Too Many Sidings? Options

[tjbuege]

Hi,

While creating a template for a large route, I ran into a problem with MSTS Activity Editor. It started to silently crash when opening my template I was working on. After digging around and experimenting, I believe I have found a limitation in AE to the number of sidings that can be referred to with a Pickup Cars action. It seems you can not refer to more than 90 different siding. Has anyone else run into this problem? Are there any workarounds? How are templates created for large routes with more than 90 sidings?

Thanks,
Tim

[xpdingo]

Hi,

While creating a template for a large route, I ran into a problem with MSTS Activity Editor. It started to silently crash when opening my template I was working on. After digging around and experimenting, I believe I have found a limitation in AE to the number of sidings that can be referred to with a Pickup Cars action. It seems you can not refer to more than 90 different siding. Has anyone else run into this problem? Are there any workarounds? How are templates created for large routes with more than 90 sidings?

Thanks,
Tim

I believe the limit is 75 Pickup events, after that it will crash. Stop your pickup events before this and create your SWLACT file. Go to the activities folder for this route and move the file you just created to a temp folder and rename it SWLACT2. Keep doing this untill you have all the pickups for the template, always moving and rename them 2,3,4 or as many as you need. When done copy and paste all the folders into one with the correct name.

Pete















swlact file

[nbeveridge]

I believe the limit is 75 Pickup events, after that it will crash. Stop your pickup events before this and create your SWLACT file. Go to the activities folder for this route and move the file you just created to a temp folder and rename it SWLACT2. Keep doing this untill you have all the pickups for the template, always moving and rename them 2,3,4 or as many as you need. When done copy and paste all the folders into one with the correct name.

Pete
swlact file

An excellent response, Pete. This is a trick that experienced template creators employ routinely, and it is not obvious to others.

[tjbuege]

An excellent response, Pete. This is a trick that experienced template creators employ routinely, and it is not obvious to others.

It's definitely breaking at 91, so I'm seeing a limit of 90. Not sure why others see it at 75. Could it be because I run train.exe with the -mem:2048 parameter?

As an aside, I combine multiple sidings/pickups into a single Pickup Cars event, where it makes sense. For example, all sidings at a town get picked up as one event. This keeps the number of pickup action events down, and helps me locate specific sidings if I need to change something.

Anyhow, it sounds like I'm dealing with this the correct way, by doing things in stages. So let me ask this question...is the actual *.act file needed once the two *.csv files are generated? I believe the answer is "yes", because that is where the player paths are picked up from?

Thanks for the responses.

Tim

[nbeveridge]

It's definitely breaking at 91, so I'm seeing a limit of 90. Not sure why others see it at 75. Could it be because I run train.exe with the -mem:2048 parameter?

As an aside, I combine multiple sidings/pickups into a single Pickup Cars event, where it makes sense. For example, all sidings at a town get picked up as one event. This keeps the number of pickup action events down, and helps me locate specific sidings if I need to change something.

Anyhow, it sounds like I'm dealing with this the correct way, by doing things in stages. So let me ask this question...is the actual *.act file needed once the two *.csv files are generated? I believe the answer is "yes", because that is where the player paths are picked up from?

Thanks for the responses.

Tim

I do not know why you are seeing 90 as the limit. I always stop at or before 70, because 70 is always safe. Too much work to lose to take a chance on more than that.

Combining multiple sidings into one event never helped the situation, from my experience. I tried it and it failed. I.e. if I put 10 into one event, then MSTS would lock up around 66 (65 + 10 = 75). Again, too much work to lose to take a chance on more than that.

The actual .act file is needed, which file must includie the placement of ALL rail cars for ALL pick up events. This is required so that MSTS can know where and what cars are to be placed. AND the cars in the activity must correspond EXACTLY to the combined SWLACT .csv file, or else you will get unexpected (and undesired) results.

[tjbuege]

I do not know why you are seeing 90 as the limit. I always stop at or before 70, because 70 is always safe. Too much work to lose to take a chance on more than that.

Combining multiple sidings into one event never helped the situation, from my experience. I tried it and it failed. I.e. if I put 10 into one event, then MSTS would lock up around 66 (65 + 10 = 75). Again, too much work to lose to take a chance on more than that.

The actual .act file is needed, which file must includie the placement of ALL rail cars for ALL pick up events. This is required so that MSTS can know where and what cars are to be placed. AND the cars in the activity must correspond EXACTLY to the combined SWLACT .csv file, or else you will get unexpected (and undesired) results.

I think you misunderstood my reasons for combining multiple sidings into one pickup event. I don't do it to get around the siding limit...I do it to make it easier for me to manage the activity. I'd much rather scroll through a list of a dozen events, than scroll through a list of 70 (or 90) pickup events.

Regardless, thanks for the clarification on the .ACT file. If I would have thought about it a bit longer, I would have come to the same answer.

Tim

[jrmeindl]

I think you misunderstood my reasons for combining multiple sidings into one pickup event. I don't do it to get around the siding limit...I do it to make it easier for me to manage the activity. I'd much rather scroll through a list of a dozen events, than scroll through a list of 70 (or 90) pickup events.

Regardless, thanks for the clarification on the .ACT file. If I would have thought about it a bit longer, I would have come to the same answer.

Tim

I agree with the grouping. I've done that as well in all of my templates. Most I have done by keeping yards and sidings in a region together. I can also add a little more about the number of events you can have in an activity. Yes, the number that Train Simulator can handle is somewhere between 70 and 90, but that is only the case if you plan to run or edit the activity. AG doesn't really care how many pickup events you have in the activity when generating your CSV files. I believe I had about 250+ events while creating the Cajon Templates. The key was to not exit the activity editor or that activity during my session. It will continue to work fine even as you save the activity. When I do close the activity, I then create the CSV files. Using an editor, such as WordPad, I then edit out all but one of the pickup events. This will allow you to again open the activity and use it for AG. Of course, do save the original. This might seem a bit more technical, but it can be done.

To add a bit more about creating templates: I usually use one car to place on all the sidings. Norm, I think you have done this as well. I normally use one of the boxcars that came with TS to place on all the sidings. Using a trick from work with the # sign, I create a consist such as #_boxcar. This will force the consist to the top of the group. This makes it easy to select. I then set up a few feeder tracks in one of the yards. That is where I put all my cars that I plan to used in the template. It makes it a whole lot easier if I want to switch out or more cars. No more searching the route for that car you don't want to use!

Jim

[nbeveridge]

To add a bit more about creating templates: I usually use one car to place on all the sidings. Norm, I think you have done this as well. I normally use one of the boxcars that came with TS to place on all the sidings. Using a trick from work with the # sign, I create a consist such as #_boxcar. This will force the consist to the top of the group. This makes it easy to select. I then set up a few feeder tracks in one of the yards. That is where I put all my cars that I plan to used in the template. It makes it a whole lot easier if I want to switch out or more cars. No more searching the route for that car you don't want to use!

Jim

Jim,

That is exactly how I do the templates, and exactly the reason. By using that one car in ALL locations, and then putting strings of the cars in the yards that I want in the activities, with a pick up event for each of these yard strings, it is very easy to change out cars if need be. Without the pick up event and an update to the SWLACT .csv file, changing out a car will have unexpected results.