Trainz "Next" (TRS19) Official Announcement

Have to say I'm seriously impressed with the huge amount of time Tony and the N3V team are dedicating to bringing T:ANE Service Pack 3 to a successful delivery via the current beta testing series, whilst concurrently masterminding and managing the closed beta development of Trainz Railroad Simulator 2019!
Doesn't matter what time of day or night, or whether it is the weekend, Tony_Hilliam, Windwalkr and QA team members pop up on these forums to answer questions and make informative announcements and/or provide helpful suggestions to punters.
Compared to many other game development franchises, this amount of attention in an endeavour to meet or exceed user's expectations is (in my experience over decades of operating system & software development enterprises) exceptional.
 
1. It’s true that some people had issues with TANE. It is far from true that everyone did.
2. Yes we have learned from our mistakes. We have learned that developing a brand new engine from scratch while porting an enormous code base results in lots of incompatibilities (the cause of most of the above issues).
3. We have learned that 100 people testing isn’t enough. 200 isn’t enough. You need 1000 people to get the breadth of content/routes/behaviours/operating procedures to get a reasonable cross section of our audience.
4. We’ve spent 3 years stabilising, improving, tweaking, and hardening the code. The introduction of “assertions” to provide detailed information to the programmers gas resulted in 100’s of edge case bug fixes.
5. We’ve lengthened the development cycle to 3 years to give us sufficient time to ensure a polished release.
6. We’ve improved our communication with our beta testers and been persistent in ensuring we get their content installed on our systems to replicate and resolve these edge cases.
7. We’ve learned not to bite off more than we can chew. We’re not trying to add 100 features at once.
8. We’ve reduced our overheads and enlisted more 3rd party content creators than ever before to assist our cashflow to develop the next version.
9. We’ve focused our entire team on Trainz. Nothing else.
10. I have personally been involved in every Trainz release since Trainz CE in 2002. This release has a different feel. It is at least 12 months (closer to two years) since our original release date planned. Why have we delayed release? So that it becomes the release known as “this is the Trainz I have always wanted”.

Have we reached that goal? Early feedback (long before release day) suggests we are well on track. We’re not there yet, but we’re heading very much in the right direction.

This is very encouraging. Thank you for your time taken to reply.

Without mentioning names, and without marketing spin, I can tell you that one of our harshest critics in the past posted "Wow! I'm impressed" on his first look into TRS2019.

You can look at it this way: It's everything TANE SP3 is + a bunch of new stuff. So in that regard, it's hard to see people who like TANE SP3 not to be impressed by TRS2019.

The naysayers expecting loads of bugs will be disappointed. The people with low spec hardware will also be disappointed that they don't get ALL of the new features, but they will get to take advantage of some of them.

The other good thing for those people is that the GPU is an easily upgraded component in most systems (not so for laptops).

Can I make a personal request this early to all readers, and that is to drop using words like "naysayers", "haters", etc because it is usually people who have shelled out dollars for a product that isnt functioning to their expectation and have genuine grievances - whether those grievances are due to their own limited hardware, a corrupt installation, lack of understanding, a crappy product, their higher expectations than others or whatever, they are not haters, naysayers or anything else, they have a genuine issue which should be listened to and dealt with with respect and understanding.

No one buys TRAINZ just to hate it!

I hope those with problems are able to voice themselves without being abused by those who are not having the same issues as happened last time

That also goes for the other side as well using words like "fanboys" and similar.

3 years ago it drove a wedge in this board and got pretty nasty at times. Getting all defensive or insulting others doesnt solve any of the problems people are experiencing and at the end of the day, everyone wants the same thing. It HAS to play well and do everything it is designed to do.

Finally, if the N3V teams have really learned and listened and have embedded their points quoted above into their next product, then the product will sell itself without all the BS and spin similar to that which preceded the release of TANE.

I genuinely hope this will be a successful product for N3V and those who purchase it.

Thats all I have to say (for now), Thanks and good luck.
 
I fully support what Iannz has said. I don't want to see another flame war or a wedge driven between members of these forums. Constructive criticism is what we all, including N3V, need. Not pure negativity because some long cherished feature has still not returned or an old favourite asset still does not work.

I suspect that a lot more people will find that all the "whizz-bang" new features promised in TRS2019 may not work in their system because they do not have a GPU powerful enough. Until TANE, which provided performance sliders and toggles, this was never an issue. But with increasing expectations of more realism and faster performance, it was inevitable. I will be upgrading my desktop system before I get the new program - whether it will simply be a new GPU or a whole new system I have yet to decide. But my laptop cannot be upgraded so it will remain a TANE SP3 machine until it expires. I would urge all users who are contemplating moving over to TRS2019 to check their system specs against what will be the minimum or better still, the recommended specs.

If your system is not up to spec and the funds are not immediately available for a hardware upgrade then stick with TANE SP3, it is a far far better product than the original TANE and better than TANE SP2.
 
Irrelevant: On those early times people did not know any better. The level of sophistication we have today was not there, DLS was not crowded like today. Perhaps most important people did not complain because few people did or they did not know how to. Certainly the last thing on my mind was to complain when it was a vast improvement of that basic and hard to use TS of you know who.
 
Hmmm. I just "stumbled across" a few partial screenshots from the new TRS2019 - if you think about it and do some exploring "close to the forum" you can easily find them. They have given the UI a makeover. From what little I have seen it is more streamlined, offers more options and has a new interesting feature, a track profile for use in Driver. This is a HUD that gives a lot of track info.
 
A wish on "track profile": I am sure that the new HUD would show the track ahead, with all the things coming to the direction of travel (gradient, signals, TM's and turnouts). Would it be so hard to implement action to the turnouts? So that if you click on one of them, it will switch? Available feature now on "Trackview ahead rule" but with limitations. This would make the HUD interactive and make the experience much more pleasant. Hope this seed falls on fertile soil...
 
We get called out for not providing news and feedback, and we get called out for providing news and feedback - tough crowd. :)
 
Trainz staff and beta teamsters,
Just a bit of feedback for the developers:

One big issue noticed with previous versions of Trainz is that there are information language problems with the product.
For example:
Main language settings for the TS 2009 & TS 12 setup are:
EN -English
DB - German
NL - Dutch
FR - French
ES - Spanish
IL(IT) - Italian

A Trainz user creates a layout or session in their own language say English, another country possibly sees a blank description in the asset data.
The configuration file of course can be modified manually using the Edit in Content Creator Plus application in Content Manager.
The online Google Translation program is an ideal application for language translations.

When creating a layout or session It would be an advantage if the new Trainz 2019 can automatically set some basic default information into the configuration
file so that the other countries can read some data in the description window when run in Driver mode.
There should be an automatic default set for the Usernames and Descriptions for all the listed languages in Trainz when saving the work using the surveyor mode.

Also noticed when inserting a licence tab there is no function for extra languages.

The conversion of String Tables to other languages is a pain in the neck as well, however this is an option because it is wise to leave all the layout sign
information in the native language of the route.
 
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Not sure if this has been asked before.
Will personal Tane routes with sessions be able to be imported into TS19 without problems.
 
Scott (BlackDiamond1964) posted a screenshot from Railworks (in his freeware Lackawanna and Wyoming thread, post #40) of how light pools from yard lights should really look and work, unlike the light pools in TANE that wipe out everything in them. I am wondering if TS2019 might improve on this feature? This is a big disappointment for both of us and could use improvement, as it is just too phony to even use.
 
I'm sure it's been requested before... but will TRS19 come with copy and paste at any angle? Finding it a pain and quite out of date to still work at 90, 180, 270 rotations only.

Thanks,
Paul
 
I'm sure it's been requested before... but will TRS19 come with copy and paste at any angle? Finding it a pain and quite out of date to still work at 90, 180, 270 rotations only.

Thanks,
Paul

Probably get shot down as a wishlist request... Agree that it would be useful along with 101 items the other sims also do different/better, but everything for TRS2019 seems focused on graphics and not much else.

I also read elsewhere that we are still going to get ECML and Hinton bundled in the "new" game? If so, could something new not have been commissioned? People want something a bit different and something that showcases the best of what the new version has to offer. Hopefully both routes have had major updates in terms of assets, terrain textures to bring them up to current standards - the target for ECML should be the visual equivalent of the DTG Kings Cross to Peterborough route or, at worst, the old Rail Simulator York to Newcastle route. Surely N3V could have found route authors willing to build a shorter, more focused UK route for inclusion as default content this time round? Given last time we had to beg for a decent cab for the Deltic, I take it this time work is going on behind the scenes to update the rest of the 2004 era rolling stock this route relied upon?
 
I also read elsewhere that we are still going to get ECML and Hinton bundled in the "new" game?

If you have read anything anywhere about what is "bundled with the game" then you would be reading something that is (i) in breach of the NDA and (ii) totally incorrect.

All TANE built-in and DLC routes will be available for existing owners. If anyone has a problem with us making products previously purchased to be compatible with the new version of Trainz, then that's a strange twist on the usual theme of "all my previously purchased items no longer work".

There have been no official posts regarding new content in TRS2019 at this time, and nothing released to beta testers to review as yet either (due to obvious spoiler alerts when people break NDA).
 
Reading the marketing blurb several weeks ago, lead me to believe that an early access version would be available to download in July for TRS2019, we are now in early August can anyone from N3V shed some light on how long prospective customers to this new version will need to wait before we can install a Beta version/anything on our hard drives, please?

Thank you so much.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.
 
Reading the marketing blurb several weeks ago, lead me to believe that an early access version would be available to download in July for TRS2019, we are now in early August can anyone from N3V shed some light on how long prospective customers to this new version will need to wait before we can install a Beta version/anything on our hard drives, please?

Thank you so much.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

Like anything in software development, somethings take longer than expected. As Tony has told us in the private forum, yes I'm one of the testers, that he wants to ensure stuff is done right and proper before the early access release is let loose. As he said, he doesn't want the repeat performance from the past (All paraphrased of course).

You'll all be pleasantly surprised when you see it! :)
 
Fine, I appreciate you can't rush these things, I'll wait patiently in the queue, then, thanks for the response, John, and enjoy your retirement........:wave:

Cheerz. Steve.
 
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So i have a question: will SpeedTrees from TS12 and TS10 (such as Pofig's 3D1 and 3DE series) compatible with TRS19? It really sucks that T:ANE obsoleted a huge market of SpeedTrees and it makes it a hassle to port TS12 routes that use them into T:ANE.
 
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