NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis

LAST EDITED ON Oct-16-02 AT 11:19 PM (EDT)

Seem a few folks have had problems with route building this month. No exception here.
I normally do a track database rebuild about once a week, then check around for the dreaded blue poles. No problems with track but the last few roads ended up with the remove_end_vector thing. Took about two hours of selecting, deleting, re-adding and rebuilding to make it right.
Seems to rear it's ugly head where the roads crossed multiple tile boundries, like in the corner of a tile where the road crosses three tile boundries.
Here is a scrn shot near where the trouble occurred. A very busy tile with about 700 objects.
This is the Wilsmere Yard near Wilmington Delaware on the CSX.
Got about 35 track miles to go with scenery. Then comes (shudder) signals, mileposts, car spawners and speed limits.You may have noticed a smokestack in the middle of the tracks in the background, center track in the yard. I used this object as a temporary mile marker along the route. They will be removed when the real mileposts are installed.
Back to landscaping.Cal, were you able to recover from your crash?

Regards,
Vince Cockeram
NEC Track Team
http://hometown.aol.com/nectrackteam/main.html
E-Mail me at vcockeram@lvcm.com

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RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, Motley24Crue2, Oct-16-02, 11:32 PM, (1) RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, Vince, Oct-17-02, 07:57 PM, (2) RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, sniper297, Oct-17-02, 11:17 PM, (3) RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, Vince, Oct-18-02, 00:00 AM, (4) RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, CNfavorite, Oct-18-02, 12:33 PM, (5) RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, Vince, Oct-18-02, 02:41 PM, (6) RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, ACRHumanResources, Oct-20-02, 04:41 PM, (7) RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, Vince, Oct-20-02, 06:27 PM, (8) RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, ACRHumanResources, Oct-20-02, 06:39 PM, (9) RE: NECv4 Midlife (month?) Crisis, Vince, Oct-20-02, 07:46 PM, (10)

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looking good Vince now if only Microsoft was this Dedicated to there Slogan "As real as it gets"
Bob
Philadelphia, PaCurrent Project Northeast Corridor Philadelphia Subivision, Zoo Interlocking started

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Here is the exact spot that the remove_end_vector error happened.
The 4 lane road cut across three tiles here. I was placing the road, one section at a time, saving after each placement. Two days later when I ran a database rebuild, the vector error showed up, on this section and several other roads on the three tiles involved.Lesson learned: When placing roads or track across tile boundries like this, immediatly run a data base rebuild. . .OR; Try to avoid this situation by NOT placing roads/track in areas like this.
After recovering from the error you'll notice that I did not connect the road sections but hide the ends behind buildings so the car spawn spots wont be seen.

Regards,
Vince Cockeram
NEC Track Team
http://hometown.aol.com/nectrackteam/main.html
E-Mail me at vcockeram@lvcm.com

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"I normally do a track database rebuild about once a week", quick tip, there's nothing "normal" about a TDB rebuild, and it really don't do anything like keeping your TDB "clean and fresh" or anything else useful. Since it's an iffy proposition at best, rebuilding the TDB should only be done to fix a corrupted route. if you rebuild as a habit without any real reason, you're not preventing problems, only creating more potential for them.

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Well Jim, The reason I do this is so the potential end user that wants to hack the route he will have a baseline clean TDB rebuildable route to start with. Then if he (the user) adds some track or roads he knows that any problems he encounters are HIS errors and not mine. That way he can go back over his work and quickly find and fix the problem, not having to guess what the problem might be.
I have found the TDB rebuild to work very well, breaking things that aint broke like where that road section crossed the three tile boundry. These are 'potential' problems that may crash a route in the future if the're not rooted out early.

Regards,
Vince Cockeram
NEC Track Team
http://hometown.aol.com/nectrackteam/main.html
E-Mail me at vcockeram@lvcm.com

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Looking good Vince! And not to sound like bad guy now, but how 'visible' are these roads going to be when your actually in the cab and concentrating on boxcars and passenger trains? I'm like you too, and want to make everything as realistic as possible - but when I'm done, I hardly notice the 'close up' stuff as I'm driving, and the spawners and distant roads I may only catch a few seconds glimpse of? Looks like your connections are way off in the distance, and shouldn't be that noticable to a driver down in the yard, even using external views. My advice, try not to worry about it. Hey, looks 100x better than MS's Kalispell area that's for sure!

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-18-02 AT 02:41 PM (EDT)

In the beginning I was (very past tense) getting way too detailed with stuff that can't be seen from the players views. The route editor is like that in that it allows you to fly all around and it's very tempting to add scenery where you fly. After clogging up a few tile with useless scenery and killing frame rates I stopped doing that. Car spawners will be placed only where the player will see them during train operations. Ditto for scenery objects. I found that forest objects, which allow me to place may trees as only one object, should not be made too large as they are drawn as a single object. As the player moves along the path they 'pop' into view suddenly. Using several smaller forest objects makes the 'pop up' effect less noticeable.
I am still learning to balance good looking scenery and still get good frame rates.
At the road in question the actual short section where it crossed the 3 tiles was not visible but I was being lazy and layed a continious road as the sections to the north and south of this area do run alongside the tracks. Cutting out the bad section (dotted white line) and placing a few buildings hides the gap and the player will never notice. (unless he goes into the route editor)<<Hey, looks 100x better than MS's Kalispell area that's for sure!>>Ummm...Kalispell? Well it's sure different seeing as it's Wilmington Delaware.

Regards,
Vince Cockeram
NEC Track Team
http://hometown.aol.com/nectrackteam/main.html
E-Mail me at vcockeram@lvcm.com

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Are you planning on using ditch-dwarf signals on the route, like near major terminals for switching?Stuart D. Guberman
Human & Equipment Resouce Director
Atlantic Coastal Railway
http://www.atlanticrail.com

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<<Are you planning on using ditch-dwarf signals...>>Absolutly!! Signalmaster cooked me up a sig.dat file that incorporates the Amtrak gantry signals with his PPldwarf signal.
Now if I only convince him to add his CSX position light signals to the dat file. . . . .

Regards,
Vince Cockeram
NEC Track Team
http://hometown.aol.com/nectrackteam/main.html
E-Mail me at vcockeram@lvcm.com

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Cool...Do you have screenshots of the CSX PLS's?If NEC v4 is going to go to NY Penn Station, the signaling system is different than what was used in NEC v2. Hell, I haven't seen anything that resembles the "PRR" NY Penn signals here yet.Stuart D. Guberman
Human & Equipment Resouce Director
Atlantic Coastal Railway
http://www.atlanticrail.com

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-20-02 AT 07:47 PM (EDT)

<<Do you have screenshots of the CSX PLS's?>>Yes, many have been posted. Search the Route Developers forum Author: vince. Last three months. This will get you the last update reports I posted. Search the archives, same search argument, if you want to see more.Here's one though, the Big Boy crosses the Thomas Viaduct, southbound, at Saint Denis, Maryland.

Regards,
Vince Cockeram
NEC Track Team
http://hometown.aol.com/nectrackteam/main.html
E-Mail me at vcockeram@lvcm.com

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