Marking the territory

[SMMDigital]

Is there an upper limit on the amount of markers (destination, portal, siding, etc) that could/should be placed within a given route or scenario?

The reason I ask is that I have ran into a small problem. On the AND route, in addition to the siding markers, I put a destination marker at every signal. As these are placed in the World Editor, they are permanent. I do this to make scenario creation easier. The problem I am experiencing is that in a scenario, new markers i need to place will no longer show up. I can select a destination marker from the object filter, but it is invisible. I can "place" the invisible marker on the track, but only the two end pointers show up, not the pole-with-the-block-on-top gizmo. After placement, the marker disappears and I can only select the marker by clicking in the air in the general area of the marker until I hit it and it shows up again. The marker is visible in the Timetable Editor, and can be selected as a destination using the TE.

I can't help but think i've exceeded some sort of limit on the placement of these markers.

[artimrj]

I dont know of the limit, I do know they are like adding any other object though, they eat at the asset count per tile. Not sure why you used both markers in one place though. Isnt one or the other enough? I only used short destination markers on my route and there are 286 of them for a 50 mile run. The only place I used siding markers was on fuel points and interactive cargo loading/unloading things. Reason being these wont work with out a siding marker on them. In a few spots that were not obvious to anyone but me, I placed short siding maker to spot a box car on. If I would not have placed a siding marker there it would likeany other warehouse. I am relying on the scenario writer to place their own siding markers where they need them for the scenario. I ended up with 145 siding markers.Yes there are a lot of things to do on my route, it is ficticious.

[SMMDigital]

Not sure why you used both markers in one place though. Isnt one or the other enough?

Clarification: The original statement should read "in addition to markers on the sidings, I put destination markers at every signal". I was trying to illustrate that there are a lot of these markers all over the route.

[Toripony]

Probably useless input here but.... One thing you should know is that the track markers add to the size of your Tracks.bin file. Significantly.

Co-incidental to your problem, the last few days I have a similar, but opposite one. I've had trouble getting the End-Points of the markers to show up so I can adjust them. Also, in Play mode, sometimes F6 will bring up the train labels but not the marker labels... or sometimes some of the markers but not all. During editing, a couple of times I noticed there was a delay in the markers appearing after switching to the Track/Lofts editing screen. It's just like the delay you get when saving changes to your track when you are editing a large route (mine currently takes about 3-5 seconds to Save after hitting F2).

My Tracks.bin is around 3MB, around the same size as the Bar-SanBar route. But, I've never had this problem before when editing that route, even though it has WAY more markers than the COA. The only difference I can see is that I am now editing in scenarios that have a few hundred cars and several locomotives in them. (Just thought of this: think I'll try editing in an "empty" scenario like I used to do)

[SMMDigital]

Hmmm, hadn't thought about the track.bin file. Mine is currently at 3.4MB, and that is for a route that is about 30 miles in length with yards, sidings, and branch lines.

Based on your post, I think it might be wise in the future to use markers in the individual scenarios instead of placing them permanently in the World Editor.

[Toripony]

Hmmm, hadn't thought about the track.bin file. Mine is currently at 3.4MB, and that is for a route that is about 30 miles in length with yards, sidings, and branch lines.

Based on your post, I think it might be wise in the future to use markers in the individual scenarios instead of placing them permanently in the World Editor.

I am starting to go that route, too. Some of the COA sidings are so short, I am leaving the markers I've placed, but for longer ones where scenario writers could "play" with wild abandon, I am actually deleting some of my siding markers, replacing them with a very short dest marker at the junctions. I also like this idea I saw here about using mile markers to identify yard tracks. They're kinda proto, too, as some of you guys said manual switches usually are numbered for identification. I think I want to use a smaller sign, though, than the current mile marker signs we have. "Hey, Pete......"

[Trainguy76]

Also, in Play mode, sometimes F6 will bring up the train labels but not the marker labels... or sometimes some of the markers but not all.

Hi Tori, I'm fairly certain that when only a number of marker labels appear, they are the ones used in a scenario. When none are used/all are used, they all appear. (I think)

F6 is for train labels, then you use F7, when F6 is enabled.

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

Does the problem with the disappearing marker 'handles' appear every time or only after a while? If the latter is the case, maybe it's something memory related. I sometimes get the problem with the disappearing/invisible track sections after longer sessions in the RW, a quit/restart of RW always fixes that. Maybe it's something similar.

However, I see another potential issue with having a large number of siding/destination markers: scrolling through all of them in the timetable view scenario editor might become a nightmare. The default Cajon Pass route already has a confusing number of markers (to me at least).

File size of tracks.bin might not be such a big issue, I just checked and the default London route has well over 5MB tracks.bin file size, so I guess at 3MB there's still some space left.

Cheers,
Michael

[artimrj]

My tracks.bin is 7.4 meg. Approximately 500 destination and siding markers. Fifty miles of mainline. So far so good, 9 miles of scenery to go, a few tracks to re-lay, should be here in about 2 months. The only time my gizmo points (arrows) dont appear is when I fly real fast to another area, while that scenery is loading, the gizmo points seem to be the last thing to show up. If I am in the editor for 3 or 4 hours, wierd things start to happen, the stripe of colors on the terrain, the mesh disappears and I get huge caverns where they are not supposed to be. The only time I ever actually crash RW is when I am writing scenarios. I guess I am pretty tough on the scenario editor

[Rich_S]

Hello Group,
Tori and I kicked this issue around in another thread and I'm starting to see the light. Being I cut my route building teeth on MSTS, I had planned on placing siding markers on all tracks until I saw it was going to send the tracks.bin file through the roof. I'm starting to think a better method is to allow the scenario creators to place only the markers they need for a specific scenario. The only downside to this approach would be seeing scenario's with generic labels like "siding 1" instead of the actual industry being named. For me the $50 question is, leave the entire siding without a marker or place a very small marker at the bumper with the industries name? What is everyone doing for yard tracks?

Regards,
Rich S.

[Toripony]

Here's where I have landed on this issue:

All of my mainline signals have markers at them. This is not only so trains can be told to stop or pass by there, but also for "purists" who like to call out the signals as they drive past (which I think is oh-so-cool).

Short sidings with little potential for AI interaction will have a single siding marker the length of the siding. This is to optimize the length of a cut of cars you can park there.

Long sidings in random places or in very small yards will have a single destination marker right at the junction to indicate the name/purpose of the siding. These clues are helpful for scenario writers who can then place siding markers anywhere as they need/wish.

In big yards where the names of most tracks are of no importance, I am going to use the milepost numbering idea that has been discussed recently. In fact, my Bailey Yard project is going to be the first to receive this change in design. Of the many siding markers I've already placed there, most (but not all) will be removed and replaced with a "track number sign".

[glenn68]

Rich,
I think that having some kind of reference for the siding (industry name) should be the best approach.
I have been reading into scenario markers for standard scenarios and that should keep junkin' the routes down to a very minimal. Yes it is nice to hit the 6 or 7 key to see everything displayed but having a flawlessly running route is better.
What could really be good is to have bare minimum markers and provide a read only map in PDF/Word with a complete discription of every destination, industry, siding or station for those who would build scenario's.

What do you think?

Glenn