[Goku]

Quote

Options ==>General at the bottom of panel: Disable TSC Scripts

Still doesn't work. I'll just build new station without signals. I just wanted to avoid building routes for testing simple activity functions ...

[Goku]

Ok, Action Events work too.

https://i.imgur.com/BoyY5Uk.jpg

.. last event didn't triggered because I didn't knew the cars have to be in right order :)

One thing, I had to use MSTS AE for creating path for this activity, because I failed trying to do this in OR Track Viewer:

Is possible in TV making paths with overlapping lines?

https://i.imgur.com/rfaGiki.jpg

If it isn't, then nothing that bad, because I'll make Path editor in TSRE anyway.

[Goku]

Here is video from this activity.

https://www.youtube....h?v=HBzKVpTX7Z8

[Genma Saotome]

Seeing as you've taken the plunge and done something to replace KUKU's AE, please check w/ Chris on the OR team to see if he still has a list of ideas that was complied several years ago -- all sorts of ideas for new features. There should also be a number of threads in the OR Private forum, probably in Features, Activity Editor for more ideas.

One suggestion right now: I never liked how KUJU handles loose consists as a list of cars in the activity file instead of the name of a consist. If you think about it, it would be far, far easier to edit any list of cars via a .con editor than it would be to do an itemized list inside an .act file. IOW, if you want to create or edit a list of cars, use the same tool and make the end user work-process the same for all cases. That way, next week, next month, next year, some other activity you just grab a previously created .con file to use as a loose consist in the new activity file.

[conductorchris]

Amen +1 on the loose consist .con file (or make up a new suffix to distinguish from regular consists). Then one could swap them easily, randomize them maybe, perhaps plug them into explore routes . . .

Track Viewer CAN create overlapping paths in my experience. If I'm understanding what your asking correctly.

Christopher

[Goku]

Genma Saotome, on 04 October 2017 - 09:10 PM, said:

One suggestion right now: I never liked how KUJU handles loose consists as a list of cars in the activity file instead of the name of a consist.

There is reason why static consist are inside an activity. They have to have unique ID for events. Replacing consist could damage the activity.

[Genma Saotome]

Goku, on 05 October 2017 - 10:45 AM, said:

There is reason why static consist are inside an activity. They have to have unique ID for events. Replacing consist could damage the activity.

Ok, so those are activity-used cars. AFAIK many -- most?? -- loose consists are present for the purpose of filling up the tracks here and there. One thought about this would be there are two different purposes at play here, equally deserving of including in an activity and that is the activity-used cars you mentioned -- KUJU's solution -- and a different class of cars whose purpose is scenic. Those could be .con files.

Think of adding .con as loose consists as fleshing out a partially implemented KUJU feature.

[Goku]

Genma Saotome, on 05 October 2017 - 10:59 AM, said:

One thought about this would be there are two different purposes at play here, equally deserving of including in an activity and that is the activity-used cars you mentioned -- KUJU's solution -- and a different class of cars whose purpose is scenic.

Yes - it is possible. TSRE supports different types of activity objects, so I can add another type of wagon list if it will be supported in OR too.

[Genma Saotome]

FWIW I spent many years working as a Data Architect -- not the physical stuff DBA's do but the business analysis side -- helping management reveal the true nature of the data they needed, how it was different than the systems they had purchased, and documenting it all in a standard notion. Much of this work was conducted in JADS -- Joint Application Design Sessions -- me, a group of managers, and an open floor debate over meaning and purpose. For most of my career I had business-unit responsibility, which usually meant world wide and I finished up with company-wide responsibility, also world-wide. And I was VERY good at this, no doubt in large part to my INTP personality. MANY time there would be arguments over what something meant. In almost all cases the problem would be solved with the realization they were using one word to describe two very different concepts. Come up with a second phrase, pull the two concepts apart and give them different names and suddenly everybody was all smiles.

This problem of different meanings has been an ongoing problem for anyone working on any train sim (perhaps Run-8 is the least affected): Is a consist (.con file) the one and only concept we need? Kuju provided that... and sort of something else called a loose consist, but what we have in fact are a train, a collection of locomotives joined for MU operation at the front end, another kind acting as helpers, a string of cars used for scenery, a block of cars traveling unchanged from point A to point B, a cut of cars (i.e., a temporary collection that will be reformed by switching actions), ladings and weights varying per the activity in which they are used, and a trainset (e.g., a seldom if ever changed set of passenger cars), and multiple .s files to create a single locomotive just to name what comes to mind. Some of those might properly collapse together but IMO not all of them should go into just one or two concepts. Different data, different life cycles, different in-game functionality.

All of those could be abstracted enough to handle as a .con file... but is that the best answer? With regard to the effort to program solutions, maybe yes... but is it also the best answer for end users or for features in the game? I strongly suspect the answer is no, that one concept -- consist as physically implemented as a .con file, isn't enough.

Just one example to make the point: If we define a collection of locomotives that are operated as one and apply the colloquial term used in North America -- a lashup -- and the logical assembly of several .s files into one locomotive -- lets call that .loco -- we can solve several existing problems, such as today's failure to properly recharge the brake line using the very nicely modeled Milwaukee Road box cabs -- 4 physical locomotives represented by (IIRC) 10 .s files -- a collection of .eng and .wag files). A .loco file concept could "assemble" the multiple .s files, with their .eng and .wag data into one unit in-game, and a .lashup file holding all four locomotives instructs the game to handle commands issued from the cab as if they were a single locomotive.

[conductorchris]

Wondering: could there be a new kind of file for loose consists that includes multiple loose consists, each with a consist ID and probably other attributes too.

Such a file(s) could be edited, swapped around with different activities and explore mode and maybe randomized within certain kind of car classes or tags.

I imagine you'd have to have a method for managing the id numbers. A simple way might just be making them larger numbers not likely to conflict with other numbers used in activities.

When you get down to it, loose consists are more like a database or spreadsheet file and less like a list even though consist files were designed essentially as lists. Because really you have various different classes of wagons (or locomotives) and locations that call a class or classes of wagons and how much and so on.

One thing I wouldn't like is hundreds more loose consists littering up the CONSISTS folder - better to implement some new folder(s) withing the CONSISTS folder.

Christopher