Activity Time Changer

Thank you Ged !

ONE of the main problems with OR is that the Trains no longer accelerate away from Stations like the did on MSTS, maybe now they're more realistic, but where I live it was a sight to behold to see a Prairie Tank leave a Station the acceleration always (to me at least) seemed fantastic.

The "Activity Time Changer" alters all that with little tweaks allowing for the Minutes lost by this lack of Acceleration.
I've just added times to the Fort William to Crianlarich activity because ALL the Stations were set with the same arrival and Departure times (09:36:00).

If I can do it it must be a great thing (and simple to use). So an early Christmas Present

Hi Roger,
I'm pleased you've found it useful, mate

I agree with you about Open Rails.  I think the problem is that the developers are more oriented to North American railways (should that be railroads?!), with their lumbering giants of steam locomotives.  Most UK tank engines were quite spritely, even those of the Standard classes, and it's a pity that their performance cannot be replicated on OR (or can it??).

A Happy Christmas and a Good New Year to you and yours.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi Ged

This is a very nice little utility.  I have a small suggestion as to how you might usefully extend it.

If you could clone an existing activity, rename the clone, alter the timings and and also change the player consist (in both the *.act and the *.srv files) it would effectively create a new activity.  If the activity description and briefing in the new *.act file could also be edited so much the better.

I have often altered files like this, manually with a text editor, for some time, but automation with an appropriately extended utility would be really good.  I reckon it shouldn't be too difficult (for you anyway) to achieve, and probably wouldn't be too tough for users to make new activities this way.

Does this make sense?

Regards, and Merry Christmas

Martin

Hi Martin.
Thank you, and the Season's Greetings to you and yours  

Thanks, also, for your suggestion!
Cloning an existing activity would, certainly, be possible.  However, there is one large problem - any substituted consist must not be longer than the original, to avoid placement errors (at least with MSTS).  Maintaining a similar weight could also be important.   Unfortunately, the length and weight of a consist are not stored anywhere.

By a strange coincidence, the same subject has been brought up on another Forum, again in response to ActivityTimesChanger!!  As a result, I am in the process of creating a utility which stores the length and weight of a consist, based on the values entered in the .eng and .wag files of the stock making up the consist, in a 'Comment' line in the .con file.


Before you ask, although the above was actually created by the program, it's not in a fit state to be sent to anybody yet, not even testers!!

Cheers,
Ged

Thanks for this, Ged

I guess I had forgotten about MSTS (I haven't used it for a couple of years, and certainly won't now that OR is so good).

You're right about length and weight, but I haven't experienced any problems in OR, although I don't think I would want to modify a shunting activity.  I do run the final activity through the TSRE Activity Editor just to get a first reset on the station stop times, and I may have to edit them again manually later.

I will be interested to see where you get to on this.

Best wishes

Martin

Although AI trains in MSTS may have accelerated and braked too quickly, it is also possible that some AI trains in OR are a bit tardy. (There are almost certainly others that are still rather faster than real life.)

AI trains in OR use "simple physics" and may not make use of detailed information in eng and wag files.

Two thoughts, both really aimed at those creating new activities and timetables:

First thought - if you can't drive that fast with a player train (assuming you have realistic OR physics for the loco and rolling stock) then you should not expect AI trains to go faster.

Second thought - there should be some ways to tweak the AI train performance using .con files (as in MSTS) and activity or timetable editors. I think some folk may have this worked out already, but I have not tried yet.