Feature Random Events (signal Delays/tsrs) - Feedback

Xbox series X- there is no briefing before you start driving about what TSRs there will be and where they will be, however from watching the previews over the last few weeks it seems that this isn’t exclusive to Xbox. On the riviera line, I had a TSR for 40, however there was not a board marking the start or end of this restriction. If I can find the service I’ll edit this tomorrow but I suspect this issue won’t be limited to one service

 

So I’ve spent about the whole day running up and down the Morristown line on Xbox Series X and it’s been nothing but phenomenal. However, I have yet to run into a TSR and haven’t seen a board for one in i think over the 10 runs I’ve done. I disabled them in settings and reenabled them but nothing yet. Anybody expierencing this?

 

Yeah same, the only thing that I encounter is speed restrictions and train faults. No random events though, aka being held up at a random Red signal.

 

Ran a full service on Riviera Line last night with the Voyager. Using all default settings, the frequency of diesel engine stalls is a bit ridiculous. I had at least 4 in one service. Only ran 2 services and haven’t seen a TSR yet though. I keep my fingers crossed that the telegraph will be fixed, I *really* don’t want to play with the track monitor on.

 

I like the idea of TSRs, but honestly the implementation is real poor. Had TSRs spawn fowling track, points and some are not spaced far enough so they collide with your train!

Lack of associated warning equipment (Portable AWS and/or a Dalek) too is a shame.

Attached is a minor few issues; the first doesn't need any introduction. The second image is a poor show, as the line is not bi-directional so you would never see this placed here.

Also i thought there would be brief before starting a timetable stating where x TSRs where? So far not too impressed, but not as bad as the failures!

 

I think the TSRs are going beyond what TSW is currently capable of and makes these lackings more apparent.

E.g., I had a TSR that was in the Riviera tunnels and there's no way I would have even known it was there without the HUD. It's pitch black in the tunnel and nothing can be seen (I did have the headlights on). I've generally felt like the headlights in TSW are much less effective than in the real world because often times nothing can be seen but black. At a minimum some amount of light should be reflecting back somewhere on the rails.

So how is an operator supposed to get forewarning that a TSR exists? Two typical options in the real world are rail orders (either printout or on the electronic trip display), or dispatch radio chatter/warnings. Neither of these exist in TSW. So, I can't see how a player can cope with them without the HUD, and the points/scoring system is unlikely to make accommodations for the TSR(s) so I'll probably turn it off (granted, the bonus points from turning on the safety systems will more than likely compensate for any deductions made for being tardy/late).

 

Two runs now on South Devon and not a single TSR or signal delay - both enabled and at 100%.

 

OldVern I had to do a 3d run on Morristown before I saw tsr. They are really random. As far as the signals, it could happen, and you would not ever be aware of it.

 

I had been thinking thinking about this as well as far as "delayed signal clearing" goes. How would we ever know if this feature is even working, as frequently or not as it is supposed to, or at all? How are we supposed to know the difference between "delayed signal clearing" as opposed to an intentional red signal due to dispatcher/pathing, or an error in dispatcher/pathing? Perhaps a fault notice should show up for these as well, so we know what is going on, and also if this feature even works.

 

What should have been implemented is a random signal/track circuit/axle counter failure where you would be advised by the signaller/dispatcher the signal had failed then authority given to pass at danger. Mind I don’t know how NPC trains would have dealt with that.

 

PC Player - STEAM

TSR Placement certainly needs some rules adding into the setup.

 

Also the length of the TSR seem to be very consistent, and feel far too short.

 

If they don’t understand how to do it per the various railway rule books (UK and overseas), then better not to have bothered.

 

I think signal delays is the best implemented new feature, I’ve had three that I know of.

Dawlish Warren on the down, around 20 seconds before the signal cleared in two services I’ve played.

The one I was unsure of whether it was correctly implemented or a signal delay - UT218 before between Torre and Newton Abbot West Junction was showing a yellow, so I thought oh something must be coming across the Junction in front of me. Anyway on approaching it stepped up to a green so I looked at the map and there was nothing in the way. Whether that’s design or not? I was impressed.

 

Going from leipzig to riesa, the A and E plates were switched around

 

And for god's sake, with the on train fault particularly doors, please extend the timeout for the "Do you want to give up control of this service?" message to pop up. Last thing I need when I'm walking the full length of an Arrow set on both sides is that in my face every two minutes.

Or better still, as suggested before make that function a player one - i.e. we decide whether or not we want to abandon the train.

 

And another one from me, back on Riviera Line I just had a 40 MPH TSR between Laira Jn and Plymouth bringing a Voyager on to the main line. There should have been a warning board and magnet for this before the Down Loop entered the Down Main.

 

On PC/Steam, every time I've encountered a TSR on the Morristown Line (2 times so far), the signs have been facing the wrong direction.

 

Yet to see any signal delays. They’re on and I’ve set to high frequency

 

Took my first look at Dresden to Leipzig.

70 km/h TSR approaching Dresden Neustadt. The warning board was only positioned about 200 metres before the start of the restriction and the "A" commencement board had planted itself in the middle of the track on an adjacent line. Not good. The algorithm needs reworking.

Also, I thought advance warning of TSR's on DB are signified by a special sign, not the usual triangle shaped yellow board?

 

Well, they are signified by a special sign (currently not how it is in the game): they require two additional lights as you can see here:

Besides, there should be a 1000Hz magnet attached like in reality, that'd bring a lot more immersion, too.

 

German speed restriction signs on Manchester Airport commuter

 

Didn't get a chance to grab a picture, but had an instance just now of the commencement board for a speed restriction on NJT, being in the middle of a diverging track.

 

As the TSR’s are random it might never occur in that location again. I’m not a coder but basically there needs to be some sort of inhibit in the process which prevents the speed (or advance/termination) boards being placed where that emphatically wouldn’t happen in real life, be that on the edge of station platforms or smack bang in the middle of the “four foot” centre of a track section. As a right side failure the algorithm then needs to go further back to the first suitable location where the boards can be placed.

 

PS5 Pro
I was generally looking forward to this feature, that it would be a great revival within the services, and that two identical services would actually be different from each other ...... as we were allowed in August, and everyone was happy about it ....... but the reality I would say is far below expectations ....... if I forget the slightly non-functional marking of the section for slow driving, and as has already been mentioned here, it is not always in the right place and on the Dresden - Leipzig map many times the signs of the end and beginning of the section are strangely rotated, so it actually doesn't work very well even then ........ but personally we were looking forward to the occasional confusion with the change of the stop signal to the signal allowing driving ...... and although on Dresden - Leipzig I have all layers of traffic and I have already tried several services twice, three times, so I don't know, maybe it's a coincidence, but nothing actually happens, everything is the same ...... I have the level set to normal for these events .......

 

Same for me. Drove 3 different (busy) routes with zero signal delays or whatever. Also no trains piled up further on the route.

 

Wouldnt the first picture of this post show a very similar case?
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...gnal-delays-tsrs-feedback.93915/#post-1043829
As much as I love the idea of TSRs, I would actually propose to limit them to a stretch of track without platforms or any switches. Even though you may teach the signs not to stand on the middle of a diverging track, in reallity you need additional signs if there is a switch in the way of the TSR, that would indicate to the driver for which line the sign is meant to indicate the speed restriction for. Of course, this could be made part of the code, however, I am assuming its not an "overnight job" and it would be nice if we would get this into some kind of playable state rather sooner then later...

 

Apart from the various issues already mentioned, I want to report that the speed restrictions also almost always have the same speed limit.
- 70 km/h in Germany.
- 40 mph in UK.
- Haven't played enough US to say.
There's very little variation from these, at best I found a 50 km/h in Germany and 35 mph in the UK.

 

I have it set to high and don't think I've had a signal delay yet - it would be nice to have a bit of detail from DTG about this feature, for example, is the signal delay just for the player train next signal or does it apply to all AI? I've only played the UK route so far.

 

I was looking forward to the signal delay feature the most, it could have substantially improved the core gameplay but I'm not sure its enabled. From a few tests on different routes I've never observed any delays, signals always clear instantly when a train clears a section. This is very different from the initial presentation where it was said that this would make every journey different.

I know the dispatcher has had some issues in the past and this feature may have caused more issues, but I would still appreciate the feature being enabled even if it occasionally bricks things. Looking at the implementation in the editor it looks like that by default there should be a signal delay 25% of the time, up to a max distance from the player of 200m. I don't know if this means for signals on the player route only, or if it includes all signals in the vicinity. If its for the player route only I don't see how that is going to cause many knock-on delays. As others have said some clarity would be nice about what the expected behaviour should be

 

I’m exactly the same I have never had any signal delays whatsoever? Was really looking forward to this new feature but so far I see no difference.

 

I've done a few runs on older routes. Left the frequency for signal delays and TSRs at normal. Nothing occurred so far. I might try changing it to high frequency and see.

 

Just adding my voice in agreement, no sign of this.

On the other hand I've had to turn off random failures as they were getting silly, engines failing every few miles.

 

I think the signal delays are very subtle, which I’m fine with.

I think people’s expectations to be flying along then brought down to a red, only for it to clear after a minute or so and you’re on your way are not what DTG had in mind?

Fine if they are signaller controlled (and the poor signaller might get an ‘OC’ delay - ie: ‘Please Explain’) but more and more signalling is ARS/DRS (automatic/dynamic route setting). I wouldn’t want to be flying along and be brought down to a red to signal that should be in Auto.

On Riviera for example, like I mentioned above I’ve had at Dawlish Warren after being looped the signal has took 20-30 seconds to clear. And I got the signal wrong in my above post E109 relate signal (around Kingskerswell) was showing a single yellow and E109 at Newton Abbot West Junction was showing a red, with nothing in the area, on approach to E109r it stepped up a green. Not sure it was a random signal delay but I liked it!

 

I don't think anyone is asking for this, it's about holding signals already at danger for longer,. This is also not how it looks like its implemented from looking at the config. The delays apply to all 'mainline' category signals, this doesn't appear to differentiate between signals that have multiple diverging routes and fully automatic ones.

This is the core issue - How do we know what is the feature vs what is just random? There is no way to tell if the advertised feature is working as intended because its implementation has been so vague.

The feature was advertised was that it was going to introduce random delays with knock on effects so that every time you drive will be different. Timetables are designed so drivers avoid encountering adverse signals and as the game timetables are based on real world timetables every run is perfect and there is no challenge arriving to destinations on time. This is even worse when you consider the timetables they're based on have some padding for station dwell times and performance allowances to account for other train moves potentially conflicting with each other.

Take the Bakerloo line for example - the headways on the trains within the game are only a few minutes, yet you're unlikely to encounter a red signal except for station starter signals and at terminus stations. If the TSW6 feature worked as intended and was set to a high amount of signal delays, I would expect to be catching up with the AI trains during most runs. In reality (despite this feature being backwards compatible, supposedly) it runs much as it did in every previous TSW.

 

i think the system is operating how i'd hoped, i.e. a signal delay could occur anywhere along the route, and you might not get directly impacted by it. but i'd have expected to be impacted a tad more by such delays, especially as i have frequency set to high. i've not encountered one yet and the live streams indicated that if you have it set to high, you're basically guaranteed to experience one

 

I thought that routes would have designated areas assigned where the TSRs could happen in order to not have the signs appear in daft places, like on adjoining tracks or in the middle of junctions, or reductions happening directly (a yard or two) before even bigger permanent speed reductions, but it appears they are truly random and can appear anywhere. This means very often the signs will almost certainly be fouling something or the reduction will be pointless. I don’t know how the signs can get mixed up or point in the wrong direction or fail to appear at all, that’s very odd behaviour, but it is happening more often than it all appearing correctly.

I can’t tell if it’s a case of not much thought having been put into the implementation of this feature or if it’s a technical limitation in its implementation, or both, but it doesn’t really matter which it is, the result is very poor. I’ll probably be turning it off.

I haven’t been held at a red signal for longer than usual at all so I am going to assume that feature just isn’t working yet. Given DTG’s propensity for making similar features that happen more often than they would in real life or would be desirable (six stuck doors in one service, even with train faults turned off, lol not lol), I would have expected too many occurrences of being held at a signal rather than none at all. I think it’s a good observation that it would be hard to tell if you were being held at a red for longer but all reds I have been held at have cleared immediately after the train I’m waiting for has cleared the route so I don’t think it’s been implemented yet or it’s broken. I could be wrong but that’s what I’ve experienced so far. I have had a TSR on every service, for comparison.

I’m not at all surprised at any of this. I just hope that when I decide to turn random events off it stays turned off and disables the feature, unlike the train faults which still occur when turned off and the train announcement volume settings all returning to 100%. When I asked for random events in the survey I did think to myself that I wanted random events that work well and it probably wouldn’t be the case when they come to the game. Hopefully the bugs like missing or reversed signs can be ironed out but I expect the random positioning of the TSRs will remain in any case. Assigning areas where they can or can’t occur would be extra work and I don’t think DTG will be doing that, although I was hoping they would have done it that way in the first place.

 

I did the SimSig Willesden Suburban with moderate delays on and it quickly became a complete nightmare. I had trains going back to E&C from Harrow 90’ late! Of course in reality if things got that bad, NR and LUL would put the block on anything coming off the Bakerloo at Queens Park until the congestion cleared (or turn round at Stonebridge). But even when I put the delays back to minimal I found very few movements running on a green signal and apparently it’s like that IRL. Definitely too many trains and not enough railway!