Linear Alignment and snap

[hoytt]

I decided to have a go at route building and perhaps starting at a bit complex railway station isn't the easiest way to get going. So far I've run into two minor problems. First of all, when I try to linearly align items with the offset tool, I can align everything but track. Is this intended, or am I missing something obvious here. The second problem deals with snap, snap to track and snap to terrain. I've created the landscape with DEM data and I'm trying to see when to use which option. Is there a general rule of the thumb which of the three when to use?

Thanks in advance

[Bullet399]

you can't lay track with the offset tool. It was functioning in the first release of Railsimulator but was disabled with a patch for whatever reason.

for the DEM thingie have a look here:

Begin with Marking Route and work through upwards.

[Ryosuke]

hi,

the offset tool isn't meant to be used with track, you need to use the regular track laying option with a number of parrallel tracks. if you want a certain distance between your tracks you have to use a few tricks like a custom track rule with the right distance set or place say four tracks and delete the middle ones. or just move the track around by hand.

regarding the second question, i'd never use snap to terrain because your trackwork will be awful as a result.
i've build around 60 km of track through mountaineous terrain with multiple large stations and all i did was extending the track piece by piece and entering the right gradient values.
when doing that be sure to only ever increase the gradient by one per mille at a time in order to get smooth gradient changes. so when going from 0 to 27 per mille like on my route i'll continuously add 27 short pieces with the gradient raised by one on each.
also do not bother with the post gradient editing tool as that is likely to completely destroy all your trackwork and produces awful results as well. lots of routes suffer from harsh gradient changes which for me ruin the experience because this is not a model railway simulator, its supposed to be a real railway simulator.
of course snap to track is used to create switches and so on or in the rare cases where two tracks have to be joined head on. the latter can be tricky though.

you should also use the easements option wherever you can because that also improves the experience.


cheers

[bigvern]

In the very first version of RS you could create parallel lofts of track but not connect to the network. Kuju/RSDL disabled the feature in the first patch.

Snap to terrain is meant for roads and walls/fences etc., not track as the resultant loft clings to the terrain. Well actually not always, the tool is poorly implemented and more often than not a tiny imperfection in the ground results in a bit of loft sticking up in the air at an angle! It is not as good as laying splines in Trainz Surveyor, if you're familiar with this. Use Snap To Track and your choice really whether follow network is ticked or not - if it is, the camera moves along the track as you go, if not then move the camera yourself. Gradients should be produced by entering the appropriate value in the pullout box, depending on your track rule either 1 in xx, % or mil format.

One other little irritation which crops up from time to time is the disappearing track section. This particularly happens when extending on multiple pieces of track, when you exit the placement tool the track section does not appear on the fround though where it should be can be clicked and selected. Trying to extrude a further piece of track from the affected node usually ends up with the same result. You either have to lay a separate piece of track and join it to the affected node, or cut back the piece with the dodgy mode until you can get the next extrusion to appear.

[JADsHome]

when I try to linearly align items with the offset tool, I can align everything but track. Is this intended, or am I missing something obvious here.

A trick I have used in the past is to offset where your track will go with some other procedural like fence or something - when you have the desired 'shape' hover over the newly laid 'track surrogate' and note the length and curvature - then you can either move it out of the way (so you can reference it again when you forget the numbers) or delete it and then lay a section of track with [roughly] the same length and curvature. Then you can join the track sections as you go.

If you can't offset from the object (like with the pre-set stations - York, etc.) then you'll have to 'guesstimate' the curvature - bear in mind it may take a few attempts to get it perfect - and don't expect to do it in one section - chances are the curve will not be 'uniform' all the way along.

Jeff