Thames Valley Branches Discussion

I can't understand the frustration about this not being part of the GWE for three reasons.

1. When SierraOscar95 has posted that the original GWE was built in such a way that extending it was a huge job. I heard this mentioned on a stream several years ago. It is very likely that a total rebuild wouldn't have been much more work than trying to extend the GWE to include these branches. It's possible that no extensions can be made for the original and refreshed versions of GWE.

2 Yes it would have been nice to have jumped off one train and get the branch line but this is a driving simulator, a shift would just include lots of back and forth on the one train then a ride back to your "home station/depot". Would it be worth the additional effort to build the line to Paddington for a couple of peak services and to ride "passenger" back to where you finish your duty/shift? Route hopping works and will take but a few seconds before you're back but in the branch line DLC.

3 Adding further branches would make the GWE much more memory intensive. Do we want that at the moment?

I think this will work and I will support this wherever there are self-contained services off of an existing TSW mainline. If we had GEML London to Norwich (yes I'm dreaming there) and then a rural branches pack for Wherry Lines and a North Essex branches pack for Sudbury - Marks Tey, Colchester - Clacton/Walton and Manningtree to Harwich. I'd be over the moon, even if I did have to route-hop on any through services.

 

No you wouldn’t, not in the peaks prior to the introduction of the Class 387 electric service. There were two if not three through services to and from Henley and Bourne End on Monday to Friday. Again, it’s your prerogative as the route builder, but with regard to the GWML you are having to add a couple of miles either side of Slough, Maidenhead and Twyford anyway to provide enough of a scenic break to the spawn and take out portals, so why not just fill in the small residual gaps? It would actually have been quite fun to drive a couple of trips on the Windsor branch, jump on a stopper to Maidenhead and do likewise to Marlow then again to Twyford and Henley.

 

Maybe it would have been nice, but additional work would have pushed the product's price point up further. Just so a small number of players can take a ride between the branches that can already be achieved in route hopping. I'd much rather a good quality release for a good price and have Incredible Trains get this done and onto the next project.

 

Will have to agree to disagree on that. Huge missed opportunity and relegates the pack to a substantial sale discount purchase.

 

TSW uses a customised version of UE, and needs things to be unpacked, timetables rebuilt, and whatnot.

We know extensions are technically possible (LIRR, DRA/DRL, Fife) but it's not easy and seemingly not economical either (all either released as new DLC, with a core package, and/or to coincide with a Loco DLC).

 

what I would give to have this type of gameplay for US. Great stuff Johannes . If this was somehow incorporated in GWE -R players would probably complain why do they have to pay for previous content and would expect to be free somehow. You just can’t win. If it doesn’t work out then expect this to be the last.

 

I would hope to have these services represented in the route even if it doesn't go onwards, especially if as you say they are supposed to be there. But then that might take away from the whole basis of there are no runs beyond these points. Which as people say might be accurate now but weren't so back in 2017?

 

It depends on the how well the route hopping is incorporated when traversing between each branch line. As I said in a previous comment I find the current route hopping feature a little funky, it’s not ideal in most cases as I always find myself waiting for longer periods of time for the next available train to arrive and take over. I know it breaks immersion, but it’s a lot quicker to just back out to the menu and change routes.
I hope the route hopping is done better for Thames Valley i.e little to no wait times.

 

I found a 2017 timetable in Timetable World "Network Rail Employee 2017-05-PA" As far as I can see they were running to and from the mainline then.

 

There is always the fast travel option where you can quickly hop between any station on all 3 branches.

 

Will Windsor & Eton Riverside station (SWR) be modelled or is that a little too far from the line?

 

Appreciate the explanation from Johannes, but I'm sorry it just doesn't make sense to me to give the player less content when that content literally already exists and is physically connected to the new route(s) being built.

Loss of immersion and gameplay opportunities (free roam exists or have we forgotten about that) isn't worth slightly prettier scenery imo.

Also, if the main reasoning here is saving memory budget, does that mean no GWE AI traffic will appear at all (at Slough, etc)?

 

There will be AI Traffic at the GWE stations.

 

That's good to know at least!

 

This content didn't exist in previous GWE. I'm not sure how you would expect a dev to make branches that are stand alone branches and just happen to share the stations on GWE. I would say is similar to players expecting all aboard to include WCML south all the way to London just because they share same station on Milton Keynes. This is very unfortunate since this will scare others devs from every doing this type of gameplay in the future

 

It didn't exist in previous GWE, but it COULD now, which is why it's so frustrating for me that a different choice was made that doesn't seem to have a ton of upside for players imo.

Since you mentioned it, that sure would be nice as a player to have one big, seamless route to drive up and down all day from London to Crewe with various paths and service types to choose from. Almost like a Train Sim...World!

Is it really surprising that people would want something seamless over multiple tiny chunks?

 

From my own personal perspective, I will almost certainly buy this (unless they make a dog’s breakfast of it which isn’t looking likely) as it contains the Bourne End/Marlow route my own one time local line. I would have liked to have seen the Greenford Branch included though to complete the set of passenger branch lines between Paddington and Reading.

I think the decision not to integrate it into GWE is the correct one. I’m sure there would be people moaning about having to buy content they already own in order to get the branches, even if it were discounted. Also, even taking into account the recent upgrade to GWE, I’m pretty sure the joins would be noticeable. With route hopping and a similar era timetable, it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

 

That would be great. but is the reality of the business. If devs can't make money or a living on projects then no reason to ever make them .btw these are great discussions as we don't have to agree. I'm sure other devs are watching and going to see how this performs for any similar future dev projects

 

Look, it’s pretty obvious to me what is going on here. This route (and Trent Valley, and Medway Valley) are all being developed now, so that when the new route merge feature is dropped with TSW7 we all have plenty of content to take advantage of it!

Don’t believe me? Well Matt’s TSM comment was obviously code for Train Sim Merged edition (aka TSW7)!

/s

Thanks Johannes for this, I am sure it will be very well produced. I will be getting it as one of the branches runs next to my old school. Particularly looking forward to the token system on the Marlow branch (hopefully something interesting for guard mode) and will be happy using it with route hopping.

 

I seem to recall Liam (or possibly Matt) saying that he wasn’t touching the track work on GWE during the remaster because it would be easier to create an entire new route than change/add to the track work because of the way GWE was created way back when.

 

Personally, I think I'll quite enjoy this DLC. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea especially for those who enjoy longer services but sometimes I find myself without enough time to commit to a full hour-long run and so a route with three separate and more scenic branch lines sounds quite appealing to me. The concept as a whole is a bit odd having three unconnected routes but I can't see a better way of doing it (other than extending GWE which I've been notified is more difficult than it seems). The only criticisms I can make are the lack of Greenford (though in 2017 those services would have gone all the way into Paddington) and the error on the numbering in the screenshots of the class 165 which I believe will be fixed but is still important to point out.

 

Good points. I am absolutely in favour of developers trying something new and as MAX1319 says, there will be others observing this.

Fortune favours the brave. Choosing the North London Line as a first project, incrediblehannes has already shown that he likes a challenge. The lesson learned from that DLC for all future releases is that players like whole routes if possible. I'm sure there will be lessons to be learned from this unusual project too that help to improve future TSW releases.

I'm not too fussed about West London and the Great Western but I'll likely buy this just because it'll complement a very good remastered DLC.

 

So we don’t get many routes around Crewe, Preston and Birmingham then???

 

I think this is one instance where we need to see the dlc in action on a live stream. There are a lot of unanswered questions, particularly concerning how the main line will intersect with the branches.

If there's AI activity on the Main Line, it might look very convincing.

 

I’ve got tbh I’m not quite as excited about this route(s) as his excellent MildMay as that included a whole new train, but it’s interesting for sure. Can’t see me replaying the 2 mile branch much though, I think replayability could be a problem. But if it’s priced right then still probably worth getting.

 

What i mean is other parts of the country like Newcastle York etc we dont have them its mainly Birmingham Manchester Preston thats on 3 routes now be nice to change it up a bit im not criticising him its fantastic johannes is doing it by himself mildmay is excellent cant wait for the richmond extension

 

That’s the same concerns I have. It’s CCN all over again. I’ll stay neutral on the topic though for now, maybe my opinion will change when I see the route in action.

 

Yes, and Matt has said that a few times in the past when asked about extensions to GWE. It's just an old route.

 

Seems interesting and something a bit different. Mildmay was great so sure this will be too, just hope it’s priced competitively.

 

Wish we had more GWR routes like a route in Bristol would be great many lines there

 

Just to add 90% of the services are self contained.

The branch line services are included in the GWE timetable with all the ECS movements from Reading already there, which is a 10 minute drive in the pitch black.

There is a grand total of 1 service from Paddington to Bourne End, which was withdrawn from May 2017.

I feel like people are making literal mountains out of molehills, which won't affect the playability significantly.

I get the Windsor branch is probably not the most interesting, but the scenery in Windsor is cool! Especially the station

Marlow branch is probably one of the most operationally interesting in TSW, because of the manoeuvres around Bourne End, it will be the first route with a operational token system?
Peak time sees 2 trains on this branch which meet at Bourne End.

The pace is much slower than the mainline, but that is the point here. It's a completely different experience to the GW mainline.
I hope the jointed track is modelled too

 

I don't see how that's a bad thing. It just means that there are some that are just not interested

I don't see why there are some here shocked that some players would not be interested in a small rural branch line route that basically offers very little in replay value and service variation.

One of the main issues with TSW is that many routes are disconnected. It doesn’t surprise me that players would want to be able to drive from London to Crewe for example instead of using route hopping which ruins immersion

 

I feel this concept might have worked with something like a Cornish branches pack, where we got Looe, Newquay, Falmouth and St Ives (done better) without doing the entire main line which, as it doesn't exist in TSW east of St Austell, wouldn't matter nearly as much. Also the distances between the junctions are much greater. Fragmented but feasible. But in the case of Thames Valley, Incredible Trains and DTG should have worked something out to give an inclusive experience. As we've said before about other partial routes - once they are imperfectly in the game, no other developer is going to touch them.

I would like to think at this stage the final route matrix is not set in stone and appeal to the developer to rethink the scope.

 

I think you are missing a crucial point here. The Thames Branches DLC is specifically my attempt to expand an existing route by adding its branch lines. If this approach to branch-line DLCs, with almost exclusively self-contained services that do not extend beyond their endpoints, proves successful, it could encourage other developers to do similar expansions for routes that currently feel incomplete.

To add to this, let’s imagine there were no issues around GWE being a DTG route while I am an independent developer, and I had instead copied GWE, added the branch lines, and sold it as a full-price standalone DLC. In that case, around 80% of the gameplay would already exist in another product, and people would understandably complain that I was effectively reselling existing content.

By doing it this way, I was able to develop the Thames Branches while also avoiding the significant performance overhead that running the full GWE timetable would have introduced to the branch lines. That freed up resources which could instead be spent on much more detailed scenery and other new features.

And for players who do want to continue their journey beyond the branch lines, the route-hopping feature already allows them to seamlessly take over another service on the main line, so that style of gameplay is still fully possible.

 

As an Irishman, anything that involves tokens or single line crossovers or any operations that mimic how we run things over here (we have some 100mph single line sections even) is gonna be a day one for me.
This is why I love ECW on occasion I get to wait at Newhaven for the section to clear. Same with Birmingham X City.
More of this lol.

 

To be honest I don't mind this pack being it's own thing and not an extension but I still can't understand the omission of the Greenford branch. For an already short route (or collection of routes), I can't understand why the route is effectively being cut short. The Greenford branch is one of the Thames Valley branches so why is it not included? The point about the services having to go to Paddington thus being cut short doesn't make any sense as isn't this present in pretty much every TSW route? There's only a handful of routes in the game that consist of only full length services, and this is a shame as it means we will likely never see the Greenford branch in game, a branch that would also open the door to lots of cool freight services if a Chiltern railways route was ever added. Having said this I'll still keep an eye on this DLC but for now I'm eagerly awaiting the Richmond extension along with the fixes for the Mildmay line and 378.

 

Fair enough. I will not labour the point any further. Obviously the proof will be in the pudding, to use the old cliché. If this is successful then I would certainly be keen to see you have a go at doing the Cornish branches using a similar method, or even something like Reading to Bedwyn as previously mentioned to add a bit more to the GW network.

Who knows, if the price is right I may still end up buying this!

 

Basically the Marlow line is the same length and pretty similar in operations to the Looe Valley line

St Ives bay line is similar length to Henley branch

Windsor branch is shorter I totally get that, but still worth including

I get what Johannes is saying completely, we are getting a better branch experience by sacrificing the mainline.
Stuff like the whole Bourne End operation with the token is much better than not having it and having a through journey to Paddington once a day.
GWE is a ten year old route, so just extending it would have resulted in compromises

 

Johannes, I don't think anyone's suggesting duplicating GWE and making "GWE + TVB" a standalone DLC, that indeed wouldn't make much sense and it would mean we'd be buying GWE a second time. What people are saying is that it could have been designed as a extension to GWE, so that buying the TVB DLC would overwrite the GWE route / paths / scenery etc and add a new timetable to it, in the same way other routes have been extended in the past.

I'm not sure many of us would use "seamless" to describe the concept of hopping out of your train, into a loading screen, and then into a completely different timetable with (ISTR) completely different weather conditions, then wait 20-30 minutes for your next service. I think it's generally considered to be pretty immersion-breaking as a feature.

JB

 

I agree, that would be very cool if it were possible. However, I’m only a 3rd party developer and have no influence over the core game systems, so there is unfortunately not much I can do about it from my side.

I also do not know of any example where something like this has been implemented before. Previous route extensions have either come as part of a new TSW release, effectively replacing the older version of the route, or as free extensions like the Mildmay extension.

At the moment, there simply is no existing system that would allow me to implement what you are proposing.

 

If there really aren't that many services we're missing then it's not something I'm particularly worried about.

I love a branch line route it doesn't have to be huge! I would've been happy with CCN if the scenery was up too it (still looking at Whitchurches copy pasted hedges and cereal box buildings).

I'm particularly up for it if the scenery is as good as being led on to believe Will be interesting to see how it looks as I live down the Marlow Branch at the moment! Some beautiful scenery!

 

Now that I know that (nearly) all services are self-contained I'm going to go back on my earlier statement and actually be contrarian to the thread's sentiment: I'm quite looking forward to this now.
I quite like short runs in TSW (under 30mins), with runs up to an hour being a "now and again" type of thing. I could happily just jump around this route and do services here and there for a solid hour - because you also get a break between services (either just from fast travel then waiting or from changing ends and waiting).
Imagine there's a fair dwell time on most of the branches but that's not too bad - I'll just hop to another one and come back later.

And I'm a fan of the approach to building 'missing' Branches. Otherwise, these are effectively blocked off from the game as they stand-alone and it's a bold, but hopefully impactful, move.

I can't think of any other comparable routes at the minute other than WCML Over Shap (with the Morecambe/Heysham and Windermere branches, which - at least today - are mostly self-contained services) but I'd very much so like to see a similar add-on for those branches.

 

I hear what is being said about the difficulty of extending routes, and I do not doubt for one minute what Johannes is saying.
Not being a route builder it might be a little difficult to understand but I would be interested to know what the problem with extending routes is

 

In a word, timetable.

There has been unofficial merges done, in a similar manner to how merges in TSC have been pulled off, it's not that hard to do the actual route merge. The issue that everyone gets caught up on is timetables really can't be merged in that way, they'd likely need to built again for the merged route.

That said, what I will say is that everyone seems to overlook the obvious option of "Do the route merge anyways", you could still add scenario planner support, maybe even make a few scenarios to give something for everyone to do on the merged route. And i'm sure modders would have a field day making timetables for the merged route.

 

But in this case, if all the branchline services are self-contained, there wouldn't really be any merging of the timetables, would there? It's just a physical connection of the tracks that people are asking for- the GWE part of the route would run the existing timetable, and the new branches would run theirs.

Not saying it woul

 

Looks great,but not for me.

 

I do wonder that myself frankly, but I was just talking broadly about the general issue with timetables.

 

haha yes we have a lot of this.