Atomic Systems

Hi,

I'm pretty new to this, and I just downloaded the Dorset Coast Route v3, and upgraded it to v4. I downloaded an activity (the SWT Twickenham semi fast - Waterloo) and managed to install that activity. Now, my question lies with the stock required to run that activity. The activity download page claims that all the required stock is on the Dorset Route CD, but I don't have that, as I downloaded the route. I'm having the hardest time trying to locate all this stock, as MSTS won't load, and it puts up an error saying that it's trying to find this train, but can't. What do I do now? How can I get hold of all the stock easily?

I've found a lot of it, but it's not the right version or anything, so I'm at a loss (nearly completely)

Cheers for any help,

Regards, George.

Hi George

I guess the first, painful, lesson is that you shouldn't install any activity until you have installed all the stock it requires.

You can remove the activity file from your Routes/Dorset Coast/Activities folder, but that will leave the consists that were installed for the activity, and those are probably what is causing your problems.

You should be able to find which are the most recent consists you have installed. Use Windows Explorer, navigate to your Train Simulator/Trains/Consists folder, and sort by the Date modified column so the most recent files are at the top - if you look at the date, you will probably be able to find the ones this activity installed. Create another folder and move them there, in case you need them again.

Now try MSTS.

Dorset Coast is very demanding, so it would be best if you installed Trainstore and the Bin patch - you can find plenty about these elsewhere in these forums.

The Dorset Coast CD only costs £4.50, and with that you get one month's premium membership - well worth it. You will then have the route, with activities and all the stock required. And with your premium membership, you will be able to download all the Version 4 files to upgrade the CD to the latest version.

Alan

Please have a look at my railway photograph site - http://alan-lewis-chambers.fotopic.net/ - lots of British steam and early diesels

Must confess I am in the same boat myself. Very new at this, been playing Trainz for a while, but getting bored of it's insane content manager, so I tried BVE which impressed me enormously, but I've used up all the routes for it So it's (back to)MSTS (after a brief flirtation a coupla years ago)for me now.

I downloaded Dorset, same exact deal.

So apart from getting the CD ( which I will do, but I'm an impatient sort ), what's the best way to go about finding out what's needed and obtaining it?

With 2 years of Trainz, and 7 of Linux under my belt, my general attitude to dependency issues is "bring it on".

So, essentially, what DOES one do, in general, to ensure you have all the assets required for a route.



PS...why Dorset? Easy, I was on the mainline on a trip to Bournemouth a few months ago, and also the branchlines run through the settings of my favourite book, The War of the Worlds, it sounds like fun to drive on rails torn up by the Martians in 1904

If you download and run route-riter ( available from the front page ) and pick the check activity function it will give you a list of all the missing stock. All you then have to do is to locate that stock in the file library ( or something similar you could use as a substitute as not everything on the CD is available for download ) and install it. You will need to watch the naming structure of the folder since it may well be different from the CD version of the same item as the author used a unique naming structure. Even with the stock installed if the folder name isnt exactly right it wont work

A good tip is to make a note of the exact error of the first piece of missing stock when you run the activity, then download that making sure you put it exactly where the sim is looking for it ( from the error message ). Then run the sim again and hopefully the first error has now gone and you can move on to the next. Ive found it easier to do that than try and cope with a huge amount of errors all in one go.

Ta very much for the advice, I shall see what I can do. I suppose I can download what can be downloaded, delete references that anything that can't, and take it from there ( at least until I buy the CD)

thegoonden wrote:delete references that anything that can't

We strongly suggest that you replace anything you can't download with a similar piece of equipment that you can download.

If you just do what you say in the above quote, the activity will not run - to delete references, you have to go into the Ativity Editor and change the whole activity - not an easy task if you are new to MSTS and have not used the AE yet.

Sorry, that's what I really meant

Anyway, I decided I was trying to run before I coud crawl.
I have since done the following.....

Reinstalled MSTS, and followed the tutorial on installing woodhead.
Managed to get the activity "a local train for local people" to work on that route.....including locomotive sounds which were undocumented (had to copy the accela sounds into the class 76's folder).

Ordered, Dorset coast, Nothern rail Routes, Irish Enterprise and another one that eludes me just now.

Hopefully, the large amount of stock these will install (presumably automatically) will make future downloading efforts a bit easier too.

Until those show up ( although I've heard UKTS are kinda rapid), anyone care to suggest a woodhead activity that uses not too much stock, or stock that's moron-proof to install?

Cant help with Woodhead unfortunately as I dont have the route.

Just a tip, as you have ordered a lot of addon's, dont fall into the common trap of installing them all in one go. Install one and test it fully to make sure it works ok before moving onto the next. That way diagnosis of any problems is easier. Oh, and you will definitely have to use trainstore for Dorset Coast ( and the other routes ). Its on the Dorset Coast CD.

Also download the latest version of the tsection.dat file (available from the front page ) and keep it on your desktop. After each installation place a copy of it into your global folder to overwrite the one there. A lot of routes install old versions which are not compatible with newer routes. Doing that will save you a lot of problems.

Yeah, I will probably install Enterprise first, (although the line stops in Belfast and doesn;t extend down to bangor, where I live..grrr I feel my first route coming on).
Once I get that working, I will do Dorset Coast.

I am right in thinking am I not, that with trainstore installed, you can avoid a knackered MSTS....for example, I may have all thr right stock for ONE activity but be missing some for another, I assume trainstore will let the working one run without loading the broken one.

Tested TS today, NICE, very nice.

In general, are CD routes fairly complete or am I gonna be wrestling the DL database again?

Starting to learn though that MSTS is just scripts and hash tables, nothing a Linux user should be scared of (except MS's dodgy syntac maybe )