Stable Version - Open Rails 1.0

[eric]

Try to understand that what was a stated goal three years ago may not be possible once a full technical assessment takes place.

[markus1996]

[...]

I think it made very good sense for these items to be on the 1.0 Open Rails Milestone list:

MSTS Compatibility: Matching or exceeding all features. What´s left in your opinion? It should be added, if it is missing.
Outstanding bugs from 0.9 resolved. In progress - what is found, will be corrected, so don´t be shy reporting things.
Final signaling and AI behavior is in place. Done
Rolling stock sound effects, smoke behavior, etc. match MSTS. Sound effects done; see previous comments on MSTS, smoke and physics.
All Microsoft activities operate as expected with travelling at start, speed limits and late running. Done to the amount possible (100% match isn´t possible).

Text in bold added to the original. Everything goes with an implicit AFAICT (As far as I can tell).

Again, if anybody feels, anything is still missing, or if you are experiencing issues, please SPEAK UP. Things that the team does not know about cannot be added / corrected.

Also take a look here, please: Reporting ORTS bugs

Cheers, Markus

[scottb613]

Hi Dave,

The point of my whole write up wasn't to belittle MSTS activity designers - it was simply to illustrate all those things I described - are impossible - in MSTS... If you're happy with MSTS - more power to you - ORTS doesn't affect it- you're not required to move - and it will always be there for you... I believe the overall plan is once 1.0 ORTS is achieved to the developers satisfaction - it's at this point that ORTS will start diverging further and further from its MSTS roots...

Regards,
Scott

[tlorey]

Open Rails is a fantastic product; my thanks to all the volunteers who have worked so hard to give us this sim. I agree that its time for version 1.0. I've been using Open Rails for a long time now, and in my opinion, the current version of Open Rails is a vast improvement over MSTS 1.0. Just because you come out with a stable version doesn't mean that there will no future improvements on the product, it is just a milestone.
There have been some good recommendations made here so far: diesel smoke needs work and the night sky needs work. You've been working on the headlight illumination issue. These are tweaks to the product, however. I just want you to know that I am very pleased with the work that you have done!

[plainsman]

"Is there anything specific that you've been waiting for?"

Yes, AutoSanding!!! It is so much more difficult to model modern freight without autosanding. It is annoying and unrealistic to have to hold down the sanding key on a C40-8 for 7 miles at 12 mph going up Crawford Hill or Raton Pass!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CNW 5099]

Yeah I had to laugh at MSTS having "complex" activities. The most complex thing about MSTS is not having red signals, far off AI derailments, bad track nodes forcing you to pull at run 8 out of a siding, or worse into a siding forcing you collide with a cut of cars ending the activity. The most difficult might be even getting INTO the activity editor due to it's terrible programming. How can any of you gripe about OR not being at 1.0 when you desperately cling to a program that's not even .5. And that's with all of the improvements over the past 13 years to the base program.

I find it funny you all bemoan lack of 100 PERCENT MSTS compatibility/features when the original program is unfinished and patched together with duct tape. A bad case of Stockholm Syndrome has gripped some of the community. Also the dismissive tone these posts have is unsettling given this is a VOLUNTEER effort. You don't even have to pay for a simulator superior in every way to the sub beta program we got out of the box. If OR was released to this community five or six years ago it would get the respect it deserves. But complacency has set in to the point where even the mere suggestion of a better alternative is received with derision.

[CNW 5099]

Also one must wonder if they are running the latest experimental release or the over a year old 0.9 stable release.

[Vince]

"Is there anything specific that you've been waiting for?"

Yes, AutoSanding!!! It is so much more difficult to model modern freight without autosanding. It is annoying and unrealistic to have to hold down the sanding key on a C40-8 for 7 miles at 12 mph going up Crawford Hill or Raton Pass!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Bob,

Holding the keyboard 'SHIFT' key down while a quick tap to the keyboard 'X' key accomplishes that. Ditto for the bell also.

Diesel smoke?? Works fine now in latest X version, same for steamers.
Frame rates? Same route, same activity, same location: MSTS 8-10 Open Rails 48-60. I'm done!
enjoy!

[R. Steele]

Peabody here and this is my boy Sherman...he loves trains.
Let's get into the WABAC and go to the year 2001, July
We're here to see the official release of the new Microsoft Train Simulator
However Sherman has inadvertently changed history by bringing a free downloaded version of something called Open Rails.
By a twist of time it has been substituted for MSTS!
Every train simulator fan is deliriously happy ... this is a fantastic train simulator
I tell Sherman to be polite and thank all the people who made it possible.
Sherman does and volunteers to help make it better. He's a good kid.

Peabody here, the only way to make OR better is if I had designed it.
But then it would be named....PORTS....Peabody's Open Rails Train Simulator.

[seagoon]

You've just got to laugh when reading the comments about what MSTS does that OR doesn't - and vice versa.

If ever there was proof of that old adage that you can please all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, etcetera, this thread provides it.

[Shawmut]

A lot of work has been done by Carlo in this area, so it would be worth your while to try again. If there are still differences in behaviour, I'm sure he would be glad to look at them and try to fix them (though not in time for v1.0).

You might also want to try our alternative to Activities - Timetable Mode. This will let you assemble a day's busy schedule and then pick which train you want to drive. It's amazing stuff.

Try again? I use the program *every day*. I never said that I didn't like OR; in point of fact I went out of my way to say that I thought it was a fabulous effort (re-read my original posting). So I'm more than aware of both Carlo's improvements and the timetable function (which is functionally similar to what the sim Zusi does). I think both are wonderful. That you guys have done this on an amateur basis (from the Latin Amare = to Love) deserves every train simmers applause.

That said, I simply stated why I continue to run MSTS, and, sure enough, the conversation descended into "My American Flyer trains are superior to your stupid Lionel three-rail trains" etc. Come on guys, we are talking about playing with virtual model trains. Can't we discuss this without people taking offense or assuming a lack of appreciation, etc.? So let me re-iterate here:

1. I use both MSTS and ORTS. And Trainz and Zusi and even, in my darkest moments, Railworks.
2. I update ORTS weekly and keep up with the boards on Elvas Tower, and have even converted some acts from MSTS to OR.
3. I think the advances that ORTS has made are phenomenal, and yes, I'm more than aware that MSTS can't do, for example, the AI movements that ORTS can.
4. But I still find MSTS useful as well; again, see my original post. Maybe the original UK Kuju programmers can feel a little amare here.

Dave

[peaches461999]

Personally speaking, and this comes from someone who resisted OR for a good long while, I like where OR is at now. I doubt that things currently still being worked on, will be abandoned with release of OR 1.0. I have been dabbling with the Timetable feature, and am 100 percent sure that I will NEVER open the MSTS activity editor ever again. To be able to program a whole 24 hours worth of rail activity on a route is a great feature. You can even set up the trainspotter, and just let your computer sit there, and your route will live and breath for a full 24 hours. Setting up paths in OR is a breeze, and has surpassed MSTS AE by light years. Timetable mode has made setting up traffic, the easiest it has ever been. As for the statement on how older routes look, I think pretty much all the routes look pretty darn good in OR. what looks bad is the crappy first gen and second gen equipment releases that don't match the artwork of the models being produced today. But that is an easy fix, at least for me, all that crap got tossed. But it's better than having the old crappy Metrolink models running down the same tracks with newer models from DW and MSTS and such. I have not ran a train in MSTS in over a year. I have not used the activity editor in a few months now. The RE is still used and needed 100 percent. I have created a Timetable operation in OR, that if you tried to duplicate this with the MSTS AE, if the AE didn't crash, then most certainly MSTS itself would be reduced to a grand mal seizure if you even tried to run an activity as complex my OR timetable. In the last 18 months OR has rapidly grown, and there have been a lot of discovery about what OR does not need, in order to keep moving forward.

[Komachi]

Text in bold added to the original. Everything goes with an implicit AFAICT (As far as I can tell).

Again, if anybody feels, anything is still missing, or if you are experiencing issues, please SPEAK UP. Things that the team does not know about cannot be added / corrected.

Also take a look here, please: Reporting ORTS bugs

Cheers, Markus

There's a bug I've reported before, that has been dismissed as 'not important'... If you guys are shooting for even the remotest semblance of a '1.0' release, how about addressing old bugs that are legitimate problems, not dismissing them? Prime example? The over-mentioned, over-stated, and repeatedly hated gyracam effect with superelevation. Because of that, it makes the 3d cab/passener view options UNUSABLE when running with superelevation, so you have to do either/or. Not both. Rather defeats the purpose of the Super elevation option and makes it useless really. Yet it's still in there, so... Get it working -right-.

I also agree, auto-sanding is a must too. Sure you can hit shift+x, but.. That's not very 'prototypical' or 'accurate' is it? OR announces it is shooting for more features real trains have, realism, etc... So why not add that?

[seagoon]

.... auto-sanding is a must too. Sure you can hit shift+x, but.. That's not very 'prototypical' or 'accurate' is it? OR announces it is shooting for more features real trains have, realism, etc... So why not add that?

Using "X+Shift" is no less prototypical than being able to switch from cab-mode to a zoomed out view from 1000 feet to make it easier to do switching.

You want prototypical, then why not get rid of all exterior views that allow zoom and altitude?
If you need to see the end of a caboose-less train then get down from the cab and walk the length of the consist.....at walking speed, no speeding up.

[Komachi]

Using "X+Shift" is no less prototypical than being able to switch from cab-mode to a zoomed out view from 1000 feet to make it easier to do switching.

You want prototypical, then why not get rid of all exterior views that allow zoom and altitude?
If you need to see the end of a caboose-less train then get down from the cab and walk the length of the consist.....at walking speed, no speeding up.

I was saying prototypical because a lot of folks use that as an excuse. However I do think that in this case, it's needed as it's known as -auto- sanding for a reason. :P