This was at Freeman. Notice the floating smoke and headlight. I ran through this spot a couple times and the loco would vanish then reappear. Strange.

Kerry

Wow!
The Stealth Alco!
I thought it was another piece of urban mythology, but here's the first proof of its existance!!

Now THAT'S weird!

Where did you hide Gaetan's engines?

Andre

You think Gaetan would have equipped both units with the cloaking device not just one. It seems to defeat it's purpose when only one unit is hidden the second unit being visable makes them easy targets for the UD ALCO KILLERS!!!!!

Same thing happened to me, at pretty much the same spot, and I'd guess the same engine, but it's sorta hard to tell . I was running Student 3, backing the MTs into the Freeman East Siding, and poof! No more Alco - just smoke! A second or two later, she was back.

Strange goings on in that part of the world....

See it's already happening!!!!!!

No need for alarm. There is a small "spike" on the edge of the Bermuda Triangle that reaches across the eastern US and ends right at that spot. It would "hide" everything except that at that distance from the power pyramid in Sunken Atlantis, it only has enough energy to cloak one locomotive. It does not seem to affect rolling stock because the original purpose of the Bermuda Triangle was for protection of Atlantis, and therefore was attuned to vehicles with some sort of power generation. There are other similar spurs that affect other areas of other routes. HTH LOL!!!

That is a real puzzler guys. One of those wonderful and fun-filled "mysteries" of MSTS.



Andre

Hmmm. Interesting. I think we should send out a party to find out what is going on here. Will make for a great story methinks. As long as we don't lose the party as well. That would be bad.
On a serious note. Can anyone give any kind of logical explanation for this? I know I would be interested in the answer if anyone has one. And there has to be one other than the mysteries of MSTS. Sorry Andre, but I don't think this is a great white void type of problem here but perhaps something new, or something we rarely see but has a logical explanation of some kind. I hope so anyway. Strange!

It's a malady I've seen on other routes, too. I don't think it's shown up in cabview or the V cab, which is the way I run the sim most times when testing activities.

I have a gut feeling its some sort of interaction between an object and the engine in question, or cam views... but why it reacts this way is beyond me.

Andre

I just experienced this malady for myself, BUT . . .
I was in the cab (View 1, Head Out) when the K. C. D. (Klingon Cloaking Device) spurriously engaged!
Suddenly, the loco beside me disappeared and I was floating in space above the track but still moving forward (how COOL is THAT!!!!)
Before I could hit the cursor key to look back to the trailing unit, the lead unit reappeared under me!

This is great stuff, Andre.
Not only have you given us a great new route, you've successfully achieved full-body levitation!!

I would like to learn what does it though. As mentioned, I have seen this in other routes, but mainly just the locomotives are involved.

One exception is Marias Pass at Spotted Robe. There is a place there that each car disappears/reappears as it passes one paticular point when switching on the siding.

As a developer, I'd like to find out what causes it (and a way to fix it) so it doesn't detract from the presentation of the end product.

Andre

Just happened to me. Had my head out running towards Freeman on the first student run and the whole engine just flashed out and back in again. Far as I could tell, there was nothing but grass, trees and telegraph poles around at the time.

Mervyn

Andre:

As they say: "Fuh getta 'bout it!"

It think everybody knows how flukey and buggy MSTS can be.
It's sumpthin' ya got no control over.
It's all we've got 'til something better comes along.

Just enjoy the overall quality of the product
and don't sweat the small glitches.

Hard to forget about it though, Tom.

FWIW: It has to do with the camera and the target the camera is focused on. That is, if you're in an exterior view (cabview in not an exterior cam position as is head out), whatever equipment the camera is focused on/scrolling with will momentarily disappear/reappear at a certain location. I've narrowed it down to one object, but I can't determine what there is about the object that causes this.

Perhaps I'll at least find a fix even if I don't understand why this happens.

Andre

This exact same occurence can happen on the default marias pass route--about 3 miles toward the end of the first passing siding headed east out of glacier park. It used to make the default Dash9 body disappear completely--just as this loco did here on the A&O. The occurence seems to only affect engines, as I've never seen any rolling stock do this.

I always thought it had something to do with tile seams or power lines crossing the track overhead--even if overhead wire visibility is turned off!!

Definately will make you do a double take--thinking WTF is going on here!!!

Well my guess would be camcfg and possibly a seam in the tile or something akin to the great white void but of a smaller nature. Since the engine has a lot more pixels, it would make sense that the higher pixel count is the reason it affects the engine and not the rolling stock, also why inside a cab would not be affected either. Perhaps at this spot, for whatever reason the sim runs out of memory or doesn't have enough memory to reload the engine at this spot. Now, what could cause that is anyone's guess. Perhaps a count of objects at that spot might reveal something. Not sure. Hope you or someone else figures it out though as I would like to know just for general information. I know, you Andre would like to know in order to fix it. Either way, very good question and hope someone with more brains than I do can figure it out. Someone like that shouldn't be hard to find either! Good luck with it though Andre.

Andre,
can't make it happen on my machine . My cam fig. file has been worked on though.

I have just left Tunnel on Student Run 3 so haven't gotten to the Freeman E. Siding yet. I'll stay in 2-view and let you know. I have noticed in the 5-view the engine will sometimes disappear momentarily, giving you a view akin to Shift-1 for a second or so. This is common on caboose views and passenger car views as well that the equipment you are "riding" in will disappear, showing the rear of the car ahead. Used to bother me, now I'm used to it.

No biggie. I've had MSTS make my cars disappear before when running Marc Nelson's Super Chief equipment. I'll be rolling along in default 2-view and have all but the lead unit disappear for a second or two. Sometimes in 3-view one or more of the cars will wink out.

Typical MSTS action. Never saw a lead unit disappear though.

Speaking of 3-view, has anyone else had it not working on the trains in the activities supplied with the route? It will take you to the initial view but none of the arrow keys work to be able to reposition the camera.

Paul

I've noticed that, unlike other routes, it doesn't "automatically" position you at the end of the train with a recouple. Normally a quick Ctrl-arrow will jump you to the rear but in this route you have to actually hold down ctrl-arrow to get back there. It wants to stay on the end of the car that was the end before you coupled. Like when you set out the ten hoppers at the siding east of Walden. Come back to the train in 3-view and it stays there on the rear of the units until you manually scroll it back to the end of the train.

And I thought it was just me.

Thats just it, my arrow keys are not working at all. 3 key takes me to the end of the train, but I can't control the camera at all from that point. Not left or right or up or down or ANYTHING!!

Paul

Paul:

I'd consider this a minor "glitch".
Most times I hafta hit the keys a coupla times to get the F3 view back to the last car no matter what route I'm running,
but I've always been able to move to different views.

Just figured it was another one of those wierd MSTS "things"

Hmm. I haven't had any difficulties with the 3 view. I haven't fiddled with my camera config file, though, so it may be something there that's giving you the difficulties.

When I couple new cars onto the end, I use Ctrl-left arrow. That puts me at the 2nd to last car, and it only takes a single Ctrl-right arrow to get to the very end. Otherwise, I have to use Ctrl-right arrow to "scroll" all the way back to the end.

I'm using the default view file so that can't be it. What you describe with the ctrl-left(ahead) then ctrl-right(back) normally works for me too, but not in A&O Sub. Curiouser and curiouser is this MSTS.

Okay, maybe you guys are encountering a stumble that happens sometimes during switching on just about any route...

If you can't sroll back in the conventional fashion, then scroll forward first, then back. For some reason the cam gets confused and needs to be reset.

Give it a try.

Andre