Thinking about making a route myself and curious to know what the community thinks on this topic. My own thoughts is that dependencies should be kept to an absolute minimum, and ideally only consist of stuff like the loco and asset packs which definitely won't be delisted.
You might want to look around all the routes you have and decide what contains the assets to suit your route i.e track, buldings signals etc.. then stick with that for the base of your route. Using assets from more than one route can be done but with the risk of having multiple track rules and stability issues! If you make sure to have a backup of all your asset packs, any that get discontinued will still be available to you. The editor although quite simple can have you pulling your hair out at times! But it's a good pastime. Remember to hit f2 as often as you can as the editor often crashes for no reason at all. It's easy to get lost in editing for a couple of hours before you realise you haven't saved your progress, after it's crashed of course.
It depends on how realistic you want things, I would have thought the ideal formula would be using just enough to achieve the look and feel that you want, I mean if you used an ATS sub-wall route just for a wire fence or signal posts then that would be deemed an excessive requirement for what it offers in immersion, but if it was a custom station asset or signal box then yeah it moves up the "do I really need it" chart. I'm also curious to know what model of crystal ball you have that tells us something definitely won't get delisted in the future?
One can make predictions based on the past behaviour of publishers, as well as the nature of the required dependency.
So, from your last comment are we to assume then that Bossman games are more likely to remove any or all of their content? After all they withdrew the (branded) Welsh Marches Line from sale, and DTG are we to assume that all of their content will get withdrawn at some point due to their "past behaviour" of withdrawing content? Vulcan Productions removed their Preserved Deltics. Let's not even get into Armstrong Powerhouse. So the list so far (just for UK route & scenario builders) of content not to include going on past behaviour is.. DTG AP BMG VP I'm sorry if it seems like I'm having a dig but I'm just trying to highlight the naivety of your last comment in your original post there is no way you can predict content that may in the future become (as you put it) delisted going by past behaviour or not.
Only if you look at the likelihood of delisting a specific DLC as consisting of one question: "Has the developer/publisher delisted any DLC in the past?".
Exactly, ALL the developers I've mentioned have removed DLC in the past, so by that thinking they should all be excluded from your route or scenarios.
It's a valid point to be fair. And it's important that we hold all content sellers to the exact same standards, so I shall take my hat off to anyone who takes a non-partisan view of the world.
Use what you need to get the route you want. There will always be people moaning about this game's requirements, so just do your thing and accept that there will be those who cry about your choices no matter what you do.
Agreed. There are, sadly, some semi-permanent moaners who will not be pleased under any circumstances going under the pseudo umbrella of driving up standards. The greatest asset in the TSC armament is the capability of developing something for your pleasure and in doing so developing yourself.
Do you think it is reasonable to charge for a route that relies on other paid content that is no longer available?
No one in this thread was suggesting that you make routes using assets no longer available. However, if the route was made before the assets in question were withdrawn, I see no reason not to carry on selling it, as there will still be many who do have the assets, and would still want to buy the route. Were you thinking of any route in particular, or was that just a hypothetical question?
I know there are still routes available that use withdrawn assets, but I'm not sure if here have been any new ones that included them, knowing they were not available. I certainly wouldn't create one that used assets that were unobtainable. If you can find an example of a route that was released knowing that one of its required assets was not obtainable I'd be interested in knowing what it was.
The problem with that is that every route will be using the same old tired Kuju assets, and the same old rolling stock. If everyone did that, the game would not be worth playing any more. It's come a long way since its release, and I for one certainly wouldn't be playing it still if it wasn't for newer content... mainly from AP and Just Trains. Not forgetting the newer routes available on Steam either. It would be terrible if all the buildings, stations and AI traffic used nothing but old assets and old rolling stock from the asset packs. I'm a strong advocate of routes and scenarios pushing things as far as they can go. After all, hardware is so much more powerful that it was 13 years ago and to not take advantage of that would be silly. I want higher res textures; more complex models; and I want more of them... and when I have them, I want routes and scenarios that make use of them. I want this thing to keep pushing DX9 until it's on fire. The alternative is Train Sim World (shudder). Having said all of that, I still think you should make your route as you want it to be made. I know there are many who disagree with me, and I'm sure there are people who would want routes with absolute minimum requirements... I'm just not one of them.
