Switching to Surveyor 2.0 then back to Driver with Raildriver not working

zl1amw

Member
Preamble: I am pretty sure this is a bug (or omission by the developers when introducing Surveyor 2.0), however the Trainz Support page states they only accept problems related to “orders, downloading, installation or access only”, and all others must be referred to the forums – so here goes:

I have been a user of Trainz for many years (starting in 2004 I think), and stepped my way through 8 versions. My current version is TRS22PE / TrainzPlus.

I purchased a Raildriver controller (https://raildriver.com), around 2010 and found this greatly enhanced my operational enjoyment, allowing much more realistic driving, especially for diesel locos, and pretty good (with a bit of lateral thinking) for steam.

At first the configuring of the controller was a bit of a kludge, having to manually edit configuration files and cross your fingers (especially to get it to control steam locos), however recent versions (since TRS19 I think) provide a true configurable interface screen within the “Trainz Settings” menu (a big thanks out to the Trainz developers in conjunction with the Raildriver team for this). This setup lists options, and allows buttons and levers to be selected one at a time.

As well as the obvious Engineer’s levers and buttons, the controller includes 28 freely programmed buttons for other functions (also set up through the Trainz Settings” menu).

Two of these configurable button options are “Switch to Surveyor” and “Switch to Driver”. These allow a one-touch quick switch to surveyor to make a small tweak, and another touch to switch back to driver- very convenient when developing a personal layout or operation.

The recent change:

There are now two different Surveyor options in Trainz, “Edit in Surveyor Classic” and “Edit in Surveyor 2.0” shown in the main Trains top level menu. Sadly, the configurable controller button options have not been updated to handle two Surveyor options, they only offer “Switch to Surveyor”, and in practice this switches to the version of Surveyor that you used last (i.e. if you used Surveyor 2.0 last, pressing the button jumps to Surveyor 2.0, if you used Surveyor Classic last, it jumps to that version).

Now to the problem:

While the “Switch to the last Surveyor version you used” can be tolerated, it is the Switch back to Driver that is the problem. While in Surveyor Classic, the Switch to Driver works as expected, but while in Surveyor 2.0, the Switch to Driver does absolutely nothing, leaving you having to revert to keyboard or multiple mouse clicks to get back.


I guess the questions here are – do others experience this? Has anyone found a “work around”? Is there a better way than this forum to report what I see as a simple omission by the developers, not a user problem?
 
How can I best explain this!

If you have loaded a session, aka driver mode and then you click over to either Surveyor Class or Surveyor 2.0 and then back into 'Drive Session' you have disabled the raildriver hence, the raildriver basically turns itself off as it hasn't got any functions that works in either Surveyor Classic or Surveyor 2.0. Resetting the session will re-enable the raildriver 'if that makes sense' ?

If there is anything you wish to change in a route, I would recommend using 'Edit Route' rather than 'Drive Session and then editing' a lot of players do make changes like this which means that all changes are saved to the 'Session Layer' and not the 'Route layer'. To fix this, 'Edit Session' then merge session layer to route layer save route with a new name, including the session 'which you can choose to delete or edit to add trains and other things'.

I'm not a session builder, but I have a fair idea of how it all works. But explaining it in words HAHA :P
 
Hi Phil,

Many thanks for your prompt thoughts – all input is appreciated.

I started to reply to you along the lines “… but the Raildriver programable buttons do work within Surveyor, in fact there is a whole set of functions in the Trainz Settings specifically for Surveyor allowing mapping of these”….

Then I did some tests….


I actually have two hardware controllers – the Raildriver for “proper” driving with the bonus of its additional buttons, and a separate USB game controller primarily designed for a Nintendo Switch, that I use for other functions, such as steam engine injectors, blower, coal stoking etc (and camera controls).


To my surprise I have found that while if I programme two buttons on the Raildriver for “Surveyor” and “Driver” they behave the way I described above - they both work when the current surveyor is Surveyor Classic, but if the current Surveyor is Surveyor 2.0, then the “switch to Surveyor” works, but the button for “Switch to Driver” does not work. However, if I programme two buttons on the other (Nintendo) game controller for “Switch to Surveyor” and “Switch to Driver” they work both ways whether the current Surveyor is Classic or 2.0!

This brings me to accept that for some reason, just on this function, Raildriver is mis-behaving but it may be intended behaviour. It is not correct that no functions on the Raildriver work in Surveyor (classic or 2.0) – just this “switch to Driver” function, which is rather strange,

I have therefore solved my problem, as I can now switch with a one-touch button between Surveyor and Driver and backwards, using the game controller buttons, however I remain convinced there is an omission in the Trainz programming causing this odd behaviour that should be fixed.

Cheers
Alan
 
Thanks for clearing that up with me :) I assumed that the Raildriver was unable to function with Surveyor Classic/Surveyor 2.0.

I was just looking at the Raildriver website, PI Engineering hasn't updated the software to be fully compatible with TRS22! This would be the reason why you are having the issue where switching from Surveyor 2.0 back into Driver Mode forcing the Raildriver not to function, regardless of switching from Surveyor Classic into Driver Mode which you have stated above it works.

If PI Engineering updated the software for use with TRS22, this wouldn't be a problem as far as I can see it.
 
This may be something for N3V to look at too. Send in a bug report to the QA Team and see what they have to say.

 
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