Managing content in Surveyor 2009

[RobbieK]

Hi all

I bought TRS2009 yesterday, and proceeded to spend most of the afternoon just looking through the bewildering array of content that is supplied. After a 2 year hiatus from the world of Trainz*, I'm delighted with the sheer amount of content that is bundled with it - some of it familiar from previous incarnations, a lot of it new to me. Just browsing through rolling stock, scenery items and the like, suggested thousands of routes I'd like to build. I love that sense of unlimited possibility.

My problem, though, is how to deal with the sheer volume, particularly in Surveryor. In previous versions, assets were classed by function and/or place of origin. Of course, as one built up one's collection through the DLS, a lot of content would show up in unexpected categories etc, but basically the system to organise them was there.

As far as I can see, in TRS2009, all categories have been removed. It's not really a problem if you know the name of the asset you're looking for. If you don't know the name, or just want to look through items to see if there is anything suitable for whatever you're working on, it's a different matter. So if I'm going to browse through assets looking for, say, the perfect tree, I'm left to go through a single list of thousands of items of all kinds with no consistency in naming convention. That perfect tree might be called Arbre17, Tannen Baum, PineTreeHi, XH01, who knows what. Now, I've no issue with that per se. I know how most of this wonderful content has come to be, and over a long period of time at that. But at least being able to narrow it down to a "Tree" category was helpful in TRS2006.

So, after that long ramble (sorry!), my question is, is there any way I can sort these huge lists out myself in a way that they become more usuable? I can't see that CM2 is of much help in this. Or am I missing something very obvious?

thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Rob

*previous versions up to TRS2004 are registered on Planet Auran under my old alias, RobKilo, but due to me fat-fingering an update to my email address on my profile, I can't log in using that id anymore. I could of course have asked the helpdesk, but couldn't face waiting to download and install TRS2009!

 

[edion2]

Hello,

USE THE FUNNEL . . . no joke. The funnel shaped icon on the top right of the screen . . . thats where you type in your key word and such. I just found out about it. Its new for 2009. I still need to explore it in depth.

You will need to keep the "tab" (texture, object, rolling stock etc.) open at the same time.


OH . . . by the way . . . regarding "unlimited possibilities" . . . a friendly WARNING. There is a limit . . . not easily reached, but its there.

If you are like me and have the desire to build HUGE and COMPLEX world, there is a maximum of 2GB memory limit for Trainz game. When your route starts to take more than 2 minutes to load on a Dual Core processor or higher . . . you are approaching this limit.

If you hit this limit . . . suddenly you will get an error message "unable to overwrite a READ ONLY route" . . . which is a wrong message. But you will have to "save as" a new route name. The problem is . . . ONLY THE CURRENT SESSION IS SAVED if you use "save as". If you have many sessions created, they all get orphaned.

Think about building your world in regions. Perhaps a session related "chunks" of your world.

Just wanted you to know that there is a limit.

Happy Tranzing !

 

[RobbieK]

Edion2, you are nothing short of a genius, sir!

The "funnel" is exactly what I was looking for... in fact it is quite powerful, as you can add multiple arguments (if that's the technical term) to the search. And lo and behold the old categories are all still there.

Thanks for the advice on the practical limits to building a route. In my experience it won't be a problem, as my interests in railways are horribly diverse and I tend to not get very far with one thing before I think of something new and start another. As a result I end up with masses of sketches rather than finished routes. With all this extra content, I can't see the situation improving! But it's all good fun.

Thanks once again for the help, it is very much appreciated.

 

[paulhobbs]

The 'funnel' is not actually new for TS2009 although it has been enhanced. It was introduced for TC1 I believe, it's certainly in TC3.

Paul

 

[john259]

Would anyone who's got a version of Trainz with the "funnel" like to do a good deed for the day and create a Trainz Wikibook article to explain its use?

BTW, is the "funnel" actually a database filter?

John

 

[davesnow]

The funnel is in '06, too, although sometimes it will not list everything that uses the key word.

 

[RobbieK]

I guess I've been away from Trainz for too long - despite a typo in my earlier post, I've not owned any version later than 04. Thanks again for the help.