Hi Clanky,
It’s early days for me where route & scenario building in RW3 is concerned. I’ve just recently been devoting the bulk of my free time to that—and mainly to the track-laying and scenario aspects rather than the scenery. My general impression is that the tools for the latter are at least as good as, and in some ways better than, the tools in the earlier versions of Trainz.
RW3 provides a very flexible grid and snapping for positioning objects, and a good distance measuring tool. There is much help available, both from the official RW site and from many independent forums, which are, for the most part, business-like and devoid of nonsense.
Many developer tools are available from those sites that allow you to import DEM data or overlay the terrain with Google Map decals. You can also place route markers in Google Maps and then convert them to route blueprints for import into RW. This simplifies laying out track, roads, etc. in prototypical routes. To the extent that Routes are the equivalent of Environments, they are at least possible for a user to make independently of any action by the game company.
Scenario construction might be compared to Mission creating—it has its learning curve but is well documented. It is very interesting in its many possibilities—AI trains, automatic switching & dispatching, freight & passenger loading/unloading, etc. AI trains are somewhat less prone to squirrely behavior (I think the track may have something to do with that).
More on this later as I get deeper into it. I think you’ll find RW3 is a good investment.
Those HS train shots don’t really show the graphics quality as well as, say, the UP Big Boy does.
http://80.95.161.114/shipsim/forum/index.php/topic,26439.msg358658.html#msg358658I’ll post a full shot when I get a chance.
Regards,
Marty
Poll
