So I'm almost finished with my first route and last night I was able to run my session for about two hours with periodic attendance to see how the AI was handling it. I've got passenger trains starting from each end every 20 minutes for now). A few questions came up as I watched bottlenecks appear and some appalling behavior from the AI.
Here is what I want:
* Passenger trains leaving the portals at each end every 30 minutes (or some number I can easily change later) and travel up or down the line, running the passenger stations. They end up at a portal next to the portal their counterpart came from and are removed. It takes about 90 minutes for AI to run passenger up the line, so this should keep about six of these trains on the board at all times. It would be nice to be able to set the priority for these trains too, if I can use that.
* A fixed number of freight trains (and a few important passenger trains) that start on the board (so I can set their loadout) and progress back and forth between set portals that will load empty cars and unload goods off-board.
* The remaining trains will be be AI controlled to maintain industries to keep the flow of goods coming as well as maintaining the power plant so the industries all keep running.
* The human will be given a few unassigned engineers and a ton of cars and engines scattered throughout map. I'll have a few set tasks, such as refilling all the fueling stations from the refinery, transporting goods from one section of the map to the other, and so on.
I've run into a few snags. If you help me with these questions, I will be very close to finishing this project off:
* How do I keep two AI from fighting over a switch? My mainline is double tracked, but most of my stations are on one side, so I have a lot of stations like this:
Track 1 is directionally controlled Eastbound and Track 2 is Westbound. I've relaxed the restrictions around the stations to allow a WB train to move up to Track 1 just to stop at the station. However, eventually I have two passenger trains approaching the station at the same time. They both try to take control of the switch Sw1E (\ and /) and the result is they are each stopped at the signals (i) Si2E and Si1W. The WB train needs all four switches, but I only think it is grabbing Sw1E and Sw2E since those are all it needs to get to it's destination and it will worry about wresting control of Sw1W from the EB train.Putting a 30 second wait on one of the trains will free up the switch with enough time that it will eventually make it to the station then on to the other track.
How do I keep this from happening? I'm sure it's commonplace. I'd like the AI on these passenger trains to function autonomously. They are supposed to be an obstacle to those running freight along the main line.
* How do the P50 F40 speedboards? I'm not seeing any difference in speed between trains with only passengers and those with freight. Also, looking at the assets is even more confusing as they use some number unrelated to mph or kmph. Not only that, variable speed boards only have one number, sometimes it's the passenger and sometimes the freight?
I really don't want my 40 car coal trains barrelling down the windy mountainside at 40mph, but those four Budd RDCs can do 50 for all I care. What's the best way to set this?
* How does priority track work? Will a P1 train always take a P1 track over a P2, P3 or unprioritized track? I'm assuming P1 is the highest, but is it? Are priority restrictions absolute? Will a P3 train want indefinately for a P3 track to clear or will it eventually buck the system and take a P2 track? It's a shame there are only three priorities to work with, I can see this coming in handy to help direct trains to the right tracks.
* Portals. I want to keep my AI mainline trains running continuously so I set my passenger cars up with a really complicated route. Unfortunately this means I can't really make changes to the portals they come from or I need to re-enter the orders. Re-entering orders for a 15 station passenger line is not fun. There is a generic portal control rule I tried, but it had a tenancy to delete and overwrite consists and engineer orders seemingly at whim.
Not only that, but when I ask empty cars to come back full, they never come back full of what I want! I've removed the capability of a hopper to carry nothing but coal and I still get a train full of iron ore. On the plus side, it was quite spectacular to watch three SD45s try to pull 5600 tons of iron ore up a 2% grade only to slide back down (brakes fully applied) into the passenger train waiting at a signal at over 20mph.
Do I need to just use cars with a limited consist in the config.txt?
* Uploading Content to the DLS. Is there a nice tutorial on doing this? For my route I had to reskin a few bits of rolling stock that didn't exist in the DLS. I even had to modify some that I downloaded but were missing important dependencies like bogies. What is the etiquette for giving credit to those who's cars you reskinned? What about uploading a fixed version of an existing engine? How about content that is not in the DLS that you received elsewhere but would like it to be in the DLS. What about engines you've created from kitbashing parts from all sorts of different creators (mesh from here, art from there, etc.)? My route should be all DLS available, but and I'd like to make my first session the same, but I'll need to upload a lot to make that so.
* Verifying dependencies. Once I am finished with my route and eventually session, how do I verify that all of the content is available on the DLS? I picked up some engines not in the DLS from websites but they've already gotten lost in all my stock. Unfortunately, the CMS shows each new content as downloaded from the DLS, even if I just manually imported a .cdp file.
* Multi-Industries. How do these work? They have queues that you can set for whatever goods you want. Do they demand or produce these goods? What is a waybill %? In fact, what is the waybill at all? It would be nice to use the waybill as the goal for the session. Complete the waybill before noon.
Thanks in advance for any responses. If you can answer a question simply by pointing me to a tutorial, that's fantastic. No need to be as long in word as I am.
Here is what I want:
* Passenger trains leaving the portals at each end every 30 minutes (or some number I can easily change later) and travel up or down the line, running the passenger stations. They end up at a portal next to the portal their counterpart came from and are removed. It takes about 90 minutes for AI to run passenger up the line, so this should keep about six of these trains on the board at all times. It would be nice to be able to set the priority for these trains too, if I can use that.
* A fixed number of freight trains (and a few important passenger trains) that start on the board (so I can set their loadout) and progress back and forth between set portals that will load empty cars and unload goods off-board.
* The remaining trains will be be AI controlled to maintain industries to keep the flow of goods coming as well as maintaining the power plant so the industries all keep running.
* The human will be given a few unassigned engineers and a ton of cars and engines scattered throughout map. I'll have a few set tasks, such as refilling all the fueling stations from the refinery, transporting goods from one section of the map to the other, and so on.
I've run into a few snags. If you help me with these questions, I will be very close to finishing this project off:
* How do I keep two AI from fighting over a switch? My mainline is double tracked, but most of my stations are on one side, so I have a lot of stations like this:
Code:
E Station W
----/---------\-i-- <---- Track 1
-i-/---------i-\--- Track 2 ---->How do I keep this from happening? I'm sure it's commonplace. I'd like the AI on these passenger trains to function autonomously. They are supposed to be an obstacle to those running freight along the main line.
* How do the P50 F40 speedboards? I'm not seeing any difference in speed between trains with only passengers and those with freight. Also, looking at the assets is even more confusing as they use some number unrelated to mph or kmph. Not only that, variable speed boards only have one number, sometimes it's the passenger and sometimes the freight?
I really don't want my 40 car coal trains barrelling down the windy mountainside at 40mph, but those four Budd RDCs can do 50 for all I care. What's the best way to set this?
* How does priority track work? Will a P1 train always take a P1 track over a P2, P3 or unprioritized track? I'm assuming P1 is the highest, but is it? Are priority restrictions absolute? Will a P3 train want indefinately for a P3 track to clear or will it eventually buck the system and take a P2 track? It's a shame there are only three priorities to work with, I can see this coming in handy to help direct trains to the right tracks.
* Portals. I want to keep my AI mainline trains running continuously so I set my passenger cars up with a really complicated route. Unfortunately this means I can't really make changes to the portals they come from or I need to re-enter the orders. Re-entering orders for a 15 station passenger line is not fun. There is a generic portal control rule I tried, but it had a tenancy to delete and overwrite consists and engineer orders seemingly at whim.
Not only that, but when I ask empty cars to come back full, they never come back full of what I want! I've removed the capability of a hopper to carry nothing but coal and I still get a train full of iron ore. On the plus side, it was quite spectacular to watch three SD45s try to pull 5600 tons of iron ore up a 2% grade only to slide back down (brakes fully applied) into the passenger train waiting at a signal at over 20mph.
Do I need to just use cars with a limited consist in the config.txt?
* Uploading Content to the DLS. Is there a nice tutorial on doing this? For my route I had to reskin a few bits of rolling stock that didn't exist in the DLS. I even had to modify some that I downloaded but were missing important dependencies like bogies. What is the etiquette for giving credit to those who's cars you reskinned? What about uploading a fixed version of an existing engine? How about content that is not in the DLS that you received elsewhere but would like it to be in the DLS. What about engines you've created from kitbashing parts from all sorts of different creators (mesh from here, art from there, etc.)? My route should be all DLS available, but and I'd like to make my first session the same, but I'll need to upload a lot to make that so.
* Verifying dependencies. Once I am finished with my route and eventually session, how do I verify that all of the content is available on the DLS? I picked up some engines not in the DLS from websites but they've already gotten lost in all my stock. Unfortunately, the CMS shows each new content as downloaded from the DLS, even if I just manually imported a .cdp file.
* Multi-Industries. How do these work? They have queues that you can set for whatever goods you want. Do they demand or produce these goods? What is a waybill %? In fact, what is the waybill at all? It would be nice to use the waybill as the goal for the session. Complete the waybill before noon.
Thanks in advance for any responses. If you can answer a question simply by pointing me to a tutorial, that's fantastic. No need to be as long in word as I am.
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