Some technical stuff concerning classic content. Some people complain about missing scenarios after they bought a classic DLC like Fort Kent for example. And then I just found I had really old scenarios I wasn't aware of. First I'm gonna explain why some scenarios are 'missing'. A scenario is made up of a bunch of xml files. I will refer to .bin files also as xml, as they are just compressed xml files. The tool that does this is called Serz.exe and is in the root Railworks folder. 1. ScenarioProperties.xml This file tells the Simulator the basics of the scenario. The name, description, briefing, date and time, author, all non-static consist names and their leading locomotive. At last, the assets which are being used. Using this file TS gathers the information to display in the Drive menu. 2. Scenario.xml This is where all the rolling stock is stored. Static consists, AI and the player consist. And the Driver Instructions are stored in here (Final Destination, Waypoints, etc.) 3. InitialSave.xml This file contains the state of all switches. 4. ScenarioNetworkProperties.xml Changes to the track like speed limits, added markers like sidings or destinations are stored here. 5. Scenery folder Here scenery objects like cameras, vehicles, animals, etc are stored for each affected tile if these were added to the scenario. 6. ScenarioScript.lua The scripts if present. Camera scripts, Events, and many more things that are scripted. In the early versions of Train Simulator/Railworks/RailSimulator things were handled a little different. As there was not a lot of DLC, the game browsed through the scenario.xml to find which assets to load. A behaviour that is luckily still present in the editor, not in the game itself though. I'll come to that later. The ScenarioProperties.xml which tells TS what to load had a simpler structure. -The assets (blueprints) to preload were NOT described. -Only the player consist name was stored, not AI. -And most important, the driving engine of the consist was not stored. This is the reason TS does not show them in the Drive menu using the Route/Loco filters. It does not know which engine is used. But, and many probably do not know, those scenarios appear in the list if you go to Drive/Standard tab and NOT click the filters on the left hand side. Just scroll through the list on the right hand side and maybe you discover scenarios you did not know you had. In the Loco column there is just a "-". But you can play them! Now about the vintage scenarios I did not even know I had and how to make them playable. Back in the early days Railworks came with three routes: Castle Rock, Hedborough North and Seebergbahn. They were later withdrawn. Matt Peddlesden from DTG was kind enough to re-release them in the Workshop. Of course to not interfere with the original routes that some may have installed, they have new Route IDs, means a different folder in Railworks/Content/Routes/. Now check your Routes folder for the following subfolders: 00000005-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 -> Seebergbahn 00000006-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 -> Castle Rock Railroad 00000007-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 -> Hedborough North These are the original route folders. You can have them even if you do not have the route itself. This a good way TS handles its content. In my case, some Classic addons from vR (118), Oovee (Class47, TEA, MJT wagons, or DB 1970s freight) were shipped with scenarios. The above folders were created and the scenarios put in there. But they are invisible in the game if you do not have these routes. Now head to Workshop and look for [WS] Seebergbahn, [WS] Castle Rock Railroad and [WS] Hedborough North. Subscribe to them (One after another, always wait for one being installed before subscribing to the next.) You now have three new route folders: 2dcec24f-70d7-41ac-add3-9a041df570fa -> [WS] Hedborough North 6b8cb9e5-aabf-4d9c-b640-d3d24d7cffac -> [WS] Seebergbahn 85e59955-ee4d-41f4-bfbd-b84444e53a1a -> [WS] Castle Rock Railroad Now the good thing. There is scenario compatibility here. So let's move the scenarios from the original folders (00000005,00000006 and 00000007) to the corresponding scenario folder in the new route folders. (Outside the game of course, use Windows explorer or the file commander of your choice. I stick to 7z file manager because you can browse through .ap files like normal folders and it has two folder views.) Ok now there is some work left to do. I have three scenarios that came from an old Oovee Class 47 and wagons pack. They freeze TS as soon as I click on Drive. The reason is the old ScenarioProperties.xml. There is a simple way to repair it. Start TS, go to Build/Scenario menu, and you'll see the scenarios. First thing to do is load it into the editor. If you click on play now and confirm to save changes, you can already play it. The ScenarioProperties is updated, but not completely. There is still something missing, namely the <FrontEndDriverList> is incomplete. To do that go into the timetable menu and make some little change. I chose to edit the name of the player consist, click OK, then change it back. If you Play/Save now you have a fully compatible scenario with updated structure. Now you can select and play the scenario using the normal filters and everything is displayed correctly. Maybe some loco images are missing, but that is not problematic. They just weren't delivered with one. But the loco name is now there. Hope that is of interest to some. Cheers, torfmeister
First, it deserves a bump Big thanks! Second, if I simply copy my Seebergbahn scenarios to the WS folder, and load them with Build, I can drive them just fine? Previously I've been told I need some internal editing, such as to change the route reference inside the XMLs. But indeed I did check your research and the Hedborough TEA scenarios do not have a route reference. Also been running a few Timetabled scenarios this way.
Torf Does this still happen if you copy the original scenarios and allocate different Scenario GUIDs (TS-Tools, Editor) and then copy the changed GUID scenarios into the appropriate WS route? TS does not like and never has liked, duplicate Scenario GUIDs. pH
Either move (like I mentioned before) them or clone (which creates new GUID) them - as duplicates indeed lead to missing scenarios. Or play them straight out of the editor. The Build->Scenario menu shows ALL you got. Keep backups. Some old scenarios refuse to play when resaved, can mess up dispatching in rare occasions.
I knew about the fictional routes and scenario compatibility, but never thought of posting the guide for those scenarios. You have earned a "Helpful" tick from me, sir, as others will surely find this information useful. It should be noted that North Wales Coastal, South Wales Coastal, and Welsh Marches content can be copied like this, too. You just need the original folders for those routes. NWC used 00000077-0000-0000-0000-000000002017 (I think the Holyhead extended version started with 00000084). The Bristol to Swansea route used 00000068-0000-0000-0000-000000002016 (the new version is 00000068-a000-0000-0000-000000002016, just copy any custom scenarios over but leave official ones except in one specific case I'll mention). Welsh Marches started as 00000068-b000-0000-0000-000000002016. The original South Wales Coastal, without Swansea, is from 00000064-0000-0000-0000-000000002016. If you copy any scenarios from these folders over to the new versions of the route, you may need to make some stock edits. You may need to swap out any stock included by default with any of these routes on any scenarios using them if you do not own the default versions, replacing them via TS-Tools or LocoSwap with the versions you do have (or AP/ATS equivalents). Other than that, the scenario should work. I can confirm, for instance, that SWC had the original BristolToCardiff and CardiffToSwansea folders, but the new one gets assets at SouthWales01 and SouthWales02, so you might even be able to directly edit a scenario file where needed. Did you get the Class 150/1? Those scenarios are for the original SWC and are not in the new one. You can find these three scenarios (see here - .they are called "2U06 -0737 Weston-super-Mare to Cardiff Central", "2C85 – 1700 Cardiff Central to Taunton", and "1F30 – 1723 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central"). If you don't have the original SWC, these scenarios can be cloned and copied to the new folder. (Do NOT move them, as since they are Career scenarios, you'll get a Scenario.bin error.) The same applies to scenarios for the Arriva DMU Pack, with a branded 158 and 143; you will have to rely on the AP version of the trains, or swap any other model into place over them, but you can also clone and move those scenarios to the new route. I think I'll be playing SWC on my next set of recordings, so I may make clones of the 150/1 set and upload them myself. There's no point for the DMU pack; if those get cloned and AP versions needed, I may go straight to ATS with them unless the reskins work on the Workshop for the 158 (the 143 services will need to borrow other models). This means I'd have to install the 158 EPs first, but I'm waiting until I video the scenarios using them in Career mode before updating them. By the way, NLL should work on Goblin Lines, and London-Gillingham on the Chatham Main Line would work on the Dover version of the route if you so dared (or also on Medway) since the route is bundled with the extended route. Southwestern Expressways original version without Reading should also work on the Reading one.
I feel greatly honoured, Sir Cyclone. And thanks for the hint concerning workshop scenarios. If you want your game to run smoothly, first thing you want is to have as few subscriptions as possible and keep steamapps\workshop\content\24010 clean, as it is browsed by the game on every startup. The way I do it is to subscribe (TS not running), then after download move the item from steamapps\workshop\content\24010 to a safe place and install it manually from there. Then I unsubscribe before starting TS. You've got the scenario but it is not monitored by the workshop manager.
So, if one clones a workshop scenario and unsubscribe the scenario, will the clone be monitored by the workshop manager?
You don't even have to clone them. Subscribe, install, quit TS, delete steamapps\workshop\content\24010\*.*, Steam TS Properties->Workshop unsubscribe. Scenarios stay but are not in the workshop tab anymore (and won't be scanned and verified on startup). Ratings still possible because ScenarioProperties.xml has Workshop info.
You can also do my trick and copy it right from the Workshop folder into Content, then unsubscribe before even loading the game and edit freely. Correction to note. Once a Workshop scenario is installed as a Workshop scenario, the ScenarioProperties file permanently has the Workshop info, so it stays marked as such. The only way to prevent it being done like that is to go to the Workshop folder (buried in steamapps, not in the common folder which lists the game folders) and copy the files directly. That installs the scenario maker's exact files. That prevents Workshop tagging while still installing the scenarios. Even if you unsubscribe, they stay installed. If you forget to unsubscribe, they might get converted and replaced from the copy in the "workshop" folder.
Correct. It's a matter of personal preference, I like having the Workshop tags in the Scenario preserved just to remind me that it is a workshop scenario.
Personally, I don't want to have to fuss with a menu to change to all scenarios or Workshop scenarios. After all, UKTS, ATS, DPS, etc. all show as "official" already. Why should Workshop be any different? Add something in the menu for it, and make it one menu. But also, I have zero scenario corruption my way.
This triggered me to check the Workshop folder and I find that it contains a series of folders with 9 digit numerical names which contain binary files with a 19 digit numerical name (some folders are empty). How do I identify them?
Go to your Workshop subscriptions. Look at the number on them. Here's a recently published example and an older example. Example 1: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2689501586 This is a scenario by BritishAce. When you subscribe to it, go to your workshop folder (inside steamapps) and access content, then the 24010 folder. Inside will be many folders, but we will find one called 2689501586 (matching the number in the URL). When you open that folder, a file named scnr_95d8074b-0135-46a0-8049-aad1681e4f02 is found. If you have WinRAR or 7Zip, you can open this. It leads to a Content folder. You know what to do with this: drag it into the Railworks folder, then you can unsubscribe. You will thus install the exact scenario files without Workshop tagging and they will appear as official scenarios. Or you can load the game and have the Workshop tagging applied, in which case the folder we just went into is meaningless. Example 2: an older example. On my subscriptions from the old days is https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117031212 called Express Freight. When you open the similar folder, 117031212 presents a 576725338197937436_legacy file. This is harder to access. However, you can also set this file to open with WinRAR (and possibly also 7zip). It looks different than today's versions, and files this old produce something like this: There is one constant, however: a Content folder materializes. You can still drag that into the Railworks folder and unsubscribe, or again let the Workshop tagging take place. Note if you subscribe to multiple Workshop scenarios, some may become corrupt if they all try to tag at once. I have seen evidence of this. This is why I drag files directly from an archive program, as they cannot get corrupted if you are using the author's original files. Exactly how you'd install from UKTS, DPSimulation, ATS, and others. Just remember to unsubscribe or they will get modified and may still become corrupted. This Workshop corruption is something that DTG to this day has never fixed.
