Atomic Systems

I have been using rail sims for around 9 years and flight sims for around 15years. I purchased the original RS last year as it was an improvement over MSTS, Trainz, etc. From a physics point of view though, none of these commercial sims can compete with BVE or as it is now openBVE. If you’re looking for true realism, then go with openBVE and its add on routes and trains.

My verdict so far on RW:

Don’t like the install procedure.
Graphics very much like RS and not like a new sim (as this has been launched).
Sounds have not been upgraded and are still poor (freeware openBVE much better).
No sound for second loco’s, such as rear engine on HST set, doesn’t have engine acceleration sounds, just simply hum’s along.
Doesn’t always show correct lighting, i.e. tail lights when travelling forward.
Takes longer to load than RS due to using Steam.
Still no joystick control – still a major flaw in a modern game! Why produce a sim that I can only control from a keyboard!!


For the full price, it’s too expensive. For the discount price, it’s a disappointment. I wouldn’t bother upgrading from RS yet as RW is simply RS with a new name. Save your money until it is truly upgraded into a new sim. Luckily I only wasted £20 on this!



Mataus

Still no joystick control – still a major flaw in a modern game! Why produce a sim that I can only control from a keyboard!!

Out of interest on this one, how would you envisage using the sim from a Joystick?

Just interested because I know exactly how to make this happen, i'll need to write a driver but that's not difficult.

Matt.

mataus wrote:Still no joystick control – still a major flaw in a modern game! Why produce a sim that I can only control from a keyboard!!

If you prefer alternative peripheral input you could use the mouse to control the various elements by hand, or you could take advantage of the Raildriver hardware which RailWorks supports.

I have a CH throttle quadrant which I use for flightsim. I also use it on openbve and have the selector, power and brake assigned to individual axis. I also have a toe brake on my rudder pedals assigned to reset the DSD/DVE in openbve aswel.

Just seems very (VERY!) out of date not to have the option for joystick inputs. If it can be done in freeware bve, then why not in a commercial sim, which is supposed to be a replacement and update for RS.

If you can let me know a way of using a joystick, I would be most grateful. It appears that the developers choose to ignore the requests for joystick control going back to RS!

Mataus

I have the API docs for the RailDriver interface, so writing a simple joystick mapper to the internal raildriver API ought to be a doddle, i'll take a look.

Matt.

I agree with Mataus on joystick issue and it will be a big plus for RW if they provide joystick support.

I'll add it to my list.. as I say, it should be pretty easy to do.

Matt.

NeutronIC wrote:I'll add it to my list.. as I say, it should be pretty easy to do.

Matt.

That would be a major improvement Matt, and would add a big tick to the plus column of my considerations on whever to go for the RailWorks DVD. Unfortunately rs.com have been managing to put quite a few crosses in the minus column recently.

Dave B

mataus wrote:I have been using rail sims for around 9 years and flight sims for around 15years. I purchased the original RS last year as it was an improvement over MSTS, Trainz, etc. From a physics point of view though, none of these commercial sims can compete with BVE or as it is now openBVE. If you’re looking for true realism, then go with openBVE and its add on routes and trains.

My verdict so far on RW:

Don’t like the install procedure.
Graphics very much like RS and not like a new sim (as this has been launched).
Sounds have not been upgraded and are still poor (freeware openBVE much better).
No sound for second loco’s, such as rear engine on HST set, doesn’t have engine acceleration sounds, just simply hum’s along.
Doesn’t always show correct lighting, i.e. tail lights when travelling forward.
Takes longer to load than RS due to using Steam.
Still no joystick control – still a major flaw in a modern game! Why produce a sim that I can only control from a keyboard!!


For the full price, it’s too expensive. For the discount price, it’s a disappointment. I wouldn’t bother upgrading from RS yet as RW is simply RS with a new name. Save your money until it is truly upgraded into a new sim. Luckily I only wasted £20 on this!



Mataus

1. Personal opinion, I don't mind Steam.
2. Graphics are a bit better, with increased draw distance and the signal lighting much improved.
3. Default sounds in default loco's are generally poor, the HST sounds the weakest with the horn sounding comical. Thank you for AP!
4.Agree with that too.
5. Its bug, hope to see it fixed. Not a huge deal
6. First run with Steam after not using it for awhile or running after restart seems to take a bit longer, which I assume maybe down to copy protection/update checking. Not really much in it as far as I can see.
7. Joystick control would be nice! I could use my throttle control, and view hat to look, not quite sure about the stick itself.

I would have thought two or three times about buying it at full price, but at the end of the day I see it as an investment too. If too many people hold off waiting for improvements then we're not likely to see any. Also I have spent more for less in Flightsim's over the past few years and gotten my monies worth out of them, and most have been popular add-ons such as airports, aircraft etc.

But now for my ...I think you're missing the really big part of what is missing, the AI is in need of the most work, the real guts of it. Ever imagined seeing AI shunting operations going on (coupling, moving stock to a siding for instace, uncoupling etc etc)? Want to be treated like real traffic? One scenario I've been playing with involves a broken down passenger train outside of Thirsk, but even with no other trains nearby it simply stops me instead of diverting me around the obstruction. Also, wasn't able to have the dispatcher change some points for me (I was setup as special the broken down train as normal passenger, but with no destination). Maybe I did something wrong, but I still think the AI should have taken care of that.

So still room for improvement and I hope RSC have the ability and cash to fix the main issues.

Matt
PS Forgott to add, I think we may still have too many errors, Railproc errors and bugs of that nature...

I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m looking at it in two ways.

Firstly is this an upgrade or a new product? It is not a new product, it is RS upgraded, repackaged and re-named, nothing more and nothing less.

Secondly, are the basics there? Well, no. This is a rail simulator and should be built from the rails up, so where are the elevated curves? BVE has them. Where are the decent train physics? BVE has them. Where are the decent sounds? BVE has them. If you can get is for free, why not when you pay for it?

Until the basics can be dealt with, then this will never be the sim it has been published to be. Microsoft continually failed to get the basics right with FS. FS9 is probably the best they have created. FSX is good, but will not out shadow FS9 for another 2-3years. Why, well they got it wrong, again, and FS9 will only fall behind as developers focus on FSX in the future (even now they still have to produce for FS9 due to demand).

RW is only a very very small improvement over RS. To still fail on offering various control inputs and customization is a lack of reading your audience. Was the £20 discounted price I paid too much, simply YES!

Do they have they cash to fix these issues, who knows, but really they should never have sold it as RS rebranded as RW.

Mataus

If anyone from RW comes here, maybe they can tell me why i paid £20 for a new sim, but got nothing more than the RS i paid for last year!!!!

Mataus

mataus wrote:I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m looking at it in two ways.

Firstly is this an upgrade or a new product? It is not a new product, it is RS upgraded, repackaged and re-named, nothing more and nothing less.

Secondly, are the basics there? Well, no. This is a rail simulator and should be built from the rails up, so where are the elevated curves? BVE has them. Where are the decent train physics? BVE has them. Where are the decent sounds? BVE has them. If you can get is for free, why not when you pay for it?

Until the basics can be dealt with, then this will never be the sim it has been published to be. Microsoft continually failed to get the basics right with FS. FS9 is probably the best they have created. FSX is good, but will not out shadow FS9 for another 2-3years. Why, well they got it wrong, again, and FS9 will only fall behind as developers focus on FSX in the future (even now they still have to produce for FS9 due to demand).

RW is only a very very small improvement over RS. To still fail on offering various control inputs and customization is a lack of reading your audience. Was the £20 discounted price I paid too much, simply YES!

Do they have they cash to fix these issues, who knows, but really they should never have sold it as RS rebranded as RW.

Mataus

RW is simply at this time RS Gold, well *almost* as we don't have IOW or the packages from RS yet. Anyway, going back to the FSX analogy, it was the first in the series to use a round earth as the previous versions used a flat earth.The free flightsim Flightgear has been using a spherical model http://www.flightgear.org/Docs/Scenery/ ... ystem.html for quite sometime. Although I don't think Railsim should follow Microsoft's examples (I still remember the Flightsim for Windows 95 fiasco lol).

How much would have paid for the class 37 as an add-on though?

The final worth of anything is really up to each individual person though, but the amount of bugs has been a little too much in my opinion. However they did patch it once already in less than a week, so guess time will tell eventually.

Matt

Well I think the time has come to move on now. Having been an avid MSTS and RS user, I have realised that I am totally done with the whole train sim scene.

I have just realised that I have not use my premium account for ages. this is mainly due to the fact that most downloads now contain numerous pay ware items for which I have no wish to download or buy. I know that is my fault but there you are. I have bought several RS packs but that is all.

Other routes require pages of assets which need to be down loaded to be able to run and that’s before I have decided whether I like the route or not. I think the whole non centralised asset thing will become a major problem to RW.

Living in the outback in Portugal, the whole internet access is a bit flakey at times, so large downloads are a bit of a lottery. Because of this, it has come to the point that buying and running RW, even using limited Steam access, is out of the question.

With RS not being supported, I know my RS Software will now only have a limited shelf life.

I would like to say that there has been a lot of effort put in by lots of people on here, which has kept the whole train Sim scene so strong.

Good luck and “right away driver”.

I'm totally with you on this one my son!! I think the whole Steam thing is a retrograde step!! The ONE thing guaranteed to wreck a PC is to put it online!! I have a lowish spec PC for internet use which falls over on average 3 times a year due to . from the net but my main top spec machine is for gaming ONLY and for 14 months has performed perfectly!! I want it to stay that way without backing up every 5 minutes or doing restores or re-formatting,which with gigabytes of gaming software to re-load is a total pain!!!!! Why should I be forced into having an internet connection just to use a piece of software???? I had a similar nonsense with Football Manager 2009,which at least had a phone register option!! That however was hopeless as the number was constantly unobtainable!! I reluctantly went online to register but at least it was a one-off not like the constant requirement demanded from Railworks and THEN they've got the nerve to issue a disclaimer should your PC suffer whilst being online!! Priceless!! More importantly Railworks appears to be more of a slight evolution rather than a revolution so the temptation to buy is even less great!! They've lost one more customer!!! What do you guys think???

bartdude wrote:The ONE thing guaranteed to wreck a PC is to put it online!!