Any good train sims out there?

basmic

basmic

basmic

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Joined
10 Apr 2004
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Darlington, County Durham
Tried Trainz, and the Trainz 2006 - don't know why, but I simply just don't like their software. It has a "controlled" feel about it - sign up for this, pay for faster downloads, pay for that. I want a working train simulator, which isn't out for my blood.

I loved MS Train Simulator - but it's starting to show its age now, graphic-wise. I liked it because you had more passenger tasks (I'm not taken by shunting/non-passenger tasks), and it felt more intuitive.

Any decent train simulators on the horizon? Or are we stuck with the two, what I feel main, ones?
 
Jongo said:
What do u even do on train simulators?
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Drive a train?

This thread is not for the discussion as to how good they are in people's eyes.

You either like train sims, or you don't - end of story.
 
What are you after precisely from the sim?
BVE (I develop for this) is free, with a relatively decent selection of UK routes. Main problem is the linear nature of it, but the physics & sound are often a cut above the only other real player-

Microsoft Train Simulator (MSTS) is the only other commercial offering other than Trainz. Do not under any circumstances judge it by the routes which come with it; There are far, far better ones available freeware & payware.
As you like MSTS, so you need to head over to the main UK MSTS site, funnily enough UK Trainsim- http://www.uktrainsim.com & the forums there. Admittedly the free download option isn't up to much, but most of the community CDs are extremely good, & at £4-50 a time plus a month of fast downloads, great value ;)
(Do I sound like an ad :p )


Just incidently, you'll find that Trainz generally has a bad rep among serious simmers- It still has far too much of a relic from the original aim of model railroad simulator. Added to this the fact that the patches are somewhat like BF2, generally breaking as much as they fix & its not as well regarded.

I'm on the forums there as leezer3 as per usual ;)

-Leezer-
 
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Some images shamelessly pinched from the UKTS screenshots forum of MSTS-
Class47775_RES_Scrap_6.jpg


0.jpg


(Commercial route I know, but most of the stock is freeware)

Bounds_Green_ECS.jpg


Freeware again- The Dorset Coast Route. Now runs from London to Weymouth- The CD is a must have when it reappears. (Will be on the CD ordering page at UKTS)

Anyway, you probably know what you like better than I do- Either post here or on the UKTS forums with your preferences, & I'm sure someone can reccomend something suitable ;)

-Leezer-
 
I do like MSTS, but I found the lack of Northern England routes and bad graphics put me off. :o

I paid for a CD once - I think it was some Inverness route. It was nice, but it felt half-developed. :(

I'd love to get back into making routes - something I never quite got into. I might even have another go - I have an 18mb odd PDF tutorial somewhere, which set me back a fiver.

In the meantime, I suppose I'll make do with what's out there right now, until another decent train sim pops along. :(
 
basmic said:
I do like MSTS, but I found the lack of Northern England routes and bad graphics put me off. :o

I paid for a CD once - I think it was some Inverness route. It was nice, but it felt half-developed. :(
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Yup, that would probably be Scottish Central. Kerr's (The author) daughter died, and then he went on to commercial work IIRC. There were plans to finish it, but they did drop off the map a little. I believe that the finishing of the route is now being worked on commercially, but not totally certain.

The other possibility for a route around Inverness is the Far North by BigVern (ChiefTrackWelder). Again not really the best example of a route, this time because of the age. Scotland also tends to be a little underdeveloped ;)

Neither of those are the best examples of a starter route to try. The best currently available Northern route is going to be the Yorkshire Coast. I would reccomend Burton- Derby in this instance, but its one of the CDs currently unavailable. (You really need to have been there to understand why this is; One of those forum flamewars which resulted in the withdrawing of all sorts of stuff)

-Leezer-
 
It Kuju was who originally developed MS train simulator and they now seem to be with EA. Might turn out to be the boost the genre needs if they develop a decent engine (no pun intended).
 
Just given BVE v4 a spin, on the Birmingham Cross-City South route.

It was awkward to setup at first - then, thanks to lack of instructions in the tutorial here, it took me about 20 minutes to figure out that I had to toggle the DRA. :o

I think BVE is my new software - pretty impressive, and quite detailed.
 
leezer3 said:
We have a convert to BVE :D
I'm at www.bvecornwall.co.uk but don't expect anything near Birmingham X City South ;)
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:o

It's a step in the right direction from MSTS - I might even research how to make routes for BVE. It's high time we had a Northeast/County Durham one. :cool:

Anybody know of any lengthy (ie: couple of hours) runs?

The only thing I can't see in BVE, is to save your progress midway through a run. :(
 
I seem to be a bit of a closet train fan then; this is all quite interesting.:o

Would it be possible to get the Manchester-London route into the game and run up and down the line on a Virgin train? It's a route I use often between Milton Keynes and Manchester Piccadilly. Just thought I'd be sad enough to do that virtually, if possible.:cool:
 
basmic said:
The only thing I can't see in BVE, is to save your progress midway through a run. :(
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Fraid not.

Longer runs are less common in BVE for various reasons due to the very linear nature of the code- Your best UK bets are the Maybank route from www.trainsimcentral.co.uk (Also plenty of other large mainline routes on here) & the Edinburgh to Aberdeen from http://www.gotopcs.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=46&Itemid=40
You might also want to consider the underground routes from Trainsimcentral & the Picadilly line from http://brj.rr.nu/ but I'm not sure if these will be your thing or not ;)

MarcLister said:
I seem to be a bit of a closet train fan then; this is all quite interesting.:o

Would it be possible to get the Manchester-London route into the game and run up and down the line on a Virgin train? It's a route I use often between Milton Keynes and Manchester Piccadilly. Just thought I'd be sad enough to do that virtually, if possible.
Click to expand...

AFAIK you're out of luck with this one :(
I don't believe that theres a MSTS route in this area, & there certainly isn't a BVE one ;)


basmic said:
It's a step in the right direction from MSTS - I might even research how to make routes for BVE. It's high time we had a Northeast/County Durham one.
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This is a guide to the commands used in the construction of a BVE route- http://www.virtual-rail.co.uk/bvecsvcommands.htm
The best way to do it is to open an existing one & have a look/ play- Deceptively simple! Then you can move on to trying to get something to work properly in the sim. The main UK BVE forums are the BVE sections on the www.railforums.co.uk & www.train-sim.com forums- Again feel free to ask for help.
There is also a third-party GUI program for route building from http://routebuilder.bve-routes.com but this can be rather tempermental & its either a love or hate situation.

The only real NE route is the Tyne Valley route from here:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/eezypeazy/

-Leezer-
 
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Hope you don't mind me picking your brains, leezer3.

Downloaded that Tyne Valley route. Along with http://www.tsc.railuk.org/downloads_bt_temp/hst_bve2.exe (HST?) and http://members.lycos.co.uk/eezypeazy/ccount/click.php?id=23 (the class 156 for BVE 2?).

They mention this:
My BVE 4 route uses a modified version of the BVE 2 train. The route will work with the new BVE 4 Class 156, available here. However, until I update the route file, you will need to modify the route file to use the new train, or use BVE Route Randomiser to change trains.
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So what do I change exactly? I didn't download the third link.

God this can be such a pain sometimes. :o
 
Changing the train is easy enough. This is the first few lines of the routefile (This is Monday to Friday Mornings.csv, found in C:\Program Files\Mackoy\BVE4\Railway\Route\Tyne Valley), with the folder where it loads the train from highlighted in red.
Code: 
;made with RouteBuilder 1.4.2 (2005-06-05) - visit http://routebuilder.bve-routes.com/
with Route
.Comment $chr(13)$chr(10)- Hexham - Sunderland$chr(13)$chr(10)Created by eezypeazy$chr(13)$chr(10)-----------------------$chr(13)$chr(10)Made with Route Builder
.Timetable -
.RunInterval 600
.Change 0
.Gauge 1435
.DeveloperId 0

with Train
.Folder [color=red]cl156[/color]
To use the BVE 4 156, change that to ONE_class156

Should then work.

-Leezer-
 
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