Is Tehachapi Pass: Mojave - Bakersfield Route Add-On worth buying with 20% off I read there was some problems with brake on some loco/scenarios. Thinking about buying it but I wanna hear what you think if it worth buying or not.
With the caveat that I don't own the route yet (I will probably grab it in the Winter Sale). I would say it depends on what other routes you don't have and that are still on sale on Steam. There are braking issues with the BNSF ES44DC included with Tehachapi Pass and various thoughts on how to deal with the issue. The ES44DC is used for the first 2 scenarios and makes them anywhere from unplayable to very very difficult depending on who you listen to. The route looks very nice and I haven't heard any other issues, so it may come down to your play style. If you only play the scenarios that come with the route, maybe hold off because there are only 4 other scenarios included with the route. If you like to play QD, create your own scenarios, and/or play workshop scenarios, then you will probably have more than enough to do without using the ES44DC. Hopefully others who have the route will chime in too.
I haven't run through all the scenarios yet, but the route is certainly a good looking one and I enjoy driving it. Living across the pond here in the UK I didn't get too involved in the "it's too green" debate regarding the native flora. The route looks quite realistic to this limey anyway. I do get a severe FPS hit on my suboptimal PC down to 14 fps at the loop and other places (i7 950 3.07 GHz, 24Gb RAM, 2Gb nividia GTX960) . Strange that if I point the view out to the side windows at those points I get back to my 29 fps nvidia limited... Yes the first two scenarios using the BNSF ES44 are unplayable unless you game the system as I did and used the actual throttle as a huge dynamic brake and just take the point hit for using Emergency to stop the train (two gold stars for anyone who plays with career mode )
The route itself is fantastic. You get FPS drop in Bakersfield due to very detailed scenery, but otherwise it runs fine. About the locos everything has been said.
I just bought the route and really enjoy it. The brakes on the BNSF ES44 are terrible though, I couldn’t get them to do anything at all and i hadn’t wasted all of air either. I swapped in the same loco from the Hi-Line route and will re run those scenarios. Notably this is the approach used in the DLC scenario pack too.
Route itself has a few issues, the scenery around Bakersfield doesn't stretch out that far, so you can see the plain void of nothing way easier than in other routes. Also the first third of the line from there has the awful default green texture which really spoils the look of the route. Also if you set the route to winter you end up with snow covered tracks, which looks silly considering that the rest of the route lacks the snow. However the other two thirds of the route are very well done, and even the first portion of the route isn't plagued with any terrible issues, just don't play in winter, unless of course the idea of snow ballast fancy's you. The BNSF ES44DC has the brakes everyone's talking about, they technically work, but they're such a pain to use it makes it not fun to use. I would not recommend using it unless someone fixes the darn thing, if you really want to use BNSF stock buy Montana Hi-Line, stock there works fine, and the route and scenarios are overall better made. The AC4400CW looks pretty good, no big stunning or neat features, but fine for included stock, it's probably the best piece of stock included. The ES44AC I think is the same as the ones in other routes, however as far as I'm aware there's no enhancement mods for it, which at least the Sherman Hill version does have. Won't remark on the GP40-2 or the freight cars much, because it's basically the same scenario as the ES44AC. The only piece of old stock that's been meaningly enhanced is the SD70ACe, as it has modified ditch lights, and the livery has been changed to blend in with the other UP units, which are both welcome changes. However a less welcome one is that the brakes for it seem very screwy, they're way too powerful. I remember hearing that the brake difficulty was flipped (The easiest setting was actually the hardest, and vice versa) but honestly didn't see much of a difference when I tried. Final thing I'll note is the scenarios, not played them all, but I'm not a fan of the ones I've played. First off I've not played either Hot Box scenario, but as they use the BNSF ES44DC I would recommend avoiding them till the day someone finally fixes those things. The two other scenarios I have played do seem to work fine, but are frankly pretty boring. The scenarios themselves as is are very basic, but what really kills them is the lack of AI traffic. Seriously, Bakersfield Shuffle has no AI traffic, and Higher Priority Part 1 only has a single AI train, and that's ahead of you, so you never see it. They seem unfinished, like they had gotten to the stage where they were going to put in traffic, but ran out of time and had to leave them. Personally I'd probably recommend to wait till it's on a massive discount (over half off), and even then I'd buy it just for the route and largely ignore included stock.
