How does the dispatcher work with timings?

[brysonman46]

Hi Bob

Thanks - will look forward to it. When one is new to the Forums, posts can take a while to appear as the Moderators need to check that you aren't a troll or a robot. We have all gone through this!

Nick

[dorlan]

Not ignoring your post Nick but I sent a lengthy reply which should have appeared here before Alan's post.

Have since sent an enquiry where it is and that not appeared either.

Have to go out shortly for rest of day so hopefully my reply will appear in the meantime.

Bob

As a new user, your initial posts need to be approved by a moderator before they are made visible on the forum. This is a precautionary measure so that we are able to help you get the most out of your forum membership. This probationary period will end once we are happy you do not need any guidance.

Ian J

[bjs1943]

Hi all - my earlier posts have now appeared and are in correct time order on the previous page.

Thanks
Bob

[Easilyconfused]

That's how the forums software works. I usually approve posts every evening and several times a day over the weekend. The security weenies at work blocked UKTS on our firewall so I can't approve during the day any more apart from Friday when I work at home and can use my own PC.

[AndiS]

Bob, I think you can get further than you are now if you cut the problem into manageable pieces.

There are several aspects or dimensions which ought to be seen separately.

The priorities have been discussed above. This is quite simple but if you make a mistake, you are surprised by the result.


The signalling dictates what is possible on the route. When you say you can chase yellows in one case but not in another ("only 30 min after the other train") I can only suggest that you set up the scene exactly as it worked in some other place and see that you get. Then you only compare the influence of different locations on the timing.

The influence of signalling can be separated in good and bad, so to say. On the positive side, it is only prototypical that long blocks mean long intervals between trains. When you find a place where the dispatcher will not let you follow a train closely, see where the next block signal is, as a first step.

The bad side of the story is that there will at time be paths through a junction or station that the modeller did no consider necessary or important enough to be signalled. In such a case, you would need to modify the route, which requires quite a bit of extra knowledge on how signals work in this game. It will be the same for all games.


The next big topic is the temporal uncertainty of the player train. The AI dispatcher basically just prerecords the course of action and replays AI movements just the same all the time. This was a sad thing when there was no 'but' to the story.

But then they introduced distance triggered AI. This means that some non-player train comes to life when you approach it, whenever that may be. This obviously improved the situation a lot regarding longer scenarios.


Trains do follow signals, but in a very primitive sense. Whenever there is an unnumbered link 0, any AI train will only pass it if the track to the next link 0 ahead is clear. This is good enough to prevent accidents, but it is disappointing for those who want to see permissive block working.

They also have the habit of coming to a stop at the start of a clear block that is followed by an occupied one. This likens the prescribed behaviour in UK semaphore signalling (in the majority of cases) but it looks plain stupid with CLS. But this is another story.

[bjs1943]

Thanks AndiS - I know signalling is complicated and I have never worked in the rail industry so some of the points you make I don't fully understand. All I do know is that no matter what I try, the results do not seem consistent - maybe different routes produce different results and I've tried that many different approaches on various routes that I've totally confused myself.

Compared to Trainz I do find editing/adding track and signalling much harder in TS. In Trainz, trains can be run into and out of Kings Cross station throat one after another, across each other's path, without even designating a platform - the dispatcher finds an empty one for you if you want it to - and if there isn't one vacant, it holds the train at the last red signal until one becomes free. The Trainz dispatcher lets you try to do what you want and if there's a conflict, the AI's sort it out between themselves, or, occasionally, "break down" as in real life. Another aspect is that the dispatcher instructions can be changed during the game.

So I suppose what I'm wanting is a trainz-type dispatcher as an optional add-on in TS

I will probably keep giving it a go and I'll work through the points you're making.

Thanks again
Bob