Unified Driver/Surveyor - only value in Platinum?

"Unified Driver and Surveyor functionality - Switch between Driver and Surveyor instantly. Make edits on the fly in surveyor and jump straight into Driver to test them out." :udrool:

The Unified feature is the ONLY reason I have strong interest in Platinum. I have many of the included routes and really none interest me. I also have collected lot of engines/locomotives and just finished purging many from my database. The my remaining items already include many of the Platinum engines. Turf Effects may be an item of interest but low on the list since there is no mention of any fixes to a buggy feature. Therefore, the Unified Surveyor is the only real change I see when you ignore routes and assets.

Am I wrong and there are other values to Platinum? I really need that Unified thing as I continually find myself grabbing the wrong operation. However, being on the hook for the rental of a much wanted feature really bothers me.
As many have suggested a more visible indication of the state of the program on-screen would be a big help and low cost.

Any opinions about this feature always being buried in a subscription package? Will it ever become "standard"?

There are upcoming changes in the Turf-Fx system including some bug fixes that will be of interest.

* Save Turf-FX and Clutter-FX sets.
These become actual assets that can be saved to a CDP

* There's preview window where you can see what you're placing down before you place it down.

* There's an easy mode where you can just pick, click and apply.

* The advanced features is where the old parameter screen is.

* You can now fill areas - it's square but that's another story...

* You can prevent grass from being placed at specific heights, angles, and in water.
The mask tool is located in the advanced tab.

Unified Surveyor and Driver is also in Gold (Trainz-plus) version.
It's well worth its weight in gold when testing a route.

I can't help you with the available assets. It is what it is. You don't have to download them.

Not sure if it still applies but pretty sure there were discounts off the cost of Platinum for routes you had already purchased that are in Platinum.

There are improvements to the in game store and the system for installing DLC. Now you can also uninstall DLC too. All done through a nice looking interface that shows the description of DLC content as well as thumbnails.

William

Thanks to Malc I checked for a diccount. A $30.00 discount (Silver member already) convinced me this was now a good deal. So just awaiting the confirmation email from N3V. Whoops, it just appeared - bye
Thanks Malc

Well things did not go smoothly. I can't find my Platinum purchase. I can find three DLC/assests which are engines from the Tane era.

In my account I show both TANE and TRS19 as existing Full Product downloads. I would expect to see Platinum here since it is a full product?????

Platinum Edition is build 105100 with the various extra features + extra content.

It appears you order Trainz A New Era Platinum and not TRS19 Platinum, so that will explain your inability to find the new build. If you try again using this link:
https://store.trainzportal.com/coll...nz-railroad-simulator-2019-platinum-edition-1

Just email helpdesk if you would like to get your other order refunded.

Regarding John's comments:
"There are upcoming changes in the Turf-Fx system including some bug fixes that will be of interest." etc

The upcoming changes are not part of Platinum Edition. They are for Trainz Plus and Gold Class members only.

boleyd said:

However, being on the hook for the rental of a much wanted feature really bothers me.

Click to expand...

Platinum is outright purchase, not rental. Train Plus, which has the UDS and other new features, is the rental option.

I find myself using the UDS feature in Platinum much more than I thought I would. It has saved me a lot of time and effort.

Am I the only one here that has absolutely no interest whatsoever in a combined Surveyor/Drive?

It encourages changing things on the fly, rather than properly planning things. Is time so precious that one cannot take the time to leave Driver and open up Surveyor to correct any minor problems? Not only that, it has had a negative impact on Surveyor for the non-Platinum/Gold etc versions, which have been discussed in other threads. Why couldn't the devs have simply left the original separate Surveyor and Driver as they were for the Standard version?

Mike

It's more than handy when debugging a route before release. UDS comes in to use far after the planning stage.
Once you've used it you'll curse N3V for not adding it sooner.
Graeme

Stonegate said:

Am I the only one here that has absolutely no interest whatsoever in a combined Surveyor/Drive?

It encourages changing things on the fly, rather than properly planning things. Is time so precious that one cannot take the time to leave Driver and open up Surveyor to correct any minor problems? Not only that, it has had a negative impact on Surveyor for the non-Platinum/Gold etc versions, which have been discussed in other threads. Why couldn't the devs have simply left the original separate Surveyor and Driver as they were for the Standard version?

Mike

Click to expand...

Because its one of the things that users have often requested.

Stonegate said:

Am I the only one here that has absolutely no interest whatsoever in a combined Surveyor/Drive?

Click to expand...

I likewise had no interest when it was first proposed but now that I have used it I have found it to be a great time saver.

Stonegate said:

It encourages changing things on the fly, rather than properly planning things. Is time so precious that one cannot take the time to leave Driver and open up Surveyor to correct any minor problems?

Click to expand...

Proper planning does not eliminate minor errors, such as objects accidentally placed in the wrong position or objects totally inappropriate to the layout that you only notice on a driver run through - such as accidental clicks adding objects in the wrong places. Where time does becomes precious is in a very long session where, pre UDS, you would have to permanently stop Driver, open Surveyor, fix the problem, save and then restart Driver from the very beginning. Murphy's Law states that this will always happen near the end of a 3 hour long session.

Stonegate said:

Not only that, it has had a negative impact on Surveyor for the non-Platinum/Gold etc versions, which have been discussed in other threads. Why couldn't the devs have simply left the original separate Surveyor and Driver as they were for the Standard version?

Click to expand...

I must have missed those "other threads" because I do not understand your reasoning here. How can using a tool that has no effect on assets, the Route or the operation of a Session have a "negative impact on Surveyor for the non-Platinum/Gold etc versions"? I have both TRS19 SP1 and TRS19 Platinum installed and am constantly swapping routes and sessions between the two. I have not seen any "negative impact" in the standard SP1 version of Platinum Routes/Sessions where their development was "assisted" by the use of the UDS inteface.

As to why the devs did this - this feature has been a long requested one in the Suggestions forum. The devs get criticised when they don't do something and they get criticised when they do. Who would want to be a dev?

The issues were discussed in this thread amongst others.
[h=2]http://One step forward? Not the Trainz interface.[/h]
I now have two copies of TRS19 loaded - pre SP1 for normal working and SP1 for checking Layouts created in SP1 which show as having missing/unknown assets in pre SP1. This is a persistent Content Manager problem, for which the Devs have shown no inclination to solve.

Stonegate said:

The issues were discussed in this thread amongst others.
http://One step forward? Not the Trainz interface.

Click to expand...

That is not a link - clicking on it leads nowhere.

Stonegate said:

I now have two copies of TRS19 loaded - pre SP1 for normal working and SP1 for checking Layouts created in SP1 which show as having missing/unknown assets in pre SP1. This is a persistent Content Manager problem, for which the Devs have shown no inclination to solve.

Click to expand...

What are the faulty assets? What are their kuids. Transitioning from pre SP1 to SP1 I also received a number of faulty and missing assets messages. These were all resolved - many were DLC assets that had not correctly updated or loaded, or I had previously installed from TANE, others were fixed by asset updates. None of them involved inaction by the Devs.

EDIT: What is the build number of the pre SP1 TRS19 version you are using?

If you are trying to copy routes/sessions from SP1 backwards to pre SP1 then that may be your problem. TRS19 SP1 is not backwards compatible with pre SP1. It would be like trying to load a route from TANE into TS12.

Checking today, one of the previously unknown assets now seems to be available in Build 100240.

The other asset in question is "Grass 7b - seasonal clutter". In TRS19 Build 100240 this is shown as Kuid2:661281:96129:2 and I have it as installed, payware. A route that I installed was started in a pre SP1 version and completed using SP1. It requires the same asset but the Kuid is now 2:661281:96129:4 and is listed as <asset unknown>. This problem has been around for ages and wastes considerable time trying to find out what the asset is . The asset is clearly not "unknown" (the version perhaps is unknown but the asset itself is obviously known) and as I stated in the previous post N3V have shown no interest whatsoever in trying to fix this problem.

Stonegate said:

It requires the same asset but the Kuid is now 2:661281:96129:4 and is listed as <asset unknown>. This problem has been around for ages and wastes considerable time trying to find out what the asset is . The asset is clearly not "unknown" (the version perhaps is unknown but the asset itself is obviously known) and as I stated in the previous post N3V have shown no interest whatsoever in trying to fix this problem.

Click to expand...

<kuid2:661281:96129:4> Grass 7b - Seasonal - Clutter is listed in my copy of TRS19 SP1 as Installed, Payware. It is a dependent of <kuid2:122860:100436:27> Canadian Rocky Mountains - Golden, BC

Did you purchased this DLC route, perhaps in TANE? Has it been downloaded and installed in your copy of TRS19 SP1? For the record I also had a number of DLC routes installed in TANE that I had forgotten about. They also produced "unknown asset" messages until I downloaded and installed them in TRS19 - operator error, not N3V showing no interest in fixing this problem.

I'm not clear on what Unified Driver/Surveyor actually is.

I currently choose a Route,select the only Session, click Edit Session. When the "surveyor" screen appears, I select Route Layer. I then make changes- additions to the Route. I then click the QuickDrive icon (TANE) to test the changes to the Route or the Driver Commands. I'll run the test and when done "Exit Driver", make changes, rinse and repeat.

How is Unified Driver/Surveyor different?

Is there a good write-up on it or, preferably, a you-tube video?

Thanks

ecco said:

I'm not clear on what Unified Driver/Surveyor actually is.

I currently choose a Route,select the only Session, click Edit Session. When the "surveyor" screen appears, I select Route Layer. I then make changes- additions to the Route. I then click the QuickDrive icon (TANE) to test the changes to the Route or the Driver Commands. I'll run the test and when done "Exit Driver", make changes, rinse and repeat.

How is Unified Driver/Surveyor different?

Is there a good write-up on it or, preferably, a you-tube video?

Thanks

Click to expand...

That's the manual method. With the Unified Driver/Surveyor, you can be in Surveyor editing away, jump right into a session and test on the fly, and then jump back into Surveyor and test all without switching out to the main menu, and all without that big delay that occurs when going to quick drive. In all intents and purposes, it can be considered updated quick drive. It also works the opposite, but you need to be careful here. If you're driving a session and discover that there's something wrong like a signal relay box too close to the tracks, you can switch to Surveyor and fix that. If you save anything, the problem is the starting positions and other things with the session get out of sync. N3V is working on a way so that sessions can be restarted to "default" positions if the user wants after making these changes to the routes.

The Unified Driver/Surveyor interface is also how consists are managed in Platinum and Plus. You're driving and see an AI driver on the wrong track due to something unknown, you can jump into Surveyor and move the AI drive to the right track, and then continue on your way. This part is similar to the consist tab in previous versions, which many of us prefer for this, but this Surveyor jump over is also great for configuring industries on the fly and making other session changes while driving.

I honestly find this most helpful for testing as I've been building my routes.

JCitron said:

This part is similar to the consist tab in previous versions

Click to expand...

I'd say pretty different: with UDS, a soon as you switch from Driver to Surveyor and use the train tab, then you are forced to save your progression as a session instead of a savegame, and consequently next savegames will depend on it. Plus you end up with as many sessions as you have used the train tab, melted with savegames. Without UDS, you simply access the train tab in Driver, savegames are always savegames and all of them depend on the same unique session.

HPL said:

I'd say pretty different: with UDS, a soon as you switch from Driver to Surveyor and use the train tab, then you are forced to save your progression as a session instead of a savegame, and consequently next savegames will depend on it. Plus you end up with as many sessions as you have used the train tab, melted with savegames. Without UDS, you simply access the train tab in Driver, savegames are always savegames and all of them depend on the same unique session.

Click to expand...

Yes if you make other changes except for moving a consist or two. I do the latter all the time when I'm driving mostly as I troubleshoot idiotic AI problems. This is why it's good to save a backup of the base session or starting session so you can always go back to the starting point.