T-RAM

Ryan B. · February 22, 2009, 10:12:14 AM

Xylo, that looks like something I see in Buffalo! That would be very, very handy for me!

Nice work!

nerdly_dood · February 22, 2009, 10:29:01 AM

Majorjet: In the sticky post at the top of every page in this thread you can see Image 3 - that shows the tram-in-road/tram-in-road transition. Tram-on-road is two separated lanes for road traffic with a tram line in the middle; tram-in-road is 4 contiguous lanes of road traffic with a tram line sharing the inner 2 lanes.

Swamper77 · February 22, 2009, 11:31:37 AM

Quote from: Xyloxadoria on February 22, 2009, 09:07:20 AM
If you think the model looks good ill render it out. I know how to do the transit switches and such form the last version. Not sure on the pathing but i might be able to do it.

Xylo,

I'd be willing to path that for you. I just need the GMAX scene with those road bits left on. In other words, I need the unrendered model to work with. Send me a PM if you want me to path this.

-Swamper

b22rian · February 22, 2009, 02:18:49 PM

in all due fairness and respect to chrism..
as all of us know he has contributed a great deal the game of which im most appreciative..

However T ram has not been out for awhile now, but its hard really to use a new network without
any stations.. I know Z's stations are not perfect..but there pretty darn good ..
And there are players like myself who care more about functionality than appearances in the game..
How bout lets get Z's new stations released first so we have some stations that im quite sure are
functional, pathed correctly ect.. and than maybe we can dot all the I's and cross all the T's a bit
later if we want to in terms of the appearances of some of the props ?
Just my take on all this..

Thanks Brian

majorjet · February 23, 2009, 08:58:48 PM

Thanks nerdly_dood

I didn't even notice the difference until you pointed it out to me!

z · February 24, 2009, 12:49:14 AM

Chrisim - I will respond to your message shortly. But first, I want to finish up these stations, as there do appear to be a number of people who want them. Meanwhile, the following should be of interest to anyone building stations for T-RAM, or considering doing so.

There was a slight delay in the station development due to a rather unusual bug I encountered that threatened to derail much of the work that I was doing. (No pun intended.) Fortunately, I found a completely effective workaround, and the stations will be released as promised very shortly.

I noticed the bug shortly after I posted my last message here. While finishing up the development, I also had various tests running in the background, making sure that the stations would work under various conditions. Up until then, all the tests had been successful. But now the same stations started failing in other situations, for no apparent reason. And the method of failure was quite unique; I had never seen anything like it before. I have seen plenty of situations where a station will not do its transfers properly, as have many experienced station builders, but this was not what was happening here. Instead, either the station would work perfectly, or else, after plopping it, it would act like a complete roadblock to all forms of transit that were supposed to pass through it, and Sims would find other routes that bypassed the station completely. The paths I was using for the stations were the paths that T-RAM uses for its straight puzzle pieces; turning on the "drawpaths" cheat verified that they were all set properly in the stations. And the automata seemed to think that the paths were fine too; I could see trams pulling into the station, stopping, then continuing, just as expected. But there wasn't ever any actual traffic; both the surrounding road and rail were empty, with the interesting exception of the Sims who drove to work at the station.

This was very mysterious, especially since I could not predict whether a station would work or fail before plopping it. And if it failed, it could stay there for years and it would never worked. But if it worked, it would always work. The stations are two squares long, and transit enabled only internally. I tried using both one-way and two-way roads for the transit enabling type; both worked the same. I tried activating the paths by dragging the appropriate road both toward the arrow that the station showed before plopping and away from it; this made no difference.

The transit switch point I was using was the one that RTMT uses quite successfully for its combo Bus/GLR stations for GLR-in-Avenue. So the problem shouldn't have been there. Nevertheless, I decided I would try taking out the bus transfers. This made no difference. So then I took out the el train transfers. Now all I was left with was a station that passed all traffic through it, unswitched. Still, in those cases where it had failed before, it continued to fail. This made no sense at all.

I was starting to run out of ideas. I decided to see if the station orientation made a difference. I had little hope that it would; the transit switch point and the paths are completely bilaterally symmetrical, and I had never seen the orientation of that type of station make any difference at all. Nevertheless, it did!

These stations generally have a "preferred" orientation when you plop them; sometimes that's the "correct" orientation and they work; other times it's not, and they don't. If they don't work, replopping them the other way around corrects the situation immediately.

A little more investigation gave some more information. If a station plopped in a given orientation on a T-RAM road works, then all other stations plopped in the same orientation on that road will also work. I also have tentative evidence for which direction this is on any given road. The arrow that shows on the station before it is plopped points to the station's internal south. In the cases I have tested, the station always works if the arrow points south when the station is plopped on a north-south road, and west on an east-west road. And of course, the orientation can always be changed to suit using the Home and End keys.

The working versions of the stations that I am currently using are transit enabled with the one-way road transit type. This has the advantage that they are immune to the CTD bug. I have verified this by dragging various puzzle pieces over these stations with no ill effects. Once the stations are plopped, they need to have their paths activated by dragging a one-way road through their two squares, but I have found that the paths are activated equally well regardless of the direction that the one-way road is dragged.

So that's what I've been working on the last couple of days. Has anyone seen anything like this before? It certainly doesn't seem to be a T-RAM bug, nor does it seem to be a station bug. My guess is that it is one of the vast number of TE lot bugs that lurk inside the game, and the unique requirements of T-RAM happen to have stirred it up for stations.

Now it's back to work to finishing these up...

b22rian · February 24, 2009, 03:54:24 AM

ah yes more directional orientation problems.. Well ask Cogeo about this when you get a chance..
Him and I practically pulled our hair out over trying to figure this Maxis bug out !! ..But yes as you stated
we had noticed similar problems with some of the stations he was modding and I was testing for him... So
hopefully he will either see this thread and add his comments as he knows more how to explain it from a technical standpoint.. or he will PM you im sure, and than the 2 of you can discuss this issue.. And best decide on the
proper work arounds with it ect.. But it sounds like at least with these stations you have already found a way
around this as you said they are still ready for release soon.. But I still encourage you to discuss this with Cogeo,
nevertheless, Z..

Thanks , Brian

kj3400 · February 24, 2009, 05:08:38 AM

I have a question, and if someone's asked this before, I understand, and if it's not possible I also understand. But is it possible for there to be catenaries for GLR and GLR-in-X, like for rail? And is there a possibility of GLR-in-OWR?

io_bg · February 24, 2009, 05:21:35 AM

Quote from: kj3400 on February 24, 2009, 05:08:38 AM
I have a question, and if someone's asked this before, I understand, and if it's not possible I also understand. But is it possible for there to be catenaries for GLR and GLR-in-X, , like for rail?

Of course it is possible. The only problem is that somebody will have to make them (as I know something like this would take a lot of time). BTW any news on the GLR on road stations?

Andreas · February 24, 2009, 05:31:10 AM

The SFBT T-RAM stations are being tested right now and will be released very soon.

b22rian · February 24, 2009, 07:59:25 AM

thanks Andreas..

Your work and Z's with the T- Ram stations is most appreciated...
I hope i didnt sound too impatient with my former post, as well as a few others..

Regards, Brian

z · February 25, 2009, 03:36:28 AM

The RTMT T-RAM stations are finally ready, and can be downloaded from the LEX. Everything you need to know about installing them and using them is in the ReadMe file; it is extremely important to read this whole file. Feedback is welcome, but it is probably best to do it on the RTMT board. Support questions about the new stations should be directed to The RTMT V3 Support Thread, while suggestions for future station development should be directed to the New Additions to RTMT thread. For those downloading these stations, good luck!

k808j · February 25, 2009, 07:18:24 AM

To the German patrons,

Will you be uploading your works to SimKurier only or to the English sites also.

Andreas · February 25, 2009, 08:51:07 AM

They will be uploaded to both the German SimCityKurier and the LEX.

z · February 25, 2009, 01:16:21 PM

Andreas, did you run into the same station orientation issue that I did? I've just never seen that before for symmetrical stations.

LE0 · February 26, 2009, 06:52:36 AM

Is it possible to make a puzzle piece that would connect GLR in Road to El Rail Over Road?

Since they are the same network.

carkid1998 · February 26, 2009, 08:02:38 AM

I'm not an expert on paths but automata may jump one example is:

LE0 · February 27, 2009, 05:42:54 AM

I dont think it would jump because its not double decker same network. is that right?

It would basically look like a GLR ramp in the median of a Road

Chrisim · February 27, 2009, 04:43:56 PM

Quote from: z on February 25, 2009, 01:16:21 PM
Andreas, did you run into the same station orientation issue that I did? I've just never seen that before for symmetrical stations.

No, we have not seen such a problem with the SFBT T-Ram stop. I downloaded your station from the STEX and was able to reproduce the problem with your station, but when using our station in the same location and any direction, it works fine. So, something is wrong with your station.
I spent a few minutes comparing our stations. There are some differences, but I cannot see an obvious reason for your problem. I believe that Andreas will publish our station soon, so you will be able to compare yourself. Or PM me your email address.

Quote from: LE0 on February 26, 2009, 06:52:36 AM
Is it possible to make a puzzle piece that would connect GLR in Road to El Rail Over Road? Since they are the same network.

Of course, it is possible, but somebody would have to create the model.

z · March 01, 2009, 06:14:27 PM

Quote from: Chrisim on February 22, 2009, 07:37:53 AM
Z, it is a pity that you have never been involved in the discussions of the T-RAM developers for stations...

Chrisim, this is the reply I promised to your post. I assure you that I was not offended by your message. Our goals in creating stations are somewhat different, and I did not make it clear at the time that these were really only interim stations. Originally, I was not planning to do any stations for T-RAM until much later, when it would be possible to create stations that were far more specific to T-RAM. The sole reason I released the current stations was that no stations existed specifically for T-RAM, and there was a great demand for them. Although the stations I released were far from perfect, they were good enough to make a lot of people happy when I released them on the STEX. The RTMT team plans to modify these stations to fit better with T-RAM for the RTMT V4.0 release, but that is still a ways off. Since we will use the same IIDs, people who use these stations will have them automatically upgraded.

In general, our plans call for shrinking the stations somewhat. On one hand, you are quite right that tram stops are much more common than tram stations. In Boston, where I spent most of my life, the predominant form of tram was tram-in-avenue, and almost all the stops I can remember were simple stops with no shelters. The main stations were placed off-road. I will be introducing tram stops for RTMT V4.0, both for T-RAM and GLR-in-Avenue. Yet many players like the more elaborate shelters, so by providing both, they will have a choice of what to use.

As for realism, this varies not only by individual taste, but also by country. I think Schleicher68's 3x4 station is beautiful, yet I've never seen a station like that in real life. But I wouldn't call it unrealistic, because I have no idea what stations are like in Germany, or the rest of the world for that matter.

As for gshmails' station, I didn't move the platform below the surface. I thought the ground was flat there, as it appeared so with my other stations, but it actually has a gentle slope that was enough to cover the platform of this station. On flat ground, the platform shows up quite nicely.

So to sum up, I think we are both very dedicated to high quality; I think it is simply some other issues on which we have differences. In this case, the main difference was that I thought it would be good to get some stations out there even they may be imperfect, while you have chosen to wait. Our view of what realism is also differs, but as players like stations produced by both of us, I think this is good, as it simply gives them more choice. And I think you will find that the next release of these stations will fit your idea of realism much better (though not completely!), while not generating any complaints from users. So I think you have raised many good points, and as the RTMT stations evolve, you will see more of them embodied.