Mini Route and Open Rails

[muskokaandtahoe]

Silly question, Greg !

Why do you want to create a MSTS MINI route if you have MSTS installed on your computer which ORTS can use ?

You will have to use the MSTS Editor to create or modify any of its Activities used by ORTS !

A fair question Otto and one worth an answer.

I have two "home locations" of routes: Those few upon which I intend to use KUJU's editors (AE and/or RE) and then in a separate location, all routes that I was use in Open Rails. Do note there is no "home location" category for routes I will use in MSTS/train.exe...because I have not run in MSTS since Day 1 of Open Rails.

Anything I produce in the first "home location" is reproduced in the second (n.b., please refer to the * notes at the end of this post for a technical explanation of how I'm doing this).

I'm sure this leads to the question of why bother? The answer is each "home location" has its own, unique \trains folder. This allows me to keep my original MSTS files in one place and my OR edited .engs and .wags in another. So long as the folder and file names remain the same it does not matter that the contents of those .wags and .engs are no longer identical. It also allows me some limited ability to vary era. As other OR-Specific changes to files occur I now have a safe place to use them.

I have found that isolating a "pure" MSTS environment has given me the freedom to experiment more fully with the changes OR allows (and sometimes requires) in .eng and .wag files. Things like include files. Essentially, for me MSTS is now pretty much a bug in amber. On rare occasion I may go back to the original \trainset files and grab something I need to fix a screwup but now, for the most part, I'm no longer using stock MSTS .wags or .engs.

I like this so much I'm now simply recommending people just leave their MSTS environment as-is and make a duplicate environment (by whatever means you are comfortable doing) and use that exclusively for Open Rails.



* A technical comment: These "home locations" are actually on a SSD drive. I do not "aim" any software directly at those folders... what I do is use symbolic links to make them "appear" in multiple locations on another drive. This is how I can have the same route "appear" in the "home location" where I use the editors and at the same time "appear" at the "home location" I use with Open Rails (in fact I have them "appear" in multiple places having set up OR-only folders that vary by era). Here's the big point: While everything in \Routes is symbolically linked to multiple locations I do not do that on \trains. That let's me have a \trains directory tree for 1930-1952 and a different one form 1953-1964, and so on.

[OTTODAD]

Yes, Dave, that's what experienced users like you and me can do, but is out of reach to many !

I am not bothered with Rolling stock Physics variations between MSTS and ORTS, using the running to my satisfaction favorites routes in MSTSBin, MSTSBin DB-Tracks, all running in ORTS too, but for what I have mentioned in the next paragraph !

I am waiting for ORTS to code for some of the functions I and others are using in MSTS, KOSMOS rivers water and skies, sounds of locos driving over my switches sound sources, has no overspeed warnings when running at accelerated speeds, shows correct Compass co-ordinates for use in the MSTSBin Editors and has no trees on some tracks, etc.

I now have the best of all the current modified by me Train Simulators, Trainz not being one if them, which should keep me busy in what is left of my life, another new one being on the horizon !

[NoslopTrainman]

So the benefits of using Mini Routes are not all that necessary when I use OR to run the route only?
I remember reading a comment by Marc Nelson to make his Cheyenne Route operate more easily to make it a Mini Route.
Was he talking about operating it in MSTS or OR as a mini route?
Thanks!
Greg

[crstagg]

So the benefits of using Mini Routes are not all that necessary when I use OR to run the route only?
I remember reading a comment by Marc Nelson to make his Cheyenne Route operate more easily to make it a Mini Route.
Was he talking about operating it in MSTS or OR as a mini route?
Thanks!
Greg

He was referring to MSTS. The title of the thread where he posted that reply to the OP was "Just purchased route/MSTS crashes upon opening"

[geepster775]

The need for individual route compartments (enabled for so many years by tools like Route Riter) and which were essential when running within MSTS limitations, are not exactly needed within OR. The problem here is we are dealing with the hangover of history, where average users spent a gazillion hours during their MSTS simming years compartmentalizing every route into an individual installation just to make MSTS happy. OR can allow for the same exact degree of compartmentalization for those who are set in their ways and don't want to budge from past practices, or it can allow for various degrees of mini-route consolidation, which reduces the need to maintain so many individual copes of the Trainset directory.

[R. Steele]

So the benefits of using Mini Routes are not all that necessary when I use OR to run the route only?
... Thanks! Greg

You can still use "mini-routes" or better yet "ORTS profiles" (same thing, but a less loaded term) to make specific environments that cater to a specific type of equipment, era of operations, payware vendor, geographic route area, template only routes, etc. etcetcetc....

It really depends on the type of setup you prefer to work with AND maintain.

As has been pointed out in other posts (by more knowledgeable and advanced users than myself) you can have a work environment and a running environment. How that is arranged is entirely up to you & how much you want to learn.

[OTTODAD]

Hi Greg !

MSTS / MSTSBin has a problem loading itself and some routes if it has too many rolling stock Consists in its Trains folder and some routes have many Activities using it, slowing it down and worse.

Giving MSTS less work to do running MINI routes has been the solution, ORTS is not bothered with.

The MSTSBin MEP route with its 120 Activities has problems in an installed from CDs version of MSTS which had much added to it, ORTS has not.

I did not bother doing all that before, it having all its Activities and Consists named *.OFF and have simply created my own !

Here is ORTS coping with its 120 activities !

[OTTODAD]

Here is a video showing my South-North activity, using my KOSMOS environments, running accelerated in my main MSTSBin copy, the MEP's activity files and their consists having been supplied with *.OFF filename extensions !

https://youtu.be/eA_gjF669HI