Managed add-ons - An introduction

This page is aimed at users who want to find out what managed add-ons are and how they work.

At the moment, users have to find and install add-ons in all but intuitive ways. You have to search around the internet to find add-ons that interest you, but either you do not find anything at all because you do not know where to look, or you find something that was hidden somewhere so you found it only years after it was originally released. Worse, you run into links that are long dead and ultimately ask other users on forums or via email in order to finally get what you want.

But even if you managed to download an add-on, you are often left with obscure ways of packaging and do not really know where to extract the archives you downloaded or how. Eventually, you try running the add-on, but then find a huge number of files reported as missing because you did something wrong during the installation process, or because the add-on depends on other add-ons that you were never told about.

The idea behind managed add-ons (or managed content) is that you never have to search the internet for add-ons again, and that you can install, update and remove them comfortably from within the game. All you have to do is to visit the new Get Add-ons menu.

When you open the Get Add-ons menu, you will find a list of all available add-ons that you can browse through categorically. At the moment, add-ons are sorted by country, then city, then operator, although these categories are usually flattened out if not enough elements are available in each category. You can further narrow down the list by entering keywords in the filter box.

Add-ons that you have not installed are shown with a red icon. Once you found an add-on that potentially interests you, select it, and more information along with some screenshots will be shown. If you want to play this add-on, all you have to do is to click the Install button. The add-on will then be automatically downloaded and installed, along with all dependencies. Some add-ons might also suggest other add-ons (usually routes suggest a suitable set of trains). In this case you will be asked whether you want to install the suggestions as well or not.

If you have the latest version of an add-on installed, the add-on is shown with a green icon. If you ever want to remove such an add-on, just select it and then click the Remove button. If you have an outdated version of an add-on, it is shown with a yellow icon. In order to update the add-on, select it and click the Install button.

Once you have the add-ons you want to play, head over to the Start new game menu and select the route and train of your choice. You can browse through your routes and trains categorically in mostly the same way as in the Get Add-ons menu.

If you want to play legacy add-ons (those that you have to find and download on your own), switch to the Browse manually tabs and browse through your hard drive for files and folders from there.