86 the signals

Well, here's a new one. Hank and I have been kicking PO&N7 back and forth, having a problem with the new signals going dark. Hank said after replacing a BNSF signal with one of his new ones and not being able to get it to light up, he put a standard BNSF signal back in that spot and THAT wouldn't light up either!
So, thinking I would start from scratch, I opened up the RE and spent the day deleting every last signal on the PO&N. Looked in the activity editor to chase down the last ones, and after finally eliminating all the strays I opened the .tit and .tdb files in wordpad. Surprise, surprise, instead of deleting the entrys and reorginizing them, the blasted thing replaces deleted objects in both the tit and tdb files with entries like;EmptyItem (
TrItemId ( 138 )
)As if that's not bad enough, I double and triple checked to make absolutely certain that there are NO signals anywhere on the route, and there are still no less than 86 Signal Item entries listing the BNSF lights that are no longer there.What I would do at this point is delete the tdb and rebuild it, but it won't rebuild properly due to the oddball track configuration. The other option is to manually edit both the tit and tdb files, but I'd have to either replace all 86 signal entries with "EmptyItem (" entries with the proper numbers, or renumber all the existing stuff sequentially.Is it any wonder people get disgusted with this stuff and go play with Trainz? I strongly suspect that's the problem with the new signals, yet another MSTS bug don't completely remove all traces of the previous ones.OK, rant over, back to work. Man, this gets tedious. Are we having fun yet?

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RE: 86 the signals., lnghairedwizard, Apr-23-03, 01:33 AM, (1) RE: 86 the signals., Kip, Apr-23-03, 02:37 AM, (2) RE: 86 the signals., sniper297, Apr-23-03, 09:48 AM, (3) RE: 86 the signals., Signalmaster, Apr-23-03, 04:22 PM, (5) RE: 86 the signals., dvdhoven, Apr-23-03, 12:54 PM, (4) RE: 86 the signals., sniper297, Apr-23-03, 06:17 PM, (6) RE: 86 the signals., bobs, Apr-23-03, 06:57 PM, (7) RE: 86 the signals., sniper297, Apr-23-03, 09:05 PM, (8) RE: 86 the signals., bobs, Apr-24-03, 12:35 PM, (11) RE: 86 the signals., CPR_Malice_96th, Apr-24-03, 10:00 AM, (9) RE: 86 the signals., sniper297, Apr-24-03, 11:35 AM, (10)

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I see Microsoft/Kujo has a new public relations minister....heheOr has he been it all along????...hmmmmLonghairedwizard

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You know Jim, funny you should bring this up. The very thing you posted happened to me when I was upgrading Hoodoo Pass from 1.5 beta to 2.0. I decided to change the signals (Hank's) to another type (also Hank's). I started at the begining of the route (near the start tile) and started deleting signals, saving, deleted signals, saving...blah, blah. Once I was finished I was getting this error on a rouge signal that wasn' there when I tried to delete a switch that obviously had a switch nearby. I tried the TDB rebuild and that seemed to work, but...at another switch I was getting another ghost signal because the switch wouldn't delete unless I deleted this "signal".I am not a astute in the file code itself, however I do understand it's basics...I think anyway. I deleted the route folder and copied my backup and for some reason I deleted all the signals (as best my memory could recollect) in reverse order and kept saving along the way. No more errors or rogue signals in the files. Now...I'm not saying this is the solution, but it did indeed work for me. From then on I deleted signals in reverse order. Maybe that will work...I don't know. It's just that the problem you described was exactly like mine once.???Kip

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Yeah, that's probably the main reason it's doing it. Due to the screwy "logic" in the KUJU signalling system, I first placed a minimum number of signals, playtest, fail, place more signals between signals to get the other signals to behave properly, try again, on and on. Consequently I can't delete them in the reverse order that I placed them, since the order leapfrogged all over the place. Place signals at each end of a passing siding, works fine going in one direction, but not in the opposite direction. So add a "spacer" signal or two for no other purpose but to get the actual control signals to behave the way they're supposed to, then THAT works as long as the player keeps to a predictable schedule. He's a few minutes late or early, one AI train ignores a red signal and rams into the back of another one, or stops mysteriously in a place where there's no traffic conflict, so more spacer signals have to be added. That's why PO&N5 & 6 had so many signals in places where there was no real need for a signal, most of the BNSF interval signals and Hank's Dwarf signals were added for no other reason than to get the signals at the junctions to display what they were supposed to display.This is probably not related to the light limit bug, since the problem shows up in the RE as well as the sim. Yesterday I did a test setup with a grand total of 15 signals, everything worked OK. I opened the RE today, and all 5 of the interlockings have gone dark.

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JimYou stripped all the signals then placed a few new ones and they're still coming up dark? Crum.I tried something else, a database rebuild hoping the route would survive but it didn't. Opening the route would give bad signal warnings all over the place. Not all, but too many. Curious, though, is you could go to the coordinates listed and there might be no signal there. Or sometimes the signal might be there but no red marker. So now the route just sits in a smoldering pile.Do you think the rail texture overlay might be fowling things up?Hank

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>Is it any wonder people get disgusted with this stuff and go
>play with Trainz?
Slightly off topic, I know, but I can't resist.
Trainz has its quircks too! When you visit the Trainz board at Auran regularly, you will find it out.
And the signals of Trainz are a way off the reality. MSTS has a better signalling system.
But the signals at Auran have one advantage. In the scripting language, you can set them to a color!
Here is such a command:
Navigate.SetSignal ("sv3", Signal.YELLOW, "");Dick van den Hoven

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Hey, Dick, wassup'? I tried the Trainz demo once, seemed to be even slower and jerkier than equivalently detailed trainsim, didn't notice if there were even any signals in it.Well, I dunno, Hank, I hooked these signals up IAW your bitmap:Only two items on that; I didn't find a "PO&N2 head facing point" signal, but I assumed the "PO&N2 head facing point home" signal was the same thing, so I used that. The other thing was the 2head interlocking, the destructions say;Uncheck Normal
Check Medium Speed
Check Fixed RedI did all that, but nothing about linking? Assuming you left that out, I selected "link head 2", presuming head two is the bottom one, since the top one is "check fixed red", whatever that does.The bad news is in the route editor the interlockings are always blank, the good news is so far (with only 5 placed) they work in the sim. Whether they're displaying the correct indications or not is open to conjecture (since I'm not 100% clear on what they're supposed to display), but so far they're controlling the AI traffic OK. I've only tested in one direction, starting at spawn1 and disappearing at Northland Grain #2.The really good news is the linkages, here's what I got:Three signals at each junction, plus the Last Chance distant switch indicator. So far with the direction of traffic I've tried, with a train spawning every 5 minutes, there's never more than a 3 minute wait at a red signal, and it turns from approach to clear within 5 minutes following. I don't fully understand how these things work (which is why you're the SignalMaster and I'm not! ), but it appears to me that even without the lighted switchstands in place yet, the signal indications don't seem to be affected by the position of assorted manual switches between the auto switches. If I have to use any spacer signals at all, it won't be anywhere near the ridiculous number I've been living with.The only improvement I could wish for would be the Last Chance signal ought to be more visible, and maybe more attention getting. Like the fast (1/4 second) flashing red I got on V6 for the distant signals, and maybe a larger head? The important thing is that it's the last thing the player should be checking as he clears the base of the switch going onto single track, in case HAL picked that moment to throw the far switch, so if it suddenly turns red it's the one signal that should really grab his attention.

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-23-03 AT 07:01 PM (EDT)

The signals are stored in two places in the sim. One, as you found, is the .tdb file. There you will find one SignalItem entry for each signal HEAD. Each of these has a unique TrackItemID. These IDs are sequentially assigned in the .tdb, so when you remove something, it is replaced with an EmptyItem of the same number. Here's an example from within Marias Pass 3.1. Note the red values...those represent the tile number where this signal head exists.
SignalItem (
TrItemId ( 63 )
TrItemSData ( 6.57024 00000002 )
TrItemRData ( 341.739 1481.11 48.2736 -12538 14772 )
TrSignalType ( 00000001 1 0.278817 MPA13Color )
TrSignalDirs ( 1
TrSignalDir ( 180 1 1 0 )
)
In the world file for that same tile is the following entry:
Signal (
UiD ( 50162 )
FileName ( MPsigdblabs.s )
Position ( 338.199 1481.100 49.429 )
QDirection ( 0 0.984993 0 0.172593 )
VDbId ( 4294967295 )
StaticDetailLevel ( 0 )
SignalSubObj ( 00000003 )
SignalUnits ( 2
SignalUnit ( 0
TrItemId ( 0 63 )
)
SignalUnit ( 1
TrItemId ( 0 2294 )
)
)
)
Note the SignalUnit parameter for TrItemID 63. This ties the signal shape in the world file back to the track database. Note that the second head on this signal has a TrItemID of 2294, which would be found much further down in the .tdb file. When you are deleting signals, sometimes the editor will burp and not get all of the parts out of both places perhaps leading to the problem you were having.This also helps explain why you can't simply scan and replace signal head values in a .tdb file if you want to change signal types. The .tdb and world files must be in synch or you are toast. I've manually edited both files to get rid of odds and ends signal parts successfully, but you have to be really, really careful. There are also references to the TritemID in the Track Nodes part of the .tdb that you would have to remove if you manually took out signal parts.Bob Siederer
Co-author of Marias Pass 3.1

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Yeah, that's why I didn't want to go into manually editing the little bugger, I'd have to change the numbers in every single entry to reorder them after deleting the 86 signal entries, and then either remove all the sidings & platforms and delete the .tit, or edit the .tit file to match all the numbers in the .tdb. And, of course, change every single number in the .w files to match the ones in the \World files. Assuming, that is, that the sim is actually looking for sequential numbers, don't seem to bother that there are missing numbers in the .w files. Of course, since the track database itself is taken from the tit, tdb, and tsection.dat, it's probable that the numbers are much more critical.
I suppose I could try opening PO&N6 in the RE again, and save after each and every single object deletion, but I think I'll play with what I got to see if it's gonna be a problem before I get THAT tedious. It only worries me because, as you said, there are about 600 EmptyItem entries in both files, and then these 86 signal item entries. I looked at the portogden6.tit and the portogden7.tit, and none of the values for the signals that were left in had changed;SignalItem (
TrItemId ( 15 )
TrItemSData ( 21.2227 00000012 )
TrSignalType ( 00000001 0 -9999 BNSF3Light )
)Again, none of these signals are in the .w files (I checked all 24), and they do not show up on the track monitor. Possibly I'm worrying about it unnecessarily, who knows.The odd thing is that when the 2 head interlockings are placed, they're lit up;After saving, exiting, and opening the RE again all the new interlockings are as dark as the old ones;But they work fine in the sim (Knock on wood) so far.So I dunno, it's one of those things where you might waste a lot of time by trying to fix it before going on, or waste a lot of time by going on and then finding out the hard way you shoulda fixed it first.Trainz anyone?

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I once had a problem in MP at the Essex crossover. It turns out that a tile boundry runs right through the middle of the crossover. I deleted the switches, saying "yes" to allow the links to be broken, and deleted the signals. That's when the fun started as the sim seemed to mess up with the fact that the parts were in more than one tile.The end result was an orphaned signal head that couldn't be seen, but that would show up on the track monitor and would stop an activity if you ran by it.If I was facing this problem, I think I'd take the time to edit out the extra .tdb entries and replace them with empty entries, find them in the node entries, and remove them there too, not forgetting to reduce the item count in the node entries. It just seems safer that way and might prevent problems later on.Bob Siederer
Co-author of Marias Pass 3.1

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Jim..............That picture could be one of the funniest things I've seen here yet !!LaterTim Kent
96th_Malice
" Power for You "

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Well, with Saddam gone the guy is out of a job, maybe he can work for Microsoft. They desperately need a new PR department, seems like the whole gang joined a monestary and took a vow of silence right after DOS 4.0 came out. Prior to that they used to actually communicate with their customers, acknowledging mis\*.*takes on bulletin boards, with estimated patch dates. These days you'd never know there was a problem with anything by reading their official websites, nothing but propaganda.Some idiots flame people for flaming Microsoft, but the problem with them isn't their screwing up, it's their attitude. I don't hate software companies for releasing buggy software, I hate them for selling buggy software and then sitting in their ivory tower pretending it's not buggy.

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