A new thread to discuss ATS. (Pretty please, keep on topic and avoid personal disputes, to avoid it being locked like the original.)
Someone mentioned they got a discounted description on Black Friday, and I was just wondering how often these discounts happen and the typical new cost?
Discounts happen as and when I believe with ATS though if I am wrong, someone with more knowledge will correct me I am sure . As to the costs I can't remember the exact discount percentages BUT they were quite sizeable at least in my opinion.
That's a dangerous abbreviation to write. All you need to do is toss in 'AP' and you'll have all out war on the forum! One thing that worries me about ATS, and other providers, where you don't have a directly installable file to keep, is what happens if they go out of business? Your product which you own becomes unusable. I'm thinking of non subscription products like GST's products. Even if you've installed it, a hardware failure or tidying up of your installation might require a re-installation, and then you're stuffed. The same problem applies to JT's products, as they need on-line verification. I appreciate the same could be said for Steam distributed products, but as Steam is now critical infrastructure to world gaming, I assume it would be resurrected by someone else if Valve ever failed. What are other users' solutions to this vulnerability?
I back up my assets and contents folder to a portable hard drive. When I had to reinstall the game to a new drive I did not go looking for a load of installers. I simply copied across all the required files. If I had installed using an installer I would have a vanilla copy of a route or rolling stock Minus the scenarios and repaints.
No solution other than storing backups of non steam pay ware on the cloud. and maintaining hope that they remain in business for many years to come.
To answer the black friday sale question this was the first and only sale thus far. As for the other thread being locked some of the DTG staff need to either stop being so lazy and edit/delete off topic posts or get in some volunteer community moderators to do the job for them, blanket locking of threads is disruptive, messy, over zealous, authoritarian and did I mention down right lazy?
Also for the ATS backups you could always extract them to a dummy Railworks folder and save the extracted files or like me just keep full backups of your install to your external back up drive (or cloud) that we all have by now... right? No? Oh you do like to live dangerously don't you..
The CYBERMONDAY discount was the first time ATS had done a "sale" like iti think it was pretty successfull so they will more than likely do one again. The sub wasnt actually on sale it was 2 bundles they done one sale 1 was Class 185 and chatmos bundle other was cambridge - peterbrough and kings lynn to kings cross routes What people done was they noticed the discount on the routes. HOWEVER you ALSO got your sub discount as well as the cybermonday discount so it was cheaper to get a subscription for 32,99 then buy the bundles as the saving you got on top was covering the sub for the year.
was a fantastic deal and i bet lots of new users took advantage of it it was kind of like a free advertising campaign for ATS and it paid off i bet and rightly so some fantastic content on his website both payware and freeware. I will deffinetly be renewing my sub later this year
Briefly diverting from discussion of ATS, as far as I recall (I think I have maybe 3-4 JT DLC), they only verified on installation (account name), not on launch. Is that not the same/similar with ATS?
Eying up this: https://alanthomsonsim.com/downloads/ayrshire-and-inverclyde-lines/ which says it’s Phase 2. Does that mean you need to install Phase 1 first, or does it encompass Phase 1? I guess as no Phase 1 comes up in a search, that must be the case. Bit confusing, as you expect Version 2 to supplant Version 1, but Phase 2 seems to suggest you need to install Phase 1 first.
you will be good with phase 2 when they update it they update the download so phase 1 and phase 2 will be together if that makes sense
Back up everything. My Railworks folder is backed up to a separate drive in my machine, and then this is backed up to my back up server (RAID6) and then that entire server is backed up to another server (RAID5) in my garage, which is a separate building and far enough away from the house to be safe should there be a fire, or a flood. I would need to have 5 simultaneous drive failures and my house burn down, and also my garage at the same time before I lost anything. The initial Railworks back up is also manually instigated once any changes are made and tested, so there's no risk of a bad install or accidental deletions being backed up by mistake. There are no automated back ups for this folder for this reason. Every time a change is made, it's tested thoroughly, then changes migrated to the second Railworks folder. Only then is the rest of the back up process automated. I'd say I'm pretty safe now.
Quite comprehensive, but you still have a single point of failure - your property. How do you protect against: Lightning strike. A powerful line strike (power or data) can be damaging up to 1 km away. Catastrophic local event - gas explosion, aircraft crash, etc. Seizure of your property - lawful or unlawful. Infiltration and sabotage - aggrieved relative or neighbour who knows how to really hurt you! Wouldn't it be easier and safer just to back up to the cloud?
A lightning strike wouldn't necessarily damage storage media itself, and the main backup server also has a UPS with solid surge protection. If a plane crashes into my house, I won't be around to worry about my Train Sim install. Not sure what you mean by lawful seizure, but I can only assume you mean debt collection etc. I would have stored any crucial data elsewhere long before that becomes a possibility. As for theft, which I can only assume you mean by illegal seizure, then again, they would have have to get all devices. The garage server is also in a locked network cabinet bolted to the wall, so it's unlikely a burglar would take the time to remove that. That last one also mitigates against an aggrieved neighbour etc. I can't imagine why anyone would go to such extremes as breaking into my house to damage my property just because I annoyed them. The only realistic scenario I can imagine coming to pass there is the first one... lighting, but I'm confident I'm OK there. I have to add, all this was not put in place just because of train sim. It's a solution I've had for some time due to the nature of my work.
The risk from lightning strikes will depend on the power of the flash. I've heard of even heavy duty 3-phase surge protectors being overwhelmed by a big one. There's also grid overvoltage and spikes that can blow things. At work I had an entire building's set of VRF compressors fail because a grid spike blew their circuit boards. Plane crash etc? Can you be so certain you'll be at home and won't survive? People do come back to find a smoking ruin of a house they left earlier, or get pulled from the rubble of one. Lawful seizure could cover your entire house being taken by the mortgage company, but it also covers your IT kit being seized for investigation by the police or customs. This happens more than you might think, and they'll likely take the lot. If it's law-enforcement you'll probably get it back at some point, but it may not be working. Infiltration and sabotage; well there's nothing more vengeful than a spurned lover and they know where to hurt you the most! Yes, all these are unlikely to happen, but I would have thought cloud storage was a simpler solution and takes away the single point of failure.
I think we're being silly now "lightning strikes" - Probably more chance of winning the lottery. "Plane Crash" - Even less chance than the lightning. "Lawful seizure could cover your entire house being taken by the mortgage company" - I own my house outright with no mortgage, and I have no debt whatsoever. "kit being seized for investigation by the police or customs." - They have no reason to do so - I'm a law abiding citizen - not so much as a point on my driving licence. "Infiltration and sabotage; well there's nothing more vengeful than a spurned lover and they know where to hurt you the most!" - Happily married and no reason to look elsewhere... my wife is hot! "Yes, all these are unlikely to happen" - Very unlikely LOL. "but I would have thought cloud storage was a simpler solution" The chances of the company going bust and losing my data are actually probably far greater than any of the above happening. I'm good thanks.
Not sure where you live, But i have never had a lightning strike affect our power/communications network to the degree you are suggesting in the City i live in. The entire Grid has a Multitude of safety components designed to protect against that. Making it extremely unlikely that any potential strike would even impact homes. Safety switched would kick in well before the current got to high for a household power system could handle. And even then the circuit breakers in homes would trip prior to that. Mine trip purely when i try to boil the kettle and use the dryer simultaneously. Airplane crash/Gas explosion, think i would have more to worry about than a digital train. What would your suggestion be for this issue? Cloud providers go bust just as often as digital stores.
Never underestimate the illuminati! You know that they keep the fact that the earth is flat a secret from us, just so they can put monkey DNA into vaccines... right? They can't fool me.
Indeed, unless you are playing TSC in a nuclear bunker, you're just not serious about it It's all about balancing the likelihood of specific risks against the cost of mitigating those risks, a judgment every individual has to make, based on not just their own assessments and needs, but ability to fund mitigations and time requirements. Anyway, to return to the original topic, I have remortgaged the house and will sign up to TSC's Patron Saint for a year and see how things go.
While awaiting the prophesied AP Sky and Weather Enhancement Pack 2.0, I finally decided to take out a one year sub to ATS. I got Chat Moss and the Class 185 with the subscribers’ discount, so that’s half my annual sub accounted for so far. One thing I didn’t bargain for on installing Chat Moss, was finding that my OHLE pack was out of date: no free upgrade, so Saint Alan got an extra £6.99 from me. Look forward to trying both tomorrow, and awaiting my ATS equivalent of the ‘Dennis the Menace and Gnasher Fan Club’ badges in the post….
Correct if im wrong, but you should get a free upgrade or any update of the ATS OHLE Pack unless you bought the pack on 1st release, then they added loads more type of Catenary then "i think" people had to rebuy with a discount, can't remember correctly as this was a few years ago now
Thanks, I’ll need to check which version it was, but it was about two years ago I got it. I figured if there was a free upgrade, I’d be alerted to that. But I will double check now.
The OHLE pack upgrades are always free. Contact them, I’ll sure they’ll sort you out. To be fair that side of their site does need some work. There is no auto notification of a product being updated, the info simply sits ‘somewhere’ on the front page of the site. I inadvertently purchased the WTT Chat Moss scenario pack for the second time today as the site didn’t recognise I already owned it. I also had a hell of a job recently locating the latest version of the installer tool too. Just FYI, you need to go into your account and then Purchase History (I think) and look for the OHLE pack. If you download it from there you’ll automatically get the latest version.
I went through my account/downloads, but it only went back a few months, nothing from before listed. So will do.
Ah, they’ve changed all that for the better. One of the options now lists only ‘purchases’ that you’ve paid money for. It used to be that it was all jumbled together. That was definitely a positive change.
Just to reiterate, whichever version shows there is all but irrelevant. Once you’ve bought it you own it, period, and are entitled to updates as and when they come.
