Is "Quick Drive" truly a session? Where does "Quick Drive" session come from?

Concening "Quick Drive" - Thanks for those details stagecoach... appreciate the input and I'm still learning much. I guess I think of "Quick Drive" as only being the "Quick Drive" "Session" and I guess that is wrong.

As to Fog settings also discussed:
I say one more time that I am addressing this from a NEW USER point of view who does not even know about creating routes, sessions, etc. I can't say it much simpler than that. Rain can be set in Session options, Snow can be set in session options, time can be changed in session options.. why not FOG? (WITHOUT editing route, creating session, etc etc etc)

Let's let this topic die.....

It is a long learning curve but the results are good. Even long term fans are still learning as each release comes up with something new. Fog is set up different to snow and rain as it uses the clock to turn on and off the fog. It also has different density set for those various times. Early morning might have thick fog until 08.00hrs and then you make it thinner as the time goes on and the sun comes up. It is the same for water colour, this is controlled within a route as do the cloud formations.

Open Trainz and select create new route. You now have both the new route and a session. Go to the drop down menus top left and look for edit environment to see where the fog, water and sky can be set up.

Got all that... I have done sessons and worked on a couple of routes so I'm somewhat familiar with all that (though I'm constantly learning.)

My "questions/thoughts" in this whole thing, I think, could be summed up by the phrase "first run usability." Sometimes things just don't make sense to me. For example, why do saved sessions appear in the same window as the original session itself. (yes, I know. A saved session is a session.)

In my hast of deleting saved sessions I have mistakenly deleted the session itself (no big deal... just re-download). But just as "Sessions" are shown when "Route" is clicked, "Saved Sessions" should be shown separately when the Session is clicked. This is the type of thing that can drive the new user crazy.

Minor and "picky" things maybe.. but too much fog in a QuickDrive... mixing Saved sessions with downloaded sessions.... I see some first timers giving up on Trainz'ing for no good reason simply due to confusion.... and that is a sad thing.

When you save a route, a session is all so saved. These sessions only relate to the route it was saved with. A session could be all steam trains or the next session might be diesel trains or a freight or passenger session. All those sessions share the same route so show up along side each other. If creating your own route you should save. When you want to reopen the route to edit, don't edit route but select the session that was saved and edit session. This will open the saved route and session and will not create new session. Each session can be selected and then drive session will take you to the drive mode and you have the same route but a different setup to the other sessions.

1611mac said:

I say one more time that I am addressing this from a NEW USER point of view who does not even know about creating routes, sessions, etc. I can't say it much simpler than that. Rain can be set in Session options, Snow can be set in session options, time can be changed in session options.. why not FOG? (WITHOUT editing route, creating session, etc etc etc)

Click to expand...

That's correct. As a new user you should not be concerned with sessions. They are an advanced topic that can be avoided altogether by only using Quickdrive. Quickdrive is there to avoid the need to even look at the sessions menu. Do not select the Quickdrive session from the sessions menu - it shouldn't be there.

Set your options in Surveyor and select Quickdrive from the menu. Done.

stagecoach said:

When you save a route, a session is all so saved. These sessions only relate to the route it was saved with. A session could be all steam trains or the next session might be diesel trains or a freight or passenger session. All those sessions share the same route so show up along side each other. If creating your own route you should save. When you want to reopen the route to edit, don't edit route but select the session that was saved and edit session. This will open the saved route and session and will not create new session. Each session can be selected and then drive session will take you to the drive mode and you have the same route but a different setup to the other sessions.

Click to expand...

I understand that... Evidently I can't explain myself very well. I'm not referring to sessions proper (from Surveyor)... I'm referring to saved DRIVER runs of a session which end up appearing with the original session... those "saved games" you often do during a session run (Driver). Don't show them with the other route Sessions. Instead, the Saved game runs should be shown separately by clicking the "host" session. So you would have Routes, Sessions, Session Saves - or perhaps "Game Saves". (Click the Session to see the "Driver" in game saves.)

I don't see why the save of a Driver session, when Surveyor has not been invoked, is shown as a separate session along with all the other sessions. It's just the game save of an existing Session...

SailorDan said:

That's correct. As a new user you should not be concerned with sessions. They are an advanced topic that can be avoided altogether by only using Quickdrive. Quickdrive is there to avoid the need to even look at the sessions menu. Do not select the Quickdrive session from the sessions menu - it shouldn't be there.

Set your options in Surveyor and select Quickdrive from the menu. Done.

Click to expand...

Yes... I think you are correct!

Earlier versions of Trainz did have saved game files instead of saved sessions. I'm not sure when it changed but it was changed for some reason. I can tell you that "saved games" had all kinds of issues when trying to resume play from them. Perhaps the change was made to solve that problem. When you have been here a while you will learn that changes to the game are often defended by N3V as in response to overwhelming numbers of public requests. I would refer you to post #10 from Zec. He is employee of N3V I believe, (They do pay you Zec, don't they?)

I understand that you are offering your experience as a new user. Perhaps posting in the Suggestions forum might get the attention of the other N3V guys.

William

When I think of the "robust-ness" (new word?) of the Trainz world I realize that the issues I mentioned and my thoughts are nothing. Compared to the technology of the new capabilities in TRS19 (PBR and such) I realize my "hang-ups" are laughable. My posts are totally in view of seeing the new user come in and possibly "giving up." I just hate to see new users "turned off" by UI that at times seems to not make sense. Those "day one" users who have not yet grasped the complexities of the franchise and appreciate that the "monster" actually works. I just can't conceive of the complexities involved in making all this work - Driver, Surveyor, DLS, CM, etc etc etc.

On the contrary, I assume that N3V wants input from new users otherwise why have an open beta program. I'm just suggesting that conveying your opinion is best done through a forum that might get it noticed. N3V is a very small company and this forum is managed mostly by volunteers. Zec is the only official voice and I hope he gets more than beer money for his efforts.

William

Hi All
For the fog in Trainz, this is set by the time of day (with the weather than being 'additive' to this). Previously this was a 'global' setting in the game settings; however the issue with this was that session and route builders had no control over this.

This means that the fog can only be set in the 'edit environment' tools in Surveyor, it is not possible to set it in Driver.

This is done to allow session and route builders to control how much fog the session or route will have, and when. The when is important, as fog is very common in the morning and twilight, but less common at midday.

If you adjust the weather, the fog will increase beyond the value set in the edit environment tools at the 'current' game time; this is done to simulate the distant effects of weather (or more the visibility caused by distant weather effects). If the fog is set to look fairly clear in the day, then "cloudy" basically gives the look of rain/drizzle in the distance; drizzle/rainy gives the look of rain in the distance, and stormy gives the look of very heavy rain in the distance.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to please everyone with the systems in Trainz. In this case we want creators to have control over these settings when making the routes and sessions; this does mean not having a setting in driver if we want to be able to provide fog settings relative to the time of day (which, as a route and session builder, I do see as a necessity; and have used to good effect in sessions at times).

Regards

ZecMurphy said:

Hi All
Unfortunately, it's not possible to please everyone with the systems in Trainz. In this case we want creators to have control over these settings when making the routes and sessions; this does mean not having a setting in driver if we want to be able to provide fog settings relative to the time of day (which, as a route and session builder, I do see as a necessity; and have used to good effect in sessions at times).
Regards

Click to expand...

Thanks again Zec... My final friendly comments on FOG...

I accept - I know you guys "can't win." But just doesn't make sense to me as if the desire is for Route and Session Makers to have control why can I change time of day and choose if it's raining, snowing, or sunny (in Driver)? I just don't get why "FOG" is special. And in reality FOG is a rare thing. In Trainz it just seems way overdone to me and it doesn't appear to be FOG at all.... it simply looks like "washed out" graphics. But hey... that's just me. Minor thing... I'll get over it.

1611mac said:

Thanks again Zec... My final friendly comments on FOG...

I accept - I know you guys "can't win." But just doesn't make sense to me as if the desire is for Route and Session Makers to have control why can I change time of day and choose if it's raining, snowing, or sunny (in Driver)? I just don't get why "FOG" is special. And in reality FOG is a rare thing. In Trainz it just seems way overdone to me and it doesn't appear to be FOG at all.... it simply looks like "washed out" graphics. But hey... that's just me. Minor thing... I'll get over it.

Click to expand...

You can change time and weather in driver with a driver command. Not sure if there are any commands yet for fog. Look at EW Weather, or something like that.

1611mac said:

Thanks again Zec... My final friendly comments on FOG...

I accept - I know you guys "can't win." But just doesn't make sense to me as if the desire is for Route and Session Makers to have control why can I change time of day and choose if it's raining, snowing, or sunny (in Driver)? I just don't get why "FOG" is special. And in reality FOG is a rare thing. In Trainz it just seems way overdone to me and it doesn't appear to be FOG at all.... it simply looks like "washed out" graphics. But hey... that's just me. Minor thing... I'll get over it.

Click to expand...

Hi 1611mac
The fog, in this case, needs to be seen as being a setting the same as the environment colours, the sky, etc. It is not a 'user' variable, but rather a 'creator' variable.

The 'fog' itself, as I pointed out, is used for a variety of things that are equivalents to fog. We have to choose a name, and this is the most logical one. But it also covers 'smog', 'distant rain', 'distant mist', and a few other different weather effects that make visibility shorter than a perfectly clear day. With the right environment colour settings, I reckon it could even give a bit of a 'heat haze' sort of effect at lower levels... It should be noted that there is currently no control over how much the fog is increased at the 'non clear' weather levels; the fog is necessary to represent those weather effects in the distance at the current time.

This does mean that it is changed in Surveyor, not driver.

If a route builder has made their fog to look washed out, then that is how the route builder made it. You would need to edit the route's environment settings in the edit environment window in Surveyor, at all time points, to adjust the fog for the route. Or adjust the bottom most colour in the 'sky colour' box, as this adjusts the fog colour as well.

But as it is tied to those time points, it cannot be adjusted when in Driver mode, as those time points are not available.

That said, hopefully the new 'unified river/surveyor' feature (Trainz Plus only at this time, currently in beta) might make this easier as you'll be able to jump into Surveyor mode to make these changes whilst driving on the route.

Regards