Major industry functioning problems with TRS19

With all updates of computer programs, and updates of websites, and updates of all things in general, things are irreparably broken and ruined forever. Look at what Microsoft did to windows they made versions of windows that every body absolutely hates. Look at what Google has done to google images they have totally destroyed millions of images that were once there and now they cannot be accessed. All because some newfangled smart Alec decided that it would be really cool to update everything. But these cool new updates or anything and everything on the Internet updates are irrevocably irrevitably breaking all the good old things forever
 
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A much better option is to break up large industries into components. There is little or no benefit having a dozen components in one asset. It means the ground has to be flat, it is inefficient for performance, creates problems with level of detail and "process objects behind camera" and reduces flexibility greatly. It also means every "packing plant" looks like every other packing plant.
Great advice for the content creator who is making a new industry asset. Although finding and placing a few dozen bits and pieces to form the industry of your dreams is a bit of a chore. Some way to group things together so they can be considered a unit on at least a semi permanent basis would be very helpful.

I use a pretty simple cad program to do a lot of basic drawing including most of the route track layouts I work on. It has a feature called a "figure" where you select a bunch of separate objects and group them as a single named object that can be operated on as a unit with any of the available tools. This allows duplication, moving and rotating the figure as a unit. It stays as a unit until the figure is "exploded" into its base components. I can even save the figure definitions and load them into another drawing. Surveyor has bits of this concept but nowhere near this functionality at present. Maybe we can get something like it in the future.

In the meantime most of us have to use what's on the DLS and 3rd party sites and many industries are just single unit assets.

Bob Pearson
 
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If a large object is near another smaller object then the mouse point often cannot discern that object, regardless of what type it is. This applies to not only just the "?" key but other keys as well such as the "get object" key as well in the objects tab.

Layers Bob, put the big items on a different layer, can just use a temporary one, lock it and you can move the smaller items around easily, you can also hide the temporary layer if that makes it easier.
 
Just a thought for Bob, since you reuse many of the same industries on different routes, you could for the moment make a custom pick list of just those industries that you have to program. Choosing an item from the pick list will make that item the selected item in the asset panel. Clicking the "?" then should let you adjust the settings.

Oops, Sorry it didn't work the way I thought it would.



William
 
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Layers Bob, put the big items on a different layer, can just use a temporary one, lock it and you can move the smaller items around easily, you can also hide the temporary layer if that makes it easier.

For a new route, or a single route, I would not mind doing that, but I have no intention of going back to and having to re-do all 14 of my routes just to accommodate the fact that N3V broke the ability of the mouse to be able to precisely discern objects and are only letting us know they did it because I brought it to light and documented it here in the forums and forced the issue.

I am not sure that some of you understand the full impact of this. Much more then the industries are involved here. To accommodate this issue I will have to:

1. Move every industry that is near any large object to another layer.
2. Move any other object that I might wish to move, identify or configure that is near another larger object to another layer.
3. Replace existing industries that have large foot prints, with different ones, or carve up existing ones to make more modular smaller foot print ones because smaller objects cannot be over laid on them.
4. Move any small object that is overlaid on a larger object to another layer. If you overlay a smaller scenery object on a larger scenery object you will find you no longer have the ability to identify, move or adjust that item since the mouse pointer will only be able to detect the larger object. I have had to grapple with this many times already in my attempts to upgrade my T:ANE routes to TRS19 standards. The only stated solution for that is to move the smaller objects to another layer.

Have I got this list wrong here?

Also this issue effects almost every older route brought into TRS19 by users, including many routes created by authors long gone, or those not willing to upgrade them. This will put the burden on the users to have to fix those routes in many cases.

From N3Vs perspective and statement, it is not a bug, but a feature, but it impacts all of us freeware content and route developers by forcing us to have to re-do what they break. Of course that is entirely their prerogative for their product, but it is my prerogative to go the direction I indicated earlier, which I am going to do.

Bob
 
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For what small surveyor editing I've ever had, I'm missing a feature that I have seen present in almost any other program I've ever touched: the ability to select any object by just clicking on it in an asset search window.
There IS an asset search window in TRS19, but the only effect is moving the 3D pointer to that object...just adding a "select" button and giving the ability to use any category tool to manage the object - as long as the select window remains open - would solve most of the problems seen in this thread.

I understand that this is not the perfect solution, we all prefer click-to-select, but for the few instances where that's not possible under the new "rules" this new button could be a saving hand.
What do you think?

EDIT just to add: I can see the advantages of the new raytracing method, but the need to keep things simple for the creators must be the first statement in N3V workflow - and that means both freeware AND payware creators, as the issue with smaller object is hitting on the latter as well.
 
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I have to agree 100% with what Bob says. The issue if a large object taking over and preventing a smaller one to be accessed has been around for too long. And so, how come it has not been addressed by N3V already? Perhaps because most of us swallow the pill and find a work around, even if tedious. Here is how I do it:

Be vertical. I mean position the camera as straight vertical as possible over the objects. Lets say you have a harbor with a dock, and the dock is an object, not spline. And so you have an industry track over the dock near the warehouse or ship. The dock prevents you from accessing the industry track. At this point, what I do is to position a known object (square house, vertical ruler, lamp post, or some reference) that is exactly on a corner of the dock. If you missed the first time, go back and try again, as once it is placed you would not be able to move it due to the interaction of the larger dock. Now move the dock out of the way so you can manipulate the industry track. Make sure you set it as best as you can. Move the dock back to match exactly the reference building. And you are all set. Make sure you move the dock straight and not rotating it. The layer solution works for a few cases, but when you have a gazillion industries, docks, harbors and large stations, you have to go the logical and easy way.
 
Yeah Know the problem have had layots I have downloaded when you cant configure industries because you cant actually click on them easy keep getting every thing around them


Tom
 
Remember N3V employees do not play the game, therefore they are clueless as to how changes they make impact playing the game. This also explains the frequent changes in the user interface.

I have spent hours and hours moving larger assets to a mask layer so I can access the underlying industries in many, many routes (I have over 700 routes installed). For mega routes this can be a months long process.

And I can't share these modified routes because I did not create the original.

Grrr!

PS by the way Bob, I've been complaining about this since the early betas of TANE. You can see how much good it has done.
 
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Game versus hobby. When you look at the market size of each I believe you get the answer for why some items remain in the "to be done" category. Supporting games versus a hobby is walking a tight rope when changes and features are introduced. There is little argument that games are more popular than a hobby. The two market sizes are not in dispute. The company that tries to serve both may fail. DTG took the plunge to games a few years ago and survived. They did so when a failing hobbyist product needed a remake to attract a larger market. It took a few years and the small contingent of hobbyists left but they were replaced by customers interested in games, competition or just watching their Christmas train now running on a PC. Having gone thru the DTG/Railworks transition we may be seeing that same thing here. Survival as a business is paramount. N3v needs to evaluate each change in light of the makeup of their served market. The larger element gets the service.
 
While layers are usually my answer too, I tried something.

First I placed an apron (part of an airport system) kuid 152080:20090:1 in my map. It's a 20m x 20m square. I could select it, move it, no problem.
Then I placed an Armoire Signal kuid 38427:28005 near the apron. It's a signal box about 1m x 0.5m x 1.8m high.
No matter how close I moved the signal box to the apron, I could always select one or the other. Even if I placed the signal box on the apron, the two could still be individually selected as long as I pointed directly to the object I wanted. YMMV :eek:

All this in TRS19 103369
TRS 2019 103369 sig box on apron.JPG
 
While layers are usually my answer too, I tried something.

First I placed an apron (part of an airport system) kuid 152080:20090:1 in my map. It's a 20m x 20m square. I could select it, move it, no problem.
Then I placed an Armoire Signal kuid 38427:28005 near the apron. It's a signal box about 1m x 0.5m x 1.8m high.
No matter how close I moved the signal box to the apron, I could always select one or the other. Even if I placed the signal box on the apron, the two could still be individually selected as long as I pointed directly to the object I wanted. YMMV :eek:

All this in TRS19 103369
View attachment 1928

I've been able to do this myself most of the time. Some assets, however, appear to have a bigger invisible bounding box or mesh associated with the asset so no matter what else I grab, I still end up selecting the wrong asset.
 
Yup: One asset I use frequently in my routes is <kuid:-25:1224> Multiple_Industry_New - This has a notoriously large bounding box making the selection of adjacent objects/ buildings etc. very difficult except by guile and precision. ;)

Edit Update: Just a quick side-note to confirm that MSGSapper's <kuid2:439337:101033:3> Coal_Loader_Interactive_with_effects (uploaded today) is working correctly and has fixed the config.txt error found in <kuid2:439337:101033:2>.
 
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Yup: One asset I use frequently in my routes is <kuid:-25:1224> Multiple_Industry_New - This has a notoriously large bounding box making the selection of adjacent objects/ buildings etc. very difficult except by guile and precision. ;)

Edit Update: Just a quick side-note to confirm that MSGSapper's <kuid2:439337:101033:3> Coal_Loader_Interactive_with_effects (uploaded today) is working correctly and has fixed the config.txt error found in <kuid2:439337:101033:2>.

Thanks to Tony and N3V for helping to find the problem with that loader. Also thank you for the confirmation that is now working as it should. BTW the reason I didn't catch this before was I was not using an AI locomotives to test it, just doing testing manually.

Bob
 
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