Wipers

~99% off all content for Trainz has (and still is) made by users like you & me. Not N3V (formerly Auran). Each creator puts in his own level of detail into his models. Some people put more in then others. Wipers (and their corresponding animation & scripting) is something most people don't include as it's doesn't add anything to the actual driving of the train in Trainz.

peter
 
i finally broke down and did it for the SD70MACs, the next releases of them will have operable wipers that work inside and outside the cab. others i can think of off the top of my head are the VMD dash 8s. there is also a key command for wipers - "ALT+," and "ALT+." are listed in the keyboard text file.
 
My QR SMU's have working wipers on the driver units as well as in the cab. Both are controlled automatically by the weather; as soon as the weather value exceeds the cloudy setting the wipers start.

The wiper switch changes over as well. I have not figured out how to make the switch turn on the wipers as well as having the weather control them.
 
Both are controlled automatically by the weather; as soon as the weather value exceeds the cloudy setting the wipers start.

Kudos to you for that. This software is supposed to be a 'simulation', ie aimed at realism. I expected it for all loco's tbo. It's a shame a software company relies on end users for content. I wonder how long World of Warcraft would have lasted if Blizzard's mentality had been the same.....
 
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Trainz was developed by Auran, a small company..

There are around 200,000 assets available for the game. Even if each of the only took a day or two to make (loco's can take weeks) imagine the cost of doing it all in-house with paid programmers.. We would not have Trainz at all if that was the case.
 
FS

I wonder how long World of Warcraft would have lasted if Blizzard's mentality had been the same.....
We don't know that, but I can tell you that the World's Largest Software Company's Flight Simulator lasted over 25 years. Most of the airports and a lot of the planes were user-created assets.
 
It's a shame a software company relies on end users for content. I wonder how long World of Warcraft would have lasted if Blizzard's mentality had been the same.....

I think it's a shame that most software companies don't allow us to make changes to the game...

As for WoW & TRS. They are two very different games. Your comparing Apples to Lemons, yes they are both games, but that is about it. Take a look at other 'simulation' games. Most have a large collection of user created content, often which the feveloper distributed software to allow users to create their own.
Check out:
(Website = Game addons are for)
Simtropolis = Sim City & Cities XL
AVSIM = MS Flight Sim
TrainSim = MS Train Sim
TheSimsResource = The Sims
Download Station = Trainz

And thats just some of the big ones. All of the games I mentioned & tons others have tons of smaller "third party" websites that offer content as well as having a few large databases of stuff.

peter
 
I think it's a shame that most software companies don't allow us to make changes to the game...

I used to work for Activision, creating levels as a 3rd party contributor to a well known game.

I'm ALL for 3rd party content, but, and this isn't a swipe at TS content creators, there is such a thing as quality control. My point being, a lot of the content 'built in' to TS simply hasn't been through that process.

Of course anything uploaded to the DLS doesn't have to be perfect, but content 'built in' that ships with the game should be.

My post was meant as constructive criticism, nothing more. If it offends anyone, then I simply have to live with it.
 
Trainz has suffered from the content creation for it's series since the beginning. Much of the built in content has remained since the early years, and I suspect the original authors don't care to go back and fix every little piece to bring them up to today's standards. I consider my own reskins and realize that they won't make the grade for the next version because they don't have normals and bump mapping and three levels of LOD, and hydromatricular crosstexture refinement for all I know!

It's a double edged sword all right, but they have been moving towards better content all along. Now they are at the point of asking well in advance for routes, and offering compensation as well. Compensation used to be getting your name in the credits, so they are sharpening the blade little by little. Problem is, as they narrow down the requirements for content, they also narrow down the number of creators able to and willing to supply said content.

It can't be easy planning ahead for 10 or more years in this type of business.
 
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