MSTS and Rail Simulator
Moderator: Moderators
-
WSR2005
- Very Active Forum Member
- Posts: 1359
- Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2005 6:22 pm
- Location: South Devon
- Contact:
MSTS and Rail Simulator
I was wondering who is thinking of converting to Rail Simulator when it comes out, or whether you are going to maybe stick with MSTS or even do both?
... after all there are 24 hours in a day... 
-
CaptainBazza
- Has a sign reading.. Its NOT the end of the world!
- Posts: 18852
- Joined: Tue May 13, 2003 10:21 am
- Location: Land of the Long White Cloud.
I think i will probably continue with MSTS, at least until i see which sim is becoming dominant. Its bound to be a while before any meaningful add ons become available for the new sims, and its obviously going to take me a while to master the new interfaces. I doubt i will buy both, so im adopting a policy of wait and see 
So I might start a website devoted to dinosaur-style railsimming!! 
-
jbilton
- Very Active Forum Member
- Posts: 19267
- Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2003 12:08 pm
- Location: At home ..waiting to go to Work.
- Contact:
Re: MSTS and Rail Simulator
HiWSR2005 wrote:I was wondering who is thinking of converting to Rail Simulator when it comes out, or whether you are going to maybe stick with MSTS or even do both?
If by Rail Simulator.......you mean KRS.........then I think that is some time away.......and I think it will be a standalone for sometime.
The one to watch is TMTS, as this is looking very promising....and rather than needing a better PC to run on....should offer simmers better running of converted, existing available routes.
ie Thames Mersey....may run like a slug under MSTS....hopefully under TMTS It'll run better.....and may even look better....on the same PC.
Having said all that, if KRS does a decent job of Newcastle and York........I'll buy that as well.
Cheers
Jon
------------------------Supporting whats good in the British community------------------------
Hopefully some of the best modellers will be inspired to revisit their MSTS models to revamp them with features that MSTS could not support? No sense in re-inventing the wheel after all.
As I stated just now on both TMTS and KRS forums I intend, unless something goes really pearshaped with the development, or the necessary spec of the machine to run them on, to buy them both. You can only drive one route at a time and I'm sure each will have some area where it has an edge over the other so as already posted...variety is the spice etc. I certainly won't scrap MSTS. It'll be years before there is such a wide range of routes and stock for the new sims.
The BIG issue is how the virtual world will be constructed. What graphic engine will run it?
Even if you can import whole routes into TMTS any change in the graphic set up will not help routes constructed in the confines of MSTS surely ?
To be blunt, all we've seen so far are some nice models. Nowt wrong with that and that's in no way to belittle the skills or efforts of the builders but I'm sure most route builders might agrue that there's a hell of a lot more to building the virtual world and having it all smoothly appear.
Geoff
As I stated just now on both TMTS and KRS forums I intend, unless something goes really pearshaped with the development, or the necessary spec of the machine to run them on, to buy them both. You can only drive one route at a time and I'm sure each will have some area where it has an edge over the other so as already posted...variety is the spice etc. I certainly won't scrap MSTS. It'll be years before there is such a wide range of routes and stock for the new sims.
The BIG issue is how the virtual world will be constructed. What graphic engine will run it?
Even if you can import whole routes into TMTS any change in the graphic set up will not help routes constructed in the confines of MSTS surely ?
To be blunt, all we've seen so far are some nice models. Nowt wrong with that and that's in no way to belittle the skills or efforts of the builders but I'm sure most route builders might agrue that there's a hell of a lot more to building the virtual world and having it all smoothly appear.
Geoff
-
AndiS
- Very Active Forum Member
- Posts: 6207
- Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:43 pm
- Location: Jester's cell in ivory tower
- Contact:
My guess is that both TMTS and KRS will be equally attractive, and have similar market shares. In such a situation, people providing modelling tools would act irrational to support only one format. Even if this happens, somebody else could possibly provide a converter.
Regarding the models from MSTS both development teams know that they must do all they can to support the importing process. However, some post processing is unavoidable in any case, as the new sims simply offer more and that cannot be covered in the old models.
In the long run, one of the new sims might get ahead, if they have better support, less bugs, better documentation, faster update cycles, or draw the majority of add-on suppliers to their side. The latter is not too easy because add-on suppliers will have to create their models for both sims to sell them to more people – doing as much as possible on an independent platform (tool) and adding the sim-specific things at the end. That way, the issue of the add-on for the second sim should be as little as one third of the effort of making the first one. (My innocent guess only).
As it becomes clearer what the new sims will support, suppliers of independent tools will be motivated to integrate support for that into their tools plus conversion in all possible directions. This will again hinder one sim becoming much more attractive than the other. E.g., if one sim has a poor route editor but is otherwise as good as the other, I might do most of the work in the other sim's editor and then convert (using next generation Route Riter?
), or I do it in an independent product if it exists and export then to the sim.
Should one sim's graphic engine in fact be a bit weaker than the other one's (I doubt that), then this need not translate to sales figures immediately, unless all the world coordinate to endlessly pick on a certain unfavourable detail. Most likely the facilities for model creation and import will not make much difference, thus the number of add-ons and free models will be equal, blurring the difference for the mass of end-users.
What we sure will have at one point, is a football-style discussion "Why A is great and B is .." This is as unavoidable as the religious wars between followers of different operating systems. However, I am sure that Matt already prepared a plan how to condone all combatants into a closed forum where they can post till they become normal again.
Regarding the models from MSTS both development teams know that they must do all they can to support the importing process. However, some post processing is unavoidable in any case, as the new sims simply offer more and that cannot be covered in the old models.
In the long run, one of the new sims might get ahead, if they have better support, less bugs, better documentation, faster update cycles, or draw the majority of add-on suppliers to their side. The latter is not too easy because add-on suppliers will have to create their models for both sims to sell them to more people – doing as much as possible on an independent platform (tool) and adding the sim-specific things at the end. That way, the issue of the add-on for the second sim should be as little as one third of the effort of making the first one. (My innocent guess only).
As it becomes clearer what the new sims will support, suppliers of independent tools will be motivated to integrate support for that into their tools plus conversion in all possible directions. This will again hinder one sim becoming much more attractive than the other. E.g., if one sim has a poor route editor but is otherwise as good as the other, I might do most of the work in the other sim's editor and then convert (using next generation Route Riter?
), or I do it in an independent product if it exists and export then to the sim.Should one sim's graphic engine in fact be a bit weaker than the other one's (I doubt that), then this need not translate to sales figures immediately, unless all the world coordinate to endlessly pick on a certain unfavourable detail. Most likely the facilities for model creation and import will not make much difference, thus the number of add-ons and free models will be equal, blurring the difference for the mass of end-users.
What we sure will have at one point, is a football-style discussion "Why A is great and B is .." This is as unavoidable as the religious wars between followers of different operating systems. However, I am sure that Matt already prepared a plan how to condone all combatants into a closed forum where they can post till they become normal again.
I am probably going to buy both KRS and TMTS. Originally I had TMTS marked out, but then when I heard about KRS and the fact that they were doing the Newcastle-York route I became very interested in that as well. I will continue to use MSTS for as long as new content continues to be created and until the new sims can keep me off MSTS.
It is an unusual situation for the train sim world, because up until now we have had three clear camps - MSTS, BVE and Trainz supporters (I belong to the first two if you're wondering). The two new sims will probably target the current MSTS user group (along with new users), so it will be fascinating to see what happens here after MSTS dominating the market for so long.
It is an unusual situation for the train sim world, because up until now we have had three clear camps - MSTS, BVE and Trainz supporters (I belong to the first two if you're wondering). The two new sims will probably target the current MSTS user group (along with new users), so it will be fascinating to see what happens here after MSTS dominating the market for so long.
Angus
Creating the graphics objects for locos and their animation forinstance with TSM, GMAX, 3D-CANVAS, etc, is one part of the process, but then adding physics to them may be different in various Train Sims and the way they were coded to use these objects ?AndiS wrote:Most likely the facilities for model creation and import will not make much difference, thus the number of add-ons and free models will be equal, blurring the difference for the mass of end-users.
How do you see that ?
O t t o
-
AndiS
- Very Active Forum Member
- Posts: 6207
- Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:43 pm
- Location: Jester's cell in ivory tower
- Contact:
Good point, here certainly you will have to enter the data twice, because the logical models for the engine's physics will certainly have small differences between the sims. However, I hope that both sims will make a serious step towards reality and then the effort which goes into "cheating for optimization" will shrink. There are three things:OTTODAD wrote:Creating the graphics objects for locos and their animation forinstance with TSM, GMAX, 3D-CANVAS, etc, is one part of the process, but then adding physics to them may be different in various Train Sims and the way they were coded to use these objects ?
1) obtaining detailed information about the prototype (e.g., from books),
2) entering those values which are considered by a particular simulation into the user interface of that simulation.
3) Perform voodoo to work around bugs in that simulation. Consider for example the wheel size of AI engines or the person months wasted on coupler data tweaking - some of the suggestions reminding me to wearing a clove of garlic against vampires.
The base line is: If the new sims require less voodoo, the saved effort will pay the double data input. This includes minimal adaptations for what is covered by different sims - I bet that the usual 80:20 rule will apply here again, i.e., the differences will not be where it really hurts not to get things in the best way possible.
I am even a bit worried that the "using the least common denominator as the standard"-syndrome will strike here: Suppose one sim supports different coal types and the other does not. Lazy add-on producers might then provide their routes with uniform coal, eliminating the feature of the more advanced sim. (If you think it is a crazy example, think of the speed at which water pours out of the feeding crane or the influence of mist on the slippiness of rails.)
As for switches, I am a bit pessimistic. I guess you will have to create them in each sim separately. However, both sims will let you define one switch based on another one. A switch is like an object in a drawing program – a group of rails and sleepers. Ungroup them, change the branching rail to another radius, adapt (exchange!) the frog shape as required, group again and save under a new name. That is what I mean by "procedural track design".
And of course you will import the same textures into both sims.