"Unofficial Assets"

Quick newbie question:

I downloaded 2 routes from DLS, both of which have warnings I don't know how to resolve:
1) Unofficial Assets: <Kuid:86627:1>, Generic Crate
2) Unofficial Assets: <kuid:[enter a number here]>, Unknown asset

The Generic Create used to be an Unknown asset but I managed to find the asset on proroutes. Unfortunately, after importing, it did not fix the issue. The session still does not load. Does this mean I cannot run the route or is there a way to work around this?

Thanks in advance
~P

When you imported the asset, did you check that it wasn't faulty? If the asset is faulty, or even open for edit for that matter, it won't appear.

That said, you can open the route in Surveyor and look around. If you see nothing important missing, like track or bridge for example, don't worry about them. You can then use the Delete missing assets tool, which is located under the Main menu to remove the missing assets from the route. When you then save the route to create a session, it will save the route under your own KUID. This means you will have your own modified copy with which to work with.

You mentioned that you found one of your two assets. You might find this website helpful for that process too. www.trainzkuidindex.com You will need to create a login, but the access is free. A donation via PayPal is welcome if you wish to do that.

John

parsifal300 said:

The Generic Create used to be an Unknown asset but I managed to find the asset on proroutes. Unfortunately, after importing, it did not fix the issue. The session still does not load.

Click to expand...

Loading a session is not affected by missing assets. If you can't load the session there is a problem with the route or with the session. Missing/faulty assets are a different issue.

JCitron said:

When you imported the asset, did you check that it wasn't faulty? If the asset is faulty, or even open for edit for that matter, it won't appear.

That said, you can open the route in Surveyor and look around. If you see nothing important missing, like track or bridge for example, don't worry about them. You can then use the Delete missing assets tool, which is located under the Main menu to remove the missing assets from the route. When you then save the route to create a session, it will save the route under your own KUID. This means you will have your own modified copy with which to work with.

You mentioned that you found one of your two assets. You might find this website helpful for that process too. www.trainzkuidindex.com You will need to create a login, but the access is free. A donation via PayPal is welcome if you wish to do that.

John

Click to expand...

Since the item is labeled as "Generic Crate" I doubt it's mission critical. Did as you suggested and everything (after a couple of gyrations) loaded successfully.

Is there any way to ID in surveyor the offending part(s) or since they are faulty they would not appear? (How about simply a Big Red "X" or something.) This would be helpful in determining what's about to be deleted.

www.trainzkuidindex.com: Excellent resource, thanks!

SailorDan said:

Loading a session is not affected by missing assets. If you can't load the session there is a problem with the route or with the session. Missing/faulty assets are a different issue.

Click to expand...

Think this issue was a memory problem. Once I rebooted the error associated with the asset I located went away.

Anyway, is there an issue with Unofficial Assets? Like they're not allowed? What are they? I did a search on the forum and nothing applied to this particular issue.

Thanks for the help.

parsifal300 said:

Think this issue was a memory problem. Once I rebooted the error associated with the asset I located went away.

Anyway, is there an issue with Unofficial Assets? Like they're not allowed? What are they? I did a search on the forum and nothing applied to this particular issue.

Thanks for the help.

Click to expand...

You probably mean unknown assets. These are, as you have found out, an asset that the game doesn't find anywhere. The assets are referred to by their KUID number. The KUID is made up of two parts like this: KUID2:xxxxxx:yyyyyy:z

KUID2: means this is the latest iteration of the KUID designator. The six digit xxxxxx refers to the author's user id. Mine is 124863, for example. If you check your My Trainz account, you will see what yours is. It should also be in your login information in T:ANE.

The yyyyyy part is the asset id. These run sequentially, though there is a method to set a starting range by the author, at least we used to be able to do that so that assets can be grouped easily. Then finally, the :z. This is the asset's revision. There can be 126 versions of an asset (127 with zero being the first).

So let's put this all together:

<kuid:124863:100353> SR conflat detailed

This is a first version asset of a Southern Region (British Rail) container flat car. There is no new version yet.

Here's an asset, a route which now has a second version.

<kuid2:124863:1003:2> Scenic & Relaxed

----

With this in mind, why can't the game know what these things are? It can't anymore than we can because there is no asset that matches the asset KUID that's referenced anywhere it knows to search including locally on your computer, in your own local database, that Content Manager and the game accesses, or on the Download Station, which is accessible through Content Manager. What has probably occurred in your case is the asset came from the author's own machine and he created it but somehow the asset was never uploaded, or he used an asset which is no longer available anywhere since its source website has gone to the great bit heaven of the internet.

If an asset, for some reason, is left open for edit, the route will report this as missing, however, Content Manager will know that and display that in the open for edit filter, and in the installed content list. Again, your status will show this clearly so I recommend displaying that always. To display any filter other than installed, click on Installed, next to Filter: and choose from the list.

So check for open assets for editing, and submit them. To do that, highlight the list, right-click and choose submit. This will commit (submit) the assets to the database and make them available to the game for use.

John

parsifal300 said:

Anyway, is there an issue with Unofficial Assets? Like they're not allowed? What are they?

Click to expand...

If your route includes an asset that can't be found in your system or on the DLS then you can search for it here:
http://www.trainzkuidindex.com/

There is no particular problem with using these 'third party' assets. They vary in quality from excellent to useless, just like the assets on the DLS.

JCitron said:

If an asset, for some reason, is left open for edit, the route will report this as missing, however, Content Manager will know that and display that in the open for edit filter, and in the installed content list. Again, your status will show this clearly so I recommend displaying that always. To display any filter other than installed, click on Installed, next to Filter: and choose from the list.

So check for open assets for editing, and submit them. To do that, highlight the list, right-click and choose submit. This will commit (submit) the assets to the database and make them available to the game for use.

John

Click to expand...

Ah HA! looked into my directories and discovered I had over 50 assets open for editing. Not sure how that all happened but went into CM and reverted them back to original and closed them out. Then went back into my Gloucester RR sandbox and discovered I had trees sprouting out all over my newly formed coal mine operations and RR spurs. Thanks yet again for your help.

~P

That's great news!

That happens in T:ANE when assets are updated. It's best to check there and ensure stuff is submitted after downloading from the DLS.

On the Gloucester route.... Granite quarries are more appropriate, but a coal mine sounds cool.

John

JCitron said:

That's great news!
On the Gloucester route.... Granite quarries are more appropriate, but a coal mine sounds cool.

John

Click to expand...

Ah, if power plants only accepted granite instead of coal it would solve most of New England's power issues. I remember when Public Service was building the Seabrook Nuclear plant. They promised the power would be so cheap the customers would be able to rip the meters off the side of their houses.

Oh, did I just date myself?

parsifal300 said:

Ah, if power plants only accepted granite instead of coal it would solve most of New England's power issues. I remember when Public Service was building the Seabrook Nuclear plant. They promised the power would be so cheap the customers would be able to rip the meters off the side of their houses.

Oh, did I just date myself?

Click to expand...

Lol.. I remember that too... I also remember when that was being built with lots of controversy. At least it kept the old Eastern RR open as far as Seabrook for a bit longer. Today when I drive by the area and see rusty track all the way to Portsmouth, my stomach sinks. I remember seeing freights being pulled by B&M F-units and passenger trains running on the line including over the Merrimack River drawbridge. The old Newburyport freight yard too used to have lots of freight cars in it, and there were even freight cars down on the City RR branch. It's all gone now, ending at the commuter rail station in Newbury.

I suppose we could put Radon pumps in the ground... We could then power via granite gas.

Anyway. I started a newer version of the same route which opens up a line north towards Lanesville and Pidgeon Cove with a branch to Annisquam, and then lines heading to Magnolia, and out to Eastern Point. I started this after I noticed a lot of abandoned quarry rail roads up that way on a map one day and felt there needs to be a bigger network. My northern "mainline" parallels Route 127 and then across the bay. It's been fun, though a lot of work too.

John