Hi all, Is anyone able to help with how I get a station setup and working on my route. I've followed how others are setup etc but can't seem to get passengers to spawn at all. Any help would be appreciated.
Yes, but there are a lot of individual processes to build a station, creating platforms, creating custom platforms or station buildings in Blender, setting the stations up with static meshes and blueprints so that it looks authentic and then the actual part to make is usable as the start, stop or end of the route in the timetable Editor. Probably way too much for one tutorial only. I would start with settiung up the platforms with the Offset loft first, then placing some static meshes on it and it looks already quite decent and you can set up your timetable to start or stop trains on it (even if it needs further developement). It seems to be done via a kind of dedicated and not so easy to create blueprint system, just like you spawn car traffic on roads. There is no tutorial out there which showed how this is done. Nor has it been shown in the masterclass videos. I for myself have no idea to that as well at the moment.
I thought the station component is what controls the spawning of the passeneges ? At the moment I have a blueprint with 2 passenger spawn points and station comp with platform comp as child and then waiting areas within the platform comp as child. Yet they don't spawn what so ever
Maybe the positions of teacher and the one to be teached should be swapped in this conversation. In other words, I can't help you out in things you know better than me. Would be really nice if you could make tutorial with your knowledge as we don't have one for it yet.
You could make a tutorial with all the steps you did so far until the point you have the issues. And once we learnt and able to understood how you did that, we might can help you to get further with your problem. A win-win situation if you ask me.
Hi I have been having the same trouble and in fact asked this question back in January https://forums.dovetailgames.com/members/daunfr59.381/ but sadly nobody was able to help. (I don't know if I have added the link to the previous thread correctly but if you search for "station" posted by me you should find it.) Eventually I tried using a station from Liverpool Crewe and then changed the meshes and Platform Markers etc.to suit my own route. Although my test scenario worked correctly i.e. "Stop at Chippenham Platform 1" and when completed "Load Passengers" nobody got on or off the train even though there were passengers in the carriage. One or two passengers appeared in the Spawn Volume on the platform but they didn't move away and disappeared after maybe 20 seconds. I did get the countdown marker for Passengers Loading and at the end got the "Lock Doors" command. I have a Navmesh covering the whole platform area. Recently I saw a post about road traffic not spawning and the problem was found to be the traffic manager not being in the persistent level. This made me think that I haven't placed a Crowd Manager Actor in my level although the default one is referenced somewhere (either in the Route Station list or the Platform object or the Spawn Volume - can't remember which.) You may want to give this a try - unless you have already done that. I can't think of anything else that I haven't tried but I have recently been doing other things on my route (including Box Tunnel !) so haven't spent much time on station experiments recently.
So one thing I noticed was the nav mesh you have to build paths else it won't generate it unless you've left it ticked to auto generate. No when auto generate off I noticedbeven after build paths, it would seem the nav mesh wouldn't stick around.
Yes the navmesh seems to need rebuilding after every save. I have now solved the issue of Passengers not spawning. My idea of placing the BP_Character_AI_Controller in the level didn't work as it said this item cannot be placed in a level. However I did find that the Character Spawn Volumes on my station were calling for Character _AI_Controller instead of BP_Character_AI_Controller. When I changed that a few passengers appeared waiting for the train. I also set the Passenger density to "BUSY" in the Station Directory for my route. I now have a large number of Passengers who appear and move to the waiting areas as the train comes in. Now the only problem is that they don't board the train and neither do any passengers get off ! I am now going to try making sure that the Platform height is correct and that the Platform marker on the track is set correctly.
Thats a really good find actually, normally the BP version is what you use and the cpp is normally what the BP is derived from. I generally didn't think to double check if the BP version what set or not. Passenger boarding issue not sure.
Also when it comes to AI controllers you don't place them in the world as they are spawned when the actor there being used on is active or spawned.
Thanks for your replies - I hadn't understood about the AI controller. I have now solved the Passenger boarding issue (partly) by adjusting the height of my custom platforms to match the height of the DTG spline platforms. Now passengers get off the train but they tend to just stand on the platform by the carriage doors and don't walk away. No "platform" passengers board the train (or walk up to it and disappear) - perhaps they are intimidated by the passengers who just got off ! I think this last step might just be a question of adjusting the position of the Platform Wait Areas in case these are blocking movement to and from the train. By default these are set as "Navmesh Obstruction" - do you know if this is correct? Thanks for raising this question in the first place as it gave me the incentive to revisit my own problem and I now think I am close to understanding how to get the stations on my route set up.
You're way ahead of me in terms of progress, but from what I know about UE4's navmesh system, I believe having it set to "navmesh obstruction" could be what's preventing the passengers from moving. I could be wrong, though!
Thanks for the advice. Apart from a few months spent with Unreal 5 I don't have a great understanding of things like Navmeshes. Strangely enough when I ran the test scenario this morning (without changing anything) the passengers from the train did move off (apart from two who stubbornly blocked the first doorway) and then suddenly there was a mass movement of the waiting passengers to other doors and most of them boarded the train. However on a second run nobody did. It may be random (there is Passenger Boarding Chance curve) or it may be a problem with my test timetable. I think I will try setting up a proper scenario and try that in the editor to see if it improves. I may also reduce the passenger density to see if that helps as I'm onlt using a short (two coach) train.
So the waiting areas need to be set as no collision and tbf if the passengers are waiting within them they prob are fine. It might be the position of the platform, maybe if its too close they get stuck or too far they get stuck.
I left well alone with the waiting areas and tried the two suggestions in my previous post 1. Set up a proper scenario with Scenario Definition / Scenario Objectives and Scenario Timetable. 2. Reduced Passenger density in the Station Directory from High to Normal. This seems to have done the trick and passengers now disembark and board correctly as shown in the photos. These were taken as screen grabs on two separate runs so passengers are not the same but there are two distinct phases : First the passengers leave the train and move away down the platform. Then the waiting passengers board the train (often seeming to crowd in through one doorway.) Details vary between each run but this now seems consistent. I guess the crowd of waiting passengers in the high density setting were preventing the others getting off the train. All I need to do now is to tidy the waiting areas to fit the stopping position of the train as there is a group of passengers who stand looking at the locomotive. Hope these posts have been of some help .
So I have managed to get passengers to spawn but they aren't moving to the waiting areas, spawn for about 20 seconds then despawn. I can't find this crowd manager you speak off and I can see my nav mesh is all set right so not sure why they are moving to wait.
This sounds similar to the issue I had for the last few months. Passengers would appear in the Character Spawn Volume, stand there for a few seconds and then vanish. The AI controller was in the details panel of the the Character Spawn Volume and I chose it from the drop down menu - here's the photo again : I also changed the Passenger density in the Station directory for my route and after that the passengers began to move to the waiting area. I may not have explained fully that I had used a DTG Station Blueprint (BP_STN_Runcorn from Liverpool Crewe) placed directly - not a child object -and substituted my custom Static Meshes (platforms buildings etc.) for the Runcorn ones in the blueprint. I don't know if this has anything to do with it (hidden functions in the station blueprint? ) or if you have created the Station Blueprint from scratch. Since my last post I have started on a smaller station on my route and built that from a blank blueprint (Actor Class) adding Station Object, Platforms , spawn volumes and waiting area and setting everything up as for my Chippenham Station above. At the moment I don't get any passengers at all so I can't confirm the passengers work with a Station Blueprint built from scratch. Sorry I can't be more help.
So the AI Controller is already set for me correctly. I've looked on a child BP of a already made station and I can't see any function being used apart from standard ue ones.
I'm having issues getting passengers to spawn on my custom stations too. I was able to stop NavMesh message by making the Nav Bound Volume to persistant level, but no luck on passengers loading. The passengers do board my train at stations as they appear in the seats, and route definition and station directory is setup properly.
I have now discovered a couple of new problems. Firstly I couldn't get passengers at all on the second station on my route (Calne which is 5 miles from Chippenham). I had used an Actor Class Blueprint created from scratch. I resolved this by creating a blueprint and searching for Station Base. This gives a very basic station blueprint with one platform and one building. I added Passenger spawn volumes and Platform Waiting Area myself. This worked fine although I discovered that the passengers wouldn't move because I'd accidentally parented the waiting area to the spawn volume. (they should have the Platform Object as their parent.) I then set up a test scenario to drive from Calne to Chippenham. Everything went fine at the start until arrival at Chippenham when the passengers were frozen in the spawn volume again. I think this is because I have a navmesh bounding box around each station and although they are both in the persistent level the Chippenham one is broken (needs rebuilding) by the time I get there as the two stations are in different areas of the map.(tiles stream in and out ) I've tried jumping to both stations and rebuilding the paths at each before running the scenario but this doesn't help. I also unchecked the "Rebuild on load box" in the recast Navmesh but can't change the similar setting in the Editor Settings from the DTG default as these are not writeable. Am I making a mistake and should I have just one navmesh volume in the game and make it fill the whole level ? Or is there a way to change the editor settings which currently save into "default.ini" which is not writeable. It looks as if the immobile passengers are caused by a Navmesh rebuilding issue somewhere but at the moment I can't get passengers to load at two different stations. Thanks for any help you can offer.
I'm wondering how other routes figured out how to get theirs to work =P And the navmesh box is fine to do one each station that's how all the others do it, but how to get the platforms to work if custom made is troublesome.
So you never want to put one nav mesh covering the whole level, the performance impact would be high when as the whole areas is then queried by each AI. Instead you place your Navmesh roughly in the areas where it's needed and use modifier volumes to define it further. Normally the game after nav being built it stores it in the level, or if auto build is on rebuild it auto when something changes on it. The issue with editor is it seems the nav mesh isn't saving in a sense, therefore new sessions in editor or reloading tile so stream in and out the nav mesh data is gone and needs rebuilt. I've put my route on hold to be fair for now until DTG do something with editor. I've gone back to just doing scenarios etc.
Thank you both for your replies. I now understand that you can't have one huge navmesh and having checked the Liverpool Crewe route I see there are several Navmesh Bounds Volumes and one recast Navmesh. You may be right that this is another flaw in the Editor. I can understand your frustration but as I still have a huge amount of other things to do on the route (custom buildings, landscape, signalling etc.) I will plod along in the hope that these issues will be sorted out - eventually ! As regards moofers I am fine with using the "Blueprint station base" as I am still able to substitute my own Custom meshes for platforms, buildings etc and add other features , whereas using a DTG station you are unable to delete anything and have to substitute every mesh or set them to null. I'm planning to "rebuild" Chippenham station from the base blueprint to get rid of inherited objects from Runcorn. Thanks for your help and good luck to both with your future projects.
Wow. I Guess we need need to wait for the next build of the editor, if we want more than 1 or 2 of our stations to have working passenger systems then!
I haven't revisited this issue for a long time but I think I may have found the solution to the Navmesh / level streaming problem. I was going through Unreal forums where many people have found this problem occurs (in Unreal itself) and one person pointed out that you need to have the individual Navmesh Bounds Volumes (for each station) in their correct "level" (i.e. tile where the station is) but you need a "Master" navmesh Volume in the persistent level. I tried duplicating the Navmesh Volume for Chippenham station and moving the duplicate to the Persistent Level (without changing anything else). Then, when I started the test Scenario at Calne Station there were passengers there and when I reached Chippenham (5 miles away) they were working correctly there as well. I don't know if this will still work with a third station but will be able to test this out once I have built the next station. Some points to note : The Recast Nav Mesh ( which is generated when you use the Build Paths option) needs to be in the Persistent Level. Opinions vary as to whether it is necessary but in the RecastNav Mesh I have the Runtime Generation set to Dynamic. This may incur a cost in loading time when levels stream in. (according to some Unreal forums) but I haven't checked setting it back to Static. When you move between one station and another in the editor the Navmeshes need to be rebuilt each time so I had to "build paths" in each station location before playing the scenario in PIE mode.
First things first, I want to apologize for my stupid posts at the beginning of this thread as I didn't realize it was all about passengers and the navmesh system. I highly recommend to adjust the OP though to be more specific and clear. So, now coming to my own issues with navmesh and setting up passengers. In the last days, I tried to get AIs on my platforms. So I've read through this thread here several times and watched some YouTube tutorials about the Navigation Mesh system in general, but after all what I tried I still can't get passengers to spawn at stations (I mean not at all - I'm not even talking about the boarding process). And yes I know that I must be do something wrong, but since I'm not very familar with navmeshes yet, this is just my current stuck point. What I did is this: 1. I've set up a station directory for all stations of my route. (I completely recreated this in a way the station directoy of others routes are, so I think this should be fine.) 2. I placed some Nav Mesh Bounds Volumes, so that they cover the entire platforms (even have a little bit going over it). Height also is set so that the Volume reaches from below the surface up to let's say 3 meter up in the air. And now I think this is where confusion and the problem begins. 3. Since as moofers already said we don't have any source template blueprints for either the CharacterSpawnVolume or PlatformWaitArea components provided by DTG, I took a station blueprint out of the DLCs, set the station to be below my surface and then tried to manually place the CharacterSpawnVolumes and PlatformWaitArea components onto my platforms. I know this is weird, but I don't really understand how I can get or use these CharacterSpawnVolume and PlatformWaitArea components for my own platforms in any other way. 4. Press on "Building Paths" and it created the RecastNavMesh actor, which I thereafter moved to the persistent level. But now and although I constantly press on "Building Paths" new again, I'm stuck and when I do Play in Editor, passengers don't spawn at all. I know that you used a station blueprint, however how did/do you actually get characters to spawn on these station blueprints in your own route projects? And very important, how did you setup the station markers and station directory according to the station blueprint you imported from another route? This all is still a big mystery for me. And as I said I watched some YouTube tutorials to better understand navmeshes, but a big challenge for me is that the common way how Navigation Meshes are set up in a basic Unreal project is very different to how navigation meshes to spawn AI are set up for stations in Train Sim World. I would dare to day, the same applies to all of us. Another big problem is that the DefaultGame.ini is not writable, so we can't tweak the nav mesh settings in the project settings which is bad. I figured out that the RecastNavMesh shared a big chunk of those settings and parameter though. But does anyone know why DTG did this?
Thank you for your reply. I will try to answer some of your questions but if you need more details I will have to get screen shots of the various settings. Firstly, after a lot of experiments I used an existing station blueprint (Runcorn) simply by dragging the station blueprint into the scene and then substituting my own platforms and buildings for some of the ones in the blueprint. I left the Character Spawn Volume and wating areas as they were apart from moving them around to fit on the platform. On the Station Component I changed the station name To "Chippenham" and I linked each Platform to the appropriate Platform Track Marker which I had placed on the track. There is a Navmesh Bounds Volume over the entire station which is tall enough to cover the footbridge when I build it. At this stage passengers would appear in the Spawn Volume but would not move out of it and I was stuck for many months. Then I realised that if I Build Paths immediately before running the test scenario the passenger would work correctly as long as I was only driving the train a short distance into the station. Passengers would leave the train and the others would wait until they moved away and then board the train. Thinking I'd solved the problem I then made a second station using the "Station Base" Blueprint Class which just has one platform (more can be added) - one building and one station object (I don't recall if it had the spawn volume but it can be added from the menu in the Blueprint.) This station works in the same way and passengers appear walking on the platform - provided the Navigation is built first at that station location. If I build paths at the first station the passengers don't work at the second one and If I drive between the two stations the passengers at the second station are locked in the spawn volume again. I have always had a small number of passengers spawning in the box but they stay for a few seconds and then vanish and they don't walk along the platform until the Navmeshes are built. I can't explain why you have no passengers at all. I had noticed the .ini files not being writeable and my RecastNavmesh was named RecastNavmeshDefault so I deleted the "default" part of the name.
So this was what I forgot/didn't know to do. Thank you very much for the tip. The Platform Marker entries were pretty easy to find in the details tab of each platform component. However, the name of the station is a bit harder to implement as this entry could not be found by default in the details panel for the station component. I only found it in the Property Editor. I just tried it with the platform marker entries first, but it didn't work then. One also need to setup the station name in the station component according to the station name in your station directory. Finally I reached this stage. Passengers spawn in the CharacterSpawnVolume, spawning there for about 3 or seconds and then disappear again. This is where I stuck now. One thing I noticed is that if you have several CharacterSpawnVolumes, it seems to not spawn equally in thos sometimes. I'm not sure yet what is influencing that nor whether it is a general bug. So I clicked on building paths in the build options always before starting my test service, but it doesn't really seem to do anything. Passenger just always spawn in the CharacterSpawnVolume and then disapper again, they are not even walking towards the boundaries of the CharacterSpawnVolume. I also tried to setup the formation to start a few 100 meters before the actual station/platform but it doesn't seem to do anything either. Also what do you mean with "test scenario"? Because I just have a test service in the timetable to test it with. Do you use that in a custom scenario instead? I can't find this "Station Base" blueprint when I search for it. Where do you got if from? But nevermind, I don't think it solves the problem either. That's what I'm a bit confused about. What do you mean with building paths at a station location/for a specific station? Shouldn't the "Build Paths" command work globally for all levels, because if you hover about it you can see white info box appearing say "only build paths (all levels)"? Why should one build paths only for one specific station? Anyways, one final question: Did you got at least one time spawning and boarding/unboarding of passengers to work for one entire service on all your stations? Or do you still trying to find a solution to accomplish that?
Thank you for your reply and your continued interest in this thread. I will try to answer your questions and give you an update of latest developments. When I first had difficulty I set up a custom scenario using a basic timetable (start a few hundred yards from the station - Stop at Platform 1- load / unload passengers.) I was using this to test station features e.g lights so custom scenario lets me vary time of day etc. I think it works equally well with a stand alone timetable. Apologies, the path is Sand Patch Grade Content/Scenery/Characters/Station/Station base Class I realised after several months that the passengers being locked in the spawn volume was cured by building the paths before playing the scenario / time table At that stage I had only one station. When I added a second station I found that if I "Build Paths" at Station 1 and then go to Station 2 (flying in the editor) I got the "navmesh needs to be rebuilt" message - so I would "Build Paths" again and then play the extended scenario to drive from one station to the other (5 miles in real World.) I can't explain why the editor works in this way When I reached the destination the navmesh was broken and the passengers did not work. By searching Unreal forums I found this is known issue in Unreal when levels are streaming in and out and it was suggested to turn off the "Rebuild Navmesh on Load " in the default settings. As you know the settings are locked by DTG in the default.ini file and cannot be changed. I then found the suggestion that you have a navmesh at each station ( in the local "level" tile) and then add a "master" Navmesh Volume in the Persistent level. When Unreal generates the Recast Navmesh that should be in the persistent level as well. This seems to work and passengers appear at both ends of the level, although initially I thought that it was necessary to build paths at both stations to "unlock" the passengers. Testing today I have had a surprise result which I will go into in another post. The short answer to that is "Yes - possibly !" but it is a little complicated so I will follow up in a separate post with more explanation. On a general note, I am reluctant to set myself up as any form of expert on Unreal or the PC Editor but do you think it would be helpful to others if I could produce a properly laid out post (with explanations of all the settings I have used etc.) in the form of a Tutorial ?
And thank you for responding still, Daunfr59! I mean you have absolutely no obligations to do so, yet you do. That's absolutely great of you! I will give it another try and test out all what you said and described, and see it will work here as well. However, since we both touching new lands I guess we can't be sure when something should work and when something might be a new bug or not. But I'll give it another try. Really would have been better if DTG showd us to do that. I think you already explained it nicely here. Maybe a separate tutorial would be good for others though to showcase every step in detail. But I know myself that an elaborate tutorial takes a lot of time. Don't feel forced to do it.
As promised in the last post here is a brief summary of where I am at the moment. My route will eventually have four stations but currently only two of those have Stations set up. The largest is Chippenham which I made by adding the Runcorn station blueprint directly to my route and substituting static meshes of my own. This passengers at this station function correctly and wait on the platform for the train to arrive, allow passengers to leave the carriages and then board the train , although some are always left standing on the platform. (I guess they are waiting for a later train !) The second station Calne is at the end of a single track branch line and in real life had only one platform. I made this one from the Station Base Class blueprint. All trains from here go to Chippenham so all the passengers should board the train. I set up a scenario to test this with an empty train standing in Calne station and first instruction to board passengers. then the train is driven by the player to Chippenham where the passengers should all get off and the service ends. here are the results : At the start of the scenario a few passengers board the train. (I have tried varying the passenger density, setting boarding percentages etc but can only get five passengers (at most) to board. After the five passengers have boarded the remaining passengers walk into the waiting area and stand facing the destination as if they are waiting to go into a cinema ! I then drive the train to Chippenham. At this station there are many passengers waiting on the platform but none of the 5 passengers leave the carriage. Nobody boards the train either but there is no instruction for them to do that as the train terminates here. I can't decide whether the simple station made from Station Base is working correctly or not. The passengers do spawn and a few board the train so perhaps I am trying to "achieve the impossible" in trying to represent a real country station where a small number of people all board the train. At every station the "Alighting Change Probability" is a property of the station so it may not be surprising that none of the passengers get out at the end of the journey. In the station blueprint (Platform component) there is an "All Passengers Board Train" check box (which I tried at Calne without success) but no "All passengers leave train" Next steps : I will set up the third station using the Station Base blueprint and see how that works. In the scenario above I will change the Unload instruction to Load/Unload to check if any body boards the train. While looking at the blueprints I remembered one other thing which may be affecting your route. The last thing in the Station Directory is a "Use new Character Spawning Behaviour " tick box. I don't have this ticked but if ticked it says the game will ignore Platform Spawn Volumes. Not sure what is meant by this but the Spawn Volume in both of my station blueprints is parented to the Station component and not the Platform component.
Your issue will be nav mesh, there is issue with editor where as the files that's shouldn't be cooked are I believe the Nav mesh is not being built into the map and as such when tiles are loading and unloading the nav mesh is being lost and thus the AI is unable to path themselves. Until DTG look at the editor and it's bugs and start fixing stuff we will be left with not correctly working stuff. Also be careful where you get the station base class from. Reason I say this is cause if you get it from anywhere other then either your own plugin of the within the core. If the player doesn't have the route that you've got the station base class blueprint from your route may cause the game to crash. All I can think is everyone makes a push to DTG to start looking into editor rather then using phrase "stuff is being looked into but nothing to come yet". Not fair on us that want to create and we can't cause there's not editor fixes etc to the editor.
Thanks for your reply and the advice. I am now convinced the problems with passengers not behaving correctly are related to Navmesh but from the unreal forums it is clear that this problem occurs in UE4 itself where the game involves a very large world with "levels" streaming in and out . This is referring to Play in Editor as I have not been able to test my route in game and judging by other threads on this forum that may never be possible. Since adding the third station to my route yesterday (after writing the last post) I can confirm that passengers behave correctly there as well as long as each station has its own Navmesh (on it's own tile) and there is a "master" navmesh in the persistent level. This seems to solve the issue on my own route for now at least. As regards stations I appreciate your advice regarding the choice of base for the station blueprint. I had only used Runcorn "direct" as an attempt to find out why passengers didn't work and had already tried three other station Blueprints before that. I will now rebuild my main station using the "Station Base Class" from Sand Patch Grade as this is the closest I can find to a "core" blueprint. As I've only just finished laying track over the whole route there are many other aspects of the editor still to be overcome and I am currently drifting towards Landscape materials, how to get weather effects in my static mesh materials (snow on rooves etc.), making my own GWR semaphore signals etc. etc. before moving on to make all the custom buildings to populate the route. Thoughts of suitable steam era locomotives and rolling stock are far in the future !!. Thanks again to you, Robert Schulz and all the other contributors (including DTG) for your help and advice .
I don't mean to bring this old post back up, but how did you build paths/rebuild the navmesh? I know it's broken but I just want to make sure people are walking where they're suppose to.
The Navmesh Volume just covers the whole station and should be tall enough to allow passengers to walk over footbridges, ramps etc. You don't build paths for the individual passengers to follow. In the station blueprint you have a passenger spawn volume (where you them to appear) and Passenger waiting areas along the edge of the platform. The passengers will then walk to the waiting areas and stand waiting to board train. There are also interactive objects such as benches and passengers will sit on these automatically. The editor seems to be set up so that the Navmesh is destroyed every time you load the game and I get a red message in the corner of the screen saying "Navmesh Needs to be Rebuilt" . To do this you click on the dropdown arrow next to the "Build" button and then choose Build Paths as per photo The editor will then check and confirm the surfaces within the Navmesh which the passengers can walk on.(You can see these in the photo as the black areas edged with green on the platform and the ground between the tracks.) Hopefully this will help but if I have misunderstood anything and you need more specific answer please let me know.
Is this also possible when the station is only made of blueprints and meshes? - I just placed platforms and decorated them, so I don't use a custom station blueprint... Also, there was this nice message in matinakbary's documentation:
I don't think this is possible. You may be able to get passengers to walk on a "scenery only" platform (using basic Unreal) but they won't be able to board a train and nobody will get off the train when it stops. (In other words - the passengers won't interact with the train.) The station blueprint and the linked track markers (platform markers) are how TSW4 knows the train is in a station and not simply travelling through the countryside. The three requirements mentioned in your message by DTG Lukas are correct but, sadly, it is more complicated than that.
That makes sense, but would it maybe work to place a station under the landscape and then place waiting areas, etc. on the top of my platforms? I can then still change the platforms to mine.
I don't think that is necessary. All the platforms you see in my photographs were created by me in Blender (for TSC) as were the buildings and lamp posts. All you have to do for your platforms to appear in game is substitute the Static Mesh for your platform in place of the one in the DTG blueprint.(If you are using one of their Stations.) You may find it easier the use the Station Base class blueprint (It's in "Sand Patch Grade Content/Scenery/Characters/Station/Station base Class" as this gives you a very basic station (one Platform only) and you can put your Static Mesh in there. Here is the Basic Station Blueprint and you can see the components on the Left Hand Side. If you choose the Static Mesh Platforms you can then put your own Static Mesh in the box on the Right Hand side with your materials underneath. Hope this helps.
so the issue we have is not the station blueprint, you can literally slap it on an empty BP that has them components and just manually place them where needed if your not wanting to go for a unique station. The only reason DTG put there's within a actor is cause they have multiple meshes, multiple lights etc that being in an actor they can place them relative and then move the main blueprint round within the world. The issue we have is that the editor doesn't cache the nav after it's generated so when the tile unloads and loads it's not rebuilding the nav automatically so you end up with no nav mesh generated, causing your Passengers to not be able to traverse. That is something DTG need to fix with their editor there's not much we can do. Now one thing not attempted is if you cook and pak after generating all the nav where its needed does it cache correctly as if it does then might be one solution just not the perfect solution.
In looking on Unreal forums I found this is an issue in Unreal - although in Unreal you can access the editor settings to switch off the "recreate Navmesh on loading" The solution I found (with help from those forums) was to copy one Navmesh and put this in the Persistent Level (with each individual station Navmesh in it's own local tile level.) Now I can drive from one station to another and the passengers move correctly on each station as I arrive. (I currently have three , each spaced about five miles apart.)
Also, UE it self doesn't have this issue. It's due to dtg haven't fully tested editor so things aren't fully there. The option you speak of as well is one that should be ticked.
Also you say one navmesh into persistent level, is this just in persistent regardless of size and position or size to fill your holeee world
