Run 8 Train Simulator 2012 - 2013

Run 8 Train Simulator 2012 - 2013 - Excellence in Railsimming

Run 8 Train Simulator Basics 101

The Rail Unit Options window

Run 8 Train Simulator - InSimOptions Misc Tab

This is the window that comes up when you select a train or piece of rollingstock. To select a train just single click on the train's lead locomotive to bring up this window. The next thing you are going to want to do is select the "Auto-Start All Locomotives" which will start up all of the locomotives on your train including any mid or rear DPUs placed in the train. After doing that you will next want to MU all of your locomotives in your train consist and this done by selecting the "Auto-Mu All Locomotives" button. Next, if you have any DPUs on your train, you will need to go to them and select the lead DPU, which will bring up this window again, and now you can select the "DPU Lead Unit" after that you will want to select the "Track-Direction Relative To Control-Unit" to either "FWD" or "REV" depending on which direction the lead DPU is facing. You will need to repeat this action on your rear DPUs if you have any. Once the DPUs are set up you will be able to pull up the DPU "fence" in one of the cab's MFD screens by selecting the "B" key. If the DPU set up was done correctly it should look like the screen in the image below.

Run 8 Train Simulator 2012 DPU Fence Shown in the MFD screen

As you can see, the DPU MFD screen is capable of showing several sets of DPU consists in-train. The green bar represents the "Fence", and denotes the separation between DPU consists slaved to the head-end controls and DPU consists slaved to the rear-end controls. If the fence is down, then all DPU consists are slaved to the head-end.

Next we will cover the "Headlight Setup Switch" which let's you control how you want the headlights to display. For your lead locomotive that is facing FWD you will want to select the "Short-Hood Lead" option, and the locomotives behind your lead locomotive would be set to the "Single\Middle" option. The other options are self explanatory.

If you look to the upper right of the window you will notice the "Defects" section. In Run 8 Train Simulator we have developed detectors that actually count the axles on your train and if a defect is found the detector will tell you to stop your train and list the axle(s) of where the defect(s) were found so you can find it and repair it if possible. This is where this section of the "Rail Unit Options" window comes into play, and by selecting the car or locomotive that has the offending axle you will be able to fix the defect.. most of the time anyways. If there is not an option to fix it the offending car or locomotive will have to be set out somewhere so that the car department or a rapid responder can fix it so that it can be moved again. It's important to keep in mind that we programmed the defects to happen randomly and to happen about as often as they do in real life for each route that we develop. During beta testing we have had 8 to 12 hour sessions where no one will get hit, and then in other sessions we might have two or three users hit, which usually causes the dispatcher to really start yanking out their hair, so you really never know when it could happen to you. And everyone who has experienced it during testing were very surprised when the detector told them to, "STOP YOUR TRAIN", STOP YOUR TRAIN!" you will see for yourself when it happens to you, it's actually very cool!

As we go down the right side of the window the next section is the "Load/Unload" section where you can set whether a car is loaded or unloaded or even give it a random load weight, and each car is given a specific range of weight that can only be used for that car type. Obviously this function is very useful when putting trains together and also when pickups are made by locals. And below that you will notice the "Destination Tag" section which let's you enter a train symbol if it is the lead locomotive on a train, or a yard or spur location/name. All of this information is saved to the train file even after you "relinquish control" of the train which means the next user who selects it will see that information.

The "Feed-Valve PSI" section let's you increase or decrease the PSI for a given piece of equipment.

That sums up the different functions in the Rail Unit Options window and now we are ready to move on to the "CouplerOptions" window page Click Here