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That is not the case and although I can see some humour in the post it is not conducive to introduce such patently false information into the forum since some people may take it as fact. Please discontinue this line of discussion before posts start getting culled.
They are 2 separate products that do not interface in any way. Once I finish writing the review for demolition simulator it will be passed onto the site admins for publishing in the review section.
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Point well taken. I failed to take to account the dour nature of the diverse audience and the fully humorous aspect of the post was not understandable. I gather that only substantiated facts are proper on your forum and full adherence to that fashion is best.
bigvern wrote:I think the quote from (RS)Adam(Zone) should probably be extracted and stickied at the top of the Signalling and Scenario forums so anyone asking about the "AI" can be directed to it.
However I do think they need to rethink the approach as with career mode, if you're hurtling along a single track route with passing loops, but future developments with career mode decide to delay you at "B" for ten minutes with police attending a ticket irregularity, in reality the signaller would arrange with the driver to put the signal back and run the opposing train you should have crossed at "C" to cross you at "B" instead.
Cause and effect. As being discussed in the career threads, you cannot provide a realistic driver's working environment unless the signalling and control functions in exactly the same way as the real signaller and Train Running Controller (me!) decide how to react to disruption and out of course running.
I also saw the mailshot this morning re Demolition Simulator, I guess it helps RS.com revenue stream with commisions on sales but it's like most of those other farming/tractor type games which have now appeared - an interesting diversion for five minutes but not of much interest to the train simmer. Now if they partnered with TML...
The thing is, that eventuality should be covered by the scenario writer in my opinion. As a driver you don't get to see the scheduled movements of other traffic in most cases, so you won't know that the opposing train is supposed to pass you at C instead of B. By making use of the pop-up instructions the illusion of a change to tthe normal operation can be established fairly simply. For example, at some point before you reach B a message can be made to appear on screen saying "Stop at B for train X to pass"
, then when you arrive at B a second message can be made to appear saying "Change of plan, keep going and stop at C instead". No change to the working of the AI is necessary since all that is being done is the scenario author is creating the illusion that there has been a change of plan. With the vast and ever increasing number of scenarios available, there are very few that I personally will drive on more than a handful of occasions. I don't know, but I suspect that for most users it is the same. To jump on from this assumption, there is little need for some sort of random event generator since the number of times that any given scenario is likely to be driven by the same person is probably low enough to make over familiarity a moot point
FoggyMorning wrote:
The thing is, that eventuality should be covered by the scenario writer in my opinion. As a driver you don't get to see the scheduled movements of other traffic in most cases, so you won't know that the opposing train is supposed to pass you at C instead of B. By making use of the pop-up instructions the illusion of a change to tthe normal operation can be established fairly simply. For example, at some point before you reach B a message can be made to appear on screen saying "Stop at B for train X to pass"
, then when you arrive at B a second message can be made to appear saying "Change of plan, keep going and stop at C instead". No change to the working of the AI is necessary since all that is being done is the scenario author is creating the illusion that there has been a change of plan. With the vast and ever increasing number of scenarios available, there are very few that I personally will drive on more than a handful of occasions. I don't know, but I suspect that for most users it is the same. To jump on from this assumption, there is little need for some sort of random event generator since the number of times that any given scenario is likely to be driven by the same person is probably low enough to make over familiarity a moot point
To a certain extent the above may hold true but in some respects the lack of randomness is even worse for the scenario creator as he drives his own creations. Not only does it become extremely dull for the external user when the same interaction happens at the same location but even worse for the creator who knows in advance, too!
If you haven't played Simudrive, TD3 or Zusi 2 then you may not appreciate what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, to some extent, MSTS introduced the concept of rigid pathing and inflexible routing and Kuju carried forward the idea into RS which has perpetuated into RW.
"By making use of the pop-up instructions the illusion of a change to tthe normal operation can be established fairly simply"
I suspect you're right for most people, but for some of us that's not only unsatisfactory, it's not even in the same solar system as "satisfactory". The way I designed MSTS PO&N wasn't actually what I wanted, but it was a compromise that got close enough to be satisfactory.
"little need for some sort of random event generator since the number of times that any given scenario is likely to be driven by the same person is probably low enough to make over familiarity a moot point"
That IS the point, if the scenario/session/activity isn't cast in concrete then it actually has some replay value. The way these are designed there's no point to playing them again since you're locked into doing the exact same things in the exact same order. I've played my MSTS PO&N activities over and over and over endlessly because they're NOT scripted, when and where you meet AI traffic is different depending on what you do and when you do it, and if you block a junction while switching cars the AI traffic is intelligent enough to sort itself out and get moving again afterwards. Which in turn produces even more variety because depending on which way you go you might meet the same stream of AI trains you delayed earlier.
Not really a problem if most people are happy with it the way it is, but if you understand my point then you have a better understanding of why it just won't do for some of us.
I do see Vern's and Jim's point (to a point)
However;
Why read a book more than once?
The story does not change the second time of reading.
Why listen to a song more than once?
The tune or words don't change the second time you listen to it.
Why look at a painting more than once?
It will not look any different the second time of viewing.
Scripted scenarios are not bad at all, rigid in some aspects maybe, but you are experiencing a scenario how the author wanted you to and some of the better ones have layers that unfold the more you play.
I agree that some scenarios have a shelf life, However the Career sytem will go some way to address that issue as well as the new trigger and event system, this will add replay value to future scenarios.
I've seen fields for triggers and events in the scenario editor, but haven't worked out what they're for or how to use them.
I can understand that dispatch optimisers for national networks can be very expensive, but that's because there's real money riding on the performance and reliability of that software. An amateur-grade version for our relatively simple 100-mile mainlines should be much easier to come up with.
Without a dynamic dispatcher and a full timetable, the only cures for repetitive scenarioes are to make the individual scenarioes interesting, and to have lots and lots of them. These are conflicting goals.
The key to knowledge is not to rely on others to teach you it.
Quite a few books in my collection have been read more than once - LOTR trilogy, Tom Sharpe novels (if I mention my role model is Lockhart Flawse that probably explains alot!) - and there's always something new or that you maybe skipped over the first time.
Just take my typical day at work, there's always something different going on that affects how a train runs on a particular day. 4 out of 5 it may be on time or at least make its PPM, but maybe the trains it passes are out of sequence and on Day 5 maybe there's a points failure or trespass which holds it up. Particularly when related to career mode, that is exactly what we're emulating - a driver doing the same turn maybe two or three conseutive days but always with the potential for things to turn out differently.
At some point - maybe by Railworks 4 - we have a living, breathing dynamic world. So on your first run from A to B you are cautioned for a bit of rough track at 4m 35ch. When you come back, a gang of PW staff are on site in their orange coats looking at it. When you come to run a Sunday activity you find the service is going through single line working because the affected stretch of track has a T3 occupation to repair it and the scripter has generated a nice Engineer's train to/from the worksite as well.
Maybe the above is rather fanciful but IMHO far more interesting than just racking up score points.
Unfortunately, I guess it is a clash of perceptions of railways again.
On the one hand, you can look at railways as a complex and adaptive system of transportation. On the other hand, you can look at being a driver as an adventure.
On the one hand, people looking at a given route want to key in the time table (for different day of a week, and different seasons) and then lean back and enjoy, from different perspectives, and with the variations that Vern and others sketch.
On the other hand, you can create a thrilling challenge for the driver, throwing in some moving scenery know as AI and some unbelievable exceptions like ghost hunters or pigeons taking the cattle van, and watch gamers cheer as they climb up the leaderboard.
The funny thing is that in the long run, the game thrill creators may well find out that they need the more global view to cut scenario creation cost. Already now, scenarios for RW are not a commodity which is there in sheer excess. In fact, creating (non-CM) scenarios is said to be cumbersome. Now, with CM evaluation, it will not be easier.
In contrast, the AndiS Method (TM) will be cost effective in the end: Enter the full timetable including some made-up trains to make the route busy, then create modified copies for different days of the week, then create copies for different seasons, then maybe pick one of the copies and alter it for some extra challenge, and delete AI if the game cannot handle so much.
Now, with some means of variability inside the scenarios, you get more with less cloning.
And you need a robust dispatcher to do the changes externally in RW-Tools or similar, and reload them.
Frankly speaking, the full scale AndiS Method would be: Define train classes (which are finer grained than UK or other train classes, like "10 wagon mixed train" or "30 piece mineral train hauled by old 0-6-0". Then, you define membership relations between vehicles and train classes. (Which engines qualify for old 0-6-0?). Then, you set some slider for wagon count variability (+/-2 or 5 or so), then take a master scenario, where trains are just shown as train class, fill in some real vehicles per definition plus randomisation, then you load that into the game, and the dispatcher will tell you the finer details of timing. Needless to say that you must stay reasonable in the design phase (and space the trains by some minutes), but that's the case no matter how simple or complex your setting is.
bigvern wrote:Quite a few books in my collection have been read more than once - LOTR trilogy, Tom Sharpe novels (if I mention my role model is Lockhart Flawse that probably explains alot!) - and there's always something new or that you maybe skipped over the first time.
and download the Adelaide-Melbourne train graph for, say, Friday.
I can assure you that for about 70% of the time that graph is a work of absolute fiction - some trains may not run at all, other trains might be added on particular days, trains run late or early, wayside freights loose their path, crosses occur at other loops, ... .
I'm sure that Australia is not unique in this. In fact I'd even assert that strict adherence to a timetable is an exception to rule in the majority of countries.
The book/song/painting is continuously changing. That is my reality and it makes my expectations of a simulation different from those who live where railways work like a Swiss watch all the time.
I have been on plenty of trains in Switzerland (and Germany!) which have run late, so the "right time railway" clockwork of these countries is a bit of a myth.
The one point is that there is a continuum from German/Swiss/similar railways where punctuality is highly valued and US freight lines, where approximations will be rough. But in both cases, there is an initial plan (schedule), no matter if per minute or per hour or half-day. Like a German scheduler/dispatcher has to plan the usage of a platform for each minute of a day, the US dispatcher must be sure plan train meets before they happen. He might not care for an hour deviation, but he must not have more trains heading to some passing loop than the loop can hold.
And then, when one of them finds out that original plans don't work out, he must react by rearranging the schedule, in Switzerland and in US dark territory exactly alike. Only time granularity varies.
The other point is that in a game, you often want a bit more of action or challenge or eye candy than in real life. As a result, the need for rescheduling will be a bit higher than in real life. Of course, it is the player's (scenario creator's) responsibility to ensure that there is no total collapse.
But the sum of both is that rescheduling does occur. The frequency at which it occurs can be disputed. But it cannot be disputed that it is greater than 0. And there is a certain trend to increased rescheduling demand in entertaining games compared to real life.
