Most difficult game ever

[RidderDansk]

Sadly, I have a feeling John is no longer with us in the Trainzing world, but I'll put in my thoughts here so that other newcomers searching for information will fall upon this thread and hopefully not feel as lost.

I agree with everything you wrote. And beautiful description of the model railroad hobby and specifically Trainz. And yes, it is very sad that the complexity of Trainz may be causing the loss of users. I first discovered Trainz back in 2009, and I struggled with it for a couple of years. I had the advantage of my software background and was able to pick up a lot of things intuitively. But I struggle with things artistic. But your essay is spot-on! Trainz is not a typical computer game. And it is complex enough to meet the requirements of just about any railroad enthusiast, from a complete novice to a seasoned railroad employee, though an actual veteran might dispute this claim.

Anyway, I truly enjoyed reading your thoughts. Thank you.

 

[JCitron]

I agree. I started in December 2003 with TRS2004 and moved on from there. The program, through the requests from users, has grown to where it is today. The issue is poor documentation and poor implementation that has made the program more difficult than it should be. I too come from the high-tech world as a hardware technician and later as an MIS computer operator running VAXs and IBM mainframes who ended up in IT before I retired. With my tech background, I felt quite at home here but the problem is not all of us have that technical understanding of things and I've made that point more than a few times in the forums.

I've said that too. There's no reason a user needs advanced degrees in Computer Science and Engineering to restore a route from a backup or perform other general tasks. Users shouldn't need to know how to manipulate files and directories to run a train simulator. Restoring files from a backup should be an automated task. A point and click affair. This is only one example; there have been others.

Over the years, I've sadly seen many people come and go. Some get truly fed up and move on due to no fault of their own. As someone who worked the helpless desk, I feel for those users. It's too bad they didn't get over the hurdles.

I always thought of Trainz routes as model railroads even when they're supposed to be prototypical operations. The first route I built myself is based on a model railroad I built a few years before except on a real-world scale. The route still exists in parts of my current route I have operating today. Is it an artistic work? Not even close. It works well too with my Basic graphics settings because the PBR textures are annoying when enabled, besides that also keeps my hardware cooler as well.

 

[pware]

But how many people can afford (or even want?) the latest hardware? In my day, I have been in hobbies that priced a lot of hobbyists out of the hobby. Does N3V want to do that as well? If I want realism, there is no better place to find it than outside in the real world!

I started in computers when 128kb of RAM and a 20 mega byte HDD was state of the art. And now if we don't have a 16 Core processor running at 5GHz+ with 16 GB RAM (MINIMUM) and storage of 4 Tera-Byte SSDs we feel deprived? This is simply a never-ending spiral that is obsolete the day after it is delivered.

My newest laptop, which I purchased to replace an older model that had given up its ghost (after a serious incident with a mug of tea), came with an RTX3050Ti and an i7 as standard. It was, in real $$ terms, a bit cheaper but much more powerful than the original it replaced.

As your existing hardware ages, becomes obsolete and has to be replaced, you will more than likely find a far better equipped model for much the same or even less than what you payed for the original device. The "latest and greatest" current offering will always be a far more expensive choice but after just a few years (or less) it will become "run-of-the-mill". In my experience anyway.

My start in computers was with a Z80 (8 bit CPU), 48kB of RAM (why would you ever need more?) and a standard audio cassette player for external storage. Those were the days.

 

[RidderDansk]

JCitron, and PWare, yes, those were indeed the days. Nostalgia is great in hindsight. I struggled a lot with TRS2004, but I also enjoyed SirGibby's earlier Murchison layout, too. SpeedTrees and NVidia and TurFx certainly improved the quality of scenery, so I wouldn't want to go back. Moving forward is the way to go. I just wish it didn't have such a high price tag, and I don't mean solely monetarily.

Anyway, I have enjoyed the conversation. Thank you both. I hope John, who began this Thread, will find his way through his current hurdle and return to Trainz. There is definitely a reason to stick around, despite the frustration. Patience comes at a cost, unfortunately not a sticker price some are willing to pay in these days of instant gratification.

 

[nugget2225]

I just turned 46 after starting with trainz in 2002, It can be difficult having the user interface the same way for 20 years, And then it drastically change. I go back and forth between legacy and surveyor 2.0. After playing around with the new version, It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Several features seems to be missing in the new version, Such as replacing dozens of assets at once. I also don't like the new track splines. I used the circles to line my track up. So that's why i go between the two. Hopefully the new version will fill in the missing features. Overall I think the new interface is so much quicker to get the majority of things done. Young or older, I think it was a change for the best. We are all kids at heart when it comes to the love of trains. I hope to be on the forums another 10 or 20 years and see what the future holds for all of us. Hardware just keeps getting more expensive, And I am afraid it might be out of reach for a lot of us.

 

[JCitron]

@Zandisig is copying and pasting AI-generated text. and is a spammer. See the website link in the above post.

Reported!

 

[ricomon35]

From my perspective what is getting harder is the creation of objects. I used to quickly make anything I needed "on the fly" so to speak. I'd pause my route creation, make something I needed and then continue. Since most of these objects were guides and other things not meant to be seen in Driver, texturing was pretty rudimentary, often with rather garish colors to make them easy to find. Naturally things meant to be in Driver got more TLC. I remember when adding bump mapping to give a pseudo3D effect was a big step up. Of course none of these objects were anything like the high quality stuff produced by some of the great creators out there but they served my needs. I tried my hand at making some wagons and even a few simple engines but quickly discovered that the work involved to make them look good, never mind better, was getting to be a lot of effort. And that was before PBR and other fancy new techniques. So I've stuck with making structures and guides. Luckily I have a whole bunch in the workshop that can be reused with a few modifications so I don't have to re-invent the wheel every time.

You know, that is exactly how I started modeling. I could never find good enough era specific scenery for my MRR layouts, and alot of the NG logging and mining stuff we have is pretty old, and alot of times, textured at really low (read blurry, LOL) res texture sizes, and/or lacking in close-up detail, making them useless for trackside use on a MRR layout. So, I'd work on a layout, build a building, then another, and soon I'd end up scratch building all of the scenery. Then it was rocks, roads, fences, walls and cliff splines. I think the majority of my around 600 DLS models I've built in the last two years since I started publishing layouts. My early models, were really awful, I think. I didn't cleanup polys properly, and my texturing was so bad.

10 years of route building attempts, with alot of overly ambitious routes I'll never finish. The trend towards MRR layout was a godsend for me, really. All of the great room assets being put out, and then benchwork, fascia, valances, and even furniture. I love to build scenery with alot of detail in terrain, texturing, scenery and clutter. If we only had the option to build 1:1 scale route, I'd never get anything finished.

Right now, @Cayden is mentoring me in Blender so I can finally learn how to build assets with proper lighting, and normal mapping, and PBR quality, and get things exported to Trainz efficiently.

Long Live Trainz !



Rico

 

[RidderDansk]

Rico, love your signature graphic. Very nice.

 

[boleyd]

Documentation:
Organizing the Documation could cost a considerable amount. The company, or person, who does it would need to create a good knowledge of Trainz. That would take some weeks, if the right person was available. During the process N3V will develop new ideas or maybe even take an interest in cleaning up a few holes.

BUT, the N3V accountant will want to know the Return($) for this investment. Therein lies the problem. Management has to take an exposed risk. What is the return revenue? What percentage from increased sales? Is any is assignable to the cost of the documentation? Does N3V see a need? Is the risk/return positive?

Well, is there a possible solution. Yes, Mr. PWARE. He has done some of the best writing in the Wiki. If he is allowed to interact with the software staff the time spent will be considerably less than an outside consultant or company. He has already done all of the initial steps - some documentation and learning a few of the mysteries of N3V.
Compensation: Negotiable

Just a suggestion......

 

[ricomon35]

Rico, love your signature graphic. Very nice.

@RidderDansk - Thanks man. It's a composite image, built up in Photoshop.

The background is made up of some images from here > Pencil Sketch Mountains Vectors
Lot's of layers, re-sizing, and compositing, to get the final image.

The loco and cars are all Maerklin, Minitrix, Fleischmann and Brawa images pulled from various retail websites.
The track, I think, was part of the loco image, I masked it out and used warp to even the new shape then cut>paste to end up with a nice even track elevation image.

Cutting the individual traincars out of their backgrounds was easy, as most are shown with an evenly lit white background.
Example > https://www.reynaulds.com/products/Brawa/45910.aspx


Rico

 

[ricomon35]

My newest laptop, which I purchased to replace an older model that had given up its ghost (after a serious incident with a mug of tea), came with an RTX3050Ti and an i7 as standard. It was, in real $$ terms, a bit cheaper but much more powerful than the original it replaced.

As your existing hardware ages, becomes obsolete and has to be replaced, you will more than likely find a far better equipped model for much the same or even less than what you payed for the original device. The "latest and greatest" current offering will always be a far more expensive choice but after just a few years (or less) it will become "run-of-the-mill". In my experience anyway.

My start in computers was with a Z80 (8 bit CPU), 48kB of RAM (why would you ever need more?) and a standard audio cassette player for external storage. Those were the days.

@pware , @RidderDansk > My 1st computer was an Atari 1040ST.

It had 1 megabyte of RAM memory. 1 megabyte, that was an enormous amount in 1986 !

The cost was 999 USD back then.

Rico

 

[martinvk]

Cue "Four Yorkshiremen"

 

[ricomon35]

Cue "Four Yorkshiremen"

Very true, LOL.

 

[Forester1]

I fondly remember those guys! Nothing like them before or since!

 

[JCitron]

My first real computer was an Atari 800. I then moved on to a Visual V-1050. That was a CP/M Plus machine with 64K of RAM, 32k RAM for video, two quad-density floppy drives, a bundle of software, and a 9-inch monitor. I learned Z-80 Assembly and BASIC on this machine, and this became the nexus for my interest in computers. I worked for the company as a hardware tech and got a deep discount. The fact the machine could read and load software from other CP/M machines including the DEC Rainbow made it quite valuable. I later moved on to an IBM compatible, a Visual Commuter Computer which I still have. That "portable" weighs 26 lbs., not 16 lbs. shown on a website. After that, my fate was sealed and I foolishly sold my V-1050.

Anyway, Dick is right. Documentation is a big part of what we need but unfortunately companies don't create printed manuals any longer. The Visual V-1050 came with a huge library of books plus all the software manuals for all the software included. In addition to the cost of creating printed manuals, software development time is far reduced compared to the old days. This makes printed manuals difficult to produce due to the short turnaround and constant updating necessary. With the documents now online in a Wiki format, they can be updated quickly without needing to constantly reprint the paper books which in the end is costly.

 

[pware]

...CP/M ... 64K of RAM ... two quad-density floppy drives

Looxury (Yorkshire ascent)! In my day the on switch was a hand crank, you had to spin it until the engine caught and the computer would "boot up". The input/output was a tape punch. For storage we had to roll the tape up, tie it to the leg of a pigeon and let it loose. You young ones have it easy these days. Just sayin!

 

[amigacooke]

@pware , @RidderDansk > My 1st computer was an Atari 1040ST.

It had 1 megabyte of RAM memory. 1 megabyte, that was an enormous amount in 1986 !

The cost was 999 USD back then.

Rico

Should have bought an Amiga

 

[amigacooke]

Looxury (Yorkshire ascent)! In my day the on switch was a hand crank, you had to spin it until the engine caught and the computer would "boot up". The input/output was a tape punch. For storage we had to roll the tape up, tie it to the leg of a pigeon and let it loose. You young ones have it easy these days. Just sayin!

Looxury!

In my day we didn’t have on or off, just an abacus, sheets of paper and a HB II. Not frames per second, frames per day. Input/output was by punch, the exception being a boot up the storage unit orifice. Storage was in’t coal cellar. Whippet was a looxury accelerator for the DPU (dog processing unit).

PS ran on Yorkshire Fells 2

 

[ricomon35]

My first real computer was an Atari 800. I then moved on to a Visual V-1050. That was a CP/M Plus machine with 64K of RAM, 32k RAM for video, two quad-density floppy drives, a bundle of software, and a 9-inch monitor. I learned Z-80 Assembly and BASIC on this machine, and this became the nexus for my interest in computers. I worked for the company as a hardware tech and got a deep discount. The fact the machine could read and load software from other CP/M machines including the DEC Rainbow made it quite valuable. I later moved on to an IBM compatible, a Visual Commuter Computer which I still have. That "portable" weighs 26 lbs., not 16 lbs. shown on a website. After that, my fate was sealed and I foolishly sold my V-1050.

Anyway, Dick is right. Documentation is a big part of what we need but unfortunately companies don't create printed manuals any longer. The Visual V-1050 came with a huge library of books plus all the software manuals for all the software included. In addition to the cost of creating printed manuals, software development time is far reduced compared to the old days. This makes printed manuals difficult to produce due to the short turnaround and constant updating necessary. With the documents now online in a Wiki format, they can be updated quickly without needing to constantly reprint the paper books which in the end is costly.

At least you actually used your computer for work.
All I was doing was playing S.D.I.

 

[johnarran]

Anyway, Dick is right. Documentation is a big part of what we need but unfortunately companies don't create printed manuals any longer. The Visual V-1050 came with a huge library of books plus all the software manuals for all the software included. In addition to the cost of creating printed manuals, software development time is far reduced compared to the old days. This makes printed manuals difficult to produce due to the short turnaround and constant updating necessary. With the documents now online in a Wiki format, they can be updated quickly without needing to constantly reprint the paper books which in the end is costly.

Unfortunately John N3V don't update the wiki as they should. There are so many dead ends that often it becomes quite a task to find the answers that you are looking for. Documentation including digital format has become a dirty word in today's environment, sadly.

Many years ago I made the jump from 8bit to 32 bit assembler on an ARM processor. The documentation did not come as standard and had to be paid for separately, but the cost was worth it. The detail was superb and progamming without it would have been very difficult.

Today I think software companies fail to see that good and detailed documentation is still important to many an end-user. Unfortunately N3V are stuck in the middle here trying to please everyone from the game kiddies to the more serious hobbyist. Keeping a good profit level is obviously important to every business but it just seems that there are so many unfinished tasks in Trainz that they are unable to dig themselves out their hole. The wiki is part of this hole and is now left to end users like PWare and others to maintain through trial and error of Trainz. The forum and knowledgeable users are a godsend, without it the Trainz product would die.

The thing that annoys me immensely is that the updates fix bugs (that is a good thing obviously), but bugs are not created by end-users but introduced by programmers and bad or sloppy design. System documentation should be referenced when coding and memory not relied upon. Of course I am assuming that system documentation exists. As an ex-professional it saddens me to see standards slip.

I hear the arguments from some that the code has many thousands of lines of code and that N3V are a small company and not in the same league as Micro$oft or Adobe$$$, very true indeed but they are only developing, maintaining and suporting a single product. We all love Trainz or we wouldn't be here would we, but it does get very frustrating these days. Graphically the game is excellent these days and with future improvements to come it looks very promising, just wish the tasks were finished and to a better standard.

Anyway, I'm just glad for the people on the forum and the help given, without which I would probably still be on Trains 2009 or Railsimulator.

Keep the knowledge flowing people it's good to see.

John