Tractor Cars

[erikcarson]

I'm kind of surprised someone else hadn't done something like this yet. Unfortunately neither one of these wants to work. Maybe someone else can figure it out.

[slider38]

Eric, I tried to look at your file. My 7-Zip program will not open it. Not sure what you used to zip this file, but I am willing to look at it if you can zip it with 7-Zip and post it. 7-Zip usually will opens most zipped files but it can't deal with whatever format this is zipped in.

I don't know without seeing what you are working on, exactly what you are creating. If, in fact, you are looking for a car to haul tractors, I created a tractor car some years ago for my Great Northern map. I have attached that. Perhaps you can use that. If you are looking for a car to haul tractors, this zip contains a version 1 and version 2 car that should help. You can always re-paint any of it. Whatever you want. Hope this helps.

[erikcarson]

Here you go. Other than the orientation of the tractors, my cars aren't much different than yours. I created mine in Nifskope so the build isn't as elegant but I was basically trying the accomplish the same thing as yours. If you can easily get mine working, great but I'm fine just using yours instead, so don't feel like you need to spend too much time working on mine if you don't want to.

[slider38]

I'm not sure what is going on, but you have some type of bug in your files. I downloaded your tractor car file and unzipped it. When I try to look at either of the kfms or nifs, I get an error.

Tractor_car_errors.jpg

I haven't had a problem working with your stuff before. I don't know what has changed but obviously something has. Sorry I can't help.

[erikcarson]

I don't know what to tell you. I can open them fine here. Try this one.

[slider38]

Ignore this. I found the problem.

[slider38]

I just went to the 7-Zip website and found that they are working on version 24 beta. Last version was 23. I had no idea that I was so far behind, though not surprising since my version is from 2009. I am going to download a new version and give that a test. Maybe that will solve our problem. I will let you know what happens.

[slider38]

Good news! Once I upgraded my 7-Zip program your files were unzipped properly and I was able to open you nif file without an issue. I will take a look at your cars and see what"s what. It may take me a day or so, but I will let you know what I find.

[slider38]

Well, this turned out to be an easy one. There are 2 things that your nif must have in order for the car to load and unload properly.
1. Your nif must contain the line NiAlphaProperty which your files have.
2. It must also contain the NiAlphaController line underneath the NiMaterialProperty which your files were missing. This needs to go on the load sections - in this case steel beams. Since the tractors were copied, as soon as I fixed one, the others were also filled in. I just opened an old steel car and copies that NiAlphaController over with a "copy branch" which is needed since the line does have a "child" - further code under it - in this case one line, but you still need to use copy branch.

Nif_file_fix.jpg

Attached are the corrected Nif files. I tested them in NifSkope running the load and unload kfs. If you have a problem with these, let me know. Below are the updated v1 and v2 nifs. When I opened the v1 the tractors were not on the flatcar so I moved them into position. Give these a test on your map.

[erikcarson]

Thanks for looking at these. Unfortunately, I still can't get them to work.

[slider38]

If that's the case, I suspect the issue is not with these cars but with something else. When I ran the load and unload kfs in NifSkope, they ran fine. If you try the ones that I sent you before, from my old map, and those don't run either, you will know for sure that the issue lies elsewhere.

[erikcarson]

I've not tried running the cars, but the game doesn't crash when I try to load the map when using your cars. When I use my own, the game crashes when I try to load the map.

[slider38]

That is strange. I will try and run them on mine and see what happens.

[slider38]

They blew up my map. I'm not sure if it has to do with the way the tractor was introduced. I wasn't sure if the multiple load trishapes was going to be an issue. Let me work on it some and see what I can figure out. I'll get back to you.

[slider38]

Attached is a zip with 2 Tractor cars. I re-built the version 1 car. Unfortunately when you bring a trishape from an industry to a train car, sometimes unwanted stuff seems to come along with it. I suspect that was a problem. I also don't think the game likes multiple loads so I combined the tractors so there is only one trishape load. I tried to do something similar with the version 2, but I just don't have any more time to devote to this at the moment. Enclosed is the version 2 train car I had with the tractors switched from Case to New Holland. You just need to go in and paint the train car green or whatever color you want. The Slider name on the cars was just for my convenience. When testing you can only have so many "New" cars before they all start to blend together. These cars were fully tested on one of my old maps and ran fine.

Slider_v1_tractor_car.jpg

Slider_v2_tractor_car.jpg

[slider38]

Hi Eric,

I hope you were able to resolve your tractor car issues. Sorry that I kind of dropped the ball on your version 3 car. I just had some stuff that I had to get done. I've spent a few days working on my current map and have made some good progress. You need any help with anything else, give a holler. I hope all is going well with you. Take care, Slider

[erikcarson]

It's cool. Thanks for taking the time to work on it. I just decided to use the ones you made instead.