Horace and conversion to Xtracks

I'm considering converting my Old Colony-Newport route to Xtracks, so I can add two inter-urban trolley lines to the layout. I presently have about 25 miles of standard MSTS track sections laid, no roads or other interactives in place yet. From what I can tell, Horace will help me do the conversion. Am I correct? Also, is the version in TK_utils the latest version? When searching on Horace I can across a thread that indicated it was being updated. I seem to recall that Xtracks doesn't have a dynamic track section and I used dynamic track in several places to solve problems. Is this a real pitfall? What have others done about this?Any helpful thoughts on what I am about to do would be appreaciated, as I have the impression this is not an easy task. Charlie Beckers
Old Colony-Newport Branchline
Newport, RI

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RE: Horace and conversion to Xtracks, charlie, Nov-09-04, 05:02 PM, (1) RE: Horace and conversion to Xtracks, Swissie, Nov-09-04, 05:51 PM, (2) RE: Horace and conversion to Xtracks, robertreedy, Nov-09-04, 09:21 PM, (3) RE: Horace and conversion to Xtracks, CharlieB, Nov-10-04, 10:35 PM, (8) RE: Horace and conversion to Xtracks, carloshr, Nov-10-04, 04:42 AM, (4) RE: Horace and conversion to Xtracks, CMO, Nov-10-04, 01:33 PM, (5) RE: Horace and conversion to Xtracks, buttercup, Nov-10-04, 04:31 PM, (6) RE: Horace and conversion to Xtracks, CharlieB, Nov-10-04, 10:27 PM, (7)

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>From what I can tell, Horace will help me do the conversion.
> Am I correct? You're absolutely correct, Charlie.>Also, is the version in TK_utils the latest version? When
>searching on Horace I can across a thread that indicated it
>was being updated. TK_utils was updated on 10-25-2004; if you downloaded after that, you have the current version.>I seem to recall that Xtracks doesn't have a dynamic track
>section and I used dynamic track in several places to solve
>problems. Is this a real pitfall? What have others done
>about this? Think of Xtracks as just extras that fit right in and complement the MSTS track set; designed to work well together. It's not a pitfall. Horace was written to exactly solve the situation you face, since you already have dynamic track.>Any helpful thoughts on what I am about to do would be
>appreciated, as I have the impression this is not an easy
>task. I needed to do this when I upgraded from Xtracks 2 to 3. You'll absolutely need a clean TDB; if you do, it's straightforward. The readme's in the downloads and at http://www.xtracks.tk/ will keep you out of trouble. On the website, click on "Installation", and then scroll down to the Horace section...regards,
charlie (the other one)

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LAST EDITED ON Nov-09-04 AT 05:52 PM (EST)

Hi Charlie> Think of Xtracks as just extras that fit right in and complement the MSTS track set; designed to work well together. It's not a pitfall. Horace was written to exactly solve the situation you face, since you already have dynamic track.Charlie (the other one) is correct here. Looks like you fears were based more on a misunderstanding than a real problem: xtracks does not replace any default track sections. "All" it does is adding many more shapes to your /global folder, to give you a wider and much improved selection of track pieces to build a route from. There are a couple more add-on sets out for various types of tracks, starting with Y-Tracks for more realistic switches, M-tracks for closer track-spacing on dual-track routes, D-tracks for dual-gauge i.e. combined standard and narrow-gauge tracks, tram-tracks for trolley layouts, Cyktracks for subway tracks with third rail for the power etc. Similarily, there are very good add-on packs providing you with more road shapes to choose from (Newroads.zip).A small problem only exists when you upgrade to xtracks after you started building a route on a copy of MSTS that had no add-on track packages installed before. The issue has to do with the ID numbers in the 500s MSTS assigns to dynamic track secitions by default, which numbers can cause conflicts with add-on track sections. Thus what Horace does is to update the ID numbers in your existing route into the range of 40'000s where there are no conflicts. That can be done safely as long as no interactive objects are installed, so you should be on the safe side.For more details, please check the documentation comming with the builders pack for xtracksLukas a.k.a Swissie

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CharlieB, just to add to the above for your well-being I had over 200 miles (a basically completed route), with a faulty tdb (which I realized later, not due to the conversion), but Horace handled it with no problems, even keeping the dynamic track and letting me later fix a couple of originally bad connections. Have since added another 150 miles with no side effects at all.In fact, I had even garbled my tsection.dat adding the 250r's and a couple of other early tracks before we knew what we know today, and Horace still handled it with no problems.Can't guarantee much of anything in life, but it worked for me RobertR .. ADF-M&RM at http://www.adfrr.com

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Humm...I was under the impression I could find tram tracks in Xtracks. This was based on using RE to look at the track sections available in the Xtracks routes I have installed (I keep them in a separate folder from the standard MSTS using the methods OTTODAD has suggested). Am I right, or do I need to look elsewhere for trolley sections?Charlie B

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Hello,The 'cvrt'-function of TSUtil can do the job, too.
It is available with Route-Riter (V6) which reduce this function to 'some clicks'.The difference of TSUtil to (old) horace is the included correction of the track-database. After using 'cvrt' the changes are totally implemented, and the route can be used again, immediately. Besides this, an implicit intergity-check of the route is done. So you can see if there still are some definition- or reference-errors in your route.

regards
carloshr

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LAST EDITED ON Nov-10-04 AT 01:34 PM (EST)

Lukas,Where do you find "tram-tracks"?

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http://www.msts-strabafanpage.de/phpkit/include.php?path=content/download.php&contentid=114&PHPKITSID=ff8beaad276109a5c7a3df086691a467Regards,Eric

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OK guys, thanks for the pep talk. You're right; I thought that Xtracks completely replaced the standard set of track sections, so was concerned about where I would come out if I lost dynamic track, etc. Guess it's time to back-up the route and go at it. I'll probably have questions along the way, but, to paraphrase an old saying, if you don't hear from me, it's good news. Charlie B

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