Railroad swapper Created 4 years ago2020-11-25 11:22:44 UTC by freedslave

Hi, I've watched this tutorial on YouTube from Bill Rizer, about the func_traincontrols.

Hammer Editor Tutorial - Moving Controllable Train, Rail cart ... etc

I managed to have my cart working with the gearbox as in Power Up and the following chapters.
That's a good point.
Further on I remenber that the cart was riding along rails and on the side there were some "switch direction targets" like Railroad switch. When it was hit the train would change its way.

I read the thread Switchable Tracktrain
I've understood that it's about the Branch path parameter but it leaves me in haze yet.

A path_track that has both a 'Next stop target' and a 'Branch target' will switch between these when triggered. By default, it'll point trains to the 'Next stop target', but after triggering the path_track, it will point trains to the 'Branch target'. Triggering it again will make it point to the 'Next stop target' again.

Pretty much like how a real railroad switch works: you 'trigger' it to switch it to another track, so that any train that comes by will be redirected to that track.

It seems quite complicated. So far I don't get it. I need to practice.
Thank you for the explanation

It's not really that complicated. Make a path_track entity like you would normally.

Name: path1
Next stop target: path2a
Branch path: path2b

By default, the train will reach path1 and then go to path2a. (the next stop target)
If you target "path1" with a button or some other trigger entity, the train will then hit reach path1 and go to path2b (the branch path)
If you trigger "path1" again, it will switch back to path2a. (the next stop target)

OK
I made my own map and figured it out. Indeed it's rather easy to implement.
Half Life is in the 3rd dimension, the 4th is next door. Everything seems harder to understand in this eerie area between these dimensions :).
Thank you