Tren Layout P&E: Advanced 1 Walkthrough

Getting deeper into it now, with lots more tweaking and wiring in these lessons, and some key elements for gameplay.

Extend a hand#

We start with control of Big Popter. Fly it over to land on the track, then swap to Tren and reverse out with L2 to progress to the first lesson.

When building tracks with lots of curves and special elements you’ll inevitably find that you have a gap to fill which nothing fits into. Enter stage left the adjustable track.

Make sure you have Snap Points on. Search in the pinned collection for Straight: Variable Length and stamp it in. Use the Length slider to adjust it so it fits.

Give me a signal#

Nodes pass signals right through them, so that you can wire from one element’s ready/on/detected output to another’s event input. This can sometimes be neater and easier than wiring one trigger to lots of events.

Connect the button’s Just Pressed node output to the light’s Green node input. Then connect the light’s Green node output to the barrier’s Open node input. The button will now activate the light to green and the light will pass that signal through to the barrier to open it.

En route#

Route Setters are really useful for guiding players. When time is run, if there is no wire in its Activate node’s input, the Route Setter will be visible and waiting for Tren to arrive in its trigger zone. This is the most basic use case of a Route Setter.

Search in the pinned collection for the Route Setter and stamp in the scene with R2 as guided.

Chain of command#

If you stamp a lot of Route Setters and leave them all unwired it's going to get visually noisy for the player. Ideally you just want one active at a time.

The best way to use them is by wiring into their Activate nodes from some sort of trigger, like a button press, a cargo delivery or another Route Setter.

Let's give that a go. Firstly, the trigger - a track button. Connect the button’s Just Pressed node output to the first Route Setter’s Activate node’s input. Then wire the first Route Setter’s Success node’s output to the second Route Setter’s Activate node input. Finally, connect the second Route Setter’s Success node output to the Checkpoint’s Force Activate node input and to the Barrier’s Open node input.

Hopefully this demonstrates chaining triggers and events. The button activates the first Route Setter, which activates the second Route Setter, which activates the Checkpoint and opens the barrier.

Flat out#

The next lesson after this needs the Liftable Track, and by extension the Track Flatbed to transport it.

Look in the pinned collection for the Track Flatbed wagon first and snap and stamp that in. Then find the Liftable Track and snap and stamp it on top.

Heavy lifting#

Having a gap in a track the player needs to fix is a cool bit of gameplay. To do that you need to use the Missing Track Logic element. It acts like a placeholder for missing track, making sure it snaps and stamps in correctly.

Find yourself the Missing Track Logic and get it in there. It’s only visible directly after it’s stamped in the scene. As soon as you run time it’ll disappear.

Switch to Play Mode, dock with Cren and use it to move the Liftable Track into position. When the track detects the Missing Track Logic it will animate into place. Swap back to Tren and head on to the next lesson.

The slightest inclination#

Let’s learn how to enter big numbers in sliders quickly. We want to make a big angle here. Hover over the Angle slider and use L1+Square to open the numerical input screen. Input the value 113 and then press Circle to exit. Neat huh?

Now grab yourself a Conveyor from the pinned collection and get it in there to complete the ramp. Switch back to Play Mode and and the conveyor will pull the wagons up the ramp and out of your path.

Heavy load#

Cargo in Tren has mass and Tren’s engine is only so strong. With 4 full Slosh Wagons you can’t get up a slope with just one Tren.

Stamp another Tren as guided. In Play Mode, make sure everything’s connected and head on up the slope.

Message received#

You should be quite familiar with Signal Transmitters and Receivers - we’ve highlighted them a lot in the lessons. We use them to trigger an event some distance away, pairing them visually with numbers and colours. For the sake of the lesson these two are much closer than would normally make sense.

We already have the Signal Transmitter in the scene, activated by the End Stop button, so search in the pinned collection for a Signal Receiver and snap and stamp it in. Connect its Power node output to the barrier light’s Green node input. The Green node’s output is already wired to the barrier, so once the Receiver gets a signal from the Transmitter the barrier will be opened.

Now tweak the Transmitter Colour slider to 1 to match the Receiver.

Weird flex, but ok#

Just a chance to play with the Flexi-Track! Find one in the pinned collection and stamp it in Careful not to go too fast on these - they’re physical and will bounce around a lot as you drive over them.

Let's get physical#

You don’t want players derailing all over the place because of physics, especially doing jumps. Physical stuff needs a helping hand to be fun.

That’s where things like the Jump Assister (which you can see to the left of the screen) and the Landing Assister come in. The former helps Tren make safe jumps and the latter safe landings.

Stamp in a Landing Assister. Notice that this and the Jump Assister have 2D control zones. Avoid overlapping these zones or weird physics will happen. Adjust the Jump Assist Length to greater than 6. Notice the zone changes size.

Get a jump on#

Simply find and stamp a Jump Assister just for the sake of completion.

Seeing the light#

Last but not least - tunnels! These make excellent transitions between tracks, or cover for things you want to hide, like emitting stuff into the scene.

Find Tunnel Entrance (P&E) and Tunnel: 2.5 Units and stamp them in here. Head into the tunnel and you’re done!