Is MSTS1 the right simulator for me?

[GonzoUK]

Hi,

A friend of mine will retire soon from 30 years drive trains in the UK, so I thought he would like a simulator, but which one? He saw some footage on youtube and was amazed at the scenery and train detail, and in my mind I thought I need to get him a simulator. He would only be interested in the UK and mainly in SE England, including East Anglia, and the Doncaster, Peterborough routes. He would very interested in the Freightliners I think and I heard him mention the class 30's and 60's (EWS??).

Where do I start?

[Lad491]

Hello and Welcome to UKTS and the forums.

Personally I think Microsoft Train Simulator, at about £7.99 or less, is a great way of starting off in Train Simulation at a very reasonable cost. The initial purchase is now very cheap indeed, and the Community CD Add-ons great value for money at £4.40 Commercial addons are usually around £25, but sometimes even they can be had more cheaply.

There are plenty of add-ons for the areas you have identified. Dave Corfields excellent Dorset Coast, covers the area from Waterloo down to Weymouth. Mid East (and the soon to arrive Mid East Plus) cover the north east from KingsX to York and many of the branch lines which eminated from that route.

London South East from Making Tracks covers the region from London Bridge / CharingCross into Kent as far as Tonbridge (I think). London South Coast from Europeanbahn covers the area from London Victoria to Brighton, Portsmouth and the Mid Sussex line.

Have a look at the CD Ordering page (the link is on the left hand side of the home page) and you will see what is currently available. Also have a look at the UKTS Live link for details of where the roadshows will be this year. If there is a show near you, bring him along for a first hand view and im sure we would be able to find time to let him have a drive to see for himself.

[NeneValleyRailway]

For the East Anglian interest you will not go far wrong with 'Great Eastern' by Making Tracks and 'East Coast Express' by Europeanbahn'.

[jbilton]

Hi
If you could post a link to the videos we can possibly identify the simulator.
Cheers
Jon

[GonzoUK]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

Looks like they are Microsoft's Train Simulator, So once I spend £7.99 there is alot more to spend on trains and areas of track, sorry for the basic questions, just wondered if any (scenery, tracks, trains etc) is freeware too?

[Lad491]

All of the content on the Community CD's is freeware and most can be downloaded from this site and installed on your msts installation. UKTS offer the CD option as many people like to have an easy installation and a CD as backup, but it is quite possible to download and install everything that is freeware yourself. It can be complex but it isnt impossible by any means. Downloading is quite slow and uses a queuing system since bandwidth is expensive to provide. You can buy premium access which gives you faster downloads without the queues. Each CD bought from the site comes with one free month of premium access, so you can buy a cd and then download other stuff to go with it. All route CD's come with some roling stock and activities (challenges or tasks) and all the route scenery.

Commercial products are not freeware but also come with routes, scenery, rolling stock and activities.

[GonzoUK]

I read that Rail Simulator has better graphics, but full of bugs and doesn't have the huge community MSTS1 does so I will go with that.

Where is a good place to start for me to locate the trains he drove and areas of the UK he worked along, I was thinking I could download bits over the next week or so?

Oh and what happened to MSTS2?

Thanks again.

[Lad491]

Oh and what happened to MSTS2?

The original Msts2 concept was abandoned by Microsoft some time ago, which lead to the development of RailSimulator independantly by Kuju (and subsequently other companies). However Microsoft have announced a new train simulator called World of Rails, due towards the end of this year I think.

Where is a good place to start for me to locate the trains he drove and areas of the UK he worked along, I was thinking I could download bits over the next week or so?

Have a look at the file library to see what is available. But remember that you must have msts or RS installed and working before installing anything from the libraries as they are all add-ons and will not work on their own.

I would really recommend that you dont download anything yet.

Get the basic msts, install it and play with it. Then I would suggest a Community CD. At £4.40 they are a cheap way of getting routes complete with rolling stock and activities and come with easy to use installation routines. Once you understand a bit about how msts or RS work, then you can consider downloading additional stock or routes.

Slow and steady is the rule, as is test each thing before moving on to the next. Resist the temptation to download lots of stuff as, when the problems arise ( and thats when not if ) its easier to troubleshoot one download than dozens.

[GonzoUK]

Thanks, I think it's my friend (train driver for 30 years) who will be using it will have to slow down, he noticed a few mistakes on the youtube videos, only small, so wants to help out, but I think if you do too much too soon you could end up not enjoying MSTS1.

Does Railsimulator have as much downloadable content as MSTS1? What I mean is, are most tracks/areas/triains built for MSTS1?

[Lad491]

RS content is still pretty limited at the moment and is nowhere as comprehensive as msts. But msts has been about nearly 9 years now. In 9 years time I would expect RS to be the same or better.

he noticed a few mistakes on the youtube videos

Remember the routes are supposed to be representations of the route in the time it is set, and they are not intended to be photorealistic. You should find most main towns are recognisable whereas country features may be generic and not exactly as in real life. Also routes are set in different time era's, so a route in the 1960's may not look much like it does now.

[GonzoUK]

Thanks, he will be amazed. He was mainly toalking about the cabin controls had some issues/timing or something ( I have no idea) on the videos that were not quite right on a train he used for years.

Thanks again for your help.

[Lad491]

He was mainly toalking about the cabin controls had some issues

Well the correct cabs are not always available for every loco, and so a lot are aliased to a suitable alternative, which may not be anything like the real thing. Steam loco cabs are particularly difficult to find now and most seem to be aliased to the default Flying Scotsman cab which came with the original back in 2001.

If he can make good cabs he will find he suddenly has lots of new friends

Do try and bring him to a UKTS roadshow, the 2009 season is just about to start again. There he will get to see them at first hand, and maybe have a drive too. He will also be able to talk to others about his interests and expertise and we might be able to suggest routes he would like, or where he could actively help out. He would also be able to pick up a free route CD as we give them away at the shows.

Click on the UKTSLive link from the front page (top right hand side) where you can see the 2009 diary and also look at some reports of the other shows the team attends. Im sure he will have a great time

[ianmacmillan]

If you are buying the sim as a gift, why not include a couple of CDs from here?
Then get your friend to login to the site.

Since the CD will be ordered in your name the 1 month premium membership will go to you but send a PM or email to Pete (leviathan1949) with your freind's user name and he will transfer the membership.

[GonzoUK]

Thanks, how can I tell which CD will work with what simulator such as MSTS1 or Railsimulator?

[Lad491]

All the Rail Simulator and Flight Simulator addons are shown as such. All the others I think are for msts, but if you are in any doubt please feel free to ask first, either here or by e mail to Atomic Systems. Im pretty sure all the Community CD's ( at £4.40 each ) and the Donationware CD's (at £6+) are only for Msts1 since I dont think any CD's have been done for other routes, except by the Commercial companies themselves.