Atomic Systems

One decides to edit a route, for whatever reason, and then one wants to save it but not overwrite the orignal, for whatever reason.

You can't! It's impossible.

And you can't save a route by giving it a name.

What IDIOT at Kuju thought this idea up?

Um,

Routes are not exactly like word documents.

First off the whole route folder would have to be copied and GUID generated, then an additional section added to the Routes.xml

Any scenarios would have to be copied and adjusted to point at the correct route.

God knows what else would need adjusted.

nwallace wrote:Um,

Routes are not exactly like word documents.

First off the whole route folder would have to be copied and GUID generated, then an additional section added to the Routes.xml

Any scenarios would have to be copied and adjusted to point at the correct route.

God knows what else would need adjusted.

So? That's the game programmer's problem, it shouldn't be mine, the consumer.

I believe that if you create a new route using your "old" route as the template you will be able to achieve what you want.

rogertra wrote:What IDIOT at Kuju thought this idea up?

Personally, I'd say the 'idiots' have done a very good job and I believe at least 2 of them are regulars on this forum, so I have to say that comment's bugging me slightly. Show a little respect, please.

I am sorry, but first of all you should have made an Back up copy of route, and you can't Blame the Programmers as they do have a big work load to contend with, and as other people have said it's not an document.

well i dont agree with calling the developers "idiots"
but i do agree that a save as fuction would be nice, after all trainz has one

nikos1 wrote:well i dont agree with calling the developers "idiots"

Quite right - not really very nice. They got paid to do their job like most of us did today.

nikos1 wrote:but i do agree that a save as fuction would be nice, after all trainz has one

RS is not Trainz but I take your point.

Having said that - as at least 1 other member has said - copy the folders somewhere safe before doing anything. Most MSTS downloads tell us to back up everything before we load new stuff.

mpeffers wrote:

rogertra wrote:What IDIOT at Kuju thought this idea up?

Personally, I'd say the 'idiots' have done a very good job and I believe at least 2 of them are regulars on this forum, so I have to say that comment's bugging me slightly. Show a little respect, please.

Good, then perhaps they'll get the message and make the game more consumer friendly?

I've read the (poor) instruction manual that comes with the game. Under "Editing Basics" it neither tells me how to save changes with a new name nor does it tell be how to "back up" the original. That's basic "Basic Editing" information that's needed by the average consumer who'd like to change locos and rolling stock without reading a volumnous PDF manual that's only available though downloading.

Not to have a "Save As" button is, as I've said before and will continue to state, "Stupid". How it's done, or whether the game is or isn't like a word document is, as a consumer, not my problem. That's the game programmer's problem and should be possible and I, as a consumer, should not be required to become a developer or programmer in order to "save" or "back up" a scenario or route nor should I, as a consumer, be expected to go into game files and make back ups.

To do so, is stupid.

What you and the other "experts" are expecting is that the average consumer, like me, has the same knowledge and experience or should gain the same knowledge experience as you and the game programmers in order to save and or back up routes and scenarios.

To do so is stupid.

rogertra wrote:That's basic "Basic Editing" information that's needed by the average consumer who'd like to change locos and rolling stock without reading a volumnous PDF manual that's only available though downloading.

Technically speaking, the "average" consumer couldn't be bothered. They're not likely to edit, tinker, or do anything else besides buy the product, run it as installed, and perhaps buy an add-on or two. Once the consumer starts tweaking the installed files, he elevates himself beyond "average", which holds true for most games available - past or present.

What you're demanding is that some idiot redesigns the editor so it can be used by ANY idiot?

Using RStoolsTMB "check routes" utility, find out the folder name of your route, example 5e94ad12-f203-48d2-b518-1f52867700fa.
Open Windows Explorer, File, New Folder, name it "backup" or "myroute" or something.
Open that folder, file, new folder, 1202 (today's date)
Browse to Rail Simulator\Content\Routes, find the 5e94ad12-f203-48d2-b518-1f52867700fa folder, copy.
Go to \backup\1202\, paste.
Now you have one backup of the route, each day make a new folder in \Backup and repeat the copy/paste, if you back up two or three times a day name them 1302a, 1302b, and so on.

Also, if you're gonna be editing routes, probably best to run in windowed mode so you can exit without saving changes. If I have to tell you to periodically delete some of the oldest backups when you're sure everything is working, you're beyond even this idiot's help.

Sniper wrote: -

"What you're demanding is that some idiot redesigns the editor so it can be used by ANY idiot?"

In a word, Yes. The programmers should have done that. I play several games where I alter scenarios and use the "Save As" option so as not to loose the original. I have many versions of some scenarios, none of which required me to go into the program files. And, altering scenarios is supported by the games with suitable editing programs supplied that do all the "saving" work for you.

Anyway, this idiot thanks you for taking your time to show me how to back up scenarios though why a programmer could not program a "Save As" button to do the same thing is beyond me. If you can write it out in plain English, then a program should be able to do the same thing.

One last thing, why on earth are routes and scenarios not saved by name, to make them easy to find, but by some complex random string like "5e94ad12-f203-48d2-b518-1f52867700fa"? Wouldn't "Foggy Day" be easier to find?

Once again, this idiot thanks you for your help.

Well, I agree with you there, the idea was the scenarios and routes have those GUID (generated unique identifiers) so that I don't upload a "Island of Sodor" route that overwrites your "Island of Sodor" route. Why that was felt necessary I have no idea, even with all the different mods and versions of Marias Pass for MSTS over the years I can't recall a single case of two people uploading the same folder name.

First thing I do after creating or installing a new route is use RStoolsTMB to find out what the folder name is, then go into that folder, right click, select new text file. Type "A" or "1" or "musta been a helluva party when they thought THIS one up" or whatever in the text file, don't really matter because it's just for a marker. So I open the \823d1d2d-fa4b-433d-843b-87ac16ad83bb and see a "portogdenUS.txt" file, open \fed2c476-ff63-4a1e-ab0d-bcab1cd830f2 and see a "ChicagoMetro.txt" file, don't need to actually open and read the files since the names tell me which route is in that folder.

To clone a route;

http://steam4me.railpage.org.au/RailSim ... route.html

Do that a couple times and you can have several working copies going at the same time, just remember to put in a "portogden1.txt" or "portogden2.txt" or whatever for each clone, if the text filename matches the name you gave it when you created it you won't get discombobulated and copy the one you just trashed into a backup, or copy a backup into one you just recreated the Taj Mahal on.

Automating this, who knows, Mike Simpson (most under appreciated benefactor of trainsimmers either directly or indirectly in history, check out how many MSTS routes have an "installme.bat" file that came from his gadget) could eventually add an automatic backer upper to RStoolsTMB like the one in Route Riter. I never used that particular feature of Route Riter cuz I've been doing that "new folder with today's date copy/paste" backup starting with Windows 3.1 File Manager for the original DOOM wad files. Don't recall if that one had a "save as" feature, I really don't remember very many that did. Morrowind and Oblivion editors have it, those are the only ones I can think of recently. MSTS activity editor had it, but the route editor didn't.

sniper297 wrote:What you're demanding is that some idiot redesigns the editor so it can be used by ANY idiot?

Using RStoolsTMB "check routes" utility, find out the folder name of your route, example 5e94ad12-f203-48d2-b518-1f52867700fa.
Open Windows Explorer, File, New Folder, name it "backup" or "myroute" or something.
Open that folder, file, new folder, 1202 (today's date)
Browse to Rail Simulator\Content\Routes, find the 5e94ad12-f203-48d2-b518-1f52867700fa folder, copy.
Go to \backup\1202\, paste.
Now you have one backup of the route, each day make a new folder in \Backup and repeat the copy/paste, if you back up two or three times a day name them 1302a, 1302b, and so on.

Also, if you're gonna be editing routes, probably best to run in windowed mode so you can exit without saving changes. If I have to tell you to periodically delete some of the oldest backups when you're sure everything is working, you're beyond even this idiot's help.

This is good advice and only takes a moment at the end of a session. I do this at the end of every day I work on the Route. In my experience most games that involve the user making new content always overwrite the previous work with the new work. As to calling those at RSDL idiots. This is out of order and unjustified IMHO.
Regards James.

I have retracted my "idiots" comments and realise that it was over the top.

As for everything else I wrote, I stand by it.