All Aboard Studios Route- Crewe To Birmingham New Street.

This simply is not true. My 32gb system regularly uses 14 to 15gb in the game on some routes.

 

Id just delete all layers and stare wantingly at the tracks at New Street on foot.

 

Monitoring also shows that 21-23GB of my 32GB is used. However, the game itself uses less than half of that, if you open the task manager.

 

Task manager is notorious for incorrect usage data. Your setup/situation may be different, but RivaTuner tells a different story. What I can say for definite, is adding more ram definitely helped performance in TSW, for me.

 

Riva Tuner doesn't show memory usage for specific apps. So, 32GB is sufficient in any case.

 

That tells me it's not the route itself per se, but interaction of certain systems and program combinations and the route.
That's what makes these things hard to track down, because you have to go through different combinations to find out what ones in particular don't work.

The more information people can give, the easier it is to fix. When people say "it sucks" or "it's slow/blurry" that gives zero usable information.

It's like if your car breaks down and you don't tell them what kind of car or what's broken just "my car is going slow."

You can't even just say "console" because... which console? Which model? Which version? Which batch? Which update?

 

Debugging AI spads is impossible because the dev tools don't actually seem to pick it up, can be flagged in testing but you'd have to manually sit through the full 24 hours to ensure this doesn't happen. That being said I am working with our new internal QA team to put processes in place to prevent this going forward since debugging tools cant pick it up, I didnt even think AI spads were possible.

That being said a fix for AI spads is currently with both our internal QA team and dtgs QA team to go over to check. Arrival times are being worked on but I am working on game critical stuff at the moment to ensure we have that sorted first. Once I know game critical fixes are confirmed to be working, I will then submit the arrival times to be tested next and ensure they work correctly.

There will be comms from DTG soon on official patch notes for Patch 1 so keep an eye out for that for now.

Side note, by game critical I mean bugs that are meaning you are essentially getting subpar performance via fps or blurry textures or crashes. Not to say Arrival times are not critical but I want to ensure we have a smooth experience for all players across all platforms first. Rest assured though I am working as quick as I can to get things sorted and over to DTG to get out to you all, so is the rest of the team. Please do bare with us

 

Do you/DTG have any automated testing, both at the unit and integration level? For the SPAD issue, I would have thought that if you just set the sim running, with all the AIs doing their thing, it would eventually go wrong without having to sit in front of it. I would also assume that it should be possible to run the sim in super quick time and that you wouldn't need to run it with graphics because that is simply a visual representation of what the sim is doing. From the outside, so I don't actually know, it seems that testing is very reliant on humans, so if everything ends up being last-minute, no testing gets done.

 

Surely if sitting through the timetable for 24 hours is what it takes, then that is what has to be done! Do it in shifts, or over a week. I'm sure it's not impossible to make sure we get a working product.

And releasing it without arrival times is releasing an incomplete product for a full price tag. The promise of change isn't a guarantee it will be done.

 

That is precisely what we have been doing, the arrival times is actively being sorted at the moment and will be with testing teams asap. We will update as soon as we can

 

I report errors when an AI train passes a red signal, including the specific train, time and place, I don't understand why it would be necessary to sit somewhere for 24 hours....and one practically decides on two places, the reason is just the set place where it should obviously stop....... it's practically the first map where it's not...... so it's not possible. Seriously turning off the traffic is completely irrelevant ..... if I'm talking about the same problem

Moving the stopping point, or the grid in the tracks, which is the actual signal, cannot be impractical.

 

Could you not just get 24 people to sit through an hour each? that seems far more doable

 

...Or.. you get 24 people to look at an hour each.. 12 to look at 2 hours each.. ect.. yes not ideal but in a situation where DTG have sold a broken product.. not the hardest egg to crack..

This route has so much potential to be THE best route on tsw.. someone should have had the balls to stand up and say NO its not going out in this state.. it needs X amount of days...
Im sure 99% of the player base would have preferred that with a reasonable explanation as to why..
But we just get treated like ATM's... a cash injection is needed... rush to drop the DLC.. try to sweep up the pieces..

DTG is doing great job at cutting the branch out from underneath themselves.. you have 0 competition.. slow down.. only drop things when they are ready.. people will wait.. people wont keep accepting sub par products day1 for much longer!

 

I note we're still waiting for the update we were promised "in an hour or so", 24 hours ago.

 

Yeah...... its next week.

 

PS5
Summary overview of passing red signal AI train, 3. cases layers Class 170 X Cross

The position of signal BM 5309 at platform 9 in Birmingham New Street is shifted in relation to the contact in the track which is the actual signal ...this results in some AI trains passing the Red signal and the game is over.. See time 16:29:30 and AI train stop 1V12

The position of signal BM 5309 at platform 9 in Birmingham New Street is shifted in relation to the contact in the track which is the actual signal ...this results in some AI trains passing the Red signal and the game is over.. See time 18:16:50 and AI train stop 1P24

The position of signal BM 5309 at platform 9 in Birmingham New Street is shifted in relation to the contact in the track which is the actual signal ...this results in some AI trains passing the Red signal and the game is over.. See time 07:16:50 and AI train stop 1P00

And then there are problems with the AI stopping of the Pendolino train in Wolverhampton, but it's random, 1x yes, 10x no, etc., but the stopping point is probably at the signal level, maybe even from the animation, because when I set the start time to a time when the train is already standing in the station, sometimes the whole train stops slightly behind the signal

There is a problem on Platform 1 in Wolverhampton, the AI-controlled Pendolins are having problems stopping at the signal that has a Red signal, it has already happened that it has passed and thus led to a Service failure and the game ending

I hope this is useful, I'm not doing it unnecessarily.

 

I feel really sorry for AAS, their debut release has been an absolute disaster and shame on DTG for absolutely ruining their first ever release. Quite honestly, I think it’s about time for whoever runs this company, DTG JD and his superiors ought to release an apology to the customer base for a completely avoidable hash up yet again and explain what they’re going to do to avoid this unforgivable incompetence in the future! DLC is expensive and ought to be released with little or no bugs with all
promised features working from day one!
No doubt DTG JD DTG Matt will remain tight lipped and not respond, they all ought to be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves and for once explain and apologise to the community!

 

The announcement has now been made.

But no hint of an apology or explanation of how/why this happened. Again.

 

What do you think about DTG's statement about solving the problem?

Changelog for Birmingham Crewe Hotfix

• Added Train Faults
• Improved optimisation at Crewe to reduce crashes and minimise texture blurring
  • This improvement may also help reduce crashes for scenarios starting in Crewe, but our teams are still reviewing
• Fixed issues with ex-LM liveries causing texture blurring on consoles
• Fixed an issue where layer requirements were incorrectly set (preventing some players using those layers – notably for the Class 220)
• Removed floating scenery on the approach to Stafford from Birmingham

Textures are blurring all over the place, practically on all trains and posters, etc...... so this announcement certainly doesn't reassure me

 

Doubtful Matt will respond as think he went radio silent on these forums a couple of months ago.

My betting is a gag order was put in place by JD so only responses we get are from a marketing perspective, as the community team and marketing are now clearly one and the same

Or put it another way, we will only get verbal diarrhoea from this point going forward

God I miss Sam

 

Yeah I don’t really get that. The blurring is much worse on the other end of the route, starting at Crewe you won’t really see texture issues until Wolverhampton.

Also Kezz stated the issue wasn’t to do with the 350 here:

But it seems the texture issue is now only being addressed at Crewe & with the ex LM 350’s? The communication around this whole route, its issues, builds & fixes has been nothing short of contradictory.

Maybe this will be a magic bullet & it’ll sort it, but like you im not hopeful.

 

Wh

 

Response appreciated.

Maybe the solution for the AI SPAD issue, at least temporarily, is to talk to DTG and get them to update the game so that the issue does not expel the player from the game, maybe deleting the offending train(s) into the bargain. I posted something to that effect in the Suggestions forum the other day.

However in this case it does appear that following exact prototype positioning for signalling may be the cause at some locations.

 

What we see here at Birmingham Crewe is just that the train has a stopping point up to the signal level, maybe even behind it ...... maybe I'm naive, but I've built a lot of tracks in Trainz and I don't believe that there's suddenly a problem with the settings where the train should stop, moreover at platform 9 in Birmingham, the ones with the BM 5309 and problematic trains, they're shorter trains where there's enough space on the platform, even if they had to stop 50 yards away ...... and in Wolverhampton at Platform 1 there's no problem either, if the Pendolino stops 50 yards away, even if the end of the train is slightly behind the platform, it will still leave after a while .... I really don't understand where the problem is so unsolvable?

 

I really don't believe the Crewe area is the cause of the problems ....... this just didn't work again and it's a big weirdo and I feel a bit sorry for the AAS team, although they must have known what the state of things was ..... and then I imagine the pink headphones, horns etc and I have to laugh

I won't even predict what will happen when the 805 and timetable for WCML South are released ...... I would bet on that

 

Starting too see a pattern here in the TSW6 era..
Console early access.. wrong version sent out... then was bugged to hell and bag.. "will be fixed next week" .. next week came we got some partial fixes and told "will be improved in the following weeks"

Now this DLC drops... wrong version sent out... also bugged... 3 days later.. "its be fixed next week"

Sound alot like they rely on the most faithful customers who buy day 1.. to do the beta testing and report back.. week 1 followed by a hurried patch.. with the promise of "more to come in the following weeks"

And we wonder why we still have bugs from the TSW2 era in game..

DTG.. how about saying no more DLC this quarter.. lets focus all our assets on reducing (what must be) the pages of reported bugs..
Actually give something back to the players..
You have access to some brilliant minds In the 3rd parties.. use them!!!

 

Focusing on textures at Crewe and when the ex-LM 350 is present? Textures blur all over the damn place, whether a 350 is present or not. Plus didn't Kezz say the 350 isn't the issue? I am so confused here...

Plus I did a 350 run from Crewe to Stafford (granted not ex-LM, and it didn't blur)

 

HI,
my class66 lost its wheels !

PS: it's due to the following mod https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/m...ate-cargoline-3-for-post-tsw-3-class-66-locos

 

Currently it is relatively functional when the Main Service layer and the Class 170 X cross layer are turned off ...... that's the balance But I don't even have the Class 323 Birmingham, Railtour Scotsmann, Class 87, LMS Jubilee or whatever it's called and I have two static freight wagon layers turned off at Crewe ..... DRS Freight is probably not even available yet ...... so really a sad balance to cheer about

 

Unless I've misread, the complete lack of talk about fixing the SPAD issue is very disappointing.

 

It’s not in the patch notes but they were talking about the fixes for it in the feedback thread.

The communication is a mess sadly.

 

To clarify on this as I could've been a bit clearer. The texture blurring around the route is not caused by the Class 350, we did identify an issue with the ex-LM livery which caused the that one livery to always be blurry on console but wasn't causing the route blurry textures, the two issues are different and we have targetted improvements for both areas hence the comms from DTG being how they are in relation to this.

What I had responded to was someone saying the Class 350 was the cause of the problem however this is not the case and I explained why disabling the 350 layers may look to resolve it because it would free up memory, doesn't mean it is the cause.

 

What does that actually mean? When I look in the menu, should it be the 350-2 version with the yellow front? If so, I use the fact that I have Substitutions disabled and this version that I watched does not appear in operation, yet the textures are completely blurry ...... so what is it?

I'm talking about blurry textures on Class 350, 390, Voyager, etc.....

 

That is an issue unrelated to the train and should hopefully be resolved via our optimisations in the hotfix

 

No offense, but we've all been hoping for a year now that DTG will solve this problem with texture blurring in general, and so far there are very few maps where it doesn't cause problems ... so it's just a matter of hope ...

 

I'm enjoying this route a bunch and really appreciate the ambition and attention to detail!

It clearly needed a few more weeks in the oven though.

The team at AABS has communicated and responded pretty well under the circumstances imo.

The devs acknowledging they didn't realize that AI SPAD's could even happen, and not fully simulating the timetable before launch shows an (understandable) learning curve with the TSW development process.

Otoh, this is one of DTG's lowest moments, which is a real shame because i personally quite enjoy TSW6 and thought it had a relatively good launch.

To throw a promising and clearly talented 3rd-party dev to the wolves on their first release because DTG needed to get revenue out the door this month is nothing short of shameful imo.

Where was the DTG support on QA and just basic know-how on TSW? Apparently moving a signal by a couple meters had disastrous effects- shouldn't there be a checklist of known do's and don'ts for goodness sake? Why are they reinventing the wheel every time?

They call it the 3rd-party partnership program, but i'm not seeing a ton of partnership on DTG's side tbh. More like "You can just cover it up with some fog, we'll take our cut now- good luck!"

Complete radio silence from DTG leadership is very poor imo.

 

This is nothing new from DTG, we've been dealing with it practically all of TSW5...... it's CTRL+C and CTRL+V plus sometimes something extra

 

Yeah imo there's been a noticable decline in both dev process and communication since the TSW5 launch- something went very wrong on that one, and seems like they've been scramlbling to recover ever since. It's a sad state of affairs

 

I'm sure this came across a few weeks or even months ago when I suggested DTG could support 3P's who were struggling. Think it was the EP himself who slammed the door that they have enough to do without babysitting the associates. Might have been while discussing why the Class 104 project sunk. You only need to look at the almost complete lack of documentation for the public editor to see how one sided this is.

 

That's a shame, and i realize they can't indefinitely keep chasing after vaporware devs but that clearly wasn't the case here- i'm sure there are budgetary reasons for all of this but frankly none of that matters at the end of the day when customers are paying real money for a very buggy (to be charitable) product.

 

There's lots of mind reading, fortune telling and psychic debugging going on in this thread (amongst some genuinely useful information), so maybe now wait and see what happens next week. And, no, I'm not making excuses for anyone - it's a complete debacle, both in terms of what was released, whoever did it, and the communication subsequently - but the speculation seems pretty pointless to me because most of it appears to be wrong.

 

On the whole I’ve been chuffed with Birmingham-Crewe, but I guess I’m lucky enough to be on Steam with a PC that can still just about cut the mustard.

I get the impression that this was bullied out the door by Focus - it seems things have been on the slide since they bought DTG, and now they’re reaping the “rewards” of rushed development schedules.

Seen it a few times in my dev career - new owners come in pledging support, end up burning and running down the team, then when that line of revenue dries up they find another victim.

 

PS5
Updating my knowledge
I've been thinking about the SPAD in Birmingham again, and I've realized that I don't have an active Main service with Class 350 .....unfortunately I don't have the old Birmingham map and therefore I don't have Class 323

The position of signal BM 5309 at platform 9 in Birmingham New Street is shifted in relation to the contact in the track which is the actual signal ...this results in some AI trains passing the Red signal and the game is over.. See time 07:16:50 and AI train stop 1P00

Updating: In this case, the 9K10_AI train with Class 350 will arrive there, which will stop a few centimeters above the grid in the track, which is probably something like an activation magnet for passing Red Signals, in reality in the 2D map this is the actual position of the signal and there will be no Service failure and this will then not allow the 1P00 train to reach the aforementioned problematic signal BM 5309 and it will remain in the rear section of Platform 09
In the previous two cases (1V12 and 1P24), the Class 350 operation has no impact ...... but as we mentioned, I don't have a Class 323 in Birmingham and it is possible that they may shuffle the cards again... however, the result is still the same, signal BM 5309

My opinion is that moving the grid (the actual signal position) to the position of the actual modeled signal, which is about 5 sleepers away, could help the situation or whether it is possible to move the stopping point somehow.... I don't know, I can't see into it in detail.

To put it simply, Class 170 trains have a problem stopping at this point.

The attached photo shows that it was not much to activate the SPAD

 

Any console (specifically PS5) users around? I do have a free weekend and was banking on getting the route Saturday morning. How unstable is it…on a scale of 0-10? Just seen there are patches coming out next week. I don’t mind giving AABS some breathing space as they’ve earned it, but would love to give the route a spin asap.

 

save often and be prepared to load the save. Especially if in the Crewe area.

 

If I had the Main service layer (Class350) active, I couldn't load my saved game. I am on PS5 Pro

 

Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

In addition to upcoming improvements listed earlier, are there any plans to sort out the platform announcements so they don't miss station names and are there any plans to fix the problem where you get told to open/close doors despite the fact the doors are already open/closed?

just want to finish in a positive (for once!) by saying if you can do what skyhook did with MML which went from a bit poor on release to one of the best, this route will be up there amongst the top UK routes.

 

I see, thanks for the response

 

That's protoypical: in the UK, you never, ever close doors on a red signal.