Hi everyone I was wondering if I could take a route, and make an other copy of it? Like if I wanted to make a cascades crossing, one with UP and the other with SP? Would that be possible ?

Pirating (copy) a payware route is highly discouraged within the train sim community....

You create a route, with all new textures, nice buildings and roads, all by yourself, and it is well received, you decide to market it, for your creative artwork and effort within the VRR community.

You decide to sell this route for $20.00 for each, but your sales don't seem to take off well, because some people(s) decide to give their friends copies....

What would think then?

Best regards.

I don't read piracy in his statement. I believe he means to simply create two copies of the route within the same route directory - possibly with two differing themes...

FWIW, Route Riter will do the job nicely.

Cheers!
Marc

Peter, I think you're assuming he wants to market a different version, and if so you would be correct.

However, if he just wants to duplicate the route for his own personal use and run the two routes as mini routes, one with Southern Pacific equipment, as it was in the good old days, and one with current day (patoohee) Union Pacific equipment, then there would be no problems with that. Same thing if he wanted to copy the route and then play around in RE to backdate it with semaphore signals and water tanks and such and keep that separate copy as a place to run 2-10-2's and 4-8-4's. As long as he has a valid purchased copy and he's using it for his own personal use and not sharing it with others or selling it, there should be no problem.

Marc you are exactly right ! All I want to do is have to copies of the same route. I would like to have one with UP trainsets (even though I HATE UP) , and the other with SP trainsets. So would this be possible? I would like to have one be named Cascades Crossing (UP), and the other named Cascades Crossing (SP). Would any of this work ?

Do you currently use mini-routes with separate trainset files or are you running all of your routes under one generic "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator" folder?

I'm using the generic C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator" folder. What are mini routes ?

Mini-routes are just that - full installations of MSTS (clones usually) that have just one specific route and the specific equipment used just for that route. I use them for narrow gauge, traction and period routes. The advantages to using mini routes is that you don't have to weed through hundreds of standard gauge cars to find your narrow gauge cars. Also, your route loads up much faster because there is only one route to load and a much smaller Trainset folder.

For example, my RGS mini route has only the RGS route files and the Rio Grande Southern and D&RG(W) equipment I use on that route.

My Downtown Trolley route had only electrics and friction bearing freight cars.

My St.L&NA mini only has steam period equipment from the turn of the 20th Century.

You get the idea. If you used mini-routes for your two Cascade Crossing examples, you could have all SP older power in one and all UP modern power in the other.

If you're interested in this approach, go to Mini Route Discussion and see the last post. I take you through a simple mini-route install.

This method is also nice if you want to have the New MSTSBIN on some routes and not others.

I've never tried mini routes, what are the advantages over that, and using TrainStore?

How do you create one with Route Riter?

Thanks guys!

Start up Route Riter, right about dead center of the program window, you should see a tab "Mini-Routes".

You first need to create the mini route, so hit the "Mini-Route Setup" button and follow the prompts.
Next you need the route itself, again follow the prompts....

now is the tricky part.. you have to select the route you just made in the left box, and hit File>>MSTS path. and set the new mini route as default.

exit route riter and restart it. Ok, it was not that tricky, but if you don't it messes up.

now lets go back the "mini-Route" tab and lets get your rolling stock. Hit the "mini-Route get Stock" Follow the prompts again. It will get all the cons and stock needed for the installed ACT's.

Any other stock You might want, you will have to copy over maually or reinstall into the mini route.

Then you can "check the route" and you should be fine to play it....

If everything is good, you can then Zip a copy or burn to cd and save it for yourself just in incase you booger the route up later adding stuff to it.

Also, you can now remove the route (and the stock) from your Main train sim folder if you so desire.

I think i got it all, it has been a while since i used Route Riter to do this.

Will Raildriver work with these mini routes?

Yes it does. Just you can't start a mini-route using RDmgr. What I do (only once after a reboot) is start MSTS, then use alt-tab or the Windows button to get back to the desktop. Start RDmgr, select an engine and press its Start. It will automatically make MSTS full screen and RD just works as normal. After exiting MSTS, I just minimize RDmgr and leave it like that until the next reboot. RD will always just wakeup and work thereafter however and whenever I start MSTS.

You might have to close RDmgr if you startup Trainz or KRS between runs of MSTS, I'm not sure about that.

Thanks I'll try that!

Cool it works but how do you guys get to the Activity Editor? I need to change my consists so how do I get to it?

Look HERE for details.

Sorry guys but I'm not quite that good yet! I still need some help !

Create a shortcut. (On your desktop, right click; select New->Shorcut)
In the dialog box, either type in the path to your mini-route's train.exe or press BROWSE and navigate to the train.exe file and select it (click on it).
Press Next.
Type in a name for the shortcut in the box. Press Finish.

You will now have a new shortcut on your desktop. Right click on it and select Properties.
Pick the Shortcut tab on the top (it will probably already be chosen for you). In the box labeled Target, use the right arrow key and advance all the way to the end of the string. Type in a space and -toolset (and any other command line options you might want to feed MSTS such as -mem:1024 each separated by a space). Press OK.

Now if you double click on the shortcut, it will start the MSTS tools to your mini-route.

You might want to change the icon shown for the shortcut. There are 3 from which to choose in the train.exe file. Just pick the 'Change icon' button while editing the properties on the shortcut and pick one you like.

Follow the same procedure to create a shortcut to run MSTS direct out of your mini-route except don't add the '-toolset' command line option.

Clear enough?

Yes thank you very much I will try it again in the morning ! Thanks guys for all of your help!

WHOOOOO HOOOOO ! It works! Thanks guys !