TrainSim Helper (Joystick/Overlay) release thread

[Havner]

Thanks Havner for the quick update to support TS2017.

I remember last year being in a panic after the upgrade to TS2016 and your excellent Overlay not working until you helped me out!

Yeah. And back then I tried to incorporate the window name changes up to 2019 so I wouldn't have to update when they get released. But DTG completely removed the year number from window title with 2017 which I did not predict. In any case this is probably their last version of this train sim line.

[Timex]

Thank you so much for the speedy update. You are a Star!

[peterbeste]

Dear Havner,

thank you very much for your program. It makes TS so much more realistic!

I have one question about the Albula Line GE 4/4 III.
This loco has a control wheel for throttle and electric brake as well as a vacuum brake.
I can get the throttle/brake work properly. However, I cannot map the joystick to the vacuum brake.

Any idea how to solve this?

Greetings
Peter

[Havner]

I have one question about the Albula Line GE 4/4 III.
This loco has a control wheel for throttle and electric brake as well as a vacuum brake.
I can get the throttle/brake work properly. However, I cannot map the joystick to the vacuum brake.

Any idea how to solve this?

Probably the ControlValue for the vacuum brake is some custom one and it's not assigned anywhere. Please see the readme about figuring this stuff out. Should be enough to analyze the keymap file.

[Whippy107]

I have been using train simulators for many years, though I've never gotten into modding, if you can believe it. As close as I have come was using the Railworks joystick API (which no longer seems to work.)

Having never used RW_Tools, I have a question about the process of adding the joystick/overlay. It says in the documentation that I must use RW_Tools to unpack certain locomotives as one of the first steps. Once I do what I need to do to add the TrainSim Helper, do I re-pack the files somehow as well? I'm afraid I did not find the answer in the TSH readme file, although I admit I may have overlooked it.

I know this must sound like a very elementary question to most of you, but like I say, I'm completely new at this.

thanks, and good day

[Havner]

Having never used RW_Tools, I have a question about the process of adding the joystick/overlay. It says in the documentation that I must use RW_Tools to unpack certain locomotives as one of the first steps. Once I do what I need to do to add the TrainSim Helper, do I re-pack the files somehow as well? I'm afraid I did not find the answer in the TSH readme file, although I admit I may have overlooked it.

You don't have to use RW_Tools per se, but for newcomers it's the easiest way. The files you unpack are regular compressed archives. Think of them as ZIP files. They store directories and files, etc. When a game encounters one it unpacks it (in memory) to the current directory and use files from it. However, if it encounters an unpacked file with the same path and filename it will use that file instead. And that's it.

You can unpack the whole archive (the easiest way, but it has its drawbacks) or you can unpack just the script file you need to patch. In any case you don't need to repack anything. Just make sure, that the local unpacked file has the same file path on the filesystem as it has in the archive. The game will prioritize the unpacked one.

[jpilborough]

You don't need to re-pack the files. If a file exists both inside and outside the *.ap file(which is a just a zip file, you don't necessarily have to use RW_Tools for the unpacking), then the unpacked version takes precedence over the packed one.

[Whippy107]

Thank you both very much. I'll look at this again this afternoon and see what kind of damage I can do

[danbaz]

Dear Hevner and others,

This week I came accros this helper program and it looks really good and I think it will be a joy to use it, when I can get it to work.

I feel quite stupid as I see most others can get it work easily, but I am doing something wrong and cannot get the overlay to show on the 2 trains I have patched so far; ICE 2 and 3.

This is what I have done:
TS2017 --> set to borderless, thence exit program
Save all the files to the plugin directory as instructed
Find the .ap files and unpacked them with 7-zip.
Find the .out engine files and patch them with the program; message all was succesful appeared.
Run TS2017
Run the helper.exe. Message appears that version 0.13 is running
Start a quick drive with ICE 2 and or 3 on tracks Augsburg/Munich and Hannover-Hamburg
No overlay....

What have I missed?
What to do with the unpacked directories? E.g. a train is in the Garmisch-Munich .ap file, but that file is 1GB big. Should I keep that whole directory then sitting in the program folder or can I just keep the two .out files and the folder structure that they are in?

Your help is much appreaciated

Daniel

[danbaz]

What to do with the unpacked directories? E.g. a train is in the Garmisch-Munich .ap file, but that file is 1GB big. Should I keep that whole directory then sitting in the program folder or can I just keep the two .out files and the folder structure that they are in?
Daniel

I see this part was answered already a few posts above
(tried to edit my message, but could not find the edit button...)

Daniel

[Timex]

It sounds like the engine script has not been patched, or the cache has not been cleared.
What I do is unpack the *.ap file, delete the *.ap file (back it up somewhere first), patch the engine script, clear the cache and run.

[danbaz]

It sounds like the engine script has not been patched, or the cache has not been cleared.
What I do is unpack the *.ap file, delete the *.ap file (back it up somewhere first), patch the engine script, clear the cache and run.

Thanks Timex,

I had tried to clear the cache before with no result. Just tried to do it like you described, but the result is that I cannot choose the ICE2 at all anymore, not in in Quick Drive, nor in a career scenario...

Daniel

[Timex]

It sounds like the engine script has not been patched, or the cache has not been cleared.
What I do is unpack the *.ap file, delete the *.ap file (back it up somewhere first), patch the engine script, clear the cache and run.

Thanks Timex,

I had tried to clear the cache before with no result. Just tried to do it like you described, but the result is that I cannot choose the ICE2 at all anymore, not in in Quick Drive, nor in a career scenario...

Daniel

My ICE2 is 88Mb and lives in Assets\RSC\ICE2Pack01, but I don't have your route.
Can you drive anything on the route?

[danbaz]

My ICE2 is 88Mb and lives in Assets\RSC\ICE2Pack01, but I don't have your route.
Can you drive anything on the route?

Mine lives there to. The ap file is 89.921 kb. Just driven the ICE3 down that route wihout any problem (except for the missing overlay off course). By the way I also tried to patch the BR426 - which lives in the Munich Partenkirchen route ap file. It gave me the same problem. It must be a small thing that I missed, but what would it be...

Daniel

[danbaz]

This is what I have done:
TS2017 --> set to borderless, thence exit program
Save all the files to the plugin directory as instructed
Find the .ap files and unpacked them with 7-zip.
Find the .out engine files and patch them with the program; message all was succesful appeared.
Run TS2017
Run the helper.exe. Message appears that version 0.13 is running
Start a quick drive with ICE 2 and or 3 on tracks Augsburg/Munich and Hannover-Hamburg
No overlay....

My 15 year ols son solved this problem. When I unpack a file I am used to doing so in a sub-directory (in order to be able to know which files were unpacked and which ones were already in the folder. When we used the option: Extract Here the problem was solved.

This also solved the issue with not being able to select the train.

Thanks for the help!

Daniel