when did that start happening, thats a bit poo. used to be when one version went on sale they all did.
Just seen the Expert 145 is discounted... is it worth it timetablewise considering Leipzig - Dresden being still blurry and the original timetable also quite empty? Does it substitute into older routes?
I don't know, but I guess it's for a longer period of time. It was never an issue until TSW6, as TSW6 DLCs not can be used on older versions of the game, which was possible with the prior games.
The issue of purchases not carrying through to older versions started with tsw 6. I seem to remember them saying it was to not bother store holders with having to code a load of store entitlements. (Which honestly is kind of lame when you consider they're quite happy to bother the player base with reinstalling hundreds of GBs of add-ons every 12 months)
Part of the change to TSW6 Dovetail mentioned they stopped backwards porting of compatibility. It's been a while now but I am almost positive it was to do with there being too many pages on the various storefronts, West Cornwall Local TSW2, 3 etc etc. and some stores were shirtfronty about it. This was around the same time that DTG were also negotiating with Epic to have all the TSW5 DLC carried forward in stead of the smaller (way way smaller and dumber) 'curated list' they were going to launch with. Think East Coast way but no Class 313 DLC.
The new store pages also coincidentally wipe all of the reviews as well as making you reinstall all of your content.
A matter of taste but if you're into German freight then definitely worth it. It adds so much more with the train sheets, advanced coupling, all the varied faults. I thought it was well worth it at full price before the update, so now at a discount a definite yes. Although I do encounter blurred textures on BLD I find it much more manageable than on other routes. Again, it depends on how you look at it. The 145 generally subs wherever the 185 can also go, so there are many opportunities to use it. And of course don't forget about the NV version. Expert loco sales don't come up on Xbox very often so I would say it's a buy.
The amount of DLC is still the same, TSW6 DLCs are only not linked anymore to the same DLCs of older versions. But the problem is created by DTG itself by releasing a "new" game every year. The amount of changes is not worth a new version number.