intro to my proposal I wish to proposition the ability to activate and deactivate the ability for Ai Trains to Spawn with custom liveries on a route by route basis including/primarily on a livery by livery basis. More in depth explanation on why I propose this feature 1. such reason I would propose this feature is, when working on a livery, several hours can sometimes/possibly be needed to perfect the design a player wishes to make. For example a player creating a livery for a Class 395 that is unfinished will see Ai services spawn in with such a livery, this in my opinion can be quite an eyesore, especially when that could be avoided with the Ai spawning in a livery more appropriate such as the official licensed SouthEastern one this feature would remedy this by not allowing Ai services to spawn with this livery until such time the player deems it wanted/appropriate to have Ai do this 2. players such as my self have the ability to download liveries from CC and use them in Scenario planner or Timetable mode, for Example whilst a Northern livery Class 150 would seem relatively if not completely appropriate for a route like Tees Valley Line or Northern Trans pennine (brung into those routes via scenario planner) it would detract from realism and appropriation when they substitute in as Ai on West Cornwall loco instead of more appropriate Regional livery. currently the only way around this is to delete a possible multiple hours worth of livery work whenever you’re not using it, followed by a complete restart of work every time you wish to reuse it. 3. if a player wishes a train livery they are driving to be unique to service they are operating, disabling for Ai will Ensure that no other services spawn with such livery Additional this may also be used on the official liveries created by dovetail and or 3rd Party should a player wish to just use as a player or view Ai in just a player created livery/ or CC on the route. how I would envision this implemented this feature could be implemented by a drop down selection box/tool on each route menu where the player can view all available liveries (both official/Self made and CC) for the route, and select by tick and cross which they want Ai activated and which the Ai are not to be permitted to use. Feedback Developers - whilst at sight I think this proposal isn’t to a complicated degree of implementation, perhaps the Ai in its current state may not be up to this kind of feature. Further elaboration on this should you like to share would be greatly appreciated to help form a better understanding on the realistic prospect of this proposal Forum Members - If you would support this and/or think I missed something please add it below, the more 1 feature is shown to help the better if you’re unsure on this or even think it’s an absurd proposal feel free to give feedback below, I’ll try my best to elaborate further on particular areas of this.
My main input on this (as a non-user of CC at all) would be that there should be several options for application of liveries of this nature:- none - this livery is not to be used per route - this livery is to be applied on a certain route - allows for special livery units to run on specific routes or associated ECS moves per region - as in a class 150 on a northern route could have northern livery but a 150 in Cornwall would never do so per unit number - specific loco would have this livery, no others can Even better if you could put timeframes on them so you could have BR blue, then regional railways, then various operators depending on setting of the scenario or timetable This may require certain things to be in place before being able to be implemented Obviously the setting to NOT apply a livery would need to be able to be set. This removes it from the application database (simple enough but still would need doing) Route and region code would need adding to the route or even track. As an example you might get a few operators 158s crossing over at places like Manchester or Liverpool so knowing that you could have both operating in that area would be required Per unit number - A more simple lookup, useful for adding name plates or liveries such as 91 110 or 91 111 which have unique liveries datetime might be a bit harder to implement as would be in the scenario or timetable itself rather than on the train, track or route but still doable. Ultimately the best solution from a database point of view would be that each loco, car and MU asset is listed in the route, and they have assigned unit numbers, in the creators club you can apply this to specific, random, all or none of the relevant type by unit number (with the added possibility of dates) Makes it a bit more complex, but does give the possibility of being very bespoke in your application
1. No liveries, something that could be additionally used to offset those who wish wrong liveried (in their opinion) locos present as layers be changed into a default colour as alternative ( I believe TS does this when the livery file or something isn’t Available) Most likely the case when provided that livery isn’t available to them in CC or complicated beyond their level to make in Livery Editor 2. Unit Numbers, seems like something what could be upgraded into this as at some point if not at point of potential implementation. It certainly could fall under advanced settings especially for the players knowing exactly what they want to do with it. Only worry on it is the information I have on Ai selecting unit numbers in game today is quite a “random simpler system”, which may need an overhaul of an unknown amount of time.
