Yesterday I had my first opportunity to use an Un-portal, and since there was almost no information on this Session Rule I decided to post this in the forum, to help others if they would like to try it. The advantage to the Un-portal is adding AI trains to a route that does not have any portals already available, or adding some more portals, without having to edit and save the Route Layer. That is always the part I dislike, is editing the route, and losing any sessions I already have, and finding a convenient place to place the portal(s). All you have to do is find a track mark on your route where you want to place the portal, in the session layer, and that is it. If you want to put an Un-portal, in any location, go there, and open the track menu, and place a track mark exactly where you want the portal to be located. Save it in the session layer, and now you have a place for your new portal.
To start this procedure, open the session for edit, and go to session rules and add the "Un-portal Rule." Once you have your track mark for your location of the portal you want, you just open the Un-portal rule for edit, and add the portal, and it will ask you for the track mark to place the portal's location. When I added my track mark for the session, I gave the track mark a name after I added it like AIstart1 and for the second portal, AIstart2 and for a portal to consume trains at the end of their run, AIend1. You could just use the track mark numbers, but this make it easy for me to locate these portals if needed and I don't have to remember any numbers. Now once you get a portal, you go to the properties of the portal, and just like any other portal, you can add a consist, a driver, a route, how often the trains are emitted, emit trains at a triggered even, and if the portal will emit trains or consume trains or both. If the Un-portal is on a main line, you probably don't want to have it consume trains, because any train traveling down that track will disappear when it gets to the portal. Now the only thing that is different in the properties in the Un-portal, is "direction" from track mark. The options are forward or reverse. So I look at which way the track mark is pointing ( these are the red track marks not the yellow direction markers), and forward will make the train emerge towards the tip of the trackmark.
You can make as many consists and drivers and routes as you want to add for your new portal, and select whether you want them to be sequential or randomly generated. Now, here is the big caution, do not use more than one portal for each Un-portal rule. If you do, the first portal will generate trains properly, but any additional portals will only produce the locomotive, and no cars following that. I spent hours trying to figure this one out and finally one of the Administrators of Trainzitalia saw my post on this issue, and suggested that I use an additional Un-portal rule if I had more than one portal to control. So if you have three portals that are generating trains, use three copies of the Un-portal rule in your session rules, and each one will be set up to control only one portal.
Now if you want to set a portal up to consume trains only, you don't need a separate session rule for that, you can just add a second portal to one of the session rules, and set it to consume. There is a place to set the frequency of generation of a train, and I set it to 400 minutes, so it will never activate, I also turned off the generate train immediately option, and finally I listed no consist or driver for that consume portal, so there is no way it could try and generate a train. When any AI train arrives at this portal, it just disappears. Again, don't put this consume portal on any track where you want trains to be able to pass. There is a way to set it up to consume only a specific train, but I had mine on a long section of track in a yard, so as long as that portal was the final trackmark destination, it worked well.
So now, if you have a route with a number of sessions, and want to add some more AI coming out of a portal, it is simple and quick and can all be done in the session layer, without having to add one item in the route layer.
To start this procedure, open the session for edit, and go to session rules and add the "Un-portal Rule." Once you have your track mark for your location of the portal you want, you just open the Un-portal rule for edit, and add the portal, and it will ask you for the track mark to place the portal's location. When I added my track mark for the session, I gave the track mark a name after I added it like AIstart1 and for the second portal, AIstart2 and for a portal to consume trains at the end of their run, AIend1. You could just use the track mark numbers, but this make it easy for me to locate these portals if needed and I don't have to remember any numbers. Now once you get a portal, you go to the properties of the portal, and just like any other portal, you can add a consist, a driver, a route, how often the trains are emitted, emit trains at a triggered even, and if the portal will emit trains or consume trains or both. If the Un-portal is on a main line, you probably don't want to have it consume trains, because any train traveling down that track will disappear when it gets to the portal. Now the only thing that is different in the properties in the Un-portal, is "direction" from track mark. The options are forward or reverse. So I look at which way the track mark is pointing ( these are the red track marks not the yellow direction markers), and forward will make the train emerge towards the tip of the trackmark.
You can make as many consists and drivers and routes as you want to add for your new portal, and select whether you want them to be sequential or randomly generated. Now, here is the big caution, do not use more than one portal for each Un-portal rule. If you do, the first portal will generate trains properly, but any additional portals will only produce the locomotive, and no cars following that. I spent hours trying to figure this one out and finally one of the Administrators of Trainzitalia saw my post on this issue, and suggested that I use an additional Un-portal rule if I had more than one portal to control. So if you have three portals that are generating trains, use three copies of the Un-portal rule in your session rules, and each one will be set up to control only one portal.
Now if you want to set a portal up to consume trains only, you don't need a separate session rule for that, you can just add a second portal to one of the session rules, and set it to consume. There is a place to set the frequency of generation of a train, and I set it to 400 minutes, so it will never activate, I also turned off the generate train immediately option, and finally I listed no consist or driver for that consume portal, so there is no way it could try and generate a train. When any AI train arrives at this portal, it just disappears. Again, don't put this consume portal on any track where you want trains to be able to pass. There is a way to set it up to consume only a specific train, but I had mine on a long section of track in a yard, so as long as that portal was the final trackmark destination, it worked well.
So now, if you have a route with a number of sessions, and want to add some more AI coming out of a portal, it is simple and quick and can all be done in the session layer, without having to add one item in the route layer.
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