[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

Thanks for the info - I had seen a couple posts mentioning unavailability of Rail Driver - I guess they were mistaken. I’m a steam guy so Rail Driver was never a good fit for me. True joystick support would be most welcome - even with my fancy button box - I’m still just emulating keystrokes.

Regards,
Scott

[scottb613]

Weter, on 16 April 2023 - 06:32 AM, said:

What is that box?
Doesn't look as self-made..

Hi Weter,

They’re not cheap - but - the buttons, rotaries, and switches are of industrial quality. It works very well for my needs. It’s a great piece of kit.

https://www.ignitioncontrols.com/

Regards,
Scott

[pschlik]

Suppose I've messed around enough with lights to offer my two cents-I generally work in the world of American diesel locomotives, and the main things I wish I had are

• Some way to control the rear headlights on the locomotive, either with a separate keybind (risky move since keybinds are already a mess) or with the idea of reverser-controlled lighting mentioned already. Being forced to only consider headlights for forward operation is a particularly annoying limitation!
• Better handling of flashing ditch lights by having lights controlled by the horn and/or bell. Right now the best you can do is make it entirely manual, which isn't ideal.

Just those two would make my life quite a lot more enjoyable. If I want to get into things that are a little more complicated, I think it would also be nice if there was some way to allow lights to activate with multiple sets of conditions. Right now, you can only specify one set of conditions to activate lights, and all conditions must be true for the light to activate. But often times I encounter situations where I want a light to turn on in two mutually exclusive situations, and I am forced to duplicate the light entry, which bugs me. The way I would imagine doing this might be like this:

Lights (
	Light (
		Comment ( Head light )
		Conditions (
			Comment ( Activation conditions on lead unit )
			Headlight ( 4 )
			Unit ( 2 )
		)
		Conditions (
			Comment ( Activation conditions on rear DPU )
			Headlight ( 4 )
			Unit ( 4 )
		)
		...

[Weter]

BTW, yes:

Quote

it would also be nice if there was some way to allow lights to activate with multiple sets of conditions

Instead of having up to 40 "light ()" entries per loco, being duplicated for about 5 light locations - for AI, Rainy, Noght, Set out and so on conditions.

[Traindude]

scottb613, on 16 April 2023 - 07:22 AM, said:

Hi Weter,

They’re not cheap - but - the buttons, rotaries, and switches are of industrial quality. It works very well for my needs. It’s a great piece of kit.

https://www.ignitioncontrols.com/

Regards,
Scott

I may consider building a custom control panel by myself--many DIY USB game controller kits are available online, so how hard could it be? It's just interfacing it to ORTS that is the main concern...

[scottb613]

Traindude, on 16 April 2023 - 09:55 PM, said:

I may consider building a custom control panel by myself--many DIY USB game controller kits are available online, so how hard could it be? It's just interfacing it to ORTS that is the main concern...

Hi...

Back when I was looking for a better controller for ORTS - researching available products - IIRC - all the Button Boxes seem to use the same little IC board produced by the same guy/manufacturer - - - the only variable seems to be the quality of the enclosure and hardware used. The interface board itself (converts mechanical switch, rotary, button input - to USB joystick output) - is pretty inexpensive.

As for the interface to ORTS - since ORTS is strictly keystroke emulation (unless you custom code) - I'd highly recommend a small inexpensive program called - Voice Attack. It has a good voice control/recognition system that works exceptionally well - but - I don't use this function with Open Rails. In addition to voice - VA recognizes joysticks and keyboard shortcuts for input - which is what I use with my Button Box posted above. VA has a powerful built in scripting language to support macros - keeping them as simple or as complex as you desire. VA also has mouse macros to automatically move and click around the screen as needed. I've used the program with - ORTS - TSRE - P3D - ArmA - PSP - 3DC - and Blender - and it makes my life much better. The program is very intuitive and has been under development for years. Customer support of first rate on their forum. I've been an IT guy for 30 years and this is the best $10.00 I've ever spent on a utility - hands down (not affiliated in any way).

https://voiceattack.com/

Regards,
Scott

[FS.E652 091]

The suggested link is very interesting, for some time now I too have been trying to design a driving desk inspired by a real locomotive, the measurements should be 1.40m by 90cm wide, with a second station, for the controls and buttons I have a printer in 3D therefore I create them DIY, what I would like to understand is if there is the possibility of creating a board for Arduino .. or at least understand how to interface everything, unfortunately I'm not good in electronics ..!

[scottb613]

FS.E652 091, on 17 April 2023 - 01:58 PM, said:

The suggested link is very interesting, for some time now I too have been trying to design a driving desk inspired by a real locomotive, the measurements should be 1.40m by 90cm wide, with a second station, for the controls and buttons I have a printer in 3D therefore I create them DIY, what I would like to understand is if there is the possibility of creating a board for Arduino .. or at least understand how to interface everything, unfortunately I'm not good in electronics ..!

Weter, on 17 April 2023 - 02:31 PM, said:

Hello, Baldo.
Having the same problem: it's possible to make control stand, but how to connect controls with computer, running sim?
Though, all that is farther and farther from new lighting conditions discussion ;)

Hi Folks,

I think "Bodner" was the name and these were the boards all the Button Box's were using. I did all the investigation into this topic a few years ago - so things may have changed - please take them with a grain of salt.

Bodner - Switches to USB
https://www.leobodna...=index&cPath=94

Regards,
Scott

[Traindude]

Going back on topic, from what I've been hearing, the automatic reversing of lights based on reverser position is essentially like MSTS' "Simple Controls" function. Okay for some people, but very unrealistic for others. So, should ORTS' "simple controls" potentially reflect the simplified lighting scheme:

1) All lights automatically on between sunset and sunrise,
2) Moving reverser from forward to reverse (and vice versa) toggles the front and rear lights (and their associated cones) as needed

That's all I have so far.

In any case, here's another option for lighting that popped into my mind--many locomotives and rolling stock have things like backlit number boards or illuminated interiors which, are not a result of "emitters" like ordinary lights, but instead utilize "Bright" texture modes in their shape files. So, my idea is that we could potentially use the lighting controls to change the state of these parts' texture mode--from "Normal" to "Half Bright" to "Full Bright" and so on.

[Weter]

And lamps for illumination of bogies.
(for inspections at darkness time)