Atomic Systems

Hello all, I am helping out doing some trackwork in a group and one issue I am constantly encountering is that when I place my signals, the track link direction defaults to being in the wring direction - so for example I want the arrow to point away from the signal, but instead it is pointing towards it. The track properties of all lines directions are set to both. What can I do to fix this??

Try placing a signal from the other direction----if you're facing the signal and the link is *wrong* see what happens if you try the placement from behind the signal.

gptech wrote:Try placing a signal from the other direction----if you're facing the signal and the link is *wrong* see what happens if you try the placement from behind the signal.

Tried that to no avail, but have found a solution, if it places the wrong way then rotate the signal 180 degrees or so and then the links face the other way. Place the links and then rotate the signal back to where you want it to face. Very odd behaviour.

I had this but since I discovered that you can rotate assets as you initially place them I can make sure the signal faces the right way first time. The same trick is useful when placing lofts such as telegraph poles that have wires that automatically appear.

Keith

Of course the easy option is to just place the links, then if any are the wrong way round just press *shift* whilst clicking on them.

The main problem that you might experience here is an asset that was created with the wrong orientation. If you start a new route, place some straight track in the default direction, then place a signal there, you must see it facing you. If is does not, its orientation wrong. You can fix that by placing the signal facing the wrong way, then place all the links, finally rotate the signal and never touch the links again or they will flip making the signal dysfunctional.

I also experienced mad shapes cluttering the view when in that display mode that shows the signal links. Someone said this is a feature to indicate wrong signal links, and in such a case you would have a lot of them then. I never got to testing this theory.

So the first point is: You can very well work with signal shapes that are not oriented in the correct way, but it takes some sweat.


The other, more trivial point, is that you can rotate any signal by dragging the mouse left and right before you release the mouse button, during the click that places the signal shape. So instead of just click to place the shape, you press the mouse button there (after flying close enough to see the shape clearly), then drag the mouse until the rotation of the signal is right, then release the mouse button, then click to place the track links. Since the latter requires a broader view of the track work, the whole process requires some nasty perspective planning for larger junctions.

An alternative way is to place the signal as it comes and ignore the direction of track links at first. Then rotate the signal shape, possibly using some trick with TAB and clicking the track to align the signal with the track. I never mastered that, to be honest. After having the signal aligned, you double click all the links and they will flip to the correct orientation.

This is a very nasty source of error and there is nothing to help you find errors (as long as you work with signals that use the default scripts).