I have had an absolute nightmare with assets (not boards) going walkabout for no obvious reasons. I have replicated areas of my route on 3/4 occaions and have been almost reduced to tears.
I had lots of help from the Help desk but I lost all confidence .
First thing you MUST do is go onto the DEV screen and make sure that the compatability mode is set to " maximise compatability" and not maximise performance". I ronically, this sort of halk worked but they were adamant that is even more than essential, it is critical.
After this didn't work properly I sough there advice and asked the difference between routes and sessions which I had never fully understood. I received an explanation but it sailed over my head into the land of "technobabble" that N3V so often baffle me with. ( I have the odd head problem and can't always remember things"
Anyway, I have started religiously backing up both route and session with an incrementing number so I have lots of backup.
This really does work and I have lost nothing for the last 3 weeks
I therefore say, many, many thanks to the boys on the helpdesk and that I will always use sessions in future, never routes.
Please do let me know how you get on
Graham.
Shefford,
Bedfordshire
No worries. Don't be too hard on yourself, the route\session paradigm does have a bit of a learning curve. Especially when we start adding "layers" into the loop. But once you get into it it'll become second nature.
The Route is where the map board lives. This is typically used for terrain, buildings\industry, track, etc. To use a database term, I think of this as the "parent".
- When you load a route in surveyor, add stuff to the world, and save, things are saved to the route layer.
- You can check this by simply loading a route, putting down a tree and looking at its properties. You will see a "Layer" dropdown that says "route-layer"
The session is a subset of the route where trains and their associated schedules live. I think of this as a "child".
- When you load a session in surveyor, add stuff to the world, and save, things are saved to the session layer.
- Same as above, you can check this by simply loading a session, putting down a tree and looking at its properties. You will see a "Layer" dropdown that says "Session"
Here's a simple test you can play locally. Let's use CM to keep it simple.
- Run the Launcher > Manage Content
- Filter CM on "My Content"
- Create a new route (CTRL+ALT+N), the default name is "New Route".
- Place one tree. Check the properties of the tree - it'll say its "Layer" is "route-layer."
- Go "System Menu > Exit Game > Save (option is 'Save new route and session') > click Ok"
- Now in CM, you will see "New Route" AND "New Route - Default".
- "New Route" will show under the "Type" column as "Route" and "New Route - Default" will be "Session"
- Now load the session "New Route - Default" in surveyor
- You will see the tree you placed in the route because the session (the child) inherits objects placed in the route (the parent).
- Now place a second tree. Check the properties of the tree - it'll say its "Layer" is "session-layer."
- Go "System Menu > Exit Game > Save (use option 'Overwrite existing session') > click Ok"
- Now load the route "New Route" in surveyor again.
- The tree you placed in step 4 will be there but the tree placed in step 10 will not.
This shows how things save\load differently when it comes to routes & sessions.
So it all depends on what you open for editing that determines where your assets are going to live.
More info on this is
available here
Stay safe,
George