I have been trying to develop an activity on the "Manuel Marias" and I have been adding things and playing to see how they playout. Then I go back and edit to improve but the "Activity Editor" does not seem to be saving my work. I can "save" or "save as" with same name or different name and under the original name the changes won't take effect and an activity of the new name won't show up in the activity files folder. Also when I open the activity in the "Activity Editor" it comes up with blank boxes in the "Player Service" and "Traffic Pattern" areas. I can drop down the list and find my "Player Service" and "Traffic Pattern" that I originally created and, in fact the first AI that I created does work in the game when played but a trip back to the "Activity Editor" and I get the blank boxes and I can't even change the amount of coal and water for my engine!! Although I have a long driver path: Shelby to Kalispel and back to Shelby I have not placed any loose consists yet and the trains are short (driver K36+1886 baggage+one 1886coach, AI K36+1886 baggage+3 1886 coach) and the AI paths are short (the one I have seen work comes from just outside of Shellby and another that doesn't seem to be working originates in a dead end siding in Cutbank). Do I need to delete and backfill my editor from my backup??
WIN XP Pro
AMD Athlon XP 2700+
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
1gig ram
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RE: I think the Antichrist has taken over my computer a, henry3, May-28-03, 12:22 PM, (1) RE: I think the Antichrist has taken over my computer a, CWA13000, May-28-03, 05:07 PM, (2) RE: I think the Antichrist has taken over my computer a, sniper297, May-29-03, 00:26 AM, (3) RE: I think the Antichrist has taken over my computer a, CWA13000, May-29-03, 11:19 PM, (4) RE: I think the Antichrist has taken over my computer a, CWA13000, May-30-03, 09:43 PM, (5) Coconut god beats the Antichrist!!!, sniper297, May-31-03, 03:45 AM, (6) RE: Coconut god beats the Antichrist!!!, CWA13000, May-31-03, 08:29 AM, (7) RE: Coconut god beats the Antichrist!!!, sniper297, May-31-03, 11:27 AM, (8) RE: Coconut god beats the Antichrist!!!, CWA13000, May-31-03, 12:22 PM, (9)
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Seriously, how do you think we "pioneers" found out this stuff? Same way you just did, the hard way!As far as activities and explore route, I found all that out the same way, trial and error. 10% trail and 90% error, with a lot of head scratching trying to figure out what was going on and why the AI behavior was so unpredictable.And that's the reason the program is coded the way it is, AI trains WILL run on a route with no signals and only manual switches, my son makes activities with AI trains on PO&N4 all the time, and there's not one signal or automatic switch on the whole route, that was all added in version 5. Of course my son is a 13 year old autistic, and his activities are all designed for Thomas and friends to deliberately crash into each other at high speed, so predictable control of the AI traffic is not a real high priority for him.If your goal is to NOT play chicken with them Kamikaze AI engineers, then you need some way to control what the AI train does in the activity, and so unchangeable switches and absolute signals are a must. The AI dispatcher (HAL9000) WILL set a manual switch for an AI train's path, but once he sets it he forgets it, and if the player comes along and changes that switch in between the time it's set and the AI train arrives, the AI train will stop dead and never move again if it's a trailing point switch, or veer off the path if it's a facing point switch, second star on the right and straight on til morning to never-never land.So you actually think of it this way, there's no AI traffic in explore mode, therefore no reason to lock the player out of changing switches since he can't trash the traffic pattern since there is none, so automatic switches have that restriction removed in explore mode.My first solution was to do without AI traffic, so the entire route was set up with no signals and only manual switches, then I could do freestyle activities with loose consists everywhere and go anywhere I wanted. Once I had that, I kept trying to incorporate AI traffic, and the solution there was two different routes on the same route, one for AI traffic and one for the player. At first that was just a parallel track, the AI train ran alongside the player train but they never crossed or shared trackage anywhere. Eventually I noticed that the player could run thru any automatic switch on the straight track, since auto switches default to straight unless there's an active path thru the curve, so the merge/diverge with the AI train always "take other exit" and going thru the curve to enter and leave the shared single track sections. Signals then become another nightmare, the player can't go thru absolutes without a defined path, and the AI trains won't stop for permissives. Took almost a year of fiddling around to figure all that out, and since the AI train has to take priority how do you let the player know the switch is about to change in his face?!