Picking the appropriate rolling stock

[nicky9499]

Hey guys,

I'm in a bit of a fix trying to pick rolling stock for my sessions and consists to go with them. Okay, so I thought, well we'll keep it simple for the user; just use only rolling stock from a few sites (JR, RRM) so the user spends less time searching for trains and more time driving them, right? Well, it's turning out to be more difficult than I imagined. I've JR's freeware section on my laptop beside the big computer and say for example I want an ACF hopper. So I put it into Trainz's Content Search Filter but guess what, there's a ton of those probably based on what looks like the same model, and I'm not sure which ones are which. To make things worse, I've found myself in possession of alot of reskins such as Dave Snow's earlier works, which look very good but this also means it's almost impossible to determine which ones are from the JR site and which ones aren't?

Of course the easiest way out would be to find assets with kuid highlighted in yellow or white. No offense intended, but most of the rolling stock on the DLS vary greatly in terms of quality and consistency, which is not desirable for mass distribution.

Can anyone advise how I should go about picking these rolling stock needles from the Trainz haystack?

Regards,
Nicholas

 

[frogpipe]

I think I'd be tempted to make a 1 baseboard route and cover it with tracks. Then, start placing my preferred rolling stock on those tracks (on the ROUTE layer). Somewhat like route builders do when they find assets they like, the slap them on a single baseboard "palette".

Of course you could also use the picklist, or favorite them, but I myself don't trust those not to get wiped by accident.

If you are talking about "how to I determine which one's I want" - You'll have to test drive (or drag) them.

Sorting in CM on "username" might help you drill down to the "originals" and separate them from the repaints.

 

[nicky9499]

Hi frogpipe,

I use the "asset palette" method as well, but not for rolling stock. The headache here is not to find rolling stock that I like, that's no problem at all. It's finding rolling stock that came from JR and RRM. I also avoid using picklists and favorites for the same reason as you. In a most recent incident all my CMP custom filters were lost. I've found a stopgap measure for the time being; seeing as I already have a fresh and "untainted" 2nd install of TS12 used for testing route dependencies, one way to ensure only JR/RRM rolling stock is used is to install only the JR/RRM rolling stock into this 2nd install and apply builtin=false when building consists. Then, continue building the session from there instead of my main installation. It'll be very troublesome because I've to re-download alot of files from said sites, but I can't think of another way at this time.

 

[JCitron]

Nicky,

With TS12 you can use the content filters. If you know the user's KUID or user name, you can search on this and only that content shows up.

When you do this Surveyor, These filters remain across different routes as they become part of the Trainz install you are using. If you save your Userdata folder, you are backing up the pick-list/filters as well.

Back to the content...

Once I get a set of trains I like, such as a bunch of boxcars, flatcars, and tanks, I'll then create consists. I call them names like "1", "2", etc. (without quotes). If I want to use them as full trains, I'll call them Mixed Freight 1 ---- Long, etc., after I've connected them together. I also have consists named 3 x B&M Boxcars. With a name like this, I know I have 3 B&M (Boston and Maine) boxcars I can plop on a siding somewhere or in a yard ready for action.

John

 

[nicky9499]

Hi John,

Thank you for your suggestion. It's still an unwieldy situation though as JR is a big group and content is made under lots of different kuids. For example, some of Joe's (socal) content is released under JR's own kuid.

 

[JCitron]

It sure is a bit unwieldy due to the shear number of pieces of rolling stock by so many excellent creators. The thing is you need to come up with a system. Perhaps you could use MS Excel or Open Office Calc to create a list of assets you might want to use all the time. You can actually highlight the list in Content Manager, then right click to choose copy then paste into a text file you can import. When this is done, use this to then narrow down stuff and create the consists such as I have.

One other thing I did was after I populated my railroad, is to create mini-consists out of these freight cars or a single car. I called them simply 1,2,3, etc. as mentioned above. These consists contain anything from 1 or 2 cars to a whole siding's worth. When I create a session, and I want some freight cars setup, I then pick them from the consist list and plop them down. It only takes a few minutes to setup a route after this once you've got the prep-work - the grungy stuff - done first.

John

 

[nicky9499]

Hi John,

Your suggestions sounds good in the long run and I will adopt that approach. It's grinding and tedious, yes, but so is finding, listing and spreadsheeting(?) the names and contact information of over a hundred content creators whose assets are not on the DLS, and I got through that just fine.

Cheerio,
Nicholas