TenderCars and Dual Engines

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Sat May 19, 2007 1:51 am

You look at those 2 pics without enlarging them and they look like devils. 2 big evil eyes and the front railing looks like a toothy devilish grin

This is all the more reason to have the engine list.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Sat May 19, 2007 5:55 pm

Those are from my modified skin I made for The Ghan line in Australia. Lowell tinkered with them and posted his version.

Lowell · Post by **Lowell** » Sat May 19, 2007 11:00 pm

I have already made a post about the new Basin engines causing crashes on other maps. I would refrain from adding them to other maps till they look over the whole list. When I added the Zebra dual to my Florida map it pulled in the orange food car and I already had a special food car listed inside my maps globals! It by-passed that and pulled in the orange car which after a few minutes...CTD. Also as soon as I added the Zebra dual to my train cars list for Florida...I couldn't get back to any "saved games"...hint...hint...after I removed the Zebra dual gp7 from my train cars list I went back to the same saved file and was able to enter the map exit and re-enter without any troubles.

I have re-built a couple of their engines renaming from inside the nif file on down... as I go and those work fine. I am too busy right now working on my Florida maps ships to look any deeper at them right now. This goes for the Basin train cars as well...I find no global entry for any of their new cars, and they are bleeding through other maps from that.

snoopy55 wrote:You look at those 2 pics without enlarging them and they look like devils. 2 big evil eyes and the front railing looks like a toothy devilish grin

This is all the more reason to have the engine list.

EDIT//
Why you don't like it...it shouldn't have been posted? What do you mean. As a red engine it should look cool enough. I even named it a "chan" engine so the name is way far out. I agree there should be a master list.

dwax · Post by **dwax** » Sat May 19, 2007 11:30 pm

I saw that in some of the maps I was trying to add them engines too. I was wondering why the train cars looked different.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Sun May 20, 2007 12:33 am

The engines from the Basin And Range map are set up to pull the new _bnsf train cars. But you can have them pull the boring original game cars by having the engines pull the _v2 cars. Just change this in the map's Trains xml file (the <szCars></szCars> tags).

The train cars from Basin And Range don't overwrite or trump any of your new train cars, unless you are trying to create your own BNSF train cars. If you create a new car, just make sure you set up your engines to pull your cars. Are you creating a new _v2 variation car?

Making engines and cars work in other maps isn't always easy and obvious, especially when you don't know how engines and cars hook up. If they worked in the BasinAndRange map, then they aren't broken. If they don't work in your map, then you don't have them set up correctly. Try again...

K-class · Post by **K-class** » Sun May 20, 2007 11:04 am

I have started a master Diesel xml list.

snoopy55 is this what you had in mind?

I have only added details that make up this individual train etc.

szName, SzModel, szDummyModel, szNewTrainImage, szTenderCar, szFile, and SzCar

Any suggestions please let me know.

Version 2 train list for diesels.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Sun May 20, 2007 9:35 pm

Lowell - the first part was just a goofy comment. The second part meant that without a list, it is possible to miss things.

Choobacca - since you have the <szCars></szCars> line in your map, it really should be removed fron the GLOBALS. A Wiki could be written up explaining how to use it. It would make it much easier for those who wish to add these engines to their maps.

K-class - I'm really not sure if that is what I was speaking of since I don't use Excell. (never had a use for it) Looking over my past posts I see I forgot to upload the sample.

It's on this one. This information will be added to the Wiki. It won't be for putting in a map, tho that could be done.

K-class · Post by **K-class** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:21 am

snoopy55 you dont know what you are missing.

see http://www.openoffice.org/

download **Free** OpenOffice.org 2.2 completly free and replaces Microsoft office.

Doing things in spreadsheet format makes life easy especially lists. Cant format stuff in notepad.

Adding stuff into the wiki is easier when you have the tools.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Mon May 21, 2007 2:38 pm

snoopy55 wrote:Choobacca - since you have the <szCars></szCars> line in your map, it really should be removed fron the GLOBALS. A Wiki could be written up explaining how to use it. It would make it much easier for those who wish to add these engines to their maps.

Snoopy,
A Wiki explaining engines and train cars would be good. I will put something together.

Honestly, the way the BasinAndRange engines are installed into the globals is the way I want them. I like our authentic engines pulling authentic cars by default, not the generic ones. We created a new variation of train cars that can add variety to any map. But if the user wants to go back to generic cars, they would have to specify the <szCar>_v2</szCar> in their map's Trains XML file, or change their global Trains file if they want.

Lowell · Post by **Lowell** » Mon May 21, 2007 6:44 pm

Choobacca what happened was I made a special food car for my Florida Gold map I am working on like I have mentioned, and it is listed in my map as well as lives globally in game. On a return trip from Lake City Distribution the zebra dual grabbed a food car on its return trip to its home city. I noticed the orange Sante Fe food car and was a bit surprised seeing that I have that global entry for the new food car I was already using on the map. I thought it looked cool at first having two different cars for the same good...but as soon as it docked at it's town's depot and started to offload...CTD, then no return into the saved game.
I guess the game only wants one car per good per map. That's why I think it is better to build a new car in the global files and not the decorations list...at least with the global entries there is a beginning and end. The decorations listing is wide open, nobody will remember what cars get pulled by what engines and dual goods cars will again start pulling up on maps and it will be hard for the modder/player to understand where the CTD is coming from.
Guess I would need to look deeper and play with it more...right now it's back to the ship models...

EDIT//Choo it's not about whether or not the "player" wants his generic cars...I am listing cars for my map and they are getting changed if a player adds one of your engines to my maps train list ( as many do)...and what about the trouble post on my map about crashes...only to find out the user added one of those engines and caused the crash. What can happen is it can trash a modders map. That is my concern.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Mon May 21, 2007 9:01 pm

Lowell,
Thanks for being patient with me. I am starting to see your point.
BUT, users who try to mod your map after you release it will usually mess it up and blame you for it. The best you can do is provide a map that works when you release it and not try to cover your butt with all the mods that could be added to your map later.

Now to your issue.
Every car in the game has 2 variations: _v1 and _v2. I have seen trains pull 2 different grain cars at the same time with no problems: an open hopper and a covered hopper. This happens when you upgrade a train and add cars to its route. So I assume you upgraded your train to the Zebra and added more food cars to its route.

Regarding your new Food car, I assume you created a new Food car and have the model files for the _v1 and _v2 variations. Did you create one for the _bnsf variation? If not, try creating one and see if this fixes the problem.

I will have to do some testing and see if the game crashes on me.

EDIT: BTW, the decorations are just models the game plops on the map for "decoration". The game doesn't make any connection between a train and a decoration, so there is no conflict there. Again, I add these decorations to keep the new cars in memory as the game seemed to lose them in the late game.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu May 24, 2007 11:09 pm

choobacca - I fear you may have misunderstood me. The engine-car relationshuips in your map are great, and I wouldn't ask you to change that. You have the cars matched to the engines in your map, but you also have those same cars matched to those same engines in the GLOBALS you created. That is what I was speaking of when I psoke of changing the code. If someone later makes their own cars yet uses your engines, they may see it as they made a mistake that is keeping their cars from coming up. The change in the GLOBALS should in no way affect your map.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu May 24, 2007 11:14 pm

K-class - what you are seeing in that file is the way it is done for Wiki. Go into Wiki and click on any 'edit' and you will see what is required for it to show up as it does.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Thu May 24, 2007 11:59 pm

choobacca wrote:Every car in the game has 2 variations: _v1 and _v2. I have seen trains pull 2 different grain cars at the same time with no problems: an open hopper and a covered hopper. This happens when you upgrade a train and add cars to its route.

To prove this works, I had an oil train delivering oil using 2 different train cars, the original _v2 installed with the game and my _bnsf variation. No crashes.
BTW, you can only do this with train car variations, and not by creating a new car type. And you can have as many variations as you want!

Lowell · Post by **Lowell** » Fri May 25, 2007 4:22 am

Interesting...so you save them as Decoration files then point the nif file refer to those textures that way?

When I added the zebra dual gp7 I couldn't get into my saved maps on my Florida map. I removed it and all was well. I have clean files and no issues so I wonder what caused it? I really like the idea and it sounds like it would be a great time saver from all the xml typing to do otherwise. My first thought was maybe my food car that I had that was global and type 2 at that time and then your type two car might have been the issue as it crashed as soon as your orange car started to offload ctd. Plus no reentry into saved games, remove the dual zebra and go right into those maps that I wasn't able to. My thoughts were maybe the game isn't happy with the new listing method. When I played your map everything is great with the models and cars.

I need to make a Seaboard passenger line set a couple Southern gp7's and some cars. As soon as I get this UVW Unwrap figured out on the ships I may look deeper into making my models this way, but I am not sure about the saved game issue?