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Nec V4 is an awsome route. I would like to know is how was the author able to add all those new tracks to the original USA1 route with all those interactive objects already in the route without crashing. Joe simerjoe
Before altering track in a route with interactive objects, you must remove them and then replace them later. I am currently messing around with an old route of mine, but I am removing only those objects in proximity to the changes being made. I gather this is very dangerous, but so far I'm getting by.
Is it the only way to achieve this? The same happened to me, in a route of mine that I uploaded to the libraries, called fcdfs-01.zip, and was made using Ytracks. The Ytracks looked very nice. But due to a conflict in Tsection.dat build 24, the new Xtracks and Ytracks obliged me to make a patch to fix it, and change all the new slips and Xovers to the new Ytracks that are next to be released.Well, I made the Patch, and new the new tracks function well. But I lost all the interactive objects, and some more give me errors while loading the route. I will have to install all again from the beginning: Car-Spawners, more than 230 mileposts, many level crossings, lost of signals (I'll use a better pack of LQ signals), and besides, I'd like to add all the fences and telepoles that were lacking in the first version, and change some other static objects. Should I put static objects before all? Together with this, I'd like to populate more the rural areas.No more than this, because the users need this patch soon.But I ask you in this post, because the order is very important, to save time and avoid other conflicts and problems, hard to fix.Is there any exception for the golden rule?Thank you all in advance
Hi Joe; Thanks for the kind words. How did I add all the tracks and stuff to the original NEC?First thing I did was to fly the route in the route editor and delete all the interactive track objects. These were: Car Spawners Signals Mileposts Speed Limits Siding Markers Platform Markers Hazard Markers Sound RegionsThen I began making changes to the original routes track, like removing those 10 degree switches on the mainline and replacing them with 2.5 and 5 degree objects. After all track mods were complete ot the original track I began installing the CSX divisions, working from north to south.
After all the trackwork was completed I installed the interactive track objects in the following order: 1.)Mileposts 2.)Speed Limits 3.)Hazard Markers 4.)Siding Markers 5.)Platform Markers 6.)Sound Regions 7.)Car Spawners 8.)Signals I found during testing that there were three areas where the distance between track nodes was greater than 10 miles and was causing severe bounce enough to cause couplers to break. So I was going to have to modify track after the interactives were installed. In the areas where I did this I deleted all the interactive objects on the entire tile where I was going to modify the track, did the modification and then added the interactive objects back. This worked fine and I did not have any problems.The route was then shipped out on CD to five beta testers (this is a VERY important step) and for about a month I was receiving feedback from them and was correcting the minor problems that they found. There were scenery issues "you can see the edge of the tile at MPxx on the CSX" and some not so minor "the signals should default to RED/STOP if there is no valid dispatched route through them" and so on. The beta testing took about a month and was by far the most important step in getting a route prepared for public distribution. (You don't want to release garbage do you?) After testing and corrections the route was prepared with Mike Simpson's RouteRiter (thanks again Mike) which got the size down to a managable 31 megabytes. The installer method was what I wanted because after all, when you buy a software application you don't have to unzip/cut/past/ect do you? That to me is a pain in the butt and I refuse to put a user who may know nothing about a computer through this pain. I used the free InstallShield (c) installer to make the process fast and foolproof for the user who just wants to run trains and not fool around with a bunch of stinking zip files. Besides, the installer compresses the route BETTER than WinZip! Much faster too and very user friendly and it does not mess around in the Windows registry.
Final testing (C Test) was in house (on a test system) making sure the installer did everything it was supposed to do. I did make a minor screwup though as the route was released with a test consist that should have been deleted and a minor problem with one of the activities. Happy Thanksgiving Joe!
Regards, Vince Cockeram NEC Track Team Author: NECv4 Route
Routeriter allows you to delete shapes from the whole route in a couple of clicks....can save you tons of time....but you will have to run it through the RE to check the whole line...just to make sure.!!! Georges
Heya Vince, any future plans for the NEC?.....I'd love to see it updated with non-default buildings, industries and scenery (especially now that most folks have faster comps, more memory and better vidcards). If you should choose to do so, I would be open to helping with some improved skyscrapers and perhaps some industries in between my other projects(although I'm leaning more towards commercial projects to supplement my income, I love the NEC too much to not contribute). From looking through the TMTS forums here, you would be able to transfer it to TMTS when it eventually comes out. An improved NEC with all your trackwork additions and upgrades coupled with some custom scenery would be a great route to help introduce TMTS.I still have several PennCentral 70's era activites for the NEC on my hardrive, I'd love to eventually update them for an NECv5...hint, hint..lolBill Bzak aka Longhairedwizardwww.lhwfoundries.com
Yes Bill, plans for updating are active but on hold 'cause I'm gonna wait for TMTS. Reason is I want to do some major trackwork revisions that match the prototype based on information I received after the v4 release. Much of the CSX line is single track and I wan't to fix that. For this I wan't to use X-Tracks, and the really nice Y-Track switches. But I must wait until TMTS is released to make sure that the X-Tracks package will be convertable to TMTS.
Regards, Vince Cockeram NEC Track Team Author: NECv4 Route
Vince, if I am not finished extending the NECv4 when you do decide to continue working on this project let me know that you are starting to work on it again. I will send you the extension to include in a future release if you are interested and if I have not already released it on this website. George.
