Bought a Month FCT on Steam, Got 7 Days

[livingsteam]

Really, I'm just saying this out loud to you all, I don't expect there's a solution for this, beyond contacting N3V support.

I bought a one-month Trainz Plus sub on Steam. Was only going for the FCT but then I realized I can get Trainz Living Railroad for 2 bucks more a month. Pretty cool!

Here's what I'm seeing in the Trainz settings -- only a 7 day FCT is in effect.

But here's my Trainz Plus Steam purchase showing a duration of one month.

I do love Trainz, it's really growing on me, not just the game but the community/culture too.

But I'm really starting to suspect some of their systems are spaghetti-code, laden with technical debt. How hard is it to get this right? LOL.

If anyone has any ideas to fix this, I'd love to hear it, thanks in advance.

 

[livingsteam]

oh again I can't edit so here's the second post.

Yes I did shut down Trainz 2022PE and restarted it.

A FCT is supposed to work across all logged in products right? T:ANE, TRS19, TRS2022PE, plus Trainz Plus?

Also I've never been able to find my build number, I assume the Steam versions don't include it?

 

[JCitron]

FCTs work across all Trainz versions regardless of which one you are using. Go to My Trainz, on the web, and check your account.

Your build-number is located on the bottom of the launcher.


You can only enable one FCT at a time.

Does your Trainz version come with a 7-day FCT? That has to expire first before the next one kicks in. In the olden days, we had to enable the new one manually by going to www.auran.com and then clicking on the link to My Trainz (back then it was Planet Auran), or by clicking on the link above for My Trainz. I'm not sure if that's still valid and now the new one will automatically kick in automatically.

 

[livingsteam]

I had a 7 day that I activated when I first got Trainz a little over a month ago, I used it up.
There's a 2-day FCT waiting to be activated, I haven't touched that.

I bought this FCT on Steam, just a reminder.

When I go look at the FCT management dialog, I see the expired 7-day, the unused 2-day, and a new 7-day FCT that appeared when I purchased the month FCT on Steam.

I'm sure it's just a bug. There's really no other explanation.

I mean well, but I'll say again to N3V, "how hard is it to get this right?"

There must be a bug, probably in the handoff from Steam to N3V, IMEO.

and my Steam receipt showing one month is shown in a post near the top of the page.

 

[JCitron]

Contact the Helpdesk. I have a feeling it's a Steam server connection to N3V's server issue. This has always caused problems of some sort.

 

[livingsteam]

There must be a bug, probably in the handoff from Steam to N3V, IMEO.

Agreed, I have submitted. What I do is post these threads, even if there's little hope here, because then I can link the post to support.

a little more info, now I see what the content store is, per the image below.

I don't know why this Canadian Rocky Mountains route is showing up twice in the downloads, that's weird, it's only listed once on the line below.

 

[livingsteam]

ok I can read now that's two different parts of the overall Canadian route, I guess

 

[grazlash]

Really, I'm just saying this out loud to you all, I don't expect there's a solution for this, beyond contacting N3V support.

I bought a one-month Trainz Plus sub on Steam. Was only going for the FCT but then I realized I can get Trainz Living Railroad for 2 bucks more a month. Pretty cool!

Here's what I'm seeing in the Trainz settings -- only a 7 day FCT is in effect.

But here's my Trainz Plus Steam purchase showing a duration of one month.

I do love Trainz, it's really growing on me, not just the game but the community/culture too.

But I'm really starting to suspect some of their systems are spaghetti-code, laden with technical debt. How hard is it to get this right? LOL.

If anyone has any ideas to fix this, I'd love to hear it, thanks in advance.

Trainz Plus automatically includes a FCT for the duration of the subscription.
Are you certain that you have installed the Plus version of Trainz rather than Standard or Platinum, they were separated over a year ago and run different code.
Check that Plus has been activated on N3Vs end by clicking on 'MyTrainz' on the blue bar at the top of the forum page, then click on 'My Memberships' in the list on the left

 

[PhilChorusch01]

When I purchased TRS22 then TRS22PE, on Steam. I never got a FCT, I just didn't care too much and went to the Trainz Store. When I purchased TRS22 and purchase a 90 day FCT, when I purchased TRS22PE, I brought a 365 day FCT which is still active

When I purchase TANE, no FCT was given. I thought TANE was too confusing to use LOL
But when I purchased TRS19, I got a 7 day FCT and then I purchased a 30 day FCT.

 

[wreeder]

Perhaps you are simply confused. I've never seen Steam offer First Class Tickets for sale. That doesn't make business sense as it would mean that N3V would have to give Valve 30% of the purchase price while bearing the entire cost of providing the service. As grazlash pointed out, Trainz Plus provides a FCT for the period that your membership is valid. When I had a monthly subscription for Trainz Plus, it did not show a FCT in my list, it simply worked. An annual membership does show a 365 day ticket purchased.

I have TS12, TANE and TRS19 Standard through Steam and yes my Trainz Plus 365 day FCT works for all of them.

The build number of Trainz Plus is displayed on the launcher screen in the lower left corner. The Steam version may not be as new as the version available directly from N3V. The latest betas are sometimes delayed before being pushed to Steam users.

 

[grazlash]

Another thought, typically if you are getting more than 10KBps you have an active FCT, thats KiloBytes not kilobits

 

[stagecoach]

Standard subscription comes with a FCT which runs concurrently with any other FCT.
That is why I get a FCT discount when my subscription is renewed.
Your monthly subscription and FCT may not start until you have Plus installed, it is not an upgrade to TRS22 PE, It is a separate install.

 

[livingsteam]

Did you read the post, my initial post?

Perhaps you are simply confused. I've never seen Steam offer First Class Tickets for sale.

So, no, I'm not confused

I said "I bought a one-month Trainz Plus sub on Steam. Was only going for the FCT but then I realized I can get Trainz Living Railroad for 2 bucks more a month. Pretty cool!"

Thanks all for your consideration and specuations, but N3V solved the mystery as follows:

Here's N3V's response:

Good Afternoon livingsteam
Thank you for contacting us. Unfortunately due to the way that Steam handles subscriptions, our system cannot detect the duration of the subscription from Steam. As such the First Class Ticket that you see will be shown as a 7 day First Class Ticket, which will automatically extend at the end of each 7 day cycle when Trainz logs into your MyTrainz account whilst your membership is active.

Now we know the answer. Thanks again for your answers everyone!

 

[JCitron]

Did you read the post, my initial post?

So, no, I'm not confused

I said "I bought a one-month Trainz Plus sub on Steam. Was only going for the FCT but then I realized I can get Trainz Living Railroad for 2 bucks more a month. Pretty cool!"

Thanks all for your consideration and specuations, but N3V solved the mystery as follows:

Here's N3V's response:



Now we know the answer. Thanks again for your answers everyone!

That is really good to know and something we need to document for our future forum support. Thank you for providing N3V's response.

 

[livingsteam]

Hey @wreeder sorry for being short with you.

@JCitron

So I looked at:

Help:Content Manager:Download Station And Downloading - TrainzOnline

online.ts2009.com

Download Station - TrainzOnline

online.ts2009.com

and there are a couple other references to First Class Tickets on the wiki.

I'd be happy to go edit Steam FCT info in there, I'd probably create a new page and then link it as a reference in a few places.

But does N3V want me pointing to Steam FCTs right where they are linking to their store?

I suppose they should be enlightened and be platform agnostic, since they are choosing to be on Steam.

What do people think, should I make the edits I propose above?

would look like this, with an image of the 7-day FCT on the page:

There's is an issue where users who buy a Trainz Plus subscription on Steam are entitled to a one-month active First Class Ticket (for fast downloads) to be in effect while their Trainz Plus subscription is active.
But if the user checks their FCT status in the Trainz app, it reports a 7-day FCT in place.

In August, 2024, this behavior was reported to be normal and there is a workaround in place.

N3V support reported: "Unfortunately due to the way that Steam handles subscriptions, our system cannot detect the duration of the subscription from Steam. As such the First Class Ticket that you see will be shown as a 7 day First Class Ticket, which will automatically extend at the end of each 7 day cycle when Trainz logs into your MyTrainz account whilst your membership is active."

 

[JCitron]

I would add the information to the Wiki because that will let everyone know the caveat with Steam and put the link in and information about the Steam FCT, besides N3V sells their wares there anyway, so it's no big deal I don't think.

The way I look at it is we may know this now and some of us will remember it, but sometime in the future, we will forget what the solution is. By putting this in the Wiki, this is a way of documenting this caveat.

In the end, they'll edit it out if they don't like it. That's the good part of the Wiki.

 

[livingsteam]

I will say that I did a google search for the subject just now and this thread came up as #1!

OK thanks I'll go edit the wiki, assuming I can.

 

[livingsteam]

Ummm maybe not.

I don't have the power to create an account there.

And the admins are Russian or Eastern European or some Cyrillic language?

So I can't edit the existing pages or create a new page.

 

[WestSideRailways]

waste of time using steam if you ask me, why not go direct to N3V.

is it really cheaper in the long run.???

 

[livingsteam]

I own a bunch of other games in Steam, it's an ecosystem.

Me, I don't understand why people buy Apple products Android works just fine.

I would say I've bought everything off steam at a steep discount, and/or with DLCs added in.

You tell me if I got a good deal