[charland]

I'd like to see an activity editor. Route builders spend thousands of hours on a route, they include anything from 20 to 120 hours of activities when they post a route. Once the end user runs the activities then walk away from the route for the most part. That's a real waste of time... thousands of hours to build and then only getting maybe a hundred ours out of that work.

I'd like to see an activity editor where you assign cars in pools, each customer would get their cars from one of the pools (to make sure you are sending the appropriate car to the appropriate industry). One you have completed an activity, the next activity would be generated from your last activity so the cars you spotted on day one were the cars that would be in sidings at the beginning of day two. You would also assign the number of days a car would take to load or empty (some industries only take an hour to unload a covered hopper and cars like hides service boxcars are unloaded by hand and take a few days). Depending on the time needed to load or unload a car would determine when the car needs to be picked up and show up on the work order generated by the activity generator.

Paul :-)

[ATSF3751]

That is a very interesting concept Paul and I like that idea! You could make that as an option in the ORTS menu if you wanted to do the activity like that or do it the old fashioned way like how it is done now.

Brandon

[charland]

I do this now by hand using spread sheet. To make an activity like I did for the recent Kellog Branch/FJ&G it took close to six hours to write an 8 hour activity. I was hoping a computer programmer would take interest in the idea and an activity generator would be able to do this in a couple of minutes.

Paul :-)

[PTrains87]

What the future looks like for OpenRails it all depends on the devs and support it will receive, but let me tell you something about the "eye candy" wish for this sim. Yes, of course I am a big advocate for a better graphics, but what would be the cost? Have you ever noticed how many free content is out there for the DTG Train Simulator? And how many free content is out there for Open Rails? Do you think is all about the interest on the simulator or to make money? No, it's about how hard is to make 3Ds and rolling stock for the DTG games. With the graphic engine OpenRails has, we can be less precise to make 3D, especially on the rolling stocks, but with a powerful 3D engine (such us the one used by DTG Train Simulator), we must be more precise and accurate on create even a simple locomotive. Why you ask? Because a powerful engine (such as Unreal for example) shows more details than a simplified engine (such as the one used by OR). I saw a single locomotive for DTG Train Simulator taking years of development and it isn't finished yet. Years! Do we want this? I don't think we want. And let's do not forget that a powerful 3D engine has its own costs. I rather prefer a bad looking graphics but with a 1000 miles long Route, rather than an amazing graphic with a 10 miles long Route, because the engine cannot support really big route. Also, with better graphics, what would be the impact on the size of the addon itself? Can you imagine a really long Route, with detailed 3Ds, how much is going to occupy on our hard drive?

Yes, the graphic can be improved in OR, but why focusing on the graphic while there are still things we are waiting for OR since ages? Let me tell you:

- Night lights: it might be not the case for American trains, but in EU we do have night trains, with night passenger trains and night freight trains. I really don't know what is the issue to add additional light sources into OR, the Kuju engine does it in DTG Train Sim, so I think it's time to focus on this implementation because running a night service, with pitch black trains stopping at station, is a really bad representation.
- Darker tunnel: it says all! When I am entering a tunnel I do expect dark, an extreme dark ambient, instead sometimes I see trees shadows and totally enlightened traffic trains. It's time to think about how to make tunnels real tunnels.
- Better Catenary wire: we do have the double wire in OpenRails (finally), but the representation of the catenary is still bad. Improving the way the catenary shows into the game will be a step ahead so the Route makers can save tons of time to avoid building up a tailored catenary for every Routes. Also, the catenary wire must be shown inside the TSRE5 or whatever Route Editor we are going to use in future, so to understand were to put the gantry and poles.
- Catenary wire toggle options: we can decide if a Route is electrified or not, but we cannot decide which piece of tracks has a catenary wire or not. Again, there are lots of railways in EU that are "hybrid" so to say, which means that we can have both an electrified route with diesel branch. Can we implement a Catenary wire toggle selector for every piece of tracks in TSRE5 or else, like we do have for signals and other stuff as well?
- Day/Night time and Seasons: in MSTS we could take full controls of the real Day/Night cycle, by deciding the dawn and sunset time for every Route based on their geolocation, but this cannot be done in OR. Why? Also can we move away from snowy Winter season even tho we select Winter - Clear in simulation? Besides Sibera, which other countries during Winter has snow every day? I leave in a country that the last time it snowed was 3 years ago, and was just for 1 day. This is totally unrealistic and it must be fixed.
- XTracks: we are still dependent on the XTracks system to put down our railroads, a system that was updated the last time in November 2007. It shows it's age, and the pain is real when it comes to build a new Route. When we are going to move away from XTracks in favor of an easier and accurately system? I've seen lots of time the request to have splines (like Trainz) but even something similar to this would be better than xtracks.

The list can go on and on, obviously we want the PERFECTION, but we must be realistic and we must take what we get for free, with a big thanks to all who support and develop this simulator without taking a single cents. Speaking of which, I think it would be good, in order to gather more devs attention, if you setup a Patreon page or something. I will be happy to toss some coins to whoever is working on OpenRails, and if it helps to build up everything above and even more, I'll be totally happy to support the cause and this project for the future.

[ATSF3751]

There are so many different aspects to the Train Sim community that Open Rails has not even started to dabble in and yes Open Rails will NEVER be done and will always need improvements as time goes on to keep up with the times. I will give the ORTS management team and coders huge props for what they have accomplished so far but it has a very long ways to go until we get to the current standards of today's technology!

Open Rails does have potential but it takes many people involved to make it work. The nice thing I really like about Open Rails and why I have stuck with MSTS/Open Rails is the fact it is still easy to modify files, make sound sets and repaints.

That all being said it took me an extremely long time until I decided to switch over to strictly Open Rails because I still liked some of the features that MSTS had like the way smoke reacted on steam locomotives along with a few other aspects that Open Rails still has not figured out quite yet or has just pushed it off to the side.

Now route building is a different question all together! Yes right now route building is manageable. However it still needs a lot of work in that department and we really need a new editor for Open Rails! Myself being a route builder, YES TSRE gets the job done for now but many aspects are missing from it and we truly need new editors if Open Rails is going to be successful.

Some stuff that has been mentioned in the past I feel would be easy to add yet the Open Rails team does not seem very interested in doing so. Here are a few things I am talking about.

1. Improved Water and sky textures- Multiple water and sky textures for a route.
2. Improved Smoke and Steam for Steam Locomotives- Smoke and Steam separate instead of the same ACE file
3. More then one light Cone for a locomotive
4. Dynamic Weather- We are getting there but still needs a lot of work
5. Dynamic lighting
6. Multiple whistles/Horns for locomotives
7. Streamline Game Setup like I have mentioned earlier along with a New To Open Rails version
8. Update the Menu Layout. This would include a full screen layout instead of the little box we have now when we open up the program. To me Open Rails the way it looks right now when you open it looks very cheap and not very appealing to the eye at all. Yes it is somewhat organized but I feel we can do better!

I am not trying to knock the ORTS development team at all or the ORTM team because they have done some great things for Open Rails over the years all I am saying is these things DO need improvement and many of us feel as if we are preaching to the choir some times and not being heard by the ones who are doing the coding or managing of Open Rails. I mean how many times do we need to keep bringing these things up over and over again until we are heard? That is why I feel many have already left the community and gone off to other train simulators!

Brandon

[FS.E652 091]

Speaking of Weather and Skyes, just look at a recent Update for ETS2 by SCS Software:

https://www.youtube....h?v=A5QxMstGYzk

Imagine if all that can be added to ORTS.. It will be a nice drive experience..
I remember 10\15 years ago, in Msts, the lightning bolts with Kosmos...

Don't Forget that in modern times, IA can give a great help in coding.. so think about that..!

[R H Steele]

Personally to improve the "eye candy" --- graphic presentation -- I use ReShade, have three shaders I can switch to -- in-game --- one of the shaders gives the color a real technicolor "pop", all improve the graphics.


Also I have 11 different skies, any one can be chosen and installed to my current running version of Monogame with bat files...downside...this cannot be done in-game. However, with the correct sky chosen and having ORTS weather changes added to activity file via and OpenRails folder it does a reasonable job of changing the skies.

[FS.E652 091]

Yeah! i use Reshade Too.. even if I tell you the truth.. I hate that program.. because let's say it weighs down the CPU a bit...

In my opinion OR should from that point of view make itself compatible with Nvidia overlays, they are convenient since they are integrated on the graphics card, and personally In My RTX 3060, i use them by pressing Alt+F3 on other games such as Red Dead Redemption 2 or F1...

[railguy]

PTrains87, on 03 November 2023 - 03:57 AM, said:

What the future looks like for OpenRails it all depends on the devs and support it will receive, but let me tell you something about the "eye candy" wish for this sim. Yes, of course I am a big advocate for a better graphics, but what would be the cost? Have you ever noticed how many free content is out there for the DTG Train Simulator? And how many free content is out there for Open Rails? Do you think is all about the interest on the simulator or to make money? No, it's about how hard is to make 3Ds and rolling stock for the DTG games. With the graphic engine OpenRails has, we can be less precise to make 3D, especially on the rolling stocks, but with a powerful 3D engine (such us the one used by DTG Train Simulator), we must be more precise and accurate on create even a simple locomotive. Why you ask? Because a powerful engine (such as Unreal for example) shows more details than a simplified engine (such as the one used by OR). I saw a single locomotive for DTG Train Simulator taking years of development and it isn't finished yet. Years! Do we want this? I don't think we want. And let's do not forget that a powerful 3D engine has its own costs. I rather prefer a bad looking graphics but with a 1000 miles long Route, rather than an amazing graphic with a 10 miles long Route, because the engine cannot support really big route. Also, with better graphics, what would be the impact on the size of the addon itself? Can you imagine a really long Route, with detailed 3Ds, how much is going to occupy on our hard drive?Yes, the graphic can be improved in OR, but why focusing on the graphic while there are still things we are waiting for OR since ages? Let me tell you:- Night lights: it might be not the case for American trains, but in EU we do have night trains, with night passenger trains and night freight trains. I really don't know what is the issue to add additional light sources into OR, the Kuju engine does it in DTG Train Sim, so I think it's time to focus on this implementation because running a night service, with pitch black trains stopping at station, is a really bad representation.- Darker tunnel: it says all! When I am entering a tunnel I do expect dark, an extreme dark ambient, instead sometimes I see trees shadows and totally enlightened traffic trains. It's time to think about how to make tunnels real tunnels.- Better Catenary wire: we do have the double wire in OpenRails (finally), but the representation of the catenary is still bad. Improving the way the catenary shows into the game will be a step ahead so the Route makers can save tons of time to avoid building up a tailored catenary for every Routes. Also, the catenary wire must be shown inside the TSRE5 or whatever Route Editor we are going to use in future, so to understand were to put the gantry and poles.- Catenary wire toggle options: we can decide if a Route is electrified or not, but we cannot decide which piece of tracks has a catenary wire or not. Again, there are lots of railways in EU that are "hybrid" so to say, which means that we can have both an electrified route with diesel branch. Can we implement a Catenary wire toggle selector for every piece of tracks in TSRE5 or else, like we do have for signals and other stuff as well?- Day/Night time and Seasons: in MSTS we could take full controls of the real Day/Night cycle, by deciding the dawn and sunset time for every Route based on their geolocation, but this cannot be done in OR. Why? Also can we move away from snowy Winter season even tho we select Winter - Clear in simulation? Besides Sibera, which other countries during Winter has snow every day? I leave in a country that the last time it snowed was 3 years ago, and was just for 1 day. This is totally unrealistic and it must be fixed.- XTracks: we are still dependent on the XTracks system to put down our railroads, a system that was updated the last time in November 2007. It shows it's age, and the pain is real when it comes to build a new Route. When we are going to move away from XTracks in favor of an easier and accurately system? I've seen lots of time the request to have splines (like Trainz) but even something similar to this would be better than xtracks.The list can go on and on, obviously we want the PERFECTION, but we must be realistic and we must take what we get for free, with a big thanks to all who support and develop this simulator without taking a single cents. Speaking of which, I think it would be good, in order to gather more devs attention, if you setup a Patreon page or something. I will be happy to toss some coins to whoever is working on OpenRails, and if it helps to build up everything above and even more, I'll be totally happy to support the cause and this project for the future.

I heartily agree! Just about everything on your wish list has been on mine for years. Running trains in OpenRails is one of my favorite recreation activities. I would gladly make some monetary contribution to the OR Team for the types of advances to the program that you have listed.

[Genma Saotome]

ATSF3751, on 03 November 2023 - 05:13 AM, said:

I mean how many times do we need to keep bringing these things up over and over again until we are heard? That is why I feel many have already left the community and gone off to other train simulators!

Brandon

Brandon, you apparently do not understand the nature of the bottleneck: If no developer is interesting in addressing topic a, b, or c then nothing will be done on a, b, or c, no matter how obvious it is that addressing them would a great improvement. And with fewer developers than in the past there are fewer developer interests that result in new things.

On rare occasion, some of the developers will do something like, I don't care about a, b, or c but I'll try to do something with them. If you are very lucky the work will not be set aside some time down the road because of n number of real problems.

IOW, in this situation, to get anything done you either need to persuade an individual developer to help... or you need to bring in a new developer who will work on a, b, or c for you.

That's the reality.