TS2015 coming on 18 September

[Chacal]

I did have one problem with flashing skies in R. Gerber's "Colton and Northern" route....

I've always had that with this route and Rascal.

[JerryC]

The new menus are cool, but they take some getting used to. They are far harder to select with the 360 controller than in 2013/2014. Very tedious now so I use the mouse instead for selecting things.

There was a lot of tug-of-war going on as the GP40-2 was being developed because I did not feel the need to make things easier for users of the Gamepad. Seems a little hypocrisy is going down at the Towers.

I give the TS2015 update, and the hooplah surround it, a "Meh" on a scale of "Utter Disappointment to Cosmic Joy". It is change for changes sake. No real improvements, nothing extraordinary as far as operations or visuals go. I think they could have done just fine branding this as a Service Pack update for TS2014, leaving out the bawdy menu changes, and working a bit more on core issues, such as making this more of a SIMULATOR instead of a game.

[Bananarama]

I did have one problem with flashing skies in R. Gerber's "Colton and Northern" route....

I've always had that with this route and Rascal.

The skys in those routes use a photo over a non-moving dome, but this game gets confused when another route had been loaded prior and attempts to load settings from the last used route (not the textures, just the movement). Just a hair brained idea I had when still messing with Rail Simulator.

Off-Kilter (skewed) Skys:
If you load any other route first, the skys will be off-kilter (skewed). If you load one of Rich Garber's routes first after a fresh start of TS2015, however, the skys should look fine.

Flashing Skys:
If the skys are flashing, pressing Ctrl+E to enter edit mode and then escape to go back to play mode. This will solve things and no saving is necessary - at least it always worked that way here, and was a one time easy fix.

[MattW]

The new Acela is nice. The model looks better and the horn is a massive improvement. But I wish they would have updated the manual too. Now the left stick is the cruise control instead of dynamic brakes. It's quite twitchy though, unless there's a key for it I just haven't found yet, the only way to change the cruise speed is by clicking with the mouse which can be dicey with the cab shake. I'm not sure whether each "notch" is 5mph or 10mph, sometimes I move it one notch and it's a 5mph difference, other times it seems to be 10mph. But it's far better than the previous method of accelerate until you hit the speed, then double-tap the K key! Cab signaling on the old NEC also seems to be wonky, leaving Philadelphia, it kept dropping to stop.

[eyein12]

I find myself underwhelmed with this update. Cosmetically it does nothing, and functionality-wise does nothing for me as a developer. a few nuiances here and there but thats it. I am unfamiliar with how to get the clouds that cast shadows to work on my route. I assume that is an external function i d have to add in? The game takes longer to load for me, but that might be my gpu or cpu though so cant tell. visually nothing changed. A few shortcuts on the BPE so all in all meh...

[HankySpanky]

I give the TS2015 update, and the hooplah surround it, a "Meh" on a scale of "Utter Disappointment to Cosmic Joy". It is change for changes sake. No real improvements, nothing extraordinary as far as operations or visuals go. I think they could have done just fine branding this as a Service Pack update for TS2014, leaving out the bawdy menu changes, and working a bit more on core issues, such as making this more of a SIMULATOR instead of a game.

That is the best assessment I have read from many sites. Personally, I was leaning towards "Feh", but "Meh" says it all.

[buzz456]

Your negative comments are just that, not constructive at all. Look around at what others are saying.

[JohnTrainHead]

When I tried to use the Google Earth Overlay earlier, it cause some serious lag. The frame-rate returned to normal when I turned the overlay off. Is this my own issue or a bug to be fixed by Dovetail?

I have e-mailed the DTG support team.

[buzz456]

Just tried it and I'm not seeing that.

[GSkid]

What I definitely don't like (although technically not a huge deal) is the non-notched graphic sliders. They are completely analog now. That's fine for sound volume purposes, but harder to remember your ideal graphics settings on a particular route if needed.

Even though the sliders are analog, I highly doubt the actual graphics settings are. I'd imagine they are still notched internally as before (1-10....or like shadow detail...lowest, very high, highest, etc, etc) and that they simply round off your slider position to the nearest internal notches from before. I can't see them actually using 256 different levels of shadowing detail. The analog sliders are a very odd choice.

[dfcfu342]

The skies can be added to any route, you just have to select one of the 3D weather patterns for the scenario weather type.

Overall I'm happy with the update. The skies really add to the experience, especially dipping in and out of cloud shadows and pushing through driving rain. Is it a whole new simulator? No, that's a couple years away yet. But for a free incremental update, I'm happy with it. I don't like the new menu system as others have said, but I didn't like the last one either until I got used to it.

[BNSFdude]

I give the TS2015 update, and the hooplah surround it, a "Meh" on a scale of "Utter Disappointment to Cosmic Joy". It is change for changes sake. No real improvements, nothing extraordinary as far as operations or visuals go. I think they could have done just fine branding this as a Service Pack update for TS2014, leaving out the bawdy menu changes, and working a bit more on core issues, such as making this more of a SIMULATOR instead of a game.

That is the best assessment I have read from many sites. Personally, I was leaning towards "Feh", but "Meh" says it all.

Agreed. Meh

[awaken1977]

I found that scenarios written before for TS2014 work, but scenario restore totally messed up.

When I restore scenario from savepoint, saved in 2014 presumably, I don't see cab, loco itself or anything beside tracks and environment. And neither one of train controls doesnt work.

When I start scenario from the beginning, everything OK

[wackyhuman]

> When I restore scenario from savepoint, saved in 2014 presumably

Which is pretty predicable, since new stuff has been added. Thanks for reporting anyway.

[Chacal]

Agreed. Meh

Meh too.