Quick Trackmarks
I had a dream that I was running
>>> Continuous Ops <<<. I didn't have abandon my saved session and go back to surveyor to place a few new track-marks.
The
QuickDrive rule forever changed my Trainz experience
(Than you,
pguy). I, just now, have started to figure out the Quick Portal Manager - I ignored it before because it didn't seem so quick: not realizing "Quick" means
you can make changes from within driver, not "so easy to use even a caveman could do it." The iPortal has made it possible to get trains with specific loads into ongoing saved sessions.
Now if there were a '
QuickTrackmarks' rule, my saved sessions might
never end. The most common end to my driver sessions (and this is my fault, not Trainz) is when I realize that, to get an AI driver to do-what-needs-doing, I need a trackmark where I never could have imagined the need for one before. I can't seem to solve a shunting puzzle until I am already working it. Once I have it all figured out I want to have some of the guys come help me with it.
Picture the Cutbank Elevators, all 4 of them, brimming with freshly harvested grain. There's a consist of 60 or so empty centerflow hoppers on one track, and 3 or 4 of us are in our SW7s, taking 10 at a time and making a consist of full hoppers on another track.
"And stay off that through-track or you'll hold up AmTrak, and that new commuter service to Shelby." Yup, top and bottom of every hour... Who'd a thought there was a need for mass-transit way out here on the prairie? (Me! That's who!) ... We finish up just as the train from Whitfish arrives with a fresh set of empties and leaves with a big ol' load of grain.
Such fun. Sadly, for every hour I spend in driver, I spend 10 in surveyor - trying to recreate the shunting solution I just found; testing, changing and re-testing trackmarks to see how I can make AI drivers understand what it is that I want them to do... It would be heaven to be able to do that in-game, as the scenario plays out - to keep going even (especially) when things (my yard) are seriously messed up.
"Better get Dispatch on the horn, tell 'em to hold that next train 'til we can make some room for it." (So
THAT'S what 'Quick Portals' does!)
"They're not gonna be happy. You're
never going to hear the end of that. Yup, sucks to be you." AI drivers are like that, you know. No respect for authority... probably why they have so much trouble doing what you ask of them...
Now if there were a
QuickIndustry rule....
Times change, life goes on. Williams PetroChem looses their biggest client. Big Ed has to send his crude up-river where his new buyer is located (meaning we have to cart it there). The new electronics outfit is starting to make it big, and what's up with all the container traffic this week?
Tidewater was the very first route I played with, and I'm still enjoying it, even though I'm
still trying to get just one custom session working the way I want. It's a deceptively simple-looking route, there is a challenging operations puzzle lurking beneath. So it is no fault of Trainz that just when I have decided handle operations one way (and get drivers, vehicles and schedule library to match) that I then think up an alternate strategy, one that might be so much better (won't know 'til I've tried it).
Now, thanks to QuickDrive and iPortals I can - in driver - change everything that needs changing to attempt my new strategy
until I find out my AI crew will be useless until I put down a trackmark on the spot where they should be reversing direction. (...Oh, yeah: Can the Schedule Library be edited in Driver? Shoot, I guess I could use one of those, too).
I bet that if I could drive it a bit, then make a few adjustments,
and continue where I left off, I would have at least one Tidewater session I was happy with - and probably one generalized session, where I could vaguely oversee operations and dive in where the work was heaviest, or most interesting, at that time. And if (when) I decide to "change the way we do things around here" I can just move a few locos, issue new instructions to my crew and away we go...
Well, that's my dream.
Chris
