Most important MSTS compatibility items still missing in OR

[csantucci]

First of all I would like to state that what the OR team has done up to nowadays in general and to achieve MSTS compatibility in particular is outstanding and is an enormous work.

I have read the "Roadmap to the Future" section in the OR website.
In my opinion backward compatibility with MSTS is very important, so I would be happy if the OR team would go on working in this direction.
As I see that some (in my opinion) important items are missing in the OR team statements and that the OR team is open to suggestions I would like to propose my list. Smaller compatibility issues are not addressed here.
1) First of all, I understand that the team is working hard on signalling, interlocking and dispatching. I understand that it will not be possible that complex MSTS activities will run under OR like they are running under MSTS, and so I expect to have to rework (with a proper OR editor!) MSTS activities to have them running well under OR, and even more I hope that activities with new functionalities will be possibile. However I hope that sigcfg.dat, sigscr.dat and speedpost.dat files would be fully interpreted by OR as close as possible the same way it does MSTS. Changing such features could require major route reworking for OR compatibility.
2) Distant mountains: it is a powerful feature for mountain railroads, and the extended number of tiles loaded by OR in comparison to MSTS does not by far replace what distant mountains can do.
3) Transfers (meaning the textured "bedsheets" one can put on the terrain, first of all to fill empty areas at tunnel entrances, but not only). It is a very particular and not easy to implement feature, but without it I don't see a way to fill such empty areas.
4) Maybe some other item will appear into my mind...

Well, not a small task...

I would be happy to read other OR friends' opinions as well as updated statements from the OR team!

Carlo

[OTTODAD]

Yes, most of what you have posted are also major concerns of mine ! Although my Gold-Spike-X route is not using additional photo-realistic custom terrain shapes and textures like your BERNINA does, without it's created with DEMEX distant mountains it looks naked without them !

Jovet is the expert on MSTS signaling and guess that he is already working with the ORTS team to help them make their signaling as compatible with MSTS as possible, but is not a priority with me being an Activities Freestyler like Jim Ward.

Not sure whether differences between US and European signaling is causing ORTS problems unless they have been coded for appropriately in SigCfg and SigScr files and are being processed by it as MSTS does ?

It's a long and winding road ahead for ORTS and look forward to more releases showing what has been achieved.

The ORTS UNKNOWN problem with some locos is of concern to me as it makes my SANTA-FE EXPLORER unusable, essential for my working on and testing of routes.

I happens only when the Windows Menu is being used and also affects Kurt Kaminer's original Seaview-Express trainsets, one of shown below being used too.

Perhaps the team member who is working on this menu version can find the time to have a look into this to find out what his code is not happy with, as it now doubt affects others using these and similar trainsets.

Attached is a ZIP with the SFX-HST consist file and Trainset folder for testing the ORTS Windows Menu code changes.

O t t o