Love TANE no use for TRS22

You are not alone in stating those insights into the inner workings of the various iterations of the sim. I suspect that there are quite a few of us "öldtimers" who share the same sentiments. Regards.

All opinions and views are valid as each of us has our own experiences, needs and circumstances.

In my case I removed T:ANE from all of my systems years ago and have never looked back. TRS19 has now morphed into Trainz Plus/TRS22 and I have never enjoyed myself as much as now when developing, testing and running routes and sessions.

I could not think of anything worse than being stuck back on TANE. 19 and 22 are lightyears ahead of it in graphics and lighting, and hopefully there'll be more to come. The driver/AI thing didn't take long to understand, the bottom left adds drivers (which can be done from within a session) and the bottom right 3 Dots is where you change DCC/Cab/AI mode. Everybody can make their own choice but TANE already looks painfully dated.

Jamie

Like you, I started out with Trainz 2006 (when I was a middle school kid) and I really liked it more over MSTS. That was three Trainz versions ago (not counting actual releases, but just ones I purchased) and I'm now on TANE.

However, I'm still seriously considering purchasing TRS2022 just to keep up and I think it has more interesting gimmicks than TRS19 which one of them is the ICE 4 that runs on the newly refined Schwaningerland route that's built-in. I was going to buy TRS19 just to try some earlier TRS19 content I woud really like, but I decided to go with TRS2022 instead because I can save money while still have access to TRS19 add-ons, it has a better requirements than TRS19 (hopefully it's somewhat like TANE despite looking like TRS19), and the other reason I just said here.

I'm still making content that are TANE compatible from TANE or have a 3.5/3.7 build version, but I'm honestly not sure when that will end.

I started with TRS2004 and have progressively upgraded with each new iteration of Trainz.

In my view TRS19 is a great advance on all previous versions. The lighting effects, PBR textures and TurfFX grasses add a whole new level of immersion.

But then came TRS22. The graphics are marginally better, the frame rates better too. But the interface, for me at least is a backward step. Things that were easy and intuitive in Surveyor and Driver in TRS19 are much more complex in TRS22. And the combined Surveyor/Driver I find confusing.

I'll stick with TRS19 for as long as I can, but the lack of backward compatibility for content made with TRS22 means that inevitably I'll have to move on. Pity.

Phil

I havent seen 22, but I say as a broad statement, that the game seems to suffer from its interface being designed by people who are too close to it and know it too well.

Case in point, the entries of TurfFX, cryptic, extensive, and "tutorials" that didn't shed much light.

They really need someone to bridge between the coders who live, eat, and breath the game and the AverageUser.

Again, different experiences give us different opinions, different likes and dislikes.

I went for TRS19 Platinum Edition over TRS19 standard purely because it had the UDS interface. The UDS had a initial learning curve but it has saved me hours of development time. Now I would not use a future version of Trainz that did not include it.

Likewise Surveyor 2.0. After years (2 decades) of using the original Surveyor interface (now called "Surveyor Classic") I am slowly coming to grips with S20. I am not there yet as I still find a lot of things easier to do in Classic but that is because old habits die hard. I am loving the S20 Marque and Scrapbook tools and I have already uploaded some scrapbook assets to the DLS.

Looking forward to the new features coming in Trainz Plus and, later, in future retail releases.

The latest I'll ever go is TRS19. 22 onwards is just overpaying for a fix to something that wasn't broken, which breaks the whole game anyways. TANE was the perfect blend for me, but it just couldn't last too long as tthe primary on my PC. Graphics aren't the only point of Trainz, it's about what makes it fun and creative. Quality of life has gone downhill ever since 12, with the removal of the old Content Manager and CCP (why? what for?), to the rebuild of the menus and GUI, to Surveyor 2.0, it just feels like N3V is clutching at straws for new features. Surveyor 2.0 has so many features that could be very easily added into the original Surveyor, and I'm not bagging on the new features of it. They're fantastic. But I can't stand having to leave behind the clean, simple, efficient, tried and tested GUI of Driver and Surveyor for the garbage one we have now. I've gotten lost in the GUI more times than I can count at this rate, and have zero clue as to where some features even are.
Also, why ditch the blue? The blue was much more pleasant on the eyes than the matte black or the reflective grey of previous games.

Along with content creation and maintenance being MUCH more cathardic with the removal of CCP and the creation of a Content Manager only slightly better then what it was like in 2001, I am very dissatisfied with the newer games.

Also, the main selling point of better graphics, I very much disagree. Sure, you get a much more advanced lighting system, which I'm not complaining about, but every route I download has the lighting all messed up, everywhere seems like it's way too bright for the human eye to even see, changing the environment details requires a whole clone of a route to be made (no more sessions, and good luck if it's a large route!), and don't even get me started on the pixelisation of the cabs! Even the new and updated ones MADE BY N3V are rendered unuseable!

The newer games are a step in the right direction, with enough comprimises to make you not like the game 100% but keep you from downgrading.

Again, different experiences give us different opinions, different likes and dislikes.

Click to expand...

Exactly what you said pware. My model railway background before I had to give up making models due to illness was coarse scale Uk 'O' gauge and my favorite reference materials were the books by John Ahern and 1950s copies of Model Railway News. It's for this reason that I liked TS2012 because it did exactly what it said on the tin with no fuss, - and it's for much the same reason that I prefer using TANE now.
I sort of liked the first release of TS2019 when it came out since it did have some improvements over TANE, but the harsh environmental lighting and the black unreadable menus were always the fly in the ointment for me. The hidden 'Undo' button and other menu changes in SP1 weren't a big hit with me either and then after that it seemed like I was always having to fix everything with every 'upgrade' patch. I've often wondered how folk who were completely new to Trainz got on with their TS2019 purchases during this time and how many of them ended giving up and vowing to never try Trainz again.
When TRS22 was first offered I bypassed the SP5 patch for TRS19 and went for the new beta release and I have to say it was a pleasant surprise just how good it was. BUT it's far more technology than I really want for the kind of layouts I like to build so that's why I've gone back to TANE. TRS22 build numbers clicking upwards with every patch must be driving content creators out of their mind as well.

I run Tane routes on Tane and 19/22 routes on '19 or '22. There's a place for both. I do believe '19 and '22 morphed into something complicated for the new user due to UDS. I would recommend new users go with Tane for a while until basics are understood. With '19 and '22 the save game (in progress session) may as well been removed as once you save and reload, key items don't work (certain rules need a reset.) Verbiage on "save" and "save as" as screens need to explain much better and clearer to new users just what they are saving and the impacts and results.

I prefer TRS22 simply because it is the latest version of Trainz, and all of the content I have installed works without a problem. May be due to the fact I don't have a lot of assets, but whatever. I do definitely prefer the lighting engine in TANE, and there is still probably gonna be a lot of freeware for it for many more years, and I might want to start building my own collection in that game (and maybe try route creation, but I'm still thinking about too many projects at once, I dunno), but unfortunately, it's another case of, "here at Apple, we like to do new things that really are improvements over previous versions, but we don't really care about legacy software." Since OpenGL isn't on Macs anymore, the two Intel Macs I own are probably going up for sale soon, and TANE works fine in Rosetta (not great, but I have a thread detailing my experience with it on Rosetta), I think I'm gonna have to stick with TRS22. I have TANE installed just to use my TANE DLC with the better engine (the SnC is not the best in TRS19/22, which makes me wonder if the team will upgrade it, dunno though), but... yea.

Definitely think that both TANE and TRS22 have their pros and cons, and even though I own TRS19 Platinum, I've said it before, it was just for all the extra content I could access for TRS22. Owning both, there's no real reason I see to install and use TRS19, since 22 also runs a bit better too. I may prefer sticking with the latest version, but I still have TANE installed, just for those edge cases and going back to it every once in a while.

To each their own, I guess.