UKTrainsim's Days may be Numbered

[NorthernWarrior]

As I said above, web hosting has become a bit of a nightmare with either fly by night operators (like the one I last used) or mega expensive. Wasn't worth it in the end.

From UKTS point of view, if no-one is subscribing then interest in MSTS/OR must be negligible at this point and TSC seems to have shifted over to the bearded one (Alan Thomson). Some freeware has gone to be distributed via 3rd party independent companies such as SSS and or just put on Steam Workshop. Get the vibe fewer and fewer people are developing freeware for any of the heritage sims, apart from Trainz which has its own in house arrangements (DLS) anyway.

The one thing that might be missed is the MSTS routes that came on CD, not just mine which anyway I cringe to look at now - most are getting on for 20 years old and can just fade away, but there are some more recent classics which still potentially provide a good MSTS/OR experience. That said I haven't personally fired up OR for well over a year now - got too much to do in TSC/TSW or non rail programs such as Snowrunner, ETS2 or ATS. Even Run 8 is lying pretty much dormant despite all the money I poured into it.

[eolesen]

Does anyone think that it's worth trying to lifeboat all or part of the file library at UK Trainsim?

I ask this as a railroad preservationist -- all of the proceeds from my sales at DigitalRails have been going to museum preservation efforts, but I'm wondering if perhaps some of that needs to be diverted to helping save data from our hobby....

Comments welcome.

[NorthernWarrior]

Does anyone think that it's worth trying to lifeboat all or part of the file library at UK Trainsim?

I ask this as a railroad preservationist -- all of the proceeds from my sales at DigitalRails have been going to museum preservation efforts, but I'm wondering if perhaps some of that needs to be diverted to helping save data from our hobby....

Comments welcome.

It's a worthy notion but the problem I see is that unless it all comes over, particularly in the case of TSC routes, there are dependencies which need to be downloaded separately. So you get into permissions from scores if not 100's of authors, some of whom may no longer be active or contactable or sadly passed beyond the rainbow bridge in a few cases. UKTS have already stated the routes etc. for MSTS on CD will not be released elsewhere for hosting due again to the multiple permissions issues that would be involved.

The current UKTS file library also clearly lists by id number any assets that need to be downloaded as dependencies including the unique file id number so transposing that to the file library here could potentially involve 100's of man hours to sort out. If the intention was to host here, we don't know for certain how secure the long term future of this site could be. Also let's not forget, UKTS came about because the Trainsimfiles site became overwhelmed with excessive bandwidth charges landing the owner Tim Booth with a massive bill. The numbers circulating are that UKTS currently costs around £500 (US$650) a month to maintain. Any site setting out to maintain the current file load is going to face similar logistics.

For myself I have pretty much decided to let my TSC content go (6 routes). The youngest route over there is now 12 years old and frankly anyone interested would have downloaded by now. Most rely on assets that will also go with UKTS, or DTG content like Phorum Peninsula which were withdrawn from sale. Essentially end of life and withdrawn.

[eolesen]

I could believe $600-800 per year, but not per month.

[NorthernWarrior]

Well I have decided to bite the bullet and rework my TSC routes for the Steam Workshop. Some will take longer than others but at this point feel it is the best chance of preserving something.

Starting with Sulitjelma, as apart from my own assets the only third party non official DLC items are the RSDL/UKTS hogweed and rosebay.

[muskokaandtahoe]

From what I can tell the sole cost driver on hosted sites is disk storage. Most of the items in a file library could be relocated to cold storage at Amazon's AWS service. It's not expensive. Thew other cost savings is to trash old screenshots -- do large numbers of people really look at 20 year old screenshots? Would anyone really care if there were only 2 or 3 years of screenshots?

The last solution would be self hosting. Then the expense shifts to your ISP and what they charge for what looks to them as a commercial enterprise. Surely even that will not cost so much.

[rufuskins]

Please note that some MSTS/OR items are available at TrainSimSafe House - https://tsforum.forumotion.net/ - all of my items are available there. There is no charge for this and efforts are being made to make more items available.