Losing spline assets upon saving

[hutten]

Hello,

OK this is not specific to TRS22 but I put it here. I submitted this to Suggestion Boxcar but it was refused by the moderator. So what else can I do than to write here?

Surely this is not a new issue. Actually, it has been around as long as I know Trainz. But I still think this needs fixing.

The fact is that upon saving a route (or route + session), all spline assets that are either missing or broken are lost, deleted from the map. It is therefore necessary to have each and every spline in working order before saving, if one does not want to irreversibly lose a part of the original creation.
Each spline must either be found or repaired or replaced by a dummy asset of spline type before one can make good use of the route. This can be a serious drawback, for instance when make a session for a route of an older build or when making a correction in the route.

Why cannot the references be retained for defective splines like it is for (most) other types of assets?

Regards,
Paul

[pware]

In my long experience of using Trainz, almost as long as yours, I do not recall ever seeing such an issue.

It would help if you could clarify a few points.

"It is therefore necessary to have each and every spline in working order before saving" - what exactly do you mean by "working order"? In my experience a spline is either present or it is not. The only feature of non-track splines that is important is height and that is subject to individual preferences, as is whether or not the spline points are joined or not.

What does Content Manager say about your route? Missing assets, faulty?

Can you give some specific examples? Kuids would be most helpful.

[G.M.]

Strange issue Paul
I mostly work on old and incomplete routes often with missing splines, but so far they just stay that
the reference to the points and splines stay unless I do delete missing assets of course.
What is annoying that you can't ask the kuid and all become "missing spline"
and all make blue lines in mapview (which can be handy to spot them)
even the new eyedropper in S2, does not give the kuid info for the missing spline

[JCitron]

Is this a layers thing?

Editing a route while on the session layer, such as while driving and switching to edit using UDS, will cause such things as roads and other splines to be "invisible" when loading up the route in the route editor.

[hutten]

Hi,

Thanks for all the replies.
I can only say that I have always experienced missing splines to disappear upon saving.
If all splines become the same "Missing spline" asset, their identity is lost, and it comes down to the same thing. You can no longer put the right spline in the right place. I do not like the Missing spline asset. It could be worse, however: I remember that in some version of TS2009 all missing splines were replaced by rails!

I just experienced that faulty splines are also replaced by the Missing spline asset. I don't remember what happened in earlier Trainz.
I think that the game would be much more friendly if all missing assets were replaced by dummies that are not only visible (like the boxes that now also show their kuid on a mouse-over), but that could also be bulk replaced by any asset of the proper type.

Regards,
Paul

[JCitron]

Hi,

Thanks for all the replies.
I can only say that I have always experienced missing splines to disappear upon saving.
If all splines become the same "Missing spline" asset, their identity is lost, and it comes down to the same thing. You can no longer put the right spline in the right place. I do not like the Missing spline asset. It could be worse, however: I remember that in some version of TS2009 all missing splines were replaced by rails!

I just experienced that faulty splines are also replaced by the Missing spline asset. I don't remember what happened in earlier Trainz.
I think that the game would be much more friendly if all missing assets were replaced by dummies that are not only visible (like the boxes that now also show their kuid on a mouse-over), but that could also be bulk replaced by any asset of the proper type.

Regards,
Paul

I agree with you on the missing assets like that. Track should become the generic track, roads, fences, etc., something else. The problem is all splines are now classed as track.

Regarding assets becoming missing, check that they aren't faulty or open for edit, and also check for updates. If these assets were included in DLC, then there's a possibility that they aren't recognized until the packages are updated. If you are completely up to date, then try an EDR. Press CTRL-key while clicking on Rebuild database to do that.

[hutten]

Hi John,

Haven't looked here for some days...

I am not missing anything and I have repaired all the faulties in the route that I was working on.

The only point I wanted to make is that when one saves a route in which not all splines are present and OK, the save will result in a loss of information about which splines exactly are missing and where they belong.
One therefore has to proceed carefully with saving of a route while working on it.

Regards,
Paul

[pware]

Which brings me back to John's point some posts ago.

Is this a layers thing?

Are you placing some splines in a Session layer, which would be saved with the Session and not the Route, and when you next load the layout are you only loading the Route and not the Route and the Session? This is one of the most common reasons why assets sometimes "go missing" from a Route. If you add assets to a Session layer then you must save both the Route and the Session and, when you later restart Trainz, you must load both the Route and the same Session.

Another cause of this confusion is not giving the Session a distinctive name when it is saved. The sure sign of this problem is having multiple Sessions for the same Route, all named "Default".

[hutten]

Hello pware,

This is certainly not the problem in my case. If ever I forget to work in the Route layer, I merge Session layer into Route layer before saving. And if not, loading the proper Session should be sufficient to prevent the problem from occurring.
One simply has to avoid the creation of Missing Splines, since they mean loss of information.

Regards,
Paul