Some Much Needed Change...

When thinking about it, OpenBve a game from god knows when can afford to have users craft destination boards, ads and a bunch of other things (AND ANNOUNCEMENTS) ALL OF WHICH ARE ANIMATED in recent times for the NYC subway...The LIRR has automated announcements and destination boards and no animated ads...come on dovetail what makes it so hard...




Mind you these all are wips that somehow beat tsw in functionality

 

Different engine.

Unreal Engine is more difficult to work with + They are not taking the time to add this stuff.

 

That's tough OpenBve is a good game and has little things added that's important i wish tsw can add announcements

 

BVE also handles those things in a very scripted and un-dynamic way. The moment you introduce the open-world aspect of TSW, or the number of services, or AI services, or the scenario creator, anything made like the way it works in BVE would fail.

 

how about the destination signs along the m7 but make them like textures, the door lights flash and the lights by the side of the loco front change when doors open/train moves ect ect, how come textured letters cant be applied to the signs in that way?

(dosen't the ice 3 do that with those signs by the doors that display something in german?)
((and the locos in east coastway too?))

 

Cos they are new locos, the M7 is older in the game

 

so they simply are going to leave it incomplete despite being able to work on it and improving the experience is possible?

 

Let’s hope that somebody notices this thread. By popular demand, they are now working on adding the livery designer to the preserved collection, so maybe they could take the same approach here.

But keep in mind they aren’t making much money off the preserved collection, so they might not like improving those routes.

 

Is this surprising to you? There are lots of things possible in any given game development cycle, but decisions are necessary and some things are given a greater priority than others. A good way to convince DTG to re-order their priorities might be to write a convincing suggestion that other players agree with and wholeheartedly support, not a stupidly titled thread that just equates to "why won't you do this thing I want?".

 

DTG doesn't want to work on that for now. They rather release buggy DLCs and buggy preserved collection routes

 

((i doubt im the only one who agrees with my point))

(((also this thread isint a "why", its a shaming)))

 

They are planning to add destination board displays to preserved collecton trains although there isn't any dates when they will be doing it

 

Sorry for the off topic.
Isn't openBVE an evolution of MSTS?

Anyway I think you are forgetting that it would be much more difficult to implement PIS and Announcement with the 24h timetable they have decided to adopt for TSW, instead of the single A to B scenarios or activities

 

But it's possible, I hope well get announcements inside trains for immersion

 

im fine with sacrificing announcements or station signs (tho i would prefer it all being implemented... not just on pc as i and many others wanting improvements play on ps4/xbox ((console lives matter lol)) ) but ffs just make my m7 look less like a scaled up simulated lionel toy model and more like a simulated bombardier m7 emu with functional displays lol

 

Yeh i would like for every platform to get it at the same time

 

Its a shame on console (at least ps4) we still dont have the option to toggle the interior lights in the m7 ffs

 

I don't get why. Who knew flicking a switch to turn off/on passenger lights would be so difficult

 

only with dovetail lol

 

Indeed

 

I’m fine with sacrificing LED boards for automated announcements.

 

the automated announcements will add to immersion but when outside the blank led boards are just a massive sore thumb that hurt to look at

 

Yes it is

 

im okay with all the bugs and everything on the lirr if this at least can be done tbh lol

 

People would disagree with you on that

 

Lots of people.

 

touche, touche

 

im hoping dovetail at least one day before mid 2021 polishes the lirr

 

Sound announcement inside the trains?! you got the complexity up from very difficult and time consuming to ridiculous, there are hundreds of announcements one for every stop, for every different service going in every direction.

Also the game would need to have additional info on the real timetable, let's take a very simple route for example: Main Spessart Bahn.

The "limited stops service" is an hourly service alternating between an RE54 and RE55..

The RE55 is running between Würzburg and Frankfurt.
The RE54 is running between Bamberg and Frankfurt (except for a service in the middle of the night that only runs between Aschaffenburg and Gemünden calling at all stations unlike every other RE54 during the rest of the day).

Then from 15:35 to 18:35 (+ one service in the morning) you have an hourly service RB5829x) which calls at all stations and runs between Aschaffenburg and Gemünden.

Every service in both direction and every little difference must have it's own announcement, with a different arrival and departure time.

What if you are late? Can the game calculate a live ETA to tell the passengers?


And can you start to imagine the HRR with ~300 pax services? RE1, RE6, RB33, etc..

If every one of those 300 passenger service stops at an average of 5 stations (departure, arrival and 3 stations along the way) those would be 1500 different sound files added to the game unless you decide to build a bespoke system which kind of works like the IRL PIS, which pieces togheter pieces of real time information with "fixed" route informations, but knowing DTG it would become a race to discover in how many ways can it be broken...

That's the difference between adding announcement for one train doing one A to B trip (OpenBVE, MSTS, RW, etc...) and adding announcment for a whole timetable.

 

It could use a polish along with great western express

 

But it can be done

 

Yeah, but how much would it cost in terms of money, man hour, software, sound recording equipment, etc... or how much would a third party ask DTG for doing that, and would you pay for it? I wouldn't. The expenses are always passed on the customer.

Best case I assume it's going to be 10/15€ and at least 1 week per route.

A lot of things can be done, but the majority of the time it simply doesn't make sense.

It's like saying you are asking for a bus to have 5000hp and go up to 300 km/h to which I say "a bus doesn't need to go that fast" "yeah, it can be done nonetheless"

So, how much in terms of money would you spend per route to have a fully functioning PIS and how much would you wait for it (and while you wait, DTG is not working on anything else but the PIS for x route)

 

Just gonna say it right at the top: its an apples to oranges comparison.

Yeah it seems trivial how something from more than a decade ago can have features that a modern train sim doesn't. But you have to understand what's going on here before we draw any conclusions.

Much like was already stated, BVE handles things in a very scripted and un-dynamic way, this is very true. You know exactly whats going to happen when, and things are generally very predictable. The devs can code for one specific scenario and that's it. Its insanely easy to manage. TSW on the other hand is an incredibly dynamic game, not as much as other games, but still you have to account for different weather conditions, and how traffic reacts to your actions. You can hold up a train behind you, while in BVE you can't (i think they use this weird system where the train heading in the opposite direction takes direct throttle/brake input from the user. Its not AI driven).

Okay, so what about the destination signs/ PIS?
Already being worked on. Every single route ever since MSB has now had destination displays. The older routes actually do use a single 4K texture file that scrolls depending on user input.
However on newer routes they use a different approach, where the dot matrix display is actually simulated. You can put whatever you want on a text file and voila! It should display whatever message. Theres actual dots that light up, instead of it being a regular texture. It now depends on the art team to design route-specific displays (this would be like fonts and colors and different things like that).
Basically, the technology exists now, all they have to do is work on implementing them on newer routes.
Currently the new dot matrix stuff works on East Coastway and Schnellfahrstrecke Köln - Aachen. On MSB those displays are a 4K texture, but this is a very basic and frankly outdated way of doing it, hence the new tech. Other routes that use the old fashioned boards, like on the Bakerloo lines or TVL...I think those are just regular textures too, although in those cases it's fine to do.
Theres talk about possibly working into getting them in preserved collection stuff, but we will have to wait and see about that.

How about announcements?
Technically they do exist in game already, but those are generic in-station announcements, so they dont really count.
For announcements in trains, they would have to get permission for recordings, then actually obtain a recording of those announcements.
The way they did it in BVE is that I think a guy literally just went along on a ride on the train and took a recording that way. They did their best and I give them props for trying, but those audio recordings still sound pretty low quality. Its amateur made.
If you're going to do that in TSW it'll just come out bad. The better choice would be to use the exact same sound recordings/files that they use on the trains if those are available. If not, at least try to get the recording while the train is sat at a depot, that way you can minimize background noise.
I'm not sure why they haven't came around to doing this yet, but again, this would have to be one of those things where we will have to wait and see. You have to work out when and where the announcements trigger, and they'll have to work dynamically. It's a lot of things to account for.
I'll be honest, I don't think we will see any announcements coming any time soon, and they haven't talked about it in a while. But it should be at least possible, just needs to be worked on.

 

Some of the BVE announcements do sound high quality though. (The NYC Subway Routes)
Some IRL Operators & Conductors actually go out of their way to record the Announcements.

So there’s no way for them to have a trigger on the ground (or a distance trigger), and when the train rolls over that trigger, the announcement plays? (like IRL)

 

I hope it comes eventually

 

Well thats the thing, its certainly possible for there to be triggers somewhere along the tracks that signal to the train to play the announcement.
But then you have to worry about when is the appropriate time to play those announcements?
Some trains can operate as an express service although it travels on the same lines. Or maybe the train is doing an ECS maneuver. Some lines can run a ton of different services, and each one has to be accounted for.
Its not a super tricky thing to figure out and make it work, but its basically this whole separate thing to have to worry about.
We just have to keep requesting this feature and hopefully they'll come along and investigate the possibility of including it.

 

They could have the system check the route/destination of the train and play the appropriate announcement.

 

annnnd can this all be applied to the lirr in specific?
(the main priority for this thread at least as bring attention to the lirr in specific after all)

 

heres a person adding it to a tsw route (using audio and applying it over video)



its not great, not terrible, needs polishing and better audio constancy ect ect but for 2018 its quite good and dovetail could def make it muuch better for asi audio wise

this person does a better job it appears

 

Screens in trains and platform are not completely out of discussion, at the end they can use information the simulator already has in its files (what train is it? arrival and departure time, are you late?), the only additional information you'd need on some routes is for example the real destination of the train (as I pointed out MSB seems to have the least realistic timetable, so the screens would only cover between Aschaffenburg and Gemunden), but for example HRR, SKA, ECW, has information on the real train number and it's real destination, so it can be plotted onto a screen, I still personally think that it's not incredibily important, but I know a lot of people disagree as well, sound announcemnt are in my opion out of the question.

I only played LIRR when I had the game pass at 1€ so I don't remeber how they constructed that timetable...

 

I would love in train announcements and dtg could make them high quality

 

def would too however id like to get the destination boards first if anything

 

I doubt the M7’s are going to get announcements & destination boards unless they decide to make another LIRR route or MNRR Route.

 

maybe if we keep replying to this thread/ keep it high in suggestions itll get some much deserved attention

 

Maybe they could make an extersion port Washington Branch since it's only 18.1 miles and passes some amazing NYC landmarks in the NYC borough of Queens such as City Field where the New York Mets Baseball Team plays, Arthur Ashe Stadium and Flushing which is the Chinatown of Queens and in my opinion better then the one in Manhattan. The fact that the Port Washington Branch in the Long Island Railroad route is basically a shuttle service from penn station to woodside is disappointing and makes it useless to even use because of how short it is

 

Eh, not an UE4 issue. It's a DTG choice to not have announcements etc. They avoided doing them in TS20xx as well despite them being very easy to implement. Some third party routes did. In TS20xx for example, in the editor, you basically just create a scenario and put a marker at a location and when the player passes that market a .wav or .mp3 file play. It's not difficult, but they continue to avoid it, possibly due to licensing/money issues? Who knows. People have clamored for them for years and DTG has mostly ignored it, so don't get your hopes us. However Munchen-Augsburg will have changing destination boards and in yesterday's stream Sam and Adam hinted that they could port that ability to other past routes, if they wanted to, down the line....one day.

 

Hopefully one day

 

hopefully so, the lirr kinda needs this feature

 

It’s basically a dumbed down 7 Train that goes further TBH. I’d definitely buy it though.

 

I hope you guys are happy, Mun-Aug has a fully functioning PIS systems in place (but no sounds)