Now we appear to have this new spirit of openess and co-operation on the forums would DTG Protaganist be able to confirm the future of development for TS1? I enjoy routes from all countries but on TS1 tend just to purchase British routes as I like making scenarios and have a large selection of timetables. Up until recently, probably the release of TSW there were a handful of UK routes released per year, recently we have seen hardly any, in fact I think I may not be mistaken that DTG produced UK routes have numbered three in the last three years. Waterloo to Portsmouth a good lengthy full route Southampton to Bournemouth which frankly was disappointing, why it did go to Poole if not Weymouth is beyond me as either of those would have been a natural terminus The Fife circle which I don't have yet but from what I have read isn't a very inspiring route I know they have released routes from Creative Rail and Just Trains, all ones I own and there seems to be lots of routes from other countries being released, by other partners I presume but are we likely to see much more UK route development by DTG in the coming years, or will it be one a year when the new edition is due?
Yes I'm wondering about this too. Similarly, I also have copies of Waterloo-Portsmouth and Southampton-Bournemouth, but not the Fife Circle, as of yet. I always kind of hoped they'd fill in the gap between Woking and Southampton (even if the two south western routes have different origins -- which I assume they do -- two-part scenarios splitting at Woking would have been okay). Plus there are routes out of Liverpool Street towards Cambridge and London/Tilbury/Southend that people would be bang up for, not to mention Transpennine (all of which have some station assets already in the sim which could presumably be touched up rather than rebuilt from scratch). I can't help but feel that if development halts on DTG routes for TS1, it's going to be a case of short peaks and long troughs in terms of community engagement on TSW2. As another poster on here pointed out yesterday, TSW/TSW2 lack all but the most basic custom configurability (i.e. weather, time of day, limited stock choices), which leads to large play spikes on content release day and quick drop-offs once monotony sets in. And even if scenario and developer tools became available tomorrow, it'd take community developers and third parties who are not already "in the know" a while to get their heads around them and start making third party add-ons, scenario packs, reskins, etc. So I'd like to hear about DTG's plans for the TS1 going forwards as well, allowing for covid-19 delaying the gathering of source material.
Well there isn't going to be any kind of editor now for TSW, well certainly not in the near future or even relatively far distant future, apart from this scenario and paint editor both of which are not shareable and I don't get the feeling the scenario planner/editor is going to be very comprehensive either so for serious scenario creation TS1 is the place to go and definitely for any route building. Yes there is still a lot of the country not covered, certainly by DTG or DTG publlished routes, there are plenty of excellent freeware and other payware routes, some require a lot of extra assets of course.
DTG don't even have to go that far for inspiration, there's over 300 route miles not covered in game in the county their HQ is in, let alone anywhere else in the world
That is true. A couple of them I'd consider amongst my all-time favourites, in fact. It does make me wonder if DTG have made a resolute business decision to sit back and let third parties keep TS1 ticking over, without actually saying as much in order to avoid getting stick (of which they have had plenty; some fair, much of it just ranting). Personally at this point, if it were a choice between 3 new routes and no core update, or one new route and a core update, I'd pick the latter. It'd be good to have clarity on what DTG's plans are for the future of TS1. I might be taking you a little literally, but lots can be done in Kent, as you say. Especially as Dover, Ramsgate and Ashford International don't appear on an official route yet (Ashford-Lille is in development with a Just Trains affiliate, but is Eurostar). A link between Tonbridge and Orpington would be good too given that the freeware 1066 route covers Tonbridge-Hastings.
Nope, that's what I meant... North Kent Lines, CHX - Dartford and on to Medway, Faversham via Thanet to Dover Dover via Kent Mainline to Victoria Ashford to Eastbourne
I suspect you may well be right, I expected new routes to slow down due to TSW, but I thought we might get two or three a year. Yes I agree, a core update would be fantastic, especially if it made the sim more stable, especially the recalcitrant despatcher, however I have a feeling they can't really do much more with it, I am still surprised that it hasn't buckled under pressure when you consider the detail and features we have now compared to the original Rail Simulator of 2008!
A core update is necessary to fix the issues with the game. Buying the rights to the game just to get the income from more route releases is not a proper way of conducting things. So I hope that's not what's happening. I really hope that improvements are being made to make all content compatible with one version of the game, either as an update to the current game (most ideal) or as a new game (which would then use existing DLC but would need a new workshop).
