Railway Simulator

J

Jay1990

New member
Hello,

I have been and bought this game today from Game. I have installed it and played it. However, I am not exactly sure what this game is suppose to do? It said on the box that you create your own railway etc. Well to me it just feels like Trains Simulator 2013. Can someone please tell me if I can create my own railway, place the trains etc I wish to play with? I have had a look around the website and it's starting to sound like a massive sandbox game where you have bought the game engine with some examples and it's for you to decide how to play it.

Sorry to sound stupid, I just can't figure out what I have exactly bought. Plus been in the UK, is there mainy UK trains as I noticed they are mostly US.

Thank you.
 
Register your game first. Presumably you bought Trainz TS12.
There is at least as much UK content as US. You can easily create your own routes, just drive trains or let the AI drivers drive the trains and you just sit back and watch. You will need to read the 300 page instructions that come with the game to get a better understanding of the simulator but you will be rewarded if you have patience.
If you have TS12 you have Kings Cross to Newcastle route place a train and some carriages at say Peterbough and drive it to York. Use DCC mode at first, cab mode uses real physics and can be tricky at first.

Have fun

Ken

just seen you have registered your TS12
 
Hi,

I have just registered my serial number on auran.com and had a email though saying I can get 20% of some DLC. It has said my serial was for Trainz Simulator 2012.

When I have played the game - to be honest I haven't played that long. It gave me a couple of routes, I chose the UK one and I think if I remember correctly it was start at Doncaster. I had a choice of a mail train at Christmas, and two others. I'll have a read of that big book. I had a quick flick though, but if you say it will help me understand it a little more I'll give it a shot.

If I were to create my own route, I have looked at some on here. How do I go about getting models? Can I create my own models? as I play Farming Simulator 2013 and you need to create your own models, textures etc for that? Does this run the same way?

Thanks
 
In addition to what Ken has said, Surveyor is the mode where routes are created, but if you have a manual it's advisable to have a read of it just to get a starting point on how to use the game. There is a fair bit of UK content in the game, and further content can be downloaded using the Content Manager tool built into the game.

Shane
 
Sounds like it's a pretty big game. Looking forward to it. Now I understand what it means by 'Build your own railway'.

Thank you for the help :)
 
No problem - for reference, it's best to get used to the game before downloading additional content for it, as that is a learning curve on it's own. Same with creating non-route/session content (routes/sessions are created using Surveyor).

Shane
 
It took me 3 months to figure out that I could download locos & cars ... and whole year to figure out that you could lay your own RR track ... "We will teach you Grasshopper, you have much to learn" ! ... "When you can snatch this pebble from my hand ... You will know it is time" !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iaamkUEF_A
 
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I've had a little mess around with that editor and it seems easy enough. The items are a little confusing so once I figure them names out I should be set. I've been looking on youtube and here at other peoples work and my you can make them look so realistic.

The fact you can empty and fill coal trucks is great. Can see myself spending a long time on this game.
 
Jay --

"The fact you can empty and fill coal trucks is great."

More than just coal trucks!~! Interactive industries and freight cars. I have a couple of youtube videos that will explain some of this. Just search youtube with "philskene".

Phil
 
I was expecting the same with them but haven't got round to them. I'm actually amazed at what the game can do. I'll check your youtube channel out. Thank you.

edit: just watched some of your videos. Inspiring. Shame I am back at work tomorrow.
 
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Welcome aboard. Trainz is what you want out of it. Do you want to just run trains on existing routes or create scenerios for existing routes or build your own routes? Its all here in the game and I think many would agree that you will never stop learning with it.
Just taking route building for example. Do you want to create from existing stock already available on the DLC or create some of your own? (For that you will need to learn to use a 3d modelling program). Do you want to base it on a real or imaginary place? Or even on a model railway rather than full size? So you can see there are even choices within choices.
You will find a lot of grumbles on here but you will by far find more help than hindrance. The choices are all yours :)
 
Also welcome , i'm playing it already for 9 years and i'm still learning , the possibilities are amazing .
I also recommend the you tube site with lots of tutorials.

And check the tutorials from Shane Turner : My Tutorial index thread
 
The game should come with a warning label: "Caution, Highly Addictive ! Once you play, your entire life will be consumed in Trainz ! Your night time (and daytime) dreams will be in surveyor laying track, and driving in Trainz, and you will no longer have any pleasent dreams of being on a sunny vacation beach in the Carribean, Your family will be having fun at the Casino, but you will be down at the railtard (where you purposely booked your 3rd rate motel room) in Las Vegas, your wife will leave you, or go on vacation without you, and you will not even miss her for 3 months, the kids will be left unattended in the playpen crying, and you won't even hear them, the dogs water bowl will go dry for 3 days straight, your school grades will plummet and you will get kicked out of college, you will get fired from your job for not showing up for work and callling out sick (when you are not even sick at all), your neighbors will hate you, and will call the cops on you for (multiple) excessive noise complaint(s), as they will think that a train station has moved in right next door to them, you will sit in a chair for 18 hours straight, and get carpal tunnel syndrome, you will sit in front of a blinding PC monitor so long that you will go out and buy "Blue Blocker" gold tinted oudoor sunglasses, and will instead wear them indoors while playing with Trainz, Do not use medications, nor drink alcoholic beverages while operating Trainz (as you will most likely spill your drink, and forget to take your medication), If you are pregnant, do not smoke while playing Trainz, as your ciggarette will totaly ash, and you will have wasted your money on cigarettes, and your baby will grow up to be a RR engineer, and his first words instead of being: "Da Da", will be: "Wooo Wooo", do not cook or barbeque while operating Trainz, unless you really like totally incinerated burnt up foodz, everyone you know will look at you in wonder if you are crazy, when you say outloud: "WoW ... That beautiful sunset sky looks just like Pomme13 ! If you can not afford to buy Trainz, DLC content, or a 1 year FCT (costs @ 0.06 cents per day), N3V may be able to help you, by once again having their "Sooper Dooper 75% Off Sale" on TS12" !
 
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Jay1990 said:
...

Sorry to sound stupid, I just can't figure out what I have exactly bought. ...
Click to expand...

That's a very interesting question because most of us don't really know either. :hehe: It can be a game - with multiplayer if you want, or it can be a simulator, or it can be a hobby, or it can be all of those things. You will always have more questions than we will have answers because there are so many things you can do with it.

Building your own route and running sessions on the route is only the start. We all have our own particular interests in Trainz. Just look at the different forum topics to get a handle on it.

If you like UK trains then you might want to consider buying the Settle and Carlisle addon. It has a 1950's feel to it.
 
trainz, whichever version you have, can be whatever you want it to be. You can use a built-in route to drive trains, you can download routes, but best of all you can make your own routes - and build the equivalent of that model railway you have always dreamed of, with unlimited space, and without necessarily having to spend any more than the cost of the boxed (or downloaded) set. You can use built-in track, rolling stock, scenery etc. - you can download from a choice of many thousands of items - or you can make your own models using one of the recommended 3D design programs.

My especial interest is building models - but it always was in my many years of railway modelling.

As for the warning about addiction - there was a similar one on page 12 of the 2004 manual: "Before clicking on the launch button, you should first say goodby to families and friends ...." That was a little extreme but almost true - perhaps the best way is to get families and friends interested too!

Ray
 
Jay,

Welcome to Trainz!

This will become, as has been said very eloquently by Mr. Cascade, an addiction that will consume you completely. Vacations will become Trainzing vacations where you will go off to take pictures for your current route projects. Seriously, I just did this with a fellow Trainz user. We journeyed nearly 700 miles from home to take pictures of Pennsylvania Anthracite country, coal breakers, and old mine equipment. With about 1,000 pictures now, we hope to make use of our travels.

The virtual railroading is very much like model railroading with so many aspects of the program that will suit just about everyone from the programmer-types for script writing to the model makers, and everyone in between. The thing is to take your time and enjoy your exploration and route building experiments and experience.

If you don't mind, I'd like to make a suggestion for route building. Take one of the routes that is built in and see how it is constructed in Surveyor. You can easily clone the route by doing a Save-As on the file menu. This will make the route yours to poke at, experiment with, change things, add things to it, etc. You can use this route as a way to see how things are built and then add on to it and change it to your liking. Eventually, you can then try your hand at route building yourself.

For your own project, I suggest starting out small. Yes, this sounds hard, but seriously start small. You can always expand and merge later if you want. The reason for this is to make things easier for you to work on, and besides it's less overpowering as you build, scenic, and add stuff to the route. There's nothing more overpowering than seeing miles upon miles of grey gridded terrain. This can be very discouraging and outright scary even for the seasoned Trainz user. My now, over 250 miles long personal route, started nearly 10 years ago as a 4-board module and has since grown to the empire it is today. I've added to it, deleted, added more, and changed things as time has gone on, but more importantly, I've kept the same theme for the route from the beginning. This too helps keep things on track (pun intended) and the route somewhat realistic.

Anyway, remember to have fun. When things become a drag, step away and do something else. This helps refresh the creative juices as you come up for air and take a fresh look at what you've built.

John
 
Route building can be addictive, but best to start with something simple - maybe a favourite model railway plan but expanded to give prototype radius curves, or perhaps a scaled up version of your local park's miniature railway.
 
Thanks JCitron,

Luckily, I am not exactly a train spotter, although I do work on the railway and live next to what use to be the main station in England (Crewe). So luckily, I have everything right next too me as 700 miles is a lot haha. I have been playing about with the route editor more and more and just doing mess about routes to get use to what everything does. The only thing I can't work out is how to get the track close to one another without it connecting to track next too it. Also noticed the terrain brushes are massive. I have noticed a few of you have said about baseboards, I have not yet managed to figure how to do these yet. But with only buying the game on Sunday I am sure I will figure it out.

Hopefully I can figure the download centre out also. It's a shame there aren't any images on the main program, unless I've not found that option yet.
 
Jay1990 said:
Thanks JCitron,

Luckily, I am not exactly a train spotter, although I do work on the railway and live next to what use to be the main station in England (Crewe). So luckily, I have everything right next too me as 700 miles is a lot haha. I have been playing about with the route editor more and more and just doing mess about routes to get use to what everything does. The only thing I can't work out is how to get the track close to one another without it connecting to track next too it. Also noticed the terrain brushes are massive. I have noticed a few of you have said about baseboards, I have not yet managed to figure how to do these yet. But with only buying the game on Sunday I am sure I will figure it out.

Hopefully I can figure the download centre out also. It's a shame there aren't any images on the main program, unless I've not found that option yet.
Click to expand...

That is a good thing because you'd never get any work done! :) Over here the railroads do not hire railroad enthusiasts, or openly admitting ones anyway because of this. You are lucky though to work for the railroad. This is something I've wanted to do my whole life but now I'm retired. The industry had gone into a giant decline during my peak and of course is on the rebound when I'm no longer working! The last time I went through Crewe was in 1985 when British Rail rebuilt the junction. I was heading up and back to Liverpool to look up some information on my great, great grandmother in the city birth records. This was long before the internet so you had to do this research in person.

Anyway, you're heading on the right track with Surveyor. Take it easy and have fun. :)

To keep your tracks from jumping together, hold down the shift key while dragging them. It's a combination of ****-drag-click motion to get the tracks to stay disconnected.

To add a baseboard click on the topology tool (top-most tab on the right). Click on the advanced options - bottom part of the interface, and click on add baseboard. This will produce a new baseboard connected to your previous one so you can continue on your way. There is also a delete baseboard, but use this with caution because there is no undo when you do this.

For the texture brushes being so large... I find zooming out a bit helps size them down smaller. And speaking of textures, you might want to vary the direction a bit to make them look less like a shag carpet. This is done by holding down either the [ or the ] key to spin the size dial.

John
 
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