[EricF]

(Currently running X3624 as of this post.)

I've noticed two things with Raildriver support that seem to be more like bugs rather than issues with implementation.

One is with the bail-off behavior of the independent (locomotive) brake. If I shift the independent lever right, as designed, the locomotive brakes go into bail-off condition as indicated in the F5 HUD. But the HUD will show they are staying in bail-off even after the automatic brake is fully released and re-applied, and will stay so in any position of the independent brake handle. Only cancelling the the bail-off by pressing the keyboard ' / ' key works to remove the bail-off condition.

This was mentioned in an earlier thread here, but other than an explanation that it was potentially by design to have the bail-off remain until the next automatic brake application, nothing seems to have come of the inquiry.

There seems to be more. Upon bailing off with the Raildriver independent lever, the independent doesn't seem to have any effect until the bail-off condition is cancelled from the keyboard; even if the independent is applied to any indicated percentage, there is no locomotive brake action until the ' / ' key is struck to cancel the bail-off. I tested this with the default Dash-9 and a cut of default cars. Apply the automatic brake, bail off, release the automatic and wait for the brakes to fully charge again, then re-apply the automatic and release it again -- the independent will remain bailed-off until ' / ' is pressed. With the automatic brake off, moving the independent lever will have no effect until the bail-off condition is explicitly cancelled from the keyboard.

A similar sort of issue happens with the bell, when it is automatically triggered by the horn in the .eng file, as is common on some modern North American locomotives. Sounding the horn with the Raildriver's horn button will also trigger the bell. But the only way to cancel the bell is with ' B ' on the keyboard. Pressing the Bell button on the Railldriver will not cancel the bell toggle. However, if you press the Bell button on the RailDriver by itself, the bell will sound and remain latched on, and pressing the Bell button again will toggle it back off. It just can't cancel the bell if it's triggered by a horn blast -- it can only cancel by the Bell button if it was activated explicitly by the Bell button.

[cjakeman]

EricF, on 11 September 2016 - 05:15 PM, said:

I've noticed two things with Raildriver support that seem to be more like bugs rather than issues with implementation.

Time for a formal bug report I think, Eric.

Would you mind raising one? You can just refer to these posts you've described the issue in detail.

Thanks

[EricF]

Sure, no problem. Reported as bug #1624853.

[pmoser]

Hoping this post will spur someone to look into this. I can also add a little more information about the Bell being triggered by the horn problem that Eric mentioned. It seems that whatever method is used to sound the horn (Raildriver, Keyboard or in-cab control), that same method can't be used to cancel the bell, For instance, if the keyboard is used to sound the horn which triggers the bell, pressing "B" on the keyboard will not cancel the bell. I've been able to cancel the bell by pressing the bell button in the cab and I assume you could also use the bell button on the raildriver as well. Again as Eric mentioned, this problem doesn't occur when sounding the bell by itself, only when blowing the horn to trigger the bell ("DoesHornTriggerBell( 1 )" in eng file). I'm not sure exactly when this started, but I'm using version 3502 to get around this right now.

[EricF]

Odd... I just tested the default Dash 9 on X3696, and the horn-triggered bell can still be toggled off with the "B" key, whether it's set off by the RailDriver or the keyboard spacebar. Not sure what's happening. I do need to upgrade to the latest X-version shortly, but I haven't seen any changes that would affect it. Not sure why the misbehavior would spread to keyboard use.

I use the default keyboard mappings in my tests. Is there any chance that custom key-mappings could spread the problem beyond just the RailDriver?