Trainz and "Gameplay" - Feedback thread

[Laurinlaki]

We know that many Trainz fans spend a lot of time in Surveyor, and their time in Driver is limited to testing their creations. However, we know that many of you spend the majority of your time in Driver.

Rather than run a survey, we wanted to start a discussion thread to hear all about your "gameplay" preferences in Trainz. By gameplay, we mean interacting with a train, or multiple trains in Driver.

Some things to discuss include:

• Is there a particular built-in session that you like? (and what makes this one special?)
• Is there a session on the DLS that you enjoy?
• If you create your own sessions, what is a typical set-up? (e.g. do you use navigation points?)
• Do you only ever drive a single train or do you like to jump from one to another?
• Do you use CMTM (Car Movement and Traffic Management System) ? Or perhaps model railroad card systems?
• Are there certain rules that you use when making your own gameplay?
• How do you use commodities in your sessions?
• Do you only use Quickdrive? (and why?)
• How much AI traffic do you like in your sessions?
• Have you tried multiplayer? (What did you like/dislike?)
• Anything else you'd like to throw in to the discussion.

So don't be shy - we'd love to hear all the different ways people enjoy Trainz - and feel free to expand on any of the suggested topics or introduce new ones.

1. Hard to say. I play the buildins from time to time when I'm bored. I think my favourites so far are the Rocky Mountaineer Driver session (because the route and the train are showing off TRS19 very well) and on the second spot Dispatchin the Action, because the concept is quite different of the rest of the sessions and watching the AI drive is sometimes fun as well.
The route of which sessions I enjoyed most so far happens to not be buildin though, its the Andrushivka - Vinnitsa DLC route (the one DLC that I can actually recommend to others)

2. Man, there must be so many sessions hiding from my view out there... I would defently play more from the DLS if only there would be a filter to find sessions for a route

3. Depends who they are for. I know how to add navigation points and as my sessions despite being usually written in german (as I release them on the german community forums usually) are played by some non german users as well for which the navpoints provide all nessescary info, so I use them more.
I'm trying to fit all sessions with announcements from the train info system or train radio with the dispatcher where suitable, which seems to be a pretty rare thing nowadays...

4. Depends on my mood and the session I'm playing. Sometimes I like to drive one train, other times I enjoy dispatching the AI. I also like sessions where I just program the AI and watch them go like on a digital model railroad. Sadly doing such AI progamming well takes a lot of time and testing that takes even more time, more often than not you have to use your hands aka the train tab to fix stuff just like on a real model railroad... Its a nice contrast to my H0 layout which is analog and unable to do this at much lower room and train cost inside the game, although I could probably form a good 20 trains out of the vehicles I have in real life as well...

5. Never heard of it, should probably check it out...

6. Well, the important ones, speed check, variable stuff where applicable, set junction, set camera... Nothing outstanding there... However I started discovering a entirely new way of using check turnout alignments and a endlessly repeating ordered list to make clickable buttons on the layout out of junctions...

7. Again, this depends on the session type. In terms of a normal "drive from A to be, couple, drive to C" style session its usually a pain of filling up all wagons one by one so the trains are not empty (and relying on the load train command to do a good job is also always a game of randomness to what comes out at the end). But if its a multiplayer session which is heavily based around keeping the industry system running, it must all be thought out so that theres never too much, never to few of a commodity, balanced amounts of wagons at any spot so that no one hour long setup of trains is required when the session is started etc etc.

8. Quickdrive is good for testing a route and driving over it. The downside of this is that the routes are usually empty and placing rolling stock in QD is always bad, as I can't reuse it later as I can with a fully grown session. So if I want routes to not be dead I usually go the extra way over having a session which also allows me to enable the custom HUD in T:ANE and other roles that come in hand. In TRS19 comes the pain of manually loading each wagon again as having custom commands (and with that no load all command) in quickdrive is impossible so I always have to go the way over a new session here if I don't wan't to drive empty trains.
Another downside is the inability to control the snow level and with that insufficient control of seasonal features in Quickdrive.

9. A lot please. I love action. The Trainz sessions I enjoyed most were some german sessions frmo 2013 for a (payware) route through my city, accurately modelling the 2.5 - 4 minute intervals at the center section of the route.

10. Yes. I'm in one of the last remaining MP communities, sad it died out almost with TRS19 having it more stable than ever before... The biggest downsides I see right now are the limitation to DLS only - OpenRails Multiplayer shows that it can work with allowing third party and even some local modifications without causing any further issues - the fact that it is impossible to save Multiplayer sessions and in general, the ability to run your own dedicated servers (like in a lot of other multiplayer games out there) would be neat.

11. One thing I have seen come up quite often, especially with many people seeing that TRS19 ships with a lot of buildin focussed at driving yourself that they don't use cause all they wanna do is use Trainz as a world creation simulator, is, why not offer a world builder edition of TRS19 to include only KSC2 and the Content Samples route (so basically what is the main program right now) at a lower price and make everything else optional.


Greets, Mika

[1611mac]

New user here.. two months use on my Mac... and now 3 days on my PC build. I've needed at PC for some time and TRS19 pushed me into it.

Can't offer a lot but:

Is there a particular built-in session that you like? (and what makes this one special?)
I became interested in train sims with a newly acquired interest in railfanning. Thus, since I'm in US I turn to US routes. They help me learn US equipment, signals, etc

Is there a session on the DLS that you enjoy?
Too new to answer really... Can I mention names? I like "philskene"'s routes and sessions but largely due to being "model trains" and having all dependencies in the download. Makes it easy for the new user. Also the "model trains" layout ran better on my Macs. Heck, I could lay in bed and run his routes on my MacBook Pro. Now that I have a PC I can try the larger routes again.

My interest is really learning, creating, and running a prototypical railroad... but for now, the shorter routes with lots of switching and yard work is what I'm running.

If you create your own sessions, what is a typical set-up? (e.g. do you use navigation points?)
No sessions created yet.

Do you only ever drive a single train or do you like to jump from one to another?
??????? Had not considered this....

Do you use CMTM (Car Movement and Traffic Management System) ? Or perhaps model railroad card systems?
?????? You gave me yet another thing to learn about...

This seems to be built into TSR19, right? Had to lookup "Quickdrive."
Yes. I use it to place trains and have different driving experiences.

Have you tried multiplayer? (What did you like/dislike?)
As new user I'd be terrified to use multiplayer... probably never. Have not even looked into it.

Anything else you'd like to throw in to the discussion.
At this point, just weeks into TRS19, I've enjoyed large routes, small routes, HO/Narrow Gauge routes, Dispatching, Modifying existing routes with surveyor, and making my own simple test track with lot's of multi train movement and signals mainly to watch how AI works (or doesn't) and signaling. I'm driving in "advanced" mode. I try to run a session using camera view, large overhead and behind to see what's coming, but lately I've been trying to drive from the cab. There is certainly a LOT of aspects to TRS19 and it will take months before my likes and dis-likes really come to light.....

[Christopher824]

We know that many Trainz fans spend a lot of time in Surveyor, and their time in Driver is limited to testing their creations. However, we know that many of you spend the majority of your time in Driver.......

So don't be shy - we'd love to hear all the different ways people enjoy Trainz - and feel free to expand on any of the suggested topics or introduce new ones.

Is there a particular built-in session that you like? (and what makes this one special?)
No
Is there a session on the DLS that you enjoy?
No
If you create your own sessions, what is a typical set-up? (e.g. do you use navigation points?)
Yes, My Grandson and I love setting up as may trains as we can get going, then seeing if we can create a disaster. Not to say we want carnage, we just like the animations of the derailments
Do you only ever drive a single train or do you like to jump from one to another?
Mostly No, we like to drive many at once
Do you use CMTM Car Movement and Traffic Management System? Or perhaps model railroad card systems?
? We like to see the cars stop at the RxR crossings, could be cool to see a drunk one drive trough the gate and the train crash it, then the police show up.
Are there certain rules that you use when making your own gameplay?
I used to like Railroad Tycoon, where there were waybills that had to be filled. I think there could be much added in that aspect if gameplay was ever truly introduced, I think right now with the session rules, its almost there.
How do you use commodities in your sessions?
See above
Do you only use Quickdrive? (and why?)
Use both, My sessions and Quick drive, like the flexibility
How much AI traffic do you like in your sessions?
Lots... and lots of road, waterway and air traffic. Makes it all very realistic
Have you tried multiplayer? (What did you like/dislike?)
Once. Just not the multi player person
Anything else you'd like to throw in to the discussion.
I know there are a lot of people out there that always say, 'This is a Railroad Simulator' and get mad about questions about road traffic, air traffic etc., but this 'Sim' has definite possibility to go where Sim City wanted to be years ago, being a City Planning Tool or such. Which is much more than it is touted for what it is today. It is in my opinion that Trainz best Sim product out there right now, mostly because users have such infinite ability to create their own stuff. I think we could create the next 'Space Shuttles' with it. LOL

[headmonkeyboy]

Well, as a total noob pretty much what Id actually love to see ( Ive been searching all over ) is a kind of detailed guide on how exactly these games are meant to be played.
I do enjoy what I get working, ie senarios, but downloading a map is just mind boggling. Ok cool, I found this really cool map this talented person made, now what? No trains on it, no instructions, so I wind up turning it off
just to do the same thing on the next map. As far as game mechanics and setting things up for a fun experience the information available is so little. I keep playing ifraredbobs sasquatch mountain because it already has trains
and theses ideas of what to do, and yes I've played the tutorials, but after those the user is left to their own devices which I guess Im just very lacking at. I drove semi for 20 years in real life so I do understand
logistics to a point, but consists and figuring out what I need rail wise baffles me.

So now that I've made myself look really dumb, and my first post has a deer in the headlights look all over it.... What I would like to see in Trainz or on the site is a detailed set of instructions or at least guides on what to
do after you've done the very basic tutorials. Dont get me wrong, Im quickly falling in love with these games but not all of us know alot about actual real world railroading. I can however back a 53' trailer in any spot you like ( had to prop slightly lol )

Please N3V, help show and guide your noobs to enjoy the games further.

Thanks for your time, and its nice to meet you all.

[JCitron]

Well, as a total noob pretty much what Id actually love to see ( Ive been searching all over ) is a kind of detailed guide on how exactly these games are meant to be played.
I do enjoy what I get working, ie senarios, but downloading a map is just mind boggling. Ok cool, I found this really cool map this talented person made, now what? No trains on it, no instructions, so I wind up turning it off
just to do the same thing on the next map. As far as game mechanics and setting things up for a fun experience the information available is so little. I keep playing ifraredbobs sasquatch mountain because it already has trains
and theses ideas of what to do, and yes I've played the tutorials, but after those the user is left to their own devices which I guess Im just very lacking at. I drove semi for 20 years in real life so I do understand
logistics to a point, but consists and figuring out what I need rail wise baffles me.

So now that I've made myself look really dumb, and my first post has a deer in the headlights look all over it.... What I would like to see in Trainz or on the site is a detailed set of instructions or at least guides on what to
do after you've done the very basic tutorials. Dont get me wrong, Im quickly falling in love with these games but not all of us know alot about actual real world railroading. I can however back a 53' trailer in any spot you like ( had to prop slightly lol )

Please N3V, help show and guide your noobs to enjoy the games further.

Thanks for your time, and its nice to meet you all.

Welcome to the forums and your first post brings up some interesting points.

N3V makes very little if any content themselves. In fact they haven't in more than a decade and instead focus on the game mechanics, and let the community create the routes, sessions, and content. What you've run into is something that's not uncommon, unfortunately, where the route creator doesn't explain much about the route created, let alone, supply a base session that you can edit and make your own.

The operation of the program is not unlike a giant model railroad where you, the end-user/player is the one who sets what's going on, unless that is, the original author created the base session. Having one of these

base sessions goes far to at least give the end-user/player a place to start with that they can then expand on. The alternative, in your case with the downloaded routes, is to create a session of your own.

If I download a map, I will explore it in Surveyor to get an idea where things are to plan on operations based on the industries, and maybe even expansion or changes I would make if I cloned the route. After the poking around, I will then set out on the long process of creating an operating session. This part can take a lot of time an patience to get right as the session needs to be setup, tweaked, and tweaked more to get things running as you like.

[pware]

Well ... what Id actually love to see ... is a kind of detailed guide on how exactly these games are meant to be played.

... I found this really cool map this talented person made, now what? No trains on it, no instructions, so I wind up turning it off.

Please N3V, help show and guide your noobs to enjoy the games further.

A good place to start is in the Freeware Announcements forum. This covers all types of freeware (DLS) creations by Trainz users, not just routes and sessions. The creators that use this forum to announce the release (or pending release) of their route and session creations are far more likely to provide all the necessary instructions plus you can contact them, through that forum, to ask questions, get support and report problems, etc.

[philskene]

headmonkeyboy --

As pointed out in the post immediately above, some of us do try to provide an informative Forum posting about the content we upload and share on the Download Station. One example is here:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...illiput-Logger

See, in particular, Post #16 which gives useful additional details about one of the sessions.

And I'm always open to comments and questions.

Phil

[headmonkeyboy]

Thank you very much gents, I've been experimenting and found out its not a great idea to drive through a portal... lol
I did manage to fix some oddly placed track in a map I downloaded and actually added a train which I quickly drove to
the portal. I feel like a magitian, very first trick and I made a whole freight train disappear :P

Im going to study maps and try to replicate what you guys do. I will also keep an eye on the freeware announcements as well.
Im definately going to try out the logger layout too, I have downloaded and gazed in wonder at your layouts Phil. Astounding work if I may say so.
Im hoping to stay around here for quite some time, learning, playing, doing magic tricks.. lol I did almost 2500 hours in Fallout 4 just building
settlements, I never even got half way through the story, I just loved creating towns. I think with some time Trainz will give me the same enjoyment

Thank you all again,

Clair

[clam1952]

One solution is instead of looking for routes look for sessions which if downloaded will pull in the route it belongs to, which may be by a different creator to the session.