Hello. I just recently bought and installed an add-on from Travel by Train, a licensed partner of Dovetail. It is the same SD70 that was just released by that developer, just in Conrail and Norfolk Southern paint schemes. The engine is fantastic, and I have no complaints, but I have a bit of a phobia of installing unofficial third-party content (ruined my copy of MSTS) because of messing the simulator up. What I would like to know is, if I ever experience an issue, is there a way I can reset the game to factory settings and remove unofficial add-ons? I read in Dovetail's website that the uninstalling and reinstalling TS 2020 will reset it completely, but I am concerned that there would be an error if I did so. If I ever uninstall and reinstall TS, will the reinstalled game be like it was before I installed the add-on? The locomotive was installed by using the Utilities.exe tool in the railworks folder to install the .rwp file. Also, my copy of TS is the TS 2014 disc. Thank you for any answers and God Bless.
You will never need your Train Simulator disc after originally installing the game, mainly as the files will be vastly out of date. Your purchases and the core game are all tied to your Steam account which you used to redeem the Steam key provided with it. Steam will reinstall of your content purchased and redeemed through Steam if you were to delete and reinstall the game. Third-party content not purchased or redeemed through Steam would need to be reinstalled manually as Steam cannot do this for you.
I apologize, I'm not asking anything different. I moved this post after reading the thread guidelines for the General Discussion section, where I posted this question before. It said that threads about requesting support should be in the Bug Report section of the forums. I moved it because I thought it would be more appropriate here. Thank you again for answering my question, it was a big help. I also looked up Railworks America like you suggested, so thank for that as well. Again I apologize if I offended you.
Thank you very much! That puts my mind at ease. Just don't want to do anything that can't be undone. Also, what is Dovetail's stance on third-party add-ons? I do know to buy and install only from reputable developers, especially those who are licensed by Dovetail.
A number of third party products end up being officially published by DTG on Steam, so I think they have a fairly relaxed attitude and also a close relationship with some 3rd party developers. You can't expect them to support or promote other peoples independent products, but I get the impression they're generally happy with what goes on elsewhere. I periodically obliterate my TS folder and then recreate it from scratch via Steam and reload what 3rd party stuff interests me at the time. It seems to keep everything clean, fresh and fast.
I have been installing 3rd party for the last 7 years with few problems. I would recomend that you keep a current copy of of your Railworks folder. JIC
Thanks, IronBladder. I think you are exactly on point. After all, almost all addons start as a repaint or 3rd party project. That's a good piece of advice about the TS folder. I still haven't made up my mind whether I want to add a bunch of other addons because I don't want my collection to be too cluttered.
