Yes it does a weekday timetable and a Sunday timetable which is separate to the weekday one. So this isn’t the first route to have that.
Great news! So it is doable and profitable anyway, and at the very least, it doesn’t drive the developer into bankruptcy. As I mentioned, I’d lost faith in TSW and wasn’t following what was going on here. So I had no idea that weekday and holiday timetables had already been added to some DLCs (the Cathcart Circle Lines would benefit greatly from such variety! ). I found a much better train simulator, but unfortunately it doesn’t have British routes or British rolling stock, and British railways have that certain charm that makes it impossible to turn away from them completely, even when I turned away from DtG :P
Oh, I don't think it's any secret that this is about SimRail, which has also been discussed on this forum But let’s stick to the Medway Valley Line here, which, in my opinion, seems extremely promising and exceptional add-on, with the potential to lift the TSW series out of the deep hole it’s currently in.
Oh not on this one! In fact, my policy of not buying anything I’m not sure about has diminished my status as the Refund King!
Out of curiosity what would a weekend timetable service add that a weekday timetable service doesn't? From what I understand in modern times, the weekend timetable is just a quieter version of the weekday timetable. I'd personally much rather see a timetable set in a different year (i.e. during the SE White days) if we were getting two timetables. I think routes set in the BR days would suit having a Summer Saturday timetable more as it generally brought around some interesting moves but even then they cut down a lot of freight services (referring to my 70s Riviera Line WTT).
You can get interesting or unusual runs on Sundays, for example locally there used to be a Hartlepool - Darlington service that ran Sundays only (don't think it does now). Also, diversions due to engineering works.
On San Bernardino, you get less passenger services, more freight and special services to the speedway at Fontana. So a different experience all over. And on Manchester generally less frequent services. No Voyager services.
To put this to bed, there is no Sunday timetable on MVL. The only reason other routes have done it is to have a more performant TT for those on lesser machinery. They used to be called ‘full’ and ‘reduced’, now they’re ’normal’ and ‘Sunday’. There’s no need for a less intense TT on Medway Valley, hence there isn’t one. Hope that clears it up
Well, the main difference is that on weekdays, trains on the Medway Valley line run every half hour, whereas at weekends they run every hour. So at weekends there is half the traffic and half the number of trains (including freight trains). This is very easy to implement in the timetable (I know it's easy, because I did it myself for TSC) and yet makes a big difference for those players who place greater emphasis on realism and train operation than on train-spotting aspects. When playing on TSC, I had a separate set of scenarios for the Medway Valley Line for weekdays and weekends, and I can assure you that it greatly enhanced the sense of immersion.
To be fair, recent endeavours like the GWE and ECW remasters and the Czech route have already been great to lift the game up. And yes, Medway Valley will certainly add to that.
There are reasons to have "weekend" timetables in other routes. In some there is more freight and less passenger services on the line on weekends. Others have shunting done on weekends, etc ... From what everyone is saying it seems there is not much of a reason to make a weekend timetable for this DLC. It would just be less services so it makes sense that you do not make one. This does not mean there is not a good reason to make "weekend" timetables on other routes.
It's half hourly Monday to Saturday and hourly on Sundays. Some differences between the Mon-Fri & Sat timetables but that's not relevant to this Weekday timetable that is included with the route.
Well, i do regret that there won’t be a weekend timetable for the Medway Valley Line DLC, but it’s not an absolute game-breaker for me. I’ll probably try dealing with it by writing my own scenarios for weekend trains, just like in TSC. I'd be much more disappointed if there were no AI train guard simulation when the player is acting as the train driver. I’m not sure if it’s doable, even for the talented modders from Firefly Simulations, to have the AI train guard close the doors (just like in TSC), but at the very least there should be a buzzer sound, which was already programmed into some DLCs.
There is buzzer response, and there is guard door simulation and panel opening when driving the train.
I hope the train audio on Xbox series X/S will be fantastic on MVL. I know that Xbox has always suffered issues with audio cracking and popping, making It quite unpleasant at times. I’ve noticed it’s route/train dependent though as on some trains it’s fine but others it’s very noticeable. However I understand that this will likely will be out of firefly’s hands and more of a core DTG issue.
I need to check if I’ve got that right, because it’s so wonderful I can hardly believe it: In train driver mode, will the AI guard close the doors himself when all passengers have boarded? Will the player, as the train driver, no longer see the ‘Lock Doors’ command in the HUD and won’t have to press a key on the keyboard himself to pretend that the guard has closed the doors?
You'll have to press the button as that's how the game is designed at a core level. But then the virtual guard will close the doors, leaving his local door open (with the guard panel open) to "check" the platform. After a delay the local door will close, then after a random delay you will get tow buzzes from the guard.
Why would they do that. They took the time to implicate it for their route which is a selling point for them.
what if people want to add that to there content. and yes there video on how to make cctv system using default unreal engine but since unreal engine for tsw is custom it might not work. believe me i tryed
They managed to work it out and learn it then others can do the same. I get your point fully but it is a selling point for them. That’s like walking into a restaurant and wanting to know a chefs secret recipe for something because you want to make it at home. They won’t tell you.
Hopefully we get an article on MVL tomorrow like DTG usually do for upcoming routes/add ons explaining the route thoroughly and what it has to offer. Fingers crossed the preview stream doesn’t get delayed like the NEC route did today .
A very clever way of getting round the game engine’s limitations By Crom! The more I learn about MVL, the more I like it. It’s the exact opposite of all the other add-ons, which always turned out to be more of a disappointment than a pleasant surprise.
The AI guard has a random delay for how long the two dings take, but then each pair of button presses is also random. When in guard mode there is also an AI driver providing much the same function.
So you have to wait 10 years to actually set off like you do with the Skyhook 158 waiting for the guard door to close on that...
No. I find that starting the ball rolling about 15secs before departure has everything wrapped up in plenty of time. The system is also designed such that you should never start the door close process on a red signal, as per real world.
The above does highlight a concern of mine. If you’re implementing these things they need to work with the rest of the game. I imagine it’s been worked out for this route so that the time is allowed for longer dwell times, but look at skyhooks implementation. It was poorly done in terms of timings & their timetable wasn’t at all setup for that kind of wait, then they fixed it for the SR 158 but not the EMT version, then you get it thrown into other routes where it creates a mess of delays. Even the latest expert loco 145 has a similar issue, you still get 2 minutes to setup a train in most circumstances & you often seem to need more than that to get it setup, along with the traction lock release piling onto the time that you never make back. Obviously these things are great additions to the game as an isolated feature, but often they don’t really play nicely with how the overall game is designed & the wider content catalogue.
The 375/3 and 375/6 are Medway Valley trains and are setup to work realistically on the Medway Valley DLC. It’s perhaps a matter of debate (and is entirely hypothetical in this case), but we cannot hold new content back to make it play nice with content that was made almost a decade ago. If that were the case the game will stagnate and never improve or get new features.
Yes! Please, don’t go for compromises! TSW really needs a fresh approach. Besides, so far all the DLCs for TSW have been designed with trainspotters in mind. Let MVL finally be the first expansion for players who’d like to have some fun as a virtual train driver – ‘As Real As It Gets’. The trainspotters have already got their soft toy dinosaurs to play with; now it’s time for a toy for me: a functional AI guard.
Were they? I hadn't realised it was a train spotting simulator and there was me thinking I was emulating a driver as much as the confines of a computer based simulator allows. Well silly me I'll go back to my silly toys and leave you professionals to it!
As in we’ll be able to interact with intoxicated passengers? They try to start trouble with us, so we call the (BTS) on the radio to deal with them? I’ve been in that situation quite a few times in my life whilst working as a station guard at Orpington, back in 2012.
I didn’t mean to offend you! What I mean is that in TSW, more emphasis is placed on visuals than on fidelity to operational procedures. In the videos and reviews, people closely examine the modelling of every single bolt on the tenth wheel of the train set, whilst at the same time trivialising the lack of a train guard simulation or a working CCTV system, dismissing them as insignificant details. Well, for driving a train, both of these elements are absolutely crucial, unlike the profile and the glint of sunlight on the bolts of the tenth wheel. And it seems that the most exciting element of every new route is some ridiculous souvenirs to hunt for and collect on the platforms, rather than the accuracy of the recreation of railway traffic and procedures. For example, those funny stuffed dinosaurs in the Island Line 2022 DLC. I hope I’ve made myself clearer now and that no one takes offence. Seriously, modern home computers really do allow for a very realistic simulation not only of a train or a bus, but even of an airplane. So realistic, in fact, that many years ago the famous Flight Simulator was accused of being a flying manual for terrorists.
Don't worry I'm not offended I found it quite amusing in a way although I don't entirely agree. I have often moaned about the implementation of train dispatch in TSW, TSC seemed to do it better but overall I prefer the driving experience in TSW. I'm all for more realistic features.
There’s absolutely no reason at all why there can’t be both. Anyone that tells you that’s not the case is being economical with the truth, in the nicest possible way.
Is there going to be an article put out by DTG before tomorrow’s preview? I’m really excited to see this preview
His statement isn't on if the game itself can do it, at least if I'm reading it right. And I mean I've seen people do things like turn Super Mario World into a pong game on a vanilla console, it's definitely possible with enough effort. That said, I'd struggle to disagree with their point, if I read something like the NTP thread the reasons people want to remaster it are to gawk at more AI trains and get amped up visuals, and that's held true to most other talks of remasters. Not saying you'll never get people commenting on physics or adding systems, but it definitely does not seem like a priority for most players from what I see.
I don’t disagree there’s a huge crowd that are much more interested in basic points of the railway, such as just seeing trains etc - but we’ve seen a pretty big surge in more realism around actual rail operations. We’ve had our second expert loco which really amped up the ‘expert’, the Czech route is pretty in depth with its rolling stock & the whole radio system etc. TSW 6 saw TSR’s arrive (though notably flawed) & there’s been other bits that are abit on the more nuanced side of things. I think more & more devs are taking notice that there is a demand for this sort of thing & ultimately the people that just want more trains are likely going to buy the content anyway. Do it the other way round & you probably end up with people not buying something due to lack of certain things. Just look at the expert 101 & 145 discussions, there are people who buy it without understanding what they’re getting & in all likelihood have forgotten about it by the time the next DLC is along.
Still waiting for an article to be posted by DTG, looks like it’s coming tomorrow instead of today . Bit of a shame as I anticipated it being today .
No, you can press the physical buttons in the cab and it skips the virtual guard, and works like any other TSW train. We already thought about that.
I think for the last releases the articles came a few hours before the preview stream. So it seems perfectly normal publishing it tomorrow. Although I totally get the disappointment / lack of patience for more information
TSR hardly constitute a "expert" feature, even kids games have random aspects to them, and it's not like a TSR is miles more challenging to follow than a normal speed limit. TSG is a double edged sword, yes they do content, but then they've said many times that what they do is only really done as a passion project. Bare in mind they've defended DTG several times, they don't view themselves as "the standard to follow" for the sim, so seems hardly fair to me to do so. Somehow I imagine the Czech developers ain't going to be a whole ton different. Though if they have suddenly started doing WWE style promo's dissing how they're "Putting every High Iron & Rivet out of business" do let me know. Eh, I feel like I've heard a million times that "This is it, TSW is finally on its up swing!" only for something to come out and bring everyone down to reality. (Same could apply to a million other cases in gaming) I'd argue two Expert DLC's isn't enough to tell if they're going to stick or not. Like bare in mind, the Expert 101 came out ages ago at this point, lot of new players since then. Very possible that a lot of the people complain didn't even know of the Expert 101, and ain't going to be thrilled at the thought of buying the third one. We also don't know if things like the lack of suspension might put off people either.
I know MSFS is a different animal entirely but look at the Fenix A320 family, an absolutely gorgeous model with pretty much as close to the real thing as it gets avionics.
It’s funny how the conversation is pretty much the opposite in the flight sim world where everyone is pretty adamant on wanting ‘study level’ aircraft and the most accurate airports and ATC operation. Personally I’d love to see some more of that attitude in the train sim space (maybe not quite as much as in the flight sim space though), so seeing some of the features that MVL is bringing is a very good sign to me.
