Need a "don't be stupid" rule

[sniper297]

This is too dumb for words. Using navigate via P29, P30, P31, P32, works fine - except when another AI is up ahead and "idiot" gets a red signal after P31. Instead of waiting for the other AI to clear the block he's gonna back all the way around the reverse loop and figure out how to get to P32 from there? I can fix this by adding yet another directional marker to the reverse loop, but the route is getting festooned with the blasted things.

I've heard conflicting stories on navigate via versus drive via, seen links to stuff that allegedly worked in TRS2004 or 2006 but don't work in TS2010, is there a TS2010 compatible rule that will make these idiots wait a couple minutes for a red signal to clear, and preferably seek the shortest route to the next marker instead of what they think might be the fastest?

 

[shaneturner12]

Not sure if it will work in a junction situation, but 'Wait until not red' should do the trick.

Shane

 

[SD45T-2]

Did same thing , nothing odd happened. But it was most likely the fact that I had signals set up.

 

[celje]

Which signals( semaphores) you use? It seems that are not on the route.

regards
celje

 

[pware]

A "don't be stupid" rule doesn't work in real life with real trains and drivers.

The local press here has a report of a recent event on a commuter train, an 8 car EMU with driver cabs at both ends. A relief driver went to the wrong platform, got into the wrong end of the wrong train, which was loaded with passengers and already had a driver at the right end. His correct train was waiting for him on another platform.

When the guard closed the doors and gave the signal he was a little bit quicker off the mark than the correct driver and the train immediately took off heading in the wrong direction towards other oncoming commuter trains. Both the guard and the other driver immediately applied the emergency brakes to halt the train.

The story is at http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/24/3252510.htm

 

[SD45T-2]

JR Safetran signals, dual heads for the switches and single heads for the rest.

I think it may be that I placed a signal near the problem spot, before the switch back onto the mainline if you come off from the top track.

 

[celje]

The connection track ( i'm sorry i don't find the proper word) between inbound track and outbound track is not covered with signals.

 

[sniper297]

"Crossover" is the term used in the US, don't know what Europeans call it. Not the problem tho, I left signals out of the diagram but all the junctions are signaled correctly. After I added a direction marker on the reverse loop to stop "idiot" from trying to back up that works, he stops at the red signal, waits 2 minutes for the AI train using that track to clear, then proceeds onto the track. Ridiculous because the passing AI diverges onto another route a couple hundred yards further on, so idiot doesn't gain any time by trying to go around him, in fact the way he was doing it would have taken 30 minutes longer and ended up with him facing the wrong direction for the rest of the trip. Big problem is this type of thing has a domino effect, idiot 1 is backing the wrong way thru three crossovers trying to save a minute waiting at a red signal, idiot 2 comes along and is blocked by idiot 1 waltzing back and forth, so idiot 2 decides to tango instead of waiting which blocks idiot 3 who decides to polka then the whole thing gets gridlock so nobody can move anywhere. Like I say, Trainz AI traffic is more intelligent than the other two, but it's psychotic. :hehe:

 

[S301]

Hi Jim
This is really where the direction markers are required. And where a session layer is handy (since you simply add those markers within the session, that way you have a 'clean' map for your next session, in case you don't need or want them).

If a track is meant to handle trains in only one direction, then you should have a track direction marker.

If you don't want direction markers, then you'll need to basically manually tell a driver exactly what to do. In this case, a 'wait for' or 'wait till' type command would be needed.

If you have a 'player' train in the session, then you may wish to look at having trains simply 'appear' or 'disappear' when they are out of view of the player (depending on the session style of course). Remember, each AI train will take up resources

Zec

Zec

 

[nuni727]

"Crossover" is the term used in the US, don't know what Europeans call it. Not the problem tho, I left signals out of the diagram but all the junctions are signaled correctly. After I added a direction marker on the reverse loop to stop "idiot" from trying to back up that works, he stops at the red signal, waits 2 minutes for the AI train using that track to clear, then proceeds onto the track. Ridiculous because the passing AI diverges onto another route a couple hundred yards further on, so idiot doesn't gain any time by trying to go around him, in fact the way he was doing it would have taken 30 minutes longer and ended up with him facing the wrong direction for the rest of the trip. Big problem is this type of thing has a domino effect, idiot 1 is backing the wrong way thru three crossovers trying to save a minute waiting at a red signal, idiot 2 comes along and is blocked by idiot 1 waltzing back and forth, so idiot 2 decides to tango instead of waiting which blocks idiot 3 who decides to polka then the whole thing gets gridlock so nobody can move anywhere. Like I say, Trainz AI traffic is more intelligent than the other two, but it's psychotic. :hehe:

I got lost after ridiculous. I think I might have seen something about idiots dancing to tango and polka. :hehe:

 

[baz66]

Damn Zec! Iwas going to say that. My slowness is unrewarding.
baz

 

[Kennilworth]

Hi

Another approach to this would be to use one of the path setting commands coupled with an autodrive command. Using these commands I have no problems getting the AI drivers to go where I want them to on the ECML and that route has lots of scope for the AI to get lost.

Regards

Brian

 

[celje]

sniper297

I made a test route. If you are interesting i can give you cdp, send me your email via Private Messages

regards
celje

 

[colourlight]

Sadly, I,m not familiar with Path Command and Autodrive. Is it to too much to hope there is an explanation in the manual? I,m at work so I can,t look it up).

 

[JCitron]

The direction markers work quite well, as I've found out, but the most frustrating thing is the AI not waiting until a path is clear, and they keep trying the junction levers over and over, switching them back and forth, forcing signals to go from green to red repeatedly.

Why do we need rules to tell the AI to wait longer than 2 minutes? Shouldn't this be the opposite with the long, almost indefinite wait be the default, and shorter wait times being controlled by rules?

If you think about it, in the real world, trains will be held at junctions for very long periods until given a clear signal. This period can be only a few seconds, minutes, or even an hour more, depending upon the situation.

Why does this have to be so difficult to implement?

John

 

[shaneturner12]

As I said above, the closest rule to that at the moment is the Wait until not red rule, available on the DLS.

Shane

EDIT: Actually, it's a driver command.

 

[Mick_Berg]

This is exactly what I'm talking about, replace Navigate via with Drive via, and see what happens. I haven't tried it and I'm not promising anything!
Mick Berg.

 

[sniper297]

"Why does this have to be so difficult to implement?"
Can I get an "AMEN!" from the choir?


"If you have a 'player' train in the session, then you may wish to look at having trains simply 'appear' or 'disappear' when they are out of view of the player (depending on the session style of course). Remember, each AI train will take up resources"

Yeah, been finding that out the hard way - unlike MSTS, Trainz apparently keeps running calculations for every AI train currently running regardless how far away from the current player camera viewpoint, for a complicated high volume set and forget traffic pattern you need a supercomputer to run it. When I first got Trainz the first route I downloaded was the PO&N (obviously, since the original MSTS PO&N was my baby), and I thought Phil had slipped his timing chain - what's with all these portals all over the route? MSTS PO&N had one spawn point and one disappear point at each end of the AI route, took each AI train about four hours to run the pattern, had 30 some odd AI trains on the map when the activity started. MSTS had a different way of position keeping tho;

"0 # On-track solver: 0=euler 1=rungekutta"
"10ms # On-track solver timestep"
"1 # Off-track solver"
"30ms # Off-track timestep"
"0 # Reposition colliding objects: 0=no 1=yes"

Within visual distance the AI position was updated every 10 milliseconds, outside that every 30 milliseconds so it didn't eat clock cycles as much.

Trainz don't work that way, so I guess it's back to the drawing board. Best way to deal with this is tear up a lot of mainline track and make "choke points" the player is forced to pass thru to get from one section to the next, with triggers on the choke points that emit trains from portals in that section for a short run to another portal. A lot more work, especially trying to hide all them portals and program all them triggers, but doable. On the upside it will eliminate the need to pave the entire route with trackmarkers and directional markers. :hehe:

 

[fran1]

Looked at your map this morning, remove that x over near the portals, to close for Ai (idiot), they will make life hard.
I try to make a route left side running for british or right in your case.

 

[sniper297]

Yeah, I already whacked a bunch of those, leaving only the left to right crossovers in many places, but they WILL back thru a crossover onto the wrong track then reverse to go forward the wrong way. I suspect the logic is to make max speed whenever possible, cross onto the wrong way track and there are less signals facing your way because it's not signaled for that direction. :hehe: I don't even remember offhand what I uploaded to Humyo, but the current working version is up to beta 27 or 28 or something, probably has half the double crossovers and twice the direction markers that you see. I think the most practical way to do this is split the difference - add spawn portals here and there which only emit train on trigger, along with the usual spawn continuously portals, only reset the continuous patterns for once per hour or something. Done that way there won't be too much traffic outside the player's view, and if he somehow manages to never run over a trigger or stays a long time in one section without triggering a second sequence, he'll at least see some traffic occasionally.