Thames Mersey

wyefielder · Post by **wyefielder** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 10:47 am

Is it possible to buy a Thames Mersey Steam Era CD

ianmacmillan · Post by **ianmacmillan** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 11:32 am

Yes.
There's only one version.

There are bat files in the route folder that change the route from modern to steam and back with a single click.

wyefielder · Post by **wyefielder** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 11:37 am

Thanks, Do you mean on the CD ? ive seen the CD in the ordering page but looking at the cover there is no reference to the steam era. Im after a CD for the stock and Activities

michaelhendle · Post by **michaelhendle** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:10 pm

If you have the Thames - Mersey DVD ( it's not a CD), look in the routes folder in MSTS locate the Thames - Mersey route, open it and you find a bat file called steam era or some thing similar, run that and it will give you the steam Era route.

If I remeber right there's only about 15 activities out of about 150 that are steam though.

Although you could go into con builder and change the stock for suitable steam loco's, and rolling stock.

I use the BATS LMS/BR stock + stock down loaded from UKTS.

Michael Hendle

bigmull · Post by **bigmull** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:23 pm

Its a really great CD.I love the Steam Activities and cant stop playing the Return run with Limited Coal!Buy It!!!!

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:41 am

the Return run with Limited Coal!

One of mine

Glad you are enjoying it

Try the Morning Mail too

Geoffwright · Post by **Geoffwright** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:46 pm

Return Run is probably the best activity ever put on to UKTS. It's the one activity I have that doesn't get Stored and that I run and rerun just to enjoy it !
It's the reason why I've given up writing activities - I just don't have the patience to run & re-run the activity to get the traffic timings right. Easy enough early in an activity, but the Return Run has perfect traffic interaction right up to the end - absolutely amazing.
I would be fascinated to know how many ten, maybe hundreds, of hours of testing it took.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:42 pm

I worked on it virtually every day for between 2 and 4 hours for a period of about 3 months. And that was just to make it work for the DVD version as the original for the V3.2 CD (I think) didnt work properly after the conversion. The original probably took me close on 3 months to write and test too

Im glad you like it and thank you for your kind words

bigmull · Post by **bigmull** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:39 pm

I think you could drop the amount of coal available by a few %.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 1:19 am

I think you could drop the amount of coal available by a few %

Well i didnt want to make it too hard to finish the activity. When I ran it in testing i usually arrived with about 1 or 2% coal left. If you are doing better than that then you are driving very efficiently

I cant remember now but i think i suggested some modifications to the eng file to improve the AI firemans performance. If you didnt make those then that could make a difference.

Are you using the version 4 on the DVD or download for V3.2 ? It was only necessary to make them for the downloaded version as the DVD version differs slightly and has already been modified.

bigmull · Post by **bigmull** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 5:50 pm

I am using the DVD version.I did have a few problems at first with losing the Firebox temp and not being able to generate enough steam,but as always practise makes perfect.I usually arrive with around 8 to 9 % of coal left.I have tried the act with several Steam Locos that came on the DVD,namely the Red one(sorry dont know the class etc)but it seems to move from left to right on th track all the time making it unplayable.Any ideas as to why?

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:59 am

Firstly, if you change the loco of the consist the activity will not work exactly as intended since I had the eng file of the consist loco modified to provide the results i wanted. Replacing the loco will remove those changes and so will probably make it easier to run. With timing critical activities like mine you really shouldnt ever change the consist as it can totally change the way the activity runs.

The DVD version does differ slightly from the download version which didnt work after the upgrade to V4 from V3.2 I had to go through the whole activity again and change several sections to restore it to how i wanted it to behave in the first version. It wasnt possible to get it working exactly the same

Still if you are getting in with 8% you are really driving well - even on the DVD version i never managed to arrive with much more than 2% coal left

Sometimes trains will "jump" tracks if the consist is too long for the available space.

bigmull · Post by **bigmull** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:29 pm

What i mean is if i use Train store and explore the route using the destination and departure of The Return Run along with the AI traffic etc the consist i use(the red engine lol) sort of "shimmies" as its travelling along.its playable,just but is a real pain.Hope this is a bit clearer.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 8:26 pm

ok - well i dont know why that is im afraid as i never use trainstore to run in explore mode. I dont know how that affects activities.

michaelhendle · Post by **michaelhendle** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 7:29 am

I use train store explore mode if I want use a different train, and it doesn't useualy cause any problems, if it's freight train I don't use a passenger train and vici verci.

Also try and use a train the same length as the player train would have been in the original activity.