Gazz292

i drive the EU07 / EP08's all the time, and handilly on them pressing number 4 key is a view back down the train as if you were looking out the side windows of the cab.... press 4 again to look down the other side of the train, i do this all the time just before i'm about to leave a station, as for the people slowly walking towards the train, tough, the departure time is displayed on the station displays, and the trains been announced over the speakers, Again, in the EU07 / EP08 loco's, pressing the key for any of the door actions (i.e. the ones that open or close the doors on the elf and pendo's) results in any passengers who were going to board the train to change their walking path and walk away.

i was convinced they did make a noise, But i've since figured out that it was that background sounds loop when you are out in the country, i happened to be standing near a set of points back in the play tests and as they moved over i heard a sort of chugging and a thunka - thonk sound, which i assumed to be the points motor and the blades moving, but it's a motorbike going past and some other noise that's been recorded for the ambient sounds.

Everyone's different, I couldn't care less about shunting, or the editors, but i am eagerly waiting for the I/O system that will allow a replica train cab to operate it's controls, gauges and lights in sync with the sim. and each update i hope for more keybinds to get away from using the mouse to operate controls in the trains.

i guess they got nowhere trying to get dovetail to make an italian route, so thought they'd try here with a copy and paste.

Does any of your 'suggestions' happen in real life when dispatching on the Polish railway? If they do, then they will be incorporated, However if they are just a list of 'i want this feature' or 'this other train game does it like this'.... then likely they will not, as SimRail is a realistic driving and signalling simulator, giving the general public a taste of what it's like to drive a train or dispatch on the Polish railways, The parent company of SimRail makes the simulators that are used to train real drivers for their career on the railways, so if things seem weird, it's just a case of getting used to it, as that is how it's done in real life.

many people before you have bought SimRail and posted that they want to do things like walk the tracks and perform other jobs on the railway, do a search on past posts and you will see plenty of them, same on the discord servers. SimRail does something no other train sim or game has managed to get working properly so far.... a multiplayer co-op where people can drive the trains or man the signal boxes and set the routes up and ensure the right trains pass their section smoothly. This takes a lot of hard work from the developers, and *most* people do not want to see developers pulled off their current jobs of improving the sis and creating new routes and trains to turn SimRail into a railway based version of the sims, SimRail has 2 roles, train driver or dispatcher, this is based on how the simulator used for training real drivers that the parent company makes does things, Some of us have been waiting over 10 years for something like this to come along, we finally have it and people want to dilute it and turn it into 'yet another train game' you may want to be a ticket inspector, or a guard, but then what about the person who wants to be a toilet cleaner? or a vandal throwing bricks at the trains? or a car driver waiting to cross the tracks as your train passes, or a soft toy collector, or a poster guy, or a trackside telephone replacer, or a drunk that harasses people on the stations, or the catering staff in the reiterant car, or a ... and so on.

there's a reason not much italian railway stuff is made, the italian authorities are very strict on this kind of thing, they say for reasons of national security they do not want their railways simulated, so anyone who attempts to recreate an italian railway route / rolling stock in a simulator could end up in a lot of trouble.

keep that kind of crap for the games like tsw. SimRail is based on the actual simulator used to train real drivers in Poland, it's a train driving and signalling simulator, not a 'life simulator'

maybe a test is being run to see how long the servers can go without a restart? We started out with restarts every 3 to 4 hours right at the beginning (IIRC) and slowly moved up to longer and longer restart times as things got better and total lockups of the line reduced. I'd imagine that eventually server restarts would be done only when something has really screwed up the system and deadlocked it,

From what i've read on discord / facebook etc, the 'game controller' stuff is now down as 'gamepad support' but that's been mentioned to be a way to bind the controls to a joystick type input: so hopefully this will give us the ability to map multiple button boxes hopefully to more controls than we can right now with the keyboard keybinds, and maybe even joystick axis. Now the 'home cockpit' / drivers cab I/O, that is what i am waiting for, hoping it will be like Omsi did it where any in sim gauge, light, control etc can be read and made to operate various methods of moving gauge pointers (servo's, stepper motors, moving coils, pulse counters etc) and even output the data from the 'MFA' screens in the modern loco's to display on external monitors / tablets.. with button or touch inputs for reading the setting buttons around the screens. Plus of course the simple on/off outputs for warning lights.

Yes, that is something that will have to be implemented at some time as the sim grows, and more and more loco's get added with controls only found in that particular loco,

oh yeah i realised what was wanted, but how on earth do you code that, wait 30 seconds before passing an ABS red, or maybe 35 seconds, what if it had waited another 5 seconds... and repeat. What if it's a players train in the station, and they leave 6 seconds late, and the train behind is programmed to wait an extra 5 seconds before passing the signal in that situation (and yes i know there should be at least one semi automatic signal behind the station where a trains stopped) way i see it. it's just part of railway life where you are allowed to pass red automatic signals, there will always be a 'if only it had waited another xx seconds it would have got a proceed aspect' situation.

The rules for Auto Block Signals state that you can pass them on red after stopping for a short time (few seconds) then travel at a max of 20 Km/h being prepared to stop at any obstruction ahead, This is because they are automatic signals and could be 'stuck' showing a red aspect, AFAIK a dispatcher can not give you permission to pass an Auto Block Signal over the radio, as they are not in control of those signals. so you'd be sat forever at a stuck red signal causing a traffic jam behind you. You can then speed up to route speed when you pass a non red signal, otherwise you can keep passing red Auto Block Signals, Obviously you can't pass a Semi Automatic Signal at red unless it's showing Sz (flashing white light) Then it's 40 Km/h, dropping to 20 Km/h when you exit pass the last Semi Automatic Signal and enter into the Auto Block Signal area. So the Ai trains are just doing what they should be doing, and human driven trains can do the same. This is just another thing that SimRail is doing correctly according to the Polish railway rules.

wait till it's dark in the sim, press 'N' whilst driving a train, get blinded by your torch shining back at you in the windscreen. I do wonder if other players see where the torch beam is pointing at? It moves with your head, and as i use TrackIr, where ever i move my head IRL moves the view in the sim, and the torch beam follows.... do others see this? (and do others see my drivers head move when i move it via TrackIr?)

what's wrong with the one we already have?

The sound i hear could be inverter / converter whine, aparantly the 'head end power' is 3kV DC sent down the jumpers to the carriages, there it gets changed to the lower voltage and to AC as needed. In the uk i think we varied from 800 volts single phase AC, and 415 volts AC 3 phase to power the electric carriage heating and the kitchen equipment (water boilers, grills, microwave, hotplate etc) ... that was in the HST trains, tho the voltage dropped to about 276 volts per phase when the power car's engine was idling, going back to 415 volts when it was at full speed.

The air conditioners sound works in the IC carriages, Turn the train heating switch on then walk back along the train, and as you get close to the air intake grills on the sides of the carriages you will hear a high pitched whine, which i presume is the air con compressors or the fans running. cycling through the camera views with number 4 key so you are looking inside on of the carriages near the middle and you'll hear the sound too. Turn the heating switch off, and the carriages are quiet again.

Issue the dispatchers with sun glasses ? 😎

Please please please... can we get some more key binds? Maybe add them to the 'buttons.conf' file and not the controls menu if that is getting too full??. This is done now, in the buttons.conf file there are a couple of entries that are not shown in the controls menu: TEST=T shp=Z buttonMove=LeftControl There used to be a TEST2 = Y.. but that was taken out a while back. Then people who really want to have more key binds can set them up in the settings.conf file, and the other people who are happy to use the mouse to drive just carry on as if they didn't exist. I have 96 keys on my laptop keyboard that could be assigned to operate things, and there are currently about 58 key binds in use (6 of which i hardly use as i drive the EU07 almost exclusively... i.e. door controls and cruise control) So there's room for 38 more key binds before we need to think about adding in modifier key functionality... i.e. shift + a key, control plus a key etc, which would triple the number of key binds possible. Would it be possible to add extra key binds to the settings.conf file and not have them set to any keys to start with? i.e something like 'WindscreenWashers=NULL' and we change the null to a key we want to use? or set all new key binds to the same key, something like F20 which most keyboards don't have, but is a valid windows key assignment. : Key Bind's i'd like to get are (all in the EU07) : Windscreen washers Traction motor overload reset Wheel slip brake button Compressor switch Converter switch Main power switch on and off Open line contactors (for when you are about to pass a neutral section sign and can't wind the power wheel to zero fast enough) Brake mode selection rotary switch High / Low power switch Maybe the headlight / tail light switches to set for left track running. Radio channel change up / down keys (would rotate the channel selector in the EU07, operate the radio channel up / down buttons in the other trains) Radio ZEW buttons

yeah, that was all part of the plan to get you to buy all the DLC they made, even if you didn't have an interest in the route, if you wanted to see more than the same old dosto's passing you another £24.99 was needed to add a couple more trains to the route you liked... .... then another £24.99 and another... suddenly the game that you bought in a sale for £5 has cost you £250 and counting, and that was just for the German content which was all i was interested in from the choice of 3 countries that they covered then. : But their bug fixing was appalling, every bug being graded from 'game breaking so we'd better fix it asap or we'll lose customers' to 'meh!, can't be arsed with that, leave it as is... only 500 people have noticed it so far anyway'

what for? If it's for where i used an STM32F bluepill, i'd say no way, when i bought them they were £2 each (they are £5 each now) they have more inputs than most arduino's (especially for their size) much faster processor, and it's 32 bit Vs 8 bit, way way more memory, seen as a HID device easily (only a few arduino's can do that without flashing custom firmware on them) But they can be programmed as an arduino if you want (STMduino) But for the joystick / button box thing, it would take a hell of a lot of arduino code to get the functionality of FreeJoy, which once loaded onto the board uses a GUI to program it, much better than changing lines of code to set up all the inputs how you want... especially with debouncing, press timers and changing state switches to give a pulsed output etc. Now for where i used the 2 button keyboard, or the macro pad, then the small arduino pro micro's may have been better, But not for the microphones PTT key board, that is a single button board that plugs directly into a usb port, and was ideal for where i used it, plugged in the hub so the mic's PTT key presses against the button. But again, with arduino's it's programming them, and having to change lines of code each time you want to change an inputs assignment gets old fast, much better to start the GUI programming software, press the button you want to change, then 2 or 3 mouse clicks and it's changed and working. IF it's for the force feedback wheel as a train power wheel controller idea, then yes an arduino would likely have it working pretty fast, but that then means for anyone else to do the same they need to rip the main board out of their FFB wheel that they likely want to still use for driving games, So the idea of a windows program that takes control of the wheel, sending it a fake / test FFB signal that makes it act like a notched power wheel is a way to allow almost anyone to drive the EU07 type trains with a wheel.

And finally (for now) ... my EU07 inspired button box: Side view showing the toggle switch covers off better: This is a 3D printed box, 3D printed switch covers in the style of those used in the train, a 3D printed cab activation key, battery switch surround and switch cover, and some 16mm (22mm head) anodized alloy mushroom buttons, and some 19mm flat top push buttons (to which i applied a circle of label tape in red and green. All wired to an STM32F 'blue pill' board which is running FreeJoy, this sends joystick button presses to the computer, where i use JoyToKey to convert them to keybinds / key presses that SimRail can work with. Below is the inside of the box showing my messy wiring between the switches and the blue pill board: The toggle switches are the paddle type that look like this : As the 3D printed switch covers are thinner than the paddle width (i first made them full width, but it didn't look right), i shaved down the edges until there was about a 4mm wide stub left, and over this i glued on my 3D printed EU07 style switch covers: The cab activation key is a 4 position 90 degree rotary switch, locked to 2 positions with the tang washer they come with, then a 3D printed surround and key that pushes on the D shaft, The battery switch is just a 3D printed switch cover and surround to make it look a little like the battery switch in the loco. As i am limited to how wide i could make this switch box i had to make it taller than wide to get on all the buttons i wanted, of course only half the switches and buttons work, this is because SimRail has limited keybinds, i'll have to beg the devs to enable more keybinds, like the traction motor overload reset, wheel slip button etc. The FreeJoy screen showing how i set my toggle switches up: FreeJoy is rather good in that it allows me to use a single 'signal' wire from each toggle switch, then i use the 'toggle switch ON/OFF' function and a timer, and this sends a button push command for 200 milliseconds each time the switch changes position, JoyToKey then changes this button pulse into a keypress, and SimRail thinks i am pressing say the K key on the keyboard that i have set to turn the cab light on and off. I have about 10 spare inputs on the blue pill / freejoy, so a switch that has 2 states can easily be added (and more switches added with a simple latch register board, as freejoy can handle over 100 button input and outputs, plus 8 axis, and rotary encoders etc. __________________________________ Driving my favourite loco in SimRail is even more awesome now that i have these controls to operate it with, one day i hope to make a full sized cab replica.... or at least a semi universal train driving cab for driving the wheel type power controller trains (i have the real driving desk from a German BR111 train in storage, when i get the space i will get that set up to control the lever type loco's (traxx, pendulio, elf etc) My next project for now tho is to try and find someone good at writing windows programs who can help me use a force feedback steering wheel as used for road driving games, and make that operate like the EU07's power wheel, so you'd rotate it and it would click between virtual notches, and increase or decrease the power in the loco, Then i'd make a 3D printed brake handle that i can put on the wheels shaft in place of the steering wheel, and have a brake lever using a second cheap force feedback wheel, and a different 'indent and friction' map to match the brake lever in the trains. Me asking for help with programming for that project is here :

Breaker one - nine, this here's the rubber duck, i think we got ourselves a convoy... It just didn't feel right holding down a keyboard key and talking into space when contacting the dispatcher in SimRail, and as i drive the EU07 / EP08 99% of the time, i just had to get myself a Radmor style microphone. I did want to get a complete Radmor radio telephone set, but it seems all the people who have been playing MaSzyna have bought them up, so when one does come up for sale it's at a silly price. Just finding a microphone on it's own was hard enough, when i did find one the owner would not ship to the uk, and to be honest i'd have had to gut the internals anyway, so i figured a 3D printed one would be better, and others could perhaps copy it and make themselves a Radmor style mic too (one day i will 3D print the switch plate part of the Radmor radio (if we get the input to change channel and adjust the VOIP volume added to SimRail) This is a render from Fusion 360 of the front half of the mic: I designed it to hold all the parts in place that make it work, and the only soldering needed was to attach the key to the neokey board, Inside is a 3 port usb hub, a coiled usb extension cable plugs into that through the mic case (so can be unplugged when it's assembled) a usb microphone dongle, and a single key usb board which sends the keybind to SimRail to activate the mic (programmed with 'circuit py' but it's a drag and drop method of loading on code that's already written, like the code i have that sends the relevant keybind that i use for push to talk in SimRail). Other parts are a spring, 5 x M3 screws and a 50mm tweeter cover that i sprayed grey before gluing into the hole in the front of the mic (then a 3D printed trim ring glues onto that) And finally the microphone holder... 3D printed too of course : My mic holder has a bolt on horizontal arm that fixes to the back of one of my tablet mounts, but a desktop mount could be made, wall mount, or one that would fix to the back of a monitor with double sided tape. To use it in SimRail i just had to set the microphone used to be the plug n play dongle rather than the laptops main mic, and that's it, the neokey trinkey sends the keybind i set for push to talk in SimRail, and i have `the red led of the trinkey board light up when i have pressed the PTT button (can be seen through the mic grill) If anyone was interested in 3D printing themselves a Radmor style microphone (or any other things i 3D printed here), i can upload the .stl files to thingyverse, and make a materials list of all the parts i used.

Not to blow my own horn.... My EU07 inspired horn lever, I used a 2 way joystick switch, a 2 button usb mini keyboard and a 3D printed case that allows the horn lever to be mounted to the underside of my desk... so i reach over and down for the horn when i'm driving the train, just like you would in the real thing, The joystick switch is one of these: i replaced the black ball for a 20mm red one (i've got 4 'spares as i had to buy 5) I also removed the rubber bellows from the shaft. The 2 switches are wired to a 2 button usb keypad (a wasteful and expensive way to do this, an Arduino pro-micro or similar that can be programmed as a HID keyboard would have been a better option, but at the time i was not up to programming an Arduino, so used an off the shelf hack) I disabled all the RGB lights on the key pad and set up the 2 key binds to be the ones i use for horn high and horn low. Then the joystick and mini keypad were stuffed into a 3D printed case and screwed to the underside of my small 'shelf / desktop that my mouse / track ball sits on :