Railworks 2 - Any good?

So far the Russian community has not been interested in Railworks. But when it does, oh when it does. Railworks will be flooded with high quality, broad gauge, mindblowing, free
addons. Just you wait We have already rolling stock and catenary under development. Ok, won't offtop more. Just have to say each game deserves a chance to be played and enjoyed. Trainz, Railworks and more. So no "you like this, you belong there" please. My five and a half cents.

Cheers

philskene said:

If you accept that it is really a platform for very talented loco and freight car modellers to make money from payware you will be fine.

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I have to argue that point, in Trainz, we have some pretty tallented creators as well and those don't charge either.

nexusdj said:

That sums up Railworks perfectly .

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Indeed, the whole concept to my mind about railworks is wrong in my opinion, its all about undercharges, overcharges, parking charges, usage charges, barges charges, staying charges, basically, see how much you can secretly screw someone out of cash and for how long.

"Have some downloadable content. It'll cost you, £20 a byte."

Not even the payware in Trainz is anywhere near as much as they are charging! Even if I do eventually start going cross simulation, which I have had try to do on and off for the last 8 years, I still consider that the open content idea and the freeedom of download approach is much better than going for payware. The trouble with payware, it is far too much hassle than its worth, especially when you are a 1 man team producing content, like me. You don't want to have to deal with selling an item, dealing with refunds, dealing with transactions.


Another thing to think about, a Class 302 in Trainz, is free. A Class 302 in Railworks last I heard, costs you, but I have pretty much lost contact with that other project. (Because, the mesh is essentially mine and yes, the author did get permission to convert my mesh from Trainz to Railworks, yes, he did ask about the sale and I authorised it, I have given them the rights to do whatever he wants and thats freedom of speech for you. )

The one thing I love about trainz is the ability to alter someone Else's route (with permission) to how I would like to see it without the game crashing and locking up my computer . I can do this over and over as many times as I want in fact I've probably got some routes who's boards have been wiped and reused 20 or 30 times !

Railworks .... well I spent 3 days the other week trying to get my head around building a route . Starting from scratch okay that's easy but sometimes you'd rather start with a completed route as a template to how you would you like it to be . So in the Railworks creators manual it states on page 5 :

Try modifying the supplied routes and scenarios before you start your own route.

So I did .... Bath green park station , He's a place I could modernise alter the track layout , put up some OLE , new signals etc ...... WRONG only got part of the track changed and it crashed . tried again same track same place CRASH. It was like a de-ja-vu moment and I was back in the MSTS editor back in the day when computers where steam driven !!

So I've tried and given up . The time it took me I could of built a Mainline London station in trainz !!

As a driving Sim it's good but for doing anything else it's a temperamental nightmare !!

At least the signals actually work in Trainz, they don't seem to function properly in Railworks, they show the wrong aspects from time to time, for example in the London to Oxford route, approaching Didcot you have to cross tracks, however you get a green, instead of a green with lights in the direction of travel.

You don't even get warnings of yellows before reds, your travelling down the track, you see a green aspect, you think great clear for the next block, all of a sudden the next signal approaches and it's instant red, which you never knew about, and you instantly over run and get a SPAD.

At least with Trainz the signals work perfectly, well for me anyway.

Joe Airtime

airtime said:

You don't even get warnings of yellows before reds, your travelling down the track, you see a green aspect, you think great clear for the next block, all of a sudden the next signal approaches and it's instant red, which you never knew about, and you instantly over run and get a SPAD.

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What about Reading Station? I can never be sure where it is or even WHERE to stop as there is no warning, its just green signal, green signal, green signal, green signal, Reading station, green signal, green signal, green signal, Didcot station.

How about a danger signal so I know where the stop is, rather than getting me to go right to the end of the platform and find I've actually overshot the station by a long way?

No, too much common sense, thats how the real world do it. Talking of which, is that possible in Trainz? Approach release?

It is with Snowsignals payware signals pack but you have to lock the signal setup in with a scenario or else it resets itself (like the ATLS crossings) .

Flashing yellows is another thing that Snowsignals pack replicates and I believe Bloodnok has set up the scripting in 2009 to allow flashing aspects on signals , but there's no instructions available in how to set up the configs to utilise it !

Approach control and or flashing yellow aspects with just the placing of a "Bloodnok" signalling board past a signal would be superb

Railworks 2 in a nutshell...

http://www.viddler.com/explore/Cowman/videos/2/

Enjoy,

once bored, jump forward to 15 minutes in,

If boredom sets in again,

go play with trainz,

more fun,

Joe Airtime

I have used railworks for some time now and it automatically updated to railworks 2. Its even better. Everyone carrying on about Payware, its very high Quality Payware. You dont just get 1 locomotive you may get a whole heap of rollingstock or that locomotive in different liverys. Say the A1 Tornado for Example, I purchased that and received a whole heap of coaches that actually is used on the tour trains with the A1.

Mind you there is free content for it, UK train sim has plenty and im sure there is more around.
I still use trainz as thats good for route building but also has more australian content which i hope RW will get eventually.

For non-techies like me it won't replace Trainz for building.

airtime said:

Railworks 2 in a nutshell...

http://www.viddler.com/explore/Cowman/videos/2/

Enjoy,

once bored, jump forward to 15 minutes in,

If boredom sets in again,

go play with trainz,

more fun,

Joe Airtime

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That video sums up Railworks completely, total dulls-ville. The new interface just makes a dull simulator even worse, didn't think it was possible, but they have succeeded..
Trainz can be serious or fun ,but never dull (unless you hate trains).

I don't think that video means anything. Near as I could tell from his incoherent mumbling he's not a railfan, so even a perfect train simulator wouldn't appeal to him. Many kids on the internet like that, lots of dollars and no sense, so they buy every new game that comes along even if they have no interest in the genre. Same guy would probably do a 24 minute video on why he didn't like Barbie's virtual dollhouse, if it ain't your type of game don't buy it. :hehe:

For those of us who ARE into train simulators, it's not about the payware content for everyone, I never bought ANY payware content. Railworks is a wonderful game if you're into running passenger trains on multitrack mainline routes, but for trying to simulate US freight operations it's just too lame and too limited.

"So far the Russian community has not been interested in Railworks. But when it does, oh when it does. Railworks will be flooded with high quality, broad gauge, mindblowing, free
addons. Just you wait"

I don't care. Unless you can hack the core program for a better scenario editor and more intelligent and versatile AI traffic, 10 thousand free high quality addons are worthless to me. It's a shiny new car with no wheels, it looks pretty but you can't go anywhere with it.

sniper297 said:

Railworks is a wonderful game if you're into running passenger trains on multitrack mainline routes,

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It is?

How could it be when the game engine can't even keep up with the speed of the train, lol.

Run a train in RailWorks at triple digit speeds, it can't even load scenery/objects fast enough.

Well, it must be perfect, the fanboys at trainsim.com and UKtrainsim.com keep going hysterical whenever someone suggests it could use improvement, with shrill insistence that the AI traffic is fine if the signals are set up correctly. Since the AI trains are geared to where the player is pre scripted to be at given times and don't actually pay attention to signals I don't know how that matters, but some of the fanboys spend six weeks setting up and debugging one simple meet (which depends on rigid timing to work at all) to prove that it's true. :hehe:

ref Railworks2

Hi there, i got Railworks before it was upgraded for free, to Railworks 2, I found the game its self,ok after a bit of practice, but a good visual, looker, but to make up ones own route it is quite hard, but Trainz is by far the best,to a play the routes, 2 to edit , or make a route on your own..............Trianz wins hands down allways........... when MST first come out as a Train sim, it was a shambles to play, edit etc, but that could be due to the computers avalibile at the time...........now we have got better computers, so lots of power processing to be had, anyway Railworks2 7/10 Trainz 2010 11/10:wave:

sniper297 said:

Well, it must be perfect, the fanboys at trainsim.com and UKtrainsim.com keep going hysterical whenever someone suggests it could use improvement, with shrill insistence that the AI traffic is fine if the signals are set up correctly. Since the AI trains are geared to where the player is pre scripted to be at given times and don't actually pay attention to signals I don't know how that matters, but some of the fanboys spend six weeks setting up and debugging one simple meet (which depends on rigid timing to work at all) to prove that it's true. :hehe:

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Let's not forget the new exciting career system, where RSC (who are the only ones allowed to create career scenarios) are insistant that the key to 'replayability' of a scenario is to just set the timetable performance to 99% (ie, you must be within 1% of the *line speed* at all times), safety and other factors be damned.

Unfortunately, that means there are scenarios that are not actually completable, because when you set a deltic scenario on York-Newcastle at 99% it expects you to drive at ~125mph in places.

Also, it makes freight scenarios seem off, since you end up with your train hurtling down the line at 100mph. Great for realism, if you can picture aggregate flying off your train and pegging people in the face as you pass by stations.

Of course, this obsession with setting the performance high works even better on US routes, where strict adherence to timetables is a rarity in reality, and quality of ride is a higher metric. Does railworks model that in their career scenarios? Well, it could have done, but it doesn't...

RW was a nice idea, ruined by people that have put profit ahead of all other - charging for a class 37 payware model ~4 months after release of Railworks, where the major difference between the original release of Railworks, and RailSimulator was, you guessed it, a class 37 added, should have been obvious.

lrh1701 said:

Trianz wins hands down allways.

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Trainz winning hands down?, not really, it's got that major game engine problem.

now we have got better computers, so lots of power processing to be had

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Which as we've seen only does so good when the game can't take advantage of it.

NikkiA said:

Let's not forget the new exciting career system

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Yeah, lol, the new exciting career system which begs the question if the train handling physics are a joke in RailWorks why bother?

Vern said:

It's RW1 with a new front end and menu system, not much in the way of core or any content (routes, locos) update. The new driver's HUD has been compared to a Fisher Price Toy. Several riotous threads at UKTS worth reading though not necessarily a balanced perspective (footie fans). There's been a few teething troubles as well with the release, people losing access to payware DLC and RSC didn't exactly score in the diplomacy stakes by the suggestion this might be because the content wasn't legitimately obtained.

Best thing going for it is that the update is free, but in truth more like RW1.25 than 2.0.

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Seriously?
Trainz, Trainz 2004, Trainz 2006, Trainz 2009, Trainz 2010...
Same content, most of it abismal, same poor graphics, same 'atmosphereless' 'gameplay', DIFFERENT MENUs.

Laddie said:

Seriously?
Trainz, Trainz 2004, Trainz 2006, Trainz 2009, Trainz 2010...
Same content, most of it abismal, same poor graphics, same 'atmosphereless' 'gameplay', DIFFERENT MENUs.

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''Same content''

- Yes, the amount of items in the surveyor has only been multiplied 20 times. I am very dissatisfied. Not only to speak about the hundreds of thousands of items that you can download for FREE.

''Same poor graphics''

Grpahics have greatly improved. But ofcourse you never played any of these games, so how can you know?

''Atmosphereless gameplay''

What i call atmosphereless gameplay is running down a straight 4-track rail, passing a red without warning and running into a train shortly after. Now restart and drive the line for another 30 minutes to where you were when that happened, and let's hope that the AI doesn't fail again.

defacto said:

Grpahics have greatly improved. But ofcourse you never played any of these games, so how can you know?

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I've had every version of Trainz since 2002 right up to TS2010 and haven't seen any “great” improvement in graphics. As a matter of fact if you look real close it's amazing how little things have changed after all these years.