Kansas City to St Louis

[zawal]

Your work is magnificent, I rarely saw a line of train so detailed on TS.

I I am even creative of route on TS (in France) and you have me to fool Mr .

Thank you in advance.

Zawal...

[Hurst]

Do you have any picture of downtown KC? I'm kind of thinking about making the Emporia Sub someday and I would like to see how KC looks in game.

I've been using Google earth,.. street view and satellite view to help.

The route wont be exact as I lack the modeling skills to build the correct buildings and bridges to make it really authentic.

Hurst

[Hurst]

Well, this looks fantastic. However, for authenticity, I would suggest you remove the British derelict diesel locomotives and road vehicles, as they would never feature in any American route, prototypical, or, fictional, however, what you have achieved so far looks absolutely brilliant. I would ask as to what your computer specifications are, your thoughts of running the game from an SSD may not be as bad as you consider, as looking at your screenshots the frame rates look fairly comparable to many other routes currently available, for the amount of scenery assets showing on the tiles, etc, 35/40 fps for out in the countryside to high teens/low 20s fps in the heavily built up areas looks about fine to me, nothing to cause any severe lag I would not have thought, one of your tiles has 2699 assets on it and the fps is between 20 and 31 depending on camera angle, nothing wrong with that at all, I have routes with 3,400 assets on one tile and the fps is about 18/20, so, you're good to go on that score, and I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of members on this forum have mid to high end computer specs anyway and something like this is no worse than some of the heavy resource layouts from DTG and other 3rd party developers, the German and Italian route builders especially, so, I wouldn't worry unduly about that.
It's entirely up to you, but, I could suggest you approach an established route builder/developer to assist you with your signalling and other important operational details, you could even release what you have done so far if you wanted to, there's plenty to play with looking at what you have constructed so far by the looks of things, and then keep adding to the route as you go along, especially, with your employment, and I think KC to St.Louis is about 250 miles isn't it, so, something like this might take a few years to complete with the massive level of detail you have spent on it so far. Anyway, it looks amazing for a first effort, well done, and carry on, Sir.

Cheerz. Steve.

I agree.. and considered pulling the british scraps out. They were just placed as scenery items,.. clutter. If you know of any American models like that,.. please provide a source where I can get them.

The route will not be to exacting/authentic detail. I lack the modeling skills required to build the bridges and buildings to take it to the level of authentication your asking for. So I understand there will be critics who may gripe about that. All I can say is if you have the skill and can build it for me,.. I will add it to the route. I am strictly an amateur enthusiast with OCD.

As for PC specs. I am doing most of the work from my laptop which is an MSI Dominator pro. Specs are I7 6700HQ CPU, 32gb ram, GTX1070 video, 1 TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD as primary OS drive and a second 1 TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD for storage. "Normal routes,.. as in what you can buy from Steam all play perfectly with a native screen resolution of 1920x1080 @120mhz. When home,.. I have a 55" Sony Bravia 4K TV that I run an HDMI cable out from the laptop and use that as a monitor. Also plays perfectly at 3840x2160 @60mhz. My Home PC is a home built I7 4790 CPU, 32gb ram, GTX1080TI video, 1 TB Samsung 840 EVO SSD as primary OS drive. WD Black 4 TB 7200 RPM HDD for storage and a Crucial 1 TB SSD that I install games to.

The main issues I see as for game play,.. as stated,.. is the loading time. The farther I get into the route,.. the longer it takes to load. The other issue is when editing from one 'Zone' to another,.. as the assets start coming into view and are loading,.. if I zoom around too quickly,.. I have had the game lock up or crash on me. I think this is a memory error. Often it will hang at around 15/16 FPS until the assets in the area have completed loading. But this is with me free roaming while editing. I do not experience this when playing around and testing locomotives in and around the route. So I am hoping players will not have any problems there. The laptop only has 8 gb video ram,.. the home PC has 11gb,.. and it takes longer,.. (I can zoom around around more) on the home PC before it crashes. I also have issues where it will crash when setting elevations to brides or road pieces. I dont think that will be an issue for players,.. as much as those who decide to do some free roaming to explore may have crashing issues with slower or lower memory systems. I have learned to save often and frequently in order to not lose precious time and work.

And yes,.. I suspect it will be take me at least another year before I even get close to St Louis. Its taken me roughly 8 - 10 months to compete what you see so far. This is roughly 90% of the Kansas city area complete. I have a few small areas in KC to touch up on and then I will start mapping and routing toward St Louis. And yes,.. its well over 230 - 250 mile. Plus the many different lines that branch off to smaller towns along the way. I may hold off on those and go back to them after I have reached St Louis,.. so that way I can give what I have done to that point and let the critics weigh in and find the things I missed and need to fix.

Thank you all for the compliments.

Hurst

[Hurst]

I forgot to add.

I have no problem uploading and sharing what I have done so far. As long as its understood that this is in no way a final or finished route. And that who ever downloads it will need an extensive amount of assets and routes in order to see everything.

I cant even begin to explain how much aggravation I had to go through trying to explain to my wife that I needed to buy more (Ish) for my route building. Many many free models and assets,.. but if I had to guess,.. I would say I am somewhere in the $500+ range of what I have bought from Steam and 3rd party vendors so far. So download at your own aggravation if things dont work or look right.

What would be easier,.. email it to individuals or to actually upload it here to the forum?

Hurst

[QcRail]

Magnificient - a magnitude of realism that is, in my humble opinion, unsurpassed. Can't even imagine what this route will be in the future.

Bravo, bravo

QcRail

[ex-railwayman]

What would be easier,.. email it to individuals or to actually upload it here to the forum?
Hurst

May I suggest you package it all up and send it to Bob, who runs this forum and the download library, there is a tutorial to read in how to do that on the front page of this forum, look in the Announcements Area, I'm sure that would be the easiest solution, then we can all download it at our leisure, and as there are other RailSimulator forums around the world on the internet, folks can come and help themselves when word gets around how good your route is.

Cheerz. Steve.

[Hurst]

Magnificient - a magnitude of realism that is, in my humble opinion, unsurpassed. Can't even imagine what this route will be in the future.

Bravo, bravo

QcRail

Thank you.

Hope you enjoy when completed.

Hurst

[Hurst]

What would be easier,.. email it to individuals or to actually upload it here to the forum?
Hurst

May I suggest you package it all up and send it to Bob, who runs this forum and the download library, there is a tutorial to read in how to do that on the front page of this forum, look in the Announcements Area, I'm sure that would be the easiest solution, then we can all download it at our leisure, and as there are other RailSimulator forums around the world on the internet, folks can come and help themselves when word gets around how good your route is.

Cheerz. Steve.

Will do.

Hoping to gather interest and maybe get a collaboration going.

I lack modelling skills and there are many scenery assets I wish I knew how to create.

For example,.. the i29bridge over the Missouri river. Its a cablestay bridge,.. that I have tried to recreate using in game items. This is as far as I have gotten with it. I am at a loss as how to add the cables or what to use for the cables.

Google maps image:


In game work so far:


So anyone who can help with things like this,. I would absolutely love to employ your talent.

Hurst

[Brickrail782]

What would be easier,.. email it to individuals or to actually upload it here to the forum?
Hurst

May I suggest you package it all up and send it to Bob, who runs this forum and the download library, there is a tutorial to read in how to do that on the front page of this forum, look in the Announcements Area, I'm sure that would be the easiest solution, then we can all download it at our leisure, and as there are other RailSimulator forums around the world on the internet, folks can come and help themselves when word gets around how good your route is.

Cheerz. Steve.

Will do.

Hoping to gather interest and maybe get a collaboration going.

I lack modelling skills and there are many scenery assets I wish I knew how to create.

For example,.. the i29bridge over the Missouri river. Its a cablestay bridge,.. that I have tried to recreate using in game items. This is as far as I have gotten with it. I am at a loss as how to add the cables or what to use for the cables.

Google maps image:


In game work so far:


So anyone who can help with things like this,. I would absolutely love to employ your talent.

Hurst

Wow! I'm impressed! What assets did you use for the bridge if I may ask?

[Hurst]

As someone who used to live in Kansas City, I'm EXTREMELY looking forward to this!

As for that bridge, have you attempted to use catenary wires (ACat2 works from the NJCL)? You'll need to hide them in the bridge, but it would be a good workaround for suspension.

Best regards,
Martin

I think thats one of the few routes I dont have. I'll grab it from steam,. I got an email from them the other day about a Halloween sale.

Thanks,

hurst

[Hurst]

What would be easier,.. email it to individuals or to actually upload it here to the forum?
Hurst

May I suggest you package it all up and send it to Bob, who runs this forum and the download library, there is a tutorial to read in how to do that on the front page of this forum, look in the Announcements Area, I'm sure that would be the easiest solution, then we can all download it at our leisure, and as there are other RailSimulator forums around the world on the internet, folks can come and help themselves when word gets around how good your route is.

Cheerz. Steve.

Will do.

Hoping to gather interest and maybe get a collaboration going.

I lack modelling skills and there are many scenery assets I wish I knew how to create.

For example,.. the i29bridge over the Missouri river. Its a cablestay bridge,.. that I have tried to recreate using in game items. This is as far as I have gotten with it. I am at a loss as how to add the cables or what to use for the cables.

Google maps image:


In game work so far:


So anyone who can help with things like this,. I would absolutely love to employ your talent.

Hurst

Wow! I'm impressed! What assets did you use for the bridge if I may ask?

The 2 long pieces on top are stretched out bridge pillars with the ends hidden inside the other blocks. The top center and lower pieces are just blocks conformed to resemble the bridge pieces. It was really very simple to do. The hardest part was lining up the angles on the top pieces.

Hurst

[ex-railwayman]

Thanks very much to Hurst for getting this route into the library via Bob, I've just installed it and run it through RW Tools to see what Payware DLC is required and was dismayed to see that it is calling for the PONTrack.bin file, I deleted this ages ago as it fouled up my Railworks installation, has it been repaired now, so, we can utilise it in our routes again???

Cheerz. Steve.

[buzz456]

Thanks very much to Hurst for getting this route into the library via Bob, I've just installed it and run it through RW Tools to see what Payware DLC is required and was dismayed to see that it is calling for the PONTrack.bin file, I deleted this ages ago as it fouled up my Railworks installation, has it been repaired now, so, we can utilise it in our routes again???

Cheerz. Steve.

I don't know why it would be calling for that. I'm sure it is not being used because I long ago blitzed all of that off of my computer. I do have the route loaded and it seemed to run just fine although I just had a short time to explore. I'll look at the xml tonight when I get home.

[georgian22]

GREAT JOB!

[Hurst]

Thanks very much to Hurst for getting this route into the library via Bob, I've just installed it and run it through RW Tools to see what Payware DLC is required and was dismayed to see that it is calling for the PONTrack.bin file, I deleted this ages ago as it fouled up my Railworks installation, has it been repaired now, so, we can utilise it in our routes again???

Cheerz. Steve.

I honestly do not know. I dont even know what that is for???

I have RWTools as well. But for the most part,.. I do not know how to use it other than it helped me on another route where I had some corrupt files.

I've made a little more progress since my upload.

I will try to make monthly,. or bi-monthly updates so you guys can see the progress as it comes along.

Hurst