I Created A Mod/software To Directly Control In Game Trains Using A Joystick (no Raildriver)

You are correct about the about setting steps /notches, the value is now steady although the levers do jitter a little still but Im not looking at them mostly. Yeah with smoothing you will lose a little bit of accuracy as a trade off, maybe a slider that can increase / decrease sensitivity but I understand if this is not an issue for others I dont expect you to spend any time on that.

Using the second profile did work but it comes with issues for me at least, because I have pulled the internals out and installed them in different casings if I want to invert a control I need to it in the individual profile rather than the calibration profile which is fine really but just one of those thing's you notice.

The real issue for me is the Arduino button box, because you can only calibrate one and it saves it to both I dont think it would work for my setup. The button box has 8 toggle switches, 16 momentary switches, 2 5pos rotary switches, and 2 latching switches, one of these is an led that lights up when latched. It uses one Arduino Mega which converts to 2 devices in Windows but when calibrating in your program it saves the first calibration to both devices, I dont think I would bother setting up different profiles for this unless it was maybe in sync mode and the profile being generic for all trains.

Again these are really only problems for me and I dont expect you to change the world for me, if no one else is having the issues I will happily work around them.

 

Has anyone got the _{SIDE} option to work, I have tried on 2 locos (the Arosa GE 4/4 and the Liberac Class 843) but neither seem to want to work, it appears to operate the controls in the other end still. Probably Im doing something wrong, any suggestions from people who have got it to work?

EDIT: I have found the {SIDE:1:2} needed for the Czech locos in the documentation, I missed this on the first read through. I havent checked if it works when switching ends but I definitely couldnt get it to work for the Arosa GE 4/4 which uses the _F and _B nomenclature.

 

Hi Liah

I know Im being painful for here and I apologize but could you please look at the below code, Im trying to implement code that does a stepped notch throttle lever with the last notch being held as per a previous post in this thread but Im doing something wrong as the profile will not show up. Usually when this happens I have left a comma out somewhere but I have spent some time trying to spot where I have gone wrong and I think the issue might be more than an errant comma.

Code:

{
    "name": "Liberec843",
    "controls": [
        {
            "name": "Throttle",
            "assignments": [
                {
                    "conditions": [{"control": "Throttle", "operator": "lte", "value": 1.1}],
                    "type": "direct_control",
                    "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                    "input_value": {
                        "min": -3,
                        "max": 1,
                        "steps": 1                   
                    },
                    "enable_api_fallback": true
                },
                {
                    "conditions": [{"control": "Throttle", "operator": "gt", "value": 1.1}],
                    "type": "momentary",
                    "threshold": 1.2,
                    "action_activate": {
                        "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                        "value": 2,
                        "hold": true
                    },
                    "action_deactivate": {
                        "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                        "value": 1
                    },
                    "enable_api_fallback": true
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "LocoBrake",
            "assignments": [
                {
                    "type": "direct_control",
                    "controls": "EngineBrakeLeverCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                    "input_value": {
                        "min": -2,
                        "max": 2,
                        "step": 1
                    },
                    "enable_api_fallback": true
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "Reverser",
            "assignments": [
                {
                    "type": "direct_control",
                    "controls": "ReverserCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                    "input_value": {
                        "min": -1,
                        "max": 2,
                        "step": 1
                    },
                    "enable_api_fallback": true
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Any help greatly appreciated

 

Glad you found the problem with the Czech loco; that one for some reason is the only one ever to not use _F and _R

For the GE4-4 I actually used the {SIDE} for it in the example ge4_4.tswprofile
https://github.com/LiahMartens/tsw-controller-app/blob/main/shared-profiles/ge4_4.tswprofile
Does that one not work?

 

No problem at all;

I believe the problem is your conditions; the physical control values are always normalized to a [0:1] range (or [-1:0:1] when using a more complex centered set-up)

This essentially translates to a engagement percentage; ie: if your physical lever is roughly in the middle it should report 0.5

This means your conditions should be something more like

Code:

          "conditions": [
            { "control": "Throttle", "operator": "lte", "value": 0.9 }
          ],

and

Code:

          "conditions": [
            { "control": "Throttle", "operator": "gt", "value": 0.9 }
          ],

You can always use the "Calibration > Inspect" functionality to check the actual values being reported by each physical control as you interact with them

 

I will double check again against your example profile and test, when I did try it out it seemed it was operating the other cab controls still but I will test again

Of course that makes sense, I will fix all that up but would that prevent the profile from displaying in the drop down list or is that another issue?

 

Ha no that's because you have `"steps": 1` but the `"steps"` key is only for providing a list of steps; if you want to let it figure out the steps on it's own using the number you just provide `"step"`

You can always check by using the `Import profile` button and import the profile from the UI (you would need to change the extension of your file to `.tswprofile`) that way you can get feedback on why it might not be loading

 

FYI Currently implementing calibration by unique device ID option

 

Wow that is so cool, thanks a heap for looking into that.

Yeah I went through line by line and managed to spot that one, i did have set steps at one point while trying things out and forgot to put it back. I didnt realize you could try to import and it would flag errors, that is really helpful. I have now managed to get the throttle on the 843 to hold when it it is at maximum so I feel I have the know how to implement custom levers for almost any situation, this is really exciting!

 

Hi Liah,

Can you please help me install my TSC-X on Fedora 44. I must say I am kind of a noob and also tried to use AI to work around my issues, but I am really stuck here.

So, I have installed tswcontrollerapp, calibrated my TSC-X, applied all the settings in Steam for the controller, but there is no cab debugging happening at all. And I couldnt find a log file as well. Could you please point me towards some directions to check?

Thanks in advance

Kind regards

 

So I do have Train Simulator Classic working with the Cab debugger. But TSW6 just won't work. And I don't get it why it isn't working.

 

hm TSC and TSW use the same connection pattern; I assume you installed the TSW mod?
If you go to the mod install location can you find a file called UE4SS.log in the ue4ss_tsw_controller_mod directory next to the TSW binary location?

You can send me those logs + the logs from the tswcontrollerapp itself (go the the logs tab) and click "Save logs" - both logs together might give me a better idea

 

New release is available with an added option in the calibration dialog to enable calibrating by unique device ID - you can try it out; just note that if you're calibrating devices by their unique device ID all devices which share that same Vendor and Product ID should be configured with their unique ID instead of the normal ID to make sure they don't pollute each other

 

Just installed and had a quick look, where I had 2 Arduinos connected before I now only have 1 but it appears all buttons across both are responding, is this how it is intended to work, like it merges both controllers into 1? The 2 throttle quadrants are still appearing under the previous profiles but I will be able to have a more in depth play tomorrow when I remove the existing profiles and recalibrate.

Thanks again for taking the time and looking at this

EDIT: It looks like it is not merging both controllers, with the new update Im only getting one controller show up instead of 2 as mentioned previously but it doesnt give me separate button inputs if the buttons are the same number. This is with both the new option ticked and unticked, the behavior is the same, I presume the controllers should still show up separately?

 

Okay, so the placement of the Mod was totally wrong. I finally got it to work.

Edited two downloaded profiles because they were missing a lot of buttons and the auto select feature. I love it. Thanks for the awesome tool.

 

Looks like the underlying system SDL library is not reporting unique GUIDs for identical VIDPID devices - will have a look

You can downgrade back down to 1.14.3 for now if you need to

 

All good, for myself using the vJoy setup it behaves as the previous version did but for others in the same boat it might cause issues.

Also quickly, is there a way to string to conditions together as in 'A gt X and lt Y', sorry if I have missed it in the documentation somewhere.

 

Yea you can specify multiple conditions; you can just add another one in the list. They will always behave as "and"

 

Can you try the 1.16 version?

 

So far this one has worked a treat, I now have both Quadrants working natively and calibrated uniquely. This is a huge advancement and I can not thank you enough. Now I just need to improve my coding because it is obvious I have no idea what Im doing

 

Im trying to code the CD843 throttle but Im not having much luck, I can get 1 to hold its value (2) the below code but nothing I try will get 0.4 to hold its value.

Ideally the throttle will go like this from 0 to 1
0 - Emergency Brake (-3)
0.2 - Pneumatic Brake (-2)
0.4 - Electric Brake (-1) -Spring position reverting to 0.6 (0)
0.6 - Neutral (0)
0.8 - Positive amp hold / negative amp reduce (1)
1 - Positive amp increase (2) -Spring position reverting to 0.8 (1)

Code:

        
        {
            "name": "Throttle",
            "assignments": [
                {
                    "conditions": [{"control": "Throttle", "operator": "lte", "value": 0.8}],
                    "type": "direct_control",
                    "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                    "input_value": {
                        "min": -3,
                        "max": 2,
                        "step": 1
                    },
                    "enable_api_fallback": true
                },
                {
                    "conditions": [{"control": "Throttle", "operator": "gt", "value": 0.95}],
                    "type": "momentary",
                    "threshold": 0.96,
                    "action_activate": {
                        "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                        "value": 2,
                        "hold": true
                    },
                    "action_deactivate": {
                        "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                        "value": 1
                    },
                    "enable_api_fallback": true
                }
            ]
       }

I have tried different conditions to try and get 0.4 to hold its value but it always springs back, once I was able to get it to work but it would only work in one direction, it would be really cool if you could just specify the 'Steps' with say a 'Hold' function and that step held its value until the throttle was moved again.

Sorry to be a pain, I realize this is a really niche case throttle but I feel if I can crack this one then any throttle is possible

 

Yea for more complex lever assignments where you want to specifically manually control each step you would probably be looking at a linear assignment type instead.

The below worked on my CD 843

Code:

{
  "name": "Liberec843",
  "controls": [
    {
      "name": "Lever3",
      "assignments": [
        {
          "type": "linear",
          "thresholds": [
            {
              "value": 0.2,
              "action_deactivate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": -3
              },
              "action_activate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": -2,
                "hold": true
              }
            },
            {
              "value": 0.4,
              "action_deactivate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": -2,
                "hold": true
              },
              "action_activate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": -1,
                "hold": true
              }
            },
            {
              "value": 0.6,
              "action_deactivate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": -1,
                "hold": true
              },
              "action_activate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": 0
              }
            },
            {
              "value": 0.8,
              "action_deactivate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": 0
              },
              "action_activate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": 1
              }
            },
            {
              "value": 0.99,
              "action_deactivate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": 1
              },
              "action_activate": {
                "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
                "value": 2,
                "hold": true
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

ALTHOUGH here since most notches need to be held - you can probably just make this a simple hold direct control
assignment

Code:

{
  "$schema": "https://tsw-controller-app.vercel.app/profile-builder/schema.json",
  "name": "Liberec843",
  "controls": [
    {
      "name": "Lever3",
      "assignments": [
        {
          "type": "direct_control",
          "hold": true,
          "controls": "ThrottleAndBrakeCab_{SIDE:1:2}",
          "input_value": {
            "min": -3,
            "max": 2,
            "steps": [-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2],
            "step_thresholds": [
              { "threshold": 0 },
              { "threshold": 0.2 },
              { "threshold": 0.4 },
              { "threshold": 0.6 },
              { "threshold": 0.8 },
              { "threshold": 1.0 }
            ]
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Also remember you can always refer to the profile builder
https://tsw-controller-app.vercel.app/profile-builder

And the profile explainer
https://tsw-controller-app.vercel.app/docs/profile-explainer

 

Oh my, that is elegantly simple and here I was trying all sorts of complex stuff. Thank you for putting that together, I am going to have a go at applying it to the Direct Brake now

 

Good to hear!

 

Hi Liah

The last 2 updates seem to want me to recalibrate some of my controllers, reinstalling to 1.16.0 solves the issue but wondering if it has something to do with the same id controllers, I dont really want to recalibrate if I dont have to as its about 40 buttons / switches, I was wondering if there would be a way to manually edit the existing calibration files to (I presume) updated formats.

Thanks

 

Yea it's probably because of the unique ID identifier not being 100% stable; what you can do is start the calibration but don't enter anything and save an empty file; then you will be able to find the unique calibration ID in those new files and copy that into the old files; sorry for the disruption

(and remove the empty files afterwards)

 

Thanks Liah that seems to have done the trick and no need to apologize at all for implementing a feature that I myself requested.

 

I will be adding the unique ID in the UI in a future release so it's easier to copy the uniquely identified ID

 

The unique ID willl now be displayed in the UI for your convenience (1.17.1)

 

Sorry for another question.

I am trying to program the BR612. At the top of the throttle range the lever in the cab is held in position to increase the amount of power and then it spring loads back to the position below maximum (so it is held at 1.00000 to increase power and springs back to 0.85 once you stop pressing the A key which then stops adding power). Using your fantastic software, if you move the TSC-X lever to maximum up position the lever in the train momentarily goes to maximum and automatically returns to the position below it (even though the TSC-X controller is still at maximum position. I can't work out how to keep the lever in the cab at maximum and so add power. The same problem exists at the bottom of the lever travel.

 

You'd have to enable position holding for the assignment; you could do this for the whole direct control assignment or create conditional assignments but that's more complex.



Below is an example of each

Code:

{
  "name": "Examples",
  "controls": [
    {
      "name": "HoldDirectControlExample",
      "assignments": [
        {
          "type": "direct_control",
          "controls": "throttle",
          "input_value": {
            "min": 0,
            "max": 1
          },
          "hold": true
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "ConditionAssignmentsExample",
      "assignments": [
        {
          "type": "direct_control",
          "controls": "throttle",
          "input_value": {
            "min": 0,
            "max": 1
          },
          "conditions": [
            {
              "control": "ConditionAssignmentsExample",
              "operator": "lte",
              "value": 0.9
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "type": "direct_control",
          "controls": "throttle",
          "input_value": {
            "min": 1,
            "max": 1
          },
          "hold": true,
          "conditions": [
            {
              "control": "ConditionAssignmentsExample",
              "operator": "gt",
              "value": 0.9
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

 

Has anyone else noticed that the hold function wont let you complete tasks in scenarios sometimes, specially related to lever movements.

It might say 'Release the Train Brake' but if it has a hold function in it the task will not complete, I usually get out of the chair and operate the control with the mouse if this happens, not sure if there is another work around for this or not.

Never is really an issue with Timetable services as they dont really require you top complete so specific tasks

 

mmh that's interesting; I guess it's because holding requires never releasing the internal control because it's meant for holding down levers that have an automatic spring back.

This would only be fixable with a conditional assignment or a linear level assignment to make sure you're only holding at the spring position so you can return to a release-able position

 

Sometimes I use hold as it settles down my old wonky pots if they are particularly sensitive on certain locos. Im thinking of custom building my own levers with Hall sensors but this will not be a quick process

 

Hi Liah

Went to bed last night and as I often do I left things running and this morning looking around at someones issue that the Route Annotations program from another thread was eating memory I came across the below. This would have been running for more than 10hrs at least and of course a restart solved the ram usage issue but I think there might be a memory leak somwhere.

I dont want to suggest anything other than this is peculiar to my situation and is indeed a fault of my own somewhere, if this is the case please disregard this post otherwise please let me know if I can assist in anyway.

 

Thanks for letting me know; it's probably the internal program logs because it collects them in memory while open; I should probably discard them when older than X time - will updat

 

The latest 1.17.4 rotates the internal logs to not keep all of them in memory forever

 

I updated the controller app to 1.17.4, but when I want to install the mod on Fedora again, I notice it is putting it in an extra folder first, so I still need to manually move the Mods folder and dll etc to the correct folder. One higher. Is this done on purpose? Same with the Running train beta.

I guess I can't post any questions about that last game here...

 

Hm I'm not seeing this issue on my Ubuntu install - what's the file structure you're seeing after triggering the mod installation?

 

Hi Liah

At the moment I am running 2 seperate profiles for the Vossloh G6, one for the 'Front' seat and one for the 'Rear' seat. This is because the controls dont have the underscore, eg the throttle direct control is 'ThrottleHandleFront' or 'ThrottleHandleRear' and the reverser direct control is 'ReverserF' or 'ReverserR'. I have tried with the throttle to use the '{SIDE:Front:Rear}' but this gave some weird result where only half the axis worked, So I have tried to use some conditions so that only the throttle I need is working which has had some mixed results and this leads me to a couple questions below

Can we have a condition based upon a variable other than a lever? If so I havent been able to get this to work
Can we declare and then set our own variables with the profile?

This one is more of a request than a question, would it be possible at some point to implement a pin system in the Debugger so we could keep an eye on multiple values without having to search each time

I realize it will be easier just to keep the 2 profiles but I view this as a learning curve in understanding what is and what isnt capable with the program.

Thanks again for your time and effort put into this!

 

Noted on the debugger; can definitely do that;
As for the throttle I'm surprised the {SIDE:Front:Rear} doesn't work - what do you mean with half the axis not working?

Currently, no the only conditions are on physical controls or virtual controls

 

FYI Updated with pinning in the debugger

 

That is awesome, how quickly was it done as well, I think you are like a coding machine :P

Pinning works great, I have got around to checking the G6 again but when I do I will report back, also I noticed you have made a mention of 'Jitter' in the changelog, would you be able to elaborate on that at all please

Thanks

 

I am using Fedora 44. Here are two images. Before the update, and after the update.

 

Hah no worries; the jitter is just an internal thing about the API connection - not about controllers for now

 

Ah did you upgrade from an pretty old version? The new format has been like that for a little while I think; it should still work like that though you might want to remove the old stuff

 

Nope, the 1.17 version if I am right.

 

I added a new calibration setting called anti-jitter which can be used to reduce the idle jitter of physical controls. You can set it to any value between 0 and 0.1 depending on how much you need. (0 = essentially off, 0.1 basically means if the control has been idle for one or more seconds, ignore any input which differs less than 0.1 from the last known value)

 

Hi Liah

Excited about the anti-jitter feature, I have set it to 0.05 but havent really had a chance to have a good play with it as most things I am driving at the moment have stepped controls which arent as heavily affected by sensitivity.

Also I was wondering is there a way to allocate a single threshold tolerance to a range of steps either by the 'step' or 'steps' function without having to list each step threshold and its tolerance. As an example a reverser might have 'step': 0.333 for 4 positions and I would like to have a tolerance of 0.1 for each position.