TrainSimulations Sale

[niknak]

TS have a 40% off Black Friday offer running....

[ragtimer]

I would buy something if it were for msts !

[slipperman]

Hi Peter,
They do have some products "which were designed for MSTS and modified to run with Open Rails".

I don't have personal experience of these modified products (as I have the originals) but suspect the modifications to be the addition of .inc files, which means they'll still run under MSTS. Maybe some other members could confirm, or refute, that.

Cheers,
Ged

[ragtimer]

I should really like Mullan Pass (I have several DVDs of the MRL),but that does not fit that bill.The rest,I have virtually all apart from the Rock Island and Milwaukee products,they are OR and I just cannot "love" OR for reasons already stated."They" have made it too complicated and do not listen to constructive criticism.It is supposed to be a simulator to drive trains,not sit in a yard while you create a brake on a 100+ car train,have a brake test and pump it up all over again

[niknak]

Hi Peter,
They do have some products "which were designed for MSTS and modified to run with Open Rails".

I don't have personal experience of these modified products (as I have the originals) but suspect the modifications to be the addition of .inc files, which means they'll still run under MSTS. Maybe some other members could confirm, or refute, that.

Cheers,
Ged

Yes Mactier, Green River and ATSF Seligman are all modified for OR. I'm sure TS could confirm whether or nor they run in MSTS. I'm guessing they will. Regarding the brake test , I must confess I usually just use the shortcut shift + :; rather than wait .

Nick

[PerryPlatypus]

I should really like Mullan Pass (I have several DVDs of the MRL),but that does not fit that bill.The rest,I have virtually all apart from the Rock Island and Milwaukee products,they are OR and I just cannot "love" OR for reasons already stated."They" have made it too complicated and do not listen to constructive criticism.It is supposed to be a simulator to drive trains,not sit in a yard while you create a brake on a 100+ car train,have a brake test and pump it up all over again

I actually think that it would be nice if OR had a checkbox for "simple brake connections" for people who don't want to bother with hooking up brake hoses, angle cocks, etc. That said, the simple answer when you don't want to deal with that stuff or waiting for a brake system charge is to release the brakes and then press Shift+/ to initialize brakes. Btw, if you know how to work the angle cocks properly in OR, you can "bottle the air" on a cut prior to uncoupling so that it keeps an air charge, thus avoiding the need to charge the air line again. This is the proper way to cut in mid-train helpers for example, since the rear end of the train has a DPU on it and thus can be "bottled" without violating any rules.

Obviously I am biased because it is my creation, but I would still encourage you to give Mullan a try one of these days to see if OR is quite as bad as you think on a route that is properly set up for it, and with a set of engines and rolling stock that are already configured to work properly with OR - that way you don't have to spend hours or days adjusting physics settings. Just my 2 cents.

Feel free to PM me if you ever get serious about considering OR and want to ask questions on how certain things are supposed to work. I won't bite

[ragtimer]

Thank you for the constructive reply,Sean.I have the TS "starter route" but still do not like it.I do not understand why it has to be so complicated.I do not like the restrictive views,I miss the simplicity and almost "free roaming" of MSTS with BIN.As a retired driver (engineer),I can tweak the brake force on vehicles (and once you have done one,you can use the same parameters for everything else) to get realistic braking performance in MSTS which is all you need.

[PerryPlatypus]

Thank you for the constructive reply,Sean.I have the TS "starter route" but still do not like it.I do not understand why it has to be so complicated.I do not like the restrictive views,I miss the simplicity and almost "free roaming" of MSTS with BIN.As a retired driver (engineer),I can tweak the brake force on vehicles (and once you have done one,you can use the same parameters for everything else) to get realistic braking performance in MSTS which is all you need.

As for braking times, I am pretty sure Mullan's stock was adjusted to have substantially quicker charge rates - but I'm not certain of that. I can go and find out for sure, if you want to know.

As for camera views, I ended up re-assigning a bunch of the keys on my own setup for camera controls in OR years ago to make them a little more MSTS-esque and more intuitive. See the screenshots below. The blue highlighted keys are ones I re-assigned. Simple arrow keys for movement, adding Ctrl, Shift, and Alt for other movements, and holding right mouse button for free-look. 8 key for free roam. The camera controls in OR can do essentially everything that MSTS Bin could, given you know what keys to press.

[trainmanaustin]

Personnally, I like the extra added realism that OR has added to the simulation. It really puts things into perspective of what train crews have to deal with on a day to day basis.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

[EldoradoRailroad]

Every year I wait for these sales, to save some cash. Especially if the purchase will not be in USD by the time it is processed by your credit card company.

I looked into this sale today and found a very nasty surprise. I have lost track as to what the country of origin is for Trainsimulations(Streamlines of old), but I think it is Canadian.

Depending on where you live in this world, you may be subject to VAT (value added tax) at checkout when purchasing from Trainsimulations. It certainly was the case when I looked at it. So 40% off was whittled down to about 32% off instead, once VAT was added. I do not recall seeing VAT being added at checkout time in 2020.

I think that that the vendor should get their expected outcome with the sale price, but it seems that some customers will "get a better deal" depending on where you live in this world. I think that if there is going to be a difference in price depending on where you live in this world, that the discount should be adjusted as to where you live. This requires some extra software calculations, but I think customers would see this as fair.

Thus far this is the only company that I have stumbled upon that has a collection of VAT for digital train sim products. I am thankful for that!

Steve

[geepster775]

I made a purchase off of ebay last week, and for the first time ever I was charged sales tax on the ebay transaction. Evidently there was a summer 2020 SCOTUS ruling on Wayfair v South Dakota that pretty much ended the long standing internet sales tax exemption that was tied to a seller's physical presence in the state you lived in. I think there probably has been plenty of sales tax revisions all over in various states in order to help pay for Covid costs.

As for foreign VATs, various countries have varying degrees of free social programs that are funded by VATs and I don't think it is the seller's or storefront's responsibility to point out that kind of obvious.

The first time ever that I was (sales) taxed on a purchase from SLI was on the KCS AC400 set from March 2015.

[EldoradoRailroad]

As for foreign VATs, various countries have varying degrees of free social programs that are funded by VATs and I don't think it is the seller's or storefront's responsibility to point out that kind of obvious.

First, thanks for pointing out what I hesitated to write. As I read, governments are looking at "tax leakage" and how to curtail it. There is considerably more to write about this topic, but I do not want this thread to go OFF TOPIC. So what I alerted others to is to be aware that the savings might not be as expected.

Trainsim.com does not have a non train sim forum entry that I am aware of to discuss these things in much more detail. Elvas Tower does, within reason.

Steve

[CSRX]

I should really like Mullan Pass (I have several DVDs of the MRL),but that does not fit that bill.The rest,I have virtually all apart from the Rock Island and Milwaukee products,they are OR and I just cannot "love" OR for reasons already stated."They" have made it too complicated and do not listen to constructive criticism.It is supposed to be a simulator to drive trains,not sit in a yard while you create a brake on a 100+ car train,have a brake test and pump it up all over again

Real life, you do the same dang thing on a daily basis, waiting for air to pump.

So you want a video game, not a simulation, with MSTS is a game, ORTS is closer to the real deal, with a few minor irritating issues that are bit unrealistic at the moment.

As mentioned, don't want to wait, hit the "Shift ?" button combo.

Anyways, I need to buy a few more items from TS.

[ragtimer]

But I was being paid for that ! The fun (I mean that) was train handling;maybe not as skillful as US Engineers because we have a better braking system and shorter trains,but heading 22x100t pf AVGAS at 60 mph was a wonderful experience.

[derekmorton]

>because we have a better braking system

EP brakes are used all over the world.

We even have them in Australia!