Surveyor 2.0 - Discussion Thread

Everyone who is an advocate of Trainz or spends their money supporting us is valued. If our existing users spent more we’d be better off. There are literally hundreds of thousands of ex users who, if they returned and purchased something, we’d be far better off.

My point was simply that the speed of development is pretty much predicated upon the revenues we receive. Everyone wants more things more quickly. Subscription to Gold Membership is probably the best value for money to make that happen.

Conversely buying every DLC would be much better since it would cost you much more vs membership therefore better margins for us to devote to future development.

I’m afraid I’ve reverted back to paying once a product is ready and not before. That’s not really because of N3V, but others who have made claims and not delivered on money taken in advance.
 
Surveyor 2.0 notwithstanding, it is going to take more than a few cosmetic changes this time to compel me to pay another £60 for the next version of Trainz. There are plenty of competitor products on the market, all of which offer a vastly superior driving and gameplay experience than just set the route and tootle around with no objectives, no timetable and no AI despatcher. As I've remarked before, even Run 8 has a despatcher board which allows the player to set the route ahead of his train. Likewise paying a monthly subscription holds no real interest.

DTG update both their heritage TS and TSW2 each year with the core upgrade being free, up to the user if they buy the featured routes or other DLC which seems thus far to afford them a fairly steady revenue platform to continue the product(s) expansion.
 
Surveyor 2.0 notwithstanding, it is going to take more than a few cosmetic changes this time to compel me to pay another £60 for the next version of Trainz. There are plenty of competitor products on the market, all of which offer a vastly superior driving and gameplay experience than just set the route and tootle around with no objectives, no timetable and no AI despatcher. As I've remarked before, even Run 8 has a despatcher board which allows the player to set the route ahead of his train. Likewise paying a monthly subscription holds no real interest.

DTG update both their heritage TS and TSW2 each year with the core upgrade being free, up to the user if they buy the featured routes or other DLC which seems thus far to afford them a fairly steady revenue platform to continue the product(s) expansion.
I absolutely agree. I'm still wondering whether TRS19 was really worth $79. TRS202X will have to far more than the upgrade from T:ANE to TRS19 for me to even consider buying it. If, however, they succeed at that, I will continue to support and buy Trainz and their DLC products.
 
Tony is right - the ability to select a small portion of a route and copy-paste to a new route is a life-changer for those of us who build routes. This will allow us to very easily share (on the DLS) small routes with our best stuff which can then be downloaded and merged to a existing route of a different user without the tedious process we now have. Big stations, ports, airports, anything with a lot of detail comes to mind. Well done Tony and N3V.

Someone in this thread asked for larger circumference of circle when texturing. I would like to see this for a different use - for terraforming. Creating realistic terrain is too difficult for large areas because the circumference is too small. Maybe the code for that could be shared between texturing and terraforming.
 
Someone in this thread asked for larger circumference of circle when texturing. I would like to see this for a different use - for terraforming. Creating realistic terrain is too difficult for large areas because the circumference is too small. Maybe the code for that could be shared between texturing and terraforming.

Totally agree. I spend a lot of my route creation time adjusting baseboards to the correct minimum height so I can then start terraforming. I do not recall, at least not since the days of TRS2004, ever needing a baseboard with its height set at 0 metres. As a result I spend a lot of time running in ever decreasing circles around each baseboard setting the terrain height with the terrain tool at its maximum radius. Therapeutic, to be sure, but a time waster.
 
Tony is right - the ability to select a small portion of a route and copy-paste to a new route is a life-changer for those of us who build routes. This will allow us to very easily share (on the DLS) small routes with our best stuff which can then be downloaded and merged to a existing route of a different user without the tedious process we now have. Big stations, ports, airports, anything with a lot of detail comes to mind. Well done Tony and N3V.

Someone in this thread asked for larger circumference of circle when texturing. I would like to see this for a different use - for terraforming. Creating realistic terrain is too difficult for large areas because the circumference is too small. Maybe the code for that could be shared between texturing and terraforming.

I agree the bigger cursor would be very helpful for smoothing and easier sculpting. Sadly, a smaller cursor is more difficult due to the grid limitations.

The ability to save a selection of a route is a badly needed feature because there are many routes that need rebuilding and repairing, but to do that today is outright cumbersome if not impossible. This will also make rearranging baseboards easier as well I think, plus this makes route mergers easier because the favorite parts of a route can be merged rather than importing everything and deleting what's not wanted.
 
Originally Posted by Vern View Post
Surveyor 2.0 notwithstanding, it is going to take more than a few cosmetic changes this time to compel me to pay another £60 for the next version of Trainz. There are plenty of competitor products on the market, all of which offer a vastly superior driving and gameplay experience than just set the route and tootle around with no objectives, no timetable and no AI despatcher. As I've remarked before, even Run 8 has a despatcher board which allows the player to set the route ahead of his train. Likewise paying a monthly subscription holds no real interest.

DTG update both their heritage TS and TSW2 each year with the core upgrade being free, up to the user if they buy the featured routes or other DLC which seems thus far to afford them a fairly steady revenue platform to continue the product(s) expansion.
I absolutely agree. I'm still wondering whether TRS19 was really worth $79. TRS202X will have to far more than the upgrade from T:ANE to TRS19 for me to even consider buying it. If, however, they succeed at that, I will continue to support and buy Trainz and their DLC products.
I think this is one of those areas where differences in how the sim is used come to the fore. If you think driving to someone else's idea of objectives, timetable and dispatching are important, then perhaps one of the other products will be more appealing. If being able to build your own world including as many of the objects as you're able to and then being able to decide for yourself when and where to go in that world then Trainz is worth the price of admission.

Neither is a better way, just different. It's a hobby and you should get all the fun you want out of it. As long as Trainz is fun for me, I'll stay
 
DTG update both their heritage TS and TSW2 each year with the core upgrade being free, up to the user if they buy the featured routes or other DLC which seems thus far to afford them a fairly steady revenue platform to continue the product(s) expansion.

TSW was a world without steam locomotives, so I'm waiting for TSW2 to include steam locomotion before I invest further.
 
TSW was a world without steam locomotives, so I'm waiting for TSW2 to include steam locomotion before I invest further.

And not without its bugs and of course no route editor.

I think this is one of those areas where differences in how the sim is used come to the fore. If you think driving to someone else's idea of objectives, timetable and dispatching are important, then perhaps one of the other products will be more appealing. If being able to build your own world including as many of the objects as you're able to and then being able to decide for yourself when and where to go in that world then Trainz is worth the price of admission.

Which of course is the nub of the issue. Trainz has (IMHO) the best overall route building capability but quite the worst driving experience - whether it be lack of autonomous despatcher, timetable operation, poor physics or control mechanism implementation (no gear change for heritage UK DMU, no vacuum braking or modern step braking).
 
I am hoping for a much better Draw distance than what is available now?
I would love to see those Mountains from a longer distance away with the Textures visible, and not that bare looking ground when you move a few miles away from them. I was told that it was the enviormental lighting issue that was causing the poor distance viewing, I hope for this to be patched in the Surveyor 2.0.

I have heard many times that the longer draw causes performance issues, a Distance slider like the one that we have now but with a farther adjustment than 1500m to be able to see thos beautiful Mountains from miles away would be a huge Texture improvement for the viewung quality. Just my 2 Centz worth of needed quality for the large Maps.
All in all I dearly love and I am addicted to this Trainz Software, many hours of fun for me to enjoy, and show to my Friends.
Cheers!
 
While I welcome the updating of what is essentially a twenty year old user interface for Surveyor, I'm not getting too excited as I have Platinum so I won't have access to it! Just out of interest, if you're a Trainz Gold subscriber, what build of Trainz are you actually in? If you create a route in the new Surveyor, will it be accessible to other TRS19 users who do not have Gold membership?

Paul
 
While I welcome the updating of what is essentially a twenty year old user interface for Surveyor, I'm not getting too excited as I have Platinum so I won't have access to it! Just out of interest, if you're a Trainz Gold subscriber, what build of Trainz are you actually in? If you create a route in the new Surveyor, will it be accessible to other TRS19 users who do not have Gold membership?

Paul

Subscription doesn't necessarily determine what build you have. For example, I'm on Gold and from it I run Tane SP4 and I also have installs of '19 SP2, SP3, and the latest beta build. That's a result of PLUS, which is a part of Gold, not Gold itself and my saving those installs when new releases came out. The build you have is determined by if you have applied updates or not and/or saved installs.

But know that for new subscribers you have access to download only the latest public release which you can then update to later beta versions if you so choose.

As for compatibility, having no details of Surveyor 2 there is only guesses, but certainly I wouldn't expect it with some of the changes being hinted at.
 
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TSW was a world without steam locomotives, so I'm waiting for TSW2 to include steam locomotion before I invest further.
TSW's lack of route creation, modding, and steam locomotives are the only reason I still play Trainz so much. If DTG could implement a modding and route creation system half as good as Trainz, that would be enough for me to abandon Trainz altogether.
 
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Tony,

In early versions of Trainz, displacement maps were kept in a folder and then surveyor would load the images into the displacement map panel. This changed to have displacement maps become proper assets that were loaded into the panel but you could also select a portion of a route's terrain and and the panel would convert it to a proper displacement map asset and then allow you to save it. Can this process be adapted to also allow the user to choose a grayscale image through a file browser and then have the panel convert it to a proper asset and save it to the database? There are lots of sites on the Internet that offer grayscale height maps of terrain that would make fantastic displacement maps if the process was easier.

William
 
TSW's lack of route creation, modding, and steam locomotives are the only reason I still play Trainz so much. If DTG could implement a modding and route creation system half as good as Trainz, that would be enough for me to abandon Trainz altogether.

Glad to say that I share the exact same view and I’m sure that’s what many “ex-trainz” users think too.
SimRail is also looking very promising, and I will gladly take my business and content creation skills over there if it’s worthy upon release.
I guess people get sick of being the ignored and asking for the same things over and over again which were introduced in sims pretty much 10 years ago.
It’s all good and well to complain that your audience isn’t spending enough to encourage further development, but you’re also facing the paradox that the key-development that is repeatedly being requested, and isn’t being performed, is what’s losing your audience and market share.

Ah well, with hope I suppose, we will see something good.

PS. Monthly roadmaps (alike what DTG are doing with TSW2) may encourage your audience to reignite their passion for Trainz, and therefore further financially support you.
 
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Thumps-Up! On some of those features, especially the copy/paste functionality ...

Ish

These new features look very useful and I have held up my route upgrading efforts until Surveyor 2.0 is out. Really looking forward to it, especially the scrap book functionality!

Bob
 
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