A Small Change Radically Improved My Tsw Experience

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by OldVern, Sep 6, 2025 at 9:28 PM.

  1. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    And without further ado…

    That is turning off the objective marker and its associated blue column. Started first as an experiment and was surprised how it made a difference. Becomes very easy to fixate on the marker and not see the rest of the view etc. looking out of the cab. The “button” icon also had a nasty habit of obscuring signal sighting particularly those mounted on gantries. So far as distance to the objective is concerned, that can still be gleaned from the HUD but more discreetly and you don’t tend to focus on that.

    So far I’ve only tried it with passenger services not freight where it might be harder to work without the marker on screen, but I intend to give it a try. Much more immersive and I can’t believe it’s taken me 7 years of playing TSW to get rid of it.

    Just need to see if there is a hot key to re-enable it as a nuclear option.
     
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  2. anarchy99

    anarchy99 Well-Known Member

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    I understand completely what you mean about becoming fixated on the marker. I turned it off back when the minimal HUD was introduced. With passenger operations it's more immersive looking for the stop car markers and eventually you adapt to glancing the top left for distance to objective. This applies to freight too but to begin with I used to press CTRL + 1 to quickly flip it on and back off on approach so I could better gauge where the game wanted me to stop.
     
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  3. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I’ve always played with all in-world markers off. I sometimes turn the objective marker on for on-foot objectives in scenarios or reversing moves but it’s only fleeting uses, flashing the markers on to see where they are before turning them straight off again. It’s why I get so annoyed that I can’t hide the route hopping markers because I don’t want to see in-world markers at all. I’m not totally hardcore as I play with the HUD but that’s a screen overlay and not an in-world marker and is essential in most cases.
     
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  4. WelshTM

    WelshTM Well-Known Member

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    This is the only issue I have with them off. On-foot objectives, if you don’t hit them the scenario won’t progress. It makes playing the. Scenarios frustrating. But I turn off everything when on a train. The only HUD I have on is the next speed limit
     
  5. CK95

    CK95 Well-Known Member

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    Yes I keep all in world markers off also, it’s only a slight pain when you’re in a new unit & aren’t familiar with switches etc & need to do in cab objectives.
     
  6. dr1980

    dr1980 Active Member

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    I’ve pared down my assistance quite a bit so that I just have the station distance at the top of the screen, plus the side view preview of the route but with the signals all grey so I have to pay attention. To me this is the best balance for me given I don’t have the time or repetitions to memorize routes. This plus enabling safety systems hits the sweet spot for me.
     
  7. dal#7945

    dal#7945 Well-Known Member

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    Vern how do get rid off is it in the settings
     
  8. Myron

    Myron Well-Known Member

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    Ctrl + 1. Additionally Ctrl + 7 to toggle the red-to-green marking displaying where your train should stop.
     
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  9. matjamcar

    matjamcar Well-Known Member

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    I keep the objective marker on because otherwise if you have to get out of the train and walk to a marker to complete an objective, you can’t find it and I can’t be bothered switching the marker on/off all the time. It does bother me it being on though. An opacity setting would be nice to have so you can make the markers barely visible but still there.
     
  10. krustynuggets

    krustynuggets Well-Known Member

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    Somebody doesn't look at the settings for the game, because I'm 99% sure that is a setting choice that you can make.......
     
  11. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Thanks Myron. That could come in handy in the situation matjamcar described above.
     
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  12. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    I've always hated the objective marker and stop markers, they ruin the immersion for me. I have to admit that I sometimes overshoot (or undershoot) my stop position, but I'm okay with that.

    The only times I miss the objective marker is when I'm on foot or have objectives to use a certain in-cab switch I normally never use. Part of the reason I dislike scenarios.
     
  13. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    I find in the limited time I’ve been doing this the station stops feel more natural and I’m actually nailing it better. The only issue I had was one of the local halts on Semmeringbahn where the objective must have been set to only 5m either side.
     
  14. Scorpion71

    Scorpion71 Well-Known Member

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    It's a shame there isn't a way to turn off those bloody route hop markers, totally immersion breaking. I remember DTG (Matt I think) saying it'll be an easy fix to include an option to turn it on/off in the options in a future patch, still waiting....................
     
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  15. matjamcar

    matjamcar Well-Known Member

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    I’ve never seen it and I’ve been in and out of the settings in the game for years. Where is it?
     
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  16. Wivenswold

    Wivenswold Well-Known Member

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    I've dispensed with the objective markers long ago now I'm trying to live without the gubbins in the top left corner and learn to use the in cab speedometer and small HUD. The only problem I've found is that I'm totally in the dark about when I should be closing doors now, pressing T to get the timetable up helps but a lot of trains don't have any type of clock in the driver's view.

    Unless I'm missing something obvious of course. Like driving a car, bad habits can become the norm. Ideally I'd love just a small digital clock in the top left of the screen maybe one that goes green when it's time to depart.

    I'll now wait for someone to tell me that exists and I'm the only person in the forum not using it. Be gentle with me.
     
  17. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    I thought about ditching the top left HUD or part of it. The problem being that unless you drive the route regularly you don’t retain the route knowledge a real driver would have, nor do you have a job card on the desk showing your stops (or in the case of Germany the EBULA) which would help in dispensing with more of the HUD. Other issue is that some of the speedos are quite small in our “virtual” 3D cabs but I would add in conjunction with dispensing with the objective marker I have been trying to use that rather than glancing at the top of the screen.
     
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  18. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    I've considered ditching the big speedometer, but I rely too much on that little icon showing if my doors are open or closed. And the throttle lock I guess. Wish there was a way to get rid of the speedometer but keeping those two icons.
     
  19. phil#160

    phil#160 Active Member

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    I've never played with them on even the little white dot goìes. only thing I leave is the control pop ups. I was certain you could also turn the route hop off aswell. With my theory on that and having them at platform ends it would be annoying if you couldn't turn them off.

    Edit, had a good read through this and thanks for the shortcuts to turn stuff on and off I never knew that always done it through the settings. The T for the timetable is a handy to know. The time is the biggest issue, I'm forever hitting escape for the time table and counting the seconds down on my fingers untill door close
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2025 at 10:58 AM
  20. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    There isn’t such a setting. The only opacity setting is for the cursor dot, not the in-world markers.
     
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  21. dal#7945

    dal#7945 Well-Known Member

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    On xbox how do you get rid of that annoying white dot.
     
  22. Trainiac

    Trainiac Well-Known Member

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    You can also turn off the objective complete sound
     
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  23. bleajch

    bleajch Well-Known Member

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    I must admit, I'm always slightly surprised at how many people drive with this stuff on, considering how a lot of the community is always asking for the most realism. Most of the time when I see someone's gameplay for whatever reason they will have many of these things turned on.
    Personally I've always driven almost HUD-less, only really using the thing to see how far stations, speed limits and signals are because I lack route knowledge on many routes. And as others have said, turning it on for on foot objectives. I don't know, maybe its because I come from TSC and have always played that with the most minimal HUD. If there's too much help on the screen, the game gets easy and therefore boring, for me at least anyway.

    Also the part about route hop marker that was mentioned above, I totally agree with, we need to be able to remove it as it is completely immersion breaking. Its especially annoying because I've never even used the feature a single time, I actually kind of hate it and the entire idea of it, but I guess that is a rant for another thread and not here.
     
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  24. Wivenswold

    Wivenswold Well-Known Member

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    I used it once at Preston. It caused TSW to crash. I go back to the menu and load up the route now.
     
  25. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    I'm gonna be the contrarian here. I actually like having plenty of information and guidance on the screen.

    I do think that the objective markers could be smaller and less obtrusive. And the color braking strips are too intrusive and overdone. And I could do without the route hopping marker and the annoying cursor dot. And I don't need anything that actually appears in the driving view.

    But I Iike the circular HUD and the displays on the top left and right, though the barber pole was a major blunder.

    On the whole, I don't have problems with the screen icons, other than the ones I mentioned.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2025 at 5:19 PM
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  26. jack#9468

    jack#9468 Well-Known Member

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    Everything I have switched on is to replace route knowledge.
     
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  27. pveezy

    pveezy Well-Known Member

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    Yeah getting right of that giant bright mark on the stopping point was a big improvement. I am not at the point where I play HUDless... driving a train isn't my real job and I have so many routes and trains I'd never be able to memorize the stopping patterns and braking points without some HUD info... U think some HUD is ok to replace the route knowledge that a real driver that spends all days on the same piece of track would have. But the on track stop markers are big immersion killers and aren't really necessary once you get a hang of the game a bit.
     
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  28. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    But some routes want you to stop right on the marker or within a couple of yards or the game won't progress.
     
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  29. tootyhoot

    tootyhoot Well-Known Member

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    I like to relax and enjoy my drives rather than try to be too clever and challenge myself. Just my own way of getting the most from this game. I leave being a masochist to some of the other games on my rig, TSW is my go to game to chill.
     
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  30. wcwood92

    wcwood92 Well-Known Member

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    I still use the old school distance countdown on the top left, and all forms of game generated orb are turned off. It is in fact a game changer.
     
  31. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    You can safely overshoot the marker. It seems it triggers as long as part of your train is on the marker, so undershooting is a problem, but overshooting isn't. Assuming there isn't a red signal right beyond the marker, or your train is a single loco.
     

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