Maddening instablity issues with Editing Scenario's

[nlmcm]

I searched throughout this topic, find it discerning that I am the only soul suffering with this:

1. Error: Due to service 2 error, which tells me in Standard mode, inadvertently set up two separate locomotives as player, opps, so head back in to edit and when it opens, about 6,000 feet in the sky, look straight down, large grid, with black earth surrounding area...what in tar-nation did it or I do? Help!
2. Noticed each time I start over with a new scenario creation, bunches of Scenario Markers all over the yard, last count is 10. Tried to follow this forum suggestions, no change, can't remove or delete bloody buggers via menu trash can or delete key. Help! Help!
3. And a better AI tutorial, currently 64, bountiful memory issues competing with me, and I want to be an expert by the end of this year, your help will get me past the idea that I can still learn - hopefully, before I turn 70.

Realize most of this is KUJU doing, dragging the old MSTS Activity editor along, but it seems with the current RSC-RW Dev team is more interested in creating more DLC, understand they're in the business to make money, but gee whizzeralo, how about improving Route and Scenario creation and edit capabilities better, besides making the operation of the program improvements with updates. [Editorial comments - no question herein]

Finally, I plead with RWA scenario gods, is their one excellent tutorial that has all the answers for idiots like me? LWD said this part of the program requires a steep learning curve, frankly, a team of software cad engineers would laugh while watching us go bald.

And yes, have RS-Tools, just another program that is making me look like Yul Brenner.....

HELP, fifty times, and thanks in advance if anyone out there knows all manner to this frustrating program.

Clickity-Clack,

Peter

[nlmcm]

Please do not mistake my words as a critique of the members of this forum, its more against myself and Railworks, which overall I think is a great product, but has a history with MSTS users, that has oddly been duplicated: MSTS Activities was unstable, particularly if users changed the resolutions of their screen...Today, fairly stable, no thanks to KUJU, that credit goes to users like yourselves, and your expert level users from the "olden days", hence why MS went independent with MSTS2, at least that was one of many reasons.

KUJU underfunded, finally did us a huge favor, bowed out and sold their interest and was taken over by a company we know as RSC. formulating and re-creating itself, as Railworks. Only on the drawing boards was the European version, beating its head against the wall whether to compete with giant Micorsoft and its MSTS2 entry, along with another formidable newer entry, P.I.Engineering or better known as Rail Driver, that surprised us all the biggest challenge of all, backward compatibility with the original MSTS - Talk about a major kick for all of us, a delightful but ambitious undertaking. Emotions ran high, now three majors in a race that ultimately was crushed by government mismanagement and suspected corruption, or at least, collision with the private sector, i.e., big business, banking industry and our all time favorite, the scandalous Wall Street gang-bangers.

Many in England now had to choose to delaying its entry, with the unbelievable news that P. I. E. got slammed by its big customers and demanded a huge trainee program with the bigger toys, UP, BNSF, CSX and many more, for their Railroad engineers, due to massive imports/export business massively thriving to and from the Orient, notwithstanding, retiring many of those of the baby boom generations.

And of course, ACE Studios, most VRR forums saw huge thread and post traffic unparallelled in our history of PC train simulation - shattered. It would appear IMHO, the majority of the exodus of MSTS simmers disappearance were the very same individuals who lost their jobs, virtually overnight, and their homes next, forced to sell, or re-arrange bank mortgages. We not only lost memberships, but friends, artisans, developers, all at war with those who managed to survive with MSTS, but the damage was already done.

You all know this, I have delve deeply into research and was able to double confirm my findings, and articulate well over the past year and pass information onward for your understanding and knowledge. We cannot and should not allow this history to repeat itself.

Paul Jackson, CEO took over, a company by normal standards should not have survived, IPO was created and the London Stock Exchange saved the day, new investors, and some money in the till.

He made the right decisions, no doubt supported by the staff including the famous RSDev team. Spearheading the same polices or strengthening them with other creative innovations, best was their marketing arrangement with Steam, LLC. Along with its superior updating of the core (default) Rail Works with such timeliness, confidence in the program from all of us, soared to unprecedented heights.

I still get goose pimples from time to time, oh, sure, still has some issues, minor when you compare it with the first two years of MSTS, where it took the users to formulate solutions, enhanced by developers and payware add-ons over the next five years, and it grew with us, because we made it happen.

Several companies put their bid in with RSC - RW staffers and Mr. Jackson, with North American Content, induce with certainty with Rail Works - America, thanks to HAWK, he should get a standing ovation every anniversary of its founding.

One was none other Rich Garber, of All Aboard, in only a month created Caste Rock RR. The man should write a book, problem is, many changes occurred within the Route and Scenario creation, and the Wiki's are (and we are warned of this) sadly out of date. My hat off to you Rich, a monument should be built, on Mt. Garber, just west of your CRRR.

Next our collective hats go to 3DTrainstuff.com partners and development team, for converting its original MSTS Cajon Pass Route, albeit not as large, but hey, double tracked mainline, from San Bernardino to Barstow, an excellent route, with some of the most challenging grades, rising as high as 3.4%, by hundreds of trains with BNSF and UP, shared tracks and UP single track mainline.

Next to take a bow is Marc Nelson, of 3DTrains.com fame, with superior track-work (with my favorite - clickity-clack feature), junctions, replicating the SP; AT&SF; and subsequent mergers with Burlington Northern and Union Pacific, only in America. Notwithstanding, excellent vegetation and foliage are in the offerings, all initially in freeware, and priced reasonably, payware too.

RSC-RW finally debut in November with the European version, intermixed with its buyout of Trainz (European version only methinks) 2007, and the following year quite early, January I believe, with the North American version was released.

Europe sales were impressive, North America had many skeptics, and still do.

Newer entrants like us, pounced information and data to RSC and while not much information was generated back to us, we noticed subtle changes in our software, hmmm, more stable, gee, even the physics are improving, couplers work better, sounds are different, some better, what's this DLC thingy's, SD70MACe series, what's this, $20.00 Xmas Sale of the core? Maybe I should get my Dad a copy, maybe my brother in law too.

Word is getting out, it is an excellent RR simulation, and the good news is, had two major updates, November 2010, next was in February of the year following, and next is coming, beaming with confidence some changes we wanted with its chief major rival from MS, changes that will solidify its standing, as the best Rail Road Simulator on the market, second to none.

Now you know the rest of the story, as I saw in my research.

Clickity-Clack,

Peter

[Toripony]

Peter, I cannot speak to your specific problems for I am, like you, just learning about the scenario editor. All I can offer is some encouragement that it gets easier with practice. Yes, there are still some weird little buggies in there, but it is far better than it used to be. I know, that's not much help now, but I think the folks who cut their teeth on the earlier versions have the advantage of knowing what NOT to click in order to avoid headaches. That is the trick of it... knowing when to not do certain things. For example, I save and exit the editor after every few steps/clicks. It seems like the longer you work in there, the more likely to encounter a bug or crash. I break down the work into specific small chunks... like, place my rolling stock; quit; add drivers and destinations; quit; add a couple of instructions to one consist; quit. I switch to Play Mode very often, even if it gives me errors, just to make the game "look at what I've done" and "become happy with it".
Signaling a route is very similar in its particularities and actually requires completely exiting the game after making any changes. In this part of route work, the scenario has to be launched from scratch to fully run the scripts to show you the true results of your signal changes. It was in this boring repetitive procedure that I realized (among other evidence) that simply exiting a scenario and going back in ("Play again") does NOT clear out the memory banks; you have to exit the game completely to get rid of the relics of a previous play or editing session. I think as you get more and more used to "walking on eggshells" while you are editing, your number of issues will decline. One of my quick and dirty solutions is to "clone" routes and scenarios ridiculously often in the Play/Edit Launch screen. When working on a part of the route that is especially sensitive, I make a clone before entering the editor, then make a couple of edits, save and exit, restart the game, delete the last clone, make a new clone, and go back into editor to make a couple more changes, etc, ad naseum. Through trial and error and many crashes (and some loud cussing, lol) I have gradually learned when this tedious time-consuming process is necessary or not.
In scenario editing, I have the most troubles just after adding player icons to the locos and when finalizing AI instructions. That is two times when I restart my game session a LOT. And, no offense to any of the brilliant minds here that help us all through our troubles, but sometimes it just isn't possible to offer a concise explanation/answer to all of our questions. I've learned that the more specific the question, the more likely someone can help. With "generality issues" there are just too many variables and possible causes for anyone to offer worthy help. Keep hammering away at it (sometimes with a tenderizer hammer... sometimes with a meat cleaver!), drink and take long walks often, and it will get better. So far it's only taken me 3 years to become a novice so I think you'll probably make your "by age 70" goal.

Tori

[Toldrabald]

I searched throughout this topic, find it discerning that I am the only soul suffering with this:

1. Error: Due to service 2 error, which tells me in Standard mode, inadvertently set up two separate locomotives as player, opps, so head back in to edit and when it opens, about 6,000 feet in the sky, look straight down, large grid, with black earth surrounding area...what in tar-nation did it or I do? Help!
2. Noticed each time I start over with a new scenario creation, bunches of Scenario Markers all over the yard, last count is 10. Tried to follow this forum suggestions, no change, can't remove or delete bloody buggers via menu trash can or delete key. Help! Help!
3. And a better AI tutorial, currently 64, bountiful memory issues competing with me, and I want to be an expert by the end of this year, your help will get me past the idea that I can still learn - hopefully, before I turn 70.

1) Ok two player locos isn't a good thing, but that should not screw your scenario. But it sounds like you somehow just started underground with the camera position. Is you marker at the right spot somewhere in the landscape and above ground? And you can try to bring up the map, hold ctrl and click somewhere and then flap out the compass from the top middle position and click on the small triangle symbol there. It should take you to the desired position on ground level.
2) scenario or route markers? The route markers will always be present in scenario edit mode. But no new markers should appear if you haven't placed any.
3) Yes the AI is bugged and annoying. I am currently on my second scenario this week, trying to implement as much AI as possible and it causes all sorts of problems. Placed some empty wagons on a siding where no train ever goes through, suddenly two trains report "blocked path" errors. Altering the stop time for a passenger train in one station resulted in a complete "driver error" without any reason. There are a few tweaks and workarounds, but nothing I could really explain and most of them are very specific solutions for specific routing options within a station, having a train moved by a signal block back or forth and things like that. It involves a lot of trial and error. Train service classes are somewhat important, too.
I'm just 25 and already getting grey hair from the editor and the time spent cursing the editor, the AI and SBHH

[LoneWolfDon]

Peter: It'll take a lot of time, patience, trial and error to get the hang of things. But if you had something specific you needed some help on, then perhaps other fellow RailWorks members here can give some good answers. But, sometimes it's hard for others to give specific advice about things in the editor when we can't see or know what the problem might/could be, and then it can just be a guess, a shot-in-the-dark in trying to give suitable answers.

That being said, if you were still having some troubles or needed some help in figuring some things out, and if you wanted to hook-up online sometime soon, using something like TeamViewer, http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx , (which is a great utility, free for home/ personal use, and a good way to help someone remotely or to see what's happening on their computer), then I could be willing to help coach you through a few things in learning some things about the editor or try and help with some things you're having trouble with. I've used TeamViewer several times already with good success to give some other Users help in teaching them some things about the editor or in helping them to resolve some problems.

[nlmcm]

So far it's only taken me 3 years to become a novice so I think you'll probably make your "by age 70" goal.

Tori

A novice? You're being far too modest IMHO, with C&O beta, pulease........that's like saying you only made one arrest in 40 years as a state trooper -traffic cop.....



Thanks for your great advice Tori, pleases me to no end!

[nlmcm]

Just a short note to Tori, LWD and Toldrabald:

Thanks to each of you all for the tips and tricks, in my second wind of my personal steep learning curve, all have made me think more out of the box and push onward, and TB is right, A. I. is bonkers, much like MSTS was back in the early '2000's, initially was a screen resolution issue that had to be overcome. over the years became more stable and easier to use (or more like ebbs of experience gained).

Why can't some of you/us/we, as we gain more experience write our thoughts to the RW Wiki's? Most of it is terribly out of date, and/or changes have been made since internally, ....Gee's you'd think the RS staffers could spend a little time. Maybe they should hire a newbie, let that person learn RW2 of all manner, and then write, has to be someone who has a masters in English!*don-know!*

Thanks again my good people,

Peter

[arizonachris]

Pete, dude, we have our own "unofficial" RW Wiki: http://railworks.wikia.com/wiki/Railworks_Wiki feel free to add as much info as you can!

[Marleyman]

I can offer my Free Scenario Building Tutorials for Railworks 2. They are at http://www.railworks.marleyman.co.uk/page169.html

If any one works through them and feels they need more info, just mail me from my site or post on my forum over there. I will even 'analyze' any troublesome scenarios.

[nlmcm]

Pete, dude, we have our own "unofficial" RW Wiki: http://railworks.wikia.com/wiki/Railworks_Wiki feel free to add as much info as you can!

AZChris, thank you for this invaluable information, indeed, when I feel confident to add something worthy at a later date, as like many of you have already done so well, I thank each of you.

And Chris, name is Peter, and if dude, its Mr. Dude por favor.....


All the best,

Peter

[arizonachris]

And Chris, name is Peter, and if dude, its Mr. Dude por favor.....
All the best,

Peter

My apologies, Peter. I'll keep that in mind for the future. No insult intended. BTW, my youngest brother, Peter, prefers Pete. Just like my other brother, Douglas, prefers his middle name, Eric.