Saving S Files in Activity Editor

[slipperman12]

Hi John,
Many thanks, but there are other parts shown as a red line and I haven't been able to sort it out yet due to the large distances between nodes.

Cheers,
Ged

[scampispeedway]

Hi Everyone, just to say that memory can play tricks on you as time passes, after looking for my sheets for this activity which I knew were around
somewhere, I found them and two others I had problems with for this Route and low and behold there is nothing written on them.
The only conclusion I must assume was it wouldn't load and so gave up on it but there was one other which after a two hour drive from York to
Kings Cross kept locking up as I was heading into London and this is the one that stuck in my mind as I tried several changes to it but never
found the reason.
Sorry for my mistake but at least I know what was causing it to load properly and will have a look at it again later on.

Bob

[johnbarron]

OK Ged.

I'd give you a hand but I don't have the route.

Just a thought, if the paths are broken in several places it sounds like they were written for a different version of the route. Were they supposed to be updated in one of the later incarnations and combinations? Either that or the activity wasn't tested properly before it was released.

John.

[scampispeedway]

Hi John, I've unpacked the Activity using Ged's unpacker and it clearly is asking for the East Coast Express parts 1+2 Route , I did write the Track Data
Base number as 1852 on one sheet which when looking in Route containing Parts 1+2 folder, the RDB serial number is 1851 so why I loaded it in the
Route after adding the Leeds Loop I cannot remember.
I will reload my ECE Parts 1+2 Route in again as I always keep the different versions of a Route which use the same name, away from MSTS and in
folder titled with version number for just such an need as this and then re-install the Activity normally and see what I can do to get it working.

Bob

[aj52mdy]

I'm afraid that all of this has rather gone over my head, At least it is good to know that it is not a problem with my computer.
What I have done though, Is to remove all of the consists Paths services Act and TRF files to my "Acts not wanted" folder located in my backup East Coast
Express folder on my EHD. Along with a few of the acts that shipped with the CD that either were boring and/or did not run smoothly.
I have to say that all of the acts that I have downloaded for East Coast express run smoothly, My two favourites so far is the Sundays Grand Central HST from York to KX via the World (Leeds and the Hertford loop) and also the Southbound "White Rose" which is formed of a GNER class 373/3 "White Elephant" Eurostar"

Going back to the Flying Scotsman activity, If I was to just manually remove the two srv files would this work or does it have to be put through the activity editor?
I was able to "Repair" the class 317 Woodgreen srv file.
I still have a few more acts to install and try so would leave the FS act to last.

Cheers
Andy

[scampispeedway]

Hi Andy, you must open up the .Act file using WordPad and scroll down until you see the line starting with :- Service_Definition ( "RS_Up_RR_156 York"
41280, now look lower down at the next Service_Definition and it is for the 158 and delete all these lines starting with the above line including the
closing bracket I.e. ) under the line Platform ID (1961), do not delete the second closing bracket below this one as it is needed.
You can now save the .Act file but then you must repeat this operation in the .trk file, doing this removes the need to delete the services as the Activity
no longer needs them.

Bob

[slipperman12]

Hi Bob,
I must disagree with you!!

Just removing (renaming) the two .srv files enabled the activity to complete successfully - as I reported previously. It was a surprise to discover that it wasn't necessary to remove the two "Service" entries from the .act file!

I don't understand your mention of the .trk file, but I'm sure you mean the .trf file - if so, it is NOT necessary to make any changes to that file, either.

Cheers,
Ged

[scampispeedway]

Hi Ged, yes you are correct that I should of said that you amend the .trf file not the .trk file, I'm surprised that just deleting/renaming the service
files will let the Activity run properly as surely the original named files are in the .act and .trf files so if they are missing these files you will not be
able to load the Activity into MSTS.
The only way to remove these services properly is using the Activity Editor but as you cannot do this because of the faulty paths, I must assume
that you removed the services which allowed you get into the Activity Editor and deleted them in the Traffic Folder, which on saving the Activity
would have allowed you to do the run o.k.
By amending the Activity the way I've suggested gets round the need to use the Activity Editor and is simpler and quicker.

Bob

[slipperman12]

Hi Bob,
You are, of course, correct that the Service entries in the .act file have to be removed, BUT, I have a mystery!! I did not, consciously, remove those from the .act file, but they aren't there!! I wonder if, when I was re-saving the Class 317 service, AE removed the two York services because of their broken paths? I feel it's unlikely and that I must have done it, however, I'm going back to square one, if only to determine if I'm losing my mind, ... or not

Cheers,
Ged

[slipperman12]

Hi,
Well, I'm very relieved to report that I'm not losing my marbles!!

Entering AE to deal with the NSE Class 317 service being out of date, also resulted in the two York "set up after load failed" messages. When the activity was saved, as well as correcting the NSE Class 317 service, it also removed the two "York" service entries from the .act file.

So, I've learned something new today - to remove any service from an activity, it's only necessary to remove its entry from the .act file. This applies to MSTS, but it also appears to work the same under Open Rails, although I've only done a test start of the activity.

Cheers,
Ged

[scampispeedway]

Hi Ged, I have the original Files from the unpacked .apk file so that I could delete from my ECE Parts 1+2+3 Route files, the unwanted Paths,
Services and Traffic Files, I had already removed the .act file so had no idea what was in the .apk file and from your findings I could see the two
services in both the .act and .trf files and so if they were causing trouble it seemed the best thing to do was remove them from both files.
When the time comes to look at this Activity I will re-load the .apk into the ECE Parts 1+2 Route, and try and sort out the problem of these broken
paths so that the Activity can be run as intended.
From the print out of both paths tells me the 156 York starts in York and head down the Leeds Branch, whilst the 158 York starts north of York and
ends south of York, this latter one is the only one that stops in York so I could make/alter the path so that it uses clear unused track for both services.

Bob

[slipperman12]

Hi,
I have now re-written the two "York" paths which were broken and have run the activity to a successful conclusion. I saw the Class 156 going towards Leeds when approaching York and the 158 when in York station (I was early!!).

To ensure it works with the specified parts 1 & 2 of ECE only, I have to rerun it in that configuration, or, at least, ensure the activity doesn't crash!

I'm not sure whether copyright rules allow me to supply the amended files - there will be several - or to supply an amended apk file. I welcome any views, please.

Cheers,
Ged

[slipperman12]

Hi,
UPDATE : This activity will only work properly if ONLY East Coast Express Parts 1 and 2 are installed. The addition of Part 2 v1.2 patch doesn't affect this activity. If Part 3 (Leeds Loop) is added, it alters the track database which causes the broken paths.

As supplied. the activity readme specifies that "at least parts 1 and 2" of the East Coast Express route are required; this, I suggest, that is an error.

Andy : Can you confirm, or deny, that your installation also contains the Leeds Loop part of ECE, please?

Cheers,
Ged

[aj52mdy]

Andy : Can you confirm, or deny, that your installation also contains the Leeds Loop part of ECE, please?

Cheers,
Ged

Hi Ged.
I can indeed confirm that I have all Four ECE Routes installed, so yes it does include the Leeds loop.
I guess then that this activity was written when only Routes 1 and 2 were available then.

I have another large activity that drops back to desktop when I try to load it, This time it is the 1N02 0730 Kings Cross to Newcastle which contains quite a lot of A1 Freight traffic
In this case, My computer does not give any indication why the activity "Crashes to desktop"

Cheers

Andy

[slipperman12]

Hi Andy,
Thanks for the confirmation

I'll have a look at the other activity later today, but as it specifies "Parts 1 & 2", I suspect it may have similar problems to RS_Flying_Scotsman

Cheers,
Ged