One bug fixed

[sniper297]

Someone was asking about the "whip" problem in MSTS when you're driving "off the path" in an activity, and go thru a trailing point switch with (1) the points set against your train, and (2) cars which have rigid couplers in the train. Decided to try an experiment;

And apparently Open Rails 360 has already solved that problem. Way to go, team!

[OTTODAD]

FAB !

Will be great not to see trains coming out of my reverse loops do that !

What about a train reversing when on top of such a trailing switch which is not set for the train, derailing it in MSTS. Has ORTS set it when the train drives over it ?

O t t o

[sniper297]

However...

Yep. Just now tested it, apparently when the engine passes over the points it flips the switch, so if you stop and back up halfway thru the switch it no longer splits the switch.

However.

In the process of testing that I noticed something rather odd;

2.jpg

Starting position in MSTS;

3.jpg

And Open Rails 360. We could play "what's different", but it should be obvious - the trailing engine is missing from the player consist in Open Rails. I've gotten to ignoring error messages in the DOS window and just waiting for it to load, probably what I need to do at this point is delete and reinstall MSTS from scratch, and download all that stuff from the file library again. Probable cause, something wrong in the ENG file for the 2380 SD40-2, ORTS don't like it so it's just not loading it. Strange effect tho, the train seems to be otherwise complete, so apparently it assembles the consist the best way it can with whatever it can find from the list in the .con file.

[OTTODAD]

I suppose that is down to "early days" yet, the remaining trailing loco also not emitting smoke.

They are making progress but will be a while before all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle will be in place !

Any news about another beta ?

O t t o

[sniper297]

Haven't heard any. Usual suspect ain't the problem here, the S file is compressed to 360kB just like the others, so I must have fixed that ;\ error in the shape file at some point. Got a new kitten yesterday (Mike's birthday present) that's being a real pain and eating up a lot of my time, but sometime over the next few days I'll try to figure this one out.

[OTTODAD]

Haven't heard any. Usual suspect ain't the problem here, the S file is compressed to 360kB just like the others, so I must have fixed that ;\ error in the shape file at some point.

Do other locos do such a disappearing act at the rear of a similar consist ?



Mike !

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[sniper297]

How do you debug a cat?

Well, here's a copy of my latest post on facebook;

Dadburn moth eaten flea bitten critter! I dragged her out from under the stairs yesterday and shut the closet door so she couldn't get back in there, so she hid under my bed. Dragged her out of there a few hours later and finally got her to eat something, then she hid under the couch. She spent half the night wandering around meowing for something, then disappeared again before I got up. Found her hiding under the hot water heater, she's still there. Flaky female feline.

There's your answer, I've been too busy dealing with this screwball cat to play with trains! Nothing stopping you from testing it tho, PO&N SD40s 1953 and 2380, make up some consists and see what happens. I think I had some other oddballs too, like the default GP38 not showing up in the explore menu, like I said I probably need to reinstall MSTS to sort this out.

[sniper297]

Got it!

Not the cat, she still needs a psychiatrist.

Tried making a new consist with 2380 as the lead loco, ran the activity in MSTS - "Failed to create cabview". Dunno what I did there (I got a bad habit of screwing things up to duplicate problems others have, then forgetting to restore), I just copied the CVF line from 1953 into 2380 to overwrite and that fixed it. Interesting the way the two sims deal with it differently tho, have to check if Open Rails allows AI trains and helpers that don't have cabviews next. After I get that blasted cat out from under the water heater, that is.

Anyway, here's the switch difference;

9.jpg
Note that the switch window shows the switch ahead and the switch behind as set for the straight - both arrows are actually showing the same switch in this case since the train is on the balloon track, the switch ahead and the switch behind are one and the same.

10.jpg
Passing over the switch the switch behind (bottom arrow) still shows straight, and since the switch behind is also the switch the engines are passing over the whole train is going thru trailing points set against.

12.jpg
Open Rails now, same activity, same switch indications;

13.jpg
Until the lead loco passes the switch, note the switch behind (same one the engine is on) resets to curved as soon as the engine comes in from the curve. That's why it don't "whip" with rigid couplers, and why it don't derail if you stop and back up halfway thru - the switch is automagically setting the correct way as soon as the lead engine hits the wrong way points.

Nice programming, guys.

[OTTODAD]

Nice programming, guys.

Yes, indeed !

This from the GOLD-SPIKE's Whitefish reverse loop.

ORTS ignores this activity's Summer setting and applies Spring.

O t t o