Hoping someone can give me some advice here. I read through the Auran web site and am totally confused with all of the titles now available. Classics, '09, "X", Route Builder Edition, etc, etc, etc!!! Here is my question: If you want to have the latest, greatest Trainz experience, what title(s) do you get? Do you need multiple titles? Does one title give you all of the others--i.e. if you get '09, does it have everything "Classics" has in it? Which are the basic simulator and which are the add-ons? I'm totally confused. Thanks.
I need Advice.....too many titles!!
- Thread starter bmckown
- Start date
With two exceptions each version of Trainz is self-contained. The exceptions are:
John
- Trainz Driver Edition is an inexpensive demo version of TRS2006 which hasn't got facilities for creating layouts or installing third-party assets.
- Trainz Classics has the full program but only a small set of built-in assets (buildings, rolling stock etc). It can import those assets from TRS2006 if you have a copy.
- Trainz
- UTC (Ultimate Trainz Collection)
- TRS2004
- TRS2006
- Trainz Classics
- TS2009WBE
John
this may be a little misleading to the novice. It's true that it works with all new and old content; however, some of that content only works in compatability mode and not in native mode. I just thought that your answer needed a little further explanation.
I personally prefer 2004 and that's about all that I use although I have 06 and 09. When I create something, I try to make sure that it works in 09, but I prefer running in 04.
Mike
Yeah, this is false advertising for certain. Many of the items have to be repaired before use, and even though some work with errors in 2009, they still seem to cause havoc if too many are used in a route. At least on my PC!
johnwhelan
Well-known member
Not from the emails I've had where people have had problems with my TRS2004 content.
The issue with TRS2004 is scripts, get two different items running scripts and Trainz may crash. Each works perfectly by itself, sometimes it needs three to do the interaction and finding the precise problem is very complex and time consuming so these days I don't even bother. The last time this was raised was last week.
My take is it works on a clean install if you have problems move to TRS2009 which is more stable or TC3 with the TRS2006 .ja files if that is your preference.
The most stable is TC3, TRS2009 is almost as good, it does have much better error detection and the problems that people are having with it relate to content not the program.
Cheerio John
You're saying you can't make or run scenarios in 2006?
That will only happen if one or both of the items are seriously faulty. We've got scores of different items all working perfectly together in TRS2004.
John
This is complicated and I apologise to other readers for the diversion but as Ed is a nice bloke and he asked....
TRS2006 lacks the Export Scene Data option in Surveyor, so it can't create TSO (TrackSide Objects) files or template GS (GameScript) files. Nor can it run a true scenario except for the small number of built-in ones which are fudged onto the Driver menu.
However, Larry ("Jenolan") found a way to take a TRS2004 scenario and from it create a TRS2006 Driver session which when run looks almost the same. This compilation process is very complicated and at Larry's request it is only available to Razorback Railway developers.
TPR's SCS (Scenario Creation System) for TRS2006 presumably does something similar and that excellent program is available free of charge to everyone. I don't know what SCS for TRS2006 does with regard to TSO files. BTW there is also a separate SCS for TRS2004.
John
johnwhelan
Well-known member
OK then go through my items and identify all the serious faults and what the correction is please. It's to do with the TRS2004 scripts ability to change variables that other scripts use. Yes some one could go through and defensively program all the scripts but that takes a lot of effort. What do you do about reskins? You'd need to coordinate the corrections for every bit of TRS2004 rolling stock that uses scripts both those on the DLS and those not an the DLS. This is not practical and why the f*** should I or any other content creator have to go to the effort just so some one can run a bit of software that was written years ago and can't be bothered to upgrade. If you don't like TRS2009 TC3 is available and works. Repeat after me this is a hobby, this is unpaid and is meant to be enjoyable both for content creators and others.
I've spent many many hours trying to identify these and I'm just totally fed up with searching.
I'm fairly certain all items show error free in TRS2009.
They all run error free on a fresh install of TRS2004.
Perhaps I should just up the version on all my items that are currently set to TRS2004 or lower because I really am fed up with getting emails from people saying they are having problems with items in TRS2004 that I am unable to reproduce. By doing this it would simply remove them from the DLS for TRS2004 owners and save me a lot of hassle.
Cheerio John
Why not complicate things further 
In all honesty there is no simple answer to the original question:
For a novice I would ask 'Do you just want to run trains?' - If so, I'd get TRS06 because it runs better framerates than 04. TrainzClassics will give better framerates again, but you gotta get 06 as well to get the content. If you want to run trains and don't mind splashing on two titles get 06 and TC.
If you want to build routes though I would go back to TRS04. Sure there is a lot of content you won't be able to use but the Surveyor menus mean you can generally find what you want a darn site quicker than in 06.
Either way I would not recommend TRS09 to a novice - not yet anyway. Maybe SP2 will fix more problems than it creates, but who knows.
So my final advice is - with the exception of 09 - get anything. If the bug bites the old titles are very inexpensive and you will finish up with the lot anyway. If the bug doesn't bite....
Andy
In all honesty there is no simple answer to the original question:
For a novice I would ask 'Do you just want to run trains?' - If so, I'd get TRS06 because it runs better framerates than 04. TrainzClassics will give better framerates again, but you gotta get 06 as well to get the content. If you want to run trains and don't mind splashing on two titles get 06 and TC.
If you want to build routes though I would go back to TRS04. Sure there is a lot of content you won't be able to use but the Surveyor menus mean you can generally find what you want a darn site quicker than in 06.
Either way I would not recommend TRS09 to a novice - not yet anyway. Maybe SP2 will fix more problems than it creates, but who knows.
So my final advice is - with the exception of 09 - get anything. If the bug bites the old titles are very inexpensive and you will finish up with the lot anyway. If the bug doesn't bite....
Andy
johnwhelan
Well-known member
If you'd like to investigate further then the last reported one was that either 86627:2351 or 2352 or 2354 or 2355 or 2356, the person reporting the problem didn't specify exactly which of these it was, when used with some unspecified other items of rolling stock or locomotives has a problem.
We were unable to reproduce the problem.
Cheerio John
John's thread is regarding TRS2006 !
Everytime I see this type of post I must respond . Thackalane wrote a new program for creating the ' old school scenario " (SCS2006 ) , it is a download from DLS . And I must add he spent many , many hours of work creating it !
There are scenarios ( not sessions ) , available on the DLS for TRS2006 , and/or download the program and do some creating ? :wave:
Just my thoughts --- ,DLR
That's a kind offer but no thanks
The Razorback crew went through the hundreds of rolling stock assets which we offer in our asset packs and corrected all the mistakes so they run on both TRS2004 and TRS2006. We now only receive a tiny number of reports of problems with them, maybe one or two so far this year. We have thousands of active members.
I appreciate the frustration if you can't reproduce the problems that people report but sorry I don't know why that's happening. Just checking, presumably you've got them to send you their jetlog.txt and log0.html files?
John