An alarm has to be raised
- Thread starter Ben1337
- Start date
And there are far more situations where Railworks' turnouts look WRONG than where they look right.
The animated turnouts in trainz are far higher quality than the rubbish auto-generation stuff that railworks does, albeit at the cost of being a little harder to use (in surveyor) and with some minor limitations.
As for the point of this thread being to suggest improvements... No, there's a forum for that, and it's moderated, for a reason. The point of this thread is the same as always, for a few disgruntled people to make dire proclamations about how trainz won't make it another X years because railworks is eating their lunch - if that's the case, how come railworks' known sales figures are at 40k, whereas trainz has sold far more than that.
Granted, we only know that it's sold 'over a million' across the whole series, but that must surely be more than 40,000 copies per release, and it's enough for trainz users to keep coming back for more.
I personally would be more likely to believe that trainz will lose out to an as-yet-unknown 3rd (4th if you still consider MSTS as a viable contender) option, if it does lose out.
(N3V may have less staff than RSDL now, but remember that most of RSDL's staff is 'content creators' for producing their endless stream of reworked payware, not the core program/assets - also remember that they have actively refused to consider bringing old payware into the core assets, even when there was a definite need and plain advantage to doing so (most 3rd party freeware routes require the IOW payware expansion because of the 3d track that is NOT included in railworks itself))
Mike,
You don't have to stop using or creating for the version you have. It's not like N3V will pull the virtual plug on you and disable what you have. This is unlike the CRM-based programs that can go off the air should the publisher decide they no long support it.
I agree, there should be a CCG. In my thoughts and posts elsewhere, I mentioned a user manual. I was working on the outline of that when N3V created a bound hard copy one for TS12, or at least for the Anniversary Edition.
I too am not crazy about online documentation because it really is so hard to find things. There are going to be those here that are going to say, we're nuts, because they love 'em, but I really hate them too! There's nothing worse than following links upon links searching for some information, when it's easier to pickup a book and thumb through it quickly.
John
John
I agree with most of what you have to say here except for the first line.
Quote: "It's not like N3V will pull the virtual plug on you and disable what you have."
They've already done that by disallowing me to upload 2004 content to the DLS. With no compatibility mode in TS2, they have done essentially that very thing. Am I going to spend hundreds of hours creating something that may not even work in TSXX. I'll have to think long and hard about that.
Mike
Having actually done a DEM route in Railworks without buying ReDEM, I can tell you it is built in.
http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SRTM3/North_America/
Download the SRTM for the region you want, create a route template for the latitude/longitude coordinates the route is centered on, then it's a simple matter of hitting the T key in the world editor to pop up 9 tiles at a time. That works very nicely for small areas, for a really big route I suspect that's why ReDEM exists at all, it would get tedious to cover hundreds of miles 9 tiles at a time. Trainz could use something like that, AFAIK the current version doesn't use any kind of geographical latitude/longitude coordinates.
Again, my main problem with rail(don't)works is what comes next - create a beautiful realistic route that looks great for screenshots, even nice for videos since it runs so smoothly. Jump in a train and "have a run", admire the scenery. Now try to create a session with intense and repeated interaction with frequent AI train traffic. Six weeks of screwing around and debugging to get ONE simple meet to work, and then it only works if the player keeps to the exact schedule.
No thanks, lot of problems with Trainz AI traffic, but at least it has some intelligence and versatility. For me the difference is like trading in a '65 Dodge with no muffler and more rust than paint, spits and sputters and is reluctant to start, but usually takes me where I need to go.
Railworks is a brand new shiny Rolls Royce that starts and runs smoothly - but has no steering wheel, the design didn't factor in attaching one, it only runs back and forth without turning. You can start it up, run out of the garage into the driveway and park it there to take pictures and make the neighbors envious, provided it's a straight driveway.
Trainz looks cruddy, runs badly, smokes and makes horrific noises and you always gotta play with the choke to keep it from stalling, but when you need to go to the store it will actually turn corners. For me RW is missing the one essential thing that makes a train simulator a train simulator, Trainz does that one essential thing the best. So far, there's always Open Rails to keep an eye on.
http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SRTM3/North_America/
Download the SRTM for the region you want, create a route template for the latitude/longitude coordinates the route is centered on, then it's a simple matter of hitting the T key in the world editor to pop up 9 tiles at a time. That works very nicely for small areas, for a really big route I suspect that's why ReDEM exists at all, it would get tedious to cover hundreds of miles 9 tiles at a time. Trainz could use something like that, AFAIK the current version doesn't use any kind of geographical latitude/longitude coordinates.
Again, my main problem with rail(don't)works is what comes next - create a beautiful realistic route that looks great for screenshots, even nice for videos since it runs so smoothly. Jump in a train and "have a run", admire the scenery. Now try to create a session with intense and repeated interaction with frequent AI train traffic. Six weeks of screwing around and debugging to get ONE simple meet to work, and then it only works if the player keeps to the exact schedule.
No thanks, lot of problems with Trainz AI traffic, but at least it has some intelligence and versatility. For me the difference is like trading in a '65 Dodge with no muffler and more rust than paint, spits and sputters and is reluctant to start, but usually takes me where I need to go.
Railworks is a brand new shiny Rolls Royce that starts and runs smoothly - but has no steering wheel, the design didn't factor in attaching one, it only runs back and forth without turning. You can start it up, run out of the garage into the driveway and park it there to take pictures and make the neighbors envious, provided it's a straight driveway.
Trainz looks cruddy, runs badly, smokes and makes horrific noises and you always gotta play with the choke to keep it from stalling, but when you need to go to the store it will actually turn corners. For me RW is missing the one essential thing that makes a train simulator a train simulator, Trainz does that one essential thing the best. So far, there's always Open Rails to keep an eye on.
No this is different in a sense that you can still use and make objects for your current versions if you like. There's nothing wrong with that. Even though you are developing for the older versions, there are places to upload to such as TrainzPro Routes, which is a superb place by the way.
Your older content still works in the newer versions, which means you could most likely create a new config file and upload to the DLS because most of your content doesn't include scripts, at least you didn't do that before. I really do like your buildings by the way, and use them all over the place in TS12 without any issues.
Unfortunately N3V has made the uploading process different. Perhaps someone could upload your manually updated products for you.I agree that not allowing the older versions to be uploaded is wrong as long as the content is error free through out all versions. There's no reason why TS12 couldn't have had a versions checker, and ignored certain things in the older configuration files, such as some of the tags that are no longer supported, etc. Instead they chose the easy way, which is an all or nothing approach.
In some ways Auran did this to move the program forward, and provide error-free assets out of the box. I can see why. Having a system like this means less support calls, and far less frustration from the user base.
The shear number of assets on the DLS that would not work without a tweak was/is quite amazing, and I don't blame anyone here. In part this is due to vague and non-existent CCGs at various times during the programs growth, so developers had to literally wing it. In this process they copied some config files, but these had typos in it, and with these errors and minimal error checking, the problems propagated rapidly. I think that the problem escalated faster than Auran could have imagined!
Anyway, the world is way different than it was only a few years ago. There are a lot of NOOBS out there that have no inclination on how to create and build. All they want is plug in and go, just like the stuff for the X-Box and other gaming platforms. It's a shame really. There are some exceptions, of course, but I see this in various places today, and not just here.
So this brings up an other thing why the changes that have taken place at Auran/N3V, I'm sure there's not much left of the legacy crowd, meaning that it's more difficult to support the older products, and they would rather focus their energies on newer stuff because supporting older versions can be very costly. I saw this when the Polaroid spin-off I worked at downsized rapidly. Their DryJet printer went off to the scrap heap immediately with no support for it as soon as they could legally ditch the product. Older RIP versions went to the grinder, and only the latest Harlequin 5.x and higher was supported. All older customers were "force" upgraded to the latest versions of Harlequin RIP, and if they didn't they lost their free support. If customers called with the older products,they had to pay per call. It's all about revenue and meeting the bottom line to cover salaries and overhead. Nothing personal here, but it's how companies work.
John
Some of the OP's wishes parallel mine, in particular with regard to track appearance. This style dates back to 2001 when the programme launched a few months after MSTS - which already included points and crossings with the correct appearance. I really can't believe over a span of ten years, someone hasn't been able to tweak the code to improve this facet.
The other item which has to be mentioned is autonomous routing (proper despatching, not figuring out the route as you go) and the ability for non-power users to set up *player* trains to run according to a fixed schedule or task list - the equivalent of MSTS activities or Railworks scenarios. In another thread about ECML in TS12, a user complained it took 4 days just to figure out how to set the route out of Kings Cross. The current despatching/signaller system might have been fine in the model railroad orientated bias of Trainz CE and UTC, but it needs to be brought on from that.
As regards Transdem, I'm quite happy to leave things as they are and carry on using it independent of the main programme. Surveyor remains the Trainz series biggest selling point and I don't have an issue with how the menus work. Railworks is hopeless as there's no preview thumbnail of the object, you can't filter out the stuff from other routes you *don't* need and of course Surveyor has far superior terrain painting and copy/paste features. I'm looking forward to getting back into it after finishing my current RW project, which has reduced me to utter frustration the last couple of days. In fact, I was actually muttering at one stage, "This wouldn't happen in Trainz".
The other item which has to be mentioned is autonomous routing (proper despatching, not figuring out the route as you go) and the ability for non-power users to set up *player* trains to run according to a fixed schedule or task list - the equivalent of MSTS activities or Railworks scenarios. In another thread about ECML in TS12, a user complained it took 4 days just to figure out how to set the route out of Kings Cross. The current despatching/signaller system might have been fine in the model railroad orientated bias of Trainz CE and UTC, but it needs to be brought on from that.
As regards Transdem, I'm quite happy to leave things as they are and carry on using it independent of the main programme. Surveyor remains the Trainz series biggest selling point and I don't have an issue with how the menus work. Railworks is hopeless as there's no preview thumbnail of the object, you can't filter out the stuff from other routes you *don't* need and of course Surveyor has far superior terrain painting and copy/paste features. I'm looking forward to getting back into it after finishing my current RW project, which has reduced me to utter frustration the last couple of days. In fact, I was actually muttering at one stage, "This wouldn't happen in Trainz".
I'm not sure which Mike that you're referring to. I don't think it's me since I've never mentioned RW in a single post that I can recall and I don't own RW nor have I ever seen it.
Mike
Hey now, I resemble that remark:hehe:
Hm... Now to describe MSTS in a car-like fashion...
Has trouble even starting up, and when it does, the engine bay catches on fire. With the lack of good exhaust (oh ho yes, the 20ft wide whistle blasts, and fail smoke effects in general...), lack of decent speakers and stereo, (the doppler effect is the only thing going for it...) lack of custom details, (I'd like to see MSTS be able to put over 200 different loads onto a freight car
,) and lack of paint and abundant rust on the exterior. (MSTS routes are hideous - Trees, ground textures, water... Doesn't matter. They all look terrible.)The only thing worthwhile with MSTS-car... Demolition derby. Which is what most youtubers do with the trains anyway.
You're comparing two completely different graphics engines, if you want washed out colors where UP yellow looks like something I've seen in a diaper a time or two, railworks is your Huckleberry.
If you want something that looks a lot better in my opinion that would be TS12. Now no one told you to go and purchase AMD's, you did that on your own. I can assure you without a doubt I can run the Mojave sub with everything maxed out except for anisotropy which is set at 4 and I can pull 50 frames per second across the board with a core I 7 920.
But actually the title of this thread is "an alarm needs to be raised" hardly the topic definition I would give to a topic merely posting suggestions. The original post resembled the unibombers manifesto:hehe
But my point is there are always going to be people who are going to declare Trainz is dead and railworks the Victor, or vice versa for that matter. I own both, I know compared to TS12, railworks2 doesn't stack up as graphically detailed. I realize that is because they run two completely separate graphics engines. Railworks2 in my opinion is closer to 2009 graphically and I think 2009 has a little bit of an edge.
If you're wanting smoothness on low-end machines, again railworks is your Huckleberry and it's because of the graphics engine they use. But I for one would never want to see Auran/N3V switch to that engine if UP yellow has to look that crappy.
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Trainz has something like that, it's called TransDem and it does a lot more than anything built in to railworks.
I have never had a game of any kind that has encouraged my imagination in the way Trainz has ,
it has given me so much enjoyment over so many years
TS12 is a more updated version and yet we still moan about things
the simple fact is we will never be happy
i am sick of moaning over a a game that really makes me very happy
so to the team at Auran/N3V thank you for all your hard work and for making my days far more enjoyable.
has there ever been a game of any kind that has hundreds of GB's of assets free
i can't recall one
regards
steve
it has given me so much enjoyment over so many years
TS12 is a more updated version and yet we still moan about things
the simple fact is we will never be happy
i am sick of moaning over a a game that really makes me very happy
so to the team at Auran/N3V thank you for all your hard work and for making my days far more enjoyable.
has there ever been a game of any kind that has hundreds of GB's of assets free
i can't recall one
regards
steve
Ditto brother Steve...
Gandalf0444
FVRR member
You're comparing two completely different graphics engines, if you want washed out colors where UP yellow looks like something I've seen in a diaper a time or two, railworks is your Huckleberry.
If you want something that looks a lot better in my opinion that would be TS12. Now no one told you to go and purchase AMD's, you did that on your own. I can assure you without a doubt I can run the Mojave sub with everything maxed out except for anisotropy which is set at 4 and I can pull 50 frames per second across the board with a core I 7 920.
But actually the title of this thread is "an alarm needs to be raised" hardly the topic definition I would give to a topic merely posting suggestions. The original post resembled the unibombers manifesto:hehe
But my point is there are always going to be people who are going to declare Trainz is dead and railworks the Victor, or vice versa for that matter. I own both, I know compared to TS12, railworks2 doesn't stack up as graphically detailed. I realize that is because they run two completely separate graphics engines. Railworks2 in my opinion is closer to 2009 graphically and I think 2009 has a little bit of an edge.
If you're wanting smoothness on low-end machines, again railworks is your Huckleberry and it's because of the graphics engine they use. But I for one would never want to see Auran/N3V switch to that engine if UP yellow has to look that crappy.
Funny thing is I can run Mojave maxed out on my AMD Phenom II 970 3.5GHz with 8GB of DDR3 1600 RAM and a Nvidia GTS 450 1Gig and with anisotropy maxed and get fps just shy of 50, mostly around 47-48fps(that is with the Auran consists) If I make a real sized consist as far as length it drops to about 40fps, still hardly a crippling.
No this is different in a sense that you can still use and make objects for your current versions if you like. There's nothing wrong with that. Even though you are developing for the older versions, there are places to upload to such as TrainzPro Routes, which is a superb place by the way.
Your older content still works in the newer versions, which means you could most likely create a new config file and upload to the DLS because most of your content doesn't include scripts, at least you didn't do that before. I really do like your buildings by the way, and use them all over the place in TS12 without any issues.
I agree that not allowing the older versions to be uploaded is wrong as long as the content is error free through out all versions. There's no reason why TS12 couldn't have had a versions checker, and ignored certain things in the older configuration files, such as some of the tags that are no longer supported, etc. Instead they chose the easy way, which is an all or nothing approach.
In some ways Auran did this to move the program forward, and provide error-free assets out of the box. I can see why. Having a system like this means less support calls, and far less frustration from the user base.
The shear number of assets on the DLS that would not work without a tweak was/is quite amazing, and I don't blame anyone here. In part this is due to vague and non-existent CCGs at various times during the programs growth, so developers had to literally wing it. In this process they copied some config files, but these had typos in it, and with these errors and minimal error checking, the problems propagated rapidly. I think that the problem escalated faster than Auran could have imagined!
Anyway, the world is way different than it was only a few years ago. There are a lot of NOOBS out there that have no inclination on how to create and build. All they want is plug in and go, just like the stuff for the X-Box and other gaming platforms. It's a shame really. There are some exceptions, of course, but I see this in various places today, and not just here.
So this brings up an other thing why the changes that have taken place at Auran/N3V, I'm sure there's not much left of the legacy crowd, meaning that it's more difficult to support the older products, and they would rather focus their energies on newer stuff because supporting older versions can be very costly. I saw this when the Polaroid spin-off I worked at downsized rapidly. Their DryJet printer went off to the scrap heap immediately with no support for it as soon as they could legally ditch the product. Older RIP versions went to the grinder, and only the latest Harlequin 5.x and higher was supported. All older customers were "force" upgraded to the latest versions of Harlequin RIP, and if they didn't they lost their free support. If customers called with the older products,they had to pay per call. It's all about revenue and meeting the bottom line to cover salaries and overhead. Nothing personal here, but it's how companies work.
John
John
I appreciate your insight and wasn't really trying to reopen old sores with my comments. So I'll just politely bow out before this escalates into a legacy flamewar (not intending to say that it would be you that would start it either).
Again, thanks for your point of view and I"ll shut up now.
Mike
PS: I'm glad that you like my buildings. I really enjoy making them, but I won't upload any buildings anymore to a place that I don't have some control over what happens with my content.
I appreciate you clearing that up. I was a little confused about which Mike that you were referencing. You're right, I'd predict that IKB will be back.
The other Mike
Similar here, 6 Core Phenom II 1090T, GTX 460 1Gb and 8GB 1600 DDR3, Just clearing 55fps on Mojave. Probably a bit lower than I get on other routes but not exactly a problem.
fordmercman
Detroit,Toledo,Ironton
Originally Posted by mrscsi 
You're comparing two completely different graphics engines, if you want washed out colors where UP yellow looks like something I've seen in a diaper a time or two, railworks is your Huckleberry.
If you want something that looks a lot better in my opinion that would be TS12. Now no one told you to go and purchase AMD's, you did that on your own. I can assure you without a doubt I can run the Mojave sub with everything maxed out except for anisotropy which is set at 4 and I can pull 50 frames per second across the board with a core I 7 920.
But actually the title of this thread is "an alarm needs to be raised" hardly the topic definition I would give to a topic merely posting suggestions. The original post resembled the unibombers manifesto :hehejust kidding of course)
But my point is there are always going to be people who are going to declare Trainz is dead and railworks the Victor, or vice versa for that matter. I own both, I know compared to TS12, railworks2 doesn't stack up as graphically detailed. I realize that is because they run two completely separate graphics engines. Railworks2 in my opinion is closer to 2009 graphically and I think 2009 has a little bit of an edge.
If you're wanting smoothness on low-end machines, again railworks is your Huckleberry and it's because of the graphics engine they use. But I for one would never want to see Auran/N3V switch to that engine if UP yellow has to look that crappy.
I have not declared Trainz "dead". The weak yellow in Railworks is due to the content creators color selection. I mentioned a few thngs that Railworks does well. That is not a Trainz "bash" There is nothing wrong with AMD. I also get 50 plus frames on the Mojave Sub,with my "low end system" as you call it. And 5 to 15 in Appalachian Coal,till the tree problem is resolved. You are really missing the point that Train Simulation is my passion. I was intrigued by Bens original post,and decided to respond. I Do also think 2012 "looks" better than previous versions. I posted a positive response the the announcement of the new T-1 pack in the payware forum. I am one of the biggest supporters of this whole franchise. So when I list a few criticisms,I wouldn't expect someone to react like I killed their dog.
You're comparing two completely different graphics engines, if you want washed out colors where UP yellow looks like something I've seen in a diaper a time or two, railworks is your Huckleberry.
If you want something that looks a lot better in my opinion that would be TS12. Now no one told you to go and purchase AMD's, you did that on your own. I can assure you without a doubt I can run the Mojave sub with everything maxed out except for anisotropy which is set at 4 and I can pull 50 frames per second across the board with a core I 7 920.
But actually the title of this thread is "an alarm needs to be raised" hardly the topic definition I would give to a topic merely posting suggestions. The original post resembled the unibombers manifesto :hehe
just kidding of course)But my point is there are always going to be people who are going to declare Trainz is dead and railworks the Victor, or vice versa for that matter. I own both, I know compared to TS12, railworks2 doesn't stack up as graphically detailed. I realize that is because they run two completely separate graphics engines. Railworks2 in my opinion is closer to 2009 graphically and I think 2009 has a little bit of an edge.
If you're wanting smoothness on low-end machines, again railworks is your Huckleberry and it's because of the graphics engine they use. But I for one would never want to see Auran/N3V switch to that engine if UP yellow has to look that crappy.
I have not declared Trainz "dead". The weak yellow in Railworks is due to the content creators color selection. I mentioned a few thngs that Railworks does well. That is not a Trainz "bash" There is nothing wrong with AMD. I also get 50 plus frames on the Mojave Sub,with my "low end system" as you call it. And 5 to 15 in Appalachian Coal,till the tree problem is resolved. You are really missing the point that Train Simulation is my passion. I was intrigued by Bens original post,and decided to respond. I Do also think 2012 "looks" better than previous versions. I posted a positive response the the announcement of the new T-1 pack in the payware forum. I am one of the biggest supporters of this whole franchise. So when I list a few criticisms,I wouldn't expect someone to react like I killed their dog.