Dear Content Creators,
I write this open letter concerning an alarming number of assets on the DLS both new and updated which have a Trainz build number of 3.7 or above. Please do not construe my comments as disrespect or whinging, for this is genuinely not the case.
These past 2 days, I have encountered through the course of route-building several missing platform splines that are displayed with the white dotted lines. These lines cannot be object-picked, and I had to ask a fellow Trainzer running the route on an unsupported build (SP1) to identify their KUIDs. With this information, it was established that said splines were updated to TB 3.7/3 and installed via the in-game updater. Of course, because this is Trainz SP0/49922/3.6, they were broken.
Curiously, CM did not report any missing or faulty dependencies at all. This raises an alarming prospect that objects might have broken silently which is very hard to detect as objects do not leave behind telltale white dotted lines.
How N3V managed to screw up and allow a 3.7 asset to be downloaded into a Trainz 3.6 was the crucial cause but is another separate matter altogether. The point I'm trying to make is most assets I've seen - including the aformentioned troublesome ones - are unnecessarily uploaded as build 3.7. Just like those platforms; as far as I can discern they are just very simple, plain jane splines. No ultra-HD textures, random-sequenced textures, procedural-whatever or any "advanced" features at all. By extension this also applies to a worrying amount of new content on the DLS. Simple things like static cars, shipping containers, road signs and fences; why are they being uploaded as 3.7? I'm not referring to complex objects with mesh libraries or skin changers etc, these are literally "box and textures" assets.
Because finger-pointing is not the aim of this thread, I'd like to avoid mentioning KUIDs in this thread. This is an appeal to all content creators; unless it is absolutely necessary, like if you're using a new feature that specifically requires build 3.7+, please upload your content as 3.5. Yes, N3V screwed up a couple weeks back and the impatient ones went ahead to upload as 3.7 anyway. However even after they rolled it back, there is still an alarming lot of simple content being uploaded as 3.7 for reasons I cannot fathom. Perhaps someone can enlighten me here. It's very sad to see alot of good content that is just arbitrarily off-limits. If the point of uploading content is to share it with as many people as possible, this uploading as 3.7 is very counterproductive.
I have no statistics at all how many are still using 49922. But I'd like to believe many people are, because this old girl is as reliable as a tractor. Yes she's slow at times, yes she's got weird quirks, but no, I don't have to redownload all my DLC every 2 days, or an EDR because some patch went sideways (haven't had to EDR for months now).
To summarise - and for the TL;DR and literary-averse - TS12 is still valid and current, 3.5 uploads are permitted to the DLS, so please stop uploading content as 3.7 if your asset does not require it. Thank you.
I write this open letter concerning an alarming number of assets on the DLS both new and updated which have a Trainz build number of 3.7 or above. Please do not construe my comments as disrespect or whinging, for this is genuinely not the case.
These past 2 days, I have encountered through the course of route-building several missing platform splines that are displayed with the white dotted lines. These lines cannot be object-picked, and I had to ask a fellow Trainzer running the route on an unsupported build (SP1) to identify their KUIDs. With this information, it was established that said splines were updated to TB 3.7/3 and installed via the in-game updater. Of course, because this is Trainz SP0/49922/3.6, they were broken.
Curiously, CM did not report any missing or faulty dependencies at all. This raises an alarming prospect that objects might have broken silently which is very hard to detect as objects do not leave behind telltale white dotted lines.
How N3V managed to screw up and allow a 3.7 asset to be downloaded into a Trainz 3.6 was the crucial cause but is another separate matter altogether. The point I'm trying to make is most assets I've seen - including the aformentioned troublesome ones - are unnecessarily uploaded as build 3.7. Just like those platforms; as far as I can discern they are just very simple, plain jane splines. No ultra-HD textures, random-sequenced textures, procedural-whatever or any "advanced" features at all. By extension this also applies to a worrying amount of new content on the DLS. Simple things like static cars, shipping containers, road signs and fences; why are they being uploaded as 3.7? I'm not referring to complex objects with mesh libraries or skin changers etc, these are literally "box and textures" assets.
Because finger-pointing is not the aim of this thread, I'd like to avoid mentioning KUIDs in this thread. This is an appeal to all content creators; unless it is absolutely necessary, like if you're using a new feature that specifically requires build 3.7+, please upload your content as 3.5. Yes, N3V screwed up a couple weeks back and the impatient ones went ahead to upload as 3.7 anyway. However even after they rolled it back, there is still an alarming lot of simple content being uploaded as 3.7 for reasons I cannot fathom. Perhaps someone can enlighten me here. It's very sad to see alot of good content that is just arbitrarily off-limits. If the point of uploading content is to share it with as many people as possible, this uploading as 3.7 is very counterproductive.
I have no statistics at all how many are still using 49922. But I'd like to believe many people are, because this old girl is as reliable as a tractor. Yes she's slow at times, yes she's got weird quirks, but no, I don't have to redownload all my DLC every 2 days, or an EDR because some patch went sideways (haven't had to EDR for months now).
To summarise - and for the TL;DR and literary-averse - TS12 is still valid and current, 3.5 uploads are permitted to the DLS, so please stop uploading content as 3.7 if your asset does not require it. Thank you.