Rules and Paths...Hmm.

[Smileyman]

Having been away for a while, and now getting back into Trainz, I'm about to start looking into automating, and was wondering what other people use, and what's new since T:ANE regarding pathing and rules.

Basically I'm wondering how much I'm going to have to 'simplify' parts of my route (for instance, Cardiff Central Station) to allow multiple trains to use the lines, or whether Trainz is now more competent at being able to work this.

So, which Rules and Driver Commands do people use to get complex running going, and can you suggest any good websites/video that explain recent developments in this area or the use of said rules/commands.
(I'm looking through N3V's videos right now. Some of them are helpful, some not so much ).

We're talking Trainz 2019 by the way.

Cheers.

 

[JCitron]

Hi Smileyman, nice to see you again!

Trainz AI is still Trainz AI...

There are still the usual Drive to/Navigate to and Drive via/Navigate via commands that still work as intended. Track markers are still there as are direction markers that work well.

What has changed are some new tools. Starting in T:ANE, and subsequently improved, are Interlocking Towers which you set up using a tower manager to allow control over junctions and interlockings.

Starting with Trainz Plus, which is more or less a test bed as much as N3V doesn't want to call it that, is Trainz Living Railway. This allows the AI to drive an automatic schedule set up to deliver goods, and eventually passengers which is still in beta, to customers. This is still buggy but it does work. Recently, there has been some improvements and fixes to portals and the code now include TLR functions for the drivers.

The old driver list now has controls in there to take control of AI-driven and controlled consists, and there's a "dispatcher center" that is more of a list of all the consists running or stopped. This is still unfinished and something we wish had an actual track diagram available. Having that plus interaction with interlocking towers would be very helpful as you can imagine.

 

[Smileyman]

Hi John!
Good to see you!

Glad to see you're still enjoying Trainz.

"Trainz AI is still Trainz AI..."
Yeah, you're not kidding.

I've just spent some time trying to get the AI to behave on a little test route, with a double track, double junction leading off the mainline to the right, causing a diamond crossing across one of the tracks.
I used an interlocking tower to control the signals around that double junction, and it worked perfectly...for a while, then when running the session again and again, it didn't work as well. I think that might be down to the portals I was using to provide the trains being too close to the junction.
Although, the train down the line really far away (at least a signal or two) seemed to get given the way, even when the loco that wanted to cut across the track was right there waiting to go. I think the priority is broken in the interlocking towers too, as they made no difference to that situation.
Shame, because those interlocking towers look really powerful, and such a simple way to set up paths through diamonds.

I then tried the same double junction with a loop of track instead of portals supplying the trains, but of course, I then remembered that Trainz AI gets confused with loops, and it certainly did. So many trains trying to reverse down a line that I explicitly defined as one-way, and used trackmarks to get them half way around the loop first. That's when I remembered another thing I'd forgotten about Trainz.

And that is, "Don't use navigate to..." unless you want your train drivers to ignore all the direction trackmarks and everything else (I wonder if that's why I had problems with the interlocking towers?).
Using "Drive to" and "Drive via" solved a few problems, but if my memory serves me correctly, I think they can reverse too if they wait too long at a signal.
I remember back in the days of beta testing TRS2004 saying that we should have Train AI (or commands) that will just do what a train driver does. That is, obeys all speed and signals, and that's it!
Do we have a command yet where the AI will actually just behave like a train driver. Can you imagine the chaos if real train drivers got out of their cab and changed points because they wanted to take a different route, or reversing down a line because they wanted to get home for their dinner!

I'm enjoying Trainz 2019, but AI drivers and automatic operations are probably the most important thing for me, so it's generally what makes me lose interest in Trainz after a while because it's so lacking in that area.
Hence my posting this thread.
I'm still hoping that this train-sim can simulate train drivers a bit better.
I will persevere!

Take care mate.