Railworks America

Back with another question guys.

I’ve created free roam freight scenarios for the NEC Phila.-NY, but have discovered that there are no container loaders installed on the route.

Never having worked in the Route Editor before, I played it safe and first cloned the NEC to experiment. I then located a “U.S. Container Crane” in the route’s Track Infrastructure. Thanks to some prior posts in this forum I succeeded in adding the crane to a yard in the cloned route.

The question: if I now go back to the original NEC route (on which my freight scenarios are based) and make changes like adding container cranes, will the free roam scenarios I’ve already created for it still load and work or will I have to start over creating new scenarios with the loaders in place?

Thanks.

Al

I'm a scenario writer, not a route maker, but I can say with certainty that the original route and your clone of it are two entirely separate routes. That is, the cranes you placed in your clone do not exist in the original and the scenarios you make in one of the two do not exist in the other. Moreover, although you could place cranes in the original route, they will not function as loaders because interactive assets such as loaders, signals, etc. cannot be made functional at the scenario editing level. How I wish this were not true!

Any scenery items you add to a scenario stay with the scenario. Another folders is created when you do this and contains the tiles of the route with the new scenery on it. So if you can place it in the scenario editor then it will be there. Whether it could also work on a cloned route I am not sure as the route's ID number would be different. Not sure this info matters with TS but it did with MSTS.

Thank you both men. I was afraid that my post would be confusing and it seems that is the case, so let me try to be a little more concise.

I only cloned the route to experiment adding objects to the route, in this case the container loader, which I had never done before. So please forget all about the clone.

To clarify, I am only going to be working with the original NEC. I've created a few free roam freight scenarios. I've also added stack cars to the available DLC and would like to be able to load/unload them. I would like to add stack loaders - in this case the "U.S. Container Crane" available in the route's Track Infrastructure in the Route Editor - not the Scenario Editor. Again all this will be in the original route. No clones.

My only question/concern is that adding an object like the crane or anything else to the route would somehow make loading a scenario created before the object existed in the route impossible. I'm tending to believe that the scenarios will still load, but I guess there's only one way to find out - add the crane to the route's track infrastructure (not to a specific scenario) and then try to run the existing scenarios. At worst I'll have to re-create the scenarios.

My concern stems from the old MSTS days, where if you made scenery object changes in a route, any saved activities would no longer load IIRC. I'm suspecting TSxxxx is different. But I've gone through a lot of ibuprofin trying to figure out TSxxxx's file structure and inner workings!

BTW, OldProf you are correct - the loader placed in the cloned route did not show up in the original route. They are indeed entirely separate routes. And thanks to your prior posts and a few others, I believe I know how to install the crane and make it functional, i.e. installing on a designated siding, positioning its track marker, aligning the crane with the track using the guide box, etc. We shall see. On a positive note, after I installed the loader in the cloned route as a test, it did in fact show up on the siding in the 2D Map and had been labeled by the sim Crane 1.

Hope I haven't confused you more gentlemen. The more I tried to simplify my thoughts, the longer this post became.

drivertime61 wrote:Back with another question guys.

I’ve created free roam freight scenarios for the NEC Phila.-NY, but have discovered that there are no container loaders installed on the route.

Never having worked in the Route Editor before, I played it safe and first cloned the NEC to experiment. I then located a “U.S. Container Crane” in the route’s Track Infrastructure. Thanks to some prior posts in this forum I succeeded in adding the crane to a yard in the cloned route.

The question: if I now go back to the original NEC route (on which my freight scenarios are based) and make changes like adding container cranes, will the free roam scenarios I’ve already created for it still load and work or will I have to start over creating new scenarios with the loaders in place?

Thanks.

Al

Using the Route Editor will change the scenery for every scenario, but won't break the scenarios unless you mess with the track, route markers, etc. It has to be track related.
That being said, not all track mods will break scenarios either. In my Donner Redo, I've found I could take out some of the rough curve transitions without affecting the scenarios.
Some items will place in a scenario only without affecting the route full time. The way to find out which items can be used in a scenario, is to use the Scenario Editor only. Then only items that are scenario specific will show up.

Ericmopar wrote:Using the Route Editor will change the scenery for every scenario, but won't break the scenarios unless you mess with the track, route markers, etc. It has to be track related.
That being said, not all track mods will break scenarios either. In my Donner Redo, I've found I could take out some of the rough curve transitions without affecting the scenarios.
Some items will place in a scenario only without affecting the route full time. The way to find out which items can be used in a scenario, is to use the Scenario Editor only. Then only items that are scenario specific will show up.

Many thanks Ericmopar. That's kind of what I thought but wasn't sure. I assume that placing the track marker that comes with the crane object won't break the scenarios either or you would have said that.

I'll be giving it a try - after I get done shoveling yet again.

Thanks guys for your patience and help.

Al
On the NEC

The container unloaders are also a track object. You have to attach them to a track. This will all work fine for you but no one else will be able to run your scenario cause they won't have the unloader on their route, that's all.

Thanks Bob, I never thought about that. I'm so new at all this that uploading scenarios for others was farthest from my mind. But I do understand you and will keep that in mind for the future.

Success. NEC Hunter Street yard, putting its new stack loader to work. More will be added elsewhere. NEC is a good free roam freight scenario route. Having a four track main, running lots of AI without interference to freight ops. is easy. IMHO, half the fun of this sim is in the Editors.

Thanks guys for all the help!

Also keep in mind if you did not clone the route, if there is an update from DTG or if your verify the cache, you will lose all your work. Just in case you did not know.

artimrj wrote:Also keep in mind if you did not clone the route, if there is an update from DTG or if your verify the cache, you will lose all your work. Just in case you did not know.

AAAAGGHH!!! Yes I knew that but I forgot. Many thanks for the reminder.

Well, the above screenshot is in the NEC clone I made for testing. If you're not tired of my questions yet, can I copy/paste my freight scenarios from the original to my clone of NEC? I did locate both routes and the Scenarios in the file structure, including the numbers for my freight scenarios and all the other scenarios supplied by DTG. If I make sure to install the additional DLC I previously imported for the original NEC into the clone as well, can the Scenarios folder or even individual scenarios simply be copied over into the clone? The additional DLC is needed for the freight scenarios.

One more please: IIRC, the scenarios I created and are living in the original NEC are safe from destruction by an update or VC right? I think i read that somewhere. They have their own individual names.

Many thanks for the heads-up on this.

Not sure about the scenarios, let us know how you fair with them.

artimrj wrote:Not sure about the scenarios, let us know how you fair with them.

OK will do. I seem to remember reading that separately named scenarios will not be disturbed by a VC or DTG route update. And I'm fairly certain I've run a VC some time after creating those scenarios.

But I do get confused at times with this sim. As proof: I said above I'd be sure to install the DLC that I imported for the original NEC into the cloned NEC, but that DLC is not part of the route, it's only in the individual freight scenarios I created. If I copy those freight scenarios over into the clone of NEC, they should have that added DLC with them. I hope. IIRC, it was Cajon Pass assets and the SD70-2 Volume 2 Pack.

I guess since you didn't say anything further, I'm right about being able to just copy/paste scenarios or the entire Scenarios Folder from NEC original to NEC clone.

Thanks so much for the tutoring.

drivertime61 wrote:

artimrj wrote:Not sure about the scenarios, let us know how you fair with them.

OK will do. I seem to remember reading that separately named scenarios will not be disturbed by a VC or DTG route update. And I'm fairly certain I've run a VC some time after creating those scenarios.

This is true. That's why I clone a scenario and rename it before doing mods to it now.

First, thanks Ericmopar for your reply.

Well guys, I tried to simply copy over my free roam freight scenario from NEC original to the new NEC clone, but it does not show up anywhere in the menu. So I'm guessing there's more to it than a simple copy/paste.

The scenario does contain added DLC from Cajon and SD70 Pack Volume II, but I thought that would come over with the scenario. Am I going to have to re-create the scenario (shudder!) in the clone or do I need to do more to get the copied scenario working?