Trainz Railroad Simulator 2004 - Service Pack 2:Passenger Pack
Release Notes
Last Revised: 3rd June 2004
Contents:
1 - Introduction
2 - Installation
3 - New Features
4 - Hints and Tips
5 - Portal Notes
6 - New Rules
7 - FAQs
Tutorials:
8. Running Timetables and Schedules
9. Multi-Industry New Tutorial
Downloads and Examples:
12. Driver Commands
Welcome to the Service Pack 2 - Passenger Pack (SP2)
update. This update brings a huge amount of new functionality to TRS2004 and
gives you, the user, much more freedom to create your own working railroad.
With these new features we are expecting lots of new content to be developed
and we will be helping to distribute much of this content via our Download
Station and the in-game Trainz Exchange. Please check out the Exchange for new
Tutorials on how to take advantage of the new Service Pack 2 features.
Our goal with SP2 was to broaden your railroad
experience, and we're sure we've achieved this goal. We've added the ability to
carry out passenger runs to a timetable, and improved the ease of use in
getting sessions up and running (by saving your Driver Orders in Surveyor). We
also added a huge amount of flexibility in managing your Drivers through
inserting, deleting and moving orders "on the fly" - you now really
do get the feeling of operating your very own railroad. The Driver AI has been
given a huge boost with better prediction, smoother driving skills, enhanced
pathfinding and allowing more trains onto each track segment. And, on a busy
railroad when your Drivers are competing for the same track segment or same
junction, they now report back to you which junction
is causing problems or why they are stopped. (Of
course there will still be occasions when you are required to help out to solve
any conflicts between Drivers).
There are three important new features that we'd like
to take some time to tell you about. Firstly is the portal - think of this
asset as an "off map" resource pool that supplies trains to your
operations on a regular basis and takes them away when you've finished with
them. Using the portal you can deliver a wide variety of freight or passenger
trains to your railroad at a frequency of your choosing, and with multiple
portals you can program some to generate new consists and others to consume
them.
The second asset of importance is the new interactive
multi-industry. This industry has a completely new interface that lets you
totally customize your industry. You can set up how many products it consumes
and produces, the rate of production, even the re-order percentage (i.e. when a
waybill is generated to request more goods at a certain location).
The third asset group added for SP2 is of course the
Passenger Stations. You can set up stations to generate people at a specific
rate, and also decide what percentage of passengers alight at each station. We
have created several animated items of rolling stock, plus enabled the other
passenger cars to accept "invisible" passengers. These assets will be
updated over time and released for download via Trainz Exchange. If you haven't
visited Trainz Exchange (you will find a link on your Trainz Launcher Menu)
please do so. We will be adding Tutorials and more free content over the coming
months. Also please visit our website (www.railroadsimulator.com) for further
updates and tutorials and register for our regular newsletter. There will be
loads more new maps and SP2 compatible content available for download in the
coming weeks and months.
2. Installation
Here is a guide for installing Service Pack
2:Passenger Pack to your Trainz Railroad/Railway Simulator 2004 installation.
WARNING:
DISABLE YOUR
ANTI VIRUS SOFTWARE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO INSTALL ANY TRAINZ
PRODUCT OR
SERVICE PACK!
You will require 1.5GB of free space in your temp
files (usually on the C: Drive) for this patch to be successful.
You need to identify the correct patch for your build.
To do this, launch Trainz and look for your Trainz Version Number and Build
Number located at the bottom right hand side of the splash screen and note down
the Build Number for later reference. Select the Quit button and return to the
desktop.
Go to http://www.auran.com/TRS2004/sp2_download.htm to
find your closest mirror for your build of SP2 and download it. When asked
where you would like to save it to, choose your desktop, or some other
convenient location.
Procedures to install:
* Ensure that
your Anti-Virus software is disabled.
* Double click
on the patch .exe file to launch the installation.
* Follow the
prompts to install SP2.
The patch program is a large file and therefore may
take some time to complete the installation. It may appear to stall at some
points. Do not be concerned. This is not an error.
The presence of large amounts of custom content can
also increase the installation time.
On completion of the installation you will see an
Installation Complete notice.
Please launch TRS2004. Congratulations on successfully
installing Service Pack 2:Passenger Pack.
Note: If you are installing SP2 from the SP2 CD, the
CD has an auto-run program (autorun.exe on the root directory of the CD) that
will detect the version of Trainz you currently have and upgrade as required.
However you can find the patch executables on the CD in the \Patches directory.
3. New Features
With Service Pack 2, it will be quick and easy to set
up an entire working railroad in Surveyor and then watch your creation come to
life in Driver. You can interact with your Drivers as much or as little as
possible as each one carries out his predefined orders. There are no limits to
the number of drivers you can issue orders to, and no limits to the number of
orders you can issue each Driver - so the only real limitations are your
imagination and your hardware. For the programmers out there, with the
flexibility of our TrainzScript language, you can extend this functionality
even further.
3.1 Improvements to AI
We've been busy giving our AI Drivers some basic
training, so you'll find that they'll do what you tell them to in most
circumstances. They anticipate when to stop better than before and give you
improved feedback on why they can't get to where you want them to go (such as
"waiting for access to junction 123"). If they don't perform as you
expect, we suggest that you check your signalling and nearby traffic as well as
giving clearer instructions (such as adding trackmarks as waypoints to a
destination).
3.2 Multiple trains per junction block
AI Drivers are now allowed to enter a junction block
that is already occupied by another train (as long as there are signals to
separate the trains). This means that you can have more prototypical routes with
many miles between junctions and trains queued up throughout that stretch of
track. It also means that if they want to turn around mid-junction, you will
have to manually clear the blockage.
3.3 New Train Portal
The Portal is a powerful new asset that acts like an
"off-map" staging area, it can add/remove trains from your route and
also change the latent state of the train. You can move trains, produce new
ones and also use the Portal to load and unload your trains and return them
onto your map. You can even move a train from one portal to another and have in
appear after a predetermined time.
3.4 New Passenger Capabilities
Passengers are supported via several different Trainz
components. These include passenger coaches/carriages, passengers (obviously)
and passenger stations. For an example of how all these component work together
to move passengers around. get the "BANKS HEATH TRS SP2" map &
session from the SP2 section of Trainz Exchange.
3.5 Schedule Rule and Timetables
The Schedule rule is provided so you can tell drivers
where to be at a certain time in the session. See the "Running Timetables
and Schedules" tutorial available from the SP2 section of Trainz Exchange
for details on how to use this new rule.
3.6 Multi-Industry
The new Multi-Industry is a completely flexible
industry type that you can set up to act like almost anything you can imagine.
It allows you to set inputs, outputs, queue sizes, products allowed, waybill
requirements and more. The "Multi-Industry New Tutorial" available
from the SP2 section of Trainz Exchange provides an introduction to using this
new industry.
3.7 New Interface Controls and Driver HUD
We've added new interface hotkeys (F6-F9) which allow
you to toggle each interface component on or off. The standard Driver HUD shows
the current time by default, and there is a new Custom HUD which shows Next
Speed, an Odometer reading and the current gradient (at the position of the
front loco). You can also add new Rules to bring up additional information in
this Custom HUD. For example, a rule which outputs the distance to the next
speed sign or signal, or even the estimated time of arrival at your
destination.
3.8 New Mini Map
The Mini-Map has been given a thorough overhaul and is
much clearer and easier to use. You can zoom in closer, labels are easier to
read, and you can turn various components on or off such as gradients, labels
or even the background textures.
3.9 Ability to Save Orders in Surveyor
This is one of the biggest new features of SP2. In
Driver Setup (in Surveyor) you can now issue orders to each Driver and save
them with the Session. This means that when you start your Driver Session, all
the locos begin moving and carrying out their tasks. Of course you can still
take over and control any or all of the locos at any time. Of course orders
need to make sense so make sure you issue a Drive Command before Run Load at an
industry.
3.10 Ability to Edit Current Orders
When in Driver, you may want to give a Driver a new set
of orders, or change the order of completing his tasks. It is now as easy as
dragging the orders to a new position in the list or inserting a new order
wherever you want.
3.11 More Drivers per Session
The limit of 7 Drivers has been removed and now the
only real limitation is the machine that you are using and your capacity to
control dozens of Drivers. Please note performance will be affected.
3.12 Additional Rules and Commands
We've added a number of new Rules and Commands
including Basic Run Around Train (decouple and couple at the other end of the
consist) and the Schedule Rule (see above). There are also some more advanced
Rules which allow you to link Rules together for more complex operations. Please
note that anything other than Basic Run Around Train need to be performed
manually.
Here are some common sense hints and tips about how
some of the new features in this release work. By reading these, you will be
able to get the most out of your TRS2004:SP2 experience. As well as that, we
will be adding tutorial sessions to the Trainz Exchange over the next few weeks
and months that further demonstrate what SP2 can do.
4.1 Portals
The portal is one of the most exiting new features in
SP2 and allows for the creation of more interesting sessions, however it does
require a bit of common sense and understanding to use effectively. Here are
some notes to keep in mind when using the portal.
AI end Emitted Trains:
The biggest and most noteworthy limitation is the
emitting of trains and how that relates to the route outside the portal. When
emitting a train, the portal pushes it out vehicle by vehicle and that train is
under total control of the portal until the last vehicle has been pushed out
and reached a trigger around 50 metres in from the entrance. This means that
until a train has left the portal's control, it is being moved along without
regard to the junctions, trains and signals out there on the map.
This can obviously become a problem with long trains.
It wasn't really feasible to do this another way with integrated AI or anything
too fancy. The portal does check its own track for presence of other trains,
but it can't see outside signals/junctions.
Storage of Trains:
A portal can remember a total of 16 consists. Up to 8
of those 16 consists can be set as being produced consists in Surveyor. This
means that if a portal's consist storage has reached its capacity of 16
consists, it will still consume a train (if configured to do so), but that
consumed train won't be remembered. When a consumed consist is emitted, it will
be deleted from the portal's consist storage database so another consist can
take its place if needed.
Emitting to Another Portal:
The portal allows you to specify another destination
portal to emit consumed consists from. When specifying the destination portal,
be very careful to ensure you get the name exactly right. The settings of
whether or not trains can be emitted/consumed in the destination portal will not
be considered with this option - the portal here will simply directly instruct
the specifies remote portal to emit the consist, regardless of that remote
portal's settings/restrictions.
Timing:
When specifying delays in minutes for periodic consist
emissions, the time is always done in real time and not game time. So
regardless of whether you are running Trainz in real-time or an 8X clock, the
portal will still wait in real time.
Portal is not a Drive-Thru:
You are not meant to connect a track at the lower-end
of the portal. There is nothing to stop you from doing so as we can't currently
enforce that, but we do try to make it quite obvious. The same situation
applies to the passenger platform on the wharf - it is meant to be accessed
from one end and hopefully the shape of the wharf industry scenery item would
have made this obvious.
Rejected Consists:
If filtering of train consists is enabled or the
portal is configured to not consume any consists, this means stray trains that
enter the portal will be ignored. The portal should halt its own operations
until the stray train has either been taken out by user or driven itself out.
The portal will not get rid of stray rejected trains.
Orders on Exiting Trains:
Once a train has finished being produced, the portal
hands it over to its driver (one will be chosen at random if the consist
doesn't have one) and then go on and follow driver commands as usual. If the
driver has no commands to follow, the train will sit their idle blocking access
to the portal until you either drive it out yourself or give it some orders.
Slow entry of Trainz under AI:
When under AI driver control, the driver will appear
to be entering the portal slowly at first. This is because it sees the end of
the line ahead and is not going to rush in when the end of line is in sight
(see my comments above on Drive-Thru). Once the first vehicle has reached a
trigger some 50 metres in, the portal script takes over and it will push the
train along and delete it vehicle
by vehicle. You can drive in yourself going a bit
faster than AI would and get away with it no problems, by going in at very high
TGV-like speeds is tempting fate.
4.2 New Rules
Several new rules have been introduced with SP2 to
help with the construction of sessions.
Consist Check Rule:
The Consist Check Rule operates in a continuous cycle
waiting for any consist on the route matching its settings to exist. When such
a consist exists, the rule will switch itself to a complete state and will
start its child rules. While in complete mode, the rule still monitors consists
and when no consist matching the specification can be found, the rule reverts
back to its incomplete state. As such, the rule can operate continuously like
this and through use of nested child rules, can be used to initiate something
else like the playing of a .wav file every time a consist matching
specification exists.
Resource Check Rule:
This rule operates in an identical manner to that of
the Consist Check Rule except that it monitors a queue in a specific
vehicle/industry. When the queue reaches the rule's required specifications,
the rule reaches a complete state and activates child rules. When the monitored
queue is no longer matching the specification, the rule goes back to its
incomplete state and resumes monitoring
the queue.
Trigger Check Rule:
This rule operates in an identical manner to that of
the Consist Check rule except that it monitors one or more track triggers (not
to be confused with industry triggers) for the presence of a train matching the
rule's train filter settings. When any one of the triggers has a train matching
the specification on it, the rule reaches a complete state and activates its
child rules. Once all triggers are clear of any train matching the
specification, the rule goes back to its incomplete state and resumes
monitoring the triggers.
Note that this rule effectively makes the existing
Trigger Rule redundant as it can do everything the Trigger Rule can plus more.
4.3 Some Background Notes on Driver Artificial Intelligence
The AI in SP2 has been significantly enhanced from SP1
and there are some important points that you need to understand so that you can
better appreciate just how the AI functions and why it makes the decisions that
it does.
First and foremost, the AI in Trainz operates from the
perspective of a single driver. That is, each driver's 'AI' has a goal in mind
and it will do what it can to reach that goal. In this respect drivers operate
autonomously and do not communicate or interact with one another. This is where
Trainz differs from a real world dispatcher.
Also in the real world a dispatcher has a 'global'
view of the operations and movements in progress and makes decisions based on
this. The Trainz codebase however operates on the basis of individual drivers
performing 'path to destination' planning on the fly. This approach can (and
likely will) lead to some decisions from time to time that you may not agree
with. It's worth noting
that Trainz has always operated like this and adding a
fully functional dispatcher 'planning and pathing' module would have added a
significant amount of time and was beyond our scope for SP2.
Driver path planning can become complex because of the
fact that trains move about a route pretty much all of the time. Therefore when
a driver tries to find a path to a destination he must assume that any trains
that are blocking him will probably have moved by the time he arrives and as
such a driver does not 'see' trains on a stretch of track as a potential
obstacle.
Also, because drivers do not communicate with one
another, a driver performing a path planning operation does not know what other
drivers are doing or indeed intend to do. He is operating 'on his own' as it
were. Problems can arise when that driver comes up against a red signal caused
by another driver moving on a conflicting path. In this instance both drivers
would have been moving toward their destinations and both would have been
unaware that they were about to come upon one another. This is what we mean by
the term "operating autonomously".
Given all of the above the AI in Trainz can be defined
as having three distinct functions. First is path planning to a destination.
Second is speed control whilst en-route and the third is conflict resolution
after it has occurred. The Trainz AI does not perform pre-conflict resolution;
this would require a fully pre-planned pathing environment and also a conflict
prediction and resolution
system based on known paths, neither of which is
currently supported in Surveyor.
All of our efforts for SP2 have concentrated therefore
on these three areas of AI. Given the current codebase and the method of
operation outlined above, the AI in Service Pack 2 is about as good as it's
going to get. Any further improvements would require a full rewrite, which is
of course what we are doing for RSP (Rail Sim Pro).
Each of the three sections of AI has been improved in
SP2 as follows:
1 - Path planning:
The addition of the 'drive via trackmark' command
means that you can in essence override the default path forcing a train to
drive a particular way. In fact Trainz is still path planning to the trackmark,
but by placing the markers fairly close together it would be very unlikely
indeed that a train would choose another route. Since trains do not slow down
at a 'drive via trackmark' (but instead maintain their speed) it's quite easy
to string a few together to 'force' a path.
In addition to the above SP2 now allows you to specify
a particular track as a trains preferred track. To understand how this
functions and to give you a better understanding of how Trainz does its path
planning a few explanations are in order.
Firstly, and most important of all, a train will
always take what it 'sees' as the shortest path to the destination. This calculation
is distance based and does not include things like the speed limit of a track.
The definition of the word 'sees' though is the key to path planning and it's
by manipulating what a train 'sees' that gives us some degree of control.
Given two tracks of the exact same length a train will
choose either to get to its destination. However, if one of those two tracks
were a preferred track for that train all the path planning system does is to
multiply the preferred tracks distance by a factor smaller than 1.0. Once this
is done the preferred track now 'appears' shorter and hence it will the one
chosen by the pathing system.
The bias that is applied to track length calculations
is used in many cases in Trainz. For example, where a train must reverse to get
to a destination the bias makes reversing show as a greater distance so that
it's less preferred. Pathing around a blocked track has the blocked track
showing as longer and finally as I've already mentioned track preferences
(referred to as a track priority in
game) also effect the length calculation.
Given the above it's important to remember then that a
path is simply a preferred path based on distance calculations that have been
biased under certain circumstances. It works most of the time but there will
always be ways you can fool it. By describing to you how the system works it's
our hope that you will be able to use this knowledge to better plan your
layouts so as to help
the pathing system do its job.
2 - Speed control whilst en-route:
We've spent quite bit of time on this section of the
code and we're sure you'll see a number of improvements. The main improvements
relate to the speed that AI trains accelerate and decelerate. In SP2 it's now
much more prototypical, but still with a slant towards playability. We've also
added some driver AI to help them better understand what distance they will
need to stop based on the loco power, train mass and gradient.
What this means is that if you've placed your signals
too close together, your trains may overshoot their target . If you find trains
unable to brake in time it's almost certain that a real train couldn't have
done so either and you probably need to move your signals a little further
apart or introduce speed signs (causing a slowdown) a little earlier.
If a driver does SPAD (Signal Passed At Danger) in SP2
he'll now send you a message to that effect and stop. Then he'll send you
another message saying that he is continuing his schedule in 10 seconds.
3 - Conflict resolution:
In SP2 conflict resolution has been enhanced with
trains having the ability to re-path plan should they become blocked. In
addition we've greatly increased your situational awareness by providing much
better error messages and driver information. Now you can quickly see what's
causing a problem and understand what you may need to do to resolve the
situation.
Whilst
the AI will often figure out conflict resolution on its own, there are times
where you may want to intervene. Simply use the "Stop Train" command,
solve the conflict by manually driving the train, then use the "Continue
Schedule" to put the AI back in charge.
5. Portal Notes
Portal
Notes
The portal is one of the most exiting new features in SP2 and makes for
interesting sessions, however it does require a bit of common sense and
understanding to use effectively. Here are some notes to keep in mind when
using the portal.
AI end Emitted Trains
The biggest and most noteworthy limitation is the emitting of trains and how
that relates to the route outside the portal. When emitting a train, the portal
pushes it out vehicle by vehicle and that train is under total control of the
portal until the last vehicle has been pushed out and reached a trigger around
50 metres in from the entrance. This means that until a train has left the
portal's control, it is being moved along without regard to
junctions/trains/signals out there on the map.
This can obviously become a problem with long trains. It wasn't really feasible
to do this another way with integrated AI or anything too fancy. The portal
does check its own track for presence of other trains, but it can't see outside
signals/junctions.
Storage of Trains
A portal can remember a total of 16 consists. Up to 8 of those 16 consists can
be set as being produced consists in Surveyor. This means that if a portal's
consist storage has reached its capacity of 16 consists, it will still consume
a train (if configured to do so), but that consumed train won't be remembered.
When a consumed consist is emitted, it will be deleted from the portal's
consist storage database so another consist can take its place if needed.
Emitting to Another Portal The portal allows you to specify another
destination portal to emit consumed consists from. When specifying the
destination portal, be very careful to ensure you get the name exactly right.
The settings of whether or not trains can be emitted/consumed in the
destination portal will not be considered with this option - the portal here
will simply directly instruct the specifies remote portal to emit the consist,
regardless of that remote portal's settings/restrictions.
6. New Rules
Several
new rules have been introduced with SP2 to help with the construction of
sessions.
Consist Check Rule
The Consist Check Rule operates in a continuous cycle waiting for any consist
on the route matching its settings to exist. When such a consist exists, the
rule will switch itself to a complete state and will start its child rules.
While in complete mode, the rule still monitors consists and when no consist
matching the specification can be found, the rule reverts back to its
incomplete state. As such, the rule can operate continuously like this and
through use of nested child rules, can be used to initiate something else like
the playing of a .wav file every time a consist matching specification exists.
Resource Check Rule
This rule operates in an identical manner to that of the Consist Check Rule
except that it monitors a queue in a specific vehicle/industry. When the queue
reaches the rule's required specifications, the rule reaches a complete state
and activates child rules. When the monitored queue is no longer matching the
specification, the rule goes back to its incomplete state and resumes
monitoring the queue.
Trigger Check Rule
This rule operates in an identical manner to that of the Consist Check rule
except that it monitors one or more track triggers (not to be confused with
industry triggers) for the presence of a train matching the rule's train filter
settings. When any one of the triggers has a train matching the specification
on it, the rule reaches a complete state and activates its child rules. Once
all triggers are clear of any train matching the specification, the rule goes
back to its incomplete state and resumes monitoring the triggers.
Note that this rule effectively makes the existing Trigger Rule redundant as it
can do everything the Trigger Rule can plus more.
7. FAQs
General/Miscellaneous
Where
do I find the new industries?
In the Objects menu in Surveyor, Look for:
·
Multi-Industry
New
·
Brick
Station (large, medium, small)
·
Passenger
Station
·
Small
Station
·
Station
Basic (if you download it)
·
Portal
·
Portal
Basic (download also).
How
do I copy my old saved consists over when I update to SP2?
There's a file called Surveyorconsists.txt in your TRS2004 installation
directory. Simply copy the file to a safe place before installing the SP2
update, then copy it back afterwards.
What about the new variable rules?
The variable rules will be addressed in a future
tutorial, as will other new SP2 topics.
Why are my trains all crinkled?
If your Performance sliders are set too low, the
number of "polygons" in each loco is reduced causing them to appear
out of shape. Simply increase the "Poly Count" slider next to the
"Trains:" label in the Performance Settings window that is accessible
in either Driver or Surveyor. Keep in mind this may affect performance of
Trainz as it has more geometry to render and this can cause a reduced frame
rate.
Why are my cars are running away
after decoupling?
It takes time to apply brakes when in Cab mode.
The length of time is determined by the length of the train. For long trains,
you may need to issue a Wait command (30 seconds up to 1 minute) between
arriving at a siding and decoupling (or Runaround).
How do I use the new Multi-Industry?
The "Multi-Industry New Tutorial"
available from the SP2 section of Trainz Exchange provides an introduction to
using several multi-industry items on a map that form part of an integrated
production process.
Where can I learn how to use new
features introduced with SP2 such as portals, passenger stations?
We already have several tutorial routes/sessions
available from Trainz Exchange. See the FAQs for various new features for
pointers to these new tutorials.
Will any further tutorials be
released?
Yes, we plan to have more released demonstrating
SP2 features released via Trainz Exchange over the next several weeks and
coming months.
When will the script code/asset
files of the new SP2 assets be released?
This is one of our next tasks. We
have already released the majority of the Trainz assets on CD (which can be
ordered from our Online Shop. We will be releasing the new SP2 assets once
we've tidied up some of the scripts and written more documentation.
Is Monty the Gnome the official
Trainz mascot?
Possibly, nothing is definite at this stage.
Rumor has it that there are several other contenders for this role as well.
Will there be an SP3 for TRS2004?
We are already working on the next
Expansion Pack for TRS2004 called Engineer's Edition. It is likely that we will
include any future enhancements in that release rather than another Service
Pack. Engineer's Edition is due out late 2004.
Drivers
Why is my Driver just sitting doing
nothing when he has orders to carry out.
Sometimes Drivers get confused as to how to
carry out their next order. For example, telling him to couple to a car and
then when he gets there another loco has already picked up the car he's looking
for. If your Driver gets confused, use the Stop Train command followed by the
Continue Schedule command to set him on his way again. If this doesn't work,
then you may also need to either move him manually or remove his current order
before using the Continue command.
My AI train is sliding at 1kph and
won't stop.
Sometimes on severe gradients or with a light
loco and a heavy train, the braking power of the AI train is insufficient to
bring the train to a complete halt. Use Stop Train and then manually stop the
train by clicking on the Stop icon in the Driver HUD.
Why does the Driver clear the
junction in front of him before reversing?
Once a Driver "holds" a junction, he
needs to pass over it before releasing it. Therefore you will notice that a
driver may pass through two junctions before reversing into a siding.
Why
am I getting and "Unable to plot route" message?
This error means that the AI driver cannot find a path to the destination. Your
route is probably either missing a junction lever, a broken stretch of track or
has a directional track marker stopping the driver.
My
Driver has an exclamation mark on his picture and I can't see what is wrong?
The exclamation mark means that your AI Driver was unable to sort out a way to
execute one of the commands (perhaps another is in his way). Click on the radio
microphone icon to see what messages have been sent, or R-click on the loco to
see additional messages. You may need to manually move the train to avoid the
problem then restart the schedule.
Why does the driver AI behave the
way it does?
A determined user will always be able to come up
with a situation that confuses an AI driver. The reasoning
and logic behind the AI in SP2 is described in further details in the
Hints & Tips section above.
Passengers
How do I take advantage of the
passenger features?
Check out the "BANKS HEATH TRS SP2" map & session created by Trainz community member Charlie "cjlear" Lear that can be found in the SP2 section of Trainz Exchange. It demonstrates a commuter run with multiple passenger trains. You can experiment further by tweaking the station settings in Surveyor to get a better insight into how passengers are handled in Trainz, or simply watch the trains run by.
What passenger cars are animated
where I can see the people inside?
At this stage, the BR MK1 stock, the Hondekop and the TGV all have opening
doors and people inside. Other passenger cars have the capability of carrying
invisible people, (i.e. they can pick up and drop off onto the stations).
We have released the original meshes for all our passenger stock to the public
and 3rd party creators will release new items shortly.
How do I get passengers to load at
the new stations?
Use a Drive To Station X command followed by a Load command (there's no need
for both Load and Unload). Also, if you manually drive to a station, when you
stop within the station triggers, the passengers will load and unload.
Why does my train stop at the start
of the station platform and not pull into the station?
You will need a Load or Unload command after the
Drive-To command so the driver will know it needs to get through into the
station to pickup/drop off passengers.
What does the “Passenger behavior”
setting seen in the stations do?
This setting determines how many passengers pass
through the station per hour. It works like a set of ratios for each hour of
the day applied to the maximum amount of passengers allowed during peak hour.
As such, there is a table of traffic levels for
both the for both the Morning Peak and Evening Peak passenger
behaviours. The Double peak setting combines both.
For Morning Peak, the ratios on the 24 hour
clock are:
00 - 0.05
01 - 0.05
02 - 0.0
03 - 0.05
04 - 0.2
05 - 0.55
06 - 0.9
07 - 1.0
08 - 0.9
09 - 0.65
10 - 0.5
11 - 0.4
12 - 0.35
13 - 0.3
14 - 0.3
15 - 0.25
16 - 0.2
17 - 0.2
18 - 0.15
19 - 0.15
20 - 0.1
21 - 0.1
22 - 0.1
23 - 0.05
and for Evening Peak, we have:
00 - 0.05
01 - 0.05
02 - 0.0
03 - 0.05
04 - 0.1
05 - 0.1
06 - 0.1
07 - 0.1
08 - 0.1
09 - 0.1
10 - 0.1
11 - 0.2
12 - 0.3
13 - 0.4
14 - 0.6
15 - 0.8
16 - 0.95
17 - 1.0
18 - 0.9
19 - 0.55
20 - 0.35
21 - 0.2
22 - 0.1
23 - 0.05
Portals
Why do trains coming out of portals
run red lights?