Newcomer needing some basic help.

Hey,
I've just joined the site today and have a quick question or two for some experienced (or not so experienced!) Trainz gamers...

I was digging through my loft the other night and found "Trainz Virtual Railway" which I had "shunted" up there not long after I bought it some time ago because my PC of the time wouldn't run it.
(Please bare with me - this is going somewhere)

Anyway, I have a pretty new laptop now and installed the game with some excitement (I'm a train lover) and it works fine.

Thing is - on the surveyor mode (here comes the question - see) the area I have to build seems really small, and I've maybe just enough room for perhaps a double oval of track and maybe a few sidings. There's little I can do apart from running trains around in circles.
Is this area a "module" like on "real" model railways where I can join one onto another to make a bigger layout? If so, how do I do it?
Or am I simply restricted to a single "baseboard"?

Also, sorry, it does seem incredibly fiddly when trying to navigate around the surveyor - right-clicking the mouse button has the screen jumping around all over the place and makes me quite dizzy! Is there anyway of decreasing the sensitivity?

(there is no manual for the game, for some reason, and I'm just clicking buttons and icons, but to no avail)

And finally; I have just there now ordered a more recent version from Amazon which will be dispatched tomorrow, so help with this rather old version is only temporary whilst I cut my teeth, so to speak.

Thanks in advance.
Rikki.

Hello Starr Man5 and welcome to the forum.

I have just looked on my TRS2004 version, similar to the Trainz Virtual Railway version, and in surveyor, click on the top tab that says Topology - Add Section. These enables you to add a baseboard to another baseboard in any direction, one at a time. Now, at the bottom of that square pop-up it says Advanced, click on that and click on the first circle on the left hand side called extend. It will light up and say extend section X, go to the edge of your baseboard and click into fresh air, on my computer it's the blue background and you will see it adds another baseboard for you. Then carry on adding baseboards using the same technique, you can have as many baseboards as you want on a route, but, obviously the more you have then it'll lag the computer when you've filled it with track and textures and buildings, etc. It depends how powerful your computer / laptop is.

Shout up if you have any more questions, we're all here to help each other......

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

Thanks for the welcome and the reply ex-railwayman.
I will go try out the topology thing now, I knew it didn't make sense seeing as the layouts that come with the game are made up of a lot of separate sections, and one of them is simply HUGE (easily 50+ "modules).

I actually do have lots of questions, but I'll just ask one or two at a time rather than bombard you all, and here is another:

I built a simple circuit earlier, one oval and a couple of sidings.
When I took a train out for a test-run, I couldn't switch any of the points, there was no little icon above them (that red-green one that shows up over the point in a sort of see-through way).
Is there something else I need to add when placing points in the surveyor to make them "active"? (you understand?)

Again, sorry to seem so dumb, it's probably staring me in the face but I have no manual at all and the whole thing is so very vague, I'm just clicking icons and getting nowhere at the minute

Thanks again,
Rikki.

Hello again Rikki, there's no such thing as dumb questions, especially, when you don't have a manual to read........:hehe:
Hmmm, I'm a little confused now, because when you add a junction on a length of track, the junction lever should be installed automatically for you and named Junction 0 or 1 or 2, etc, you can re-name the junctions BTW, just click on the question mark in surveyor and it will enable you to put in a name or a number, it's the same for platform signs and roadsigns, etc, etc.
The lever is what's known as a built-in asset, similar to the railtrack and signals, built-in assets are a starter pack in essence, but you can go to the Auran download station - commonly referred to as the DLS, and install another one of your choice, as there are many different types of junction lever available depending on the country your route is made for.
The KUID number for the automatic lever is -1:100553 on my TRS2004 version, I can't remember if the numbers correspond to previous versions.
All built-in assets will have a KUID number that starts with -1.
I can only suggest you try different types of track on your baseboard, it might be that a junction doesn't automatically appear on some of the tracks for whatever reason.
Oh, and some of the routes you can download can have several hundreds of baseboards in length, so one with 50 is just a little tiddler....:hehe:


Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

I tried the topology there and understand now.
I also worked out how to move things around to fit (rotate).
I'm going to have so much fun with this.
Still no idea how to get points to work though.
Need help with that one.

*EDIT - ex-railway man, I'll experiment with different types of track as nothing appears when I lay junctions.
The junctions DO build properly, you can clearly see where the point blades meet, but at the minute it's completely aesthetic.

Hi Rikki and Welcome to the world of Trainz.

Getting involved with Trainz is going to take up a lot of your social life and you may never see the light of day again.:hehe:

If you use the "Search" button at the top you should be able to do a search of the forums a lot quicker. Just type in what you are searching for and you should find whole list of help on any topic you require. If it's not there ask away on the forums. We are always happy to help in any way, and you can never ask too many questions. Believe me I've done it and I have come a long way since I joined in April.

Regards Dave.

This is the problem I'm having:




As you can see, the point is correctly laid as looks nice and smooth.
But there is no point lever?
It remains like this when I enter the layout in "Driver" mode.
No idea why, and it's frustrating the hell out of me :'(

Hello Rikki,

Yes, it's old track, It was created by Mike10 on the DLS, I'm sure there are some separate point levers for this as well....It's called finescale track and Mike did create some levers - called turnouts, somewhere , but I cannot locate them at present. If you have access to the internet and get onto the DLS, Mike's KUID number is 35412, but, they are about 7 years old now, could you use something else ???

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

There is other types of track available to me on the game.
But they all present with the same problem: No point levers.

I just don't see any option to add point levers, and they don't pop up automatically when I "draw" the track.
Hopefully this is something that can be sorted out simply enough, I've a feeling I'm going to be Trainz lover once I get going.

If I download something from the DLS (I've just registered there), do I add content to a specific folder, or do I create a folder for it first?

Again, thanks for the help.
Rikki

Starr_Man5 said:

There is other types of track available to me on the game.
But they all present with the same problem: No point levers.

I just don't see any option to add point levers, and they don't pop up automatically when I "draw" the track.
Hopefully this is something that can be sorted out simply enough, I've a feeling I'm going to be Trainz lover once I get going.

If I download something from the DLS (I've just registered there), do I add content to a specific folder, or do I create a folder for it first?

Again, thanks for the help.
Rikki

Click to expand...

Hi Rikki and welcome to the forum. For your first question, about the points, if you go to the track tab (where you "drew" the track from) there should be a row of buttons along the top. The leftmost one should look selected in some way. Select the middle one, and you should get a list of track side assets. There should be some levers in here that will work. All you do is place the lever inside the spline circle at the points, to the single track side of the points, if this makes sense. If the lever is in the correct place then one of the arrows should be green, and the other red. If it is in the wrong place, then both arrows will be red. This may require some fine tuning to fit correctly.

I also advise you to look in surveyor options, on the top bar in the surveyor menu. There may be an option here to automatically add points.

For your second question, anything that you download should be in a prepackaged file that end with .CDP. All you do is double-click on the .CDP file and it should open a program to install the content into trainz.

I may be incorrect on the above point, as I have never used your version of trainz, but if I am wrong then I am sure that someone will correct me.

Happy trainzing!:wave:

Blimey, does none of the track create it's own junction, that's weird....Mind you, it's simply years since I last played with UTC, so cannot remember the set-up now, I'll have to go and do some research.

Now, if you've only just registered with Auran, then sometimes it takes several hours, maybe even a day or two, for your registration to be activated. You might be lucky and it goes through immediately, but as Auran are in Australia, they are about 9 hours ahead of us, so you always have to take the time difference into consideration.

My best suggestion is that when you can get onto the DLS is to download each asset into your "MY Documents" area of your PC / Laptop.
Each item you download is in the shape of an American locomotive coloured yellow and blue. You'll then have things ready and available to install when I can remember how to do it......:hehe:

I'll post back soon. You might have to wait until tomorrow before you can start downloading stuff, but don't worry.....

Have you been on the Download Station yet ???

Cheerz. ex.

Oh, I forgot to mention this, on this forum in the Maintenance of Way area is a thread for all users of the UTC version, it's called Ultimate..........I suggest strongly having a read of the stickys and some of the posts there as some of your questions may have already been raised before and it's quite in-depth as to the information you can pick up......

Cheerz. ex.

Captain_Collins said:

Hi Rikki and welcome to the forum. For your first question, about the points, if you go to the track tab (where you "drew" the track from) there should be a row of buttons along the top. The leftmost one should look selected in some way. Select the middle one, and you should get a list of track side assets. There should be some levers in here that will work. All you do is place the lever inside the spline circle at the points, to the single track side of the points, if this makes sense.

Click to expand...

The option was there the whole time.


In my panic to find it I looked right past it! :hehe:

Thanks for the "pointers" guys.
Now my head is spinning with ideas.

Good, you've found something....Now, don't get too carried away, as Stationbeem stated you've just kissed goodbye to eating, sleeping, your family and your weekends and winter nights, so just enjoy yourself......

:wave:

Looking through the screen shots forum there, I've got a lot to aspire to.
But I guess practice makes perfect....

Starr man , in addition if you look in the Track section and click "advanced" at the bottom of the tab there is an option to "Insert Spline Point".If you select then click on the straigt piece of track before the tracks diverge at the points it will insert a spline point.Then click "Straighten Track and it will do just that and make your Points look more realistic.The closer to ground level you get, the faster the compass will move horizontally, so try using your mose to zoom out and take an aerial vie , as if lookin straight down from an aircraft.

lewisner said:

Starr man , in addition if you look in the Track section and click "advanced" at the bottom of the tab there is an option to "Insert Spline Point".If you select then click on the straigt piece of track before the tracks diverge at the points it will insert a spline point.Then click "Straighten Track and it will do just that and make your Points look more realistic.The closer to ground level you get, the faster the compass will move horizontally, so try using your mouse to zoom out and take an aerial vie , as if looking straight down from an aircraft.

Click to expand...

Thanks Lewisner,
I've been fiddling around with the pointer trying to "find a balance" with it.
I think I'm getting the hang of it, thankfully.