Just Trains - The King Of Third Party!

Really great work by Just Trains just a shame it’s running in TSW with its little hitches and brief sound cuts, imagine if Just Trains made their own train simulator, we can only dream.
Not Just Trains fault but I still can’t believe after all these years with slam door stock we still have to select open doors from a menu.
Anyway can’t wait to have a drive.

 

We can think back and smile to Simudrive Jason, or when we got Paul Robins Train Driver 3 running which I think you could do Euston all the way to Glasgow. Class 86 or 87 just had one or two sound files that played, though if I recall it did cut out on neutral sections.

 

Yeah it was very advance for its time with a proper guard, random signalling and problems making every run different, happy days.

 

They're found on modern stock too. Class 375s have them, for example, and can be heard when the train is being cold started (which is what happened when the one I was on couldn't gain interlock, meaning the driver had the restart the train completely in the middle of the night).

 

Its like JT did a route solely based on the forums demand, in a good sense. So many little neat details like the different liveries, the weathering on the rolling stock, the chosen colors of the containers, train consists, types of services and so on. This is actually what i expect when imagine a route is in the making.

The only things i fear are spoiling this are the ongoing problems of the Base Game. Regarding the route, im not sure i have immediate negative feedback, it looked that complete in Stream.


Hats of to JT, this has the potential to be the absolute best Route for TSW and it looks to be by some margin.

 

Think it will be quite important when we get hold of this a week Tuesday, to carefully divorce any issues that are or might be due to the core from the route itself. So stuttering and sound distortions, probably not the fault of the JT audio mix but the shonky ongoing base game.

 

Problem is that JT's business model seems to be 1 annual route. That gives them time to properly model the route. Others are doing 3/4 a year, DTG are making a new game a year. Their quality is never going to match a dev who is focusing soley on 1 route.

 

It’s been a problem since forever. not game breaking but definitely wouldn’t mind a nice full smooth experience without the random stuttering. Surely there’s a fix. I’m talking from console not sure what PC is like. Probably better lol.

It’s so bad when a train drives past going the other way. That’s when I notice it the worst.

 

You would think that, but nope we are cursed with it too, and you can't upgrade your way out of it either - it's knackered for everyone.

 

I feel like the next logical step for JT is doing something they’ve always been used to, and that’s the MML, they’ve done countless extension after extension of this mainline on TSC.

and I feel like this should be the case with TSW as well., starting off somewhere like Sheffield - Derby for example, Although, set in the 90s


The MML during the 1990s was a very interesting time period, as we have a mix of HST and loco hauled 47s

definitely something JT should do in the future

 

That's true, I guess the answer would be to expand the crew at JT so they can make more than one route a year. Reinforce success.

 

I’ll see your 1990s and raise you 1970s-80s (peak heaven).
Split headcode box example snapped by yours truly at St Pancras with a crappy Kodak instamatic in 1981:

 

Took the words out of my mind!

 

Absolutely. I remember taking my bike across from Northampton to Wellingborough or Kettering, risking life and limb on the A45 or A43 (told my parents I was cycling locally!) in the mid 70’s to watch the Peaks screaming along on MML expresses. Would love to relive that era.

 

Was about to say the same thing. Mid 80's with Peaks and Valenta engined HST's.

Would love to drive a rattly class 127 on St. Pancras to Bedford service.

 

Don’t forget to lower the rear blinds in the cab, so the BR Board senior officers can’t grass you up for being 1MPH over the speed limit!

 

Yeah, if JT were to venture onto the MML, I'd rather them stick with the BR era of the 70's/80's, a nice mix of 45's and HST's. Those wanting modern era, would be good if Skyhook extend their MML route.

 

The economics of a studio of salaried developers and spare time freelancers is completely different.

The deadlines are not self imposed, they are cashflow-imposed. Every month a professional studio like DTG spends hundreds of thousands of pounds on salaries. In the main, income comes in a burst when a new product is released. No new products, no income, company goes bankrupt.

Freelancers who make content as a side job don't have to worry about any of that because they have an independent income.
I suspect in most cases if they paid themselves at market rate for every hour they worked, plus all the overheads associated with employment, there would be no way to produce content of the quality like JT economically. It would be so expensive no-one would buy it. That's why they can deliver more. You are profiting from the willingness of a small number of dedicated people to do highly skilled work for little reward. Trouble is, this model doesn't scale.

That doesn't mean that serious errors are acceptable in game studio content, but to expect the same level of care and attention is unrealistic and will always result in dissapointment.

 

The dissapointment for me personally in some recent DLC means I would have to be paid to have it never mind wait for a sale or full whack. JT Produced content in BPO which I go back to time and time again, I am confident that WCML North will deliver similar, wether its developed by volunteers or a studio matters little, I like the idea of supporting both but if the studio content is sub par then I for for one are not buying it, obviously not everyone feels the same as I do hence why some content keeps getting bought by some users.

 

If with their size they produce this in one year in their free time, that's even more alarming.

The problem is that we don't know the sales numbers. Of course, if DTG were to produce higher quality, it would probably take more work hours (it would also be interesting to compare those for both studios), but while keeping the work hours lower, low-quality DLCs are coming out, which ultimately results in fewer sales. A little bit more effort would bring in more long-term income as the community overall would be more satisfied and spending more.

It shows already that most DLCs from the last year are forgotten (how many mentions of, let's say, Salzburg-Rosenheim do you see?), while Blackpool is still getting frequent mentions as the best product in the TSW4 era. I would really love to see how they sold compared to each other.

 

It’s not like BPO is the only UK route that gets mentioned (more so now with a JT route on the horizon), I’m sure if you want over to TrainSim.DE you could make the opposite argument. It’s just a case of the majority userbase on a forum dictating the discussion.

 

Ask yourselves why John D'Angelico made better archtop guitars than Gibson or Epiphone.

 

Unsure if anyone picked up on this but when Benedict was talking about the catenary on the route and how much detail he went into I really appreciated that! Like he really wanted to get it right. Not just use any premade model he wanted to get it right and do it properly.

Tom also followed up by saying when you do an electric route you need to get the cantenery right.

I know we've had issues with it in the past. So it's just nice to see JT take those extra steps and really put that work in!

 

My only lingering reservation about BPO is the Pacer sounds. In fact, doing a run on NTP last night when the Class 101 popped up in the Journey progression it was immediately apparent these seemed to largely form the basis with a bit of remixing for the 142.

However I’m sure there will be no such doubts about the 87 and just wishing the weekend here and away and next Tuesday to get here.

 

To be fair the JT 142 isn't as good as people say it is. When compared to the AP version in TS it looks and sounds worse. The 87 won't be as good as the AP version in TS either.

It is disappointing that nobody has tried to make a new Class 47 and 101. Both of the models are quite off, and the sounds aren't great either.

 

I asked myself why John D'Angelico made better archtop guitars than Gibson or Epiphone

I replied to myself that I was probably better off asking someone that knew about archtop guitars and who John D'Angelico was

 

They care about what they are doing because they are real train enthusiasts too. All 3rd party devs should be like this. It should also signal the end of boring A to B routes with little traffic or interest.
Let their work be the template for the future.

 

Both 80s engines were made before AP released their second 142 pack, besides that literally all the other sounds including the Cummins engine is from the first AP pack.

How so? I mean, apart from external variations from across the entire life of the 87 in the AP pack I don’t think there will really much of a difference, the sounds will be the same and I’d actually argue the 87 looks better in TSW

 

If it means we get less modern EMU content with one loco/unit, no extra liveries, a reused 66 and a lacking timetable I'll worship them until the cows come home

 

The colours are quite off with the JT Class 87 and the Mark 3s as well. The BR Blue is a bit too vibrant, quite close to the awful BR Blue colour DTG used in Train Simulator for a while. The InterCity livery is quite muted, with the red looking like terracotta and and the black looking more like grey. I'm by no means an AP fanboy, but I have to say their livery colours are a lot closer to what they should look like. If I was being optimistic I'd say TSW's lighting could be making the colours worse, but I think I'm pushing on the suspension of disbelief with that one.

The weathering on the AP 87 is more subtle than the JT one, but the textures are crisper on the AP one. I'll need to take a closer look at the JT one when it comes out to make a final decision. However, the weathering on the JT 142 was mid-tier at best even with the textures set at the highest level, so I'm not holding out hope.

Plus, the physics of the JT 87 will probably be noticeably worse as they are with the 142.

To be fair I do believe the WCMLoS will easily be the best route in TSW, even if it is limited by TSW itself. I'll have to play it for myself to make my mind up when it comes out, but with Blackpool Branches the route itself was quite a bit better than the 142 that came with it.

 

Very much so, what they produce is QUALITY. I don't mind paying a bit extra for it either, shame they didn't do WCMLS.

 

None of the JustTrains team are freelancers, they are all salaried employees.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think we will ever get one.

HIS and those around him have a pretty mixed past over on TSC, and Reppo's recently release over there was also not as good as his other works.

I just don't see the US ever getting a good 3rd party dev like JT is.

 

Yes, without a 3rd party at the level of JT, the future for US players looks very bleak. The occasional commuter route from DTG is not much to look forward to.

Freight is the heart and soul of US railroading and without it.........?

 

Not sure where you get that from. Their main route builder (Tom) is a tram driver with Blackpool Transport. Ergo, route building is a spare time occupation. It is highly unlikely the amount of money made on the royalties after split, income tax etc. from a few thousand route DLC is going to pay the mortgage, council tax, utility bills and put food on the table!

 

Nope he's right.

 

Tom hasn't been a tram driver for Blackpool Transport for a number of years. He occasionally assists in the heritage side of things however. Route building is certainly not a spare time hobby either.