Can/Should my Route/Session bell be unrung?

[girlsloverailroads2]

I'm both new and totally addicted to Trainz. I created a new route and a session. I did lots of changes in the route layer, which grew by leaps and baseboards. Then, (don't remember why), I've done all additional changes in the session. At the end of each days work, I saved by overwriting both route and session using the same names. Yesterday I went into just the route (layer) and realized that all the changes from fairly early on, were not there and all existed just in the session. I'm Ok with that as it's just for me, and I can just keep building in the session forever I guess. But I thought I'd ask if the route and session (layers) can , (or should be) merged in some way. In my future routes, (though good grief, I might never want to be done with THIS ONE), should I put all the topography, track, roads and assests on the route level, and then make one or more sessions with different trains, industries, rules, directions, environments? Is that the order you veteran trainz folk create your RR worlds in? All the info in this forum and Shane's tutorials have really helped (except for a continuing problem with the neon colored/blacked out assets, even after unticking hardware acceleration compression etc as Shane directed, but that's for another post......) Thanks so much, Rebecca

 

[justinroth]

I always merge session into route, and do all editing through edit session, and then once loaded I click on route layer. Have had some problems with session rules being deleted by editing route. Does that make any sense?

 

[fran1]

1st thing, what build number is your version, bottom right as you launch 2010. Needs to be 44088 or better.
Route layer, everything except wagons and locos (except if you are using portals, the consists are then set up ready in the portal with commands as required by each consist).
Session layer, wagons+locos plus set industries up to consume/produce. Set the schedule library up with commands if needed. Handy in case for eg you have a consist going from mine to power station to mine etc.

 

[Dermmy]

When building a route I only ever work via 'Edit Session'. From time to time I try to remember to merge the session layer into the route layer, but in practice it should be daily at least or the session gets unwieldy! Doing it this way Trainz itself sorts out everything onto the appropriate layer. And don't overwright - sooner or later a big save will crash and it's gone. All gone. Use 'Save As' to create a new version of the route/session every save. If - when - it crashes while saving you only lose 1/2 an hour's work - because you save often - right????

 

[justinroth]

also always remember to back up your route and session to. cdp! has saved me a few times.

 

[girlsloverailroads2]

justinroth- yes that makes sense...Thanks and HOW do I save to cdp? fran 1- my build number for TS2010 is 49933 and Thanks for your answer too....I've enjoyed many of your old & newer posts. Dermmy- I'm glad to hear editing just in sessions is ok. I seem to save every 1/2 hour or so already, but always do so by overwriting the same route and session. If I save each time as new route and session versions instead, don't I end up with tons of route and sessions? Do you (I) just delete the old ones at some point? Thanks folks!

 

[Dermmy]

Dermmy- I'm glad to hear editing just in sessions is ok. I seem to save every 1/2 hour or so already, but always do so by overwriting the same route and session. If I save each time as new route and session versions instead, don't I end up with tons of route and sessions? Do you (I) just delete the old ones at some point?

That's pretty much it - lots of saves and delete the old ones!

I use a naming convention

RouteNameyymmdda where 'a' is just an alphabetic suffix, so the first save today for my Evansville route would be

EVWR130309a, next save EVWR130309b etc etc If I get to 'z' (it happens!) next save is za, zb etc

This convention appears in the route menu with the latest save at the top. Every day I delete everything from yesterday except the last save. I keep about three weeks of daily saves in the Surveyor menu - if I don't like the way something is going I can just load yesterday's, the day befores, last week's, whatever it takes.

I save route and session to cdp in a desktop folder every couple of days - desktop is on Drive 'C', TS10 is on a dedicated drive. Save cdp's from Content Manger - the My Content tab sorted by Date Installed will have the last saved session at the top of the list with the paired route second. Just select both, right click, save to cdp.

The only thing to watch with this system is that writing and deleting so many large files fragments a drive real fast. When everything looks to be slowing down a bit for no apparent reason - defrag. Hard drives are cheap, I move Trainz to a new one every 12 months.....

 

[girlsloverailroads2]

Dermmy- You know that really helped !! Thanks for taking the time to answer. I merged session into route, it was easy to do and all went well. I'll take your and justinroths advice and back up to a cdp folder today. Besides the daily saves, once a week I do backup the entire folder from C drive/programsx86/Auran/TS2010 onto an external 500g harddrive, and delete the oldest. Should I should now add the new desktop folder in that backup as well, or can I just create the folder in my C drive TS2010 folder to back up on external? I guess the only question I have left... is why do YOU keep those cdp files in a folder on your desktop in C, instead of in a folder on your dedicated drive with your TS ??? (Something to do with Windows? ... I know my 8 wants to have it's grubby fingers in every part of MY computer.) Thanks again, Rebecca

 

[Dermmy]

Hi Rebecca

The point is to keep the cdp back-ups on a drive other than the Trainz drive as insurance against a disk failure. If your back-ups are on the same drive as Trainz and the drive fails catastrophically then the back-ups are gone along with the program...

Andy