Atomic Systems

Hi

After buying both the excellent London South East and Great Eastern from Making Tracks, payday is fast approaching and i would like to buy another route , can anyone recommend one and their reasons for doing so?

Guess i would like to know your top 3 routes.

Dorset Coast or Thames Mersey CD's are very impressive UK Routes.

Or wait for SCE or Evesham.

Any of the East Coast Express Trilogy (Havent really played Hertford Loop that much)
West Coast Express
Dorset Coast - available from UKTS =D

My favourite, and most used routes are:

1. Westvale - download only, by Gary Soden
2. Steyning route - CD available from UKTS, £4.50
3. Great Eastern - commercial, by Making Tracks
4. Cambrian 2 - commercial route by 3D Train Simulations
5. Dorset Coast - CD available from UKTS, £4.50

I have no preference for commercial or freeware routes per se, but there are some brilliantly conceived freeware ones available from UKTS, on CD or by download. Those on CD are available for the very reaonable cost of 4.50 (including one month's free premium membership) and a great many of the routes available are at least a match for some commercial routes, so I'd certainly not exclude them when you come to a decision as to what to buy next.

Ash

As a steam fan (although good for diesels as well), my current favourite is Cambrian 2. A fairly long route with plenty of variety and excellent scenery.

Or if you simply want to download a route from here, I suggest what used to be known as the Bala Hub but you will find it here under GWR North Wales. The scenery is very good and the terrain is challenging if you are trying to take a heavy load up from Bala to Festiniog.

If you want a long distance thrash there's the Paddington Penzance route also downloadable from here although there isn't much scenery to this route.

Chris

learnerdriver wrote: Or if you simply want to download a route from here, I suggest what used to be known as the Bala Hub but you will find it here under GWR North Wales. The scenery is very good and the terrain is challenging if you are trying to take a heavy load up from Bala to Festiniog.

Just looking at routes for download, and no Bala Hub and no GWR North Wales - there is GWR South Wales and GWR Toddington.

I would recommend Dorset Coast and ECE myself.

I would recommend for modern operations DC3 and Great Eastern , but for preserved steam you cant go far wrong with the Severn Valley Railway Add On

If you like Great Eastern and London South East and are looking for something modern with good operational potential it has to be Dorset Coast next.
Regards,
Andy.

Another good one to down load is Skipton to Carlisle,it's got every thing included,and some nice pre grouping stock as well in the stock pack.

As the route is still in existance I tend to run diesels on it, mainly 70's to early 90's when most of the classic diesels were around,and not buses on rails ie not modern dmu's.

Michael Hendle

Well if you have LSE and GE which I both have being from London, you should get the Irish Enterprise Combined Dublin Belfast route from MT too. This is the most realistic route I have seen in MSTS regarding scenery especially. LSE and GE use lots of generic buildings, this does'nt. I do know the line as I travel on it a few times each year. Every city and town has the correct buildings which I find totally amazing, and all photo-real including the stations. You can look out the passenger view and know exactly where you are on the line. Also it has distant mountains which enhances the experience no end. Xtracks is a bit of a let down, but not too much as the track textures are very good. Also unlike LSE and GE it's present day with all the latest Irish stock and liveries. I'll get back to writing more activities for it soon. Thoroughly recommended.

sean53 wrote:Well if you have LSE and GE which I both have being from London, you should get the Irish Enterprise Combined Dublin Belfast route from MT too. This is the most realistic route I have seen in MSTS regarding scenery especially. LSE and GE use lots of generic buildings, this does'nt. I do know the line as I travel on it a few times each year. Every city and town has the correct buildings which I find totally amazing, and all photo-real including the stations. You can look out the passenger view and know exactly where you are on the line. Also it has distant mountains which enhances the experience no end. Xtracks is a bit of a let down, but not too much as the track textures are very good. Also unlike LSE and GE it's present day with all the latest Irish stock and liveries. I'll get back to writing more activities for it soon. Thoroughly recommended.

You know this really is something i need to get - it does look stunning.

Dorset coast, Thames Mersey and North West England

Clear Winner: Great Eastern (Making Tracks)
Runner Up: ProTrain 7 - Spessartrampe (Protrain)
Best Also-Ran: Highland Mainline (UKTS download)

MT's Irish Enterprise 1+2 together also comes close (you need both together really for it to be worth it) and Just Trains' West Somerset Railway is the best commercial steam route IMO. Also have a look at the French downloadable route LGE - Lignes Grandes Est, covering the main lines from Paris right into the Eastern regions of France. Not available on UKTS tho, and as usual is extremely complex to install.

Seb

There us no such thing as the best 3 routes. Some have exceptional scenery, some have exceptional track, some have exceptional scope for interesting activites, and so on. It comes down to your personal preferences; my choice would be different from all those so far put forward

I totally agree, Tony. Its all down to personal experience and preference.

For example, I have no idea what most of the commercial routes are like. As my interest is building, then I'm unfortunately not able to justify the outlay, and have no idea what I'm missing. Consequently, my "best 3" routes will be totally different to anybody else's.

Apart from that, threads like this can be really unfair towards those route builders who have produced freeware routes that don't fall into the category that a number of MSTS "players" like driving. For example, I believe that the GWR Toddington route is one of the best routes as far as realistic "across the fields" scenery is concerned. But it is a short route, its not a mainline route....so will have limited appeal to many who will read and take part in this "poll"; they want to drive modern mainline!

Another route I believe falls in to the same category ast Toddington is the Canadian route London & Port Stanley.....these are two routes that I like...and have the quality I aspire to in my own work. And I might mention that the one route I have produced has not been mentioned in this thread. I wonder why.....