On February 9th, Auran laid out its near-term and longer range plans in a combination news announcement on the Trainz web site and a posting by Auran CEO Greg Lane on the Trainz Discussion Forum. In part this was a celebration of the 2nd anniversary of the first retail release of Trainz. Following is a brief summary:

Trainz TRS2004

Trainz as we know it will continue through a few more iterations. The next release after Service Pack 2 will be an expansion pack called Engineers Edition - Expansion Pack (EE). It will add to TRS2004 and be fully backward compatible. A standalone version called Gold Edition will also be released. It will combine TRS2004 and EE. Future TRS2004 expansion packs are expected along the lines of Branchline, Commuter, and Network. This latter pack bears special mention in that it points to online game play, something many users have asked for.

Beyond Trainz TRS2004

The next generation of Trainz will divide into two main streams: Tranzportation and Railroad Simulator Professional Edition (RSP). Expect a light edition (RSP LE) of RSP as well. Auran plans to share resources across their various offerings, so there will be a commonality in many areas as well as an economy of development effort.

Tranzportation. Tranzportation will be more of a strategy game, incorporating all forms of transport and managing/expanding fleets of vehicles and working with the needs of industries and cities rather than driving trains. It will retain many of the features already in Trainz. Look for Tranzportation to be sold through game stores.

Railroad Simulator Professional. RSP will be aimed at the professional railroader and those seeking the ultimate in realistic train simulation. It will be suitable for PC-based driver training. Look for expanded graphics capabilities in Surveyor, full dispatcher capabilities, prototypical signaling customizable by country, and online game play. There will be improved layout planning, AI driving, sounds, and physics. Look also for a Unix-based version and, since the Mac OS X is Unix-based, possibly a Macintosh version. Look for RSP LE to be sold through game and hobby outlets and RSP and RSP LE to be sold directly by Auran and through a network of regional web sites.

Auran is promising developers a stable platform in three-year increments between major updates. They've disavowed backward compatibility, but hasten to add that in most cases the fix -- where needed -- will be a matter of changing a few lines in the configuration file.

3rd party involvement

Auran will be looking to 3rd party groups for high quality content (rolling stock, objects, routes, etc.) and will be selecting small groups of skilled developers to be involved. There will be a full-time 3rd party liaison officer to coordinate this effort. Watch for more details after the release of TRS2004 Service Pack 2.

More information

I've barely skimmed the announcements here. For complete information see the Trainz web site news section (http://www.auran.com/TRS2004/default.htm) and refer to Greg Lane's February 9 post "The Future of Trainz" in the General Trainz section of the Trainz Discussion Forum (http://forums.auran.com/TRS2004/forum/default.htm).

Al

Article ©2004 Alfred Barten. All rights reserved.