Adding extra products to a railcar in Surveyor

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

I am very rusty at setting up Sessions, so pardon me if this sounds dumb.

I have a railcar designed to handle 1 product, iron ore. The railcar's config specifies <kuid:-3:10040> as the 'allowed-categories', meaning 'bulk solids'. So that's consistent with iron ore being a bulk solid. OK with that so far.

I wanted to add a second bulk solid (cement powder) as another possible load for this railcar. I thought I could do it in Surveyor from the railcar's Properties box. I clicked the + icon next to the iron ore icon and a list of commodities did come up, but cement wasn't there. In fact, the only commodities listed were bulk liquids or discrete objects like containers, pallets, vehicles etc. I should also mention that the cement product is fault-free and works OK in railcars that have it as one of their default commodities.

Why are further bulk solids excluded from a railcar that can already handle this load class? Seems very counter-intuitive to me, but then, I haven't played with this part of Trainz for years. Can someone gently untangle it for me?

Getting dumber as I get older..

~ Deane

 

[Falcus]

Hey, better then asking for someone else to identify your own Trainz ID# for you (Just did that *rolls eyes*).

That said, at least in '12, the commodities list I've always gotten in surveyor when adding commodities has always been inclusive of every known product I've ever Downloaded..... So I have no idea why '10 would be any different (Assuming this is '10 you're working in). Its never seemed to matter what type of car it is, the game has always given me the option to load automobiles in Tankers, Sheep on Centerbeams, Argon in Boxcars, and Bulk Oil on Wellcars..... Never actually tried any of this mind, but there ya go, at least the menus seem to give me the option to.

Falcus

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Yes, I saw your cry for help and momentary loss of identity. As some of my Greek-Australian friends say,"how embarrassment". :hehe:

But back to this topic; it is TS2010 that I'm using, but I know it also happens with TS12 (a friend in New Zealand with TS12 reports the same behaviour) and not just with one railcar. It seems to be general.

The rule seems to be that commodities from the same product-category as the railcar's default product are not listed and can't be added via the Properties box process.

It initially may seem that all your installed commodities are listed, but they aren't. Some commodities have names that suggest they belong to the same class as your railcar's default commodity, but if you dig a little deeper, you find they are not in the same class. For example, 'copper powder' by Ish6 has been declared a 'bulk liquid' rather than a 'bulk solid' which allowed it to be added, whereas 'cement' by LLJ, being a bulk solid like the default 'iron ore' was not listed.

I'm just struggling to understand the logic behind this behaviour.

.

 

[rweber95]

Commodity questions

The confusing thing about commodities in Trainz is that if its kuid config.txt file includes a category-class "Ix" tag it will list in the configuration manager as a Commodity. If that tag is missing, as with Coal,<kuid:44179:60013>, it will list as Misc. In fact, most of the original builtin commodities list as Misc.

Bob Weber

 

[mikeaust]

This has always been the case with products I think. Perhaps they class the cement as a liquid because of the handling properties.
You could add the cement as an allowed product in the config for the wagon. Edit in explorer so as not to change the kuid number.
cheers,
Mike

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

@rweber - Oddly, the Wiki says that for a Kind product asset, the product-category tag is now compulsory but category-class doesn't even rate a mention. When discussing the category-class tag, the Wiki sends mixed messages. On the one hand it's the "key searching parameter" but on the same page, it is written off as "not definitive, but indicative... even if it is only of the mental state of the creator at the time of donation to the DLS" due to the loose way it has been used by creators.

From that I would take it that product-category (for Kind product assets) is the primary determinant, while category-class has been demoted to nothing more than an unreliable search term that Content Manager may use, but doesn't even bother to list in its headings.

In my case of trying to add a cement product to an iron ore car in Surveyor, I can't explain its failure to list as due to tags missing from its config. It has both category-class (IB) and product-category (<kuid:-3:10040>). Its behaviour is still a mystery to me.

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

This has always been the case with products I think. Perhaps they class the cement as a liquid because of the handling properties.
You could add the cement as an allowed product in the config for the wagon. Edit in explorer so as not to change the kuid number.
cheers,
Mike

No, no. I've already said the cement product was a bulk solid just like the railcar's default product (iron ore) was a bulk solid. I did, in fact, successfully add liquids in Surveyor, but strangely, it will not allow another bulk solid product. There's no logic to it.

Adding the cement by making it one of the 'allowed-products' in the railcar's config is definitely one option and I've done that. But I thought the whole point of having the + sign in a railcar's product list was so that one could add extra products without doing surgery on the config.

 

[llebrez]

Let's say you don't do the "surgery to the conf file". You succeed adding the product in surveyor (a product that is not in the config file). Now you drive the car to a portal and make it return in the set time. The car will be empty! Try and you'll see. The safe thing to do is to add KUID numbers of the commodities to the config file; In essence you are modifying the asset for your own good.

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Let's say you don't do the "surgery to the conf file". You succeed adding the product in surveyor (a product that is not in the config file). Now you drive the car to a portal and make it return in the set time. The car will be empty! Try and you'll see.

I believe you, but I don't see what point you're trying to make there. Can you clarify?

What I'd like to know, before bringing in any complicating factors like portals, is if you at least see the same kind of things as I have described when adding commodities to a railcar via the + icon in the Properties box? Can we just establish that first?

 

[llebrez]

As you can imagine, what I know, in part, is for experience (the manual doesn't tell you that). So, you are in surveyor, open the car menu and add a commodity. In that menu, your desired commodity must be present. If it does not, you have no choice but to modify the config as suggested in the other posts. If you add the commodities in surveyor, you can use the tool that copies these settings to same coupled cars, and everything works. So far I a confirming and establishing what you already know. But remember that cars produced by the portal are replicas of what entered. Replicas from the list of assets, and these don' have the things you added in surveyor. Hence, I like to add commodities at config level just to be sure. On the mater of differentiating solid, liquids and all, I find it idiotic and a way to make things more complicated than what need to be. Still, I have seen tankers that only accept general goods..(and when loaded with the"goods", a box shows up over the dome...!)

 

[mikeaust]

I think this has come from way back when a computer programmer with little train knowledge set up the original wagon system.
Lately I have been adding loads to tankers that had none originally. I copied the necessary data from a wagon with a load....The queue showed up as Coal....go figure
cheers,
Mike

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Alright, I'll ask this in a more direct way.

Make sure you have the following kuids (and any dependencies) in your locally installed assets:

<kuid:92263:14042> which is BR JTA (A) BSRV Ore Wagon Outer from the DLS, a TRS2004 asset. It handles one commodity, iron ore <kuid:92263:63001>. These are both by creator tomyoung.

<kuid2:30671:9252390:1> which is cement by LLJ.


- Put the wagon on a track in Surveyor.
- Try to add the cement as an extra commodity to the wagon, using only the wagon's Properties dialog box to do it.

What happens?


.

 

[mikeaust]

Okay Dean,
ran the above test in 2010.
I got the same result as you.
Then I checked out the Bulk Load in CM, I listed dependent assets and Cement is listed as the Kuid2 version.
I have this version in my CM so have no idea why it wont show for that wagon.
cheers,
Mike

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Me neither.

Thanks very much for repeating my little experiment Mike. It's not just happening with this wagon. I and my NZ buddy have seen it with other rolling stock.

 

[mikeaust]

I used to have the problem a lot, but over the years I have modified the rollingstock I use or just dump it and use something else.
Maybe someone in the know could advise us why something listed as a dependent asset of a buit-in product can't be loaded into a railcar with that built-in as the allowed product.
Cheers,
Mike

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Yeah, I would really be interested to hear what they have to say too.

It seems like the allowed-categories container is just not working as described in the Wiki;

allowed-categories
...Allowing a product-category means that all products of this category are allowed, they therefore do not need to be specified in the 'allowed-products' container.


If only it would actually work like that! I checked and the railcars do specify allowed-categories, and the products also refer correctly to those categories. In reality I'm finding that specifying a product-category (bulk load <kuid:-3:10040> in the allowed-categories container actually excludes rather than allows the addition of further products from that category. The only way to get those products into a railcar is to add them to the 'allowed-products' container in the config. That's the direct opposite of what the Wiki says should be the case. Players should not need to frig around with the config to do something that should be done in Surveyor.

Not only does an allowed-categories container specifying bulk load <kuid:-3:10040> exclude that class of products, it allows different category products (bulk liquids <kuid:-310044>) to be added. Here are some iron ore wagons with argon and acetylene liquids added. I am guessing the psychedelic textures are just an artefact of these products not having a genuine product-texture image to call on, but the point is, liquids are clearly adding to a wagon that is not supposed to accept them.

I tried also adding products of the 'container' category to the queue. They did appear in the available products list, and loads could be assigned to the railcar in the Properties box, but they didn't become visible in the railcar itself, so I assume they weren't really added. At least that part of the system is more or less working (although why did they even appear in the list, if they are supposedly invalid choices)?

I'll stop banging on about this now, but I think there is enough information and examples in this thread to show that something is very wrong here. I hope someone from N3V takes notice.

.

 

[JamesMoody]

allowed-categories
...Allowing a product-category means that all products of this category are allowed, they therefore do not need to be specified in the 'allowed-products' container.

If only it would actually work like that! I checked and the railcars do specify allowed-categories, and the products also refer correctly to those categories.

Have you tried configuring an industry to produce that product, and then loading a wagon at that industry in driver? That is how it is supposed to work. For a fair test, don't mess with the wagon in surveyor - just place it, and drive it into the industry.

That's what is meant by the wiki statement.

Here are some iron ore wagons with argon and acetylene liquids added.

Surveyor will allow you to add anything to anything. It doesn't filter by what the wagon author has decided is valid (although I think it doesn't allow the addition of duplicates, which might be what you are seeing here, as the wagon is considered to already accept the products? If so, that prevents pre-loading in surveyor, and is therefore probably a really minor bug.)

I am guessing the psychedelic textures are just an artefact of these products not having a genuine product-texture image to call on

Yup.

I tried also adding products of the 'container' category to the queue. They did appear in the available products list, and loads could be assigned to the railcar in the Properties box, but they didn't become visible in the railcar itself, so I assume they weren't really added.

Yes, they were added. Just that the wagon didn't have load attachment points to make them visible. If you deliver them to an industry that accepts them, you'll see them appear. As I said, surveyor allows you to get around the restrictions the original creator may have placed on the wagons -- no matter how non-sensical some of the combinations you can come up with might be.