The AI component of our game software is especially troublesome on closed-loop.

The AI component of our game software is especially troublesome on a closed-loop.

It seems more reliable on a Route that terminates on either end but most scale-model layouts have trains running in circles.

Sometimes when I make modifications to my Modelz layout which is a large closed loop, issues with AI crop up.

The problem is not with the session but the route. Corrupt data may creep into the Route while editing in Surveyor.

For the longest time last year, AI trains would stop at certain junctions for no apparent reason. To fix this,

I would Stop Train and manually drive it across the balky junction, Continue Schedule and subsequently trains would no longer balk at it

in following passes around the loop. Making additional edits to the route eventually "teased out" the bakly situation altogether.


I have had my Route set up where a certain amount of trains were parked in certain places around the route then given

schedules from the Schedule Library. For the last month up until yesterday they would run fine without balking at any spots on the mainline.

Then just yesterday, I decided to place all my trains into the staging yard to initiate a new session from there so my sesion would start with the mainline clear.

I then would pull trains out of the staging yard and onto the line and then given them their schedules. Now, trains would slow down to 7 mph in a 50 mph zone

on a certain section of track for no apparent reason. This only started happening after relocating trains from their former parked places on the mainline to a yard.

Reinstalling new section of track did not correct this and then there were no signals or junctions. The trains would just barrel along at 50 mph

until they gotten to a certain spot in the track and suddenly brake hard as if they saw some invisible moose on the track.

I finally had to revert back to an earlier increment of the route where the trains were parked out on the mainline before so now when a new session is started

the AI works normal again. If I want to clear the mainline of all traffic, I have to drive all the trains off the mainline and into a yard during a Driver session.


Can anybody here with software development knowledge present a theory as to why AI acts goofy whenever certain edits are made to a route?

If I relocate trains on the line through a Surveyor edit then AI will (or may) err.

That AI will come to a spot on a track with no trackside objects, signals or junctions present and balk at is is the strangest thing I've yet encountered in this game.

balk

(bôk)v. balked, balk·ing, balks
v.intr.
1. To stop short and refuse to go on: The AI train balked at the junction/signal.
2. What AI Trainz constantly does, when it is confused by improper tracklaying.
3. On a closed loop, or dead end track, Trainz commonly gets confused, and balks.

JonMyrlennBailey said:

It seems more reliable on a Route that terminates on either end but most scale-model layouts have trains running in circles.

Can anybody here with software development knowledge present a theory as to why AI acts goofy whenever certain edits are made to a route?

If I relocate trains on the line through a Surveyor edit then AI will (or may) err.

That AI will come to a spot on a track with no trackside objects, signals or junctions present and balk at is is the strangest thing I've yet encountered in this game.

Click to expand...

I have software development knowledge. I am very analytical. Here is what I surmise.

1) Your timeline does not have TMR17 in it, and you post in this forum. So does this problem actually exist for TMR17, or what your timeline suggest, TANE?

2) I can go on longer, but would need the response for #1

I will add that I already know some of the answer to the question you ask, but I don't want to proceed before you answer #1.

Christopher824 said:

I have software development knowledge. I am very analytical. Here is what I surmise.

1) Your timeline does not have TMR17 in it, and you post in this forum. So does this problem actually exist for TMR17, or what your timeline suggest, TANE?

2) I can go on longer, but would need the response for #1


I will add that I already know some of the answer to the question you ask, but I don't want to proceed before you answer #1.

Click to expand...

1) No, this issue starts with me in TS12 and TANE: a route built in TS12 with balky behavior will even continue the same balky behavior in TANE


I do save several increments of routes for a reason. A binary 1 or 0 can get out of place when something is edited and throw the whole AI deal for a loop.

Why AI is OK with a new session started with several trains parked in certain places over the route is beyond me. Why AI gets temperamental if such trains

are moved to other places by editing in Surveyor is a mystery that even Sherlock Holmes might not be able to crack. Without upsetting AI, I can make as many edits as I want to my

route as long as I leave the trains already placed on the rails from early development of the route alone.

Adding a new junction to the mainline might upset AI but not always.

what the hell are you on about

JonMyrlennBailey said:

1) No, this issue starts with me in TS12 and TANE: a route built in TS12 with balky behavior will even continue the same balky behavior in TANE


I do save several increments of routes for a reason. A binary 1 or 0 can get out of place when something is edited and throw the whole AI deal for a loop.

Why AI is OK with a new session started with several trains parked in certain places over the route is beyond me. Why AI gets temperamental if such trains

are moved to other places by editing in Surveyor is a mystery that even Sherlock Holmes might not be able to crack. Without upsetting AI, I can make as many edits as I want to my

route as long as I leave the trains already placed on the rails from early development of the route alone.

Adding a new junction to the mainline might upset AI but not always.

Click to expand...

So... now you see what I see. I have found that some track assets like XING ings, double track pieces, Bridges, and a slew of other track Assets can mess the AI. See this post;

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?126925-Grade-XING-Help

I was always told "the track direction means nothing", but I kept playing with it. If your track gets turned around by adding a fixed Asset and after that you place a signal, it will now face the wrong direction, even after you place the track the other direction. I have found that you will have to place those little yellow track direction markers absolutely everywhere, and rethink the signal locations to 'fix" the problem, to get the AI to behave.

You will get no support in the forums about this problem, as I have tried in the past. You will simply need to learn how to correct the problem, which can be done, with a lot of trial and error.

And to add, as the post in the link suggests, it is not the track, it is the Assets that connect to the track splines that create the issue. IE the XING Asset, always, everytime, and disrupts many spline segments up the line to the next junction.

The AI hates it... LOL

My trouble is not with the track or track direction, apparently. AI gets simply messed up by relocating trains themselves on the route.

What I've learned is you can mess with the scenery on your route and you can even get brave and mess with the track, but leave the trains on the track already alone.

CSXT17 said:

what the hell are you on about

Click to expand...

Quite simple, I make certain changes to my route and AI hates it!

I just have to be careful what I change in Surveyor and vigilantly make backup copies of previous editions of the route.

It takes hours if not days of aggravating trials and testing to get things ironed out that go awry.

AI throws a baby tantrum if I simply move around my trains while editing the layout.

It's as if there is some supernatural forces taking hold. Some Christians believe computer technology is powered by the Devil.

IT is a cursed thing. The weird things I experience while monkeying with computers and software makes me believe in the occult, almost.

As a former automobile mechanic by trade, diagnosing faulty wiring on cars can frazzle many a nerve. I had an 89 Ford Mustang GT 5.0 with low-beam headlights

that used to come on and off at random while driving over the road but they would stay on steady while the car was parked. The high beams worked as normal.

The AI drivers work much better if you send them Birthday Cards each year and take them to lunch at least once each evaluation period.

most scale-model layouts have trains running in circles​

Click to expand...

This may be true in the USA - I'm not familiar with the practice there - but it is certainly not true in the UK except perhaps for exhibition layouts where "the public like to see trains running" - or do they? I would suggest that most home-based layouts here are end-to-end of one kind or another; some quite small, station to "fiddle yard" (what you would call a staging area, I believe) or station to station, with (if large enough) intermediate stations. Concentration is then on running trains in a prototypical fashion, often to a time-table. This may be a result of the fashion after WW2 for small layouts making the most of a shortage of materials, or of the interest in "scratch building" from raw materials or (more recently) from kits of parts), or from the sheer pleasure of creating something unique rather than simply buying ready-made. Others on this side of the Atlantic may disagree with me, as I can only speak from my reading of model railway magazines from the fifties and of taking part in many exhibitions, but personally I have only once made a circular layout (for my then five-year-old son's bedroom) and more recently as an exercise in creating a test track on one Trainz baseboard, incidentally using a published plan for a Club exhibition display.

Ray

ray_whiley said:

This may be true in the USA - I'm not familiar with the practice there - but it is certainly not true in the UK except perhaps for exhibition layouts where "the public like to see trains running" - or do they? I would suggest that most home-based layouts here are end-to-end of one kind or another; some quite small, station to "fiddle yard" (what you would call a staging area, I believe) or station to station, with (if large enough) intermediate stations. Concentration is then on running trains in a prototypical fashion, often to a time-table. This may be a result of the fashion after WW2 for small layouts making the most of a shortage of materials, or of the interest in "scratch building" from raw materials or (more recently) from kits of parts), or from the sheer pleasure of creating something unique rather than simply buying ready-made. Others on this side of the Atlantic may disagree with me, as I can only speak from my reading of model railway magazines from the fifties and of taking part in many exhibitions, but personally I have only once made a circular layout (for my then five-year-old son's bedroom) and more recently as an exercise in creating a test track on one Trainz baseboard, incidentally using a published plan for a Club exhibition display.

Ray

Click to expand...

Actually, mine is not a simple circle or oval but a large closed loop, 7.10 scale miles to complete the circuit. There are straight sections, curved sections going both left and right and a crossover loop where the long freight train runs right over the top of itself, Waylong style.