I have been pushed towards Auran Trainz

[Airdale]

I have been researching which simulation to acquire... MSTS, RW, Trainz. I have seen that there is a lot of support for just about any of the sims. I am going to get involved with VRMA which seems to be focused on MSTS.

Though, Trainz and RW are forthcoming for session support. I am dismayed though that MSTS is now 10 years old and Microsoft has stopped it's support. So what is in store for the future.????

Auran push me over to Trainz by offering a 20% discount for the month of June on anything in their Auran Store. I have attempted to find MSTS and found that it's cost is close to $90 USD. With the Auran offer, I acquired Trainz for 39.99 AUD.. = $42.15 USD

I am not sure if I have made the right move, but I am sure that there is a future for the Trainz franchise as it is still being developed for commercial gain.

Hopfully, Multiplayer capability will develop to the point where multiple players can view and interact with in the same visual environment. I can see the advantages in a yard building or dismantling a consist.

Matter of Note: I am not trying to promote or sell Trainz, but thought it would help others who are on the fence by letting others know of the discount offered for this month only.

Your thoughts are gratefully welcome.
Airdale

[longiron]

I am dismayed though that MSTS is now 10 years old and Microsoft has stopped it's support. So what is in store for the future.????
Your thoughts are gratefully welcome.
Airdale

The future is Open Rails, a free train sim under active development that's compatible with MSTS content - routes, trains, activities. You can find out more information at www.openrails.org

[Airdale]

Open Rails certainly has potential. What I have a problem with is the fact that you still have to buy MSTS for Open Rails to meet the basic requirement for installation. I have attempted to buy MSTS and Amazon offers it for close to $90. A bit steep for 10 year old software. I would like to get involve with VRMA and Open Rails hasn't evolved far enough to ensure a pleasant experience. TrainZ has its issues as well as all of the sims. But, TrainZ is further along than Open Rails and costs half as much.
I will be watching Open Rails development, certain that it will be blessed with the great ideas of the development group with the knowledge that it will be an ever on going project.

[longiron]

Just look around, MSTS is still available at affordable prices

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Train-Simulator-PC-CD/dp/B000BVVG2Y/ref=sr_1_4/277-8628388-2135269?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1282568127&sr=8-4

http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/857807/Microsoft-Train-Simulator/Product.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00061I9RY/flightsimcomA

which has used versions from $37

You can sometimes pick up a cheap copy on ebay, like this one with bidding at only $13.50

http://cgi.ebay.com/MICROSOFT-TRAIN-SIMULATOR-/160600449006?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2564885fee

[hminky]

Even if you have to pay $90 for MSTS, Open Rails makes it a better investment than either Railworks or Trainz. Trainz is still basically 2004 technology even TS12 is 2004 with bad lipstick.

The MSTS stuff is so much better. I find MSTS in Open Rails even with the 2001 technology always gives you more of a feel of a railroad.

The future is Open Rails, I have all three sims and mainly play with Open Rails.

Harold

[ftldave]

Open Rails will not address the finicky, crash-prone MSTS Route Editor. The ease-of-use of Trainz' Surveyor route-creation tools certainly make it the best choice for beginners who want to create their own routes. Take a look at the some of the Trainz routes coming out of Romania, Russia and Eastern Europe . If that's bad lipstick, I'll kiss it anytime!

While we all hope that the Open Rails project will be successful, beginners should be told the truth that it is nowhere near being completed, and that the current release lacks many of the basic rail simulator functions found in the commercially-released programs.

[sniper297]

Extolling the wonderful virtues of Trainz!

Actually you caught me on a bad day for that, I spent most of the day yesterday reinstalling and repatching TS2010 to eliminate faulty content as a possible cause of all the freezes I'm getting. After that I imported ONE (1) route and ONE session from my work in progress Chicago Metro. That led to spending most of today fighting with the automatic download helper, it fails to find some assets, skips downloading others, shows the missing dependency icon with no missing dependencies, what gives? Further investigation shows some of the locos that are dependencies of the session got downloaded without the cabviews, so it wasn't actually a missing dependency in the session itself, it was a dependency with a missing dependency. That can go on forever since some dependencies have dependencies which have their own dependencies. It's supposed to be an automatic click and forget process that downloads everything needed plus whatever else is needed after that, it sometimes works but the failures can be really irritating and time consuming.

Differences, let's see - I first tried the Trainz demo in 2001, didn't like, stayed with MSTS. At the Great American Train Show in Wheaton, IL back in 2003 I saw a couple guys running a demo of TRS2004 on an Intel P4 1.5GHZ, which was state of the art at the time. One engine, no scenery, rolling along the tracks going jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-jerk-without end. This wasn't like the "stuttering" when scenery loads in MSTS, this was a constant jerking slideshow. My system at the time was an AMD Thunderbird 800MHZ, a bit over half the speed of the demo machine, so I said no way.

Last year I got TRS2004 and TS2010, there is a major difference from a route and activity creator's perspective - TRS2004 required some type of complicated scripting to set up AI traffic, TS2010 has a simple GUI interface. Trainz 2010 AI traffic is intelligent, versatile, and psychotic - it will often take the scenic route left to its own devices, and given any opportunity to cross over to the wrong track will say "let's go EXPLORE!" Adding directional markers and "navigate via" markers and instructions will get that under control, but it's unneeded complexity when you're used to the simplicity of the "take other exit" laying out a path in the MSTS activity editor.

For my money a perfect train sim would first be stable, crashes and freezes ruin everything no matter how good the rest is. The graphical beauty and smoothness of Railworks. The ease and simplicity of the Railworks world editor and tracklaying tools combined with Trainz surveyor copy and paste and automatic object to terrain leveling. The ease and simplicity of the MSTS path editor combined with Trainz portals to spawn AI traffic trains and the intelligence and versatility of the Trainz AI engineers, with the Trainz F6 "driver control", which is a kind of mini-dispatcher mode where you can manually untangle traffic jams. Which are rare if you debug the session properly.

[sniper297]

Why I'm here

Almost forgot a couple things - TRS2004 and TS2010 are different, but TS2010 still does use the same old tired "JET" engine that made TRS2004 so inefficient. And TS12 could easily have been TS2010 service pack 4 with a payware addon pack, the only real difference I see (in addition to a bunch of new and improved bugs) is the addition of a volume control (that should have been in version 1) and a bunch of new routes and rolling stock. They STILL haven't fixed them ugly splined switches, STILL using them complicated resource hogging fixed switch objects with invisible track "wiring" on routes they want to have decent looking switches - which STILL don't look half as good as the Railworks automatically generated junctions. Railworks switches aren't always perfect either, but they're easy to make, usually look realistic, and don't tank the framerates. It's totally baffling to me, Trainz switches automatically add a switch lever, how hard could it be to program in automatic points, or at least automatic guiderails and frogs?

Anyway, why I'm here - the AI traffic. In another discussion someone was saying that most will live with bugs and limitations if it's really pretty - for me the limitations were too severe, so given the choice of pretty with lame limited retarded restricted useless AI traffic and ugly Trainz with AI traffic I can actually WORK with, I'd rather have the AI and live with the ugly.

Intelligent but psychotic, left to it's own it will find a way to get from marker 6 to marker 7 through the maze - but why don't it choose the simplest, shortest path? I can work with it tho, add directional and navigate via markers to force it onto the track you want it to take, the end result is worth the effort.

[conrail1]

Take a look at the some of the Trainz routes coming out of Romania, Russia and Eastern Europe . If that's bad lipstick, I'll kiss it anytime!

Too bad that great content doesn't have a decent platform to run on. Again another example of trying to stick a silk hat on a pig.

[philskene]

Looks like some comments have been edited out or removed, but for those who don't have access to the full Auran forums, these are some of the screen shotz from one of the links in conrail's post:









It's work in progress.

[sniper297]

Hey, who the *%#&@$#! is saying *%#&@$#! in here?

"Looks like some comments have been edited out or removed", if anything WAS edited it don't have the usual "moderated by" tag on it. As for the pics, again pretty trees, no pictures of switches since that would ruin the whole effect.

My current WIP route I'm going totally the opposite way - instead of a scenery simulator with trains as part of the background ambience, I'm making extensive use of framerate friendly spline objects so the focus is on the railroads and trains. Dunno about anyone else but I came here for the trains, when I'm running trains the buildings and trees are merely there to enhance the effect.

Other things I skipped;

"Open Rails will not address the finicky, crash-prone MSTS Route Editor."

Right now, no. At some point it will, the developers have been kicking around "HowWeGonnaDoIt" talk for the last couple months now, and the main concensus is the Open Rails editors should be STABLE as priority one. It IS theoretically possible using Xtracks or ScaleRail to develop a route and trainset package that does not violate the MSTS EULA and is usable in Open Rails without any dependence on MSTS - but it would be a tedious irritating chore to create. I suspect one of the payware routes that uses Xtracks or ScaleRail would run in Open Rails now without MSTS, but I don't have any MSTS payware routes to test at the moment.

FutureWare, who knows. Crystal ball is cloudy right now, if N3V gets their act together it might be the future, if they do lose out to ORTS or RW it's their own silly fault. I'm STILL working on what I started yesterday, after getting all the assets that were in the dependency list finally downloaded I had to spend several MORE hours troubleshooting errors. Any custom rules, drivers, or trains spawning from portals do not get added to the KUID table for a session automatically. So hack the config.txt to add Trigger Multiple Signals and Bellz KUIDs, place one of each type of engine or car spawning from a portal physically on the route so it's added to the KUID table. Today I find out from error messages;





that "Wille the gimp" is not a default driver built into TS2010, dunno where I got him from but I've been using him for over a year now in assorted sessions. Some of the drivers built into TS2010 are not in TS12 either, so I made a list of those to avoid.

Currently I'm fighting the lighting effects, every time I think I got the beast on the ropes it pops up and knocks me down again. it looks like you have to set one default sky and lighting effects for different times of day, then Save As new route and session to make it stick. It won't let you save the route, it wants you to create a new session instead, and if you try to edit the environment in a session it agrees with everything you say then ignores it and uses whatever you had set up when the route was created. I'm up to version 23 of the route now, heading for version 24 since the night effects aren't quite right and the only way to change it and make it stick is to "Save As" new route and session. Then I gotta clone and hack all the test sessions for the new route KUID.

Well, back to the grindstone, thanks for listening to me vent, came in here because I needed a break. Trainz is far from perfect, but if you're into the kind of railroad ops that I like, it's currently the only game in town.

[conrail1]

Looks like some comments have been edited out or removed, but for those who don't have access to the full Auran forums, these are some of the screen shotz from one of the links in conrail's post:

It's work in progress.

So I guess we can add Trainz to the list of 3D object viewer programs, lol.

[Redcoat_1812]

Too bad that great content doesn't have a decent platform to run on. Again another example of trying to stick a silk hat on a pig.

I have removed Trainz from the pc Dan, some of the "overseas" content is amazing quality. But for someone like myself mostly interested in UK add ons.

The quality is very poor, meaning locos, cabviews and with few exceptions the rolling stock.

cheers,
Mike.

[conrail1]

I have removed Trainz from the pc Dan, some of the "overseas" content is amazing quality. But for someone like myself mostly interested in UK add ons.

The quality is very poor, meaning locos, cabviews and with few exceptions the rolling stock.

cheers,
Mike.

I hear ya Mike, I installed it on three different gaming setups did some testing and after reformatting a couple of the drives I haven’t even bothered reinstalling it again. As expected it’s just the same regurgitated mess that we’ve seen every other year in a new box.

If there was some mention after the so-called one million copies sold that we’d be looking at some significant improvements (a decent game engine for starters) I might be interested but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. As long as their user base (take a quick look over in Jonestown - http://forums.auran.com/trainz/index.php) remains oblivious to what’s going on in the rest of sim/gaming world there’s really no need for them to make any improvements. They’ll just continue to repackage the same garbage; for the most part their users don’t know any better anyway.

[Redcoat_1812]

Hi Dan,

I totally agree with you mate. Said it much better than i could.
I don't know what the future is in train games, but it is not Trainz.

best wishes,
Mike.