New Surveyor Features in Trainz Plus update

pware

Trainz Veteran
For those who don't subscribe to the weekly Trainz Newsletter and for those who do but missed the link in the item "Trainz Plus Update", here is the list.

New Effect Layer Tools


Here's a summary of the new tools and functionality:

  • Bulk Paint ground textures under a spline (e.g. add ballast under a track throughout the whole route or section of the route)
  • Bulk Add effect layers to existing ground textures (e.g. add turffx or clutter to a specific ground texture)
  • Choose from a range of presets to quickly create new effect layers for your current route
  • Turffx presets are named "tfxp - xxx" and clutter presets named "cltp - xxx"
  • Create and Edit custom preset effect layer assets (and share your assets via the DLS or .cdp)
  • View effect layer configuration changes in a new preview window
  • Set up "masks" to prevent effect layers from appearing under water, on a slope or above/below a certain height
  • Mask effects to only appear on specific textures
  • Use the Get Effects tool to find out which layers are present in an area

More detailed information can be found at http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/Help:TurfFX_Effect_Layer#New_TurfFX_Tools_.282020.29

I feel that I am starting to be tempted.
 
Guess we plebs will have to carry on with the existing tools and I assume these new features don't even extend to those who paid full price again for the Platinum Edition? (And I bet the UK semaphore signalling still doesn't work properly, as per my post in Surveyors...).
 
Trains plus, isn't that an annual subcsription of $69?

If it is, does that mean that if you stop subscribing all of the work you have done will vanish until you subscribe again?

May sound like a stupid question but it needs asking.
 
If it is, does that mean that if you stop subscribing all of the work you have done will vanish until you subscribe again?

May sound like a stupid question but it needs asking.

Not a stupid question and, as you noted, it is worth asking. I think the answer is yes, your work will not be available in Train Plus (note: that does not mean lost) until you resume your subscription.

These coals have been raked over before when the Gold Subscription came out, it has the same deal. There seems to be plenty of Gold subscribers for whom that is not an issue.

With a subscription you can pay your subscription until you decide to take a break from Trainz (going overseas on a holiday, taking a sabbatical, paying more attention to your family/wife/husband/cat, etc). When you later resume your subscription then Trainz Plus with all its whiz-bang features will become available again. No work would be lost.

In any case the routes and session created by Train Plus will have the same asset build number as TRS19 SP1 and TRS19 Platinum and will be fully compatible - it is only the Surveyor tools that are different. So they will continue to work on the "lesser" versions and can be backed up to storage for when you return and resume your subscription (or not and you can continue to work on them in TRS19 SP1 or Platinum).

As for the rest of us "plebs" having to wait for who knows how long for a TRSXX release with all these "bells and whistles" (pun intended), then as I have stated before - if you buy a new car with all the optional extras then you pay more for the privilege. If you don't want to pay then you wait until a model is released where the optional extras you do want come as standard features. That is the real world. No-one is forcing you to buy what you do not need or cannot afford.

My opinions.
 
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euromodeller:
Trains plus, isn't that an annual subcsription of $69?
Nope - try US$129+ for a Gold Pass if paid annually - and quite a bit more if paid monthly.
Still a good option for some...
TRS19 is superb. And getting better...
 
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I would say (guess, suspect) not. The TurfFX, textures, etc are part of the assets available for all versions of TRS19. The "fancy tools" make it easier to place them into the layout and even to save them as separate .cdp files (which I would guess only Trainz Plus would be able to load) but once they are part of the route they would be like any other asset and would be present when it is loaded into TRS19 (SP1 and Platinum).

You could create the same TurfFX assets, for example, using TANE and TRS19 as you could in Trainz Plus but with more work and less convenience.

My speculations.
 
I understand that the tools will vanish but, all the TFX and textures under tracks will vanish when the subscription stops?

Unlikely as all it is doing is automating what would normally be done by hand.

Currently as it's a Beta there is no guarantee that the tools will make it into mainstream in the form it's in at present.
 
euromodeller:
Nope - try US$129+ for a Gold Pass if paid annually - and quite a bit more if paid monthly.
Still a good option for some...
TRS19 is superb. And getting better...

Plus on it's own is only $69 per year, there is Plus and Gold Plus, Plus includes the features but doesn't include the DLC which is why it costs less.
 
And Trainz Plus membership includes an Fct worth $35/yr.

Routes can be shared between builds with the same trainzbuild number- in this case 4.6.

And of course routes saved will remain saved in the same format, so if you cancel e\membership but buy another version of TRS19, your content will work fine.
 
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