Railworks America

Not a lot of passing traffic in the scenerio fora, so thought I would cross post here...

Has anybody had any success in creating scenerios with the player train already moving when the scenerio starts?

It seems fairly straight forward, but I have been trying for the past few days without success. I dont actually want the player train "moving" but set up so that it can move off straight away . I am using Mike's wonderful Connie, which takes a little set up before you are good to start moving. I am not sure if my process is faulty or it is an issue with the complexity of the loco, but once I change the scenerio properties to "start while moving" it corrupts the scenerio and you cant even get back into it to edit. Getting a little frustrating

I've done it a few times without issue.I believe one of my Donner Pass scenarios here is both moving and hidden objectives and worked without crashing.

Can you describe the exact state you want the loco in to start the scenario? (You said you don't want it moving per se)

Hi,

OK, in the scenerio I am planning, which is for the VNHRR. The loco starts stopped, the conductor has cut off the caboose and walked forward to set the switch so that a string of oil tankers can be picked up. Basically I want to start with the loco set to move - steam gen on, lubricator etc on, lights on, doors & windows opened etc, etc.

The Connie has so much to set up when you start a fresh scenerio, I thought it would be interesting to start a scenerio out in the yard, ready to start switching when the scenerio started.

I am wondering if there is so much complexity within the coding that TS cant handle it on the fly. Unfortunately I am back at work now and wont get an opportunity to have another look at this for a few days, so any pointers gratefully received in the mean time.

I'm guessing that, like many TS players, you haven't read the manual. Having given up trying to actually educate others some years ago, I will simply quote from that document:

The HUD‐enabled version also performs several actions autonomously at the start, such as
turning on the dynamo, air compressors, cylinder cocks master, feedwater pump shut‐off
(for the exhaust injector), etc., so that the player can immediately begin using the HUD
without the need to initialize any of those controls using the keyboard or mouse.
The HUD‐enabled version has the expert automatic fireman enabled permanently (it cannot
be toggled off) ‐ this is because the HUD does not have the appropriate controls for an oilfired
steam locomotive. Therefore, with the HUD‐enabled version, the player assumes the
role of locomotive engineer and leaves the model's scripted expert automatic fireman to
take care of maintaining pressure and looking after that side of things.

This information appears on page 10 of the manual, along with instructions for selecting the self-starting version of the engine; I leave reading the rest of that information up to you. Of course, you're also welcome to continuing to grope through the darkness.

And, finally, I will take this opportunity to repeat one of the world's most basic and necessary mantras: When all else fails, read the instructions and, if that doesn't get the job done, try following them.

Essentially the rolling start is a game save. So it will support to save the control values you also can save during a normal game save. Depending on the loco this may or may not work as you intended. Also, if you change anything in the instructions list afterwards, you need to delete the rolling start and create it again, otherwise you may miss instructions in the work order list.

So rolling start can be used, but it is tricky and may or may not work properly.