Hello and sorry for a newbie question, lately I decided to do a little achievement hunting with the CSX AC6000CW. I did all the Career scenarios (not the scenario pack for Miami route), got all the achievements but didnt get the "CSX AC6000CW: Putting in the Work" for 5 hours played. So I looked up some workshop scenarios, drove for a hour, looked in steam for progression and was surprised that it stayed on the same number of hours like before the workshop scenario. So I did little testing with the Class 60 with the same result. My question is, are workshop scenarios elligible for achievements, do I need to do some "modding" or I am out of luck? Thank you for answers!
Sometimes the achievements do not align properly with the DLC. For instance, that's not bad at all. You should see Donner Pass' "From Coast to Coast" achievement. The goal is to have "travelled over 3,144 miles in scenarios included with this pack". The route is apparently about 140 miles. I am only at 382 having driven the original scenarios, which were so badly timed that I scrubbed the videos I might have done for them and played a different set from the Workshop instead. And I don't know if those scenarios counted or not. I don't think they did because I played the first scenario (three hours BTW) more than once to prove a point on how bad it is. At some point when I go back I'll see if other scenarios increase that tally. But that's how to keep track; see what happens to the tally. If nothing else counts, I have to play the original set of scenarios ten times over to pull off that achievement. Totally ridiculous compared to yours, which counts hours instead of miles (you can leave it running and walk away!). Of course, I can do the trick of subbing over the official scenarios with other scenarios. They would then count. But that scenario then remains undone officially. Good way to pull a practice run, perhaps. EDIT: One way to speed this up with Donner Pass, perhaps, is to ignore speed limits and just max speed a train. I'm not sure if it will derail at some point, but if you can go over 60 MPH you'll be done the goal in about 53-54 hours of driving (accounting for getting up to speed and scenario quit/load time). It takes literally over two days to do this. Yeah...
Thank you for your detailed reply! Yes that is what I did with class 60 to test it, if it counts. But I would rather drive some scenarios for them to count. If I plan do the achiev hunt, the Donner Pass is awaiting me also, good times ahaead... /s. Can you please elaborate on this trick?
I am unsure whether the discussion of that actual subject matter is taboo as it's technically a form of hacking. It's something you learn by looking through files and seeing how things work. I have confirmed you can actually gain achievements by playing completely different scenarios or even substitute a more appropriate timetable for an impossible scenario. The reason I think it's considered a form of hacking is because Career scenarios are locked from editing officially; Standard scenarios, meanwhile, can be edited freely and saved without any issue. I won't go into further detail about that in a public post. What I will confirm is that you can edit Career scoring values in the ScenarioProperties file. Extract the scenario, open the file, and change how many points you get per stop. This is employed by a large number of users and is why you see 1,000 point scorers on impossible-to-score scenarios. Donner Pass is guilty of this on many scenarios, The Midnight Magnet (which I ran as a 1,000 point start, lose points for speeding, removed E Brake and Wheelslip penalties) is also guilty, and the original Portsmouth Direct Line has a large number of scenarios not worth their maximum score to start with; just editing points per stop is usually a way to get around that, and can result in some stops not counting if you already have a maximum score. The other thing I will confirm is that a Career scenario can be converted to a Standard scenario. TS-Tools automates this for you, though I believe you can also just manually edit the entry in the ScenarioProperties file as well. No score will be stored, and if you delete the edited copy, you see the checkmark in the Career menu as if you played it and scored 0.
Checked, the achievement says: CSX AC6000CW: Putting in the Work Awarded for playing this DLC pack for 5 hours. This wording normally requires that you play the scenarios supplied with this specific DLC. Similar examples are London Faversham: From Land's End to John o'Groats - Driven 874 miles BR 442 Talent: Putting in the Time - Played this DLC pack for at least 442 minutes Class 801: 801 in the 801 - Driven 801 miles in the Class 801 In case of Donner, only the original career, standard and free roam scenarios count, not quick drive. You can farm that by driving the 40-50 mph sections. It takes about 100 hours, if you enjoy the route, just play its scenarios once a year, and a casual end to end in a free roam in between. Many achievements can be earned by merely driving a loco. I've earned several achievements, among them a BR 101, by just driving on some other route. And of course Huddersfield Line mastery - a humble nod to our mere existence.
You could call them milestones or accomplishments, if you wish. I guess it's because Steam calls them as such, and they're a way to show others what you have played. Same as in-game XP. It just means you have seen a lot. As such, you're that much experienced.
Workshop career scenarios will not be tied to achievements - only DLC. And unchecking "Career scoring" in the settings will solve almost all problems if you're into a simulator more than an arcade "medals" game. It will give you a "Standard+" scenario, allowing you to complete scenarios with impossible ETAs too. And as the score is just a number - there is no career, nothing unlockable, no goodies to trade in for your points - it is useless anyway.
Again, it depends on the wording of the achievement. An achievement that says "Drive this train for 5 hours" might not be tied only to official scenarios. An achievement that says "Complete this scenario with a minimum of 900 points" will be tied not just to a pack, but to a single scenario. From someone who has experimented with how far you can go with this type of thing, I can confirm I completed a 90 minute scenario by using a Railfan scenario. Meanwhile, on my channel, you will this week see a video using the AP 365 on a scenario and getting an achievement for the original scenario. This could be achieved simply by swapping the stock in Ts-Tools - a commonly accepted practice because folks will sometimes only play with AP stock, or even have the AP 66 EP installed and cannot go back to the default train - which triggered my interest in this - and then playing the scenario. I won't discuss other methods that are not commonly used in this thread. That said, none of the methods are worth doing since the Career points literally don't mean a single thing and are "useless" as quoted, and I'm just figuring out what the game lets you get away with out of interest while making my own good faith effort to otherwise do the achievements myself. But let's look at this old image from the 2022 version and a Portsmouth Direct Line scenario: From Hightail to the Harbour, note the official top score is 400 points. Every stop is worth 50 points. But all the leaders have 1,000 points. You can modify scoring, but it turns out you can also play a completely different scenario. I will only discuss the edited scoring methods because it's a simple method compared to ones that go to effort to modify game files, and I don't advise any user who is not an advanced user to modify game files unless they know how to put them back afterwards. As for whether Workshop scenarios work towards achievements, it depends on the achievement, but hacking could make others count in some cases depending, again, on the achievement. As for "farming the 40-50 MPH sections, also difficult. There are no official scenarios that use those sections. All official Career scenarios run between the Colfax Loop and Truckee. You do not see Roseville or Sparks, or go near them, outside of Quick Drive or Free Roam scenarios. It means having to run a whole bunch of Quick Drive or Free Roam, and in my view, those are a meaningless style of play as there is no achievement to complete and you're basically invited to run the route for several hours while literally getting nothing done. I'm the kind of guy who, for an achievement like this, would set the throttle to maximum and then walk away and let it climb hills on its own, and check back in an hour or so (it's a five hour route by speed limits). I will explore whether I can force compliance with the achievement in other ways, and it may prove to be impossible anyway to do that.
There is a standard scenario, named Bonus, using the striped nose F7. The Sparks and Truckee free roams are fairly obvious, Norden isn't far, but I've ran the winter trains from Colfax to Sparks as well. I agree it's extreme. Considering it's an early route, maybe they thought you'll fiddle with this for months. Maybe another idea is to experience the route with all the various options (trains, season, weather). Still, I have decided to bench this achievement because it was indeed boring. Took six years to finish. I don't care about others cheating or whether it must make sense. Just trying to explain why it can be there and how I can make sense of it. Pretty much the same how some old Steam member (Chicken Balti) told me to ignore career scoring and simply drive safe and responsibly, and have fun - when I was stressed out about a GWML scenario where meeting the timetable was impossible. It doesn't matter whether someone loves to race and rush and try to crash, the important part is to have fun. And for me, relax.
I had no idea about the bonus scenario. But I searched the archive and found the folder: What interested me, further down, was the description: "Its been a fitting holiday season, but we must get back on track. I know the weather is bad, but these trains have to run." If we ignore the obvious immediate grammar error, it's clear this is a Christmas scenario (or right after) and I am literally at the point in my recordings where I'm doing for the week before that next. I already have one holiday run planned, as well. The only problem is that I have not driven the F7 yet, so it would break my own guideline of introducing the relevant train before doing custom scenarios. I may have to change it for this one, or run it next year. Or maybe I can run it early January and have time to intro the train. Oxford Bound? Edited version on the Workshop. That one is impossible because the train at Appleford doesn't start until 9:23, and you are supposed to arrive at 9:23. Just relaxed the timetable a wee bit
I can make the recording easy for you: check the start time! It was probably Oxford bound but I have been struggling with earlier stops. Maybe figured to use 100% power always.
That was my first real study at editing a timetable in the editor. After playing the start of it twice, I did savescum my way through to Didcot, but Appleford was impossible. I also found, following a principled process for start and stop at every stop, that a run without saves was impossible for intermediate stops but that you could arrive at Didcot. My edit changes timings up to Didcot from the first impossible stop to add one minute each, then bumps Appleford and everything after it up by two. 1,000 points possible. If you can excuse a stupid e-brake application (100% should not trigger penalty points if there is another notch!), you can see my 999 point run over here. As for Bonus Scenario, I noticed it's on January 13, 1952. I'm not that old...
I'm a collecting type of person, so I enjoy collecting the achievements. Regarding clocking up the miles/hours etc needed to get some of them, I think a few are just bugged. I've found that I can clock up the miles on some by creating a simple Test Track scenario and leaving it to run, while on others it doesn't work. As pointed out above, it may be that the requirements for some are more stringent and linked to specific scenarios and can't be earned by quick drive or non DTG scenarios.
You seem a bit sour now. Is everything alright? This is a game and various people enjoy it in their own ways. You shared some pretty reskins, torfmeister is the master fixer, I capture scenes and read about whatever I play. Just because one aspect isn't my cup of tea, I'm not going to bash on it. It's OK if you don't like some aspects of the game for any reason.
Except I don't cheat. Clocking up miles on the Test Track is still clocking up miles. As triznya.andras says, there are many ways of enjoying TSC, none are right, none are wrong. Life is short and can be full of pain, so we shouldn't grumble at the ways other people get innocent happiness.
Of course, 3,144 miles on Donner Pass can't be achieved on TestTrack. So you'd still have to load up Donner Pass.
