[sim-al2]

Hello all,

Recent versions of Open Rails (i.e. unstable version X1.3.1-236-g8ed5f3852 here) feature a bearing hotbox/failure system. Unfortunately, there are a few limitations in the current implementation.

For example, AI trains can have hotboxes too, as seen in INFO lines in the OpenRailsLog for apparently any activity.

Information: Hotbox Bearing Activated on CarID AI4 - 5. Hotbox to start from 25.9 minutes into activity

This creates a big problem though, as the AI clearly has no idea on how to handle this situation and just continues on-wards like nothing has happened. This wouldn't be a big deal except that it spams a warning message continuously to the player in the control confirmation area, quite literally updating every second presumably until the AI train stops or is removed from the simulation. This is a rather big problem because the player can't do anything about this short of using the train switching feature or dispatcher feature, for a problem that doesn't even apply to their own train.



For example, just running the Morning Intermodal activity on the FBL 3.5 route is already showing three different AI trains with hotboxes in the log, and I haven't even left the yard before the first AI train has experienced a failure. This IMO is bordering on absurdity given that there's 5 AI trains assigned to this relatively short activity. To give another example, running an activity on the Australian BHP Iron Ore route will almost certainly give you at least one hotbox, and I spent the last hour so of a loaded run having to see a message spammed about an AI train having a failure. While hotboxes certainly happen in the real world, it seems unlikely that multiple trains would experience one on a dedicated iron ore line in one day.

There's a surprising lack of discussion about the hotbox feature outside of its development thread, so I'm making this post to see if anyone else is experiencing this problem. I can post some wag files I've been working on but I don't think that the sim is even considering the bearing type when choosing cars to inflict a hotbox on.

EDIT: To give you an idea of just how common they are, even loading up the activity "MAC to Redbank" on the BHP route, which features 1 player train and 5 AI trains each of 4 locomotives and 208 iron ore cars, no less than 5 of the 6 trains will experience a hot box, strangely all of them in the first 17 cars of the train.

Information: Hotbox Bearing Activated on CarID 0 - 2. Hotbox to start from 68.8 minutes into activity

Information: Hotbox Bearing Activated on CarID AI1 - 16. Hotbox to start from 230.9 minutes into activity

Information: Hotbox Bearing Activated on CarID AI2 - 10. Hotbox to start from 120.7 minutes into activity

Information: Hotbox Bearing Activated on CarID AI3 - 5. Hotbox to start from 122.6 minutes into activity

Information: Hotbox Bearing Activated on CarID AI4 - 16. Hotbox to start from 90.4 minutes into activity

[steamer_ctn]

A patch has been added to OR (U2020.10.20-2021) to hopefully stop hotboxes occurring on AI (player trains only).

Can you please test and confirm that this has stopped hotboxes occurring on AI trains.

Thanks

[Haran Banjo]

I have this problem with the new unstable version U2020.10.20-2021

[steamer_ctn]

Haran Banjo, on 20 October 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

I have this problem with the new unstable version U2020.10.20-2021 Immagine.jpg

Your problem appears to be a graphics issue of some description, and is not related to hotboxes.

I would suggest that you start a new thread to raise your questions. It would also be helpful to identify the last Unstable version number that you were not experiencing this issue.


Thanks

[sim-al2]

steamer_ctn, on 20 October 2020 - 12:24 PM, said:

A patch has been added to OR (U2020.10.20-2021) to hopefully stop hotboxes occurring on AI (player trains only).

Can you please test and confirm that this has stopped hotboxes occurring on AI trains.

Thanks

Hi Peter,

Yes the patch appears to work, and at least according to the log hotboxes are no longer being set on AI trains.

It might be worth adding a note to the manual that hotboxes are linked to the activity randomization setting, I had no idea about this until I saw it in the code. (Also I believe that this has been reported but the only documentation in the U2020.10.20-2021 download is the Spanish version of the manual).

Edit: So the manual does *imply* that hotboxes can occur, but it's never mentioned by name, even though some other failure scenarios are explicitly mentioned.

[steamer_ctn]

sim-al2, on 20 October 2020 - 04:54 PM, said:

Yes the patch appears to work, and at least according to the log hotboxes are no longer being set on AI trains.

Thanks for the confirmation.

sim-al2, on 20 October 2020 - 04:54 PM, said:

It might be worth adding a note to the manual that hotboxes are linked to the activity randomization setting, I had no idea about this until I saw it in the code. (Also I believe that this has been reported but the only documentation in the U2020.10.20-2021 download is the Spanish version of the manual).

I have added notes to the manual, some notes can also be found here.

Thanks for the head up.