Atomic Systems

I have been playing this add on for a while now and I am finding it really boring. I have done the first 50 activities and all the activities are pretty much all the same. I drove a class 92 yesterday on a 2 hour freight journey and I didnt have to stop at all on the journey for trains to pass. theres no fun to the activities at all, its such a great route but the activities let it down big time.

Whats all your opinions on this route?

Dean

The route is stunning with a tremendous amount of scope for activity writers. Unfortunately the route author cannot be held responsible for the quality and standard of the activities. All he did was assemble them all onto the CD / DVD and make sure they all worked on the latest version.

I havent run many activities, mostly i only run my own, but i would agree that some are deadly boring. But everyone has to start somewhere and im sure people running some of my early efforts would say the same too.

In my experience, those which try to run to an accurate timetable are the worst, since most services do run on green if they are within their traffic slots and there are never enough services for me in the real timetables. If I use a real timetable for the player service I always make the AI traffic fictional so I can introduce delays and other interactions, but this all takes time - lots of it - and many new activity writers havent developed the experience yet. Fortunately many have and produce excellent stuff.

Make a note of the activities you dont like and dont run them again, or delete them. Hopefully out of the 100 or so on the cd/dvd you will find some which you like. Have you tried any of mine But i should keep clear of number 77 (i think) London Theatre Excursion which was seriously flawed by the time it had been adapted for V4. I have been trying to produce a revised version but its already taken over 3 months and I have other pressing commitments - so its now deferred to later. Hopefully though you will find some of the others i did more challenging.

If you dont like the activities, why dont you make one yourself.
It doesn't take two hours to make, it can take a few weeks to get it right.
Those 50 activities you have tried are months and months of work from the authors.
Some activities may seem dull to you, but remember this is an extensive route and to get a lot of AI all along a two hour activity will take a very long time to make and lots of testing.

I find with T/M that it is an excellent route that you can just pop to and play, no grief, rarely crashes my MSTS and despite the 50 you may have aleady played, still has some really good acts, particularly the ones near the end. The route on its own is great, forgetting the acts so as someone has already suggested, write your own ones and share them with us all.

Regards
Brian

Hi Dean
What are the first fifty activities ?......... I thought they were split into different era's.
I only do BR days ones, which I think are great ( well I wrote three or four of them).
I haven't had the DVD version though, so it might be different.
Someone else posted they change the player loco to one they do like, which alters the activity considerably.
However if its the actual driving a train that you find boring, your in the wrong sim mate.
Cheers
Jon

Make your own, cannibalise the activities provided as well, they can often be used to good effect in your own. The advantages are you can have any period you like.

I agree with Lad491 about not using real life timetables for AI traffic. What i'll do is check the real life timetable and then roughly base my AI traffic round that, i'll add in 'extras'.

A lot depends on the legnth of the activities. Sometimes for a short journey, 30 mns or so then a nice simple trip with no hold up is fun. Usually if I make an activity on the Scottish Central i'll leave it simple because the journey time is short. For Thames Mersey though you can creat long journeys and then you want more interest with AI interaction.

Remember also that a real life driver won't be taking a train from Glasgow to London for instance, the drivers change.

Also the first 50 or 60 activities were written a long time ago, and included on the version 3 CD in 2004.

They have in some cases been modified with updated stock, but essentially the same activities as before. The activity writers skills have moved on a lot since then, so hopefully you will find the later activities more interesting.

Dave

I try to base mine on real services and timetables, but throw in problems to make things more challenging. This is how delays happen in real life - if your on time as an xpress and the stopping train ahead of you has been delayed earlier that will hold you up too, even if youve done nothing wrong and been running to booked time!

I wrote a few modern day ones for the DVD and most will have you delayed for some reason or other, although you may make up time by the end.

What activities did you write jamie? Im sorry if i offended anyone. The activities which I have played so far are not challenging at all. They are all predictable thats what im saying.

Dean,
if you can buy the latest version on dvd. It offers now upto 140 different activities.

Kind Regards

Andy