The Hisatsu Line on Time

[kbr]

Yesterday, the Raildriver controller I ordered finally arrived and I've had a little time to play around with it.

Here's a run along the Hisatsu Line, one of the default routes in MSTS. I've always had a fascination with Japanese trains and routes, it's to bad there is little representation of them in the train sim world.

















My timing was pretty good on this run. I have to say that though there are a few issues, overall I'm pretty pleased with The Raildriver.

[sgtmajor]

WOW!!!! Great job partner. I don't think I've ever completed one of those scenario's that good.

So.... did the rail driver make that much difference? Let me know how you like it etc. I might have to put that on my 2008 Christmas list. (smile)

Have a great day!

[bhk]

You're too timely to be a professional commuter-train driver, Kevin. ;D

How do you like the RD?

Bruce

[kbr]

Thanks. This was a pretty lenient activity so I can't take much credit for being on time. It's a fun activity though were you take a group of people around the country side on a tour.

Here's a mini-review based on my first impressions of the Raidriver.

I like the Raildriver, it's certainly a help to my driving skills. It's a good size piece of kit, being a bit bigger than I was I was expecting. It is still small enough to be easy to move out of the way when I want to put my yoke on the desk for flying.

Though there were a few issues that I am a little concerned about. One is that while the unit is made of heavy plastic and metal, giving it a very solid feel, the levers themselves seem to be made out of some kind of light plastic. Hopefully they are more durable than they feel.

The unit works great in both MSTS and Trainz 2004 & 2006. It seemed to work fine with every train that I tried it on in TRS. It also worked great with all the default trains in MSTS.

To me, both sims seem new again used with this control console.

Another issue that is a little disappointing about 3rd party MSTS trains is that they must have a Raildriver friendly '.eng' file in order to work well with the Raildriver. I was disappointed to see that a train I like allot, the EF4 Little Joe's brakes wouldn't work with the Raildriver. However, I'm hoping that either someone will make a Raildriver compatible engine file for it or that I'll figure out how to edit the engine file myself.

I'll have to make it a point to check beforehand with 3rd party MSTS addon designers to be sure that their trains are Raildriver friendly before purchase.

On the whole, I am pretty happy with the purchase. In my opinion, I think it considerably adds to the train sim experience. Also when compared with flight sim hardware of similar quality, the pricing of this unit isn't bad. There are people who have no problems controlling the sims with the keyboard, but sadly I'm not one of them (I tend to get the keys mixed up, possibly because I use two train sims,) so the Raildriver is a real help for me in that regard. Also, I find it helpful to have the controls laid out in front of me. While I wouldn't say that The Raildriver is mandatory to enjoy train simming, I doubt that any train simmer who does buy one will be disappointed with it.

[bhk]

Kevin,
Good to read that your impressions are favourable.
I think that your last sentence sums it up beautifully.

Bruce

[kbr]

Thanks, Bruce.

I've had some success modifying the Little Joe's engine file so that I can now control it pretty nicely with the RD. I've lost just a little bit of realism with the train though in that the train does not quite wheel slip as easily as it did, but other than that it still retains most of the feel that it did before. I'm planning to get the wheel slipping back were it was once I'm better with editing engine files.