A way to fast forward an activity

[jonpd]

Since making activities is my favorite thing in TS, I end up spending a lot of time testing. Autopilot helps a lot there but something that would also help would be the ability to fast forward the activity to get past parts that were already tested. For example I am currently testing an Australian route activity where after an hour or so of running you get into the suburban area near Sydney and all kinds of suburban commuter traffic is spawned. So every time I make a change to fix an issue with the later part of the activity I have to go back and start from the beginning. And of course the later part is where most of the issues are as there are lots of moving parts and timing issues towards the end.

I thought I read somewhere about a way to speed up OR but looking through the manual I have not been able to find it. Perhaps it is in one of the newer unstable releases?

Jon

[tooltroll]

Two things pop into mind: First, <CTRL><ALT><PGUP> and <CTRL><ALT><PGDN> sets the sim speed faster and slower; Second, when you get to a point in the activity past everything that tests correctly, hit <F2> to save your game, and then you can reload and test from that point.

Bob

[jonpd]

Bob the problem with using F2 is that it saves the state of the original game and restores that, so any changes you make to traffic, schedules, etc. are not reflected when you resume.

I will have to try the ctrl-alt-pgup/down though that might do the trick. Thanks.

Jon

[commec61]

Also ctrl-alt-home resumes you to normal from faster or slower.

[geepster775]

You can do the speed up/down multiple times, but just be aware that the more times you do it (generally greater than 750%) there are 'wheel slip' and 'rounding errors' that start to accumulate with regards to AI timing and positions. There is only so much you can speed up during a test and maintain integrity of locations and speed.

[jonpd]

I tried the ctrl-alt-pgup/down it works great. Thanks. Even works in autopilot mode.
I only went up to 300% or so and used it mostly to speed up station stops.

Jon (also a USAF veteran 1971-1975)

[tooltroll]

Yes, I only use F2 when the performance up until that point has been perfect and I don't think I'll have to change anything before the sim-time that the game is saved. So if everything's worked fine until (say) 12:23, and there's traffic due to start at 12:25 that might impact further progress, I'll save at 12:24. For an activity that starts at 09:00 that saves a couple hours (at 2x time acceleration) of testing what already works.