1&d=1204338986

No errors, scenario starts and AI service #2 spawns on time and runs on course.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1918&stc=1&d=1204338992

This don't look promising tho, AI service 4 is due at 10:05 and will take the other path to Huff Refinery and Northland Grain, shouldn't this switch have automatically thrown the other way?

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1919&stc=1&d=1204338999

Well, so much for that, he went the wrong way. Waiting for the "scenario ended, AI left the path", didn't get it.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1920&stc=1&d=1204339006

And here's the next train on cue, no game over?

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1921&stc=1&d=1204339014

Aha, he took the scenic route instead of the shortest path, must be allergic to oil or something. Ended up following service 3 four minutes behind altho he started 5 minutes ahead, but all three ran to the end portal eventually.

Interface is a PITA, the ability to jump to a route marker in the compass thing presumes the route HAS route markers, which I don't, so setting destinations and stop at points means I gotta physically fly to each place for every service. Gotta be a faster way to do that. Anyway, phase after this is try changing the stop at instructions for that middle service and see if I can make him go thru Huff. Really should be (1) faster easier way to set destinations and stop at points, (2) some way to directly control the path so we don't need to screw around with stop at, and (3) some way to directly control the speed.

sniper297

03-01-2008, 03:12 PM

They really truly seriously need to rewrite this so we can make a path cuz this is nuts. Lemmee see if I got this straight, I place a service, click on the driver icon to set destination, then have to fly all the way to the destination to physically click on the destination marker itself, then fly all the way back to the service to add STOP AT instructions, then physically fly to each STOP AT marker to click on that, then fly back to the service to add it to a portal. (I know about the compass flyout jump to route marker, but that presupposes the route HAS route markers, which mine don't.) After which this magical wizard will save me labor by setting a path automatically? :rolleyes: Methinks it would be easier and more predictable to directly set a path.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1929&stc=1&d=1204397366

First problem with the way this is programmed is the need to add markers in the world editor first to make the AI train go a specific way - unlike MSTS you can't just create a start point and end point anywhere and the equivalent of "take other exit" is the "stop at" instruction, no way to directly control the path. So place a marker at Huff, another at Union, add a STOP AT marker to the AI train and set Huff as the first and Union at the second, that should make it go thattaway.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1930&stc=1&d=1204397380

Nope, it wants to take the scenic route again. Runs to Huff and stops, then backs up all the way around the other side of the circle to Union, then reverses again to run forward over the same path to the junction where it turns to run down the Tinkers Dam route to the end. Okay, so let's go back to the world editor and place more markers, delete and recreate the AI service (trying to edit one after running it once is buggy, "scenario failed to load" is the usual result) with five STOP AT instructions that will lead it by the hand thru the leg of the wye where I want it to go.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1931&stc=1&d=1204397387

Nope. Ran to 1 fine, stopped and reversed, backed all the way around the circle from stop 1 to stop 2. At that point it decided to prove there was nothing really wrong with the short section of track it was working so hard to avoid by running backwards past stop 1 again to take another trip around the scenic route, then when it arrived at the junction instead of heading for stop 3 (was waiting to see how it was gonna do THAT from that direction!) it froze the game.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1932&stc=1&d=1204397394

And that's probably the LEAST unusual thing that happened here. :rolleyes:

SurvivorSean

03-01-2008, 03:18 PM

I may have missed something here, but despite it requiring more setup in both the route and the scenerio, the AI as I see it is alot smarter than HAL of MSTS.

PO&N for MSTS was set-up perfect for HAL, because HAL is an idiot. But he was a predictable idiot. It seems to me the AI though unpredictable, if given enough choices such as markers seems to be on the road to some intelegence.

The reason I'm encouraged is my experience with using MSTS and ActivityChanger was too strict on set paths on double track mainlines with crossovers. The crossovers were never utilized as they would be in the real world simply because of the set paths. So if your service is a switcher working the mainline up ahead, it was never smart enough to crossover on the left hand running track to overtake you. Likewise opposing movements wouldn't hold a switching player service right hand running at the next crossover if 2 opposing services were passing each other (1 fast, 1 other switcher).

Now that's not to say it's going to work. But I did here something about a priority field that isn't working. Perhaps the priority field would take into account even more flexibility for all services. Perhaps for dark territory you can use those invisible signals and at least you would have the clearances you want, plus give you the control the AI needs to keep things straight.

Keep up the good work, I'm really starting to think about upgrading my PC for KRS soon.

Thanks

Sean

P.S. I missed the last post, not as nice :( But perhaps it's a bug with circular routes. I'll have to wait and see, but I have hope it will be worked out.

sniper297

03-03-2008, 11:21 PM

"Bug with circular routes", therein lies the whole problem here, like a woman you need to limit the choices or it will be shopping around all day. :rolleyes:

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2041&stc=1&d=1204600337

Added and linked a bunch of these at all the junctions to try and help it along, runs fine in some places.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2039&stc=1&d=1204600317

Okay, so let's try this now that we have the signals in place. "Railsim.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close." Alright, delete signals, start tearing up and relaying track despite the fact that I can run a player service over that exact same route so I KNOW there's no bad track sections there.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2040&stc=1&d=1204600324

Despite relaying that curve and disconnecting the figure 8 it STILL don't want to go thru that section.

Anyway, short version of this is;

Automatic path setter needs simplified trackplans, needs signals, prefers auto switches, prefers one directional track, and you still have to screw around with complicated STOP AT instructions to ATTEMPT to route it the way you want it to go. In other words, it's broke and it needs to be fixed. :mad:

OCTheEagle

03-04-2008, 04:46 PM

In other words, in order to create scenario's we have to wait for another patch :(

Is there actually a way of showing which route the AI train will take without using simulating the activity (EG how MSTS works) ? In my route, simulating the activity shows different results when actually riding the activity.

sniper297

03-04-2008, 11:23 PM

Dunno about you but I'm not gonna wait around another "few months" and then find out they didn't fix it cuz they decided it wasn't broke, I intend to do whatever I can to get SOME AI traffic within the limitations we currently have to deal with. And no, AFAIK there's no way to see what path it will take without actually running it. Hadn't really fiddled with the VCR player thing much, I usually save and exit the scenario editor to see what it actually does in the game. Previous experience with the MSTS activity editor VCR which sometimes lied about what it was gonna actually do, wouldn't surprise me if this one had the same type of bug. :rolleyes: OT, are you the same "The Eagle" who did the MSTS Dutch route back in 2002?

OCTheEagle

03-05-2008, 09:43 AM

Yup I'm thesame guy who build the Hoogdam Line route and the DenHaag-Schiphol route. :).After two weeks of studying all the information I could get about making routes in Kuju Rail Simulator and examining all the available 3th party routes (which is...not much) I decided to give route building in Rail Simulator a shot.

While some parts of making a route has become easier, some other parts have become incredibly complicated in Rail Simulator like:
- When making a road, the editor sometimes gets stick and thus instead of one road you get 1000's of road pieces.
- Correct placement of signals (about 10 different German signals exist).
- When connecting two pieces of track you have to connect them 'junction style', remove the unnecessary track part, press the weld button and continue.
- Track properties have to be properly set every time you decide to place a track.
- No properly working crossings.

The thing I dislike the most is the current scenario editor/activity editor. I just cant figure out how to make the player train and the AI trains take the route I want them to take. For some reason the AI trains decide to take routes which in my opinion make no sense at all (which is actually what this topic is all about). I wish it was just MSTS style where you can choose which route the train has to take, which stations it should stop at and when the train has to depart.

I'm also a bit disappoinment with the low amount of 3th party addons being created for RS. Perhaps that will change in the future.

Paddington bear

03-05-2008, 04:39 PM

Hi,
Welcome to Rail Simulator, sufficient to say this is not MSTS and new ways of doing things need to be learned. Welcome to the learning curve, you will find many a traveler along these tracks

"- When making a road, the editor sometimes gets stick and thus instead of one road you get 1000's of road pieces."
This is the wiggly track syndrom which arrived after the first patch and is scheduled to disappear in the next patch. It affects any Linear object not just roads

"- When connecting two pieces of track you have to connect them 'junction style', remove the unnecessary track part, press the weld button and continue."

More practice at track laying in RS helps improve ones ability to join track. Having the snap to track button ON will automatically join one end and with some practice the other end in many situations will join itself and show a red triangle on the track to indicate a welded joint.

"- No properly working crossings. "

As one can create just about any sort of track pattern one wants to in RS, What defines a properly working crossing? True there are no "set track" # anything turnouts out of the box, one simply creates what ever # one wants.

"The thing I dislike the most is the current scenario editor/activity editor. I just cant figure out how to make the player train and the AI trains take the route I want them to take. For some reason the AI trains decide to take routes which in my opinion make no sense at all (which is actually what this topic is all about). I wish it was just MSTS style where you can choose which route the train has to take, which stations it should stop at and when the train has to depart."

Directing traffic is a topic under much discussion at the moment.

Question, how much 3rd party add on was available 5 months after msts was available?

Ross

sniper297

03-05-2008, 06:41 PM

Yeah, I remember the Hoogdam route very well. When you and Dick van den Hoven both disappeared at the same time I thought there was a flood over in Holland or something, good to see you back. I found the route editor (actually called the "world editor" here) easy to use, and before the patch tracklaying was pretty easy for me. After the patch of course they "fixed" something so the thing is ultra sensitive now, it acts like your finger had a spaz attack on the left mouse button or something. Signals I'm still trying to figure out, but placing the exact same ones and linking them the exact same way in different location gives me red and flashing red instead, so obviously we still have the same trouble as MSTS where one signal was affected by the track configuration or the absence of another signal.

Ross, nomenclature problem here, "- No properly working crossings. "

When one track crosses another track at the same level and you get that diamond, I think most call that a "crossover" rather than a "crossing". I believe he's talking about a grade crossing (US) AKA "level crossing" (UK), in other words a crossing where a road crosses the tracks. None are animated except for wrong colored lights that flash too fast and no bell sounds, I don't consider that "properly working" either. I do have a problem with crossovers, namely how to signal them? If I'm heading north toward a crossover and there's an AI train east of the crossover heading west, there should be a way to make my signal go red if he's anywhere on the east-west track in the block defined by the signals on that track, but how to hook all that up? Gonna have to post that question in the route forum tho, Signalmaster has disappeared again recently, maybe I should shoot him an email.

Anyway, bottom line on all this is it sucks out loud. If MSTS 2 was scheduled for release next month I would just say the hell with it, but since we're looking at another year at least for that, we might as well spend some time trying to sort out this unholy mess.

Paddington bear

03-05-2008, 07:14 PM

hi

OH...... you mean a "Railway crossing" where the road cross's the railway line. We got thousands too many of those and way too few trains for people to take them seriously with the inevitable tragic results happening rather too frequently. I would say RS Railway Crossings work very prototypically for the vast majority of NZ.

Ross

OCTheEagle

03-06-2008, 04:17 AM

It was a long time ago Dick van den Hoven and me appeared in this forum. Reason of this is because this place was the only place where knowledge was available about building routes in MSTS. :)

Ross, nomenclature problem here, "- No properly working crossings. "

When one track crosses another track at the same level and you get that diamond, I think most call that a "crossover" rather than a "crossing". I believe he's talking about a grade crossing (US) AKA "level crossing" (UK), in other words a crossing where a road crosses the tracks.

Yeah I meant a level crossing indeed. I just noticed that the dutch word 'overweg' can be translated in different ways to the english language :) It's a shame that they were animated objects in MSTS and are now static objects in Rail Simulator, it takes away the realism imo. If they can have animated people who can find the doors in the train, why can't they create 'simple' level crossings? I remember making one activity for the Hoogdam Line where the only purpose was to watch an animated level crossing (with a guarenteeded viewing of a passing train every 3 minutes) which was actually quite well received by the people who played the activity.

If my memory serves correct I bought MSTS approx 3 months after it release. I started building the Hoogdam Line in September 2001 and released the first version in 11 September 2001 (which kinda remembered how much free time I had back in the early days and how extremely sad my english language was :P ). For the first version you needed 5 add-on trains meaning thus meaning that MSTS already did have a few add-ons witin 5 months of its release.

sniper297

03-06-2008, 09:48 AM

Well, considering the English language is probably crazier than most I always thought you and Dick did fine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_junction

Worst trouble with railroad AKA railway terms is there's American English and British English and altho they're both "English" they're not really the same language because the same word means different things depending on which version of English you speak. I went and used "crossover" there which really isn't correct even in American, technically a crossover is where two facing switches (British "junctions") provide a route to cross over from one parallel track to another, either a single crossover or double crossover.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2094&stc=1&d=1204811221

Those are probably the most common and least confusing terms to sort out which is which. Which brings me back to my problem, how do you signal a diamond crossing?

AlanCh

03-06-2008, 11:05 AM

Hi Jim

Harder than you think - American English 'switch' = British English 'point' in railway enthusiast language, although the professionals over here probably would use switch.

Your 'double crossover' over here would be a 'scissors crossing'. In British English a 'double crossover' would connect one pair of running lines in parallel to the other pair on a four track section.

Two nations separated by a common language.

PaulD

03-06-2008, 06:06 PM

Now where did I put that English to English dictionary...

OCTheEagle

03-09-2008, 04:57 PM

I think I´m going nuts with the activity editor. For some reason the activity editor crashes even when I remove all orders from all (AI) trains. Besides that, the AI trains take the most stupid way in order to reach their destination (just like Sniper wrote), even when destination markers are being used. Sometimes an AI train just disappears for no reason, after spending 8 minutes in order to get the correct orders set.

Am I missing something here while I'm getting myself a fresh cup of caffee?

sniper297

03-10-2008, 02:35 AM

Gonna need to drink a lot of coffee, if they ever do fix this it's probably gonna be a few months wait. :rolleyes: Currently trying to sort out signals;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=268782

But I think for now I'm gonna focus on really simplified AI traffic, letting it go wherever it wants to go. I get the same thing with all the R6025 errors and so forth, only cure is usually to delete all the AI trains completely, or even delete the whole scenario and start over. :mad:

dhammerman2003

03-10-2008, 02:42 AM

sniper297

03-10-2008, 02:58 AM

Got a "Metropolitan Suburban Transit System" (MSTS, get it?) route in the file library with a "puzzle switch" setup like outside the Chicago commuter stations, gonna redo the whole smash with actual third rail and some custom tracks and loft bridges to make the EL look more like the real EL before I even start trying to figure out how to signal that. Some screenies of the current one here;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=266956

Biggest thing we need is some actual Chicago trainsets for that, some dual power EL and subway cars (4000 series my preference) and interurbans (North Shore and Roarin' Elgin) and some C&NW BiLevel scoots. :cool: Could toss in Metra with F40s too I suppose, but I always liked the old stuff better.

OCTheEagle

03-10-2008, 06:35 AM

dhammerman2003

03-10-2008, 10:47 AM

Biggest thing we need is some actual Chicago trainsets for that, some dual power EL and subway cars (4000 series my preference) and interurbans (North Shore and Roarin' Elgin) and some C&NW BiLevel scoots. :cool: Could toss in Metra with F40s too I suppose, but I always liked the old stuff better.

Ya know IRM has a whole bunch of those Jim and yes they work :)

Dave

sniper297

03-13-2008, 11:46 PM

Well, this sure ain't gonna be easy. No idea why they even have automatic switches, with the player set for "special" and the AI set for "low speed freight" all the MANUAL switches are locked until the AI passes. :mad: Gonna make player controlled meets impossible, with this restriction you can't, for example, throw a switch into a siding and then throw it back to allow the AI to pass. Go anywhere on the route ahead of an AI train and you're locked onto his path with no escape.

Got a few clones of PO&N US3 I've been playing around with;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2352&stc=1&d=1205461897

And this one isn't gonna work. Idea was to spawn the AI at Start, destination End, didn't work out of the box since he pulled past the first switch and reversed to take the shortcut. After adding bypasses (BP1 and BP2) to simplify the route, I spent 10 minutes setting all the STOP AT destinations to make it follow the path I wanted, then ran the scenario. First problem, tried running to S1 to see if I could change the switch, nope. Even tho the AI train was 30 minutes away from that switch it's locked. Okay, so follow the AI train around, Arriving at S2 that switch was still locked after the AI train passed, wouldn't unlock until the AI passed the next signal at Sig2. Apparently some kind of block occupancy thing there, locked switch won't unlock behind the AI until he's out of the block. That one at least CAN be cured with more signals to divide into smaller blocks, but the other problem the only solution I can see is many multiple spawning points and really short AI routes. :mad:

philskene

03-14-2008, 02:31 AM

Hi Jim --

" ... the only solution I can see is many multiple spawning points and really short AI routes."

You might find another need for multiple spawning points - the fact that AI trains only begin as the session itself starts.

If you look here:

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?p=1379496&posted=1#post1379496

you will see that I had to use over a half dozen portals on this route just to make sure that the player at the far end of the route would see an AI train or two. Otherwise the player has to hang around for a couple of hours for the first AI train to show.

Thanks for the inspiration for the route. It has always been much appreciated.

Phil

Paddington bear

03-14-2008, 03:53 AM

hi,
I cant go along with this one.......................

"You might find another need for multiple spawning points - the fact that AI trains only begin as the session itself starts."

I am assuming we are not doing the compared to "other" train sim programs thing here and trying to start an AI train in the past so that it is where we want it to be at the "correct" time to suit the scenario. In which case why not simply put the service where you want it to be when the scenario starts and let it roll as service can be placed anywhere theres track, no portal required and away it goes at the specified time.

Another possible interpritation being that AI services dont start at any other time than the senario start time........
I have AI services leaving at various times from sidings long after the session starts. Have AI services spawned from portals well after the session starts. A service's start time depends on what its set to when the servise is created. Sure the default start time is the session start time and if you dont change it then they will start their journey at the session start time but thats only as a result of the design of the senario.

Ross

philskene

03-14-2008, 07:54 AM

Hi Ross --

"I am assuming we are not doing the compared to "other" train sim programs thing here and trying to start an AI train in the past so that it is where we want it to be at the "correct" time to suit the scenario."

Yes, we are.

"In which case why not simply put the service where you want it to be when the scenario starts and let it roll as service can be placed anywhere theres track, no portal required and away it goes at the specified time."

Yes, I realize it can be done that way. But based on my own reasonably extensive experience with the "other" "other" train sim that doesn't program portals for AI trainz the same way that the "other" does, it can be a absolute pain in the posterior setting up the route for each and every individual AI train. Portals are just so much easier.

If you consider a route like Jim's MSTS PO&N, it takes about 2 hours for an AI train to traverse the route. If the player commences where the AI trains terminate, it might be necessary to set up a score or so AI trains at intermediate locations along the route. Maybe this is easy to do, but from what I've read in this and other forums it can be time consuming, with no guarantee of success.

But you seem to have had more success than most with AI trains. Which routes? How may AI trains? How complex? Would you care to share your scenarios with the rest of the community so that we can see how successful it is?

Phil

OCTheEagle

03-14-2008, 09:35 AM

I guess we'll have to wait for another patch before AI trains can be succesfully, easily implemented into an activity.

BTW: I noticed a bug that when you simulate an activity -> rewind the activity-> make changes to the activity, that these changes are not properly saved. The solution is to exit the activity, reopen it and then make changes.

SCRF75

03-14-2008, 10:40 AM

sniper297

03-14-2008, 12:48 PM

Heya Phil! You mean to tell me Trainz does all this too? If they got the scenario subroutine from Trainz they shoulda left it there. Killer for me - what I want is the same type of "freestyle" setup I had with MSTS PO&N, only it looks like I can't get it. Standard scenarios you need to set a destination for the player, I kludged around that by placing a marker behind the player start point and setting that as a destination, so if the player never backs up he's free to go wherever he wants and continue the scenario as long as he wants. Trouble is this path setup - even if I start an AI train 30 minutes after scenario start and add that AI train to a portal, all the switches are set for that AI train's path and locked so they can't be changed. Even tho that AI train is nothing more than a future promise at 10:05 the player isn't allowed to go onto that path, throw a switch to leave that path, and reset the switch behind him after leaving if the dispatcher is too dumb to reset it, switches are locked solid and can't be changed by any means. I thought MSTS was stupid, what would be so hard about having the AI train check the switch immediately ahead and reset it if it's not set the right way? Instead they made automatic switches to lock the player out of making changes during the activity. :rolleyes: Managed to get around that one with MSTS by setting the AI routes to always enter and leave single track sections via the curve, since in MSTS switches defaulted to straight ahead allowing the player off the path to run straight thru if the path hadn't been set for the AI train yet. With MSTS the path was set at the moment the AI train spawned, and you could control that further with signals since the switches were only set X number of signals ahead of the AI train based on the SigNumClearAhead value in the signal scripts. This is MUCH worse, the manual switches are locked out and there seems to be no way to unlock them. Tried fiddling with the priority settings, but special versus low speed freight seems to have no effect, all manual switches are still locked.

Unless this is fixable it's gonna be really lame, a parallel AI route that never intersects with the player route, therefore no actual interaction with AI trains. :mad:

philskene

03-14-2008, 06:43 PM

Jim --

"If they got the scenario subroutine from Trainz they shoulda left it there."

Dunno about that. I do have the gut feeling that that some ideas from Trainz came across, but got degraded in the process. The file structure in RS is certainly TRS2006 oriented (a retrograde step from TRS2004).

I'm not sure if this will help - I hope maybe it'll give you a few thoughts - but the screen shot below shows how I tamed the AI trainz.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b392/nineercharlie/Misc/JimWard_01.jpg

Portal 1 is behind the ATSF loco, Portal 2 way down in the distance.

The yellow markers are Track Direction Markers and are intended to keep the AI trainz from entering the player track. By themselves they are next to useless.

The red markers are Track Markers.

The script for the AI train tells it to "Go via Track Marker 01", then "Go via Track Marker 02" and finally "Go to Portal 2".

Without the "Go via" commands as soon at the loco exits Portal 1 it sets all the switches to Portal 2 and the Player is totally stuffed, as you are finding in RS.

With the "Go via" commands, the loco proceeds at line speed until it approaches the color light signal where it reduces speed to about 10mph. The spacing between the two signals is critical to avoid a SPAD. At slow speed it reaches Track Marker 01 which then switches Junction 22 and 23 to the diverging route.

The semaphore clears and the loco accelerates to line speed through the squeeze point and along the next loop until it approaches the next color light signal. The process repeats. The switches do revert to the original settings as the loco clears them.

After hours of experimentation it was the ONLY way I could get freedom of movement for the player trainz and control the route of the AI tranz.

Any equivalent in RS ?

Phil

sniper297

03-14-2008, 08:45 PM

Looks like a similar setup. Need to place destination markers for STOP AT instructions to control the path of the train, there's no direct control over the path. Got another new one where a guy is asking about how to set the player route to back into the yard to pick up cars, sad answer is without editing the route to place "gates" (destination markers) to use as reverse points it can't be done. Major difference here, I place destination markers where your "via" thingys are, set STOP AT instructions with a speed above zero MPH (only way to get it to take the sidings instead of going straight thru), and the switches set for the curves at all those junctions and can't be changed by the player even tho they're all manual switches. :mad: Even if the AI train in question isn't set to start for an hour, the switches are all set and locked at the start of the scenario. Most likely you could set the player path thru the straight track and it would set all the switches straight, but since I'm not interested in that lockstep paint-by-numbers crap that would be useless for my purposes. Really ludicrous how they can do this type of thing over and over again, instead of designing something that allows flexibility in operations they start with a limited set of operations in mind and design the game around that. :rolleyes: Anyway, for now I'm giving up on the idea and going with separate AI and player routes that never intersect so we can at least have the atmosphere of other trains in motion while switching cars. Lame, but unless someone comes up with a fix or workaround the only way to get player interaction with AI trains is to rigidly script it for a limited number of meets and lose the player freedom. Don't have the prepatch railsimeditor.exe to test with, but this is one of the things they broke with the upgrade - used to allow AI traffic in free roam but now they don't. Sure hope they get this right with MSTS-X, once again we're back to killing time while waiting for a REAL train simulator to come out. :(

philskene

03-14-2008, 09:37 PM

Jim --

" ... they start with a limited set of operations in mind and design the game around that."

Agree. It's the "mission-accomplished pat-on-the-back well-done" philosophy. We (the game developer/scenario creator) define the task and you, the player, get a few points for completing it exactly as we specify. Make a mistake and we bump you off; do it correctly and we promote you to the next level (I seem to recall some comments by RSAdam over in the UK forum to that effect).

I find it frustrating that the developers went through a consultation phase but never seemed to listen to what users actually want - signaling and AI that would allow prototypical operations.

I think we both realize that interacting with AI is part of the fun. Take it away and part of the magic disappears. And unfortunately it just gives an excuse to race from one end of the route to the other.

Don't hold your breath about MSTS-X unless those dudes are monitoring these threads ... .

Phil

Paddington bear

03-14-2008, 10:58 PM

Hi guys,

I simply unlocked the Paddington free roam scenario and had fun adding AI trains here there and every where. This would suggest that AI in free roam is very possible after the patch. I did this because I thought that way I would eliminate any influence from my attempts at route building and signaling. Initialy, being real lazy I though that Edgware Road to Hammersmith looked like a wonderfuly easy place to play. Being as it was a short independant bit of track........ LOL bad choice for several reasons, turned out that both tracks are bi directional for 1/2 their length then they are both the same single direction the other half. I had to added platform markers at Royal Oak. The "cross over" meant that it was all one block so I had to add signals. Then Every time I tried saving the scenario after adding a train to the portal the game would crash. Discovered that both tracks at each end use the same Portal, and yet they show up as two portals on the 2D map. Unable to recreate that particuale one. Ended up converting one track to bi directional for its total length, and then ended up re arrangeing the track at Hammersmith into a single track so as not to add another Portal. ALL this from not wanting my track laying to be part of the original experimant. For some reason the game still crashes if I try to save after adding a service to either portal so i gave up on Edgware road to Hammersmith and to justify it to myself.......thats a London Underground Route anyway, the rolling stock is all wrong ;-)
So I went to other places along the line and had no trouble adding services to Portals with various start times and then watching them do their thing.

I then tried creating a standard scenario, and have AI traffic spread along the track from Reading to Paddington coming from both Portals at various times and sitting on the track. So far the only inter action between AI and player is that the AI in front of the player service causes red and yellow signals if the play leaves on time, avoided if you leave late ;-). These cause a rather annoying shreking sound in the cab if one happens to SPAD. Havent figured out how to turn that off yet. So far I have observed AI services stopping at reds to avoid collisons with other AI services and have observed them going straight through reds. The player path in this one tends to weave back and forth a bit at the moment as there is not defined "stop at" instructions. I wanted to see what it would do on its own as I increase the volume of AI traffic.
Is quite amusing realy as one tends to get a bit nervious as to where the HST service is thats coming along behind you as you trundle along the main line at commuter speed. Havent been hit yet so somethings going ok so far.

I even added an AI service to the scenario as it was still running in "video" mode. I set it up using the place consist button , patting myself on the back for doing it that way after following snipers tutorial on one screen with RS running on the other, I digress. As soon as I had set it up, it dis-appeared. turned out that as the scenario time was still running the service took off to where it should have been at that time. I would conclude that while AI may not like starting in the past, it sure tries to get back there if it finds itself out of place in the future.

I have no idea on packageing anything at this stage in the learning curve so my contribution is confined to the written word for now.

Ross.

sniper297

03-14-2008, 11:44 PM

Beginning to wonder if there's more than one version here. Just now tried it on the theory that the master free roam might be somehow different;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2394&stc=1&d=1205548153

Nope, place a consist, add a driver, double click on the driver icon and it's a player service in free roam, option to make it AI instead is grayed out in mine. FYI, the reason adding AI services to a portal crashes the game is because the portal is looking for a clear block to spawn the AI train into, so adding a signal to isolate the spawning track fixes that problem. In a standard scenario anyway, like I said I can no longer make an AI train in free roam.

Phil, breath holding is what it's all about, with MSTS-X promised next year many many many many people are staying with MSTS/Trainz until that comes. To draw customers and survive the impending competition KRS needed to be not just good, but sensational. It came up short of good and they seem to keep making it worse instead of better, which means a limited pool of model makers, route builders, and scenario designers, which eventually leads to stagnation. Which means a short lived flash in the pan. :(

philskene

03-15-2008, 01:34 AM

Kinda disagree with you there Jim.

Many find the eye candy very, very attractive, and just wanta drive High Speed Passenger Trains up and down the British East Coast Main Line. They'll see the odd AI train running in the opposite direction, they will stick to the timetable and all's well in their little world. As a GAME it'll continue selling to this group.

It's just hard core SIMULATION bums like us who want to fuss around in yards or those who want to replicate more complex timetable operations that see the shortcomings.

From what I see, those Limeys over in UKSim are giving the developers a relatively easy time too, so there really ain't much incentive for them to make major changes. If there was more pressure to tell it as it is there might be a little less of just tinkering at the edges.

Hmm - how much longer before the Mods close this thread?

Phil

(Postscript - I've just added a YouTube clip over in Trainz thread of switching opeations on the logging area of the Trainz PO&N. Found that compressing a 3GB video file down to 46MB for uploading to UTube knocks the stuffing out of the quality of the original.)

TrainMan_112

03-15-2008, 04:49 AM

About the only thing we can do is alert the developers. Granted, a major fix like this isn't likely, but it's worth a shot. I'll post a link to this over at the RailSimulator forum.

Capt_Scarlet

03-15-2008, 05:06 AM

Nope, place a consist, add a driver, double click on the driver icon and it's a player service in free roam, option to make it AI instead is grayed out in mine. FYI, the reason adding AI services to a portal crashes the game is because the portal is looking for a clear block to spawn the AI train into, so adding a signal to isolate the spawning track fixes that problem. In a standard scenario anyway, like I said I can no longer make an AI train in free roam.

Jim, I think your memory must be playing tricks on you, that little check box is to make the service the player train and not make it a AI train ( it hasnt changed since patch 1 ). By default in free roam that check box has always been greyed out as all trains with a driver can be driven.

As a check I just made a quick free roam scenario with two trains, added a driver icon and set it to start 1min after the start, then added a stop at instruction telling to go via a few markers. I saved and ran the scenario and 1 min after the start the train with the instructions started on its way. I then jumped into the other service with no instructions and chased the other train.

So I see no change since the upgrade mk1 in what it does.

John

John

Capt_Scarlet

03-15-2008, 06:08 AM

From what I see, those Limeys over in UKSim are giving the developers a relatively easy time too, so there really ain't much incentive for them to make major changes. If there was more pressure to tell it as it is there might be a little less of just tinkering at the edges.

I don't think that is quite true, its more to do with the fact it's all been pointed out to RSDL earlier seeing the EU got the sim a number of months before NA and other areas. RSDL know the limitations and its up to them to rectify them ( and they have said they will, within reason and when they can ). So its a matter of waiting for the next patch ( or perhaps the one after ) until some or all of these things get fixed.

John

NorthernWarrior

03-15-2008, 07:15 AM

From what I see, those Limeys over in UKSim are giving the developers a relatively easy time too, so there really ain't much incentive for them to make major changes. If there was more pressure to tell it as it is there might be a little less of just tinkering at the edges.

Some of us did try but it seems only selective parts of the message got across, in certain instances shot down quite bluntly by one of the RSDL reps. In one instance when I revisited road network corruption and fence sections inclining up in the air on placement, I almost felt I was being told it was a figment of my imagination! And putting it as diplomatically as possible, it seems that treading on RSDL toes over there is a bit frowned upon by the people who run the place. 'nuff said...

sniper297

03-15-2008, 12:01 PM

Well, hard to tell about memory, got the game, didn't get a full scenario editor with it, downloaded dev tools when they became available to get a scenario editor, dev tools buggy, deleted same. Bought US version and waited for patch with new dev tools, downloaded and installed same. So several months went by between attempts at AI traffic, so alzheimers is a possibility here, coulda sworn that checkbox was working in free roam with the first scenario editor. :rolleyes: Anyway, the Captain is half right (or half wrong), apparently all it takes to convert a service to an AI service in free roam is to give it a destination. Problem there is the priority isn't doing it, low priority (AI set for "Low Speed Freight", player set for "Special") still locks the manual switches.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2410&stc=1&d=1205591931

Spawning track on the right, I added destination markers to give the AI train STOP AT instructions for destination 1 then destination 2 so it would have to stop at 1 and reverse to 2 before going ahead thru 1 again to continue on to the next STOP AT point. Don't help. This is a free roam scenario starting at 10:00, AI set to start at 10:10, priority set for Low Speed Freight, added AI to portal so it don't actually exist "in the world" at scenario start time.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2411&stc=1&d=1205591938

Don't make any difference, switch is already set for the AI spawning track. Well, they fixed the trailing points derailment (sort of, even the manual switches still sometimes derail), so let's try it anyway.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2412&stc=1&d=1205591943

Pass the switch and it snaps back to show the path into the spawning tracks, locked solid and can't be changed by direct clicking on the lever, G or SHIFT G, or clicking the dot in the 2D map. There IS a difference from the standard scenario, I get a thumping noise while the lever moves slightly before snapping back, and a momentary flash of blue line in the 2D map.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=2413&stc=1&d=1205591949

That's it tho, player is now trapped on the AI path between the start and end points of the AI service, can't throw any switch to get out of the way. Timetabled, standard, or free roam makes no difference, AI path equals locked manual switches.

As for alerting the developers, that's rather useless since they'll just say it wasn't designed to do what I want it to do, they way you're SUPPOSED to do this is give the player a path that he's supposed to follow with no deviations allowed. And then Prototype Pete will chime in and say "that's how trains operate in the real world", since Pete has never seen feeder routes, branch lines, industrial switching districts and belt lines they must not exist. :rolleyes:

SurvivorSean

03-20-2008, 11:30 PM

I think you hit the nail on the head. The problem I see it works fine if your just running trains with AI traffic (maybee even better than MSTS). But unfortunately it looks like real world switching has been overlooked.

Maybee with all this waiting if I just sat down and programmed something myself and it took 3 years, at least I'd listen. Is anybody listening?

Still have not upgraded my pc or purchased KRS. Despite the positives I see too many MSTS like frustrations to deal with.

Thanks

Sean

sniper297

03-21-2008, 12:23 AM

I heard that, looking at nonstop express passenger train fans here for both games.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=242998

What he was trying to do was LUDICROUSLY simple, pull around the corner, back up to pick up a car, then drive on with ONE traffic train involved. Auto switches and !IfEnabled signals made that impossible, something that should have taken about ten seconds to set up and have it run perfectly either ahead of or behind the AI train if the goddamn game was just designed properly. :mad:

Anyway, until something changes;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showpost.php?p=1380373&postcount=13

I'm just gonna kludge around it the best I can for the next version, if they actually DO get something that works I'll start over and adapt the trackplan to that. :rolleyes:

dhammerman2003

03-21-2008, 01:11 AM

Just like at IRM Jim we have switches that we can throw as well as somebody pushing a button. Wonder if a SS would come in handy (that's Spring Switch mind you).

Dave

sniper297

03-21-2008, 05:03 PM

Upgrade mark 1 turns the manual switches into spring safety switches, so the trailing points don't derail now. Problem is facing points, can't throw them to exit the route since the AI path has them locked. Basic problem with both games, MSTS activity editor or KRS scenario editor you put on your dispatcher hat and set the route and schedule for the trains, after that it's cast in concrete. Neither game allows you to change to the dispatcher hat and alter anything once the game starts, so if AI train 1 was delayed, then 1 and 2 will either collide or just stop and look at each other and there's no way to untangle it. Best would be an AI dispatcher you could actually communicate with that could make actual intelligent decisions on the fly, but from a programming standpoint it would be easier to give the player more control over the dispatching during the game.

Some might be old enough to remember Microprose Gunship! and the follow up, Gunship 2000, combat helicopter sims. In Gunship 2000 you started solo, but after promotion you got a squadron of AH-64s to command, yourself and four AI helicopters. Before the mission started you assigned orders to the two different flights in a planning map, and during the game hit the F10 key to bring the map up again, and could change the orders to each individual pilot to do different things. It was also programmed for "what if" unusual things, I get all my instruments knocked out and don't even have a compass, how do I find my way home? Hit F10, order one of the AI pilots to join on me, then hit F10 again, order him to return to base and follow him. :cool:

Need something similar here, with no intelligence in the artificial intelligence there should be some way for the player to issue instructions to AI trains, telling train one to bypass siding A where he was originally scheduled to meet train 2, and take the hole at siding D instead for example. They made a pretty good start with the 2D map, allowing more than one switch to be changed by the player at a time, but more direct control in the scenario editor and in the game itself over AI traffic is needed.

NorthernWarrior

03-22-2008, 12:08 PM

It's not as if dynamic AI despatching sub-routines don't exist in train games to begin with.

Look at Zusi 2 or for that matter Transport Tycoon (or one of its open source clones). In Zusi 2 if things do get knotted up, you have the option of going into the timetable page and deleting the train responsible, thus freeing up everything to run.

One does wonder at the design stage of RS someone didn't actually consider having the RRT3 system - trains just greying out when you pass them, but took a step back from that particular abyss. That said, the ability to "grey out" and pass through without collision would be preferable to the current state of affairs where you either have a collision with rolling stock catapulted to the stratosphere, or a permanent stand off.

OwainGlyndwr

03-23-2008, 10:32 AM

I am going to download this here hillbilly route and see what is causing all the dangburn fuss..................them there beverly hillbilly`s sure don't know how to run a railway. :D

EDIT: Just installed it and had a quick look. My personal opinion obviously..............but not enough Destination\Route Markers to assist AI operation....................manual points at the entrance to industries where they would be better served with AI controlled auto points and Destination Gate Markers, with manual points inside the boundaries of the industries.

Would have been nice to have the Destinations available from the right hand flyout.......to be able to pick destinations from the long\Lat compass.

Also with high quality DEM available, the terrain would look more realistic if you just added some authetic terrain from anywhere in the USA. ;)

No offence meant Jim, just my personal observations.

regards,
Mike.

sniper297

03-23-2008, 03:25 PM

PO&N is a Northern States type route, you got me mixed up with that Jewish Hillbilly from South CackleLackey or whatever the name of that Confederate state is. West Metro & Canton? East Virginia & Cumberland? Can't remember, the guy cranks out a new route every five minutes or so, full of sticky pineapples and root beer or something. :rolleyes:

Anyway, route markers are generally used to lay out where the track is gonna go, for KRS they have the additional function after the track is laid where you can use them to jump to different locations. Nothing to do with AI traffic since they're not part of the track database. Siding, platform, and destination markers, along with portals, have been added to the in-progress PO&N US 3 now that we know they're required to make AI trains do anything, still trying to hammer out the signals. Got a parallel AI only route which has diamond crossings with the player mainline here and there, avoids the whole locked switch problem since there ain't any switches. Only thing is, now I'm getting the signals not clearing problem along with the "creeping" AI train bug, both of which they're allegedly aware of and working on a fix.

Too late now, but I probably should have warned you in advance, fictional routes, especially PO&N, are addictive. :eek: Like the Temperance preacher who decided to try just one beer on a challenge to see exactly what it was he was denouncing, you're on the slippery slope now and there's no turning back. :D

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_d8LWu_jfvA

OwainGlyndwr

03-23-2008, 07:24 PM

I am a "greycoat" supporter...............The Souths Gonna Rise Again. :D

Only decent band out of the US was a southern band...........Lynyrd Skynyrd. ;)

I know what route markers are used for Jim, but that does not mean you cannot create a named marker file for the main locations in your route, from the long\lat of those locations.

I personally prefer to see the AI interacting with the player, not running around seperately.

As someone who used Trainz for 6 years, i understand the benefits of frequent track markers, for controlling pathing and keeping AI and player controlled consists from collision.

cheers,
Mike.

sniper297

03-23-2008, 11:03 PM

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=268782

Two different aspects of this, trying to get the AI trains to go where how and when you want in the scenario, and setting up the route to overcome the problems with the scenario editor. If I can make this work, there WILL be interaction of a sort, player comes to a crossing and sees green he goes, he see red he stops and waits for the AI train to pass and then goes. Not working even within that limited setup as yet;

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?f=221&t=81881

Due to that problem plus signals that don't clear when they're supposed to. :mad:

For the most basic setup, place AI train at A and set destination for B, then start player on the parallel track at B with instructions to "take these passengers to A" you really don't need any more than what they provided. In fact for that you don't even need signals. Where it breaks down is in the actual interaction, and trying to have more than one AI train per scenario, for that you need a portal to "spawn" each AI train at the scheduled time into the world and another portal to remove it from the world at the end of the run. Further, an AI train won't spawn from the portal except into a clear block, if the block is occupied you get scenario failed to load, so now you need signals to isolate the section of track in front of the portal so the AI train has a clear block to spawn into. As is, this is not designed for complex operations, merely the simplified "take these passengers to holiday" scenario, put it in gear and open the throttle, admire the passing scenery and wave at one or two passing AI trains on the way. :rolleyes: Just like MSTS, in other words.