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In common with a lot of other people I am frustrated with RW's problems with AI shunting.

So here’s a thought. RW doesn’t care what a motive power unit, or rather an object to which a driver can be assigned, looks like It could be any shape or size. So how about a piece of rolling stock to which a driver can be assigned? My thinking is to assign a driver to say, a guards van which is part of a consist, put the consist in a portal. The portal spits out the consist in a siding, the player picks up the consist.

Several things I can see as possibly problematic.

• Does the ‘Object’ need tractive effort to come out of the portal
• What happens when the player tries to occupy the same block
• Once coupled does the player inherit the physics of the ‘object’

Leading on from this, could the object be used to shunt, but be left attached to the consist. Perhaps this could help where track direction etc means the shunting ‘Object’ is at the back of the siding and can’t get out. But that comes back to inherited physics.

Just a thought, is it possible?

Starting consists from portals is flawed in itself. It works most of the time but may not eject a consist at the appropriate time so it's not to be relied on. Such consists don't need to be moving. It doesn't drive out of the portal like emerging out of a tunnel, for example. You place them into the portal as a static item and the portal should put the consist back where it was and any associated instructions should commence at that point.

AI shunting can only be used with items that have not moved after the game has begun. I have not tried to shunt a consist that's come out of a portal but as it is placed as a static item it might well work. The stumbling block is the lack of an equivalent to track circuitry so the system has to imply the position of a consist from any associated instructions but, since the instructions are set on the loco, once it has been uncoupled the system seems to lose track of what's been left behind. It picks up the starting positions of all items at the beginning of a scenario - so it always knows where anything that hasn't moved is - but not subsequently.

Physics can be affected by actions in the game. I have read that starting coupled to a train and coupling to an identical consist after the start can change the behaviour of the loco.

Keith