Interlocking Towers again

rhban

Active member
Once I got over a certain number of AI trains, I seem to have run into an increasing number of incidents where drivers just stop for no apparent reason. Sometimes, I can sort this out by adding a number of track marks to gently guide the bemused driver, but this does not always work.
I have read in another thread that Interlocking Towers don't alway work in trs19.
I was also wondering whether Navigate Via Trackmark has also stopped working, but I definitely need help to guide my novice AI drivers through my maze of points (switches).
Any suggestions?
 
I have actually run into what seems a snag also. Have a route in TRS19 with three EIT's one of which now has 27 separate, short. paths which does not like any more added to it. So I have a q...is there a limit to how many paths a single EIT can handle?
 
I have found that if a TM is on the path it did not get seen by the driver. When I asked a driver to go to a TM beyond the path it worked fine. So I moved all TM's off of the paths. You will also have a problem where a driver can see two paths to the same destination and can't decide which one to take.
 
I may be imagining it, but I think the AI got significantly stupider since SP5 - like can't find the car directly in front of it and less than 300 yards away stupid.
 
I may be imagining it, but I think the AI got significantly stupider since SP5 - like can't find the car directly in front of it and less than 300 yards away stupid.

Yup especially if there's a signal or a bunch of switches in between. If you park the driver past a signal or past a bunch of points, the driver will manage to find what it's supposed to couple to. I found if I remove the signals with the head facing towards the sidings rather than out from the sidings, the AI will couple happily. This fix was annoying because for years everyone was happy either way and then I had to spend hours fixing my various yards on my biggest routes.

Tony has mentioned that the whole underlying AI engine needs updating but that's a whole project in itself and not an easy one at that and will be looked at some time in the future (tm).
 
Yup especially if there's a signal or a bunch of switches in between. If you park the driver past a signal or past a bunch of points, the driver will manage to find what it's supposed to couple to. I found if I remove the signals with the head facing towards the sidings rather than out from the sidings, the AI will couple happily. This fix was annoying because for years everyone was happy either way and then I had to spend hours fixing my various yards on my biggest routes.

Tony has mentioned that the whole underlying AI engine needs updating but that's a whole project in itself and not an easy one at that and will be looked at some time in the future (tm).

Certainly needed. At present I have a driver who stops and loads passengers at a station and then refuses to move. I've even tried placing a Track Mark directly in front of where he is stopped, but he won't move to it. Normally, I would suspect a track break, but I have manually driven his train over the complete stretch to the next station without a problem. Perhaps it's more than my computer can handle or perhaps it's more than trs19 can.
 
I use EIT, set the path and then use autodrive to a trackmark on the other end of the path. If you have station stops drive to the station then use the autodrive to proceed farther. I have no problems doing it this way as autodrive will follow signals and not try to set path like drive to and navigate to.
 
I use EIT, set the path and then use autodrive to a trackmark on the other end of the path. If you have station stops drive to the station then use the autodrive to proceed farther. I have no problems doing it this way as autodrive will follow signals and not try to set path like drive to and navigate to.

I have seen "auto drive" in a TRS video, but that doesn't appear in my version. Is there some additional rule that provides that or is it a trs22 thing?
 
I have seen "auto drive" in a TRS video, but that doesn't appear in my version. Is there some additional rule that provides that or is it a trs22 thing?

It should be there. If it's not, you can download it from the DLS.

To enable the driver command, you need to edit the session.

In the session editing screen, you will see Driver Command.
Click on edit and then scroll the list, it should be near the top since the commands are in alphabetical order, until you see the driver command Autodrive.
Check the box next to that, and the command is now added to your available driver commands.
 
autodrive is on the DLS and as JCitron stated has to be enabled in the session after installing. Here is the latest version "<kuid2:192081:4:5> Autodrive"
 
Hi

Just seen this thread so I apologies for the late reply. There isn't a limit to the number of paths in an EIT but there is a limit to the total number of objects (junctions, signals etc) that are on the paths that the EIT controls. You will get more paths if they are quite short but if the paths are fairly long with lots of junctions and signals, perhaps on the approach to a station for example, then you obviously won't get as many paths before hitting the limit. In my experience once you hit the limit you are unable to add any further paths. I usually try to keep the number of objects to less than 350.

In the early days of EITs I had the whole of Kings Cross station on the ECML route controlled by one EIT containing 76 paths but that is now impossible. I now have the station controlled by three EITs, one for inbound, a second for outbound and a third controlling the loco yard.

Depending on the circumstances it may be possible to split long paths into two parts. If paths have a number of objects common to all paths it may be possible to make one path which contains those objects and then other shorter paths for branching to the platforms or sidings. I find that it pays to examine a track layout before starting to add paths to a tower to see if it is possible to simplify them in this way.

Autodrive is definitely the way to go when using EITs as it doesn't try to set its own paths which can cause clashes with the AI. As the tower controls all the paths to the destinations I find that I need far fewer trackmarks in a session.

Regards

Brian
 
One hopefully final question:
In my version of trs19, there is no Enhanced Interlocking Towers, but in the Session list of rules I have a number of rules that seem connected:

Interlocking Tower Configure Path
Interlocking Tower Path Selection
Interlocking Tower Set Path
Path Rule

Which one or which ones of these do I need to add to my driver rules? Oh, and I believe I also need to find and download 'autodrive' from DLS.
 
Hi

Just seen this thread so I apologies for the late reply. There isn't a limit to the number of paths in an EIT but there is a limit to the total number of objects (junctions, signals etc) that are on the paths that the EIT controls. You will get more paths if they are quite short but if the paths are fairly long with lots of junctions and signals, perhaps on the approach to a station for example, then you obviously won't get as many paths before hitting the limit. In my experience once you hit the limit you are unable to add any further paths. I usually try to keep the number of objects to less than 350.

In the early days of EITs I had the whole of Kings Cross station on the ECML route controlled by one EIT containing 76 paths but that is now impossible. I now have the station controlled by three EITs, one for inbound, a second for outbound and a third controlling the loco yard.

Depending on the circumstances it may be possible to split long paths into two parts. If paths have a number of objects common to all paths it may be possible to make one path which contains those objects and then other shorter paths for branching to the platforms or sidings. I find that it pays to examine a track layout before starting to add paths to a tower to see if it is possible to simplify them in this way.

Autodrive is definitely the way to go when using EITs as it doesn't try to set its own paths which can cause clashes with the AI. As the tower controls all the paths to the destinations I find that I need far fewer trackmarks in a session.

Regards

Brian

With Pierre's latest EIT library there is now no upper limit to the number of objects in a tower.
I am now running a session with 64 towers, 752 paths and 4357 objects with no problems at all. I do not allow AI to make any decisions at all.
 
Hi.

I would not say that there is no upper limit, as there are always some limits to any processing to be done, but the with last EITs version the limits have been increased a lot.
Doing now quite all processings under asynchronous threads splitted on multiple successive time frame, an EIT should be able to process with no timeouts at least more than 2000 path objects, which is quite a good increase from the previous 250 path objects advised limit …

The counterpart is that initialisation, UDS switching from surveyor to driver and back, … may take a few seconds elapsed time when you have several thousand of path objects to be initialized or processed. Under surveyor mode, this is not in general a problem as these processings are done asynchronously while you are editing your session and so the small elapsed time delay is in general not noticeable … in driver mode, as the initialisation and UDS processing concerns only already active paths which are in general not too many the elapsed time delay is also not noticeable and if it exceeds 0.5 sec. EITs uses a few tricks to make the delay not noticeable for most users and routes …

Take care that there has been a few bugs reported with last EIT version that are now fixed only in last available version on DLS which should be release 96.

Hope this helps.
Regards.
Pierre.
 
One hopefully final question:
In my version of trs19, there is no Enhanced Interlocking Towers, but in the Session list of rules I have a number of rules that seem connected:

Interlocking Tower Configure Path
Interlocking Tower Path Selection
Interlocking Tower Set Path
Path Rule

Which one or which ones of these do I need to add to my driver rules? Oh, and I believe I also need to find and download 'autodrive' from DLS.

Interlocking Tower Configure Path, Intelocking Tower Path Selection and Interlocking Tower Set Path are N3V rules developed for standard Interlocking Towers by N3V. They are not needed to use EITs but if you like using these rules, they should work also fine with EITs.
Path rule is a specific rule developed by some third party creator before N3V introduced Interlocking Towers with Tane. For me, the rule was broken with the introduction of Tane, but may be I am not aware that it has been fixed since …

So shortly, if you use EIT you don’t need any of these rules in your session.

Regards.
Pierre.
 
Interlocking Tower Configure Path, Intelocking Tower Path Selection and Interlocking Tower Set Path are N3V rules developed for standard Interlocking Towers by N3V. They are not needed to use EITs but if you like using these rules, they should work also fine with EITs.
Path rule is a specific rule developed by some third party creator before N3V introduced Interlocking Towers with Tane. For me, the rule was broken with the introduction of Tane, but may be I am not aware that it has been fixed since …

So shortly, if you use EIT you don’t need any of these rules in your session.

Regards.
Pierre.

Problem is that my version of trs19 does not have EIT - only the four I mentioned in my post.
 
Hello Pierre!

I hope i am in the right Thread, even if its TRS19.

In TRS22+ Build 119450 I found the following problem with Version 96 and earlier ones: Some paths are simply not releasing after the train has passed. The towers run on "clear after last junction", but unfortunately nothing happens. The junctions remain locked.
Is anyone having the same problem? Clear on path is working fine by the way.

greetings from austria,
Steyrtal
 
Note that the path will not be released after the last junction has been passed if you have any exclusive sets in the path. If you have, the processing has no idea where these exclusive sets are, so cannot release the path until the exit signal has been passed.

Peter
 
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