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Can we make more than one passenger views?

Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:38 pm
by sreeju444
I created a new Indian route and made some activities. All are successful. But only one thing is that about the passenger views. My train has total 22 coaches with 6 different types, put in random order (Indian Coaches). All different 6 coaches have different passenger views. But in the game, only one passenger view will be available by presseng the key "5". So is there any way to get the remaining different passenger views in the Game?

Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:57 pm
by thenudehamster
In a word, no. Well, 'not exactly' would be more accurate.
MSTS will accept any number of passenger views but will only display the first one it finds - and I think I'm right in saying it works from the rear of the consist to the front. So you can have all your coaches with a passenger view, but you'd have to remarshall the train to be able to use each one, and only one would show at any one time anyway.

Unless someone else knows different.....

Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 11:40 pm
by kevarc
Nope, you got it Barry.

Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 11:58 pm
by BobLatimer
There is a way to relatively easily change the passenger view outside of MSTS, so that the next time you run it you get a different view. This method is used in some North American passenger car sets, for example, the VIA set by Gaétan Bélanger.

Basically you have two versions of each car, one with a passenger view (**.alt) and one without (**.non). You also have a .wag file for each car. When you want to change the passenger view (when MSTS is not running), you run a batch file that copies the .alt file into the .wag file for the one with the view you want to use and the .non files into the .wag files for those you don't.

One thing I haven't tried, so I'm not sure what happens, is to start an activity, run it for a while, save it, close MSTS, change the passenger view, run MSTS and load the saved activity.

(I think MSTS actually picks up the first view from the front, Barry.)

Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 2:45 am
by BobLatimer
Just did a bit of experimenting with Gaétan's VIA set.

I made up a consist of several of the cars with passenger views,
- loaded the consist in Explore Mode and had a look to see which passenger view was active,
- saved the game,
- exited the activity (not MSTS),
- minimised MSTS,
- ran a batch file to change the passenger view,
- loaded the saved game
and the new passenger view appeared. :)

Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 9:26 am
by thenudehamster
Which is, I suspect, the result most of us would have predicted. Trouble is, I suspect that sree really wants to change views 'on the fly' or have several possible views available at once - and that's not possible, unfortunately.

Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 9:41 am
by BobLatimer
Well, I'm not sure I would have predicted it, without trying it that is.

Sometimes a change between a save and a restore prevents MSTS from restoring a saved game. Sometimes a change between a save and a restore doesn't prevent the restore but doesn't result in any changes either (since MSTS appears to save some things as part of the "saved" configuration).

In this case the change was effective and the restore worked.

I agree that changes "on the fly" are not possible, but this is the next best thing.

Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 6:18 pm
by thenudehamster
latimers wrote:Well, I'm not sure I would have predicted it, without trying it that is.
I wouldn't have knon how to do what you did, but once having read your method, the result seems logical - but I do keep forgetting that MSTS doesn't always work with the same logic as the rest of the world...


(Retires, suitably chastened, to try to get his brain back into proper MSTS mode)