Equiptment Selection for New Templates Options

[AT RR]

To all template designers including myself.

Areas to think about when setting up a new template.

Some of the people that use our templates have limited band width and a limit as to the number of rolling stock files or the time they have to down load or store them.

Make the initial template simple use default rolling stock or the equiptment that is required with the route.
We can always add a document and custom act with the template with recomended rolling stock that can be added later.

In the future on my templates I will try to use default or the rolling stock that is used in the initial set up for the route, and fight the temptation to add that extra car just because it looks good, (I'm guilty of been there done it).

We all have the extra car or cars that we favor but consider the people that will use our templates first.

The reason for this post is I just downloaded and set up a new route & with rolling stock. This consisted of (27 files) and then found out that to get the AG template to work as designed I would have to down load an addtional 29 files plus a payware file. It tends to knock the wind out of you sails.

And before some one says anything yes we can use Activity Master, Train Store or Conbuilder to change and manage the rolling stock.

Steve thank you again for all you great products.

Peter

[Kibby]

I really enjoy using Activity Generator and its templates. Often I have problems with the stock. Sometimes a piece of stock is no longer available or is replaced by a newer version. Sometimes one piece of rolling stock will cause errors. It is very frustrating to download many pieces of stock only to find a piece of stock is no longer available or will not install. Maybe the answer is to put out 2 templates, one default and one with downloads. An even better solution is to put the stock in an executable pack as with the CN Blackfoot 2 template. One more suggestion. When using Mophouse downloads, it would be very helpful to include which section to check for the download.

George

[xpdingo]

I really enjoy using Activity Generator and its templates. Often I have problems with the stock. Sometimes a piece of stock is no longer available or is replaced by a newer version. Sometimes one piece of rolling stock will cause errors. It is very frustrating to download many pieces of stock only to find a piece of stock is no longer available or will not install. Maybe the answer is to put out 2 templates, one default and one with downloads. An even better solution is to put the stock in an executable pack as with the CN Blackfoot 2 template. One more suggestion. When using Mophouse downloads, it would be very helpful to include which section to check for the download.

George

If a piece of rolling stock is not available it should be brought to someone's attention. Not all rolling stock can be put in an executable pack. You need the authors permission to do so and many of them will not give it. As far as 2 templates, on some of these large routes it takes up to 4 weeks to do one of them. I think it is asking a lot to ask someone to do two versions. These large routes have as many as 700 sidings and 350 miles of mainline. Thanks, Pete