Adding cars to a Template, Increasing the total Number of cars Options

[Conductor Chris]

I am a relatively new user of Activity Generator and am slowly learning how everything works. I appreciate that the program is here.

I got to thinking I'd like things better if some of templates had more cars in them to reduce the instance of the same car being seen over and over when sidings are populated as "eye candy". I presume that the way to do this is to add cars to the .act file using activity generator.

My first attempt to do this resulted in me breaking something and the activities generated had no random cars added on sidings at all, just the placeholder boxcar used in the .act file. I'm not sure if my errors were from managing to put more cars onto sidings than they could hold or if I did something wrong that involved the two .csv files.

So I am getting ready to go back and do it again, more slowly and testing every step instead of rushing. I have a few questions.

First, is there any limit to the number of cars in an activity file?

One limit is what tracks are available to stuff these cars. If I put cars in the .act file on sidings that are not referenced in the .csv file, will that cause problems? Will it result in more cars placed by activity generator or make no difference? Can I put cars in a long consist that spills out onto the mainline and runs up it for awhile? Is there any limit to consist size?

What about cars used by AI trains? Do they get added into the database of cars used to populate sidings? That might be an easy way to go . . . add more AI trains.

If, instead of using single marker boxcars for sidings, I were to add several cars per siding, does that change how many cars AG will put there? I don't think so right - because that is controlled in the .csv file, right? So in theory, I should be able to add, say, 99 cars that spills out onto the mainline a long way, right? As long as the car in the activity is positioned in the right way, instead of the usual AG pattern of being positioned closest to the switch and pointing towards the end of the siding.

thanks.
Christopher

[dgionet]

Hi Chris,

I have read the issue and will try to answer as best as possible. Adding variety of cars to the SLG-generated activity cannot be done at this level. This has to be done during template making. When creating the ACT file AG will use to create the activity, the template maker uses the rail stock expected to be used to put markers on the designated sidings. If the maker uses a limited number of boxcars for example, this will show once AG generates the activity. More cars installed during template creation wll increase also during activity creation.

To add variety to the cars once the templates are done, it will need editing of the ACT file and modifying of the SWLACT CSV file as well. This is a very delicate and complex procedure and need experience in template making. I have done this once after the templates were done to add hopper cars and took a lot of work and mistakes were made and had to restart and finally worked it out. Quite frustrating indeed. During template creation, in my case, I tryto have as required downloads sets of one type of cars, like Dean Kurowski's boxcar megapacks, etc. That adds variety of certain type of cars and avoids increasing the number of needed downloads.

Sidings car capacity is also detemined by the template maker as he determines the railcar's average length and AG determines the number of cars that can be set in these sidings according to the siding's length. The car capacity for each siding is registered in the SWLTDB CSV file. Of course, this number can be changed in the SWLTDB CSV file but must be aware that cars of different sizes can be put there during activity generation including some cars that are actually longer than the average car length. This can cause MSTS to be unable to load because it excedes the siding's length.

AI trains is also set by the template maker. The user could also change its content but with the rest at its own risk! Increased length or weight or mistake in changing the traffic train content could cause changes in the traffic pattern the user wish to generate. In my case, sometimes traffic timing is critical even to a few seconds to have an encounter as wished by the template maker.

Also remember that some sidings have limited capacity to have successfull meets and requires from the player and traffic trains limited consist length. Increasing consists length may make a meet unsuccessfull because one of the trains length is longer than the sidings length capacity.

As you can see, there is a lot of things to consider when creating templates. I haven't tackled all the issues here but in general, modifying the basic template files is a risky business and will have impact on the SLG generated file.

I am not sure to have answered all your questions but hope this reply helps here with some of your issues.

[Conductor Chris]

Thanks, Denis. I guess it is time to learn more about creating templates. Which means wrestling with the uncooperative activity editor, which on this route (FJ&G) wants to crash often.

What you wrote is helpful to provide context and know I'm not missing something obvious.

I thought maybe I could make a new activity that had filled out consists in siding files and copy it back into the pre-existing activity file. But I can't figure out how to match one siding to another. It probably won't matter, I'll just redo all the sidings and then I know I've got them and copy them in. IF I can get activity editor to even do that. I have more admiration for original creator of the template!

Then I'll re-make the SWLACT file.

Thing about the FJ&G route is there isn't enough yard space to put enough cars to not have repetition when populating sidings -- unless I fill all the industry tracks with cars.

This is all experimentation for the purpose of learning and for my own use.

Christopher