I think that the thing that should be remembered now that you have decided to jump to MTS3. If all that is set for you at the Shop you should have no need for a PC.
I would however suggest you think about the numbers that you want your locomotives to have on MTS, in the early days with much to learn and remember having to think ’what number do I select for that loco there’? Also have that plan when you go to the shop, they will not be happy changing locomotives frequent times! In my early days I made sure that the number equaled the last 2 digits of any painted number on the loco. Of course a single digit numbered loco would use that, another way is to use the check digit just depends on what locomotives you have and what numbers they have. In some cases I have revised the number to be another of class that has a number with check digit that works. As an example the current Stainz is 2, the black ones have been 99 4605 or or 99 4606 thus those would be 2,5 or 6 in your numbering scheme for DCC. Others may work well but some can be an issue. Remember that you only have a limited number I think I have seen 1-30 for MTS3 in my old MTS2 days it was I think 1-21 or 22 so somewhat restrictive. I have seen some put labels on their locomotives that show the number, this can be quite unrealistic. What may work for you is a small Label with just the number on a Window for Diesels and on the Cab Side for Steam Locomotives, make it quite small so that it is unobtrusive but readable. I also put a small label Underneath the Locomotive as a reminder.
Another thing that you may wish to consider is Max Speed and Inertia. Max speed is useful to have reduced if you have kids running trains, you may wish to only let them run just 1 or 2 selected reduced speed ones. Inertia is a personal thing, but on a small line it can be a pain if it takes 3 circuits to get to full speed and another 3 to get back to zero. Seams daft but I have operated a friends line that have Locomotives that would do that on a different line to his.
Finally, for the future you may need to think about that PC to carry out changes to your Decoders and maybe even think about running the line from it. A Mac will not talk to the LGB system, well not on MTS2, not sure about later derivatives. If you wish for access to the system by computer in the future an older 2nd hand Windows machine will work fine. I still have my old Windows 98 machine that is kept just to access the ability to update LGB Decoders as and when I need to.
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