Disappointment

I do agree with Alan Thompson. If they do not get it right this time for the PC group, support will wain and it will be given over to the console crowd and all development will move in that direction. It has been very successful there and far fewer negative comments. The player satisfaction level is much higher. I will be waiting for his review after the release.

 

After a lot of thought, I think perhaps train sim users would benefit from something like this:-

https://www.nmra.org/standards

I'm proposing a defined standard of interchangeable software based assets across platforms. This would protect the investments of model collectors everywhere. I'm aware this would require a lot of work; looking at the way things are unfolding between TS1, TSW and TSW2 this would future proof purchases made by customers. Any model would run on one homogeneous platform.

I'll think about this some more.

 

Won't ever happen, too much proprietary information would need to be shared. I am referring to software, intellectual property. In NMRA this allows the physical interchange of rolling stock such as gauge, coupler interchange, coupler height, wheel flanges, etc. No code would need to be shared.

 

With the DB BR 204, the Chatham Office didn't even share the loading gauge with the Stirling Office, so the DB BR 204 collided with bridges on MSB...... ;-O

 

Its simple not a feasible or financially viable options in software. Its one thing to adhere and create standards for example w3c web standards, its another to write software to ensure cross compatibility across all current and future standards and platforms, it frankly wont happen for a massive variety of reasons and this is nothing against DTG it does not happen across software development full stop.

For example in web application development for a development team to develop a IOS and Android app it is generally more cost effective to re write the code for each platform than it is to write it once using a language out side of the platforms native language for example C++ instead of Objective-C /Swift and Java. Even if you did hypothetically attempted to write code once for multiple platforms its simply not possible, each platform handles access to API calls, Functions like the camera, your contacts ect differently, none of this code is cross platform and it never will be. And this is exactly the same for game engines.

The closest you could get in the example I have given is to write a basic app for each platform that simply calls a website that handles the bulk of what you want to do this takes very little effort however the end result is generally compromised and is less than a brilliant user experience, and I have no doubt you have probably used Apps like this before ( early bank phone apps used to do this, before most started to lift there game in this area). Btw nothing like the solution above exists in game dev unless of course its a browser game :P

The only way for this to ever come close to been a thing is if all games where only ever developed on one engine, and even then it still does not work.

 

This could happen. Someone just needs to be the first - whoever is the first,

Rather than focusing on how impossible it is, why not explore all potentially possible options? I'm not writing this off as an idea, I intend to mull it over for quite some time.

 

yes you can...

 

lol!