Atomic Systems

Hi guys. I'm still rather new to the whole train-simming thing, and have only owned RailWorks for a short time. However, I've really become very immersed in this wonderful program, and for the last week or so have been getting my feet wet with using the RW Editor to create a Route and Scenario. I'm a bit active over on the "Steam" forums. And though I've been lurking these forums here at uktrainsim for the last couple of weeks though, this is my first post here.

The uktrainsim forums, other websites and other forums with RW related threads, along with various tutorials vids on places such as youtube, plus absorbing the pdf manual that comes with the program has all been quite helpful in my learning process. And just jumping in, experimenting with things, lots of trial-and-error, I've now become fairly familiar with the RW editor and how most things work.

Everyday I learn some new things about it, and it's really exciting to see my routes and scenarios taking shape and even getting to the point of having my routes and scenarios working with some good success. But as much as I experiment with things and try to search and find some answers via internet, some things regarding the RW editor are still rather complicated, or not explained very clearly, or not explained at all that I can find. So I come here to you fellow train-simming enthusiasts in hope that perhaps I can get a little help or explaination with some things I'm trying to do in my routes and scenarios.

For now I just have a couple of questions on how to do some things, but will probably have more later.

* When playing some of the routes and scenarios that comes with RW, I notice in some areas my train goes through that has roads or highways that there is actual traffic, and you can see cars and trucks driving along the roads. I have tried building several roads, paved and dirt, and have tried placing some car objects on them. However as much as I try, I can't seem to find a way to have any animated traffic on the roads I build. Am I missing something? How do I manage to make animated vehicle traffic on my roads?

I was close once.. I'm not sure what I did. A short section of road I built had a car drive along it, and I had that part of road leading from a parking lot and merged into another longer section of road. But as soon as the car entered the merged area *poof*, it would disappear like a ghost-car. However a moment later, the same car would appear back at the start, then to disappear again at the same place. Of course this looked really odd for a car to keep looping along a really short piece of road, appearing then disappearing. I tried to fix this by lengthening that same stretch of road, but then I must have messed something up as now the car I seen animating on that short bit of road never appeared again.

So I must be missing something. But I can't seem to find any way to make animated vehicle traffic work on my roads. Any advice on this guys?

* AI stuff can be really tricky and fussy sometimes. Sometimes it works the way I want it to, sometimes it doesn't seem to work at all (or with errors), and sometimes though I think I have everything set correctly, it just won't seem to do what I want it to do.. such as go from point A to B. I know this bit is more about trial-and-error in the learning process and trying to figure out why something isn't working the way I want it to work. But my question is, does it matter or make a difference to the route or scenario according to the type of loco driver I choose for a train. For example, I may give the player-train a classification of Passenger Train (as that's what the particular scenario involves), and I may give an AI train a classification of Standard Freight. I notice somewhere else among the forms someone saying that a train should never be given a classification of "Special". Anyways, what I'm wanting to know, what are the levels of priority in the train-types classifications, and does it really matter to the AI much?

Also, is there a way to set an AI train to do something, such as go from point A to point B, after the player performs a designated action in a scenario? For example; let's say I have a planned passenger pick-up. I stop at the platform and pick-up the passengers, and have the "wait" bar, then after waiting I get whatever message I may have entered such as "You got them.". At that point, either after stopping to pick-up the passengers or after the waiting period, is there a way to then make an AI train start it's designated task to go from point A to B? As from what I can find, there only seems to be an option to tell an AI train to start a task at a set time perhaps, rather than upon when the player does a certain action.

* When I enter my route in "Free Roam" mode, there is apparently no drivable trains any place. I'd have to go into the editor to select and place a train if I wanted to drive one? Can I have a few trains setup at some place in which the player would be able to jump-into and drive a train? Is it possible to still have AI train-traffic in Free-roam scenarios? Playing some of the Free-Roam routes/scenarios that comes with RW, I see that usually when I start that I'm usually started close to an area in which perhaps a couple of trains are available for me to jump-into and be able to drive. And also it seems to me there is still some AI train-traffic in some Free-Roam scenarios. So how do I go about doing having these options in my own route and Free-Roam scenario? As for now, when I try Free-Roam in my own route, it's just the route, but no trains any where to be found. I can fly all around my map, but still, so sign of any trains any where. Guess I'm missing something obvious.

* It may take another week or two before I feel I've have my route and scenario(s) to a good successful functional state. Just wondering, would any of you here be willing to help me with some beta-testing at that point? That way I can try and iron-out any bugs in my route and/or scenarios before I release it publicly.

Whew. I know that's quite a bit already. If you're still with me, then I thank you for your time. If you have any answers or advice for me regarding some of my questions or some good route & scenario building advice in general, I much appreciate it.

Best wises!
--- Don.

Welcome to the forums Don.

Whilst I don't have answers for your questions I am sure someone will be along shortly with some advice.

Hi Don

Welcome

I have no time to answer your questions now unfortunately but they are good questions and you will get good answers

I will have to look back later but I am sure that someone will have helped you out by then. In the meantime do a little more searching on the specialist sections (e.g RW Scenario Creation) and you may find out a bit more yourself or perhaps - http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 4&t=101126 - as a current thread may also help.

Hi Don

* When playing some of the routes and scenarios that comes with RW, I notice in some areas my train goes through that has roads or highways that there is actual traffic, and you can see cars and trucks driving along the roads. I have tried building several roads, paved and dirt, and have tried placing some car objects on them. However as much as I try, I can't seem to find a way to have any animated traffic on the roads I build. Am I missing something? How do I manage to make animated vehicle traffic on my roads?

When you look at the roads available to you some of the names have 1950's, 1970's 2000's, etc, and also lght, med heavy. This indicates the type of traffic that will be 'spawned' on these roads if you use them. You cannot add your own moving vehicles to a road as they automatically appear when the program is running but you will note that the vehicles are randomly the same as the vehicles that you can place individually from the asset list. Roads without any era or weight of traffic are likely to have no auto generated traffic.

The appearance of traffic is still somewhat random and you may notice that sometimes when start playing a route it will take ages for traffic to appear and other times it appears straight away. The traffic also seems related to the length of road they are on so that some lengths produce a good steady flow and longer or shorter lengths may see no flow. When bringing roads up to level crossings, for example, it is best to cut the road with auto traffic before you get to the crossing and place a bit of non auto track up to the crossing. This will prevent vehicles from running across the line and also allow you to place stationary traffic at the gates.

In general, you need to experiment with roads to get the effect you want

* AI stuff can be really tricky and fussy sometimes. Sometimes it works the way I want it to, sometimes it doesn't seem to work at all (or with errors), and sometimes though I think I have everything set correctly, it just won't seem to do what I want it to do.. such as go from point A to B. I know this bit is more about trial-and-error in the learning process and trying to figure out why something isn't working the way I want it to work. But my question is, does it matter or make a difference to the route or scenario according to the type of loco driver I choose for a train. For example, I may give the player-train a classification of Passenger Train (as that's what the particular scenario involves), and I may give an AI train a classification of Standard Freight. I notice somewhere else among the forms someone saying that a train should never be given a classification of "Special". Anyways, what I'm wanting to know, what are the levels of priority in the train-types classifications, and does it really matter to the AI much?

Scenario writing is a black art and many posts have been made on this subject. I can only suggest you trawl the forums for advice from people who have experience in scenario writing. Much can be done but even after gaining a lot of experience there is still a lot of trial and error. In general you never make AI traffic special but the player train may benefit from being special. The priority given to AI traffic gets less as the importance of the train classification goes down.

It is not possible to trigger AI traffic to do something when the player has completed a task. You can only really do this by timing the AI to start at a particular time that may coincide with the completion of a player task.

* When I enter my route in "Free Roam" mode, there is apparently no drivable trains any place. I'd have to go into the editor to select and place a train if I wanted to drive one? Can I have a few trains setup at some place in which the player would be able to jump-into and drive a train? Is it possible to still have AI train-traffic in Free-roam scenarios? Playing some of the Free-Roam routes/scenarios that comes with RW, I see that usually when I start that I'm usually started close to an area in which perhaps a couple of trains are available for me to jump-into and be able to drive. And also it seems to me there is still some AI train-traffic in some Free-Roam scenarios. So how do I go about doing having these options in my own route and Free-Roam scenario? As for now, when I try Free-Roam in my own route, it's just the route, but no trains any where to be found. I can fly all around my map, but still, so sign of any trains any where. Guess I'm missing something obvious.

This Rail Simulator thread will answer some of your questions - http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 17&t=74885

In general you can have as many locos/rolling stock in a free roam scenario as you like and you can jump from loco to loco as long as the jumping distance is less than about a mile. AI traffic will work in free roam scenarios but it is not reliable. Each route comes with a base free roam scenario from which you can create more free roam, standard and timetabled scenarios. You can have as many free roam scenarios as you like, each one with a different set of Rolling Stock placed around the route beforehand as you wish.

* It may take another week or two before I feel I've have my route and scenario(s) to a good successful functional state. Just wondering, would any of you here be willing to help me with some beta-testing at that point? That way I can try and iron-out any bugs in my route and/or scenarios before I release it publicly.

If you have something to beta test, put up a post and see if you get a response. Regardless of offers to test, you need to make thoroughly sure that your route and package for uploading really does work properly so you need at least one person to try it out for you.

We are only scratching the surface of what RailWorks is capable of. The money you paid for RailWorks is just the price of the key that opens the door to a whole new World of opportunities, only limited by the amount of time you want to spend in that World.

Do not ignore the Rail Simulator forum. RailWorks and Rail Simulator are just about identical in the way they work and many of the points raised in the RS forum over the first two years are not necessarily repeated in the RW forum. In other words, the RS forum is likely to hold many answers to your questions.

Acorn: Many thanks for your speedy, detailed and insightful reply.
Your answers are clear and of great help (and probably will be to other people with similar questions that I had). I will be sure to heed your good tips and advice. I will also peruse more of the Rail Simulator forums now as well, as I now realize that RailWorks is sort of like a re-packaged or updated Rail Simulator (or based on the same engine and much of them both work and edit the same way). So I see there is a good wealth of information I can learn that is fortunately already tried and tested with the earlier Rail Simulator program that should essentially work the same with RW.

Actually RailWorks is the first Train-Sim game I've played or owned. Over the years I've owned various other sims such as Flight, Racing, Sub, etc... And I am really in awe at the level of detail, work and effort that has gone into making RailWorks what it is. In playing the game, I really come close to "feeling" like I'm really "there", that I'm on a train raid or have a little taste of what it might be like to try and drive on of these powerful machines along with countless tons of metal hooked up to it. I find it's sometimes quite peaceful and relaxing to just sit on the train and just watch the scenery pass me by (even though it's on the computer). I'm also really excited about getting more into the creative side of things with this wonderful program. Like you said, this whole thing is a key that may lead to many other opportunities.

Though I'm still a bit of a "noob" with RailWorks, how to use it and all of what it offers, I'm usually a quick learner when it comes to computer stuff. I've been using computers since I was a kid (and I'm in my early 40's now) along with having some computer training over the years, and also having some experience and knowledge with a bit of programming, creating games (I've made several old style Point-n-Click Adventure Games) as well some of the webmastering side of things. So I really see RailWorks as something I can throw myself into, combining my creative and imaginative side along with my geekiness passion for computers side.

Checking out several other train-sim forums, at least ones that have RailWorks or Rail Simulator topics, UKTainSim.com here seems to be one of the more active and informative within the community, so I'll most likely be a regular onboard here.

Oh yes, a word of thanks to you guys for your kind welcome aboard message as well. Its nice be made to feel a welcome member, even though I'm still new 'round these parts and this whole train-simming scene.

I'll probably be bugging some of you guys again soon with more of my 'noobish' questions. But aside from that, if there's any way that I may be of some help to any members here, just ask.

Well, back to working on my project now! I'm going to try playing around a bit with some of the roads now, keeping in mind your great tips, and see if I can soon have some success in actually having animated traffic on my roads. I'll also keep in mind your other tips as well.

Best wishes, --- Don.

Hi Don

Mastering the skills required to build content for RailWorks is only part of the process. It helps to have a good knowledge of how Railways work as well as a good eye for landscapes and 'the real world'.

It is all great fun, however, and I hope you enjoy yourself.

Hi guys. Me again.

My project is coming along nicely. From the advice given here to my questions before, continued perusing of the forums in general plus getting more better at using the editor, overall my project is shaping up quite nicely now and I'm learning lots (plus having fun with it too).

Just a couple more questions that maybe some of you kind people may help me with:

* I can't seem to get the hang of placing "Birds" on my route. I mean, I can select a bird (or flying plane for that matter) from the object list, then I can click to try to place it.. however, I never see the object appear. I just get the default-pointer-thingy, you know the up-down - rotate - forward-back - ball thingy. If I go look at the same area by testing in my default free-roam scenario, I don't see any birds at all in that area. Am I missing something obvious? And how does one set a "flight path" for birds or planes or to even how to set them correctly via the editor?

* I placed some road-side rail-road crossing gates at a couple of locations on my route. I can hear the "Ding, ding, ding" sound when I'm close to it in the editor, or even when I just fly around in my default Free-Roam scenario. However whenever I pass by the same gates with a train in the scenarios I'm working on, I no longer get any ringing sounds at all from these gates. The lights flash okay, but no sound when I play one of my scenarios I'm creating. Am I doing something wrong?

* Is there a "water-fall" object or effect in the editor? Or if I wanted to try and create a water-fall effect, would I just need to try and be creative using the already given water option in the default editor?

* Is there some easy-to-understand tutorial or guide on how to set up a working red/green light type of signal for, let's say at a junction point to where either I want the train to either stop (red-signal) at a junction to then have the player manually throw the switch (then the signal would turn green), or perhaps I just want the signal to stay green. Seems trying to figure out and set-up signals properly to work with my scenarios is largely trial-and-error (mostly error). sometimes it seems I get it working right, then other times no matter what I try it doesn't work the way I want it too. Then other times, just when I think I have it working the way I want, it stops working again. Arrrrgh!
I read over the signal-guide over at the RailSimulator site, plus the threads reading signals here on the forums, but that more like some developers guide and I think perhaps waaaaay too complicated (basically you have to be a programmer and mess with blueprintes, etc.. and a chance of messing up the default game, I may as well try to understand a completely encrypted alien language) for someone just trying to get things working via the editor. I figure it should just be a simple matter of me picking a signal, then place the markers on the tracks to where I want it to check to see if its either clear ahead and/or that a certain junction may be in a certain direction. Most other things in setting up a route or scenario in the RW editor seems simple enough, or I can figure it out with a bit of experimenting, but its almost like one has to be some C++, or some other machine-language Programmer just to try and set up a few simple working signals. Perhaps I just may have to forget trying to understand the signals at this point... I'm totally lost with it. Something I think I must be missing something obvious, or there must be some easy way to set-up signals in the editor... but for now trying to figure out how to set-up a few signals at some junctions in my scenarios, its just dabbling with repeat failure and frustration.

Okay, thanks again. Hope I don't sound like I'm complaining about some things regarding RailWorks and the editor. Overall i think its awesome, and the things you can do and create with it is amazing.
Cheers!

For colour-light signals:

Un-Official Guide to Signalling on Rail Simulator Part 2 v1.0 [3283747 bytes] - KRS Sigs pt2 v1-00.zip File ID: 17957 Date: 12 Jan 2008 - 2017 Downloads

and for semaphores:

Un-Official Guide to Signalling on Rail Simulator Part 1 v2.0 [3863031 bytes] - KRS Sigs pt1 v2-00.zip File ID: 17690 Date: 12 Jan 2008 - 3375 Downloads

John

As far as my water-fall question in my previous post, I sort of figured out a way to do it. I made a narrow-stream up along a mountain side, and towards the bottom of the water-fall I placed a couple of "steam" objects. The overall effect looks fairly nice.

John: Cool. Mucho Thanks... I'll check it out.

John: Hi agian. Just wanted to update you regarding my doing the signaling stuffs... The manuals you suggested I download and review, though most of it was still somewhat technical and a bit confusing to follow, it at least gave me some good tips and pointed me in the right direction. Good news is that after reading those manuals and a bit more experimenting with playing around with the editor, I have figured out enough about signaling in RW that I now have a functional route with signals that actually work pretty much the way I wanted it to.
Here, have a beer on me

Hi Don

Birds are as tricky as you have found and in the early days of Rail Simulator I deleted them all from my routes as there was a suggestion that they caused low frame rates and stuttering. This is probably not the case with RailWorks but I have not placed a bird for a long time. You cannot see the path for birds either flying straight or spiral other than when the scenery is being loaded and the path briefly shows up as a light green ribbon. Trail and error is required here.

Plane paths are laid in flat ground, the invisible tracks are multi selected and then the whole selection raised into the sky, where you will still not see the path other than the outline when selected. The same with power boat paths. Lay on a flat bottom of the lake or river, multi select, raise selection to just water level and there you are.

I don't think you can hear the crossing bells in the cab but I have not tried this lately.

The waterfall idea is great. Matt Peddlesden described this to me a little while ago and it does seem to work well. Steam effects can be placed all over the place to create steam and smoke wherever you wish.

You already have signalling advice from an expert which is just as well as I am mystified by signalling.

Acorn: Thanks again for your input. As always, your advice and comments are quite helpful to me.
Yes, for now at least, I'm not going to bother trying to add birds, or planes, as the placing of them and getting them to work right seems to be a bit flaky. When speeding along in a train, you'd only see them for a second anyways, plus as you say, there's a chance it can make the FPS take a negative hit.

Yes, I think you'll like to see my waterfall in action once I release my route. I have it running all the way down "King's Mountain" in my route (which is a fairly huge mountain and really stand-out on the landscape), and have done my best to blend it in for a natural look with the mountain-side. The steaming effects I placed at where the bottom of the waterfall lands makes for a fairly nice effect. Now maybe I'll just need to add in a type of waterfall-sound-effect to go along with it. hehehe.

Perhaps you're right on the railroad-crossing sounds that maybe its muted from within the cab? Well, its not too important anyways.

Yes, the signaling stuff does seem rather confusing... but I'm actually starting to get a rudimentary working understanding of setting up some basic signals on my route at least. I'm going to try and keep things fairly basic though and follow the K.I.S.S. system: Keep It Simple, Stupid

Oh, and if anyone's interested to see a few screen-shots of my WIP route & scenarios, check out this other thread:
http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 2&t=101267

BTW: Another 'noob' type of question: When I use RW to Package my route to be shared with others; regarding the "assets": If any assets I use are already included within Default-RailWorks Assest/Stock/whatever, is there a need to even bother including it along with the package?
I did a test package (I just packaged my whole route plus all sub-folders included within), then I tried a test install with it. When I went to install it via RailWorks Package Manager, I first got some message such as a list of files, then something like "These assets are already installed", but then continued with the install. Seemed to work without any problems though.

Cheers! --- Don.

Acorncomputer wrote:
When you look at the roads available to you some of the names have 1950's, 1970's 2000's, etc, and also lght, med heavy. This indicates the type of traffic that will be 'spawned' on these roads if you use them. You cannot add your own moving vehicles to a road as they automatically appear when the program is running but you will note that the vehicles are randomly the same as the vehicles that you can place individually from the asset list. Roads without any era or weight of traffic are likely to have no auto generated traffic.

And have a look the cars are driving on these roads...
Most of them in UK-style
(left side of the road)

Theo: Those silly backward drivers. hehehe. Yeah I noticed after laying down some traffic-animated roads, they tend to drive on the left side.. which means I need to change around the set-up for a few gates and waiting-cars at a couple of rail-road crossings I have so to match it.

* Another 'noob' question from me.. Is there some way to tell just how much in-total-amount (In either Miles or Km) of railroad track there has been placed in a route?

Thanks again guys for your feedback.

PS: In case anyone's interested to see, I just put up a new screenie of the working water-fall that I now have in my route:
http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 7#p1230857

Hi Eddie

When you package up a route you cannot include any default RailWorks assets or any assets authored by anyone but you unless those authors have given express permission to distribute their assets with routes. You should not be able to distribute RS.com or RSDL assets anyway as they are protected but be very careful with other people's assets. For your own 'internal' backing up of routes, not for distribution, you can include anything you like in your route package.

I think there is a way to measure the track laid in a route but I do not know what it is