Creating an activity?

[chester025]

Hi,

I’m creating an activity from London –York using 37418 + 37087 (a Railtour) with the East Lancashire beer ex stock, with a bit of a twist. I not doing too bad, I’ve made a timetable for it and got the right train. But there are a couple of questions I need to ask. I’ll go one at a time. First question is:

How do I put quite a lot AI on through out the route?

Cheers,

Chester025

[jbilton]

Hi
The best way is....
To build up about ten suitable trains.
Then make enough short paths to cover the whole route (but in the opposite direction).
Then write a traffic file, making services using a random from the ten trains, over the short paths, timed to pass the main players train.
Cheers
Jon

[Easilyconfused]

Jon has hit the nail squarely on the head there. Avoid at all costs very lengthy AI paths and services since the simulation has to calculate and track all the active services even if they are miles away from you.

You will need to run the activity and note down the times you pass various locations and then add AI as appropriate. The problem comes when people drive too fast or too slow so you need to give a few minutes window where they will see the AI service.

Test, test and then test some more. That is why I have seen people like LAD491 quote development times approaching 200 hours for some activities.

If you want the AI traffic to influence your signals then you have even more testing to do and you have to contend with the maniac AI signalman.

Kindest regards

John

[chester025]

Hi,

Thank you to the two people above I'll give that a go. Next question.

The twist is that 37087 develops a problem and has to be looked at by the fitters, so you have to stop at the next station (Welwyn North (which you're not booked to stop at) and then its taken off the train and has to be taken to a siding which is situated just south of Stevenage. But because you have to go across the down lines there'll be AI traffic in the way, so how do I get it across with the points changing automatically and without out disrupting the AI traffic?

Cheers,

Chester025

[thenudehamster]

You can't have it both ways, at least not easily. Let's face it, in a real life scenario such as you describe, something has to give. Either the traffic on the mainline has to be held up for long enough to enable your disabled loco to be moved across the running lines, or the disabled move has to wait for a 'hole' in the traffic. Even then, all signals must be set against the running traffic.
To engineer a slight delay you can use reverse points, and, with the Bin patches, I believe, wait points but it's a complex process. Simplest idea is to arrange a 'hole' in your AI traffic just ahead of the enforced stop; set a reverse point in the station on the player path and try to time things so that the player service arrives three or four minutes before the last interfering AI service. AI traffic clears, player trips reverse point, path changes and player trundles off to the safe hands of the engineers. Laurie (Lad491) is pretty good at these scenarios; if you take a look at one or two of his activities you'll get the idea. IIRC the Olympic Ballast train to Weymouth on DC3 has a similar scenario at Totton (not sure if this is one of Laurie's, but it's complex enough) where you must wait for a passing passenger before your freight gets the road.

Much depends on what you're trying to achieve and to show, but don't make players wait too long - drivers might get bored and fall asleep...

BarryH - thenudehamster