Why Should An Ai Collision Stop The Game ?

But that's not possible and would require a new core and "live" dispatching. That's what they made TSW for . In TSC, everything is set at scenario start.

It is a scenario design error and thus must be fixed on scenario level. Everything else is unrealistic.

While Alpha testing, we've seen that even the slightest changes that seem unproblematic caused scenarios to behave totally different suddenly. Don't underestimate the amount of change needed - you can do this with a fresh game where you can adapt the DLC to be compatible, not with a platform that needs to run thousands of routes and scenarios that are already distributed.

It's not like AI collisions happen all the time, I've come across 3 or 4 out of thousands. And these were easily fixed. So from a developers point it's no use to waste resources on changing behaviour for the 0.1% of scenarios affected - especially not when risking to break all of them - and you can't test all scenarios out there. Collisions are a reason to quit the simulation, and that was a decision the coders made for very good reasons, as I've tried to explain above. You don't waste time on coding "catastrophe / emergency" dispatcher code that requires good AI, and requires a human dispatcher IRL too who can oversee the consequences.

 

I agree that the AI collisions are rare but annoying when thay do happen. They are however relatively easy to resolve and that solution is preferable to major "surgery" as I wouldn't be able to survive the "recovery period" and probable loss of continuity.

 

Everyone is asuming that it would be a huge unsurmountable core code change. But unless you’ve seen the source code, it may be as simple as changing an event from =ends game to doesn’t end game.

 

The point I was making, Kim. I'm no coder but it could be something as simple as a line stating if AI train state = derailed or collided remove from map. As I said, Run 8 does this and avoids player progress being frustrated by something happening off stage.

 

I ran a scenario on the Cajon route and kept crashing due to an AI issue. I restarted the scenario and went to the location and found there was a cut of cars on the same track as the AI. I deleted the cut and all was good after that.

 

AI train derailments/collisions causing a "game over" comes waaaay back from the Microsoft Train Simulator days where the same thing happened. TSC is pretty much based on MSTS so themes carried over. Also there are rare instences where the a train will derail and will not trigger the session to do the "Game over" but everything will become inactive.

Trainz was different of course, a train could derail but it doesn't effect the session.

 

That comment gives an idea - maybe in certain game modes a collision could simply result in one of the trains being deleted.
Under normal dispatching trains should never derail because it's impossible to assign such instructions. AI trains also respect signals so placing a few invisible ones can totally help with things.

If the player train crashes then there isn't much recovery I guess, and theoretically timetabled scenarios could be affected. There is a long workaround but you could say it just ends. Alternatively, the player could decide: basically, Quit or Delete Affected Train. I mean if that was my future train then I quit anyway except maybe somewhat later. Köln-Koblenz shunting comes to mind. Autodelete is mostly helpful in QD.

 

The Ai train is part of the scenario. If it derails or goes off path then the scenario fails. The same as when a player train derails or goes off path.

You shouldn't be asking if dtg can stop ai trains from causing scenario failures but looking for the reason why the train is derailing or going off path.
The message does state which service has derailed and where.

Recently I had the same problem, I replayed the scenario in the editor and at the location specified, another train was sat idle at a clear signal. As the dispatcher tried to path the ai service around the stuck train, it went against a set of points and derailed.

If the scenario hadn't been ended then I would have no doubt crashed into the train half stuck over a junction.