I had a lot fun driving the TSW LIRR route with the M7, and i was looking for something similar to that. From what i see the route has good scenery and the M7 is well done, but i would like to know your opinions on the route, and about bugs... Would like to know if the ATC is well implemented as well. Thanks in advance!
It's not a bad route at all and there are a fair few scenarios for the route on the workshop. However, during one of the scenarios that comes with the route (a snow one), there is this issue of missing textures at certain stations (see below). ATC seems to work ok but I haven't driven the route for a while now.
I am thinking that, whilst obviously a big mess, this can be fixed? Simply go into the route editor and find which piece is being indexed for the platforms, and see which texture is being called for the winter scenery. It is very likely not missing, and merely a typo in the code, and if it is missing, swapping it out for one that is present in any of the other NYC routes would be relatively trivial. I don't own the route, though, so it would be impossible for me to actually attempt this. But that's how I can see it going - open the assets .ap with TS-Tools and find the culprit. Be it under blueprints.pak or someplace else.
Not true. Steam updates will overwrite only specific files of the TS install. Whenever you buy anything new, it will install the new files but it won't verify the game files unless you specifically tell it to. Verifying game files changes only certain components, too, and usually not the ones you unpacked from .ap acrhives into their respective assets subfolder. The sim will simply read the unpacked material instead. A core update of TS may change this, but we have not had one in an eternity. The only way this specific change would be reverted is if DTG themselves update the Hudson line, which is extremely unlikely, but would hopefully also render the fix moot, thus making this a moot discussion. Source: I have made dozens of modifications to rolling stock and nearly all mods for RW are packaged like this, and have several mods which have survived game file verifications.
We get a core update each time the game changes year - sometimes it is small sometimes it is not. If there were no update the version would not change Can you tell me then why some changes I made to a DTG route were overwritten? On the MML Bedford to St Pancras there is a speed board outside Apmthill tunnel showing 110mph but the speed changes just after to 100mph and you are speeding - so I changed that board and put the gizmo in the correct position. I did a few runs and it was ok. Why when I next came back to the route a few months later it had reverted to default condition? I had not done a File Verify - not even done one in the last 5 years - or any other changes to the route. Peter
Okay, see, I think it's relevant to explain how RailWorks, uh, works. I hope to be able to show you what happened. Now, I assume that when you said "I moved the sign" what you really mean is you went into the editor and you moved the sign, right? NB: I AM NOT A CODER, THIS IS ENTIRELY OBSERVATIONAL, I AM A PROFESSIONAL MORON. This is important. The brunt of the files Train Simulator uses come packaged in different file types. These are most commonly .bin files and .ap files. Both of these kinds of files are archives. If you use TS-Tools, you can unpack .ap and .bin files, exposing their internal structure. This internal structure consists of the components of whatever archive you're opening. For example, weather files - which are usually in .xml format - contain information about the amount of percipitation, wind, sunshine, position of light sources, shadow, light intensity, etc. These are linked, via IDs, to a blueprint or blueprints that route these to their respective assets. A weather pattern has a texture it uses for the sky, for example. 3D weather patterns use speculars for clouds which are stored in .ap archives, usually those associated with the route you got the weather from. Now, RailWorks is odd. Let's say you do what I just suggested in DCS: World, the flight sim. It, like any other game, uses archives for compression because storing the stuff in archives in uncompressed form takes a psychotic amount of space. If you unpacked something there, the sim would soil itself, to put it bluntly. The registry it uses to call up files relies on those files being inside of an archive. Not so in RailWorks. In RW, an unpacked archive takes priority over a packed one. So anything you unpack and moditfy is going to be read before that same content in its original .ap folder. I presume this was either done deliberately, to facilitate modding, or accidentally, insofar as the reading of a packed archive is technically an extra step, so the software goes with whatever is easier. This is true for anything. So, if you were to move the sign using the route's blueprint file - something that would take a literal decade to do because it would be in co-ordinate form - and then unpacked the contents of the route blueprint, RailWorks would prioritise the unpacked content. But if you went into the editor and edited something there, you would edit the compressed archive. The editor simply edits what is packed into an archive. It also changes the route ID so you can no longer upload scenarios for that route to the workshop. This is a whole other bag of apples, but that's what the little lock in the editor is for (albeit you probably knew this). When you turn it on, you prevent yourself from editing anything that will change the route ID. It's sorta genius, when you think about it. To make a long story short: if you saved your changes in the editor, it is entirely plausible that an update for that route alone came along and simply overwrote the archive. This undid any changes you made. It could have also been something much simpler, such as a new piece of rolling stock which requires some asset from that archive, thuis prompting steam to quitely run an IC on the archive. However, if you were to unpack the route and go the long, arduous, and frankly fiddly way of actually changing the sign's position in the unpacked blueprint, it would not get overwritten. What I suggested regarding the NY route was doing just that: unpack the archive, don't touch the blueprint, find the 3D model which is missing the texture, open its blueprint with, say, Notepad++, find the missing texture call and either fix it (if it is misspelled) or add another texture in (if it is missing) and voila. A thousand updates can come along and so long as your core route is unpacked, they won't affect jack squat. This is precisely why 99.9% of third party content comes packed in an .rwp archive. All that does is it uses the utilities.exe to unpack the contents of that archive into the indexed folders. It's like a .zip file, only proprietary so people don't have to fiddle with file structures on their own. Anyway, I hope this clears it up. As I said, I am not a coder and this is entirely my own experience with RW and about a decade's worth of observation. If anyone has information which contradicts me, please, feel free to educate me, I am always happy to learn and fix the gaps in my own knowledge.
When I tried to save the route whilst it was inside the MainContent.ap it would not allow it. So I did unpack the MainContent.ap file for the MML I deleted the Speed Board then replaced it with the Gizmo in the correct position - end of edit - Save file and all ok Now the files I extracted have gone and I only have the MainContent.ap file in the folder I did not delete the files I extracted.
Okay, so first of all, you need to make the file read/write if you're going to be editing anything in the .ap file itself. TS-Tools can do this for you en masse. I strongly advise you use TS-Tools to do this. From what you're describing, you went into the route, you unzipped the contents of the .ap folder into the root, you then went into the editor, edited what you wanted, left, and found the extracted stuff missing? I am unsure exactly how you did that. Could you clarify exactly what you did? I tried to follow your process in my own copy. I moved just one bench in the Hamburg main station. I went out of the game, and the stuff I extracted was still there. TS is never going to remove the files you extracted, because it can't. It doesn't know they exist at all. When I went back into the game, the bench had been moved, and whilst I have not tried to make, save, and publish a scenario on this "edited" route, I am positive I would not be able to publish it. To do what you're trying to do, and make it permanent, the only way to edit it - and I said this before - is to open the blueprints file with TS-Tools' in-built editor and move the asset by co-ordinate number alone. I think it would take you far, far less time to move it manually every time the update moves it back. I mean, the MML itself has not seen an update for a long time, I am fairly sure (I remember that same bug, I think, from a year ago, if not more), and unless an update directly affects the MML, it should make no difference. Note, I primarily modify rolling stock. What modified routes I have, I modified minimally. I went into one, the old Great Eastern Main Line, and the speedboard I plonked down by mistake was still there. This is with the route files not extracted and the route saved in the editor. I think you may have found the literal one exception to how I work with RailWorks files...I'll have to investigate this further. Odd as it may sound, thank you! As I said, if you can clarify the process more, I would appreciate it.
Perhaps I missunterstand something, but after my experience: working in the route editor does not change the route ID (the one as the route is saved in the routes-directory?). Same with scenarios. If route (or scenario) is cloned (from the TS-menue), then it becomes a new ID. If something is changed at the route in the editor (for example new added signs, replaced buildings, new tracks layed,...) RW saves the affected files outside the *.ap, but the route-ID itself is the same, it saves lastely in the same directory where the *.ap is placed. When it should changes after every editing, no-one could be reupload his workshop-routes under the same name/route ID after editing/updating the route in the editor. The automatically update-function if workshop-stuff is subscribed would not work as it actually work. Nick Y If the DTG-route has missing objects I would (if not happened until yet) first suggest to reinstall the route. Could be the result of a installed third-party asset or something, or something in the files has gone for some reason. First deleting the Hudson-route in the Content/Routes...directory (for this you must known the cryptic route-ID) AND deleting the Hudson assets in the Assets-directory (I presume it should be unter Assets/DTG/....and then something with "Hudson" in the name?). Then reinstall via Steam. If is then still missing might it be a further bug by DTG, and you can try to assign another asset as described above me
I have been using RW Tools/TS Tools for some time when it used to be Payware and I know my way around it. I even asked Mike Simpson on how to do something in 2013 https://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?f=374&t=132818 [1] I opened the MainContent.ap file in railworks\Content\Routes\00000034-d000-0000-0000-000000002014 with 7Zip. [2] I used the Extracted the Networks folder to the same location and then I did Right Click > Properties and unticked Read Only. [3] I went in to the game then Build and the route - having found the Speed Board I deleted it then placed a new copy with the gizmo in the correct place. That would not work. Apart from not actually knowing where the speed board was in the route just moving it would not move the Gizmo that it uses to get the speed. Please don't assume I don't know how to do what I do in the game. I have changed track boards, Speed limits, track types, added electrification on a number of routes I have in my game END OF Don't expect a reply to your next war and peace tome
I opened my message by saying that this is how I think it works and how I think it should be fixed. Then I politely said that I welcomed if anyone knew more than I did so I could update what I know. Congrats on speaking to Mike Simpson in 2013. That's the weirdest flex I have possibly ever seen. Thank you, again. This helps me understand how things work better. You are completely correct. As I said, I edit mainly stock, but I figured it worked the same way. It does not. You corrected me, and therefore you helped me. And I'd thank you, but... I did falsely assume you did not know things and I apologised to you for it. What more do you want me to do? I've been active on here for less than a week and you are the main reason I regret doing so. I have absolutely no idea why you get so cross with me. I genuinely meant no harm, no ill will, nothing except a desire to learn more. Apparently that gets me an old UKTS-forums style "END OF" from you. Lovely. Good day. I misspoke, and you are completely correct. It does not. Come to think of it, I never thought about it that way. If it doesn't change the route ID, then what does it change? Because I have had instances where I accidentally altered route elements. Like for example on the Wutachtalbahn, where the level crossings are inexplicably not on the route layer. This also works completely differently than rolling stock mods. Goes to show how much I know. Thank you heaps! Do you have any resources you could recommend on how to learn more about how and where routes are saved, and how route IDs work? Apparently I got the principle completely backwards. At the risk of making this another "war and peace tome" (thanks for the term, Petey), I have the route, and I just tried. Nope, winter platform textures still missing.
I said I had changed something on MML and somehow it reverted to a default state. You went thru a very lengthy post telling me my assumptions were wrong as if I had started playing this game last week. "I've been active on here for less than a week" Do you see why I got irritated? I don't wish to fall out with anyone. Peter
I honestly didn't mean it that way, Peter. I even replied, in another thread altogether, with an apology for assuming that you did not know things. A lot of people, a great many of them, have played this game for thousands of hours and have never heard of TS-Tools. How was I supposed to know? This is the second time I am apologising for that, and I really am sorry about that. And yes, I have been active here for less than a week. I've been using RailWorks for far longer. Forum experience is not game experience. Besides, all I wanted to do was compare notes. See if something in my understanding of the engine did not add up. I embrace every opportunity I can to learn. If you do not wish to fall out with anyone, perhaps it would help if you were less...forceful?
So do I - I learn how to do things by experimenting with different settings. Where was I being forceful?
And I learn by doing that, and comparing notes with other people. Right there. Or that time I made a post about an RSSLO route and you went on a Dovetail defense crusade even though my beef was never with them and I was just pointing out that RSSLO was bad at quality control. And so on, and so forth. Remember the human.
It is possible I misunderstood it, but it really came off confrontational to me. And I don't mean that in any ill will, or as a criticism of you personally - just an observation and a note on how it made me feel.
How do you think it made me feel when you contradicted what I knew to be true? Isn't that confrontational/ Post #7 Even though the game version keeps updating at least once a year you say "have not had one in an eternity."
The tone certainly was not. I was simply trying what you did and getting different results. It's why I asked you for your procedure, and I feel I did so respectfully. I don't consider my knowledge a challenge to anyone else's and I don't seek to "win" things. I even said so at the outset of the post where I talked about .ap files. I concede I should have asked you first. And I apologised for that, didn't I? Multiple times. The version number goes up, but by "core update" I meant feature wise to the point where mods and packages would break. I should have made that clearer. I think the last big update we had like that was the 64-bit one, or the contrast/visual settings sliders.
