any opinions on Railworks2??

[theokus]

Theokus, your screenshot illustrates in the best way the different perceptions of railway simulation. Two trains on the line? How can this be? A severe safety hazard and one of the worst scenarios in railway operation.

Apparently, for you this does not matter. Otherwise you would not have shown us this screenshot.

But that's what it is all about: Your expectation of a software that claims to simulate the railways is different to mine. And while you seem to be happy with the product, many people here think it misses on some of the essentials of the railway system - like protoytpical signalling and operation.

For me, one of the fundamental challenges of the railway is to safely operate more than one train sharing a common and limited resource, the track. A simulation software which falls short here is of no value to me.

As a loco driver/engineer in the simulation, the user experience is not confined to the train you are running, your performance also affects the operation of other trains around you. In a good simulation you can actually watch the effects on the other trains. Single track working is one of the typical scenarios here.

Visible interaction of train movements and signalling is highly dynamic. And this dynamic behaviour is one of the most fascinating aspects of railways. It does not need a professional simulation to emulate this interaction on your PC. Trainz performs quite well here.

Ok and thx!
The shot I took is only to experiment with some trains.
It's not the final track he.
I can easy adjust to two tracks.
That first train takes of in about 3 minutes and goes to a plant.
It's nice to see he slows down in a curve to the plant
And please don't take this too serious he
I am just playing.

 

[theokus]

Theokus, may I ask what you're doing here?? This is a Trainz Forum, and if you're so loyal to Railworks, stop annoying us with you continuos streams of annoying and smart-mouthed comments, as you won't get many people buying Railworks on a TRAINZ (With a Z) Forum
Phil, I thought the shot was wonderful, but then I realised I was looking at the sky, and not the actual content part:hehe: :hehe:

BTW, the track in that shot looks horrible, and you should really replace it with 'UK Bullhead '09' but you can't!!:hehe: :hehe:

Jamie

Jamie?
You may ask.
But do I have to answer?
I am an individual and quite calm.
It surprises me a bit about the strong reactions.
And I hope the attitude is something different in real life. We are talking
here only about a game huh. There is life after RW or Trainz, believe me.

 

[theokus]

After looking into the issue of DEM and railworks, I see that everything has to be in hgt format, everything I use is in Geotiff, I just checked the seamless server and it doesn't appear to offer it unless they're calling it something other than "HGT" and my naïveté is showing:hehe: so I've quickly lost interest again and will stick with what I know…

If I say this here I am bad boy :hehe::hehe:

 

[H222]

Oh I know, but please, it does get annoying having people who love Railworks on the Trainz Forums who hate trainz, and I'm sure it gets annoying on the Railworks Forums when train "patriots" come along

Jamie

 

[mrscsi]

Jamie?
You may ask.
But do I have to answer?
I am an individual and quite calm.
It surprises me a bit about the strong reactions.
And I hope the attitude is something different in real life. We are talking
here only about a game huh. There is life after RW or Trainz, believe me.

See now you're pressing your luck, I'm actually surprised the conversation hasn't been a lot more vocal. Believe me there are thousands if not more in this community that eat sleep drink and dream Trainz.

There's a great number who take it way beyond a hobby and venture into obsession. Now of course if that's what they want to do, it doesn't affect me one way or the other. But that last sentence is enough to bring the wrath, I know because I have uttered it myself:hehe:

Of course I didn't get my Trainz fix in today, I was too busy screwing around with railworks, what a wasted afternoon:hehe:

 

[mrscsi]

If I say this here I am bad boy :hehe::hehe:

That was actually about a third-party application, but point taken…

Now I didn't say you were a bad boy because you are sticking with what you know, I took you to task over very specific aspects, such as content manager not working, and graphics.

Now I did chide you somewhat for lack of expanding knowledge, again point taken but I'm old and tired and when I uttered those words it was at the end of a long day screwing around with railworks

 

[mrscsi]

Oh I know, but please, it does get annoying having people who love Railworks on the Trainz Forums who hate trainz, and I'm sure it gets annoying on the Railworks Forums when train "patriots" come along

Jamie

They don't last long, they tend to get banned rather quickly over there…:hehe:

 

[theokus]

See now you're pressing your luck, I'm actually surprised the conversation hasn't been a lot more vocal. Believe me there are thousands if not more in this community that eat sleep drink and dream Trainz.

There's a great number who take it way beyond a hobby and venture into obsession. Now of course if that's what they want to do, it doesn't affect me one way or the other. But that last sentence is enough to bring the wrath, I know because I have uttered it myself:hehe:

Of course I didn't get my Trainz fix in today, I was too busy screwing around with railworks, what a wasted afternoon:hehe:

Point taken
I am glad you try to understand me

About "screwing" arround.
Everything becomes easy If you know how to do it he mrscsi.

 

[theokus]

They don't last long, they tend to get banned rather quickly over there…:hehe:

Hahaha
I'll put in a good word (for you)

 

[theokus]

That was actually about a third-party application, but point taken…

Now I didn't say you were a bad boy because you are sticking with what you know, I took you to task over very specific aspects, such as content manager not working, and graphics.

Now I did chide you somewhat for lack of expanding knowledge, again point taken but I'm old and tired and when I uttered those words it was at the end of a long day screwing around with railworks

Well I am not a kid anymore either

 

[mrscsi]

Point taken
I am glad you try to understand me

About "screwing" arround.
Everything becomes easy If you know how to do it he mrscsi.

Well it seems that I was really too busy capturing screenshots and playing graphics poker here in this thread to have really given it more than a cursory look.

And to be honest I had given it more than a cursory look about a year ago, at that time you needed a third-party application to work with DEM's.

So when I heard that was not the case, I went and looked and sure enough if you get the right kind of DEM, "supposedly" it will work. Now I haven't used strm ever when using TransDem. The servers that you get them from are rather hard to navigate and if I recall correctly, you pretty much have to know your latitude and longitude and take a guess and get the particular file you're looking for. So from that aspect, at 130 in the morning, I decided it was a wash…

With TransDem I can use Geotiff files right from the seamless server, just select the area that I want actually on a map and it goes out and gets the files and groups them together for me for download.

Really so much easier than trying to remember what my latitude and longitude is…

 

[BLACKWATCH]

Everything looks very real to life in RailWorks, in Trainz it doesn't, however if Trainz looked like Railworks2 with the database it has how good would it be,
maybe a lesson there, if RailWorks had a much greater database for free it would leave Trainz derailed.
What type of game engine does RailWorks have
steve

Do me a favour ...................
If "Everything looks very real to life in RailWorks", then we all live in plastic barbie & ken land. :hehe:

Try doing some railway photography & compare your prints against your computer screen, the difference is vast.

 

[theokus]

Oh I know, but please, it does get annoying having people who love Railworks on the Trainz Forums who hate trainz, and I'm sure it gets annoying on the Railworks Forums when train "patriots" come along

Jamie

Jamie, please; I do not hate anything
And I play other games too.
I did start years ago with "MicroProse" (Sid Meyer and co)
and Sierra On-Line (Ken Williams and Roberta)
I have to look here and count my things but I have everything they did release.

And I have TrainZ Classics 1 & 2, TS2009 and TS2010 (and MSTS).
From day 1, Rail Simulator was better looking in graphics display.
This was important for me.
I don't know what and how do you think, I don't know you he, but good
looks gets my attention
Then, I am getting more interest and I do a step further.
I hope you understand what I am trying to say here.

Ok, now things change for the better with TS2010.
The looks are going to be better
Next we need is a easy-er way to make a real live route.
With RailWorks it is...

To make a long story a short one: I really look forward here for somebody
who could explain me step by step how to make a real live route

In RW it is (again and sorry) really easy
You need only:
- Google Earth > placing markers for the layout of the track or some interesting other things.
- Office Calc > converting some numbers and stuff.
- Dem > layout of the terrain
And they are all free.

IF you want it, use RWDecal.
Also to use with Google Earth.
Then you are able to get everything you need to layout the route
and you see where to place scenery, rivers etc. etc.
With this program and the Dem you are ready to go

 

[NikkiA]

Do me a favour ...................
If "Everything looks very real to life in RailWorks", then we all live in plastic barbie & ken land. :hehe:

Try doing some railway photography & compare your prints against your computer screen, the difference is vast.

Indeed.

The only visual advantages that RW has are the real-time shadows, shaders, and the fact that the texture style of most objects is consistant.

Why are they consistant? Because there is essentially only one source for the vast majority of the scenary (that'd be Kuju, not RSDL), and it was done in a consistant manner.

The shaders are a mixed bag, yes, they get away from the 'OpenGL plastic' that many complain about trainz having (it's a general thing for many games/projects that start with OpenGL, the OpenGL pipeline tends to result in a very distinctive texturing style that has a bit of a 'toy story' fakeness to it), but on the other hand, the shaders mean that all of the locomotives have the same stupid orange-peel look to their metal bodies, and getting realistic weathering is FAR harder than a good trainz asset with AO'ed textures.

The shadows are a legitimate advantage, and one that Auran/N3V would do well to try and replicate - it would make asset creation slightly easier to not have to worry about supplying shadow meshes too.

As for gameplay advantages, the only ones I miss are manual coupling (sorry Auran, but having auto-coupling on UK stock is generally 'just wrong') and the multiple view modes.

It'd be nice to have better support for non-electric transmission in trainz too, some of the diesel-hydraulics had driver-controlled gearboxes, and of course there are the diesel-mechanicals and petrol-mechanical driven systems too. This could be implemented with more scriptable control over the engine spec plus the addition of some extra scriptable keyboard commands - it wouldn't need to be a huge change to the core of Trainz.

The Railworks 'input mapper' system allows for the kind of flexibility we need, but the mighty russians have proven that you can do effective tap changers purely in script, if only they could be better controlled by the keyboard rather than the mouse...

 

[theokus]

Well it seems that I was really too busy capturing screenshots and playing graphics poker here in this thread to have really given it more than a cursory look.

And to be honest I had given it more than a cursory look about a year ago, at that time you needed a third-party application to work with DEM's.

So when I heard that was not the case, I went and looked and sure enough if you get the right kind of DEM, "supposedly" it will work. Now I haven't used strm ever when using TransDem. The servers that you get them from are rather hard to navigate and if I recall correctly, you pretty much have to know your latitude and longitude and take a guess and get the particular file you're looking for. So from that aspect, at 130 in the morning, I decided it was a wash…

With TransDem I can use Geotiff files right from the seamless server, just select the area that I want actually on a map and it goes out and gets the files and groups them together for me for download.

Really so much easier than trying to remember what my latitude and longitude is…

Aha and ok!
When I make a route in the UK I take it all at once.
All the DEM (strm) for the UK goes in RW.
And IF you want: use RWdecal.
http://www.rwdecal.co.uk/
With those decals you get all at once too, from track to every bit of scenery.
And you don't have to take care of latitude and longitude

 

[theokus]

Do me a favour ...................
If "Everything looks very real to life in RailWorks", then we all live in plastic barbie & ken land. :hehe:

Try doing some railway photography & compare your prints against your computer screen, the difference is vast.

You did ask for it

Le Belge > The Belgium One > free translation he.
In Belgium we had the first train ever on the main land...
The line was from Mechelen tot Brussels.

 

[zatovisualworks]

:hehe: I think that NV3VRFa1l should charge Theo with an extra FCFUT (First Class Forum User Ticket) since he's really having a great time by teasing and preaching us with fallacies! Theo, please, don't be mean and pay that extra fee to NV3RFa1lers. Your evident over-enjoyment here must be charged.

You're welcome, NV3RFa1lers, no need to thank for the idea.

The fair dealing side of Alberte :wave:

===================================

BTW, yes, RW sometimes is a remembrance of B&W TV.

 

[theokus]

:hehe: I think that NV3VRFa1l should charge Theo with an extra FCFUT (First Class Forum User Ticket) since he's really having a great time by teasing and preaching us with fallacies! Theo, please, don't be mean and pay that extra fee to NV3RFa1lers. Your evident over-enjoyment here must be charged.
You're welcome, NV3RFa1lers, no need to thank for the idea.

The fair dealing side of Alberte :wave:

Gracias. Yo te recuerdo en mis oraciones.

 

[TRam__]

It'd be nice to have better support for non-electric transmission in trainz too, some of the diesel-hydraulics had driver-controlled gearboxes, and of course there are the diesel-mechanicals and petrol-mechanical driven systems too. This could be implemented with more scriptable control over the engine spec plus the addition of some extra scriptable keyboard commands - it wouldn't need to be a huge change to the core of Trainz.

It's already possible. Using of Vehicle.SetMaximumTractiveEffort(float maxTE) allows you directly set the traction force (if it is less then written in engine setting). To avoid the wheelspin sound use Vehicle.SetWheelslipTractionMultiplier(1.0) .

So that's wide used in some locomotives with start/stop of diesels. And for an electric locomotive with no-notch control system. And is already possible to introduce even clutch pedal of petrol-mechanical vehicles . But of cause it demands a mathematic model of engine and transmission.

 

[geophil]

Aha and ok!
When I make a route in the UK I take it all at once.
All the DEM (strm) for the UK goes in RW.
And IF you want: use RWdecal.
http://www.rwdecal.co.uk/
With those decals you get all at once too, from track to every bit of scenery.
And you don't have to take care of latitude and longitude

Without going into detail, RS/RW built-in and 3rd party geo data tools provide basic solutions for basic needs. That's ok. Different market - different approach.