MC&SA Public Beta Testing

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

In case anyone is interested, I'd like to offer my Moscow Camden & San Augustine route as a public beta. I consider the route to be completed, so I'm most concerned about the packaging (done for me by Missing Assets, Inc.) However, if anyone who is familiar with the real-world MC&SA finds some (major) things in the scenery that might be changed to make it more realistic, let me know! Unless I think it'd be too much work I could still change it.

If you download and run the route linked below, please give me some feedback here or by PM
- if it works
- if there are missing items
- if there is anything else you'd like to report.

OK, here is the link to the route. I packaged it with RW_Tools, it should include all assets. Not sure though. It also includes four basic free roam scenarios, two for US, and two fictional ones for UK and German stock. The US free roamers require installation of the MC&SA SW900s Ed added to the file library yesterday, (Many thanks for that!) and also the installation of Jim Friedland's RW Woodchip & Sawdust Hoppers and my "RS 40 Foot Flatcar Pack 2.0: Generic Brown" (both available at trainsim.com). Is anybody uncomfortable with installing Railsim rolling stock to Railworks, esp. if it had been packaged with RS_Tools? If so, I could upload an RW clone of the flatcars here, let me know.

http://rapidshare.com/files/298599756/MCSA.zip
Note: Rapidshare is a file hosting service. You do NOT have to sign up or even pay for anything! Just hit the "free user" button.

There is also another scenario pack, using quite a bit of additional free- and payware rolling stock.
Which would be:
- Jessie's 7- and 15-packs for Dick Cowen's 40' freeware boxcars (digirails.co.cc)
- all my 40' boxcars repaints from trainsim.com (and of course the installation of Dick's base model),
- Jessie's 50' boxcar repaints packs 1&2: http://s1.zetaboards.com/DigiRails_Foru ... c/1818918/ (currently only available as RS models, but they work fine in RW)
- the 48' Western Roads bulkhead flats set from my page (see banner below)

http://rapidshare.com/files/298598705/M ... eeware.rwp
The pack includes five scenarios, two free roams and three standard ones. The standard scenarios are most likely not possible to end properly, as I don't quite seem to get the hang of the scenario editor. The work orders are all there, however, so you'll know what to do.

Credits: the route was built using mostly default Kuju assets. The only non-default objects are Dick Ham's freight docks, Jim Ward's lumber crane, and a few of my flatcar loads. I really hope I didn't accidentally use some other assets. Please let me know if you find any object not being covered by this list. I doubt it, but with this being the route that I had in development almost since the very beginning of RS, nothing is impossible.

Thanks!
Michael

[charliechan]

Good Morning:

When I start one of the default scenarios, it will load but there is not any ground cover or tracks. When I run it through RW tools it says that I am missing "\railnetwork\trackrules\-all main tr-.bin"

Don't have a clue what it is I am missing.

Any help will be appreciated.

Chandler

[dejoh]

Here's what I'm getting after it loads. Thanks much for the fine SW 1500. I have that up and running no problem.
Hope all is well soon, as I like the industry you have placed on this route.

[GreatNortherner]

What the... I'm completely lost on that one. I only used default textures (or so I think...) let me check the textures folders and the route template, and... who knows what else needs to be checked. I hope I can find something that might cause this. Has anyone ever had this black valley of death before, on a different route?

Sorry for the trouble and thank you so much for posting this!

Cheers!
Michael

[ricksan]

Uh oh!

Free Roam Default: Camden -- Message: "Something bad happened..."
Free Roam Default: Moscow -- Message: "Scenario failed to load..." Missing SW1200 and wood chip hoppers (as you noted, Michael)
Free Roam: German Stock -- no terrain, as noted by previous posters
Free Roam: UK stock -- ditto

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

Thanks, Rick!

Here's another try. I looked into the route's xml and found that at some point added my own terrain texturing.bin, which I had completely forgotten. This file had not been included in the package before, so I created a new one (this time with RW itself), adding some files manually. I hope that this will fix the missing terrain bug.

Here are two new links, route in RWP format and additional assets packaged by RW_Tools.
http://rapidshare.com/files/299603561/MCSA_Beta2.rwp
http://rapidshare.com/files/299603394/M ... Assets.zip

PS: I have gotten reports about a missing track rule bin (all-tracks-something.bin), this file is also missing on my computer, but the route is loading fine. So I suppose I might ignore this error?

Thanks,
Michael

[ricksan]

Works fine now, Michael.

[GreatNortherner]

Thanks Rick! Are you saying the route is actually loading and running on your PC?

Unfortunately, I've received emails saying the exact opposite. One file I received (RW_Tools diagnostic report) indicated the following missing file:
railworks\Assets\Kuju\RailSimulatorUS\railnetwork\trackrules\sanb_bars_ mainline-default.bin
Could this send RW crashing to the desktop?

I checked, and the file is indeed sitting there in my Assets directory. With this file not being present on other RW installs (with latest patches applied), I have to assume that this is a non-default file. Would anyone happen to know where it came from? Could it have been added by the tracks-makeover tool that I used at some point?

Thanks again!
Michael

[stresstool]

For inexplicable reasons, I too have that file in my directory.

It is, however, an exact match for the SanB_Bars_ Mainline.bin found in my RS tree (but it is different than RW's SanB_bars_Mainline.bin). I imagine at some point one of the RS route builders made a copy of that track rule, naming it so, then used that new file within their route so changes to the default wouldn't mess up their route. I cannot tell you which route it is, but it seems apparent to be a route that was made for RS but possibly ported or just installed into RW.

[dejoh]

I'm a little confused. Do I have to delete the old non-working file for the MC&A and add the two new links?
Or wait until we have a complete functioning link that will enable proper loading of this route on my end?
Hope this works out.

[dejoh]

Forget previous post. Got it up and running. Thanks for your fine work.
Will send some screens soon

[ricksan]

Yup! No problems. Getting 30-40 fps, probably due to high density of foliage -- but from a scenery standpoint that's one of the nice things about the route! Thanks for sharing this with us.

[GreatNortherner]

Thanks everybody! It's really great to hear that the route seems to working now.
If the track rule is actually identical to the RS-SanB-Bars version, could it be that Railworks created it by itself? After all the MCSA route was begun in RS and then ported over to RW.

However, one tester sent me an email, reporting a really strange thing we both can't quite understand:
One of the tree shapes is floating horizontally at top of tree line and looks like large air horns.

I haven't seen or heard anything like it before and also can't think of anything that might cause such an effect. Could the scenery asset somehow have become corrupted? (But HOW? Objects don't just change their orientation...)

Thanks!
Michael

[kin3]

Got it and ran it once but noticed some flying trees and the river flying above ground. Will report just where later. Looking good, I like a lot of detail.

[inc3pt]

Unfortunately even though Rapidshare is a free site, it looks like it has some limitations. It is telling me there are no more download slots available right now (but doesn't provide any sort of timer or queue like some other sites do). I guess I'll wait a while and come back.

Okay, I stayed persistent and have a slot to download now.