More Realistic Looking Derailments

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Daniel Gibbs, Oct 25, 2019.

  1. Daniel Gibbs

    Daniel Gibbs Active Member

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    The derailments and collisions in Train Simulator are completely unrealistic. Whenever you derail, the train just jerks to a stop and the cars scatter everywhere still intact with each other. It also causes static consists to derail even when you don't even touch them. The derailments and collisions should at least be as realistic as they were in MSTS. Depending on the speed, the train would continue a great distance before stopping. At a great speed, the cars would pile against each other and break apart from each other. At an even greater speed, they may rocket through the air.

    What do y'all think?
     
  2. Matthew Wilson

    Matthew Wilson Well-Known Member

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    I think I would rather they concentrate on performance physics and simulation, editing tools, multiplayer and many other things before looking at something which you should inherently be trying to avoid and that it is quite morbid to recreate in all fairness.

    But perhaps that's one of only a few voices who would think otherwise.
     
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  3. Cat

    Cat Well-Known Member

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    Daniel there is good reason why train crashes in TS are not realistic. Rail operating companies are fussy about their brand image and how it is used. People post their TS crashed on utube which the rail operators might think that it is bad for the image of their company. These companies could even withdraw the licences from TS developers which would mean trains with no branding. That would annoy a lot of people who use TS.

    As Matthew has said, there are many other improvements that could be made for TS.

    I will just add that I have witnessed the aftermath of a real train crash where there were multiple fatalities. I saw bodies being taken from the wreckage. It was sight I will never forget.
     
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  4. Dougie1974

    Dougie1974 New Member

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    Can't the developers do away with derailments altogether?
     
  5. 749006

    749006 Well-Known Member

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    Go back to MSTS if all you wish to do i smash trains up :(
     
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  6. JGRudnick

    JGRudnick Well-Known Member

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    I totally agree with you, and I am very sorry you had to witness such an event.
     
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  7. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Just no...
     
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  8. treid09

    treid09 Guest

    I know you probably didn't mean this in a wrong way Daniel, but I disagree. Train derailments are tragic when they happen, and I certainly don't think we should have realistic derailments. Take for instance, the CP derailment at near Field, B.C. earlier this year. They lost control of their train, and the locomotive flew off a bridge into the Kicking Horse river. The engineer, conductor, and a trainee all perished. Out of respect for train crews and drivers around the world who put their lives on the line and those who lost their lives, this is not something that we need to recreate. Again, please don’t take this the wrong way, I know you did not mean it like that. None of us are trying to be cruel, but train wrecks are no joke.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 27, 2019
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  9. sem34090

    sem34090 Member

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    There are some elements of railway operations which need to be left out of simulators and games, and this is one of them. It seems to follow, increasingly, that when a violent element is introduced into a game people gradually lose sense of the reality of such elements in the real world (I am thinking of games which involve weapons, yet the player's character will never get properly killed or seriously injured and even if they do that never fully translates through to the player as the serious event that it would be in real life). Using the previous example, perhaps this is one reason we have seen a rise in violent crime in recent years - The seriousness of weapon usage has been lost on some people.

    How does this relate to a train or railway simulator? Well, for me it poses the following potential issues:
    1. The seriousness of a large railway accident might begin to be underestimated by those who play such a game as makes it easy to simulate, replicate and set up 'realistic' accidents (only without the horror, injury and fatalities). To my mind this is dangerous because it could, possibly, lead to complacency when acting around a railway which has, increasingly, become largely free from serious accidents. I worry that some elements of train simulation may have this effect already, as the behaviour of some lineside photographers is certainly not safe - It may be unprovable, but I wonder how many of those enthusiasts are railway modellers or train-simmers and whether there is a correlation.
    2. As it stands there are some people who use train simulators with the purpose of creating spectacular crashes and derailments for entertainment, which I generally find rather distasteful these days (probably coinciding with my commencing work on a heritage railway). I have even encountered one non-enthusiast who purchased the game in a sale with that sole intention. Currently the crashes created have precious little resemblance to real life, and the factors causing them are very often different to real life too. I worry that if the factors were brought closer to real ones, and the results made more realistic, then we might start seeing disrespectful and insensitive videos made showing 'entertaining' renditions of real life incidents (I separate these from the more respectful and sometimes more sensitive type as seen in many documentaries and in reports on disasters). And extremely unlikely though it may be (indeed I would hope that all of what I write here is unlikely) all it would take is for one sick individual to get hold of the software and begin using it as a means for testing the factors which could bring about a very real incident in the real world, which would potentially result in equally real casualties.
    I offer here perhaps the most unlikely points against including realistic derailment physics in what is, essentially, a game but I consider them to be valid points all the same.

    Now, one final comment is that some may suggest I am hypocritical in my points regarding respect and sensitivity as I am involved with the producing of a route, scenario pack and rolling stock pack depicting an interpretation of the British Army's use of railways in what many put to be the 20th Century's most tragic conflict - the Great War - for TS20xx. My defence here is that this series of packs is being developed with great respect for the subject matter, and an attempt to balance realism with sensitivity. It was started in the first place as a commemoration of the role played by British Railwaymen in the First World War, and it is in this spirit that it has grown and gained support.
     
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  10. Daniel Gibbs

    Daniel Gibbs Active Member

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    I wasn't taking it hard at all. I mean, after all, I do get your point on the things that happened in reality.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2019
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  11. Jack O'Track

    Jack O'Track Active Member

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    well, i sort of agree, but train accidents are a fact of life, but now if you run a red light in TSW the kill is just an annoying black screen with blood red letters rubbing it in: 'sorry, you're dead mate'. Have a look at the now free Rise of Flight sim, the crash damages & wrecks are a work of art too.
     
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  12. 749006

    749006 Well-Known Member

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    Not something most people wish to see in this game
     
  13. Jack O'Track

    Jack O'Track Active Member

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    maybe so, but i know quite a few songs about railroad crashes, and hero-ism of train drivers etc, but that might not be the place for a game situation.
     
  14. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    More a case of it being likely someone would find it amusing to post videos of such things
     
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  15. thearkerportian

    thearkerportian Well-Known Member

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    "More realistic" - "rocket through the air"
    Make decision what you want now.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2019
  16. Sunscreen

    Sunscreen Guest

    I would have hoped common decency and compassion for our fellows would preclude the inclusion of such things. No-one sane would get a kick out of watching someone else getting killed, or watching situations where people get killed. Just remember that when you look into the abyss the abyss looks back into you. Something in you changes forever when you have to pick up the pieces, and its someones son, daughter, mother or father- the most important light in someones life, not entertainment. A bit of respect and responsibility from DTG is exactly why such things have found no place in this sim. What about war games I hear you ask? PTSD is a simple response- war is an absolute tragedy and only replicated by those who have no knowledge of it. I could go on but I think its pretty clear how I feel..
    Just my humble two pennies worth.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 7, 2019
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  17. Wivenswold

    Wivenswold Well-Known Member

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    In the same way that punch-ups don't appear in Football Manager. It's the dark side of the hobby.

    On a purely statistical basis the train drivers we're emulating are very unlikely to experience a collision as they are very rare these days, so I'm glad there's no focus on it. Train crashes are horrible events, they wreck families, lives and livelihoods. I worked for British Rail and was responsible for reporting incidents to the Health & Safety Executive on my line. Some of the hideous events I've attended should not be replicated for entertainment.
     
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  18. thearkerportian

    thearkerportian Well-Known Member

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    Unless it is done for historical significance, education or something like that, there's really no good reason to replicate disasters for entertainment. By historical significance I mean the Chernobyl, Titanic, 9/11 scale of disasters; events the revealed flaws in the system, changed the course of history as a whole, not just the industries they involve. And even then it better be done in a respectful, meaningful, and first of all accurate way. Most railway accidents lack that importance. Maybe Tay Bridge. Maybe Eschede. And even then, TSW would not be the right kind of game to deal with these. You go too fast, you crash, you get some fireworks as a reward rather than punishment... then what? "Hah, that looked awesome, lemme do it again!"

    About the educational side i will say though, istead of more "gory" crashes, I'd like more crashes if you will - by which I mean, less forgiving physics toward speeding, be it accidental speeding (I'm looking at you LIRR and NTP), not to mention deliberate. That way TSW would teach players that you can't drive a train like that if you value your in-game avatar's life.

    Speaking of which, a difficulty mode where a death (e.g. a derailment or getting run over) would mean the permanent loss of all progress, all leveling and having to start over, a bit like the FsPassengers add-on for FSX does it. That would be a way more impactful way of depicting trainwrecks as the tragedies they are than damage models, noise and explosions:

    Just a black screen.
    [avatar's portrait in black and white.], fading in.
    "[Date of character creation] - [current date]", fading in.
    "R.I.P.", fading in.

    [Continue button] popping up
    Except that continue button will fade the screen back to black, reset the profile to zero, and then return the main menu. Or maybe even shut down TSW and drop you off on the desktop.
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2019
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  19. treid09

    treid09 Guest

    That would be something that I would agree with. If that happened, people would think twice about purposely derailing and would drive more responsibly.
     
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  20. thearkerportian

    thearkerportian Well-Known Member

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    It would suck though at these places where you cruise at 130 km/h, see a 90 km/h coming up and slow down accordingly, only to be surprised by a 30 km/h for the switch... 50 meters away. Route knowledge would be of critical importance, a question of life and death basically! And so would proper, functional signalling...
     
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  21. Daniel Gibbs

    Daniel Gibbs Active Member

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    You're right. I've been there and done that in TS.
     
  22. treid09

    treid09 Guest

    Story of my life dude
     
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  23. 749006

    749006 Well-Known Member

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    Most signalling in TS2020 is quite good

    Most signalling in TSW is rubbish and nothing like the real thing.
    GWR is wrong
    Trans Pennine has loads of faults
    Main Spessert Bahn (or whatever it's called) has duff signalling

    And yet the same stuff works as it should in TS2020

    Peter
     
  24. Sunscreen

    Sunscreen Guest

    I dont think it functions as block signalling in NTP, based purely on my observations standing next to the signals that are red then looking at the map to see if there is a train in the next block.
    If so then that could do with an alteration at some point provided that its technically possible.. although if Im honest I might know what they mean but the actual design of the system in an operational sense is unknown to me.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 9, 2019
  25. rare_common_sense

    rare_common_sense Well-Known Member

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    The penalty feature you brought up, is actually quite genuis.
     
  26. Wivenswold

    Wivenswold Well-Known Member

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    As a former British Rail Safety guy, I think it's best that collisions are kept as they are. It does at least show something rather than going black prior to impact which wouldn't feel right.

    It's not the spectacle of the impact that I feel uneasy about, just that there are real broken people out there who are still living the nightmare of being involved in a traumatic railway accident. We don't do enough for the victims of trauma and the disabled as it is in the UK, let alone victims seeing reconstructions of their misfortune on You Tube.
     
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  27. TimeSlicedDanny

    TimeSlicedDanny Active Member

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    It's odd, there seems to be a general saying no to more realistic physics so that derailments, crashes and damage are handled better, and yet there's a whole genre of simulation where this is considered highly desirable; ie combat flight simulators. So what's the difference?

    I'm not expecting soft body modelling so that carriages crumple and disintegrate realistically, but I think the physics by which they leave the rails should be reasonably accurate. Likewise, it would be nice if engines broke down realistically if you abuse them.
     
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  28. Wivenswold

    Wivenswold Well-Known Member

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    I can see your point about relative events in other PC games, so why not here. But think about the primary function of a simulated combat fighter and its occupants. You don't buy those sorts of games to do exercises around the country or provide a reassuring presence in a cold war situation. You buy it to fight in wars.

    A train is for transporting goods or people, that's its primary function. The point of Train Simulator is to simulate driving a train. People don't travel to be involved in collisions. It's like saying that London Bridge station is inaccurate in Battle of Britain 2019 and why aren't the trains moving down there. You get them in Train Simulator.

    I do completely agree about breakdowns though. I'd personally like to see more scenarios that feature "network meltdown" situations too.
     
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  29. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    The physics that simulate the lead up to a train coming away from the rails is one thing, simulating the physics AFTER it leaves the rails (or hits another object, static or otherwise) is a different point
    And what people do with aircraft in flight sims is up to them, we're talking specifically about driving trains in a train simulator.
     
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  30. CRail

    CRail New Member

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    All this talk about respect for those who do it for a living... I do it for a living, and I believe it is a disservice to the industry to make the results of improper operation cartoon like. Someone said they wanted better physics instead, well how do you get better physics if lateral forces on a curve aren't a factor? To the point of the previous comment, "what people do with aircraft in flight sims is up to them, we're talking specifically about driving trains in a train simulator." So what I do with a train in a train simulator on my own personal computer isn't up to me? I didn't sign up to be the moral compass of the gaming world by purchasing a train game. No movie shows a guy going to work, having a nice time, and going home and cut to credits, because that isn't interesting. If every trip runs perfectly all the time, that isn't interesting. There is a way to demonstrate realities of railroading in a way that isn't disrespectful or gruesome, and I think if you're not going to simulate all aspects of something, you're not simulating it at all. In the case of MSTS, cars and locomotives basically behaved the way they actually would, but car bodies didn't crumple and locomotives didn't smash up, and there was no illustration of bodies being removed from passenger cars.

    I expect a simulation to emulate reality, and when I make a mistake that has caused a wreck in real life, and nothing happens in the simulator, that's not a simulation at all. To bring up a specific grievance I have: If I'm traveling from New Haven to New York at 80mph, and I pass a cab signal transponder that gives me a "Normal" indication into a home signal that gives me a "Medium" (30mph) indication which then puts me through a 30mph crossover at 80mph because I had no warning, and I successfully cross over with nothing but a "drive quality" penalty, there's a whole lot of not simulating going on there. The signals aren't simulated because that would never happen, and the physics of running through a medium speed crossover at 80mph isn't simulated because the trip would not continue.

    I don't think asking for objects to behave realistically in a simulation is unreasonable.
     
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  31. Factor41

    Factor41 Well-Known Member

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    In an age where people can share videos of their sim catastrophes on YouTube, you have to make a call between whether you want a fairly realistic looking rail accident or whether you want to be able to get real, licensed trains. Trying to convince a train company to give you a licence for a sim where people can make videos of their realistic looking train piling down a bank into a river is going to be quite a task.
     
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  32. rare_common_sense

    rare_common_sense Well-Known Member

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    Well.. When you aren't the one creating the content, you're not really one spoiled for choice here. By your account, this isn't a sim at all, because you can't operate, nor press every button in the cabs, either, right. This isn't meant to be a full-on simulator for actual real-life operation, otherwise, everyone who plays it will be under the crazy assumption that they actually are qualified to do what you do for a living. As said in the previous comment, licensing partially depends on good representation in a product. There are other games that can provide what the OP is looking for..eg. BeamNG
     
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