[Weter]

Or adding the word "absence" after original statement, cause the second variant looks for me more like an outcome of first one.

[cjakeman]

cjakeman, on 01 August 2021 - 10:40 AM, said:

Moving on to the next control in the Simulation tab:

Now I've had time to ponder a bit more, I think there might be a better way to handle this situation than the current checkbox in Menu > Options > Simulation

Would it be better to tackle this in-game with a pop-up (as we have for Activity Events), saying something like:

"This route does not supply power for your electric loco. Override ? [ Yes | No ]"

Such a prompt would offer the option just at the point where it is needed (when you are trying to power up an electric loco on a non-electric route).
It wouldn't need to be thought about beforehand and it warns you that you are trying something unrealistic and allows you to carry on if you want to.

Seems more user-friendly to me. Any thoughts?

[Weter]

Certainly.
In MSTS that was no possible atall to select ELECTRIC ROLLING STOCK FOR UNELECTRIFIED ROUTE, if at least one diesel activity is present (provides an instance of player train)

[R H Steele]

Generally I'm in favor of in-game popups that allow to user to choose an option and continue with the simulation, rather than having to stop and resume.

[steamer_ctn]

cjakeman, on 02 August 2021 - 11:08 AM, said:

"This route does not supply power for your electric loco. Override ? [ Yes | No ]"

Will this also apply to AI and TT trains? Will the user need to acknowledge all such trains during the course of an activity or timetable? Or does it do it once?

[Genma Saotome]

cjakeman, on 02 August 2021 - 11:08 AM, said:

2021-08-01 19_25_14-MS Excel with extensions - Options.xlsx.jpg

Now I've had time to ponder a bit more, I think there might be a better way to handle this situation than the current checkbox in Menu > Options > Simulation

Would it be better to tackle this in-game with a pop-up (as we have for Activity Events), saying something like:

"This route does not supply power for your electric loco. Override ? [ Yes | No ]"

Such a prompt would offer the option just at the point where it is needed (when you are trying to power up an electric loco on a non-electric route).
It wouldn't need to be thought about beforehand and it warns you that you are trying something unrealistic and allows you to carry on if you want to.

Seems more user-friendly to me. Any thoughts?

Yes, you can return to the functionality present for many years in OR: The game doesn't pay any attention to this stupid condition lifted from MSTS. Was it J. Kraus who put this in? He was obsessed with making OR an exact copy of MSTS w/o regard to sensibility. Consider if you will: If you are going to keep looking at routes to determine what kind of locomotives are allowed why arn't you also looking for steam locomotives and asking the player if he wants to run diesels as well?

Just let us run whatever locomotives we want to run -- as we used to do.

[cjakeman]

steamer_ctn, on 02 August 2021 - 12:42 PM, said:

Will this also apply to AI and TT trains? Will the user need to acknowledge all such trains during the course of an activity or timetable? Or does it do it once?

How about letting AI and TT trains run and logging a warning if the loco is electric and the route is not? The player train still gets a pop-up.

Genma Saotome, on 02 August 2021 - 02:00 PM, said:

Yes, you can return to the functionality present for many years in OR: The game doesn't pay any attention to this stupid condition lifted from MSTS.

Good to get some background on this. Thanks, Dave.


Once again, thanks to everyone for guiding me through this options "minefield".

[cjakeman]

Moving on to the Activity sub-section of Menu > Options > Simulation, we have "Forced red at station stops":



The manual entry reads:

"In case a signal is present beyond a station platform and in the same track section (no switches in between), OR will set the signal to red until the train has stopped and then hold it as red from that time up to two minutes before starting time. This is useful in organizing train meets and takeovers, however it does not always correspond to reality nor to MSTS operation. So with this option the player can decide which behavior the start signal will have. This option is checked by default. Unchecking the option has an effect on simulation behavior only if no Timetable mode operation is under way."

So this should be unchecked when running in Legacy Mode (i.e. MSTS-compatible).

Csantucci, on 14 July 2021 - 10:32 AM, said:

To provide an example, the mentioned option "Forced red at station stops" reflects two different ways real signalling systems work, so it should not be eliminated. In my country red is not forced at station stops.

But also, as Carlo indicates, this behaviour should be route-specific.

YoRyan, on 14 July 2021 - 11:33 AM, said:

Yes, it seems to me that this feature should have been introduced as a signal or route file option. But that ship has sailed.

I hope that we will be able to consider route-specific options later on.


Looking in detail at the Manual:

"This option is checked by default. Unchecking the option has an effect on simulation behavior only if no Timetable mode operation is under way."

I find this double negative rather awkward. How about this?

"This option is checked by default. Unchecking the option has no effect when in Timetable mode."

[Aldarion]

The idea came to me all of the sudden:

Shouldn't we have an option checkbox such as "MSTS legacy" that would turn on all necessary options?

Has far as the red forced at stations, couldn't it be coded in the signal script and config files?
This way it would really be route specific and there could be some more customization like the time before departure to open the signal or even a random time inside an interval...

[ebnertra000]

Forced red seems best as a script function that could be turned on or off like other functions, sort of like so:

if (!enabled || block state !=# (BLOCK_CLEAR) || forced_red)
{
state = SIGASP_STOP;
}