How "safe" are they???

[Gera]

Hi guys, am very new with RW and enjoying it more everyday I learn something new to make it better for me. I have been reluctant to install freeware routes remembering the woes and crashes in MSTS. How safe are they in this sim??..are authors testing them well before they upload?? are read me files written for people who are not "RW gurus"??...I see many routes I would like to load up but have not even tried one just looking at all those directories and sub-directoies in the sim. ..
Than you.

Gera

[micaelcorleone]

Welcome Aboard.
You don't have to mess around with folders and subfolders. Normally a route is installed through the packagemanager which comes with the game or the route comes with it's own exe file.
Normally routes work very good in Railworks.

[Andimax]

Hello Gera,

RW is a lot more stable than MSTS was, if for eymple a building or some scenario object is missing in a freeware route, it wouldn´t show up in the game, nothing more.

If scenario rollingstock is missing you will get an error message, and thats it,

But sometimes RW crashes too, but you can´t say if a freeware route was the problem or not.
Installing a route differs sometimes, one route comes as a rwp. (RailworksPackage) that has to be opened with the packageManager, some routes have to be installed by hand, then its as complicated as it was in MSTS .

Most freeware routes need other assets (free- or even payware) that need to be downloaded from elsewhere and have to be installed.

But in my opinion, installing new stuff to RW is much easier and safer than it ever was in MSTS.

In the download section from railworksamerica, you can see the README files, so you can decide to try the route or not, and in this forum you will find many nice "railworkers" that will help you too. Give it a try!

[arizonachris]

Hi, Gera, and welcome to Railworks! It takes a little to get used to, but even a non-guru like myself can easily add most of the third party freeware and payware routes and rolling stock very easily. I actually find most third party DLC to be of equal if not better quality than what RS.com puts out. (*ouch! )

First, as Andi said, read the readme file that comes with the route you want to download. This is important, because you may have to go thru a few "hoops" to get all the assets needed. If you still want to download the route, find a good place to download to (I use my Desktop, easy for me) and grab the route and all the assets. Some if not all will be .zip files, a few will be .exe files. Unpack the .zip stuff to the Desktop, and run the .exe files, being sure they are going into the main Railworks folder. Now, next time you start Railworks, at the loading screen, choose the Package Manager tab. Give it a minute or two to populate all the assets you have already installed. Once the left hand screen has loaded, click on the "Install" button on the right. You should see all the un-zipped files on your Desktop (if not, browse to find them) Double clicking on a file folder should show you a .rwp file that you can open, which will now install. That's about it!

At this point, I usually will go to the "Tools and Doc's" tab and select "clear blueprint cache". Now start Railworks. The new route should show up when you choose "drive by route"

[Gera]

Thank you very much guys, I´ll check out all procedures indicated with a route I am interested....

[Andimax]

Feel free to post any questions you have .

BTW: Which route is it?