ICE3 comes to RW - opinion and first mods

The new ICE 3 addon for Railworks is out, in case you didn't notice! And while at first I was not so sure as why to buy it, first voices stating there is a lack of quality to this addon in the end I could not resist and buy it.

Having driven on it only once or twice the last couple of years and never having a 1st class seat behind the driver I can only speculate of how real cab and the seats behind it look, but I may say something about how it looks, sounds and feels in general if you allow.

To make things easier I list my point of view in bulletins:

contra

• cab textures are dull and low detail
• the labeling inside the cab does not look near realistic or in two cases is plainly wrong (AFB and speed or power lever)
• textures for the front lights are either flickering massively or just don't show at all while the light cone is present as it should be
• the door sounds are plain awful, much too loud, can be heard from everywhere, no matter if directly at the train or 500m away and they don't seem to fit onto the animation. The door closing "bang" is played good 2 seconds after door is already closed
• running sounds & motor: just boring. The ICE3 is a fast but silent train, but it does produce some noise even on the special built new tracks. Cologne-Düsseldorf don't have those, there is standard gear laid out so running sounds (clickety-clack) should be more viable and the motor sounds are louder in real too.
• no animation of the hidden couplings at the front of the trains, two trains just "warp" together
• default camera perspective is awful, I feel like sitting in a fish glass. Though the shape of the train supports this perspective, one could do better (see below)
• in the manual the part of the train destination list is missing
• even though a clearly "german" addon with a huge target audience in Germany, none of the scenarios and also the manual are only provided in english.

pro

• the outside model is top notch and everything important seems to be in place while nothing obvious is missing, also modeled with lots of detail and very good, sharp textures
• except for some LODs maybe, the shutters at the front only appear as black, undefined mass in lower detail settings
• passenger view is nice, though not modeled as thoroughly as the outside

In the end I would rate it 4 out of 10 for the model sold for 19,99€ on Steam. If it wouldn't be the ICE3 I could not advise to buy it in it's current state, but for realistic scenarios on Cologne-Düsseldorf it is one of the "must have" assets. Though the ICE1 by virtual Railroads would be a fair replacement.


Fortunately for us we have some dedicated fans among us, which already thought through some of my critics and improved the model a lot!
Step 1: get the sound update from Rail-Sim.de, put together by Spooner based on sounds of the ICE1 by vR (which is required to have therefor)
Step 2: get a fix for the cab view, which was first published by iceman also on Rail-Sim.de

for comparison screenshots of the two cab view positions, as you enter the cab with the "1" key and then switch onto the alternative position with right and left arrow keys.

original

pic 1

pic 2

ice

pic 1

pic 2

And while the update by ice is already really good and improves the view a lot, I was not completely content by it's outcome. Much better than the original, but I tweaked it a bit further more to my likings.

mine

pic 1

pic 2

The camera is just a bit lower as with ice, but you can still reach the levers by mouse. It may be hard to hit the right spots, but it's possible. And I changed the alternate position to somewhere just over the shoulder behind the seat. See it in action together with the soundfix in this short clip below or download directly. If you're interested for modifying the files yourself, have a look at my forum post on Rail-Sim.de with complete values for all three possibilities.

So now we have two (and a half soon) of the biggest issues of the model fixed and I may raise my final verdict to a 6/10. Enjoyable, but not really great yet.

Almost ready, though probably not so much in your interest, is the german translation for the scenarios. Also I'm having a look to at least fix the wrong descriptions in the cab and maybe use higher resolution pictures, yet I won't promise anything releaseable soon. My workshop won't grow smaller at the moment and I have little time to do anything RW related at the moment.

Google maps / earth view of all (payware) RW routes

Ok, so I was bored the other day and had a small play around in Google Earth and kml files. I created some paths and tried to follow them in the flight simulator mode, those paths happened to be some Railworks routes. I wondered if it might be of any use to put them all together into an kml file and provide it, but then I had a look at Google Maps and did not found any possibility to import the paths. So in the end I layed them out again on Maps and put on up additional ones as well.

In the end I went so far to call it complete and gave on the link. Now it's here for you all to play around with.

legend: green = RW default, red = RSC, bright blue = JustTrains, purple = Thompson Interactive, dark blue = Aerosoft - and for the US: bright blue = GTrax, yellow/orange = Allaboard

The view on the maps site is slightly annoying, as it only shows a set of markers on the current page. I tried to seperate the US und European routes on two different pages, but there is still some overlapping. So at the moment there are not all US routes on one page.

However I'd recommend in any case downloading the kml file which is generated by this Maps view. On the top left side, there is a blue icon with some sort of wave on it, you can download it there and then open it in Google Earth for a much more convenient view.

I hope you english readers are not too annoyed that all labels are in german, but it is pretty self explanatory I think. Also I only included payware or RW default routes, as to map every freeware route published today is a task too big for me alone.

As for ingame content: bare with me, I have some things in the workshop but it's going on slow at the moment. I promised to have a second look on my peoples pack, which I haven't yet done unfortunately. It will be done, but it's not on top of my list. First I want to finish some scenarios laying around for a while now. One of them is in the final steps before beta testing, but needs polishing. But I will release something during this month, just not sure what. Might be the people repaints, might be a scenario or something completely different. Watch this spot or the usual forums, I'll let you know ;-)

Elbe-Weser-Triangle language pack ready

The english language pack for the Elbe-Weser-Triangle route is now available.

It includes a translation of all scenario instructions, the route's description in game as well as a new version of the readme file with detailed installation instructions (based on my previous post, but more extended) and a translated version of the user manual.
Please go through the readme before installing the route and also have a look into the manual if you like.

The language pack only includes the translated files, not the route itself! 
You still need to download all the other files for this route to work!

To download the language pack please visit Rail-Sim.de or just click here. Or if you prefer UKTrainsim.com you can download it there as well.

Below some fresh screenshots from the route.

new german freeware route available! Elbe-Weser-Triangle

Another german freeware route surfaced this weekend. It is a work in progress route in three steps, of which the first complete one is now released.

It's placed in the geographical region between Bremen (river Weser), Hamburg (river Elbe) and Cuxhaven (water mouth of Elbe), which forms the Elbe-Weser triangle. There are several railroad connections, the most important main line from Bremen via Rotenburg to Hamburg known as "Rollbahn" (which is Hamburg-Bremen from Schottermann released previously). The "Weser-Aller-Bahn" from Rotenburg via Verden to Minden, the tracks from Bremerhaven to Cuxhaven as well as Bremerhaven to Buxtehude (ongoing to Hamburg), Bremerhaven to Bremen and Bremen-Verden-Hannover.
From this huge area there is currently the northern part only, which consists of Buxtehude-Cuxhaven, Cuxhaven-Bremerhaven and Bremerhaven-Buxtehude, which is rebuilt in said 3 parts.
Part one now released has about 83 kilometers (about 52 miles) of tracks from Buxtehude via Stade to Cuxhaven (Google Maps view). There are 15 stations along the way, as well as some freight depots and yards.
The route is delivered with 6 scenarios ranging from 25 to 80 minutes in duration, 4 of those are passenger runs, 2 are freight. They can all be run with RW default rolling stock, freeware and some repaints.

Impressions (screenshots are pre-release and places shown might be a bit different now):

Screenshots 1 - Screenshots 2 - Screenshots 3 - Screenshots 4 - Night Screenshot

required payware:
- Isle of Wight (for vegetation and water)
- Doncaster Works (some wheels and stuff for the depots)
- Glasgow Airport Rail Link (a couple of buildings)
optional:
- Cologne-Düsseldorf (for rolling stock only, the scenarios which use them are available in a freeware variation as well)
- AP Station Lighting UK Default
- AP Station Lighting UK DLC
- Lighting Effects Pack (all for night scenarios and light effects)

The download is about 900 MB, but most of you will probably have some of the included freeware and assets.
You need all files from this directory on Rail-Sim.de. That is the route itself, 3 Asset Packs for manual copying and 5 Files with .rwp files to install. After that an additional 5 downloads is required, look into the readme file for links. That is mainly rolling stock.

Currently it is only available in german language, but my reason for posting this here: I started work on an english language pack, which should be ready on the weekend.

Also I've been asked about my repaints of several people I created a while ago and this pack will get an update in the near future as well. I don't have an exact timetable for it at the moment, but it will be my next project to work on.

Class 170 - DB Repaint - new version out now!

Hey folks,
I did not forget about this blog, however at the moment my time is really limited to do anything for RW. Still have some things in the pipeline, but nothing to show yet.

However a couple of days ago, I did an update to my Class 170 repaint following the official TSX update of the train.
So what has changed on my repaint:
- of course complete TSX compability (rain drops, lights)
- some small texture changes on the train
- fixed an error where on one door no symbols would be shown, now another door shows the symbols doubled. Unfortunately this is based in the model itself.
- new headcodes for Cologne-Düsseldorf route as well as some new added for "Im Köblitzer Bergland"
- reworked some of the previous headcodes
- now includes a kph speedometer and some german labels in the cab, previously to be installed seperately (donated by dw-agency and Paul S, thank you guys!)
- small changes in the included manual

As usual, the download is available on Rail-Sim.de and UKTS - didn't have the time to make the preview picture more pretty, the train is however ;-)
Please read the provided manual for installation instructions and use of the headcodes in your own scenarios!

Cologne - Düsseldorf video

Here's a video for you from the new Cologne - Düsseldorf. A cab ride in the ICE1 (available seperately) from Düsseldorf to Cologne, also showing around the two main stations.

TSX is turned off, shadows off, medium object view distance.

Thank you

... for over 350 downloads within one week! Seems I did something right with the choice of topic and route. I have not yet decided on the next scenario to release, but I do have some plans in my pocket. Some involve again US routes, another probably gets to play on Seebergbahn. Until then you might want to check some of my earlier works like 'Ride the Q', 'Torpedopfannen wreckage' or 'Airport Special Service'. They all involve different payware requirements and often some freeware downloads, all are available in english as well despite the description on the site. I did not yet check them back with TS2012, but since they are all set on not yet updated routes they should run fine. In case of problems please contact me and I'll fix them. Thanks for that and again thanks for your downloads and praises, appreciate it :-)