session and trigger problems

[leeferr]

I've got a session that I'm working on and I'm about ready to pull my hair out (if I had any to pull out). I'm using the consist check rule, trigger check and ordered list throughout the session. There are a couple of locations (triggers) that I'm having problems with. Sometimes the consist will trigger and sometimes it won't. The consist is exactly the same each time, yet sometime's the trigger works and sometimes it doesn't. I've tried it about 4 times today and once it worked and the other three times it didn't. There are other triggers that work every time. I'm really confused.
Has anyone else had this problem?

I'm running 04, build 2365

Thanks in advance.

 

[Capt_Haddock]

Sorry, can’t help with the triggers problem but I will say that there is probably a slight random element in the way AI works.

I have a fairly big session that usually works like clockwork. Every so often it goes pear-shaped; a driver suddenly decides to drive wrong road and stops all traffic coming the other way, or a driver will take a very extended (unauthorised) break after running round his train or a Portal emits a phantom train.

Probably, the only way to guard against it is to use a “belt, braces and string” approach to setting up the session. Minimise ambiguity by generous use of track direction markers and signals (if I’m not sure if a signal is needed I use invisible ones just in case) and generally reduce the opportunity for AI to make the “wrong” decision. Is it possible to “force” the consist to stop or pause within a trigger’s operating radius to increase the chance of it working?

With regards

Chris

 

[leeferr]

I solved one of my trigger problems. I had two triggers that their radii were interfering with each other and causing a problem, but I've still got the problem with a couple of other triggers. They work sometimes and sometimes they don't. It isn't AI, because I'm driving the train.
I will say that the AI's can be as dumb as a box of rocks sometimes though. I was working the session this morning and I had my train stopped in a yard that had 5 other clear tracks. An AI train came into the yard and BAM, head-on into my train. The AI train had not been instructed to drive to any trackmarks on my track and no direction markers put it there. They're just plain stupid sometimes.

 

[Zorronov]

I've had some weird behavior with AI's too. I usually can solve it by "spelling it out" to the AI's, adding trackmarks and more specific directions. Oh well, this is what makes it fun!

Z

 

[leeferr]

I suppose you're right, but it seems that every time that I do something to solve the AI's stupidity that they just raise it to another level. Kind of comical sometimes, but annoying mostly.

 

[Kelly88]

I think that the main problem is the way the instructions are prossesed
sometimes the AI loses track of were it is or misses an instruction

to give an example:
I an in the prosess of building a new route
at the moment it consists os 3 stations with yards and several industys in each yard + plus a mine

now while I am building form time to time I set a consist up to prove that all parts of the rout are working

now last night I finished the mine section so set uo a coal train

this unit runs to the min and loads, the engine decouples goes to the service yard recoals and waters runs to the turntable turns recouples to the wagons and then leaves the coal mine, passes to stations by the bypass lanes and enters a portal ( the portals are at each end only to prove the system, as the route grows the portals are moved to the new end of line) exits from a different portal and runs back to the mine then repeates forever. now this unit performed 10 times without fail,
I then put in 2 more units, these started form each end of the route stopping at each station on line loading passangers and going out the portal at the other end, it then reenters the line at the original end via the portal rhere and repeats the sequence again,

well I started the sequence and blow me the coal train goofed up at the turntable, ( run pass the stop) and derailed when the table turned,

at the end I found that at the moment the coal train was approching the turntable stop , one other was just entering a portal, so the coal train instruction to stop at the set place was not prosessed untill the other one had finished with the portal sequence ( I think!)

anyway I put a 2 min delay in the coal trains sequence after decouple before it set off for the turntable, magic it worked again

so the you are, the auran jet program is not completly multitasking and there is nothing we can do about this !?

Its just a matter of finbe tuning the sessions so that you dont get time consuming objects running on top of each other,

The Cromwich layout I put up took 2 days to construct
and 3 weeks to get the session timings correct and eaven then althou they worked OK for me I got feedback from some people that they had problems with the consists running foul of each other, so now I dont put sessions up, just the route !!

 

[Simmons_Pacific]

You do realize that AI is trying to fullfill the role as dispatcher, a job requring a human. AI is the perfect example of why real railroad will never use computers to make all the dispatching decsions.

 

[Kelly88]

So what we need is to be able to open up another screen(2 monitors)
and on one have a track plan of the route with all the units showing and able to give instructions here direct to each unit/point switch like a dispacher in real life !!

maybe Trainz2010 !!
but this does not solve the multi tasking problem/event queue !!

 

[leeferr]

So what we need is to be able to open up another screen(2 monitors)
and on one have a track plan of the route with all the units showing and able to give instructions here direct to each unit/point switch like a dispacher in real life !!

maybe Trainz2010 !!
but this does not solve the multi tasking problem/event queue !!

I'm with you. I think a dual monitor setup would be great and I'd love to see in the next version. I've also found that inserting some delays in the driver instructions will solve some problems, but not all of them. I think you're correct that Trainz is not as multi-tasking as we'd like. Too many instructions at the same moment tends to make the AI's miss a signal or turnout sometimes. I've about given up on uploading the session that I'm working on. It works perfect sometimes, but most of the time, there's always one of the drivers that just doesn't want to behave and it throws the whole session out of whack. I'm beginning to think that I'll just upload routes and create sessions for myself. I really don't want to get those messages that my session doesn't work when I know that it really does if the AI's do what they're supposed to do.