I'll Bet You Haven't Seen This Before

[stouthm]

The situation: two parellel tracks running East to West. The AI is in control. When a consist gets to a certain point on the inside track there is a slight hesitation (hiccup) and then the AI shuts off and the display for manual driving appears. This lasts about a second and the AI wants control so it switches between the two until the consist stops. There is no problem on the outside track. I have tried everything I can think of to find the problem. Deleted the inside track and relaid it the direction the consist is traveling, no luck. Went into wire mood, deleted both tracks looking for a problem under the tracks, no luck. Changed switches, changed signals, deleted signals, no luck. Deleted the section of track that I thought where the problem was occuring and did a work around that area, inside track to outside track and back to inside track but the problem just moved to the section of outside track where I did the work around. I'm baffaled as to what may be causing this. As of now I'm back to the original track configeration but haven't fixed the problem area. Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[Isegrinns]

Hmm. Are you working with trackmarks?

 

[Ricke82]

I doubt that this is the same issue, but I’ve had AI behave as you describe after it executes a Navigate via TM command and the next command is a Navigate to Portal. In my case I eventually get a message saying there’s no path to the destination. The problem is intermittent and seems to only occur after I’ve resumed a saved session. There is no problem with the route or the assets involved, AI just stops “seeing” the Portal. The only solution I’ve found is not to save the session.

 

[stouthm]

Thanks for the quick replys. Rick, your response gave me a thought so I tried it and it worked. What was happening was that I had given a Drive To command for a industry much farther away than I should have. I did a Drive To command for a much closer industry and no problems. I guess the AI was looking far ahead and was being overwhelmed or confused or something. I've been at this game a long time and this is a first for me. Still learning after all these years. Again, thanks Isegrinns and Rick for the quick replys. I've been fooling around with this problem for about six hours and was really getting frustrated. I'm a happy camper now.

 

[Ricke82]

I often feel that AI's primary goal is to keep us guessing about it's going (or not going) to do next. I'm glad you worked out a solution.

 

[stouthm]

Hey Rick, it's been several hours since your reply and I got something else for you to think about concerning the AI. Why did my problem only affect the inside track? I ran the same destination for both tracks, everything the same, but had the problem on the inside track. Go figure.

 

[rgcx]

-post deleted-

 

[ctclark1]

In my experience:
"Waiting for track clearance" concerns signals.
"Waiting for access to junction" concerns waiting for junctions to be unlocked by other trains.
"No path to destination" typically concerns either missing junction levers, or being stuck due to direction markers.

Do other trains get through this area? Are there direction markers on that stretch of track? Do you accidentally have two direction markers on that stretch of line (between the nearest junctions on each end of where it stops) facing each other?


Something to try to help pinpoint the problem is to set up a number of temporary trackmarks in the area and do a bunch of Drive Via's or Drive To's with each trackmark in order and then see where the driver gives up at - Your problem would then be between the last successfully trackmark and the one that it can't get to.

 

[stouthm]

Hey Guys, thanks for the replys but in #4 reply everything is good to go. I'll try to condense things here. While running a route a ran into the problem stated in #1. I then placed a loco on the inside and outside tracks while trying to figure out the problem. No others locos were running. I only had one loco active while I was testing. I received no warnings. When I was testing I gave the command Drive To for a industry far along the route. What I think happened was the destination was too far away for the AI to compute. When I chose a closer destination the problem disappeared. Any thoughts?

 

[Ricke82]

Concerning #6, is everything really the same for both tracks? Is the industry on (or on a siding on) one track or the other? Is there a junction that has to be diverging for one track and straight through for the other? None of this may matter, my point is the two paths aren't exactly the same are they? My second question is will AI navigate from the closer industry to the one you were originally trying to send it to? Maybe AI’s problem is further along the line. I personally wouldn’t worry about it. I probably don’t have the proper attitude, but I think there are times when you quit trying to figure out why AI, or Trainz itself, does something and just work around it. You’ve got your session working and that’s the important thing in my book.

 

[stouthm]

Rick, whatever the problem was it's now corrected and you are correct about the session working.