Railworks America

I have a train that I want the player to load with cargo. I'm thinking that there is one correct way to do this, but i'm not sure which one.

1.) A single pick-up instruction in the Scenario. When you stop over the transfer point, the entire train loads.

2.) Each individual car has to have a pick-up instruction. If this is true, do you have to specify each car number like you do when you have Marshall cars?

Place your bets folks!

Number 2 but if you do it from the main window in the editor instead of the timetable view. You add the fuel pick up disk to the engine then in the popup on the right you click the add (+) and click on the loader/unloader for each car to be filled it will have 1 line in the task list but it will say pick up/drop off (number of cars to be loaded/unloaded x Example 5 cars it will say pick up 5x)instead of 5 lines for 5 cars.

Edit: Actually for 5 wagons it will say 4x because it does not count the first one and that is normal and you still have to load 5 cars and you get the progress bar for each car and you get the check mark after they are all loaded or the red x if you miss any.

Not answering to your question, but before you go any further please consider the player's point of view:
- few things are as boring as filling up a large consist. Watching paint dry comes to mind, but it lacks in frustration.
- in most scenarios I've seen, filling tasks aren't appropriate because this is usually a job for a plant switching crew, not the road crew.

So I suggest this:
- add a text box that tells the player to fill all cars;
- add an actual task for filling only one car.

So the player knows what he's supposed to do, but the requirement is completed after the first car. If he likes that kind of things, he can go on and fill the other ones too. If not he can go on his merry way.

Robbit, thanks for the info. I did not know about doing this from the main window.

Chacal, I have to reject your suggestion. I've already hashed out my feelings towards creating Scenarios, so if I undertake making one, i'm going all the way with it. The player has a few options: 1.) Lock the door to the computer room, put on their big boy pants and settle in for an afternoon of realistic monotony, 2.) Click F2 and come back for more when they can stand it, 3.) Don't play the scenario.

EDIT: Idea - make this an AI load and let the player watch.

I have taken into consideration the fact that railroad personnel probably would not do the loading, so once the train reaches the loading destination, The Crew goes outlaw and the Scenario ends. Part 2 picks up several hours later with plant personnel taking the train through the load cycle then leaving it for the Railroad to move out when the next crew arrives.

Something similar to this happens on the prototype at the livestock feed plant in my home town. Empties are dropped by two ES or SD's at the beginning of the week. A plant switcher pulls the cars to be loaded in blocks through the plant and assembles them in the yard. At the end of the week, the two road locos stationed nearby couple to the completed train and take it away.

Another way is have most of the cars loaded except for the last few and have the player load them.

Just because one player finds loading a string of cars boring doesn't mean that other players do. This is a simulator and loading or unloading are real railroading tasks and therefore deserve to be simulated. Those who don't like a particular activity don't have to play the scenario. For example, I find passenger scenarios boring (there it is again: loading and unloading), so I simply avoid them.
I do like your idea of having one crew deliver the loaded cars, perhaps after assembling the train in a yard, and another crew handling the actual unloading in a separate scenario. This might be a good time to try the follow-on scenario trick, which I've yet to bother learning even though I find it intriguing.

Do what you want to do in your scenarios!

I have decided on a compromise of sorts. I'm going to do two versions of the Scenario. In one, you load the entire train. I may even make this a Career Scenario as an incentive if you are into the points-collecting thing. The other version of it will start with the loading already in progress and the player finishing the last 10-15 cars.

OldProf wrote:Just because one player finds loading a string of cars boring doesn't mean that other players do. This is a simulator and loading or unloading are real railroading tasks and therefore deserve to be simulated.

Quite true, which is why I was suggesting to make it optional in the scenario, by having a quick exit door for those who don't like it.

They implemented the same concept in Construction Simulator 2015. Sometimes you are performing a long and difficult task, such as digging a huge basement. For some players it would take hours to complete. At 50% completion, you get a popup message with the choice of continuing the task or ending now with no penalty. You get another such offer at 75%.

robbit wrote:Number 2 but if you do it from the main window in the editor instead of the timetable view. You add the fuel pick up disk to the engine then in the popup on the right you click the add (+) and click on the loader/unloader for each car to be filled it will have 1 line in the task list but it will say pick up/drop off (number of cars to be loaded/unloaded x Example 5 cars it will say pick up 5x)instead of 5 lines for 5 cars.

Edit: Actually for 5 wagons it will say 4x because it does not count the first one and that is normal and you still have to load 5 cars and you get the progress bar for each car and you get the check mark after they are all loaded or the red x if you miss any.

In my scenario authors Guide this is explained in a step by step instruction. Available at RWA or at my Google Drive:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5xmS3GoYKV1UjBJeHhIOFlOSzQ

Follow up: I finally got the Scenario finished, then proceeded to fail it - twice. For some reason, although the train was visually completely loaded, the scenario was failing, and upon checking the "9" key, it was showing I had missed 20 or more car loadings. After those failures, I broke the loadings into blocks of 10 and completed the scenario.

It's a grinder, for sure, and anything but boring. As the train is loaded, the physics change and you have to ramp up your level of attention.