Questions relating to Activities.

[seagoon]

Just a couple of queries, the answers to which will provide some info regarding Activity creation (in which I dabble from time to time....there are several in the library and I'm working on one now):

First up relates to the Shift+F5 display which shows what I think of as the "Traffic" info - the Player's train is at the top and then the AI follows underneath, added and removed as the Activity progresses.

I'm curious as to what creates the designations (in the left-hand column) for the various trains.
The numbers appear to be completely unrelated to what we use as IDs when the Activity is being created and don't seem to be in any natural sequence.
I know that there is a further column that does relate to the ID used but if that ID is lengthy (such as "LongHaulSouth_AI#1") then it is truncated and appears such as "LongHau".
So if there are several AI consists in the Traffic, all with the prefix "LongHaulSouth_AI#...") then there is no way to ID which is which except for its starting time.

I suppose that my question is - can that first column be tweaked so that the numbers allocated are in a sequence starting with 0 for the Player and then 1, 2, 3 etc for the AI as it enters the Activity?


The other question relates to having an Activity commence with the player's train in motion.
This is possible in MSTS and is very good for assisting in the suspension of disbelief: it gives a very effective impression that time has passed, things have been happening prior to the opening and everything is fluid.
Particularly effective when we want to give the impression that this Activity started "off stage" and that we've already covered a couple of hundred kilometres.

However, this falls flat when the same Activity is opened in Open Rails.
We start from cold - the loco is idling but we have to turn the lights on and release the brakes and (if we are being realistic) wait for some minutes before we can move off from a stop.
In other words, the sensation of fluidity, that time passed off-stage, has now disappeared.

Is there any likelihood that this situation will be changed, so that "starting on the fly" will be possible?

Thanks,
Bruce

[twpol]

Starting activities with the train in motion is certainly on The List of Things We Want to Add When We Can. I can't speak for the AI listing in the HUD/F5 window, as like most other data in there it is intended mainly for debugging so it's internal data.

[seagoon]

Thanks, James.
I sort of hoped that the "activity start with train in motion" would be somewhere in your list of future enhancements so it's nice to receive confirmation.

The Shift+F5 one is very handy when test-running an Activity (which I always do to record "time-at-locations" before adding AI and then after adding the AI), which was essentially the reason for my question.
I guess that it is easy enough to work around - I can always use a short ID for each AI unit which will then show in full in the display.

Thanks again.
Bruce