[weejam]

I just want to thank everyone that is working on Open Rails. You guys are amazing beyond belief. You have successfully performed CPR on a Sim that Microsoft don't even care about anymore. heck I got so fed up with MSTS that I didn't play it for a long time.

With OR I love the shadows, the way you can change the weather, The way you can change times in the game and still have AI traffic in your activity. I love the super elevation and all the things available.

The only thing is that I would really love to see a route editor instead of hooking up my old computer and doing things in the MSTS route editor then putting the new files on an external HD and then unhooking the old computer and hooking up my new computer and adding the files from the External HD.

As for just changing player train without going though any editors I know how to do that. Not so sure how to change paths though without unhooking, hooking up and adding to an External HD and unhooking again and hooling up again and then importing to the good computer that pretty much runs OR flawlessly.

So if there is any kind of activity editor for Open Rails someone please point me in the right direction. I would be willing to pay even but I don't have a pay pal account and really don't want one because all I buy on the internet is from TS, Dieselswest, Flight Sim Pilot shop and so on.I am older so I don't do all the computer things that younguns do. I was going to contribute here but I need a pay pal account so any admin please shoot me a Private message and tell me where I can send a check. I am more than happy to pay the membership fee but not through Pay Pal.

But you guys that are working on Open Rails are just amazing and thank you because you are breathing new life into a Sim that Microsoft gave up on a long time ago. heck even Flight Sim is dead now. We were supposed to have Flight sim 11 but ended up with Microsoft Flight which was a bust. Actually OR is probably better than what MS would have had to offer in the now defunct TS2. heck in TS2 they would have probably ended up changing to having goals and rewards and make or more of a game than a Sim. A sim should be like real life without a chocolate chip cookie or a bunch of "Ta Da's I am so special because I succeeded with a score. Sims should reflect real life in when pertaining to a train that you get from point a to point be with the train intact and the whole crew an public safe. This is a daily ordeal and there may be doughnuts but no one will pat you on the back and there are not points to be had just your normal paycheck at the end of the week. Simulations are not meant to be exciting but rather succeeding in the mundane. You guys are keeping the train simming alive. Sim fans are usually not gamers. I don't play all the games heck I have done the real deal in the Army so why would I want to play a game shooting people. I can go to a range and shoot at all the targets I want. There is no simulating that. I would never think about stealing cars either so none of those games do not interest me but simming does Whether it is flying, driving a big truck, controlling a ship or moving a train all successfully.

Truck drivers sometimes have the luxury of using a sim for safety as well as pilots and engineers. I have been in all three commercial simulators and the eye candy is not that good and actually kind of sux really but they are sims. But on a desktop these sims are fun and I can actually drink beer and enjoy them and even though I may drink a few too many and would never drive, fly and I don't work for a railroad I can still sim. Experience really plays into simming but simming will never replace real life experience. In a ruck sim I can throw a dog in and yeah you may be able to judge how a driver will react with an oncoming 4 wheeler. That is easy, hit the dog and save the person or people. Real life has so many variables and driving a truck for 20 some odd years I have seen them all. I have faced oncoming traffic on an interstate and hit the shoulder and slowed or stopped and hoped for the best. Luckily the worst never happened.

Jesus, what a rant. But anyway, thank you guys for what you are doing.

[railguy]

Download Goku's TSRE and consist editor (links in his posts) and use the "native" add-on Path Editor in OR, you've got all the tools there. All three are still works in progress, but they're all being used now.

Among some of the basic differences between MSTS and OR is that MSTS could never be run as much more than a game. Thanks to the work done by the OR team (still in progress) in both the sim programming itself and train physics, OR is approaching true simulator status. Running OR as a simulator rather than as a game is much more complicated (and time consuming), but, for me at least, it's much more immersing and satisfying.