On their FB page AP have posted "CLASS 43 (VALENTA)/MK3 ENHANCEMENT PACK WITHDRAWAL Those of you subscribed to our newsletter will know that we have been working on a series of new HST packs for many months which will replace our existing enhancement packs. Our intention is to release the MTU variant of this new version first but the Valenta shouldn't be too far behind. As a result, the time has come to withdraw the Class 43 (Valenta)/Mk3 Enhancement Pack from sale. The VP185 variant of the pack will stay up for a while longer until sufficient progress is made on the revamped version. If you want to pick up the Class 43 (Valenta)/Mk3 Enhancement Pack then, now is the time! It will be withdrawn by the morning of Saturday 28th September."
The revamp versions of Valenta engines HSTs will be released not long after the MTU one is out? Quite looking forward to snatch the MTU pack during a sale.
Yeah not really surprised tbh with the new HST's on their way. No doubt it'll trigger a few people though.
They're showing their age unless you have Dunc's modern HST cab addon, which will be included in the new version.
Shania Twain's showing her age too...if you look closely enough. Hasn't stopped her bring able to do the job though.....
They're early EPs and they haven't aged well. The sounds are lovely but the Kuju model was barely upgraded and the cabs weren't either, and since the cab was based on an old Valenta cab it couldn't represent modern power cars very well until the modern cab pack came along. It was an overly complex EP as well. There were the three packs for the three engines, but then you'd need one of the two upgrade packs for it (each of which had reskins that wouldn't be compatible with the other patch) and then the cab pack which was bloody annoying to get working for a lot of people... Hopefully the new AP packs will be less complicated and implement many of the improvements made by the community without having to faff about with loads of separate mods.
Just spent a couple of hours testing out the orginals HST I own:- The Blue Assets Pack Just Trains DTG LNER Remastered Can't really tell much difference between any of them to be honest, other than the DTG LNER remastered accelerates like a rocket ship. Then tried all 3 of the AP HST versions, which really do look and sound much better - so well worth the original enhancements packs. So will be interested to see what the 2nd generation of enhancements to the original endhancement pack will be! Have to dig a long way in the forums to find many compliants about the original HST AP enhancement packs. Hopefully significant improvements, that I'm obviously not aware are required, will be in the second generation of the packs to make them worthwhile purchasing again. I'm sure the second generation of HST AP enhancements are not just new DLC scenerio requirements that needs to be paid for again to run scenerios with a few minor tweaks here and there!
The LNER HST is a completely different HST that isn't related to the Kuju or AP ones. It uses the TSW model and has a much higher polycount, but despite being a laser scanned model is disproportioned. Had it been released a few years earlier, I expect that the AP HST EPs would have been based on the LNER HST.
Sounds like a good theme for the screenshot competiton" Sounds like a good theme for the screenshot competiton!
I emailed AP and asked if he could make an XPT but he said no. It would be awesome seeing as he already has the sounds because the XPTs use the VP185 engines But there’s unfortunately no Australian route to run them on so there’s really no point
Australia has been pretty unloved in TS. Although DTG did release an Australian route and train years ago there has been nothing major in TS at all.
Wait...what about the people who bought the cabs on ATS prior? Are they paying double or whats the plan for that?
The people who bought the HST Cab EP by GST on ATS prior as you put it, well, they get to enjoy the HST cabs prior, currently and in the future, albeit on inferior and aged HST models, The AP HST pack will be a separate purchase by a separate developer and will be a new model, new sounds, new physics, and seeing as no one could really better the interiors they thankfully will include the GST cab interiors (because they are really good), you're paying for the AP HST EP and whether it uses GST's cab or not is irrelevant and wont affect or influence the price of the pack. The HST cab EP from GST will still and always will work for those that already have them (and dependencies) so therefore covers a wide range of already existing scenarios and reskins and whether you own it or not bares no relevance to AP's product. I really don't understand your question or implied objection.. So to answer the last part of your question, "what's the plan for that?"... Buy it or don't buy it, only you can justify if it's worth it personally to you.
The ATS HST Cab pack was a failure. It only applied to a few selected variants, and three AP HSTs were even broken by it (needed scripts were NOT supplied in the pack.) I filed support tickets to ATS, closed THREE times without action. I'm glad to see dunkrez made a deal with AP, to bring this brilliant cab by including it in the officially distributed AP HST packs, and not on ATS as a friggin patch, to many more players without the hassle of the ATS launcher installation that crippled existing AP installations. (I could recover the old engine bins by tricking the launcher with dummy RailWorks folders, then I was able to have the files of that pack exclusively, see what gets installed, and zipped them for manual installation.)
You pay double. Duncan's pack is integral to the new AP HST, so I'm fairly certain you can't install it without it. I suppose we'll have to wait and see, but I can't see how they'd do that. Duncan's cab pack didn't work with all of them any way, and there were some issues, so having it as part of this makes more sense to me. Don't think of it as buying Duncan's pack twice, as there's gonna be far more to the AP version than just the cab pack.
You are paying for a completely new HST, the cab model is only a part of it. Fully integrated, not as a patch. Imho, it should have never been sold by ATS (especially not in that confusing state). But it wasn't that expensive, and hopefully Dunkrez got a good cut with Alan not taking too much of it for hosting. The TSW cabs look very bland in comparison (and are less functional).
I was under the impression the forthcoming AP pack was an enhancement pack for the existing model, rather than a brand new scratch built model itself?
The existing low poly models are still from Kuju. As they did with the Class 37, a model that's up to modern standards is needed for that iconic train and fairly old AP EP.
My understanding is that in addition to the class 43s having a new cab view, the Mk3 coaches are to be based on the AP model but with the buffers removed. Not exactly a brand new model. "With the HST power car liveries finished off in the first week of August, our attention turned to the Mk3s. Using the upgraded model as found in our Mk3A-B Coach Pack, all liveries have been re-applied with extra details such as coach letters and coach end data panels. Even the many variations of internal door colour are represented along with window labels where applicable." https://www.armstrongpowerhouse.com/latest_newsletter
Well, IF they build a whole new model, I gladly pay (never read anything about that)... but if it´s another soundupdate with the cabs. No thanks, sir! PS: I don´t need lecturing about buying stuff on TSC. I own alot of stuff and I have defended many products in the past, that others have found too expensive.
The AP Mark 3 uses the Kuju model. Interestingly Kuju had a higher poly HST model that was used in renders, but was reduced in quality for the game. DTG should in theory still have that much better model, but have not used it.
Same deal as the Class 142 model, although IIRC AP did not remove the incorrect DRA switch in the variants that shouldn't have it. Apparently it was in return for DTG including the AP 158 in the Huddersfield Line... Which they managed to break.
Just seen the latest newsletter. "Regarding the cab, you may have noticed we have been rather quiet about this, as whilst the MTU version of the pack will include an enhanced version of the cab provided with the Dovetail Games LNER HST" I thought it was using Duncan's Modern HST Cab?
Better to quote in it's entirety.. "Regarding the cab, you may have noticed we have been rather quiet about this, as whilst the MTU version of the pack will include an enhanced version of the cab provided with the Dovetail Games LNER HST*, our modeller is still working on this and the extent of what he will be able to achieve is still unclear." As Duncan's cab came with it's own ...*issues*...it's reasonable to assume that lessons learned there are possibly being applied to the DTG LNER cab--if said modeller is Duncan of course.
The DTG LNER HST is quite old now, and I'm sure it pre-dates Duncan's Modern HST Cab pack, so not sure that had anything to do with Duncan.
No one mentioned the comment that " You will not need to own the Dovetail Games' LNER HST for our pack to function."
I was also under the expectation that the Gold Star Trains HST cab would be the basis of the one in the new HST packs. Possibly a late change of plan?
Indeed. I do have a bad feeling, and suspect ATS is holding on to the rights of Duncan's work. I'll have to look up the original thread, and am pretty sure Duncan announced his pack would be a feature of AP's new MTU pack. I had a brief conversation via DM with Duncan, I won't say much but it was clear he wasn't allowed to make any more comments on the future of his pack, and he's very loyal (and probably afraid of Alan's lawyers), not even sending me the missing scripts to prevent getting himself into trouble. I'll not speculate more, but if we don't see Duncan's brilliant cab in the AP HSTs, I know who's responsible for that. A lazy streamer making money off other people's work. Of course, I'm hoping to be proven wrong.
Pure speculation on my part but it does seem like Duncan (GST) is very bound by either peer pressure, misplaced loyalty, threat of legal action, or just plain and simple a lack of willingness to stand up for himself. He started building a 47 because the community was hounding him to do so (he posted a few early pics of it), then all of a sudden it was "oh this is just a personal project that'll likely never see the light of day", I think he said at one point he was advised not to make it as there was already something in the pipeline by someone else (I can't verify that it's something someone said to me once and I can't discount the possibility that that was rumour). Then there was the 153 binned because of the new Waggonz one, no idea what happened to the Sentinal either, in fact I believe we're still waiting for an update to the HST Cab pack that was "being worked on currently" back in June. He went all out on his MPV and one thing I've noticed is his attention to detail and overall fussiness is second to none, yet it seemed to get released not quite finished, in fact his only communication on FB these days is him practically rebuilding his MPV from the ground up, that screams "release it by such and such a date whether it's ready or not" pressure to me and that can only come from one source. I'm not one for pointing fingers or lighting pitchforks or whatever but on the face of it (compounded by his lack of posting here anymore) seems rather odd. Are you ok dunkrez blink twice if you need assistance.
I can only urge devs to be careful and think twice before making a contract with a certain person. I've had long conversations with the original dev of the 745 Flirt (proven by sending me the original 745 Announcement single-file .dll which A.T. couldn't use after losing the lawsuit and therefore had to have it recoded "spaghetti-style" using a shedload of DLLs that get installed to TSC plugins folder with the release version. Anyone defending the price has no idea why it's like that actually.)
It is only the cab that is being used from it. I'm not sure what's wrong with it, but it's certainly no worse than the Kuju cab from the original MTU pack.
DTG LNER Class 43 cab vs GST (here: EMT VP) Of course the LNER cab is much better than the Kuju one, and on a high DTG standard, but still nothing the quality of GST.
Yep.... not using Duncan's is a massive mistake as the DTG one is plainly inferior, and not something I would associate with AP. dunkrez Can you shed any light on this Duncan?
