Railworks America

No, I'm not taking dancing lessons, but I am venturing into territory that I have almost completely shunned previously. The Minuetto is an Italian passenger train. More importantly, it is yet another example of the current trend of devilishly complicated cabs. Its five-step starting sequence includes 1) opening the battery circuit, 2) inserting the driver's key, 3) waiting 10 seconds for the electrics to start and a beep to sound, 4) raising the pantograph or "allowing" the diesel engine to start, and 5) "closing" the IR -- whatever that is. With that sequence complete, it becomes possible to enter either manual or automatic drive, the latter involving another four steps before the train actually starts to move. The user's manual suggesting controlling all of this with the keyboard before attempting to move the controls with the mouse (two steps, in fact, must be accomplished via a key press). Any error in the sequence means reversing the process and starting over ... or, in some cases, closing and restarting the scenario. Another frustration lies in the fact that the brake and reverser levers are not always in the same positions when the driver first enters the cab. Finally, foes of the F4 HUD may be pleased that its controls cannot be used to operate this engine.

I'll admit that it took quite a few failures to teach me the proper sequence, but I finally got to the running part of a scenario and even to the ability to stop at a station and depart successfully. As so often happens, I had to return to reality in the middle of the scenario and, since I don't trust TS2013 to wait patiently until I return, I decided to save and resume later. The manual notes that several of the start-up and running actions lie beyond RW's innate abilities, which became abundantly clear when I resumed the scenario only to find that none of the driving controls except the brakes responded. Press <ESC> ... click on "Yes", move on to something else.

Sounds like a lua script not properly initializing variables.
The author did not thorougly test his script.

Yes she is a tricky beast to get going especially from a save, Very nice drive once you are up and running though.

Thoroughly tested or not, the sequence adds a new layer to possibilities within RW. Pretty clever, those Italians (assuming the group who created it is Italian).

chrisreb wrote:Yes she is a tricky beast to get going especially from a save, Very nice drive once you are up and running though.

It is, indeed. I'll take some screenshots next time I drive the Minuetto and post them.

Hack wrote:Thoroughly tested or not, the sequence adds a new layer to possibilities within RW. Pretty clever, those Italians (assuming the group who created it is Italian).

Yes, the company that made and sells it, Anemone Lab S.N.C., is Italian, as are all members of the creative team: Simone Gallerini, Milo Porciani, David Farruggia, and Nadir Sampaoli. Niccolò Francato is credited as product tester. I don't think that this team failed to write good LUA scripts for the controls, I think that they just went beyond RW's built-in possibilities. Italians are typically very skilled at bending the rules (that's not always a compliment, but it's intended as one here).

We all agree that this team pushed RW to its limits. They made full use of scripting possibilities.
I was commenting about the problem when loading a saved game. With that problem solved, their work would be even more awesome.

BTW, Mannu put a startup sequence like this (a little simpler) in the Baldwin Centipede.