Do not pack AP files into an .ap (sounds funny ). Trust me. Your locos might not work (script #includes do not work when accessed by zlib) . Just normally install the packs.
I know about the scripts and sometimes config files having to remain outside the .ap archives, since sometimes they are concatenated at run time. Which apparently cannot be done in an .ap file. I suppose .ap files are mounted read/write, so updating them live shouldn't be a problem, but here we are. When a loco sits there smoking with all lights flashing, I know its scripts need to be brought out of the .ap file. however, the time needed to backup thousands of individual small files compared to one larger .ap file is considerable. I keep a weekly backup of my TSC installs and running the backups can take a night when the program has to check like 1.5 million files for changes.
Just leave everything as it is shipped. I've settled with only packing route files into a MainContent.ap to preserve them from "Train Simulator needs to save changes to the route" stuff. And yes, .ap files are read-only for TS. Everything else will cause more trouble, repaint install.bats won't find Geos etc...
would be cool if AP just released patches where you could download a small file which contained any changes to the original release, rather than having to reinstall the entire thing every time.
That'll be super confusing for new customers. You can't expect them to purchase a pack and then install updates. See it this way, it makes sense to keep their packs up to date. It would also make it much more difficult for AP to maintain their content library, eventually needing to make instruction "this patch applies to this version etc...". What if someone hasn't updated their content for a long time? So the patch must not only include the new traction.lua but also all other changes for that user. That's impossible. It would then need an ATS type launcher which checks your installation - which causes problems if you have modified files eventually. It'll be like a Steam verification. Luckily AP uses high speed file servers. I see the good in it - they always fix their bugs asap. I mean what do you have to do? Click a few buttons and let the installers run, then copy over the brandings again which I'm advising to install to an empty folder first, all which are available. That folder you just copy over with a single click after you've updated.
Thanks for the heads up. I've just got the latest update for the Class 50 and repeated the rough and ready test I reported on a few days ago and this time got a drawbar horsepower of around 1580 - much more plausible I'd have thought.
Luckily I have the space on my big external drive to keep the latest version of every AP installer. It makes reinstalling things much easier, but it takes up a lot of space.
Might be of interest as a livery got missed https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/m...itish/c29-locomotives/i5497-lner-farewell-hst
That's not what I meant at all. The main pack would be kept up to date, but there would be an additional download option that contained any files updated since the original release. I suspect in most cases the updates are just a few smaller scripting files rather than larger texture files. So it's really not very complicated. I'm not asking or expecting AP to do any of this, I just personally think it would be handy.
just back from holiday and I guess, I will have to eat my words on this one ... looks like I´ll buy this and not look back to older versions of the HST.
