Adding New Activities to Highland Valley

[WCentauri]

I have TRS 2004 on one computer, and TRS 2006 on another.
Both have the Highland Valley layout, and on both of them I have successfully completed the 2 main tasks of the tutorial (Logs and Woodchips). When I finish unloading the woodchips, the tutorial does not give any further instructions. It does not say "Tutorial Finished", so I don't know whether there are any more tasks. It just leaves me hanging.

There may be a script error that prevents the tutorial from continuing beyond this point. Is there some way that I can find out from "Edit Session" all of the things that this tutorial is supposed to be able to do? I would like to make an outline or summary (like a "flow chart") of all of the things that it should do. Has anyone done that? Could you send me a copy?

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NEW ACTIVITIES for Highland Valley

There is a lot of untapped potential in this layout,
such as industries that are not being used,
tracks that are never travelled upon,
and scenarios that could be performed,
if we only had the key to unlock them.
For example, how can I load coal from the mine at Afton?
There is no driver command available to do this...

There are crates that can be loaded at Highland Pulp Mill near Stormont.
I would like to take them to another suitable place and unload them there.
What place is suitable? How can I modify the scenario to do this?

There are other industries on the layout, but they are not identified.
How can I tell what commodities each receives or ships?
How can I make Driver Commands that interact with them?

There is an unidentifed industry on the lower level there - is it a power plant? I can't get TRS to identify it. It looks like I could unload the coal there -- but how can I add this capability to the scenario rules? Wasn't this capability added automatically when this industry was put onto the layout? (And the same for all the other industries, like the Odium & Afton mines - why do the Driver Commands have nothing for these industries?)

I will greatly appreciate any & all help with learning how to add more capabilities to this fine little layout. The description even says that we can run passenger trains on it, but there is nothing to implement this capability...it's like the person who made this layout only gave us half of its capabilities -- are there more scenarios for Highland Valley available anywhere?

Thanks in advance...

Richard Snyder
Kent, WA (1 hour south of Seattle)

 

[john259]

There are several ways you could go:

• Create your own Driver sessions for the layout.
• Create your own scenarios using Trainz Pro Routes SCS (Scenario Creation System). There are separate versions for TRS2004 and TRS2006. This is a free program and excellent for non-programmers.
• Create your own scenarios in the GameScript programming language. This tutorial is an attempt to explain how that is done, taking you through each step of making a very simple scenario. No additional software is needed. This can only be done in TRS2004 though as TRS2006 doesn't have the ability to create or run scenarios.

All these can be done with Highland Valley or any other layout.

John

 

[WCentauri]

Trainz Pro Routes

Hi John; Thanks Very Much

I am looking at TrainzProRoutes.com and John Cletheroe's website. They are really good, with a lot of great info; thanks for telling me about them.

They may have the info that will enable me to understand the code for the tutorial ... and then I might be able to learn all of what it SHOULD be doing, and if it has errors, to correct it, and then enhance it also.

I have had TRS 2006 for several months now, but TRS 2004 only for a week or so, and since I wrote my post, I discovered that TRS 2004 has 7 excellent built-in Scenarios, 2 of which allow you to perform the passenger & coal tasks that I wanted in Highland Valley. These are really well done and I certainly could not improve them.

TRS 2004 also has a great set of instructions for performing these scenarios, which gives excellent step-by-step directions for setting out the coal cars at the 2 mines.

I wonder why the Scenarios were not included in TRS 2006...without them the Highland Valley experience is incomplete, and if you didn't have TRS 2004 you would never know that these were included there... I also wonder if these scenarios are included in the Trainz Classics (Harlem Line) edition, which I had to uninstall because my computer's video drivers could not handle it.

Thanks again for the information; Highland Valley is a great layout, and I will not tire of running operations on it for a long time, especially with all of what I expect to learn from these 2 excellent web sites.

Richard

 

[john259]

Richard,

TRS2006 and later cannot create or run scenarios, only driver sessions.

The Razorback Railway specialises in creating activities. These are implemented as scenarios in TRS2004. In TRS2006 they run as driver sessions which behind the scenes run rules, to give as close an emulation of scenarios as possible. If you like activities, you might like give us a go sometime, we have some free offerings to tempt you.

In TRS2004, the built-in scenario 07 Highland Valley Coal is IMHO a very nice puzzle.

John

 

[WCentauri]

RazorBack Activities & Trainz Hintz

Hi John

Thanks again; I have been looking through the RazorBack website; it is really excellent, and the activities promise to be quite detailed and comprehensive.

I noticed in the forum there that jenolan, the RazorBack GooRoo, has a set of files for the Highland Valley Coal Scenario. I expect these are the same as what I already have on my computer...after I register I wll download & compare them...

John Cletheroe's Trainz HintZ website has a good tutorial, with lots of detailed information on programming for TRS 2004. I am now several steps closer to being able to decode the program for the Highland Valley tutorial.

Thanks again
Richard

 

[taters12]

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