Xc Route Birmingham - Bristol

Yes, I linked one above from Amazon.

 

But are you 100% sure you will get a Steam key. As I said when I did this through another 3rd party supplier they were told the Steam key was no longer available.

 

It's Amazon, if it doesn't work you get a refund, but yes as far as I'm aware these keys do indeed still work.

 

I did not buy the key. I used the new South Wales and replaced addresses found in the Track, Scenery and Loft data sets (tiles). I now have the Birmingham Bristol, the Birmingham 2010 and the South Lancs in Blue all cleaned up. (Thx Gary!)

 

Some of us are not that clever

 

It's not clever...it's just a matter of following instructions...see earlier link for TS Tools/RW Tools guide.

 

I do not know exactly what you have on your pc. I could send you my updated files, however, there would be no guarantee that I would catch everything you have on your machine. Here is the process I ended up doing

1) TSTools Route Building -> Extract Route properties -> Check Route (click on route and click on Check Selected Route)
2) Exported complete list of missing items to csv file
3) Checked at a high level to see if certain Asset packs existed (TSTools will not explode data from AP files). If I had these assets I omitted from my Excel.
4) Used 'Serz App' to convert Tracks bin to xml.
5) Cleaned the html with known assets (using Notepad++) - then 'Serz' back to a binary file
6) Grouped rest by type (Scenery, Loft, Road) - TSTools will allow find replace of Scenery files by a find/replace method combing through the scenery tiles. It will not do this for Road and Loft files. This takes ages so I did not do this)
7) Grouped the sub lists by location (tile name). Used Serz to convert tile bin to html and did a find/replace where I had large 'opportunities' [e.g. When I had all of the asset files in a different DTG folder from the new version and needed to mass change the name of the folder so that they were not pointing to the 2017 or 2018 versions of the files). Converted the xml back to a binary (bin) file
It is a long process - it can be done if you have the tenacity.

If you want to do this let me know and I will try and help
Respectfully

 

Thank you that's very kind of you. I will take a look and see how far I get.

 

You've probably found the hardest way possible to do it kilt.

No need to...TS Tools will allow you to edit .bin files directly.

Yes it will...you just need to check the little box for the asset type..

You have no need to make lists or edit any scenery/loft/road tiles manually...you just work through the "missing assets" report the program creates when checking a route.

EDIT: If the report has missing track rules that are assigned to roads or lofts, ignore them...they have no effect.

 

I discovered on my version this functionality only worked for Scenery type items AND Track can be done at the high level bin file (as per previous entry from Spikee). With regards to the Scenery files, as there were so many needed changed from NorthWalesCoast to NWC-CreweCaergybi, since the cycle time per asset was circa 4 minutes per pass and having 400+ assets it was quicker to just go into each relevant tile (hence the sort by location) and do a simple find/replace within the XML (cycle time of 2 seconds). There were a few items which were wrongly modified. I picked this up on the final pass of missing assets and then used the above functionality to set this handful back again. To be honest after doing all of this I did not like the long cycle time of the TS Tool subroutine and just manually fixed them. If there is a route with a few assets missing yes I would use the above method. When retro fixing a previous version of a Route (2017 v 2022) I found my method to be more efficient.

Regard Tracks. The version I fixed was pointing to the old NorthWalesCoast. I Did a find/replace of the high level xml to NWC-CreweCaergybi and instead of having a patchwork quilt of 'missing textures', the tracks very quickly became playable.

To say the tracks, lofts and roads have no effect in my opinion was quite wrong. They pointed me to the addresses in the tracks.bin file and Loft/road tiles which DID need to be changed which needed re-addresses to the new pack tracks. When I fixed these tiles they fell off the report.





Respectfully

 

Tracks can be fixed under the Route's Network folder. The loft tiles and Road tiles (if they need fixed) are modified in each respective folder. TS Tools is not currently capable of fixing these and they needed to be done manually. I got it done and everything fell off the report.

 

That isn't what I said though. I said that when TS Tools reports a Track RULE as missing but that rule is applied to a road or loft it has no effect on the game and you don't need to worry about it.

 

Checking the box for the asset type does not work - or that is my experience. You may think you are changing a track or loft item ( didn’t check the road) however it still shows up as missing. As I mentioned I found a way to clear everything in the list and observed that only the scenery items (provide not hidden in an AP file) were truly updated using the TSTool. The other 3 I managed to fix after a lot of research. I also found it quicker to do manually by tile. If you have a few assets across a lot of tiles use the TSTools. If you have more assets than tiles missing then here is an alternative.

 

So you need to look hard to find what you're doing wrong.

 

I am just relating what I found. I ran through this cycle for Loft Items and they still showed in the list on my pc. It worked for scenery items. Also due to the large quantity of changes needed. Moving everything from the name of folder A to folder B it was much quicker doing the mass search and replace for the folder name rather than run this cycle ( which is not quick) 400 times rather than open up 50 tiles and do the mass change. As usual I will let Gary have the last word. Also I did test out the mass search/replace on a bin file. Standard Windows tools cannot do this as it only replaces the first instance. It needs to be converted into xml first.

 

Is that 400 instances of missing assets or 400 unique assets? I ask as there's only about 800 assets in total across all the folders in the Scenery folder in the route's Assets folder.

 

There were circa 35,000 items first reported when I started. There were multiple providers listed in the tiles. Why do you always ‘try’ to make people look stupid. It would benefit the greater community if your tone was not always aggressive.
Respectfully

 

Why are you looking at standard windows tools? TS Tools does it in one easy to use and quick package. You're building work in at every step.

 

Well there aren't 35,000 assets in North Wales.

 

35,000 lines in the base report - item, type, tile

 

Which boils down to 4498 individual assets used....


Why such an specific number?...because that's what you get when you you the route through TS Tools with your Assets folder renamed to Assets.X, effectively making everything you have *missing* (be warned, if you try it, it takes bloody ages...)

When you've been doing this have you omitted the "click the 'Remove duplicates" button so that you just get a list of unique missing items" bit?

 

With the full data set in Excel running a pivot table you can choose to view by distinct asset or by distinct location/tile. My analysis led me to do the mass search/replace by tile due to almost everything from North Wales now being located in the new asset bin NWC CreweCaergybi. This makes sense as you can only buy the newer version. Either way it is a mammoth task.
Respectfully

 

But we're supposed to be going through how TS Tools does it, not how to cobble together a method using other programs. With TS Tools you only swap each asset once, which changes the reference in every tile.

 

I thought the original request was how to get some of Routes available which depend on legacy routes up and running. TSTools is an option, maybe not the only one.
Respectfully

 

3rd post in this thread...

 

That was a 2021 vintage comment. Additional thread extended Dec 2024. Your point being? I am providing an alternative solution and have actually performed and validated a complete transformation. Have you managed to do this using TSTools exclusively?

 

Yes...I did it to help a mate out, as he had lots of bother with the signalling. It might be worth your while to check for stuff like this:



EDIT: I actually used RW Tools, but basically it's just a Rose by another name.