Hello, For scientific work, I want to use train simulator in situations with objects moving around the track. I'm new on train simulator community and I would like to know if it's possible to integrate moving obstacles scenarios? Thank you, Antoine
Can you elaborate on that? Give an example what you are trying to do. And where does science come in? The only collision obstacles at the moment are Rolling Stock (moving) and Buffer Stops (Stationary).
Sorry for the late answer. I want to have situations where objects like pedestrians, cars or animals move around the track and sometimes have dangerous behaviour such as crossing the track and therefore threatens the train with a collision. The scientific objectives are to understand human reaction (driving reaction) regarding these dangerous situations and propose algorithms that can handle these situations (e.g. brake if there is a risk of collision). I'm a PhD student working on this topic and I'm wondering if I can use train simulator as a demonstrator of my work. Thank you
The road system is laid to make road vehicles follow a path and although they seem to avoid each other they don't see the trains and have no affect on them. Sometimes if a road crossing is not set up correctly the road vehicles just drive straight thru and thru trains. There is a Red Car that ignores the gates and is driving thru the train as it continues to move Neither car nor train have any affect on each other.
The Train Simulator game engine is probably not the right choice for you. There is a german simulator, Zusi3 which is available as a hobby and a professional version for real driver training. Might want to check it out, the programmer Carsten Hoelscher is pretty fast in answering any queries. https://forum.zusi.de On the other hand I wonder why you are choosing a train simulation for your purpose, as a train is a heavy and highly inert vehicle - by the time you see an obstacle it's too late to stop most of the time anyway, considering a train going 160 km/h needs up to 1000 metres to come to a halt - running faster than that requires even more track, that's why in Germany LZB is needed (because distant signals are usually 1000 m ahead of their main signals on main lines). So human reaction time is secondary, as braking a train is something completely different from braking a car. Just look at all those videos on Youtube, where american trucks get stuck on elevated crossings due to their long wheelbase and then get smashed by trains - there is simply nothing you can do as a train engineer other than watching and waiting for the train to stop.
Thanks for the answer. So the game doesn't detect train collisions with cars or pedestrians. Even if it's an issue, I probably can handle it if I got the distances of the objects regarding the train position. Are the cars' positions fully random or it's possible to script their path?
Thank you I will check that. I totally agree with you, such analysis has no sense at high speed, the driver's decision having no impact on the collision. But I understood that, at least on French railway, there is a procedure that forces the driver to drive on sight when the train enters a dangerous zone (for example a zone with a known risk of cow presence on the track). In this situation, the driver has his max allowed speed reduced to 30km/h and reacts to what he sees, braking to avoid a collision if necessary. I'm interested in this particular case which appears to me to have similarities with tramway driving regarding the environmental analysis made by driver. Feel free to give me your opinion on that, maybe I'm wrong!
The cars move on the road which is almost like an invisible railway track - they follow each other. each section has to be set separately from each other and at a point on the road the cars disappear. Think of the car system like a fairground ride - you get in the car and it goes round a fixed path to the exit This explains how the cars interact with the trains
Just as a note for the OP, neither DTG nor the licensors want anything to do with realistic collisions or anything of that nature. It will never be part of these games.
It is the LT Heritage Route https://store.steampowered.com/app/562375/Train_Simulator_London_Transport_Heritage_Collection/
