Atomic Systems

Martin makes a very good point above about marketability. The UK is steeped in railway history, railways cover almost every inch of our country and 95% of the population live less than a mile from a railway! I'd bet that the UK probably has the biggest number of railway enthusiasts in the world. Railways are massively popular here you only need to look at the array of different magazines on our newsagents shelves and the fact you can't travel barely 50 miles anywhere in England without passing a living museum preserved railway line! There are probably enough RW users right here in Blighty to keep RSC in business for decades to come! Compare that to somewhere like Australia for example where you could travel for thousands of miles and never see a single track. Australia probably has some unique and interesting lines but is there the same demand and enthusiasm for it there? Would there be enough paying customers for an Australian DLC route to warrant an ultra expensive RSC research program? I seriously doubt it.

In terms of complexity and interest I am waiting for something to match Wales & Borders. WCML has quite a few different paths to run. Woodhead is excellent because of the historic feel, the track complexity and the interesting changes along the route. Totham is clever because of all the branching off you have to execute just to follow it's main thread and again the variety of industries to supply.

There are other routes that I have bought at high cost and used once or twice due to lack of variety within the route or challenge.

In MSTS, Microsoft weren't banging out UK routes

Well Microsoft didn't really develop the sim anyway, that was down to the community. Did Microsoft even produce any extra routes, I don't recall seeing any?!!

Personally I enjoy both the short routes like Falmouth and the long ones like WCML North, depends what mood I am in or how much time I have spare.

I did also wonder and hoped that the Falmouth branch might be the start of a new series of shorter routes.

Networks would be good, would love to see the West Midlands area produced, i.e. Coventry to Wolverhampton and Walsall or maybe the lines based around Snow Hill.

Would love to see some French, Austrian and Swiss routes.

Peter.

The best thing about WCML-N is that you can drive Glasgow-Carlisle, The long intercity journey, or take a DMU/EMU on a service along the many other lines featured, or a freight train along the lines and to the different depots. The idea of a huge network or lines is the best IMO and is more enjoyable. The likes of Settle to Carlisle are good routes, and are good to drive along, but get a bit repetitive. I think RSCs next major project should be similar to WCML-N, choose a region and cover the main route through it but also connecting branch Lines.

I love seeing long routes, especially ones where you have the space to whack open the throttle and give the engine a good run, especially on steam, at high speed, but at the same time I love seeing shorter branch lines, including preserved or shorter networks.

I think its not necessecarially the route itself that makes it interesting, its the scenarios or even the amount or little routes or shunting operations within that route which make it interesting. Anyone can drive a route, start - stop - start - stop at several stations, but it gets good when you drive a train from Didcot to paddington, go and collect a class 47 diesel from old oak common, drag the train back to old oak, get the engine turned, coaled and watered, drag it back to paddington the correct way around, and then take it back to didcot, or even oxford. Its these operational aspects which make it interesting for me, (Personal opinion of course), even cargo operations or picking up passengers adds another element of realism.

Something which I would personally like to see would be more interaction with AI on all routes, a good example of this is on the donner pass, one of the scenarios involves you banking a train up a long hill, but you take control of the whole train, if the train could still be controlled by AI, but you control your loco only, would add another bit of interesting gameplay. (Multiplayer...?)

I Think RSC have definitley upped their game, as the settle - carlisle is one of the best routes produced ,

Replying to Vern's OP - For me the distance of the routes is fine - A route priced for either £15, £18 or £25 really doesn't make much of a difference to me for the following reasons:
1 - If I don't think I will like/be interested in the route I will not buy it (S & C for example) just because it's the latest thing to have - TBH that sounds more like an obsession rather than a hobby.
2 - Sales come round often enough so you can get the routes cheaper if you're prepared to wait - infact just got Woodhead and the class 77 in the recent sale by (getgames I think) and for me it is the best route available for RS/TS2012.

My two main moans about RS routes are incomplete routes that (for example Portsmouth direct) finish in the middle of nowhere - what is the distance from Woking to Waterloo (20 - 25 miles(ish) - and a lot of the track is already in place. I would'nt care about paying another £20 to get the route finished into Waterloo and maybe down to Alton seeing as that has all the trackwork in place aswell - That would then provide a mini-network that some posters have mentioned in this thread beforehand - but it is very annoying having to finish at Woking - it's just incomplete. Another reason I wont be getting S & C - why finish at settle - why not go to Leeds - Part complete routes
Secondly is the era of routes - Of the UK based routes released by RSC through steam (unless I've missed any) only 2 are steam era or otherwise, 5 are modern and WCML sort of sits somewhere between late 80's and modern. Why not some blue era routes???

Finally - sorry if I've duplicated anybodies comments - I have only skimmed through the thread.
Steve

Blue era routes are more or less steam era routes with more decay - might as well do them in the 60s pre-wrecking, and add extra weeds to cover up the removed bits if you wanted it 70s. How much of the Woodhead route needs to go to set it in 1974 instead of 1954?

There is far more to do on an older route.

I think everyone would love there back garden local railway reproduced, i do think that there has been an overkill of Scottish and far North of England routes and with the exception of Woodhead not a lot in the central areas.

I would love to see Crewe to Manchester and Chester onto Wales via the North Coast and also via the Interior where there are fantastic views.

MSTS had a lot of these areas covered the NWE and Peak Routes are fantastic with hundreds of permutations for traffic, just wish i had the time to do one myself.

Bri

steve1023 wrote:Sales come round often enough so you can get the routes cheaper if you're prepared to wait

It's been reassuring reading the positive reviews of S&C, especially regarding performance and quality. Sounds like RSC is hearing the feedback and getting their act together.

That said, short route, long route, doesn't matter. IMHO $40 is way outside a lot of users' comfort zones. It's all about perceived value. Eventually S&C and everything else hits a price point that makes sense, and that's when I unsheath the credit card. 'Til then I already have way more than I need to keep me interested.

Some good discussion following on from my original post.

I do quite enjoy the longer runs and in terms of "network" style routes, Bristol to Cardiff (now actually Swindon to Carmarthen and most locations/branches in between) and Bristol - Birmingham are occupying quite a bit of my time in MSTS. However shorter routes particularly if they are themed on an interesting prototype can be just as interesting. The key, as I said at the beginning is providing some diversity of cost and a range of route packs to cater for all budgets and tastes.

I agree shorter routes tend to be the purview of the freeware modeller but they may well be constrained for resources and not able to do justice in the same way the formidable teams RSC have now put together could do.

I honestly believe the glut of UK route has a lot to do with finance. Maybe if RSC do break into the American market with what they've got on offer so far then scope may be allowed for an American branch of RSC to produce more US content.

In terms of long UK routes, I would like to see more shorter lines to go hand in hand with the named mainlines. With the exception of Woodhead, RSC do seem to be targeting more modern routes, which due to thier nature thanks to all the closures in the 60's, are long city to city link lines.
Would a small branch like Preston to Blackpool really be appealling to the international masses? (RSC will probably announce that on Tuesday!!!!!!)

pjt1974 wrote:RSC do seem to be targeting more modern routes, which due to thier nature thanks to all the closures in the 60's, are long city to city link lines.

Would a small branch like Preston to Blackpool really be appealling to the international masses? (RSC will probably announce that on Tuesday!!!!!!)

Not sure, but that is included as part of NWE which Vern mentioned earlier for MSTS - as part of a bigger network. Through in the lines to Mankychester & Carlisle (via both Penrith & Barrow-in-Furness) along with some Merseyrail stuff and you've got a fair amount of mileage that isn't simply there & back.

On it's own it wouldn't be that appealling to me, but as part of something bigger, then it would.

I know I was amazed at the scale of NWE when I was on MSTS.

I think with RSC it maybe a case of time. To build say Preston to Carlisle and included all the branches to Blackpool, Heysham, Settle Junction, the Cumbrian Coast and Windermere would take so long and, in the end, probably cost more money than it would gain.

One thing I would say though is if a few smaller routes were release like JT's Darlington - Bishop Auckland I would be interested but at the right price.

I think that networks are possible, and they are something that I'd be interested in seeing more of ahead of super long routes that often get mooted (Euston - Manchester for instance). As Phil says, I think the biggest factor mitigating against these type of routes from a commercial perspective is the lead time. The handful of routes that can be described as real networks (WCML North, Wales & Borders, Cresston, The Central Route, probably a few more I've forgotten) have by and large been in development since the days of Rail Simulator or early days of Railworks.

To go back to Vern's original post, I do think it would be good to see more short-ish routes and RS.com have in the past come up with some gems in this type of route - IOW, Falmouth, Doncaster Works - I think the key to this is finding routes that have a fairly high "name" value and offer a range of operational potential - there are only so many single track country branch lines the market will support I would think, no matter how scenic they may be. Heritage railways, though not something that I would personally be particularly interested in buying, would seem to be a popular area that this could develop in though.

I wouldn't buy a preserved branch route either ( definitely not a preserved main line route ) - but it wouldn't be that hard to remove all the growth of preservation & turn one back into a proper working line again. It's a pity there's no easy way of doing that, just having the game switch some tiles in and out instead of having to clone the entire route.