Speed of AI

[250787]

I have been making some activities for Thames - Mersey. Most of the AI traffic does not travel at full speed. One example is that I am driving 304 on a stopping service. I pull away from a station and overtaken by a class 82 hauled express. As I reach full speed (about 70mph) I overtake the express which is very unrealistic. Is there a fix for this? I have seen this happen on other activities as well.

Cheers

[Backfoot2002]

I have the same problem with some AI trains. For the activity that I did and uploaded to UKTS, the Silverlink trains were travelling too slow, even on the mainline. The only trains that were running at correct speeds were the EWS 66 and all other Virgin Services and also other freight trains.

Mine you the 321 shots off like a rocket when you drive it, mayeb that could be something to do with the problem, as all other trains seem to be fine.

Anton

[mjspeed]

I've been getting this too, so it must be a route thing. I've found that even the first train along a path will travel slowly. I timetabled a fast train to leave Euston about 2 minutes before my slow lines service, and I had caught and passed it just before Wembley Central!

Could it be signalling related, with a low number of signals clearing ahead of each train perhaps?

[Lad491]

In the consist setup there are two settings which have a bearing on AI train speed. The first is the performance setting which defaults to 75% (meaning that the train will only run at a maximum of 75% of the line speed maximum), This should be changed to 99%. Then in the actual timetable the performance setting there also defaults to 75% and again needs increasing to 99% - or whatever you need to achieve the desired arrival times.
Change both of these settings and your trains will run as fast as they can.

[250787]

Cheers. I will try that.

[ianmacmillan]

may be the AI driver is tripping the overspeed and grinding to a halt.

He does this in the NWE introductory train ride 4 times in the first 20 minutes.

[systema]

Another solution is to edit the consist file in wordpad.

I would reccommend creating 'new' consists if you are going to edit them since alterations may affect activities created by other people.

The 4th line down in a consist file determines the max speed eg

Train (
TrainCfg ( "Class 390 x 8_135"
Serial ( 2 )
MaxVelocity ( 83.33 1.000 )
NextWagonUID ( 8 )
Durability ( 1.00000 ) etc etc

The first number in brackets is the max velocity but not in mph. The factor required is 1.61, thus in this case the max speed = 83.33x1.61 = 135mph (134.1613 exactly). The second number in line 4 is not fully understood but cannot be greater than 1.0. I think 1.0 will give an AI train running at its max speed over any given line speed for all dcircumstances eg going up steep hills round sharp bends etc. Anything less than 1.0 will give a less efficient consist.

If you wish your train to run at a max speed of 100mph you will need to edit line 4 to MaxVelocity(62.11 1.000). 100/1.61=62.11.

This technique eliminates the need to alter the performance factors from 75 in the AE. However, I have found this method is not 100% reliable either. For example, if there are manual points on your main lines this will cause problems. Also, starting an AI consist a long time before the activity start time causes problems.

A labourious workaround to this problem is to set up shortened paths for your trains that start before you. Just about worth the effort if you have a good activity in the making.

As someone else pointed out the playback utlity in AE is unreliable and there is no substitue for running and reunning your activities. However, you will get faster AI trains with the above method- I hope.

[simont]

You get this on certain routes, where the AI trains go far slower than their calculated timetable suggests, and when you 'verify starting state' in the activity, they're all miles behind where you expect them. I've never been able to figure out the cause: it seems to be some routes, in some directions, from some start points. Maybe they're on a track that an (increased) speed limit marker doesn't reach, and they stay at a 20mph limit for their entire journey, I don't know. Either way, it's the single most frustrating thing when it comes to making activities, I find.

[choccy]

I think AI trains quite often run more or less to timetable but the VCR seems to disregard gradients whilst the Sim doesn't causing AI trains to arrive either early or late! The only sure way to know to what timeatble AI trains are running is to go into the Sim and note the times of AI trains whereever you can. There is a way of spying on them throughout there whole journey though that takes a bit more effort!

Mark

[ianmacmillan]

Could it be that the dispatcher is allowing an AI SPAD?

This would reduce the speed to 15MPH until the next signal. If it then gets to SPAD again it will keep crawling.
I have seen AI trains passing signals because they were unable to stop in time and they just kept on going.
It happened to me on the Ohio route and I reversed behind a signal. The AI just kept on going.
I have had a games ending because an AI train has derailed or crashed but never because it ignored a signal.

Time to run that NWE introductory again.

[jimmyladd]

I have found that when you set up a piece of AI traffic if you press the recalculate times button several times it will come up with the times that the AI train is really going to arrive at, which is often different from the figure arrived at by pressing the button just once

[lemberg]

The second no in the fourth line is the accelleration, make thia about 0.3 and the starting and stopping is much more realistic.
Lemberg.

[salopiangrowler]

personally i think AI trains go too fast on the L2BE as i did an activity for myself and at a certain stage a pair of 37's on 8 coaches came storming round the corner then stopped without spadding which was a miracle