Railworks 2 - Any good?

ma44hew said:
I am thinking of getting Railworks 2, I was wondering if you can design your own scenarios for current routes and whether you can give commands to AI trains just like all the "Trainz" have let you do?
Click to expand...

Go back and read this thread. Apparently, RW2 has horrendous AI, and, aside from one person, most have said that the route-building tools suck - and even that one person only likes some things about the RW's route-builder.

I won't buy RW2 because of the DRM, but the other reasons make it rather undesirable in the first place.
 
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Actually the AI traffic in railworks should be called ADHD traffic, it's all dependent on timing and consist priorities, and doesn't pay any attention to signals at all. The scenario editor is ridiculously clumsy, complicated, limited, and buggy, in my opinion the MSTS route editor is more stable and easier to use than the railworks scenario editor. The kid who designed it had a specific type of activity in mind, and built the logic and tools around that type of activity. Even that didn't work well at the beginning, so with the very first patch 3 years ago they redesigned it so the AI trains locked every single switch on their entire path at start time, even if they weren't due to start running for 4 hours after the scenario starts. Consequently the entire scenario has to be set up with priorities and timing letter perfect, no deviation from the schedule is allowed, and even then you get player collisions with invisible AI trains and AI trains colliding with each other unless you have a multitrack mainline passenger route with a limited number of AI trains all running on their own tracks with no conflicts - in which case you don't actually need signals in the first place, they're just for decoration.

So the short answer is no, you can "design your own scenarios for current routes and whether you can give commands to AI trains" but nowhere near "just like all the "Trainz" have let you do?", railworks isn't even in the same class as Trainz when it comes to ease of use, versatility, and stability of AI traffic setup. In fact the 9 year old MSTS activity editor is actually more stable, versatile, and intuitive than the RW scenario tools. MSTS AI traffic, while nowhere near as good as Trainz, is actually better than railworks.

As for RW having more freeware diesels than Trainz, I'm more into first generation stuff like Alco RS3 and EMD GP9 diesels, not interested at all in SD70, FP40, or Dash 9 modern stuff. Possibly RW has more modern US diesels than Trainz, or more European stuff, I never really looked.
 
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most have said that the route-building tools suck
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go quite that far, just that things are more technical and time consuming. Again, on my TRS project in just over a couple of hours this morning I got 2km of texturing and 3D placement done. Admittedly that was largely open country and forest but the Trainz copy and paste feature allows you to rapidly duplicate over repetitive areas both the terrain textures and objects such as trees. Covering the same distance in RW would take twice as long.

Then there's the features such as being able to control the radius of curves and lay simultaneous parallel tracks plus of course the offset tool for laying further track or other lofted objects such as platforms. So it most definitely doesn't "suck" and there are some useful features, just (unfortunately) no shortcuts or user friendly aids for some of the more repetitive tasks.
 
Vern said:
I wouldn't go quite that far, just that things are more technical and time consuming. Again, on my TRS project in just over a couple of hours this morning I got 2km of texturing and 3D placement done. Admittedly that was largely open country and forest but the Trainz copy and paste feature allows you to rapidly duplicate over repetitive areas both the terrain textures and objects such as trees. Covering the same distance in RW would take twice as long.
Click to expand...

Actually, that was directed toward RW2's route-building tools, though, again, I'm basing what I say on other's comments, not my own experience. Trainz has its share of good tools, iffy tools, and quirks as well. But the original reason I went for TS2010 as opposed to other trainsims including Railworks was the ease of route-building.
 
Before you say no.....

To RW2 I suggest you not listen to the negative thoughts of those who don't like it or try to compair it to Trainz. They are two different sims. Both have their good and bad points to them,however if you like model railroading you might want Trainz. If you like more Real railroading then you might want RW2. I run both and enjoy both. The look and sounds of the 4-8-4's, the 4-6-6-4's and the 4-8-8-4's in RW2 are something to behold. The other non USA stuff is cool too. It's on sale and I would suggest you buy it. You can get add on stuff for free and the payware is as low as $4.99 The updates are automatic also. I think you'll find it's not as bad as some people would like you to beleive. Enjoy whatever you get.
:) Alco_P-A www.bigboytrainsandhobbies.com
 
I have both sims for a long time,none are perfect,however each has its own
personality,here is my take on the subject.
RW 2 focuses strictly on driving a Engine and accomplishing a given task,
It does not allow you to interact with other AI trains,if there is any,nor does
it allow you to built extensive AI traffic around your train to liven things up.
I find I become bored after some time of driving,seldom finishing a scenario!!
I tried to make my own scenarios in RW with more lively AI traffic,well that
is not possible,the AI is simply abyssmal and killed my interest in RW 2.
So I end up playing RW for 20 min,and Trainz for the rest of the day,
Trainz lets you do all the things RW 2 does not,I drive for a while get bored
then jump to some other area of the map and see what the AI trains are up
to,as a matter of fact building and running the AI railway is what makes
Trainz so interesting,at least for me,it keeps me interested for hours.
Trainz lets you do so much so easy,none of the others can compete.

I use Trainz most of the time for these reasons.

Cheers
Walt
 
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I think you're missing the point, it's not "negative thoughts" it's an honest appraisal of the two games. For those who like to jump into a train and "have a run", there's nothing wrong with railworks, but for those who want realistic railroad operations it's missing a fundamental part of a railroad simulator. If Trainz is a "model railroad simulator", then railworks is a toy train game. Nothing really wrong with that, for every model railroader who builds a realistic layout and runs realistic operations on it, there are a hundred people who just want to run trains around in circles as fast as they will go. A model railroad layout works better for the former, a toy train set works better for the latter.
 
You know what if payware venders for Trainz was smart enough they could make alot of money of people form Railworks. The EMD SD70ACe that just made sold over almost 1000 downloads and its first day of release. Sure dont belive me but just look at how many people likes Railworks by clicking on there facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/RailSimulatorcom/258680273090

RW looks much better then Trainz and MSTS put togethere the problem is why there is much payware out there for it is becuse the there is nobody that knows how to make a detailed model for the game unless its RS.Com them selfs. Plus RW looks real unlike a fake HO Layout.
 
Agreement on RW2

I quite enjoy RW2 for only one thing, I actually feel I am driving a HST and struggling to maintain speeds. However, the rail/route building is far more complex then TRAINZ and it definitely spoils it for me
 
RW2

I have to disagree with BNSF650 as to how good RW2 is with its models......I have both programs and here is my appraisal for what its worth.

1. Lousy LOD, example..TS2010's LODDING is seamless while that RW2 is not.
2. AI is useless
3. Route development tools are absolutely hopeless....you can do far more in TS2010 and a lot easier.
4. Textures are far better in TS2010

I could go on and on but that will do.
 
"Plus RW looks real unlike a fake HO Layout" My HO layout

walter36201011190000.jpg
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/1788/walter36201011190000.jpg
 
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Let the pictures do the talking

The pictures above are taken in TRS2009-SP4,on vast maps,not tabeltop HO Layouts,as some might suggest. ;)

As a matter of fact one of the maps has 14 operational portals that introduce and remove trains,as the AI scenario unfolds,the map has often up to 20 large freighttrains operating at the same time,all this plus,doing boxcar end to end shunting,dropping off and piking up different consists,loading wellcars as well as operating turntabels and active industry running at the same time? Its hard to get bored with a spread like this.And you know what I had the map running for eight hours! and there was no AI hang up??

Try that with Railworks 2 and let me know how it went? ;)

Cheers
Walt
 
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