Atomic Systems

I must admit the constant change in this sim is starting to wear me down now and I've about had enough. I still can't believe that TS2014 went live with nobody noticing that it had completely ruined the tunnel darkening effects. That was a major screw up in my eyes, do they not do any testing? How could that have not been noticed?

I feel nervous everytime there is an update now because you just don't know what's going to get broken. Needs Some stability for a while now and quit with the constant changes. Just want to enjoy what I've got and keep adding interesting dlc. Simple really.

For what it's worth, after the latest update offline now works as expected for me, and it appears that nothing of mine got broken,,can't ask for much more than that I guess.

jimmyshand wrote:I must admit the constant change in this sim is starting to wear me down now and I've about had enough.I still can't believe that TS2014 went live with nobody noticing that it had completely ruined the tunnel darkening effects. That was a major screw up in my eyes, do they not do any testing? How could that have not been noticed?

I feel nervous everytime there is an update now because you just don't know what's going to get broken. Needs Some stability for a while now and quit with the constant changes. Just want to enjoy what I've got and keep adding interesting dlc. Simple really.

How is that any different to the release of DLC with problems. ?
Even the latest release Surfliner has brake problems on the Loco and a major flaw on the coaches. Why would they host a pic the coach on their FB page for all the world to see I can't recall a company that would appear to be so keen to shoot themselves in the foot so often .. Do they not care about their public presence or brand ?

At least the tunnels look a bit better and not as if you are driving into a concrete wall now with this update.

jimmyshand wrote:How could that have not been noticed?

Might have worked in the pre test and they uploaded the wrong build. Or something else. Or they screwed up. All possibilities of varying weight.

andynwt wrote:

jimmyshand wrote:How could that have not been noticed?

Might have worked in the pre test and they uploaded the wrong build. Or something else. Or they screwed up. All possibilities of varying weight.

Or, not unknown in the world of software development, they noticed but released it with this problem as a "known error" since it was not considered blocking for release. And planned to fix this in a future update. Sometimes releasing with "known errors" is better than letting a release slip to fix the errors, and risking that your fix might break something else -- and not having time to completely test everything after you applied the fix.

Or they rushed in a last-minute fix for some other problem that was very obvious, and b/c it was a last-minute fix and there was no time for a complete regression test after the fix, they failed to notice the problem despite it being really obvious.

Those things happen all the time in software development, no matter the best intentions of the development teams.

tnleeuw01 wrote:

andynwt wrote:

jimmyshand wrote:How could that have not been noticed?

Might have worked in the pre test and they uploaded the wrong build. Or something else. Or they screwed up. All possibilities of varying weight.

Or, not unknown in the world of software development, they noticed but released it with this problem as a "known error" since it was not considered blocking for release. And planned to fix this in a future update. Sometimes releasing with "known errors" is better than letting a release slip to fix the errors, and risking that your fix might break something else -- and not having time to completely test everything after you applied the fix.
Or they rushed in a last-minute fix for some other problem that was very obvious, and b/c it was a last-minute fix and there was no time for a complete regression test after the fix, they failed to notice the problem despite it being really obvious.

Those things happen all the time in software development, no matter the best intentions of the development teams.

That could well be what happened. It's obvious now that TS2014 was very much about a front-end makeover and very little on the actual driving side or content of the game. I would imagine that most of their testing would have been done on the menu systems rather than having someone driving routes from end to end looking for broken things.

My biggest gripe is having to do far too many 'verify caches' when an update goes wrong or the game unexpectedly goes wobbly. Each time this is done then it's a complete wipe back to default settings and for me that's a nightmare scenario. I modify a lot of things to get the very best out of this product, cab camera positions, AP soundpacks, further track joint sound mods to AP soundpacks, Fodda's tunnel occlusion mods, track uneveness settings to name just a few. Continually having to re-install that lot is a terrifying prospect, even when being smart and keeping all mod files and installers in an organised folder.!

The root of the problem for me, and doubtless many others, is that default Railworks is actually very, very poor. I watched a clip of an American route the other day and after the loco had passed by the camera there was little more than the sound of a gentle breeze and a random snare drum tip-tap to simulate thousands of tons of moving metal trucks and wagons! It's only through heavy modification that you get any kind of realistic cutting edge experience. This however comes at the cost of great complexity in maintaining or re-installing such a complicated custom installation.

jimmyshand wrote:My biggest gripe is having to do far too many 'verify caches' when an update goes wrong or the game unexpectedly goes wobbly.

Another problem is sometimes a route or loco stops working and then some people start deleting and reloading files.

I read on another forum of a guy who found something that did not work, just a scenario, but then deleted the route and then did a verify to get it back.
That did not work so he copied stuff back and forth then deleted his Railworks Assetts and did a verify to reload them.
Then complained that he had to copy all the mods back in place.

Someone else posted the same problem about the route and someone knew the answer so he was happy.
I must be in the latter group as dispite having a number of freeware route/locos/stock plus payware add-ons the only thing I've had to do was install the SECML service pack.

Peter

I did a fresh install for TS2014 after copying out my Assets folder for my own creations, reinstalling 3rd party stuff isn't all that annoying, particularly as you can select multiple .rwp files in Utilities and let it churn away. The UKTS Freeware packs are the ones which seem to take an absolute age for me, mostly computing space requirements or whatever it is.

No verifies since installation and no real problems. If I need to be switching between windows (route and scenario creation) then I run the game in windowed mode and it's very stable. Otherwise it's high res full screen for me, I have 3 different playerprofile.bin files that switch out the resolution and graphics settings (lower res window with higher AA) and I'm happy with it. Now it seems I'm required to join the GEML party.

My biggest gripe is having to do far too many 'verify caches' when an update goes wrong or the game unexpectedly goes wobbly. Each time this is done then it's a complete wipe back to default settings and for me that's a nightmare scenario. I modify a lot of things to get the very best out of this product, cab camera positions, AP soundpacks, further track joint sound mods to AP soundpacks, Fodda's tunnel occlusion mods, track uneveness settings to name just a few. Continually having to re-install that lot is a terrifying prospect, even when being smart and keeping all mod files and installers in an organised folder.!

Is this the answer you could be looking for?

http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewt ... f=6&t=5383

This is what I do and it certainly takes a lot of the work out of a verify cache, then re-install all mods with a one-click batchfile and tweak from there if necessary.

rededge wrote:

My biggest gripe is having to do far too many 'verify caches' when an update goes wrong or the game unexpectedly goes wobbly. Each time this is done then it's a complete wipe back to default settings and for me that's a nightmare scenario. I modify a lot of things to get the very best out of this product, cab camera positions, AP soundpacks, further track joint sound mods to AP soundpacks, Fodda's tunnel occlusion mods, track uneveness settings to name just a few. Continually having to re-install that lot is a terrifying prospect, even when being smart and keeping all mod files and installers in an organised folder.!

Is this the answer you could be looking for?

http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewt ... f=6&t=5383

This is what I do and it certainly takes a lot of the work out of a verify cache, then re-install all mods with a one-click batchfile and tweak from there if necessary.

WOW.... If and I say if as I have not had a chance to read it fully, but if this works as you suggest it would be awesome. The thought of a Verify would not fill you quite so much with dread. I just hope it isn't too difficult to set up for someone who is not too technically minded