Sessions for the Port Zyd & Fulazturn layout

philskene

Well-known member
I've had a surprising number of PMs curious about the absence of "Chuck and Joe, this is the Dispatcher ... " sessions for my two layouts included in the TMR17 release.

To satisfy the C & J fans I've just uploaded four sessions for the Port Zyd layout. Essentially they are the ones I worked up with my original submission to N3V, with alterations to make them work in this final release. I'm releasing them on the Download Station because they do not comply with N3V's "pop-up and bubbles" format for sessions.

I also prepared documentation to go with the layouts and sessions which has not been included in TMR17. Rather than let the work go to waste I've attached it below:
_____

The Port Zyd & Fulazturn Railroad

General:


When running the sessions I generally set the Max Draw Distance to 3500m. This setting may not show the brick walls in the far distance but it gives good frame rates.

Known Issues:

In a layout of this complexity constructed in a relatively short time frame by one person it is inevitable that there may be errors in the layout itself. My apologies for this. I would be grateful if I could be notified of errors so that they can be corrected.

The layout:

The layout is a model layout representation of a fictitious North American “smoke stack USA” railroad.

The layout represents a busy and thriving harbor and industrial area where the Port Zyd & Fulazturn Railroad Company moves freight cars on behalf of a Class 1 railroad. The Class 1 railroad leaves and picks up freight cars at the Transfer Track.

There are many interactive industries on the layout. Many of the industries are interdependent. For example, many industries require steel products from the steel mill and fuel from the refinery.

There is a small locomotive depot for both diesel and steam locomotives, and a MoW yard.

AI trainz, representing the Class 1 railroad, operate on a separated route. The AI route interacts with Port Zyd company route at numerous squeeze points

Standard Operating Procedures:

The switches have been configured so that the switch is in the straight through position when the switch stand target disk is side on.

All movements can be made as switching movements, with the locomotive at either the head or the rear of the train. The locomotive must not be placed in the middle of the consist.

The line speed is 40 mph.

The track with the concrete sleepers is for the exclusive use of the AI trains. At squeeze points the AI and Player share a section of track. At these locations the Player must give way to the AI train.

Operation:

In the the Map View, all interactive industries have the prefix “IND”.

Freight cars will load or unload when spotted between the yellow markers.

It is assumed that the Player is competent in accessing the Map View (“Ctrl-M” in Driver), can pan and zoom the map view, and can use the map to monitor the position of AI trains. It is also assumed that the Player is competent in using the external 4-key view to scout ahead to set switches and to monitor the location of AI trains.

Sessions can be paused by pressing the P key. When paused switches can be set, the Map consulted and the external 4-key view used.

In sessions “Help” (the red/green indicators at switches) has been set to off. To toggle “Help” on/off, press “Ctrl-H”.

There is nothing more frustrating than almost completing a session only to have a corn field meet with an oncoming AI train. Before attempting any heroic manoeuvre involving AI consider making a save session first.

There is no guarantee that the AI will behave flawlessly but it should do a reasonably good job on this layout. Occasionally the player may have to intervene by, for example, changing the setting of a switch so that an AI consist can continue on its way.

An AI consist takes about 45 minutes to circulate around its route. In the sessions the AI operate at 7 minute headways.

Sessions:

At the beginning of each session you are given the option of using Realistic (Cab) or Easy (DCC) Mode. You are encouraged to use the former.

The “User rules menu” / “QuickDrive” (top right) allows the control type and environment to be changed. This includes selecting Realistic or Easy Control, the weather, and setting the time of day.

In the sessions the Dispatcher or the Yard Master sets you a task. The task involves a number of switching movements and these movements can be completed in any order. You may to choose to do all or just some or even none of the task. For instance, in Session 2 you may choose to switch only the flat cars.

Sometimes a few minutes planning will save many minutes out on the road, so give some thought to how to best complete the task. Setting up the freight car cuts in the correct order can, for example, save considerable time later.

You may be asked to load or unload freight cars at various locations. The locations can be found in the Map View.

You may be asked to leave freight cars at various locations for loading or unloading.

There is no scoring or evaluation. It is up to you to evaluate your own performance.

The session may finish with an instruction to sign off or to contact the Dispatcher. This represents the end of the task to be undertaken.

Sessions may take up to 60 minutes or longer to complete.

(CONTINUES)
 
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(CONTINUED)

Session 1 -- Black Nuggets:

Chuck and Joe, this is the Dispatcher. Welcome to our little short line layout.
This morning you will be delivering coal to several industries.
Refuel your SD45 locomotive then attach the coal hoppers down in the Classification Yard.
Load the hoppers at the Coal Wharf, over in the port area and under the large moving gantry, close to the scrap yard.
Unload one car at each of Commercial Coal, M-What Power, Siners Coal, the District 9 and Eskbank Coal Pits, and at Volvo.
Return the hoppers to Classification and contact me for further instructions.
Dispatcher out.

Note:
Make sure only one car is spotted between the yellow markers for unloading.
A youtube video shows the operation of the Rotary Dumper. Search youtube with “philskene” as the uploader.

Session 2 -- Hoppers & Flats

Chuck and Joe, Dispatcher here.
A Class 1 locomotive will place hoppers and flats in the Transfer Track.
The flat cars.
Unload the TOFC at Teamsters 2.
Load the flats with concrete pipes at Boots Concrete Castings 2 and unload the pipes at General Wharf 2.
Reload with automobiles at the Vehicle Wharf and unload them at AutoKar.
The hoppers.
Unload the limestone at Portland Cement Unload 1.
Load with cement at Portland Load 1 and unload at Boots Concrete Castings Cement In.
Use the hoppers to deliver iron ore from the Iron Ore Wharf Loader for unloading at the Eskbank Ore Dump.
Spot the empty flats and hoppers on the Transfer Track. A Class 1 will pick them up later.
Return to Loco and sign off.
Dispatcher out.

Session 3 -- Heavy Metal:

Good morning Chuck and Joe, the Yard Master here.
The Dispatcher wants you to load the beige colored oversize flats standing in the Classification Yard at the District 9 Steel Coil Unload, and deliver the plate steel to Techtro 1.
Then use those flats to carry oversize plate from the Eskbank Plate Load to ACME 2.
The gondolas.
Use them to take steel coil from Eskbank Steel Coil Load to Dry Dock Steel Coil.
The flat cars.
Volvo Truckz 2 to the Vehicle Wharf.
Use both the gondolas and flats to ship six 40ft containers from Container Wharf 3 to Container Terminal 1.
Return all the cars to Classification.
When done, contact the Dispatcher.

Session 4 -- Fuel Run:

Chuck and Joe, sorry about the inclement weather.
In the Yard you will find a rake of BNSF tankers. Use them to transport crude from the Fuel Wharf 2 and leave them for unloading at PetroChem In 2.
Deliver and leave one of the loaded white tank cars at each Fuel Point at ACME, Boots, Cutn Paste, District 9 and the Hyde Wood Workz.
Return to loco, sign off and enjoy your break.
Dispatcher out.

NOTE:
With this version of T:ANE it is possible that freight cars may not load or unload at interactive industries, or may load or unload the wrong commodity. In this case, use the method show in this video:


And finally:

In the sessions the rule “Central Portal Control” is used to generate the AI trainz. In the session layer CPC can be accessed in the Rule menu, top left of the screen, to configure or edit the consists emitted by the portals, the selected drivers and the frequency at which consists are emitted.

One of the most interesting features of Trainz is the interactive industries and freight cars. In the layout I’ve used, almost exclusively, variants of “Multiple Industry New”. On youtube I have posted several videos illustrating how to configure the MIN and freight cars to carry commodities. Search youtube with “philskene” as the author.
 
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Sorry to dig this up but I can't find 3 of the assets from Session 1 -- Black Nuggets:

- Dependency <kuid2:276266:100503:2> is unknown.
- Dependency <kuid2:276266:100509:1> is unknown.
- Dependency <kuid2:276266:100510:1> is unknown.

Any idea as to what they are or where I might find them? Or can I just delete and forget?

<kuid2:276266:100509:1> is also used in Session 2 -- Hoppers & Flats too.

Thanks
 
Thanks Zsuda,
I do have TMR2017 as well as the TMR2017 assets for TANE.
Looking at CM in both, I can see the problem.
The Assets in TMR2017 are all KUID2 but the ones in TANE are only KUIDs.

TMR2017
<kuid2:276266:100503:2> Custom 40' Boxcar - Grizzled Aussie's Dark Rum
<kuid2:276266:100510:1> Custom 40' Boxcar - HIGGIKAY INDUSTRIES
<kuid2:276266:100509:1> Custom 40' Boxcar - REAGAN KESSLER COMPANY

TANE
<kuid:276266:100503> Custom 40' Boxcar - Grizzled Aussie's Dark Rum
<kuid:276266:100509> Custom 40' Boxcar - REAGAN KESSLER COMPANY
<kuid:276266:100510> Custom 40' Boxcar - HIGGIKAY INDUSTRIES

Any idea how I can update payware assets? Or do I raise a bug report?
 
i have no idea to update payware assets ...
i see a difference in buildnr of t:ane: mine is 88364 (sp2) ... ? europe?
tmr17 is the same build ...

i didn't install yet the port zyd in t:ane, because i tried with appen and brazemore, but both have a different appearance than tmr17
so i wait till the hotfix.
you can also try to export the tmr17 assets to a cdp and than install it in t:ane...
otherwise you can raise a bug report.

good luck and have fun..
 
Hi Pilgrim --

If I understand correctly, you have both T:ANE and TMR2017?

As the author of the layout and those additional sessions, could you confirm that the sessions I uploaded to the Download Station (without the pop-ups) work in TMR2017? Those sessions were constructed in TMR and tested and work in the TMR version I have. If they don't work in TMR for you then, Houston, we do have a problem.

Can you get the original sessions, the ones I presume come with the DLC package (the ones with pop-ups) working in T:ANE? If they don't then N3V certainly does have an issue to solve.

Phil
 
Phil,
The original TMR sessions all appear to work as expected in TMR & TANE. However, now that I have the TMR assets package loaded in TANE, I thought I could bring your other sessions which were made for TMR (and work OK there) into TANE. Black Nuggets contains these 3 dependencies which TANE said were unknown. The reason is as per my earlier post #6.

In TMR, these assets are all KUID2s and are used in the Tutorial 01 session for TMR. Therefore your session runs OK without missing dependencies.

However, TANE doesn't use these KUID2 assets for the Tutorial 01 session but uses the original KUID versions. (They came with Kickstarter and were also used by other builtin/payware routes/sessions)

So your Black Nuggets session can't find the KUID2 assets in TANE as they have not been updated. (there are probably other assets too, but what they are is a job for N3V to track down or release the updated versions.)

I would think that when TMR was packaged for TANE, it should have included the TMR tutorial sessions too and that would have brought everything up to date.

So looks like yet another issue for N3V.

Sorry to make you panic. I can get the sessions to work in TANE by changing the config for each session to use the original versions of the KUIDs.

cheers.
 
Thanks for that feedback.

What I should do is edit the config.txt file of the session and alter the kuid2 entries for those three box cars. I'll then upload a version :2 of the session. This will obsolete the existing session, make the session usable in T:ANE and still work in TMR.

Before I do that though, do the remaining sessions work without the same sort of error? If there are errors, which freight cars or locomotives are affected?

Phil
 
Phil,
The only other one I have found is as I mentioned in my original post. (#4)

<kuid2:276266:100509:1> is also used in Session 2 -- Hoppers & Flats

This is the same as one of the three from Black Nuggets.

Yes - if you edited the 2 sessions and reloaded them to the DLS, anyone else would also benefit.

Ron
 
Have you updated to SP2?

Hi Ron --

I installed my copy of the layout as I supplied it to N3V and my copies of the sessions that I uploaded to the Download Station into T:ANE.

I then downloaded all the additional dependencies required by the layout and sessions from the Download Station.

The result? All present and correct. No errors. Also in a clean installation of T:ANE SP2 those :2 kuids are built-in.

So a question -- have you updated it SP2? If you haven't that might solve the problem. I suspect those freight cars might have been updated to :2 with SP2.

Phil
 
Phil,
Yes, I have updated TANE to SP2 (build 88343) as per my signature.

I have completed a Rebuild Database and an Extended Rebuild Database without any noticeable change to the assets.

I purchased TMR17 last December and left it as it came except for building a layout for myself. This came with 3 sessions by Mathiasgose (212731)
Then after I update TANE to SP2, the TMR17 files became available shortly later. I downloaded these and also imported the layout I was buiding over.
While running a few of the TMR17 sessions in various layouts in TANE, I decided to expand these by grabbing your 4 sessions for Port Zyd. This is when I found the non-updated boxcars.

I can run Session 1 Black Nuggets in both TMR17 & TANE without any problems (so far as I can see) Are the 3 boxcars sitting in a siding or part of one of the AI trains? as the session doesn't reference them.

So, other than having session 1 (KUID2:69871:2270:1) & session 2 (KUID2:69871:2271:1) showing RED in CM, I am at a loss as to why this is so.

To me, it seems that when I downloaded all the TMR17 files into TANE following their release after SP2, that some of the builtin items were not updated. These 3 boxcars are all shown as builtin in both TMR17 & TANE, except for the out of date KUIDs in TANE.

If I look in the resource folders I can find the KUID2 items in TMR17 (/sc405d_0) but only the KUID in TANE (/ksrw_0)

Also in a clean installation of T:ANE SP2 those :2 kuids are built-in.
Should I put in a bug report for this or if there is a way to delete the TMR17 assets from TANE and reload them?

thanks for your investigations but I think it something within my program and not your files.

Ron
 
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Ron --

I would have thought that your installation should be identical to mine, but obviously it isn't.

Yes, I'd suggest a bug report and let N3V sort this out.

A do it yourself solution would be to go into Manage Content in TMR and save those boxcars to a cdp (is it possible to do this?) and then import the file into T:ANE. The :2 will obsolete the :1.

Alternatively, manually change the:1 to a :2 in T:ANE. This can't be done within Manage Content. To do this you will have to Open the File in Explorer (again, will it allow this?), copy to a temporary location, edit the config.txt file from :1 to :2 and then import into T:ANE.
 
Thanks Phil,
Yes I think a bug report will be forthcoming.
Last night I copied all the Builtin assets from TMR & TANE into a spreadsheet and compared to see which TMR assets weren't in TANE. I got some 600 hits. I'm still going through these to make sure but from what I have done it seems like a problem occured with importing the TMR content into TANE.
One thing I did notice though, while doing the extended repair I got 2 warnings that said "failed to load precached data for package sc366 & sc399 at build 88343. I don't know what these packages contain, but they might be the problem.

Anyway, I'll pass this headache on to N3V as soon as I can write it all up for them.

cheers
Ron
 
Phil, your work is fantastic, but the driver command "drive though all trackmarks" does not work. The AL trainz do not make it all the way though the route with out the track marks. what am I missing?
Hand313
 
Hi 313 --

Hmm -- this is another one of the "features" that pops up when Trainz is patched. It worked before; now it don't. And I'm left with the dilemma -- every time this happens should I go back and update all my content? Or should I hope that the next patch will correct it? I'm not sure which of the two options is the correct one. On the one hand my life is too short; on the other I feel that I do have a duty to all you guys out there.

Anyway, the solution if you want to implement it is to edit the session. Go into Rules / Central Portal Control. For the AI trainz instead of the "Drive through all trackmarks" use the individual track marks. From memory they will be something like a(01), a(02), a(03) ... for the anticlockwise AI and c(01), ... for the clockwise AI.

It's a real shame that the "Drive through" no longer works. It save a lot of tedious work entering each trackmark. Oh well ... .

Good luck,
Phil
 
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Ready to start my new setup. I have 6 cats who some trashing and breaking. Lots of wood and nails to get it going. I figure I will be done in 2 years at which time I will be 70. I have $7,000 to get all the things I will need slowly. This is not RJArtim work. It is from the guy who took my name. I don't know who he is yet.
 
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Hi Phil

Just my two cents worth. Wait for the update to exit Beta before you try any changes. You waste a lot of time otherwise. And of course you can always say for such and such build. Thanks you all your work on routes and session, you do more sessions than anyone else I think.

Rob
 
Thanks phil. i have been doing just that, but like you say that's a lot of work. now I know I wasn't doing any thing wrong
again thanks for all your hard work,you really know how to do your thing.
hand313
 
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