London Brighton Express, first impressions / queries

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 8:33 am

A southern Schools with full rake of Mk1's would be just about right

I'm working on a Southern Belle activity using just that!

jeastmond · Post by **jeastmond** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 5:30 pm

fgrsimon wrote:Well I must confess to being quite disappointed with London-Brighton. The rolling stock and stations are first class but beyond the stations, scenery is virtually non-existent. There's just a 25 yard strip, generally with just a few trees, either side of the tracks and beyond that is a featureless flat green void.

I'm not disappointed, I expected, and got, a 'train driver's' package. I want to get the trains from A to B, building up my driving skills, not look at a lot of scenery.

fgrsimon wrote:One small fault easily fixed I hope, is that 'Salford' stations should be named 'Salfords'

Didn't spot that one. I did spot the missing 'b' in Balcombe. It's there in the Tunnel name (Balcombe Tunnel) but not in the station idents (Balcome 1 and 2).

mikey2001 · Post by **mikey2001** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 5:37 pm

There is also one small error I spotted on one of the platforms. It had a different platform name to the actual platform sign. I cant remember which station it was now, but I was heading towards London.

Post by **martinhodgson** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 5:54 pm

mikey2001 wrote:but I was heading towards London.

so that could be any of the station en route from Brighton then

basildd · Post by **basildd** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 6:02 pm

It was East Croydon which had textured nameboards for Thor(n)ton Heath from the beta version on one platform...

These have now been corrected as the other points raised on here and in the EuropeanBahn forum and a patch is being released to Germany wednesday for updating the new pressing (as the only ones left are whats on the shelves in shops) and the patch will be sent out to everyone who has registered their copy using the code inside the box.

47522 · Post by **47522** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 11:34 am

Why cant you open the route in RE?

Please tell me its not my PC!

Thanks

Matthew

buffy500 · Post by **buffy500** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 11:43 am

47522 wrote:Why cant you open the route in RE?

Please tell me its not my PC!

Thanks

Matthew

Its not your PC

qzdcg8 · Post by **qzdcg8** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 11:50 am

Probably needs a .ref file

basildd · Post by **basildd** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 2:13 pm

47522 wrote:Why cant you open the route in RE?

Please tell me its not my PC!

Thanks

Matthew

....and if the next question is what I think it is, the answer is no!!

Fodda · Post by **Fodda** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 2:16 pm

Oh no Dale... and I was going to offer you Â£10,000 for a ref file...

Well, I suppose the donkey sanctuary will be pleased then...

X2000 · Post by **X2000** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 2:24 pm

I've been working on creating an activity for this route, and it must rank right up there with my 1000 GNER Kings Cross-Edinburgh service as the activity which I've had to test......make tweeks to the traffic......test.....make tweaks to the traffic......test........dozens of times now! Finally got it sussed last night and it works a treat. Then I realised I missed a couple of real timetabled A1 traffic pieces out, so I put those in, tested it, and I then get a permanent red signal near the end of the activity!! Aaaarrrgghh!! I'll just have to take those extra A1 traffic pieces out, test it again, it should then work fine, and then I'll upload it. Features 44 pieces of A1 traffic mind, so you may possibly have to reduce your graphics settings to play it to get better frame rates.

In the meantime I think I'll create an activity set during a quiter time of the day, i.e. 2am! So that there won't be no need to feature so much traffic!

...........As regards the comment about the lack of scenery beyond the immediate driver's eye view, I too was surprised at this. However I wasn't dissapointed really. If it did feature fully detailed scenery ala like the Cambrian Coast, for those of us with low end/mid range PC's the frame rates would have come right down. Plus with this route you'll see much more A1 trains during your journey which will also bring the frame rates down even further if there was fully detailed landscaped scenery. So I'm sure that not many of us will be dissapointed by this, after all, you're there to drive the train, not take beautiful photographs of the surrounding scenery! I may also take this approach when I eventually get to adding the scenery on my own route.

As I said though, FANTASTIC route! This is what the default UK route should have been like with the main MSTS program rather than the Settle-Carlisle railway!

Oh ye, I hope there will be a good few more Southern routes to come for MSTS!

AndyUK · Post by **AndyUK** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 9:38 pm

Overall I'm quite pleased and it's nice to see the developers listening here and taking some action over the bugs reported. I like the improved signalling and it's nice to have the brake response toned down so that the response is, as far as I can tell, much more realistic. I've got a couple of problems so far:

1. A repeatable lock-up a few miles south of Haywards Heath on the down line - video freezes but sound continues. I see something similar has already been reported. Sometimes the Microsoft "phone-home" dialog box pops up and the situation is recoverable other times I have to re-boot.

2. In explore route when trying to start from Three Bridges Up Siding the activity fails to initialise.

A couple of suggestions for a future patch, I think the others have already been covered elsewhere:

1. A proper EMU "ding-ding" rather that the "O.K. to proceed"

2. Better cab views - I think this is my biggest disappointment. The lack of detail, innaccurate controls in the 319 and overall "fuzziness" in 1024 x 768 could do with some attention to meet the standards being set by some other developers. The side views in the 319 are odd as well.

On the subject of the Premium membership, is the system clever enough to recognise I've already got Premium membership (about 2 weeks left) and add the free month on to the end or will I end up with 2 concurrent memberships if I register now?

asalmon · Post by **asalmon** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 9:48 pm

AndyUK wrote:Overall I'm quite pleased and it's nice to see the developers listening here and taking some action over the bugs reported.

Thanks. As the activity author I am able to answer your questions.

AndyUK also wrote: 1. A repeatable lock-up a few miles south of Haywards Heath on the down line - video freezes but sound continues. I see something similar has already been reported. Sometimes the Microsoft "phone-home" dialog box pops up and the situation is recoverable other times I have to re-boot.

This only happens when driving with full headlights, and is fixed in the patch released tonight in the technical support area of the europeanbahn website http://www.europeanbahn.co.uk You need to register, and log in with your username/password (which will be the same as UKTS)

AndyUK also wrote:
2. In explore route when trying to start from Three Bridges Up Siding the activity fails to initialise.

That start point is for the MPV activity, it starts near the end of the track - so any other train is too long to fit there. Sorry about that.

finally AndyUK wrote:
On the subject of the Premium membership, is the system clever enough to recognise I've already got Premium membership (about 2 weeks left) and add the free month on to the end or will I end up with 2 concurrent memberships if I register now?

Yep, it will add it to your current subscription. Do it now and you can grab the patch!

-Alan

seaeagle · Post by **seaeagle** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 9:50 pm

1. A repeatable lock-up a few miles south of Haywards Heath on the down line - video freezes but sound continues. I see something similar has already been reported. Sometimes the Microsoft "phone-home" dialog box pops up and the situation is recoverable other times I have to re-boot

On the subject of the Premium membership, is the system clever enough to recognise I've already got Premium membership (about 2 weeks left) and add the free month on to the end or will I end up with 2 concurrent memberships if I register now?

1. Try turning off your headlights after leaving Haywards Heath, It worked for me.

2. System added a month to my premium membership no problem.

bhyde · Post by **bhyde** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 10:16 pm

I can`t seem to find the patch on the europeanbahn website, is it there yet?