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"Waiting points, they work!!!"

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seern (231 posts)
May-04-02, 10:46 AM (EDT) "Waiting points, they work!!!" There has been a lot posted in the past about using waiting points in activities. The impression that I have gotten reading all this material is that though they show up in the 2D player as set, in the 'real' 3D world of the sim, they don't function. Well in the experience that I just had in an activity that I am designing, they do work! I had a AI train ahead of the player train and specified that the AI train come to a signal then wait for a specified time so the player train could run around it. Well when I approached this point and saw the tail of that AI train I let out a woop for joy. It WORKS!!!Sharon Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Waiting points, they work!!! Smokewraith May-05-02 1 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! lnghairedwizard May-05-02 2 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! seern May-06-02 3 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! lnghairedwizard May-06-02 4 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! henry3 May-06-02 5 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! rgarber May-21-02 8 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! stationmaster May-08-02 6 RE: Waiting points - AHA! :) biggg1fan May-21-02 7 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! cdntrains May-21-02 9 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! seern May-21-02 10 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! cdntrains May-22-02 11 RE: Waiting points, they work!!! KeltikSylk May-30-02 12

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Smokewraith (220 posts)
May-05-02, 10:00 PM (EDT) 1. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" I'm surprised noones replied to this yet! I've only made one activity for myself and from reading earlier posts I opted out of using waiting points, guess i'll give it a try now. Thanks!Bill
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lnghairedwizard (856 posts)
May-05-02, 11:50 PM (EDT) 2. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" I too, have noticed that the waiting point will work on an AI train. Unfortunately you cannot not set a waiting time in seconds as the AE will reset it (to 0) once you exit the activitiy editor. This is, however, very usefull when you want a passemger train to make an unsheduled stop at a point other than a station. Also, you can place several waiting points in a row (in conjunction with reverse points) to similate the stop, reverse, stop , go, stop, forward etc....of a long freight train performing switching duties (we've all seen this at a crossing before and we all usually complain about why in the hell the damn engineer is stopping, backing, pulling forward again, backing some more.... etc. when we are in a hurry!!!...LOL)They can also be used to delay a AI train to better schedule a meet. This can be tricky, however, because when you use a waiting point withing a siding to say....delay an AI train to create a rolling meet with the player train as opposed to the player train finding the AI train "already" at the end of the siding, then that waiting point "Might" cause a deadlock between the player and AI trains....As usual, its a matter of trial & error!!!Longhairedwizard Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
seern (231 posts)
May-06-02, 00:49 AM (EDT) 3. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" Well Longhairedwizard, as I noted in my initial post, I set a wait point of 1800 seconds for the AI train to hold at Eldon in KHP route. The player train came up behind the AI train about 15 minutes after it should have gotten to the east switch at Eldon and there was the AI train waiting on the main so that the player train could pass. Now you said, I believe, that the AE reset the seconds set to 0 on exiting. Yet my experience is that the set amount was there in the 'real' world of the sim.Sharon
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lnghairedwizard (856 posts)
May-06-02, 02:31 AM (EDT) 4. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" I'm basing my opinion on that of others and my own experience. On an early version of the Hoboken shore route, The player train is travelling say...south...and there are some track that curve from the right to connect with the southbound tracks. I had set a waiting point with 500 seconds on it for the AI train to stop on. when I played the activity in the sim, I proceeded slowly to see how the AI would behave. It slowed upon approaching the waiting point, came to a complete stop, then immediately started to accelerate/proceed. All this was visually observed, but with the eccentricities of the MSTS editor utilities, I do not doubt that you were successful in getting the AI train to wait for the prescribed Number of seconds. Hopefully in the MSTS 2, they will incorporate a Priority system where a train (player or AI) recieves a priority number so the AI dispatcher can route the highest priority trains accordingly.Longhairedwizard Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
henry3 (810 posts)
May-06-02, 01:36 PM (EDT) 5. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" I have run into the phenomenon where waiting points work in the actual sim *some* of the time. The problem that I ran into was when I packaged the activity for a test distribution, the waiting points wouldn't work in the unpacked version. In addition, when I tweaked the activity to correct a problem, then the miserable thing stopped working completely.I was never able to figure out why this was happening and eventually abandoned using them. If you've found a way to get waiting points to work consistently other than for quick stops, that would be a nice addition (correction?) to MSTS.Henry Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
rgarber (1716 posts)
May-21-02, 12:05 PM (EDT) 8. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" I don't mean to sound contradictory on this but here's the thing. A number of us have tried to get waiting points to work and have had no success. Seern, if you have a waiting point that works post the path file contents or abbreviate it to where the waiting point number is and then we can see how its stored. Our previous information as to how the waiting point info may be wrong and this may shed some light on it. On the other hand, also note that there are times when the AE vcr playback is quite accurate and times when it is very inaccurate. It maybe that you're seeing 'something' that effected the timing of the AI train but not a waiting point. What will help us is seeing how that waiting point is stored in the path file.Just trying to help on this.Rich Garber Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
stationmaster (509 posts)
May-08-02, 03:49 PM (EDT) 6. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" I'd really like to look into the files of an activity that has working wait points so I hope you upload it. I had come to the conclusion that the feature did not work at all.Ron Paludan
http://www.railwaystation.com Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
biggg1fan (49 posts)
May-21-02, 10:19 AM (EDT) 7. "RE: Waiting points - AHA! :) " I've been having problems getting waiting points to work like everybody else. However, I tried something different with them in a new activity; I put the waiting point at a signal at the end of a passing siding in the NEC.Bingo! While playing the activity, I got "red-flagged" at the signal and had to wait. Thrilled, I went back to the AE, and ran the activity with the signals enabled. Sure enough, I watched the main line signal turn green as the passing train approached it. The only problem is that the passing siding signal NEVER turned green again.Here's my summary of waiting points from everything I've seen/heard/surmised:1 )They work, but you need to put them at a signal in a passing area.2) They need to be placed so that the entire train will be off the through or passing track.3) They are only good for AI trains - If you put a player train "in the hole", the signal will NEVER reset.Would somebody else try this, so we can generalize it?Derek
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cdntrains (20 posts)
May-21-02, 02:23 PM (EDT) 9. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" I have tried making many activities on MP30, and some on some other routes but I keep getting the waiting time reset to 0 after exiting AE. For MP30, I've gone so far as changing all the manual switches (partly because of the stalemates as well). I have always found problems with manual switches on the mainlines. But changing all the switches on the mainline did not get the waiting points to work. (I was just curious to see if manual switches and waiting points had anything to do with each other. Even though I know that the AI dispatcher does not "think" that waiting points have anything to do with passing.) In the 2D AE preview my AI trains have always shown that they have cleared the passing track where I want them to wait, but when I get there they have long gone (possibly as said before, because the 2D AE preview can be grossly inaccurate and I find I sometimes I have to reboot the AE to try and get accurate train schedules). And like one of you said above, you caught your AI train slowing down, stopped, but kept going (possibly because of the 0 second waiting point that the AE seems to love to default!!).Oh, and just wondering, are any of you trying to use passing paths with these waiting points? I have tried and tried again to get those working and to no avail. All I am using are extra long waiting points, say at a station (for an hours rest so passengers can stretch), (instead of using the "stop at a station" in the service editor), such that my freight can pass by no problem. But is the AE set such that the AI dispatcher will never let a freight pass a passenger, even if the passenger is waiting there for 10 hours!? grrrrrr. Well, I may have to go back to static consists. But as others have requested, Sharon, please show us how you came to get the waiting points to work, or if that wasn't the case, how you got your train to pass an AI one.Thanks a lot, cdntrains
"must be trains in the blood"
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seern (231 posts)
May-21-02, 07:41 PM (EDT) 10. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" What I have noted so far is this, that at least 2 things affect how waiting points work. 1. As biggg1fan noted, the wait point has to be close to the signal where the AI train would expect to have a red, and 2. as I noted in this thread http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID7/926.html the AI train has to be on the main, with the player train passing via the siding. Even with these two things in place it doesn't always work. I say again, we all need the services of a wizard to get this thing right.Sharon Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
cdntrains (20 posts)
May-22-02, 00:21 AM (EDT) 11. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" Absolutely! And it's just another problem to be solved and added to the MSTS2 wish list..But thanks for the tips. At least I have some more info to go on while I test it out.. cdntrains
"must be trains in the blood"
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KeltikSylk (21 posts)
May-30-02, 08:22 PM (EDT) 12. "RE: Waiting points, they work!!!" While I haven't tried to use waiting points yet I have had similar scenario...I created my first activity with Mariahs Pass using nothing but 4-4-0s and Moguls. There were a number of AI trains in both directions. in 15 to 30 minute intervals for about 4 hours.The first run though I had trouble starting off from Whitefish. Just before my screen crashed from a bug I was experiencing I saw another train appraoching from the opposite direction. With the screen gone white I had to reboot and try again...Next run saw no other trains before the screen went blank.I get the screen bug fixed by reinstalling MSTS. I run the activity again. I run for awhile but miss a signal and it's over...No trains ever show up. I run again...This time I catch the signal...Feeling quite proud of myself I wait for the "all clear"...It never comes...Hours go by on the clock, literally. I stopped for the signal towards 7:00 AM. It's towards nine and still not clear...(Mind you I'm not sitting at the computer all this time, but the signal does not go green)So I break the rules and proceed cautiously...Trouble is the 4-4-0 has trouble pulling the short local (three coaches, a cattle car and drovers cabboose) up the grade. I back down to the level, pour on the sand and take the hill again. Still run out of smoke and end up drivers spinning as the train rolls backward. After a few more tries I give up...No other trains meet or pass me the entire time.I have a feeling the AI trains get stuck too. I guess I'll have to get into more detail and use waiting points so I can attach helpers.Either that or move into the 20th Century and bigger locomotives Frank Musick
Lehigh & Atlantic Railway, Canal Navigation Company
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