Where's my original session?

Now, with Build 111951, when I want to re-start my session from start in Driver, it always takes me to my last Save Point instead of re-starting my session from start. What happened??

Hi Dave,

After you click on the route in the menu at the bottom then click on View Sessions there you should see in View Sessions your original Driver session whatever you called it. That is, if everything is working as it should.

If you went from surveyor to driver without saving beforehand you don't have a base session. A base session must be saved in the surveyor before you think about going into the driver. Trainz will not ask if you want to save route and session before you leave the surveyor, only if you exit the session or leave the game.

This game is getting more screwed up everytime I try to play it.

I believe it has been the case since TS12 that you can save a Driver Game during game play. If you later reload that Driver Game then it will resume at the point where you saved. A Driver Game is saved from Driver.

A Session is saved from Surveyor, in the same way that a Route is saved. Reload the Session and it will start the game at the beginning.

The problem is distinguishing between a saved Driver Game and a saved Session.

In TS12 and T:ANE both were shown in the View Sessions option as a list of names with the saved Driver Games shown with the date and time of saving. Many users did not like the text based display for a variety of reasons.

In TRS19 both are shown as in View Sessions as thumbnails. The way I tell the difference between them is to click once on a thumbnail.

• If it is a Session then the Route and Region will be shown at the top left of the screen
• If it is a Driver Game then the Session name, date/time saved and time played will be shown at the top left of the screen

pware said:

I believe it has been the case since TS12 that you can save a Driver Game during game play. If you later reload that Driver Game then it will resume at the point where you saved. A Driver Game is saved from Driver.

A Session is saved from Surveyor, in the same way that a Route is saved. Reload the Session and it will start the game at the beginning.

The problem is distinguishing between a saved Driver Game and a saved Session.

In TS12 and T:ANE both were shown in the View Sessions option as a list of names with the saved Driver Games shown with the date and time of saving. Many users did not like the text based display for a variety of reasons.

In TRS19 both are shown as in View Sessions as thumbnails. The way I tell the difference between them is to click once on a thumbnail.

• If it is a Session then the Route and Region will be shown at the top left of the screen
• If it is a Driver Game then the Session name, date/time saved and time played will be shown at the top left of the screen

Click to expand...

Huh!?!? Who wants to try and digest all that malarkey?! Not me! Whatever happened to K.I.S.S. this game is getting more and more complicated. The learning curve on this game is getting tighter and tighter. Newbees aren't going to want to try and learn all the Idiosyncrasies of this game. It'll be too complicated and they'll move away and on to something else. This game is on it's way to becoming defunct..... lost in the ashes.... gone with the wind....

The problem is that if you switch to Surveyor while in a Driver game, your next save becomes a session.

davesnow said:

Huh!?!? Who wants to try and digest all that malarkey?!

Click to expand...

If an old campaigner like me can learn that "malarkey" then anyone can. Its not rocket science, unlike mastering GMax, Blender, etc (which you seem to have achieved without any problems) which I struggle with. But each to their own.

The "newbies", who are mostly younger than us, will have no problems.

A lot of this comes down to the idiosyncratic terminology used by Trainz, and to the way in which train running activities are being saved.

In common parlance (ha!) a session would be a date-stamped recorded activity. Like a music recording session in a studio. Or a skills training session with a new employee. You can have many such sessions, all different. That, however, is not how Trainz is using the term "session".

In Trainz terms, a "session" is a starting point for a journey. In other words, an initial configuration. The Trainz "session" provides everything that is needed to begin running trains in your world in a significant manner. That includes the trains themselves, the default settings of switches (turnouts), the commodity loading/unloading assignments, and so on. Some of the trains may run automatically, while you have to run another train manually. It's all specified in the Trainz "session".

When you've started such a "session" and have been running trains for a while, you may want to save your progress so far. That's where the muddle begins. Do you want to save-as a new session, or overwrite the old one? Well, I've been having a nice session with this session, and I want to save where I am right now. In other words, I want to save my game-play, not a new version of the initial setup.

It gets even more challenging when you're flipping between surveyor and driver. You keep getting asked whether you want to save your session. And/or route. Or Save As. You really have to keep your wits about you, which is part of the fun, but it also feels too complicated.

RobKi said:

When you've started such a "session" and have been running trains for a while, you may want to save your progress so far. That's where the muddle begins. Do you want to save-as a new session, or overwrite the old one? Well, I've been having a nice session with this session, and I want to save where I am right now. In other words, I want to save my game-play, not a new version of the initial setup.

Click to expand...

I am in total agreement with you up to that last point. When you are in Driver mode, pressing Ctrl-S (Save) will produce a completely different Save dialogue to pressing Ctrl-S when in Surveyor. In the Driver Save there is no option to save a Session. You are saving the current state-of-play in the current Session and not the initial setup. I do this many times and have no problems seeing the distinction. Where I agree that the confusion arises in when you restart Trainz and then attempt to load the saved Driver game or the saved Session, where it can be difficult to tell the which is which although there are differences in the thumbnails but that takes some experience to work out.

RobKi said:

It gets even more challenging when you're flipping between surveyor and driver. You keep getting asked whether you want to save your session. And/or route. Or Save As. You really have to keep your wits about you, which is part of the fun, but it also feels too complicated.

Click to expand...

Yes, I was initially caught out/confused by this in my early experience with the UDS when switching between Driver and Surveyor. It took me a while to work out the correct strategy and what to look for.

If you have only made alterations to assets in the route layers then the save dialogue will only show "Save the Route" and the option to "Save the Session" will not be auto selected (but you can still select it if you want). If you have made a change to anything in a session layer (and that, strangely, includes renaming a scenery asset that is in a route layer) then the dialogue will auto select "Save the Route and the Session" and you can choose to overwrite the original session, create a new one or ignore the option. 90% of the time I cancel the option to save the Session and just save the Route. There are times when I do need to save the altered Session as a new starting point (e.g. where the consists have moved) while leaving the original Session startup in place so I choose to save the Session with a new name.

Any change to a familiar system will always take some adjustments. I recall all my cursing and frustration when Microsoft introduced the "Ribbon" to the Office line of products. Where was the text alignment tool? What have they done to the save button? etc.

The forums were filled with confused and angry posts when Trainz introduced Sessions that allowed the one route to have multiple saved "scenarios" with different settings. Likewise the introduction of layers. I would not be without either.

The UDS is another example. I must admit to being initially very skeptical on the concept but now I am a total supporter.

My thoughts.

Isn't a big part of the confusion the fact that Driver saves are saved right along with session saves (same window)? I don't know why Driver saves can't be shown on another screen as it was in SP1 without UDS. One may still "mess up" his or her saves not understanding things but at least you'd see that something was amiss (save would be with wrong group of saves.)

Sheesh, what a mess.......

davesnow said:

Sheesh, what a mess.......

Click to expand...

I had exactly the same opinion when Microsoft introduced "The Ribbon" into their Office suite of products. Now I would not be without it. It is the same with Trainz.

1611mac said:

Isn't a big part of the confusion the fact that Driver saves are saved right along with session saves (same window)? I don't know why Driver saves can't be shown on another screen as it was in SP1 without UDS.

Click to expand...

I don't recall ever seeing a separate screen for Driver saves. In T:ANE they were always in the same window/screen as the Sessions. Both were displayed as text only entries which many users disliked. TRS19 (plain vanilla version) does not have UDS so the UDS is not the cause.

I just had a thought (it's early morning and the first day of winter here so that is quite an achievement). Why not add an icon to the top of each thumbnail image to indicate if a saved item is a Session or a Driver Game? They do that already for routes and sessions that are faulty or missing assets so it would probably not be difficult.

I tend to agree with davesnow. I avoid all that malarkey by not doing sessions ( or layers ). Am I then missing out on a great feature? Perhaps, but I am happy without it.

So you never Drive? If you Drive you are in a session. And Layers is is your friend.

SuperFudd said:

I avoid all that malarkey by not doing sessions ( or layers ). Am I then missing out on a great feature? Perhaps, but I am happy without it.

Click to expand...

Layers are an acquired "taste" but they do provide you with a great deal of flexibility in both creating routes and running sessions. So yes you are missing out on a great feature but each to their own.

As Greg pointed out above, if you drive a train then you are using a session. Also if you set loads and products for wagons and industries, if you change the weather or time of day, if you use driver commands or triggers - then you are using a session.