Trainz: A New Era

[gwgardner]

Thanks for the review, Bob. I'm an old hand with the former Trainz versions, and have always given up on it primarily because I was too cheap to buy tickets, and thus downloads became a major hassle. (Steam engine sounds have always been a weak point also.) What interested me about T:ANE was the promise of revolutionary graphics. Nothing in your review suggested 'revolutionary.' Is that right?

[hminky]

Thanks for the review, Bob. I'm an old hand with the former Trainz versions, and have always given up on it primarily because I was too cheap to buy tickets, and thus downloads became a major hassle. (Steam engine sounds have always been a weak point also.) What interested me about T:ANE was the promise of revolutionary graphics. Nothing in your review suggested 'revolutionary.' Is that right?

The problem with T:ANE is finding something to demonstrate the graphics, TrainzItalia's Donner Pass comes close:



The high-def textures are great:



Here is the water:



Even with billboards the shadows are great:



The sound is great, real 3d.

Looking at the original teaser made on another game engine, the new engine comes close.

Too bad N3V didn't build a route demonstrating the game engine that doesn't look like TS12.

Harold

EDIT: Saw this on a screenshot on the Trainz forum, the background reflects off equipment:

[artimrj]

Gary like Harold says, you need to find newer routes and equipment to get the good looks. I found some equipment that looks as good or even better than RW, but I found a lot that looked worse than old MSTS stuff. The stuff they have for us to download goes way back to the beginning of it's creation and in the new version they are very poor, so the 347,000 downloads in a misconception.. Then we do not have the final edition yet either, that comes on Friday this week. So there may be better news come Friday.

It definitely has good sounds and physics are good as well. When your pulling a loaded train you can feel it. In notch 1 you will not end up at 60 mph going up a 3% grade, you may start going backwards. I also like be able to drop a consist on the tracks and just start playing. It is similar to freeroam in RW except you can drive all the engines at once that you may place. You just keep going from train to train or not, you can just let them run.

At this point there are only a few gripes that I have. The tree in the distance look like green smurfs. There is no heads out view from the cab. There is little to no documentation explaining how to even create a session (scenario) and from what I see so far, you have to make HTML files and scripts make a session. But I barely touched the surface with that. I have over 120 hours just downloading so far. 140 total hours in game according to Steam. That's 20 hours actually playing in the 2 weeks or so that I have had it. I have a lot of equipment now so really nothing more other than routes. I also purchased a package from Jointed Rails. Their stuff looks great in the game. Jointed Rail gives you routes for free, then they make equipment packages to buy for them, if you want. $30 for 5 or 6 different engines and a bunch of rolling stock. Nice pricing, nice stuff however I won't be buying too much. Mainly because I have not used it enough and just like RW, there is a slew of nay sayers, you think RW has them, ha, Trainz is polluted with them. I read the same old stuff that is said about RW and sometimes it is even the same people, they have both sims and say the same bad things about them both... good grief.

[ArcticCatZRT]

I tried Trainz 12 as I loved the selection of locomotives that can be had in great detail/quality for less price than RW. My issue was finding a decent route to run on and the whole downloading assets from all corners of the darn internet got too much effort. If there was a more streamlined way to get good quality routes, I'd be more interested.

[tbundy1982]

Bob, I hope you can continue to learn about the Trainz platform. I've used it since 2006 and at the time I found it quite an enjoyable alternative to MSTS. You can kick cars while flat-switching in Trainz. I never quite figured out how to set up a player path that would automatically line switches, though. Sessions (Scenarios) are fairly easy to make using included session rules and directions, along with some special rules that can be downloaded. If a route has the right trackmarks added, the user simply must tell the driver to "Drive to Trackmark" or Drive to Platform and so on. You can literally dispatch dark territory (invisible signals recommended!) by authoring each driver's "orders", orchestrating meets and moving trains like chess pieces simultaneously. That amounts to dispatching AI traffic. If you want Trainz to act like TS2015, in terms of driver sessions, you'll have to dig deeper than I have.

My only suggestion to those who may be considering Trainz: It's unique and much different than MSTS/Railworks. The latter two are somewhat related and similarities abound. Trainz is kind of on its own. I think the air brakes feel more realistic in Trainz compared to TS2015.
I personally have a love/hate relationship with all of them.

I'm not sure what to say about T:ANE. I experienced some performance quirks in the beta versions that caused me to decide to wait until the final version is released. I hear it was released yesterday or today and broke the website.

Tyler

[artimrj]

Yep I got the final release this afternoon. 8 gig. Everything went fine for me except my FCT and everyone else who prepurchased has not be given to us. Was supposed to get a pop up on first start with the key code, but no go yet. They are working on it. I have not used it much as it took 2 hours to download, reinstall, rebuild and all that stuff. But the weekend is coming I may get to fool around a little. Other are already complaining about this and that. I don't really complain much about any of these sims, I take it for what it is worth. I love RW, Trainz so far is fun. RW is like serious simming and Trainz is fun simming. Like flying a PMDG aircraft or the built in one. One you got to really work with it technically and the other you hop in and fly. Complaining and whining is not fun, so why bother. Who doesn't have dog hunts with cat.

[hminky]

Bob,

Steam has TS12 on sale.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24670/

Buy the game and download this route:

Cattaraugus Creek & Lake Erie CMTM3,<kuid:32711:100377>

and this session:

CC&LE week of operations,<kuid:32711:100380>

Shows what Trainz can be.

Harold

[billy]

Bob, do you have the Allegheny or Blue Ridge ??
I was wondering how they perform and so on.

http://steammachine.com/bdaneal/std_frt.htm

http://wvrailroads.blogspot.com/

[artimrj]

Harold: Can both Tane ans 2012 be installed together? Be in a different folder right?

I can spring 8 bucks to see what is up. That CMTMC 3 does not work in Tane, it has some faulty stuff.



Bill: no I did not get those yet.

[hminky]

Harold: Can both Tane ans 2012 be installed together? Be in a different folder right?

I can spring 8 bucks to see what is up. That CMTMC 3 does not work in Tane, it has some faulty stuff.

Totally separate games.

Got rid of all the Cattaraugus faulties in T:ANE and the CMTM errors out.

T:ANE is too labor intensive at this point and doubt it will ever be fixed.

If you like urban industrial switching there is:

Long Island Western CMTM,<kuid2:32711:100076:1>
Long Island Western Operations,<kuid2:32711:100026:1>

Harold

[artimrj]

Sure would like to know how you get those errors out? I have 60 routes and most have unknowns and faulties. I have about 28 that are actually functional. About 10 that just need some textures redone. The rest are missing track and the trees that were used before TANE. Then all the assets that are KUID -12:xxx, author by auran do not download for me. There are others, but mainly anything with that -12 id is not downloading. Mostly textures too.

I still can figure out what I am loooking when I start editting the script and text files. But I have not looked that much either. Tornados in my area over the weekend had me powered down for 2 days. And the storms are still here.

[artimrj]

I grabbed Trainz 2012 for < 8$, but the power problem here is bad at the moment. We have been in a storm front for a week now. Everytime I do something everything goes black. Could not even finish watching a dvd.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

One should be carefully assess one's desire to own T:ANE while expect future support, updates, new DLC etc.
Over at Trainsim.com there is a critical discussion over N3V's chances of survival, since they grossly missed their mark with T:ANE, ran out of funds, broke their promises of a non-DRM version and perhaps go belly up. If the DLS closes, you're buggered. Almost all older assets are no longer supported and have to be re-textured etc. So you need a FCT to download if the assets are updated at all.

Over at the N3V fora, censorship is heavy.

I am still waiting for my Mac version of T:ANE, the only one I bought. Yet playing the T:ANE 76401 on Windows left me very unimpressed. The default US route(C&O Hinton) is crap and Tehachapi Pass is now an payware expansion. One could try to import older Tz12 or even Tz10 routes and stock into T:ANE, but that is a neverending PITA according to those who tried.

With Jointed Rail wanting to launch its own train simulator, there is hardly any serious 3rd party support for T:ANE in a USA context. The best of the Russian Tz12 models are being converted to Railworks instead.

This is what could happen with Dovetail and Railworks also: trying to launch a new game UE4 while keeping existing content, existing clients, existing 3rd party devs all happy and satisfied. Promises will have to be fulfilled to all parties involved.

[RAILSOHIO]

Just curious to why the Hinton route is "crap". As a long-time Trainz user,I have been waiting for the initial bugs to be fixed,before purchase. I could never run the N&W route that came with the previous versions,game lockup. Is it not prototypical,or other? I think a lot of us are waiting to see what happens with Crosstie Simulations,but it could be years.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

The Hinton was done by the same guy that created the N&W route you can't run. It doesn't look like 50's C&O at all, is a resource hog, at almost any decent shadow/ tree quality setting etc. Read more about it on more Trainz minded fora.
The only reason I bought into T:ANE was for a train simulator for my iMac. It seems I've gotten the Windows version for starters, but it could be locked down any moment as soon as the Mac version is released, whenever that will be. Early June is already in the past.