Placing one asset on top of another

pccitgo

New member
Can some kind experienced Trainz user explain how to place an asset, for example a tractor, on to the deck of a flat car. I have tried just adding it to the flat car on the track but the tractor's wheels are level with the track so that didnt work.
The manual doesnt seem to cover this (unless I missed it ):confused: . I havent got into the industries part of Trainz yet. Saving that for later.
Peter
 
Oooh - tricky one!

If the tractor is just for eye candy on a siding, then you just manipulate the tractor into place in Surveyor with the move/height/rotate tools. Pretty easy.

If however you want the tractor loaded on a flatcar as part of a moving train, then that's a whole other can of worms.

First you need to find a tractor which is built as a commodity for loading on a train. You can't just use a scenery item. There are plenty of tractors designed as 'loads' on the DLS.

Then you need to find a flatcar which will load the tractor - there used to be built-in tutes which covered industry enabled rolling stock but for the life of me I can't remember if they are still in the later versions.

What you really need is somebody to post the kuid for a flatcar which is already set up to load a tractor, figure out how that works then you can start modifying specific stuff to fill your needs....
 
Loadable flatcars

I'm only new to trainz so please don't flame me if Im wrong about this but it appears to me that the "interactive " equipment on the DLS has a small blue circle in the "type" icon window and that indicates that you can do something with it. Then if you read the info that comes up in the description window when you select it you can see what it does.
eg: kuid2:56063:180756:1
Quote
Description:
Chicken Neck Foundry presents a 50ft fishbelly flatcar.
NumberIt automatic assigned running numbers by Eldavo. Use ? in Surveryor to change assigned running number too. Also has animated brake air hoses with sound. Improved couplers too. Select products from Caterpillar equipment, several farm tractors and more. Auran Industry and Lars and ProtoLARS industry track interactive flatcar with Auran's General Goods, (2) Lumber, (2) 20ft and (1) 40ft Containers. LARS product loads 2 of transformer, skid steer loader (front-end loader), farm equipment, plastic pipe load, John Deere and Ford Tractors, Massey Harris 30 and 44 Tractors, Massey-Ferguson (front end loader), or lumber. Load 8 of Kabeholle quer 2m Durchm (Cable Roll/Spool), Wire Coil, or general goods crates. Created from the rails up with gmax Trainz Asset Creation Studio and Jasc Paint Shop Pro. Many thanks to Eldavo for creation and assistance in operation his NumberIt system. Thanks to Dale Pattee for script editing.

Contributors (Dependencies):

- Wulf_9
- LLJ
- Guriga
- UP4006
- idiotbouy
- prjindigo
- Hummus2
- gerd
- eldavo
- CloakedGhost275
- Flamerail

End of quote
Regards Paul
 
Just looked into it a little bit more ... This is very new for me so please understand if I'm wrong ... but I don't think any of the stuff I am saying will break anything, even if it doesn't work... and I'm pretty sure it will work anyway.

The flat car I suggested in my last post is, I believe, enabled to carry a product. Then you need to find the piece of equipment that you want that has been enabled as a product.
If you do a search in the DLS for "product" there is heaps of stuff that comes up. One of the first is an Abrams tank!!! I think if you look you will find the sort of equipment that you are looking for ... but I need to walk away from this now and go and prepare tea for my family or there will be a riot here!!!
Regards,
Paul
 
I downloaded a Canadian Pacific 50 ft flatcar that came with a number of farm/construction machines. Unfortunately that is far as I can go with some sort of tutorial explaining what I need to do inside Trainz12 to end up with an asset I can put into a consist.
I tried to edit the track route that I wanted to use. It opens in Surveyor and I choose F7 to place the loco. I then select the 50ft Flat Car CP I downloaded. At least I think it is the one as there is no info at this point of KUID or creator.
I place it on the track behind the loco. I go to Objects where I select a John Deere tractor but now where do I go? The "?" icon doesnt give much of a clue as to how to load the tractor. Again at this point there is no indication whether it is loadable or not.

I checked out Content Manager to see if I could use that to place the tractor on the flatcar but just got confused. What is it with the Content Manager Help? Just takes you to a Wiki page with no content - :'( great

Peter
 
About Flatcars and Products

Hi Peter, I have had a look at my TS12 and there are two flatcars in my list . One has a Green IND come up in the window when I select it. That is one that can carry product. I dont think it is in TS12 out of the box I would say it was one that I downloaded when I downloaded a route that required that. But it would be in the Download Station (DLS). There is no John Deere model in my version of Trainz 12 that is able to be used as product. You will have to look on the Download station and see if there is one there or find out how to make one become a product.
There is a very comprehensive manual with a lot of good information on this stuff that came with TS12. you can get to it from the first screen that opens when you open TS12. Its a PDF so you can save it somewhere else as well if you want to.
Cheers,
Paul
 
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More about Flatcars and Product

I just did a search on the download station for "Product John Deere". I got four tractors. Not sure how different they are cos I didn't download them.
But the description says tha they can be used as product.
As I under stand it all of them cold be used as a product ... I think you will need to use some sort of load and unloading facility as well .... although I don't know , maybe you can just set them up on a flat car and leave them there if that is what you want to do.
Cheers,
Paul
 
If I just wanted to have it sit at a siding then I think I could do that via the Surveyor options but it would be just a static scenery item.

Maybe the way ahead is to, as you suggest, use a loading facility. The manual is extensive but it is not that easy trying to figure out to edit a flatcar to place a tractor on it. Starts getting into computer geek language that is beyond me.
Start reading at page 228 to see what I mean.

Maybe this is something for the experts. I guess I need to bone up on Industries before I try this tractors on flatcars thing.

Peter
 
... it appears to me that the "interactive " equipment on the DLS has a small blue circle in the "type" icon window and that indicates that you can do something with it.

No, the little blue dot in the Type column of the Content Manager data window indicates that the item is for Trainz 2009 and above.

The easiest way to tell if an asset is interactive is to select it in the object display window of Surveyor so that a small rotating image of the asset appears in the object tool window. The presence of ...
  • a green tick, or
  • a box containing the letters "LARS2"
.. in the window with the rotating asset indicates that it is interactive - although not all interactive assets will display the tick or letters.

Peter Ware
 
Flatcars and stuff

Hi Peter Perhaps another way for you to learn about what you want to do might be to go this thread
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=75829&highlight=PhilSkene
You can read about a layout that Phil has done that is very comprehensive. It is called the non-multiplayer version of Krashnburne. As a part of that layout there are flatcars that carry some earthmoving equipment. Then go to the Download Station and search for it and download it.
I have downloaded that layout and it has a lot of things that you can learn about by virtually reverse engineering. Basically I save a second version of it and then pull it apart and modify it.
Phil actually mentions in his readme file that he welcomes you to do that, so there certainly appears to be no problems with it.
If you experiment with that you will see about the loading and unloading of the flatcars plus other stuff.

As for the manual, I have read it from cover to cover ... now I sit with it on my e-book reader as I play Trainz!!!
Cheers,
Paul
 
Let me start out by saying that there are a number of ways to accomplish this. This is just the method I use. I'm going to start at the beginning and go through all of the steps. I apologize if I cover things you already understand or that others have already explained.

1. In CM (Content Manager) search for the item you want to load. In this case search on "Name: tractor" and "Category: Commodity". (NOTE: This isn't fool-proof. If the asset doesn't have tractor as a part of it's name, it won't show up.)


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2. Choose the asset you want to load from the list of items. (If it's not already installed, download it from the DLS). Make sure that it doesn't have any errors. In this case we'll choose "John Deere Tractor Product". Right click on the asset and choose "View Dependent Assets" from the pick-list that pops up. This will show (among other things) the cars that are already configured to use this product.


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3. Click on "View in main list" in the bottom left-hand corner of the Dependent Asset window.


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4. Decide which of the available flatcars you want to use. As with the product, download it from the DLS if it is not already installed and make sure that it has no errors. We'll use the BN flat. Now that we have a product and a vehicle to carry it, we'll go into Trainz and open the route/session where we want it to appear in Surveyor and place the car where we want it.


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5. Once it's on the track, we can load the tractors. To do that, select the "Edit Properties" tool ("P" or click the "?" icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the Add Trains window) and then click on the flatcar. This will bring up a window listing all of the products that the vehicle is configured to carry.


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6. Locate the John Deere Tractor Product (it's the fourth from the right in load1). When you click on the icon for the product, the number of units currently loaded is shown directly below the icons for that particular load. Click on the 0 to the right of Units. This will bring up the "Set Initial Load" window.


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7. In that window, change the 0 to 2 (2 is the maximum number of that product type that the car can carry). Click on the check mark icon to save and close the Initial Load screen and then the check mark icon on the Products screen. At this point you should have a flatcar loaded with 2 John Deere Tractors.


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I've probably missed something or not explained something properly, but I hope this helps.
 
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Many thanks for going to all this effort for me ( and no doubt a few others ).
I will definitely give this a go today. Adds another dimension to Trainz when you can make the train look like it's earning money rather than shifting empty wagons around.
Peter
 
Also, you should be able to use MIN (multiple ind new) to load your tractor.
Once the MIN track is installed, you can then have fun making a tractor sales and distribution yard and buildings. Brother welcome to trainz. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
baz
 
Having so much fun now I can load stuff on my wagons thanks to the above tutorial. One thing I discovered though which was odd was my main computer's Trainz 12 was faulty. My laptop worked great as I followed the steps to load the flatcar. However my desktop locked up as soon as I clicked on the ?. I could move the cursor around but could not select another object or menu item. Had to hit Esc to quit out of Trainz. I ended up removing Trainz from computer and deleting all folders before doing a complete reinstall. That fixed it. Thanks again Ricke82. You rock!
Peter
 
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