Railworks America

Hey All,

I've done a bit of reading and have pretty much determined you cannot load cargo for quick drive consists, they always appear empty. This is disheartening with flatcars and the like since they all appear the same and boring. The "Loaded" boolean that you see in custom constructed quick drive consists in the game itself does not work with PreLoad quickdrive consists (atleast from what I've found).

SO

I determined I need to make these freight cars have a child object for the freight rather than a "cargo" object. It seems like the cargo object on these is stored elsewhere and referenced in the bin file. Is it possible to make a child object out of these? In my early attempts I've been unsuccessful.

Any help is appreciated!

My method is to create a copy of the car's .bin file using RW_Tools and add _LD to its internal description and filename, and save that copy in the same folder as the original .bin.
(I am at work right now and don't have any editing tools with me)

In that _LD.bin file, there is no need to change the <loaded> flag, instead you must add the load as a child object in the appropriate section, properly "centering" and "fastening" it visually, TOFC for instance, doesn't sit at (0,0,0). You also might want to change the mass of the car to reflects that is is now loaded.

I have created several loaded TOFC, double stack cars and articulated double stack sets this way. But no hoppers, gons or ordinary flatcars yet.
You can create single cars, consist fragments or complete consists of those single cars and/or fragments mixed with empties for use in Quick Drive scenarios. Best create your own asset folder structure first and reference the previously created _LD.bin files from those new consists or consist fragments you created under your own asset folder.

IIRC, you can still unload the containers using the portal cranes, but not put them back on.
Don't know if you can visually unload hoppers or gons. Their mass stays the same.

I've approached this issue from a different angle. As you know, selecting the consist & route elements for a quick drive creates a temporary standard scenario. As soon as that is done and loaded instead of just beginning the quick drive, I go into the editor and load the obviously unloaded cars. My consist of course, but also any AI or static consists where the load makes a visual difference. Like a string of well cars for example. They look much better loaded with containers than empty. It takes a few minutes but adds a lot to my enjoyment of the quick drive.

Overshoe wrote:I've approached this issue from a different angle. As you know, selecting the consist & route elements for a quick drive creates a temporary standard scenario. As soon as that is done and loaded instead of just beginning the quick drive, I go into the editor and load the obviously unloaded cars. My consist of course, but also any AI or static consists where the load makes a visual difference. Like a string of well cars for example. They look much better loaded with containers than empty. It takes a few minutes but adds a lot to my enjoyment of the quick drive.

I feel as though this would ruin the best (to me) part of QD which is seeing the random consists

Alpenfreight wrote:I feel as though this would ruin the best (to me) part of QD which is seeing the random consists

Consists would still be random, all you are doing is adding a load where wanted. And as I said, it is temporary anyway, next time you run the same quick drive it all gets randomized again. None of the edits are permanent

Overshoe wrote:

Alpenfreight wrote:I feel as though this would ruin the best (to me) part of QD which is seeing the random consists

Consists would still be random, all you are doing is adding a load where wanted. And as I said, it is temporary anyway, next time you run the same quick drive it all gets randomized again. None of the edits are permanent

I suppose I mean encountering them randomly as you come around a bend is what I enjoy.

Though all solutions mentioned here will show visually loaded cars, in fact there is no way to get the load to add up the train cargo value unless you set a loaded car value in the mass.
When I made the flatcars with the Abrams tank, I used a child (tank) to render the load visually and I edited the "mass" parameter to include the sum of the flatcar and the vehicle cargo. Because of that, I had to set the cargo parameter to zero.
This way the flatcar behaves loaded both in QD and in any other type of scenario.