Snow High Valley Distr Ctr (High Resolution 950x532) Approx

Cleaning house and checking for Faulty assets in T:ANE

:wave:Hello SETH, and thanks for checking in, I understand what you mean about this route, because it has so much Snow, reflection is hard on my eyes too. I'm not used to it. But what I do is drop the light down a touch on my computer and that helps.

Now some good news One of the other members pointed me to the Bogeys in the Free area where I purchased the CB&o Pullmans all is well in Trainz land for the moment?

I have been busy re installing all my routes and assets, one at time and checking for Faulty assets, just had one come up on City and Country Route, well it was more like 150 assets missing, but just took about 10 mins to get them off DLS, and the Route checked clear. Slow and Steady is the game here now, I'm determined to keep T:ANE clean of Faulty assets this round. And I also think this recent update made quite a difference, which wasn't available when I installed last year.

Now back to the Avery-Drexel, I driving down the Valley, and what is great that I just noticed, the Water Reflects the sunlight, and I have other Shadows I didn't notice before, so I'm enjoying the things that T:ANE can offer.

Headed thru a windy path, and making good time.

Take a look here, see the suns reflection in the Water below, how realistic is that?

The person that designed this route did a terrific job, see how the water streams break into smaller isles, mighty cool and looks very natural.

I popped up this consists properties, we are heavier than the first consist used.

And on another Route I put out the CB&O Silver Set, I can't tell if it's the Meteor or the Comet, but I sure do like having it. And the Horn sounds real ole fashion, very nicely done set.:udrool:

That's about it for now, got to get back to getting my inventory squared.

Have a blessed Sunday all.......:wave: I'll report back tomorrow with more details.

Nice shots Blue, looks like you've been having fun. I have not, my laptop has been in the shop all through last week. It's back now though, and work on the NCNO has picked up again. Today's work session was all about the curves, and trying to find ways to widen or work around them. As such when the next version of the route goes out it'll be quite a different route to what we're used to. I've omitted the hump from Kelly Yard, it was taking up too much space for far too little usefulness, and gutting it gives me more room to expand the curves within New Castle. One of the derelict old buildings has been removed from the area, traffic signals have been removed and I've widened the curves within the town as much as I can get away with for now. The biggest change in New Castle concerns the Plastics Plant. I've turned it slightly, and destroyed the old spur. The new spur comes from the straight section along the wall, and goes through the two intersections mentioned earlier to get to it. This allows the plant to be serviced with larger hoppers, as well as be served by larger locomotives. In addition to the New Castle city curves, which I am still working on, I've also started correcting the tightness of the curves around the power plant. I removed a section of track going to the CAT plant and shortened two of the chemical plant spurs to this end. I still have a lot of work to do on them but they are better. I also fixed the curve leaving New Castle towards Crownhart Coal Co. Still needs a bit of work but I'm happy with it for now. The tricky one is going to be the valley loop on the peninsula, because I'm going to have to reform a lot of the hills in the area to make those curves bigger. I'll also probably put in some work on the loop in Heather Yard too, but that's for another work session. Rest assured, the Grinch hasn't grown a heart just yet, I assure you my motivations are purely selfish. I've decided to set up the NCNO kind of like the RBMN in real life, which in addition to freight service also has a historical passenger train. The NCNO will have a passenger train as well, based on old Missouri Pacific cars, but in order to fit these cars my curves needed to be bigger. That's my excuse, not that it didn't already need to be done and would've been done anyway. Should make the route more passable for larger power too, so foreign C44-9W's and the like will be able to run on the NCNO as well.

Playing with Silver Speed and old time passenger cars with smoky brakes LOL!

Selfish Southern1581, heck no, I like what I read, and I said before , an Artist true to his heart is never quite finished, and if you didn't tinker a bit, It would turn into a should of, could of, deal, then you'd pee ooooood big time for not going back and making the changes, all good my friend.

Ironically that's what I'm doing with the re install of T:ANE on this PC Laptop, because all those Faulty Errors were driving me bonkers, I like order and some Chaos, not the other way around.

Sorry to here you had computer troubles, been there too many times on that, I almost thought I lost Mrs. Blue Mac Book Pro this weekend when i did normal security update and Her Desktop crashed on me...Was sweating bullets, Luck came in the form of me being able to logon onto my Profile and it was just a Software hiccup for some reason? But it cleared up after 6 reboots........

Glad you came by, I figured you were buried in School work or something.BTW have you had any problems with ATLS Crossing behind Power Co sticking on and not releasing the Gates? It happens quite a lot, and I took the Train from Plant Siding and went to the Crossovers and the Gates still stay down, weird, but I'm not really familiar with ATLS stuff? Your take if you have a chance to check.

Also on space, if you move the scenery walls back closer to the Edge , like on the Rail Yards etc, you'll have more room for stuff, there is like 2 grid Tiles left over on both Edges of the Layout, that has the Scenery Wall Boards not set at the edge of Baseboard? I keep forgetting to ask you about till I read your upcoming changes.


Ok, so back at Kickstarter Country, here is tile map of the one I started to drive with Silver Speed equipment. Re great looking route.....Texture is fantastic, kudos to whoever built it.

One thing I do wish, is I could hide all the Promo's it clutters my menu too much for taste. To the right in this picture, is part of layout with Silver Speed Passenger Train shown, and all the Pullman Cars I need to pick up.....

In this shot, I dropping off 2 US Postal Cars while I go and pick up the main portion of the Train.

Silver Speed and Silver Power "B" Unit shunting the postal cars back on the main.

You'll notice this engine has a very distinctive nose, Kudos to the Designer that made her, and Horn is so cool, really sounds ole fashioned, but gets your attention right a way.

Now you can see all the passenger cars we need to pick up here, then will shove back and pick up the Postal cars I dropping off behind to finish this train, I think total of 12 Cars maybe. Here the Grade is level but as we leave and go round this mountain the Curve will increase to over 1%. Still not bad though.

Thats all for tonight, been doing a lot of Rain Related repairs outside the house, you when it rains it pours.....LOL:hehe:

Have a good night and great week ahead friends, :wave:thanks coming to visit.

Hmm, I didn't realize there were any issues with the crossings near the power plant, provided that my curve changes haven't messed the crossings up too much in that area I'll run a test to see what's going on and see if I can't get that fixed. As for the room walls, there was a legitimate reason for the walls being like that, can't remember what exactly but I think when I was watching tutorials of the concept it was how the person who made the tutorial did it. And now, all those years later, the reason I don't move them back is because it would create more problems than it would solve. The 2 extra grid squares worth of space I would gain from pushing them out do not justify the effort I would have to put in to fix and rearrange everything to be able to use them. I think my best bet it to just make the most of the space I have already. If I am going to modify the layout itself any from its current base, I might extend the city of New Castle further down the wall, giving the New Castle loop more room, and therefore bigger turns. It would also give me more room to rearrange the roads so I don't have the train running through two busy intersections; intersections are already hard enough to make crossings for. I might also widen the mountain area around the valley curve, for two reasons: 1) it'll give me more room to expand that loop, and I think that curve in particular needs space and expanding more than any other curve on the layout, and 2) it might solve my problems with the game's colliders on the mountains near the edges. For some reason, even though the textured tile is there still, the collider for it is still at 0 height or near to it. As such, placing trees near the edge of the mountains in that area proved to be a major pain in the backside, as I had to manually adjust every single of of the heights on those trees. If I can get those colliders working the way they should be working, then I can potentially go back in and do a better job with the vegetation in that area. Overall, still a very very large amount of changes that need to be made before I think it'll be ready for version 2 testing. I really want to tie it together and make it look better. It is a decent layout for what it is, but I am trying to aspire for better. I still have a long way to go in my building before I reach any kind of relevant skill in the art. Hopefully I'll get there.

My ramblings aside, some very nice shots Blue.

Walls to stay in place as you suggested

Copy on the non move for the walls, old adage, if it's not broken don't try and fix it, not worth trying to moving every around, I agree with you 100%. Besides all the other improvements is a big plus in and of itself.

As for the Crossing at the Power Plant, I know for sure its the spur, and it might be the other Track too. When I first noticed it, was when I was pulling Empties off towards Heather Yard, I had 4-5 cars, if memory serves me, and was at the Switch from Spur to Main over by Ice Plant Pipes, and I stopped the Train to move another way before the Crossovers, and noticed as I panned backwards thru the tracks that the Gates where still down? So after that, on another day, I had another load, and pulled forward to dump the Coal, then backed up to the Crossovers by the Town area. And still they wouldn't come up to clear position, I think I went clear past the Crossovers and was behind them, so good space between me and Power Plant, couldn't figure it out, but then I not really familier with ATLS components? I wished I could be of more help.

You used a term I'm not familier with? "game's colliders" could you provide a picture of what your referring too?

And don't get to down on yourself about building, I think you do exceptionally well, especially in Tracks alignment, layout etc, just think about this, you have a lot going on on 2 squares, so it can be difficult, but the idea works, and that's what counts. All in the Scheme of Life my friend.:Y:

It's raining like Cats and Dogs again today and part of tomorrow, having a T-Storm now, and there was a Tornado Warning for Santa Barbara......Crazy weather but happy to get some very much needed rain.

Have a good day, I have to run, got more family coming in from trip to East Coast today.

Cheers!

My Brakes got mighty hot, hope I don't start any fires today!

I couldn't not leave a few Pics for today for my friends.....I'll annotate more later when I get a chance, Have a good Monday all.

Finish Notes for tonight's Train Trip in back country:

Southern 1581, a perfect description, now I promise to be Collider Compliant, it makes sense and think I saw something similar on one of my routes but didn't realize until you described tonight what I was really looking at....

And on the ATLS, that's interesting on the trigger control, sounds like the Third Trigger has to be a clear point, but if the 3rd Trigger is where I think it is, then I guess it's better to bring a Load of Coal backed in from the Yard side not from the X Overs like I've been doing. Then we would clear all the Triggers and it should work OK?

Now to the Picture below, Silver Speed is reversing back to drop of US Postal Cars, and will pick them once we get the rest of our consist patched together.

Smoking hot brakes, crazy, but Cool.....I almost think the Brakes didn't quite release here? We are pushing back to pick up the Silver Postal Cars we dropped earlier.

Looks like we got the last 2 Postal Cars and will do another Break Check to make sure these cars do in fact release before we start up the Hill.

Brake Check is finished, our signal is clear to enter the main. Weather is cold and crisp, let's head out to high country!

OK, we are getting off the siding, but will need to keep our speed slow, till we clear the spur with long Passenger Cars, I don't want to derail a truck on these beauty's it would be very hard to explain, let along the time and cost of fowling a mainline!

I think that its for now, have a good night all.

Colliders...I'm not sure how to really put a picture with it, but instead I'll do my level best to explain it. The colliders represent where the game thinks the ground or an object is. This is what keeps your trains from falling through the route and descending to hell if they derail. I don't believe the game attaches colliders to buildings, which is why if you derail you wind up with a train inside of a department store it really shouldn't be inside of. Usually, the colliders are right there with the ground tile, so wherever you see ground, that is where the game thinks the ground is as well. In my case though, the colliders have become detached. The ground tile is way high up on top of a huge hill, and the collider is somewhere halfway down the fascia. Depending on how much work needs to be done and if the scene needs widening, I'll see what I can do. Aside from making tree planting much more difficult than it should be it isn't really a major issue, so it's another one of those Don't fix it unless you need to type deals.

Regarding the crossing, the ATLS system uses 4 triggers to make the crossings work.

So let's say these T's are our triggers: T...............T(crossing)T..................T

When the train hits the first trigger, it tells the crossing that a train is coming and activates the crossing. When the train hits the second trigger, the system now knows the train is entering the crossing. After this, the system is no longer concerned with the front of your train. It is looking for that last car to cross the third trigger. Once it crosses trigger 3, the train has left the crossing, and after a preset delay, the crossings will shut down. As far as I know the 4th trigger is only there for redundancy because the train can approach from both side of the crossing. What it sounds like to me is happening, is you are never crossing the third trigger with your last car, so the system doesn't shut down. In order to reset this, you would have to completely leave the system and reenter it, which will shut down the gates. The ATLS system is very robust but I've noticed that it doesn't have a way to compensate for your train not "leaving the system" in the way it defines. I think this may be the case, I'll run some tests once I have that area back in some semblance of decent shape to confirm. Until then, try that and see if that is it. If not, then I'll figure out where I broke the system so I can fix it.

Hope that sheds some light on the way the colliders and the ATLS crossing system works. Nice shots as always my friend.

Driving Silver Speed in Kickstarter Country (excessive smoke issues?)

Evening all,

Hope everyone had a great day, it was nice here without some rain, yes I actually said that, since Oct 2016, we actually had almost 14" of Rain, not in 10yrs have we had that much, very grateful to mother nature....

Now we need a few days of Sunshine (looks like will get 10 days) so the over soaked ground can absorb all the new Rain.

We had some area's that broke records for the most rain in January.

My heart goes out to those in Tornado Country, pretty ugly out there with 16 declared disaster areas, and if I heard right something like 30 Tornado's touched down? I can't begin to imagine, but the News pictures said it all.

So I'm driving Kickstarter County Route here, I see what it looks like as I travel further on it each day. Below is a picture of the Routes I've brought into T:ANE, so far OK, and not Faulty stuff at the moment, I have more stuff to import as I can, but vigilant in checking after every import for Faulty stuff.


I changed the Vsync to full, but I think it is too much on the ole Laptop, I post my current settings in the next message session.
Here we have left one passenger Station and headed up and around the hill at 1% Grade and will turn another curve to the left just a short ways up.

Crossing a deep gorge Bridge here.

There working hard going up the hill, actually not, this is the Train at Idle, there is something wrong with the Smoke Settings, as I get a lot of Smoke on =Idle, and not as much when driving, which is backwards to me? Maybe someone is more familiar with these Locos than me, as I am brand new ans clueless on this aspect of their operation. The other thing I would like to do is temper all the smoking Brake animation on these cars, for me, I think it is bit overdone, but I have to look at Config.txt file, to see if I understand how to make a change in smoke Characteristics, it almost seems as if these cars smoke all the time, and that doesn't seem correct to me. They should just smoke after coming to a stop, and then while we are sitting Still, taper off on the smoke.......Suggestions are welcome if someone knows more about these cars?

OK so here is a shot of the Train at rest, but if I didn't say anything, by the looks of the Smoke, you would thing it is slugging out hard up a hill, but the Train is actually stopped, and in Idle, and she is smoking like everything? I'm not complaining, just trying to understand the Reasoning behind this, I recall I had some other Diesels, can't remember the name at the moment, but they would do the same thing if still and idling.......?

Going around the side of the Mountain, and you can't see it yet in this shot, but there is a large City below the Mountain and just to our left.

Ok, that's it for tonight, thanks for dropping in folks. Talk at you tomorrow, wow, it'll be Weds already, time is flying this week. Take care....:wave:

The way the smoke behaves corresponds to how it is configured in the config file. The prjindigo units, like the CSX GP38 that you seem quite fond of switching the power plant with on the NCNO, have smoke that behaves very similarly to what you pictured. To fix this, go into the config file and find a line saying something along the lines of smoke_idle, or something similar. After that, you can change the value to something lower, and this will lower the height of the smoke in game.

Some more excellent shots, particularly that last one, I quite like it.

Thanks for advice on my excess Smoky issue

Southern1581 said:

The way the smoke behaves corresponds to how it is configured in the config file. The prjindigo units, like the CSX GP38 that you seem quite fond of switching the power plant with on the NCNO, have smoke that behaves very similarly to what you pictured. To fix this, go into the config file and find a line saying something along the lines of smoke_idle, or something similar. After that, you can change the value to something lower, and this will lower the height of the smoke in game.

Some more excellent shots, particularly that last one, I quite like it.

Click to expand...

:wave:Hello Southern 1581, and as always your advice is spot on, in this case getting me out of a SMOKY situation,

When you referred to "The prjindigo units" http://forums.auran.com/trainz/archive/index.php/t-61111.html

I'm posting a picture I believe is one of his units?

is this the person you are referencing?

I hadn't heard of him yet, but there are some many out there.


So I did go into the config.txt as suggested, and found the different values for smoke, did a little tweaking and much better, but I need to see what value to change to get more Smoke at heavier engine loads. But Idle wise so much better,

I need to see if I have some files on smoke tags and configuration, I was thinking overnight after I read your response, and think I might have squirreled away some notes when I had TS-12 running.

Thanks for insight sir, keeps me out of the fire!

BTW the DOW hit 20000 today, well because of kind folks here in the forum visiting here I just hit 20000 too today!

I am jazzed to the max, you folks made my day! I really appreciate you coming over to visit here :wave:

Awesome! I'm not sure how to get the smoke out heavier at heavier engine loads, although with most diesels you'll find that even at full throttle they don't smoke up a bunch, unless they're alcos, which those are not. As for prjindigo, he was a fairly early trainzer from what I can gather, and he made quite a good few models which were free to reskin on the DLS. Msgsapper I believe updated his stuff to be compliant with current models of trainz. Some of my first reskins were based on his units, and they are still available on the DLS if you want them. The CSX GP38 you are so fond of switching that coal mine with is based on his GP38, which someone painted up for CSX.

Thanks Southern 1581 for info, I'll check msgsapper's stuff on DLS too see what's around. And I found some other stuff on forum that talks about regulating Smoke, I plan on fooling around with it a little to see what I can do, I'm really happy that you were able to help on the immediate Smoke issue.

There's something else I remember reading about fixing Smoke issues on Steam Trains, I think it had to due with T:ANE environment, have to go look and see if I can find in my multitude of help files I've saved since TS-12 and Ipad 2 Trainz.

I'm starting a little at a time to organize my notes etc in Microsoft "OneNote"

https://www.google.com/search?q=onenote&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

It works really good for my needs as I read the voluminous info here in the Forums regarding fixing or changing things.

Steaming thru the Kickstarter Country Mountains headed to the City.

Evening all,

Well we have reached a train stop, that overlooks the City below, you see the mountain in the back, and because either my new settings are wrong? Or I need to increase I think what is called the Draw distance, cause that is one sick looking Mountain color in the back, yuk...I have to experiment some more tweaking to see if I can bring out more distance Texture wise, sorry about that.

We are headed into the city thru out first crossing, lights lit and all is well so far.

There is some kind of Mill, maybe wood, I'm not familier with what it is, and because this is payware, I don't know how to find out, what it is. Because I can't go into edit mode other than Session wise? IF I am incorrect let me know? Oh and one thing here, these cars are still Smoking while driving them, and I'm not using the Brakes, so something is amiss here :'( Never a dull moment on my Railroads.....:hehe:

And as noted earlier, our station stop, I think the Name is Dutch, maybe one of you do? It's a cool station and looks great, notice the Signal Style, Semaphore, and it's Green for us......Works for me.

And another view from above, and we are headed out, into a Curve that I believe continues into the City, not sure, so please don't quote me here. Will see tomorrow what the new area looks like, I have to say this Route is nicely Textured, and Plants are perfect, Kudos to those who built this route.

I really am enjoying driving this Route to see where it goes and what it has to offer.

:wave:Thanks for coming by folks, and enjoy your day tomorrow.

Importing backups and fixing Faulty Assets last night.

Good Morning all,

I'll post some pictures later on, I was up very late working on my MAC with Mr's Blue trying understand Photo and Album sharing, had never done it before, definitely different with MAC over PC, a love hate relationship for sure. GRRRR. I conquered the MAC beast for now!

So while working on that, I had been working in the Course of the evening with Importing my backed up routes into T:ANE, diligently one at a time checking for errors, downloading the assets that I could find, and doing an Delete Missing Asset's function in the Route, when I'd reach the point of just not be able to find the missing stuff on DLS or in Google, or KUID search database (which is really cool, that guys site does well for obscure assets you can't find) http://www.trainzkuidindex.com/ , if you do use his site, please try and support with a small donation.

Anyway, I ended up with 6 Routes restored, and 5 faulty assets in Dragons Pass Routes, I have the Multiplayer and Vers 4.8 they are cool routes that I like to diverge and play on when Time permits.

So the way I have done the re installation of T:ANE this time around, is have maintain little or no Faulty assets, and never let it get to 540 like I had before, thinking I would square it away later, Later did come and it was a disaster for me.

Have a great day and I'll get some more picks in later........Thanks for coming by folks. I'm off and running some chores.

I been bad, I broke a coupler pulling up hill!

Evening all,

Thought I would show a pic of the current routes I've installed, and I really hope in the future they give us the tool to clear the for sale items, they clog my list up so much, but this aspect will go on my wish list.

So here we are with ATSF #3275 Steam Loco, and because we didn't handle the slack properly we lost a coupler, coming up the hill, fortunately the momentum got us to near level grade, so the ?Brakeman is in the back replacing the broken coupler, which was probably aged and contributed to the Break in the consist. At least we are not fowling the crossing.

Looks like it will take a few more minutes for us to get it changed.

And we are on the move, and our Passenger Train Silver Speed, has moved on ahead, so I decided to run this one to see how the tracks our. Lots of curves ahead, as I am new to this territory.

From here you can see we are zip zagging thru the mountains as we descend our elevation out of the high country. We are going to kick up our speed too, make up for foot paw around the last corner. Every Crew has one of those days, today it was ours, good thing, at least we didn't derail any cars.

Forgot to mention it, but we brought another engine in to pull this load, we were a little light on HP to weight ratio, so decided not to take a chance in the mountains, this second engine was up in small yard ahead, so it was too far to get the extra power we needed.

My clue to be too light on the grade, we had excessive wheel slip out of stopped move, first time i've seen that in a while, I knew what it meant, and short cuts shouldn't be taken, I'll will be talking to Yard manager about his sub par performance in trying to run a train without enough power in these Mountains and with these Grades.

Awesome country here, nicely detailed, and if you look at us coming across the bridge, you see a set of parallel tracks further in the back, I think we might connect to them? Will find out tomorrow.

And back to the Faulty assets, looks like I have about 6 total, left, and will either get them fixed or get them deleted by Sun Down tomorrow. For their sake's they better hope I fix them before their subsequent demise. The Clock is Ticking assets, watch out!

Night all , see you tomorrow.

Nice shots blue

Southern1581 said:

Nice shots blue

Click to expand...

Thanks Southern 1581, and I might not get any Pics posted here tonight, forgot I had friends Wedding to attend''''

On my way out for Reception, might be long night but fun with great friends.

Found some good info on Smoke stuff........

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?93506-Diesel-smoke-effects&highlight=Smoke+Count

sniper297
Coconut God

Diesel smoke effects?





See you maybe tomorrow,

Last Min:

I had some luck , had a couple left over from yesterday...

Shunting and Driving in the Snow

Evening Folks,

Had a nice day at our friends wedding, and danced all night, but the bad part, my Phone died on me, I resurrected today, but it won't be for long, Battery is in it's death throes. So i had to get a new phone........

Now on to Kickstarter we are headed back up the hill and Snow is forecast today.

And we have some serious Steam coming out as we climb the Grade.

We are making a stop to drop off and pick up more cars at the Mill. Snow has started, but the Storm is not to bad for us today.

Cutting a few Gons for Wood Chips, another Crew will pick up later, we want to get moving just in case this Snow changes intensity today.

We are pushing some empties into the Wood Chip stipple spur.

We picked up some Tankers and Tippo Cars left for us.

That's it for now.....I working on some more housekeeping, and repairs on missing dependencies.

Have blessed Sunday all. :wave:And thanks for coming by.

About your phone..
Can't you just get a replacement battery,or is that impossible with your model?

Nice shots, love it when steam engines work hard

Well, getting a new battery is easy for us on android phones, I personally have 3 batteries to go with my LG G4, so if my phone dies on the road I have no less than one fully charged battery handy to swap it out with. Keeps me from being tethered to a wall if my phone starts to die. However, I get the feeling that Mr. Blue here is an apple peasant. No offense to you or anything blue but it is my job as a member of the android master race to look down upon those who use iPhone's from the throne made of spare batteries and headphone jacks that they don't have.

Jokes aside, some very nice shots from you Blue.