Scenarios for the Horse Shoe Curve

[micaelcorleone]

Since I'm from Missouri, the "Show Me" state, I'd like a description of those Trains & Drivers HSC scenarios before buying them--even at sale prices. I've looked at the website and cannot find descriptions ... are they available anywhere?

Tom,
Excuse us for your inconvenience.
Normally, all our scenario packs have a detailed description on the related product page. It seems that this was forgotten here (HSC Scenario Pack V.2).

If you have any further questions, you can always contact us via hello@trains-and-drivers.eu or just send me a PM here.

Best,
Timm


P.S.
Thanks Samwolf for posting the descriptions.

(...)my appreciation to these guys that write all these different scenarios?

Thank you Arizona.

[OldProf]

Griphos: AI trains sometimes behave like supernumerary actors (people with little or no theatrical experience placed on stage anyway for crowd scenes, etc.): they don't always perform as instructed or consistently. I tested the final version of this scenario at least four times before uploading it and had no problems with the AI traffic, but that doesn't mean that the same will hold true for other players. When you run the scenario again, please try saving it just after you reach the Fred's Spot marker. If the AI goes haywire again, try to make a note of the number of the train that went astray. Don't bother with the coordinates: no one human can write them out before they vanish, but once I know the number of the errant loco, I can check the scenario again myself.

By the way, I'm firmly convinced that the so-called "dispatcher" in RW actually learns by experience, in the sense that I have run a scenario that I'm still editing and encountered an error, such as a derailment, failure to find path, or collision. Without changing anything, I simply run that scenario again and the problem does not reoccur. Maybe that term Artificial Intelligence is more significant than I think?

Thanks for the comments, folks. Please do let me know if you encounter difficulties with my scenarios. I can't promise to fix everything, but I'll do my best.

Tom Pallen

[Griphos]

Hey Tom. Finally got a chance to run it again this evening. This time I had to wait for a freight to move through the yard as I was moving up toward Fred. Very nice. We sort of met in the middle and he was ahead of me and had the switches. Once I got to Fred, I saved, and then I got the error again. AI Driver 9829 left the path Long -78.39 Lat 40.51. I resumed and he left the path again. I resumed again and same thing. He does NOT want to stay on the path! :-) That's a different train than the one that went by me heading past Fred and out of the yards.

[OldProf]

Hey Tom. Finally got a chance to run it again this evening. This time I had to wait for a freight to move through the yard as I was moving up toward Fred. Very nice. We sort of met in the middle and he was ahead of me and had the switches. Once I got to Fred, I saved, and then I got the error again. AI Driver 9829 left the path Long -78.39 Lat 40.51. I resumed and he left the path again. I resumed again and same thing. He does NOT want to stay on the path! :-) That's a different train than the one that went by me heading past Fred and out of the yards.

I'll run through the scenario again as soon as possible (holiday chores and standard honey-do's permitting). I can never get that Longitude/Latitude finder to work properly, but I looked again at AI train 9829's path, which includes a number of specific track markers. It passes through the yard from east to west, 3 tracks south of the one where "Fred's spot" is located, so its movements should not affect any of the switches used by the player train, which should be moving from "Freight Station Lead-in" toward "Fred's spot" at the time. Not long afterward, as the player engine is ready to move from "Fred's spot" to its final destination, another AI freight, 8586, comes through the yard from east to west and does change some of the switches that lie along the player train's route (this is explained by a message in the scenario). Those two AI freights should not affect each other in any way, and 9829 and the player train should not affect each other in any way, so I'm really stumped by this one.

Has anyone else experienced this path error?

Tom Pallen

[Griphos]

Hey Tom,

I ran it again and saved after marshaling on freight transfer track 2. I was then able to run all the way to Fred and reverse and head for the shops no problem. Doing it this way, AI 8500, which is the one I had to wait on from the freight yards on the way to Fred, didn't start running until I was on my way to the shops (when starting from scratch, he starts running while I'm marshaling). I had to save and quit though about half way to the shops (ran out of time), so I don't know if 9829 causes a problem later or not. I'll resume from where I was later and see.

[OldProf]

Hey Tom,

I ran it again and saved after marshaling on freight transfer track 2. I was then able to run all the way to Fred and reverse and head for the shops no problem. Doing it this way, AI 8500, which is the one I had to wait on from the freight yards on the way to Fred, didn't start running until I was on my way to the shops (when starting from scratch, he starts running while I'm marshaling). I had to save and quit though about half way to the shops (ran out of time), so I don't know if 9829 causes a problem later or not. I'll resume from where I was later and see.

I don't think you'll have a problem from there to the end. I just ran the scenario as far as being on my way to the Freight tracks to drop the passenger coaches and hoppers, so that the first 2 AI freights had met me and were well on their way to their destinations. My guess is that we're dealing with differences in pace of play. One of the most constant challenges in scenario writing lies in the fact that the more the writer plays the scenario, the faster he plays it, due to ever-increasing familiarity with its instructions. Then, when someone else plays it for the first time and certainly at a different pace, the AI timings may go awry. Hope you reach the end successfully and that you will have enjoyed the experience!

Tom Pallen

[Griphos]

Oh yeah, pace of play is an issue! I'm slow as molasses! Yep, ran fine all the rest of the way. I made some course mistakes near the end. Finished under the full moon in the dark, but that was kind of neat too (and gives you an idea of my pace). AI 9829 went through clean as a whistle as I was messing about in the repair yards.

It was a fantastic scenario. One of the best I've done so far. Got to explore a LOT of Altoona, and learned some things about operations in the process. Thanks for this one. Looking forward to any others you do!

Phil

[OldProf]

Oh yeah, pace of play is an issue! I'm slow as molasses! Yep, ran fine all the rest of the way. I made some course mistakes near the end. Finished under the full moon in the dark, but that was kind of neat too (and gives you an idea of my pace). AI 9829 went through clean as a whistle as I was messing about in the repair yards.

It was a fantastic scenario. One of the best I've done so far. Got to explore a LOT of Altoona, and learned some things about operations in the process. Thanks for this one. Looking forward to any others you do!

Phil

You're welcome. I'm at work on two additional Horseshoe Curve scenarios, but also much engaged in playing the HC scenarios from Trains & Drivers. My only disappointment in them so far is that the scenario writer didn't speak American English. We have "tracks" and "cars", not "roads" and "wagons". Small irritation, lots of enjoyment.

Tom Pallen

[Griphos]

I got both of those packs as well, but haven't sampled them yet. I finished the set that came with the route. I've been on a scenario spree lately, and have almost all of Doug's stuff as well, and have been giving those a workout. HSC pushes my system (at least with shadows on...and I love the shadows), so I seem to turn to other routes more often, although I keep coming back to it, because it's so darned lovely! Those passenger cars, such as you used in your scenario, are just beautiful.

I'll keep my eye out for when you finish your others up. No hurry. Worth the wait, I'm sure.

[stresstool]

Has anyone else experienced this path error?
Tom Pallen

Yep. Very nice scenario, Tom. Good job.

I had that problem "AI has left the building ..", but I didn't wait for the switch to clear after 8500 went through. I just plowed through it (no patience). After the AI error, I restarted from a save and again just plowed through it to see what would happen. It changed in my favor just as the first wagon reached it (coincidence?), same as the first time. Anyway, I manually reset the switch back to the AI's path after I went through it completely (something I learned to do often with MSTS). I reached Fred about 1 minute before the F7 AI came through, so I paced it and it went through that troublesome switch no problem and I finished the scenario without further incident.

[OldProf]

Thanks for the information, Stresstool. I find the result of your second, deliberate, attempt to barge through the switch especially interesting. It seems that sometimes, certainly not always, under certain conditions, a train approaching a switch set against it will "nudge" a change, ... but other times, it just derails or, given enough speed, crashes spectacularly. As far as I know, resetting a switch for an AI train is never necessary, but it certainly is courteous! As I recently noted in a different thread, the "intelligence" of an Artificial Intelligence train is highly questionable.

Tom Pallen

[LoneWolfDon]

In case some people missed my other thread in the Freeware section, I made a HSC Scenario-Pack, which will add two Standard-Scenarios for the HSC route, A Passenger-Run and a Freight-Run (which involves a little bit of switching and picking-up & dropping-off of wagons). You can grab it from my site here:
http://www.rryard.com/hsc_spack1.html

And, it's also available in the RailWorksAmerica Library too.
They're not so long in Duration (33Mins and 45Mins approximately), but still I think fun and I hope some of you will enjoy them.

--Don.

[stresstool]

In case some people missed my other thread in the Freeware section, I made a HSC Scenario-Pack, which will add two Standard-Scenarios for the HSC route, A Passenger-Run and a Freight-Run (which involves a little bit of switching and picking-up & dropping-off of wagons). You can grab it from my site here:
http://www.rryard.com/hsc_spack1.html

And, it's also available in the RailWorksAmerica Library too.
They're not so long in Duration (33Mins and 45Mins approximately), but still I think fun and I hope some of you will enjoy them.

--Don.

Thanks, Don. Both nicely done. Excellent job.

[micaelcorleone]

You're welcome. I'm at work on two additional Horseshoe Curve scenarios, but also much engaged in playing the HC scenarios from Trains & Drivers. My only disappointment in them so far is that the scenario writer didn't speak American English. We have "tracks" and "cars", not "roads" and "wagons". Small irritation, lots of enjoyment.

Strange. The scenarios were created by Robert "robbit" and he is an American.
But I will forward your input. I hope you enjoy the scenarios anyway.

[LoneWolfDon]

Thanks, Don. Both nicely done. Excellent job.

Cool. Glad you enjoyed them.