Trainz peaked in 2006

Really enjoyed this legacy thread - my earliest memories in Trainz are the threads on these forums saying how terrible TRS06 was. Now apparently it was the peak! Actually, the versions we have now are far superior in every regard, really a world of difference. I was hoping someone would pop up and say that TRS04 was the peak - are there still any '04 holdouts' still out there?

Paul

IMHO as a then very active contributor, creator and associate to the TRS2006 venture. It was the best Trainz version up to that date!!!! Not the last but not the best right now!!!! :hehe:

Fortunately, we, Trainz pioneers, have a wider objective look towards the evolution of Trainz, and the evolution of computing standards and requirements!!! My current comp has nothing to do with the one from the Stone Age of Trainz. :hehe:

TRS2019 is a pretty well-coded piece of software; Just pre-ordered the 2022 chapter to keep on creating assets (which of late remain for my eyes only until I beat my laziness which prevents me from uploading them to the veteran IBerTrainZ storeroom ).

The quieter keeping the trainzy flame inside me side of Alberte :wave:

Tony_Hilliam said:

Given you only have 2006 in your timeline, I'm not sure how you're qualified to make the comparison. If 2006 was indeed the pinnacle, then we wouldn't be around today. But you're allowed your opinion, so I won't bother adding my explanations as to why I think you're way off the mark.

The good news is in the world of Trainz, you're free to use 2006 until Windows decides you can't, and others are free to enjoy the latest features and graphics provided by later releases if they choose to.

Click to expand...

The same way i am more than qualified to comment on each and every version of Trainz as you well know.

Trainz CE - TRS22.

I peaked in the early 80's. Back then I felt like the Cheyenne Union Pacific yard........and now ? I'm an abandoned siding out in the sticks of a fallen flag railroad. .....not really, just feels like it sometimes.

I enjoyed TRS 2006 and stuck with it for a few years as after Trainz moved on to new versions. Working on a modern day Colorado route, everything seemed to be working pretty well, including signals, markers, rules commands and car traffic flow.
I hit bottom when I tried to upload literally hundreds of misc content made from GMAX but I think only one made the deadline for 2006 uploads to be put on the DLS. That was extremely disappointing. I could of upgraded the content for next version, but that would have taken a ton of time. I was frustrated and left Trainz for a for a few years.

I was also OK with TRS 2012, but made the jump to T:ANE SP3 , which I still use. Lots of the content I made over a decade ago doesn't look so hot in T:ANE, but slowly I'm getting them spruced up, if they fit into my current route in progress.
I think moving on to TRS 2019 would create a plethera of problems getting my old content to work......and new stuff because i'm still using GMAX and don't really have the patients or motivation to learn some new program.

I'd think that the performance would be much better moving on to at least T:ANE, but it might take a lot of time to get your old routes working like they used to. I could be wrong, but I think it's worth the risk, and T:ANE is pretty cheap right now.

For the last few years I have been upgrading one of my TS2006 DLS routes to TRS19 standard. It was, and still is, a "Pandemic/Lockdown Project". The first phase was uploaded in May this year. I am continuing work on the second phase. For the conversion I upgraded the original TS2006 route to T:ANE standards first and then from T:ANE to TRS19. Each step of that process was something of an "eye opener".

Apart from the obvious - upgrading billboard trees to SpeedTrees and using more recent and far better looking scenery assets - there has been procedural track, better lighting control, the UDS (which has made "debugging" so much easier), new Session Rules (such as Navigation Points and Popup Messages), effect layers, etc.

Now we have Surveyor 2.0 under test and yes, there will be a learning curve and some initial frustrations, but Surveyor Classic will still be there as a "fall back" during those times.

Trainz peaked in 2006?? Only if you are comparing it with all those versions that went before it (and you could arguably include 2009 and possibly 2010 in that list).

Of course it all comes down to individual opinions and preferences. My preference is for TRS19 to be the "peak" retail release, so far!

EDIT: You cannot ignore the changes in technology that have occurred between TRS2006 and TRS2019.

Is it April Fools day already?

Regards.
CaptEngland

My vote's for T:ANE SP3, for the simple reason that it was the first version of T:ANE that actually worked (have no idea whether SP4 fixed anything, since N3V decided that we no longer needed to see bug fix/improvements lists), and T:ANE was the last version with a DRM-free option available, a must for me as I run Trainz on a non-Internet connected PC and do all my downloading on a "sacrificial" (easily restored) machine. Too many years of work to expose to Internet vandals.

--Lamont