Feather River Canyon - Enhanced

How can you NOT like this quality
https://docs.google.com/presentatio...21YyFAQ48HZz5AbTF7HQGp1Vc/edit?usp=drive_link

 

This where we can differ as well. The Mallet in Tennessee Pass, from the published pictures, does not look that good. It is similar to the washed out gray of old MSTS steam engines. Not nearly as nice as the latest from Machine Rail or of any of Smokebox's work. If you complain about the same old quality from HIS with FRC Enhanced, and I have the same feelings about Milepost and Tennessee Pass.
I have never left a route unmodified. I have always changed stock, or add sound, light and physics mods to it, and make it my own, but I like a good solid base to work with.

 

You're right, but let's be honest-the only people making good unmodded stock now is Smokebox, Machine Rail, Searchlight, Diesel Workshop, and kind of Reppo. I don't buy routes for the stock, but for the route, and in that case, Milepost's stuff looks a whole heck of a lot better than HIS'. I expect the mallet to be nothing special based off the K-27, but there is the Smokebox Challenger(even though they didn't run there). I will say that the locos in this pack are a new high for DTM, but he still has a long way to go before his stuff is any good, and there's next to no good WP stock besides a few reskins and the FP7 enhancement pack.

 

Please don't let us become like the TSW forum.

If you're not happy with a DLC, you don't have to buy it. This is a 114 mile route with loads of stock. For the same price you get 20-30 mile route stubs with one piece of traction in TSW.

Let's share constructive criticism and our enjoyment.

When it's done, will take some time due to the amount of stock, I'll put it up on trainsimcommunity.

I'll make an excel sheet. As I'm using AP colouring (and these 320 colour defs are Intellectual Property of AP), I won't offer the files but a set of values you'll need to apply to AP's TimeOfDay files for making a set of US based seasons, basically higher standing sun at noon and adjusted ToD transition times).

 

Thank you.

 

Maybe in in Australia or New Zealand but not in the rest of the world

 

feature from the original MSTS Feather River route, which so far, hasn't been emulated in Open Rails.
The MSTS has numbered tunnels and numerous rock fall fences, not modeled in TSC?

How are the scenarios? Since it is single track of 30-35 MpH range and the game's dispatcher doesn't handle meets on single track very well.

I'll get the route in the next sale when the Enhanced route has been enhanced some more by people that actually know their WP stuff.

It looks pretty much the same as the original in most places and the locomotives are in the trend of quantity over quality, if the 'edge enhancement' darkened the edges most wouldn't look that bad even from a distance.

Depending on how you like to watch your train passing through the canyon, you might appreciate at better detailed cab and dashboard in the cabview.
The new 'seat' position shown by Spike is already an improvement, you can see the bulldog nose of the F-units.
Hopefully a complete improvement pack will follow.

Main question: will HIS' crew 'improve' and 'enhance' more old route DLC in likewise fashion, at a full premium price without substantial loyalty discounts to current owners? Looks like a cheap money grab and perhaps indicative of the dearth of ideas, initiatives and perhaps licences with the current US freight railroading scene in both TSW and TSC.

 

I think this is worth a discussion thread on its own.

My own view being...
I think this is mostly the way forward.

New content is of course welcome. Plenty of newer, interesting trains. Not sure how it conflicts with 3rd parties...

Old content could clearly use several upgrade iterations. It's getting difficult to recommend stuff for new players.
Existing content covers iconic areas and flags. Workshop and else references them.

An updated NY-Philadelphia with a Reppo P5 AEM-7 plus the ACS-64, Acela, ideally some NJT (heck, merged with NJCL) would make a lot of sense. Great for high speed running, only issue being it's designed for 2011 and of course its stock and signaling.

But seriously, I'm super fond of the PDL 2018.
And these upgrades might be included in the 2024 route bundle. I mean, wishful thinking.

 

Let me get my priors out of the way, I don't like HIS, I don't like the guy who runs it, I hate DTM's texturework, etc...

At the same time, releasing standalone route extensions for full price is nothing new for this sim, Gilroy, Goblin, Chatham and Medway, Chatham and Dover, so on and so forth. People (including me) (fairly imo) bitched and moaned about that pricing model back then as well, but it really is nothing new. At least in this case HIS is 'improving' (arguably) the base route as well.
All that being said I still feel selling this at full price is scummy but it's nothing new.

 

Can anyone give me a hint on how to colour the rusty version of the Clio Trestle? More blueish or brown? The old photos I could gather have a strong tint themselves due to age / film material.



Old Clio, 1st attempt (should probably be a bit less saturated, not sure)

 

Quick way to use AP sky: Create a TimeOfDay folder in Assets\HIS\FeatherRiverExt, copy AP's Summer.bin into that folder and rename it to Default.bin. The default clouds really make the sky seem flat and there's no spatial depth, especially when they are covered by mountains at the horizon, appearing too big and giving the impression of scenery being much closer to you.

Still enjoying the run. To me, it's a completely new route and one of the finest mountain railroads in the game.

 

God forbid they spend the time for that on this $40 route! That'd warrant it being $50!

They suck, in more ways than one. First of all, the trains are all crapped together, none of the symbols have been accurately made. As for locos, Gary has no sense of what the WP was actually like, casually mixing paint schemes that never mixed, and of course, seeing as the only new WP power is 1st gen...in a 70s-80s set route...they feel like the 50s. By this time the WP was running an army of GP40s and GP35s, but no, only 1st gen power that is largely useless after 1972(barring the pearlman GP9) is included and used.
As for coding? That sucks too. AI trains start in sidings, with their only instruction a "stop" at the end of that siding, numerous errors in the text, other HIS scenario BS.

 

As a suggestion: You can get that information direct from the source https://www.wplives.org/contact.html
This is a link the Western Pacific Railroad Museum and Historical Society. I have used them for reference several times. They do appreciate a small donation, wink wink. They may have the actual color pallet used. I know they did for a project I was doing a few years back.

 

Train washer in Portola

 

Including the purple light and special low speed instructions from MSTS in an WB Zephyr scenario?
Do we have WP FT and F3 units and other locomotives in the game to complement the roster?

Regarding your earlier answer about the switch tagets, the fact that those wrong targets were copied from a 10 year old DLC (that still has them wrong on Steam) shows the QA HIS has applied to his efforts since I gather the route's assets are in HIS folder.

 

I have really enjoyed this pack. I would not be unhappy if HIS 'cleaned up' some of the other older US packs. As mentioned before it would be nice for HIS to update their existing Scenario Packs for the old FC to be compatible with the new extension DLC. For those out there who think this overpriced. Lets see your attempt at updating one of the older DLCs and then comment on the value add required to make this change. In my opinion this is a valiant effort and well worth the money. I have purchased several TSW DLCs and just cannot bring myself to playing any of them. I keep coming back to TSC and like to see revamped content as well as new content. The length of the scenarios is what does it for me!

 

Some Portola switching. I agree with kilt46, you get bang for the buck here. I'm in love with the scenery

 

Route enhancement that looks miles better than this FEATHER RIVER CANYON "ENHANCED," and makes a formerly barely playable route into easily of the best NA routes in the game. All for the low cost of $0.00.
https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/mods/c1-train-sim-classic/c11-routes/i3647-cpkc-columbia-mountains

Wait...there's more?
https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/m...sic/c11-routes/i2911-bnsf-seattle-suburbs-wip
It's almost like HIS made a money grab!

https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/m...238-norfolk-southern-coal-district-revamp-v11
https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/mods/c1-train-sim-classic/c11-routes/i3771-cn-yellowhead-pass
There's more too, those and the modernized PacSurf(which I can't find right now) are the really good ones though.

That's the thing about this paid enhancement-over the last year there's become a large precedent in the modding scene about enhancing routes, and HIS simply took that idea and made it payware. He did the same thing multiple others have done for free, and yet thinks that it is justified at the price point of $34.99.

On a completely different note, all of those routes are handlaid, while 99% of the "enhancements' made the FEATHER RIVER CANYON ENHANCED are using the tree gen tool to replace vegetation and textures. Knowing that you can download higher quality routes for free, is the price justified?

 

Well, let everyone decide for themselves. You can use the freeware version if you like, but accept others may enjoy the work of Michael Stephan, Rick Grout, Wayne Campbell and Gary Dolzall who have also released a lot of stuff as freeware, that's often forgotten. Yes, I'm unhappy with the DTM LOVE that's packed with the route but hey you can swap stock out and download free community fixes.

Without the people that made this pack (who were involved in basically all available TS US freight content), we'd have only (brilliant but then alone) Milepost left. Majority of developers are now heading to TSW, SS chose SimRail.

If you look at the old DTG Feather River (which is utterly poor, empty and plain), this is a new route with new custom assets, extended and beautifully done and the scenery is some of the best in TSC. I'm acknowleding that work which does entertain me and I am happy to pay the price in return.

I don't understand your rage. We're living in a free market economy and you can decide for yourself what you spend your money on. The FRE is just an offer and no one's forcing anyone to buy it. If I don't like something for whatever reason I'll just move along.

 

It's unrealistic to expect all TSC developers to work for nothing.

It's also unrealistic for most people to use freeware routes as they usually have huge dependencies that most users won't have or won't want to buy.

The beauty of a Steam product is that you only have to pay for the specific thing that interests you and then you get everything you need in one package.

Commercial products are also constrained by the development time budget that's been set. An individual working for free on a passion project can put in as many weeks, months or years as they like, as they don't have to worry about staying in business.

You may have particularly high quality requirements, but that doesn't mean developers are wrong not to meet them, if they aren't typical of where the market is.

 

Look it's quite simple really..

1) You must have it because it's something you really want so you're prepared to bite the bullet and pay the current asking price.

2) It's something you're interested in but quite happy to wait until it's inevitably in a Steam sale at some point in the future and then you frugally buy it then.

3) You're not interested in it so don't have to worry about the price because you're not getting it therefore it costs you nothing

Anyone else just needs to find a hobby that doesn't make them so constantly and consistently angry, may I suggest something OFFLINE!

 

Then you have to pay an arm and a leg for the DLC if you don't have for it so not really free after all.

 

Here's my view.

When this was first marketed, I thought this would be an add-on requiring the original Feather River Canyon route and thought, maybe this will be worth looking at at some stage from that perspective. The add-on would be an additional route like the Suburban Glasgow to Airdrie. We would see a separate group of scenarios, and the extension would be priced cheaper than a full route. I thought this might be acceptable given the quality of train models usually included with a HIS route.

Then I saw the price was a full route price not requiring the original route. And that owners of the original route don't get a discount.

Knowing the history of full HIS routes and stock included with them (basically cheap reskins of stock included with other routes), I can't say I'm excited about this any longer. I'll wait for the bargain bin to get a hold of it. Sadly, even at 50% off, I'm worried that it might still be priced a tad high. $52 in CAD is a lot of money for a DLC compared to many full games out there nowadays, and this is basically for an extension.

What does make me curious, though, is whether old scenarios from FRC would work on it. That would at least give some value in terms of replayability on the new route. An RBJets set on the original FRC exists, for instance, and could very well see an extension here if those scenarios can port over.

 

Name a workshop scenario and I'll try. If the track layout hasn't changed, chances are it works right away or only needs small adjustments (of course it needs preloading the DTG assets for the stock)

Edit: I'll check on this from my fav Not.Silent

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=926867433

 

Not quite correct there Cyclone, there is a loyalty (prior route owner) discount, it's £3.50 gbp ($5.95 cad).

 

And you should be aware that none of the people that made the extension earned a penny for the old FR, which was a DTG production (only Smokebox was involved as documented).

And the extension is a lot of work, just as the GN Cascadian Stevens Pass conversion was. The price for that one is also fully justified imho.

 

£4.51 discount for me.

 

I have sent in a request to HIS to ask if they can port over their 2 Scenario packs https://store.steampowered.com/app/376957/?snr=1_5_9__205 and https://store.steampowered.com/app/678000/?snr=1_5_9__205. If so this would be a nice little bundle

 

I never once claimed I was good at math...

Correction... £4.50 gbp ($7.65 cad)

 

A percentage is an amount, I was just pointing out what that amounted to in gbp and cad for Cyclone

 

Let me know what you find out.

You mean this?



It'll be 50% off in due time. This is not a prior route owner's discount. If it was, it would be a permanent discount for owners of the route. This is instead an introductory discount. I'll wait for the "no one is buying it anymore and we need money" discount. Then I'll consider it. In my view right now, it's an overpriced 34 mile extension.

Keep in mind there will be no discount on such a bundle. I actually was looking at 50% off Hanover in the last sale, then saw the bundle of all three items all 50% off. No additional discount if you bought the bundle. I chose instead to buy some VictoryWorks steamers to try out on Weardale/Teesdale in addition to a scenario pack by Larias Games using one of them (and I have my own issues with some Larias scenarios; Fife Circle #9 is a great example of a badly designed scenario in terms of timetable - it should have also been an hour earlier, you can't see a thing at night and the sunsets I conjured up were gorgeous - and #7 in terms of a signal issue that DTG never fixed AFAIK after I reported it to them). Also found some South London Network stuff to get more 455 and 456 usage and may swap AP locos in for player locos on those. We'll see.

 

Be sure they'll release scenario packs anyway. But look out for the workshop as soon as the route is unlocked for it.

Just a reminder of the old DTG scenery...

 

it is a owners discount hence why it says LOYALTY discount

 

Here is the California Zephyr running from Portola to Oroville.
The scenery is by far better than the original. Of note are the distant hills there is now subtle detail. The overall lighting is greatly improved. It is not "added a few bushes" per one YouTube reviewer has said. You can't just concentrate on the added 34 miles. Rolling stock can be changed or modified, this costs nothing. Prove it to yourself, buy the route, you can always get a refund. You don't buy a car solely from a magazine review. You go and drive it your self. Valid comments are being watched and perused by the developers and an update will be released.
The California Zephyr is a purchased add-on and not included in price of the route.
//store.steampowered.com/app/376953/Train_Simulator_Western_Pacific_FP7_California_Zephyr_Loco_AddOn/

 

Thanks, saves me typing it out...

Cyclone LOYALTY discount means exactly what I stated, no one has ever stated a loyalty discount should or would be a lifetime event.

 

The scenery looks very nice on this. I won't get it until it's on sale for a lot less than it is now but I think that other than the discussed issues this seems to be very high quality.

 

Out of curiosity, I checked it in a private window and I can see now that it shows as full price in that window. It doesn't seem to indicate that it's related to owning FRC, though this would be a perfectly valid presumption. I still have a view that a discount for owning the other product should apply permanently, but that is simply a difference of opinion on this. It's like AP offering discounts on Volume 2 of the 319 for already owning the first one; even at a later sale price, you get the added discount on top of it. That should also be the case here. It isn't, but it should be. That's just my opinion, nothing more.

(And yes, $44 CAD is still way overpriced.)

 

If you check the price while logged into Steam it will show a discounted price. Steam needs to know if you have the previous version of FRC. There are several places where this has been noted. I think this offer is good for 2 weeks. Buy it, if you don't think it is worth the money then get a refund. No harm, no foul. Sometimes you must decide for yourself and not listen to others. Cheaper than a night out with your buddies and no hangover, and you can use it over and over again, needs no washing or ironing and never wears out.

 

This article says the owners of the original FRC will get a 15% discount. Announcing Feather River Canyon Enhanced! (dovetailgames.com)

 

I have enough DLC as it is. No point in buying something at such a high price when I can get it much lower later by the time I might actually want to play it. That's my way of looking at it. I have so many routes I still haven't played, and that includes the original FRC.

 

Why the hostility? Cyclone is just sharing his opinion and thoughts "on topic" in a forum thread.

 

that’s because you need to be logged into steam for it to show the loyalty price for current owners as steam can verify you own the product already. They are not going to show the discount price if not logged in because you wouldn’t be entitled to it if you don’t own the first version.

 

I don’t know sometimes when TSC starts throwing errors a hangover seems to be easier to shake off than the headache you get trying to fix the sim lol

 

I finished a full run from Portola to Oroville depot with the California Zephyr. Nice run. Added little details along the way. Nice way to view is engineers head out view. I will take a manifest freight back on the return run. Got my name on the job board. I used the save/resume functions without any issues. Found a few little things that needed attention and reported directly to the developers for correction. There will be a patch released soon once everything is compiled.

 

Steam through a browser when you have logged in shows the discount.

 

Incorrect. As has been noted, when logged in and the browser has access to what you own, it also shows you the discount. It just doesn't say that it's the original FRC.

 

It was easy peasy. Log into steam and go to the store page for Feather River Canyon Extended. No need to make it complicated. If you have the original (not the MSTS version) it will calculate the discount.

 

It shows you EXACTLY the same on the website store page as it does on the steam app. Origional FRC or ENHANCED FRC.




it DOES tell you the new one has ENHANCED in the description and the older one does not.

 

I think we are talking about different things here.