Hi All, I started to make some button templates for the Rail Driver. These are based on what it says the button should do on the Raildriver Screen. Though I've noticed several seem not to be working (I will make a bug report for these later when I'm sure it isn't just me). Hope somebody finds these useful. They are in PDF format and if you print them on A4 paper without any scaling, they should be exactly the correct size. Unless someone beats me to it, I will probably do all the European Trains
This will be super helpful. I was going to make my own, but now I won't have to! I assume you will put the other button layouts on here.
Yes, I‘ll add them here. It‘ll give me something to do over the Christmas break along with a lot of driving!
Great work. I wish they were consistent from loco to loco. Sure there will be buttons that do nothing but changing button labels every time you change locomotive seems unreasonable to me. I started a feedback thread with my early feedback if you're at all curious. I'm enjoying it but there are a few things. Paul
I agree the locomotives are different, but the keys can be the same with some of them not used on some locos. This is how it works in Run8, Trainz, MS Train Sim, etc. Really unusual functions either would not be on the RD or there could be dual function keys. Lots of the inconsistencies are simply unnecessary e.g. on Isle of Wight the doors are opened by the left and right arrow keys on the direction buttons on the right hand side, on Bakerloo they're opened/closed by four buttons on the bottom row. These should be the same. The buttons are mostly consistent on console controllers and the RD has a lot more buttons than them. Paul
The real problem with diverse control setups is that it restricts variety. Having programmed Hotas for years for different aircraft, nothing is more annoying than having to load new, and often forgotten profiles, when all you want to do is log on and drive. Some times it's too much bother, so you say "Sod it" and do something else. Keep all the regular controls consistent and keep the variables on the extreme left.
Watching yesterday’s stream on the Raildriver with Matt, remapping is the next step in the development so all can refine the controls to their own preferences. Until that time, a bit of consistency would be appreciated
Exactly this. From the moment we can redefine what the buttons do, then the discussion about buttons becomes mostly irrelevant. At the moment, I've found myself using a combination of Levers on the Raildriver and Keyboard/Mouse for everything else. I've found I can remember that and still not lose the immersion that using the levers gives. When the buttons can be redefined, I'll set my own preferred set that I can remember and leave it at that.
i've just asked this question on the main raildriver support thread, it's a right mess atm, surely it couldn't be that hard to have a block of buttons that are the same between trains that share them, There'd obviously be a set of buttons for the countries... German trains have different switches to american and english trains, but there's really no need to have the PZB buttons in different places depending on which German train you drive. all German trains should have the 3 PZB buttons assigned to the same ones on the raildriver, they should all have the same door open / close buttons... use the 4 way direction pad... on EMU's, left and right open the doors on that respective side, down closes them. In loco hauled / driving trailer trains, left and right on the 4 way should move the rotary door selector switch around, then up opens the doors, you have to put the door selector back to the close position, then press the down button to close the doors. They have this working on one of the loco's. on others they are doing similar using a block of 4 buttons on the main set across the raildriver, which are set as different buttons on other trains... why. It's also annoying that you can do some things on the raildriver you cant on the keyboard... i.e. the door selector thing, we just have 'Y' and 'U' for left/right doors open/close
Hah, I see everyone's exhausted their annoyance and ire at DTG for dragging its heels. It has literally been years and no API for us customers but worse for RD owners and prospective owners, RD is left to flounder with a mishmash of buttons and not even the ability to change key bindings. What game dev doesn't let us do that I ask? I reckon there's more in this than meets the eye. It's bleedingly obvious DTG do not want to give 3rd parties API access to its premium earner. That's a possible business decision based on the fact that an API means other companies make money selling products on the back of DTG and DTG get nothing for delivering an API except a hypothetical increase in profits. The market is saturated already and there probably wouldn't be a big enough boost in game sales just because there's an API out there. Yeah, it helps us but . . why care about you? So we are at a point where, DTG refuses to synchronise buttons on RD between country or even trains within that country and isn't that the weirdest thing? Maybe because DTG doesn't make Raildriver and PI engineering don't give any of its fat profits back, DTG might be thinking why should it cow-tow to PIE, a US company if you don't mind, so it can make more money on the back of our hard work. So here's a rubbish dll that barely works so you Yanks can't take us to court for restriction of trade or whatever the legal term might be. If I'm right, it's childish in the extreme and treating customers like cash cows - milk 'em but no more than that. If it doesn't want to farm out an API it should team up with a British manufacturing entity and make its own u-beaut version of Raildriver. It wouldn't be difficult to make a better controller than Raildriver, it's so poorly designed imho. If I'm wrong or you reckon you know a better or have a more reasonable reason for the current and continuing state of affairs, please tell all of us. As it is still no API and DTG saying nothing as if there isn't a problem.
