PC How’s Everyone Liking The New Nec: New York Dlc?

So how’s everybody liking the new DLC? Any suggestions for DTG bug wise or content wise? I know I’ve got a lot! Tell me what you think and enjoy!

 

Very much! I'm getting quite good fps readings. In general, environment looks good. I really haven't done much: ran the ACS-64 tutorial a couple of times and found it generally frustrating, mostly because I really miss the voice we heard in CSX and GWE. The words are okay, but they stay on the screen too long and not having access to the controls while they're visible is frustrating. Moreover, the controls are not completely explained. For example, there's no mention of the fact that the Master Controller includes a braking function -- and this is not mentioned in the manual, either. The "tutorial" for the CSX GP38-2 is much too sketchy for anyone not already thoroughly familiar with this engine.
I tried one of the passenger services, despite still being relatively unskilled at passenger driving. Due to that lack of controls explanation in the tutorial, I had to learn how to use the Master Controller "OTJ". As I did so, I began to enjoy the challenge of the quickly fluctuating speed limits; however, as I approached Boston I panicked a bit, drove too slowly, and arrived a few minutes late despite having been on top of things through most of the scenario.
Overall, I'm excited, truly disappointed only by the very limited number of freight scenarios and the complete lack of freight sessions.

Lots of enjoyment ahead!

 

In general, am impressed with the visuals, frame rate improvements and the General feel of the area. I utilize Amtrak betwen NY Penn And Washington Union Station several times a year and NJT from Newark to NY Penn a dozen times or so a year. So credit goes to,the team for their hard work.

However disappointed in the execution of the scenarios. Tried the City Sprinter scenario and it nerfed out at the end. I made the final stop in New York Penn 1 yard short apparently at 07:23:34 a full minute and a half ahead of schedule. At that point the scenario never moved ahead with the instruction stating stop at NY Penn at 07:25. I though maybe the 1 yard short might be a problem but the locomotive would not respond to the throttle. Waited till after the scheduled time and nothing - had to exit out with the scenario incompleted. These type of glitches totally disenchant me from wanting to run the sim, since it glitched for no reason, no speeding, no spading - just glitched.

 

The speed limits and signals with the ACSES and ATC are bugged.

 

There are lots of issues on the simulation side. Most of the issues are with signals, ATC, ACSES, and speed limits. Decoration for the most part is pretty decent.

 

you need to add more scenarios for freight. you have plenty of passenger runs but none for freight. I was expecting more freight and I now regret spending my money foolishly on this add on. Next time will probably pass unless you have more freight activities.

 

It has been addressed by Matt many times; freight services are coming in probably a week or so. The DLC was forcibly released before freight services could be completed.

 

Dovetail acknowledged this in the known issues section of the forum. Freight is planned for the route I'm sure.

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/tsw-nec-new-york-known-issues.4037/#post-25830

 

Overall, I like it, I love how you can run freight as you want. However I do have one question. What are the purpose of these Gates over tracks? Cause in this situation it's preventing me from picking up these cars.

2018-03-20 (1) by RyanCLT posted Mar 20, 2018 at 10:14 PM

2018-03-20 (2) by RyanCLT posted Mar 20, 2018 at 10:14 PM

RyanCLT

 

Link doesn't work for me. It says I don't have permission to view it. Might just be my work PC though.

 

I will see if I can re post them hang on.

 

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/media/2018-03-20-1.331/full

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/media/2018-03-20-2.332/full

RyanCLT

 

The sounds are better than I expected!

 

GP38-2 bell is too loud and horn sound is too muffled and vanishes at times.

ACS-64 bell is too loud also.

 

I really enjoyed playing the fps were much better, in the tutorials I also miss the voice telling you what to do next. Tried doing the City Sprinter with little experience, did okay but need to improve a bit more. But ran into the same situation Matt did on his stream when approaching New York Penn got stuck at a red light. When I pressed the Tab key to request to pass danger signal, all I got was Denied No Route Available.

Looking forward to more I did really enjoy playing.

 

It is too loud, but at least it is accurate!

 

Can't tell, I want to play with the ATC and acses ON, but they are bugged right now.

I'll wait for a fix, especially for the ATC acknowledgement issue, and give it a try.

 

I like the new map of New York. But I don't really like the way that service mode seems to be going. I miss a realistic schedule on the Nort East Corridor. At the Moment there is a North East Regional Train every ten minutes around the clock (Even at 3 am), and all these trains even stop at Secaucus (as far as i know, no Norht East Regional does stop there). It feels more like a modelrailway driver on a NEC modelrailway.
I think this really destroys the Immersion of the game, I would prefer a more realistic service mode, even if that means less Trains on the route. I hope DTG will overwork the passenger services like they want to overwork the freight Services ( perhaps include more depth too, like stalling some Trains at night in Sunnyside Yard,....). After all i really like this dlc and see it has a lot of potential for the future.

 

Northeast Regional trains don’t stop at Secaucus.

 

Oh yes, that ATC/ACSES bug is a problem! It’s annoying but it’s not stopping me from keeping it on though. I also tried walking to Woodside station on the LIRR, but of course DTG put an invisible barrier to keep me from doing so. I really hope DTG implements that third rail and they do it fast because it is incredibly unrealistic driving in Penn and HAROLD and not seeing third rail!

 

DTG is working on on those systems. I applaud you for still playing it even with those bugs.

 

I've found it interesting but the tutorial doesn't teach you anything. Atm I'm getting more and more frustrated because I don't know how to open the passenger doors on the bloody train. It doesn't teach you what you need to know in the tutorials. I would prefer a lengthy in-depth tutorial than one that teaches you how to start and stop as if we didn't know the controls already for the basics of a train. Someone able to tell me how i unlock and open the doors please?

 

Press Tab and the option will present itself.

 

They really need to make some form of Academy route... Need I say more? They hardly have the time to even do this and that, so I can’t expect them to make actual good tutorials for each route, why not just make a route focused on providing good tutorials so they can let the tutorials in each route be silly about the particular loco’s startup, while the fundamentals that don’t change between routes are taken care of elsewhere. There’s no need to reteach how to load passengers, but there needs to be a way for everyone to have a tutorial on how to load passengers-an Academy route resolves both of those issues.

Currently, only the CSX Heavy Haul tutorials do that whole fundamentals thing, and only GWE has a passenger loading tutorial. Meaning that people on XBONE are left clueless on the fundamentals, and eventually CSX won’t be something everyone has (some people even ignore it nowadays) so many PC people are getting left clueless. As is the case with any game, there needs to be some tutorial on the fundamentals that is accessable to all. TSW has totally failed on that front.

 

Yes, they should add some sort of academy mode to TSW, it will also save DTG time when creating dlc by not needing to create new tutorials allowing them to focus on more scenarios and services, there obviously being not enough time for them to create the service mode.

 

Very happy to have NEC. Probably my favorite DLC so far. But disappointed over several plainly obvious functional bugs affecting critical features that should have been fixed before release.

NEC has probably the best freight/switching opportunities of all the routes so far. Yes, no freight services, but you can free roam and do switching and freight between multiple yards from the "Spawn Walking" part of the services menu, or the "New York Switcher" scenario. If you don't need a scenario to feed you a list of objectives, this should be more than enough for now. The ACS-64 is nice, and the route has interesting variation both in scenery and varying grades even - a good choice for DLC. I really hope they expand on the NY area in the future. Plus, I see a general progression of improvement in basic concepts for TSW overall (little but important details).

The bugs, though.... I found multiple severe functional issues in just the first 2 hours of play - stuff that either prevented me from continuing, or that I had to go figure out to fix the issue and continue, or restart the scenario. These are the same bugs that everyone is seeing, and in fact the same bugs Matt ran into in his live stream and acted surprised (because I honestly think he was).

The problem is, seeing Matt from DTG be surprised to even find these bugs during his demo is _very_ concerning and indicative of a fundamental problem. I know, speaking to the choir here. DTG has a hugely bad reputation for this. The ATC/ACSES not working right... This is a device that is supposed to be annoying when you do something wrong - but because of the bugs, it is just annoying period. The GP38's having to pull the rail cards down hill probably due to some really simple over sight (like someone said certain cars had their hand brakes on). Several signal lights not working (turned off, or the solid red that prevented Matt from entering Penn Station NY). These are what I mean by functional bugs. They aren't visual bugs or frame rate problems. They are the kind of bug that stops game play in it's tracks or ruins the experience due to causing frustration over an unknown issue.

So yes, I think NEC is "awesome" and "could be better" in that it needs major bug fixes.

 

I would've thought that the freight cars having their handbrakes engaged would've been correct? Surely you want them prevent them from moving freely when left in a siding?

 

Agreed, though correct and consistent are two different things. In TSW and TS20xx, it has been consistently the case that when you hook up to a train of cars, the hand brakes are assumed to be off, or it is assumed that magically the brakeman has run down the length of the train and disengaged the hand brakes. I assume it was an oversight in NEC NY that some handbrakes are not being disengaged, especially since the scenario didn't tell us to check the hand brakes, and it even caught Matt off guard in his live stream.

Actually, yes, I would rather have everything brutally realistic which means that a brakeman and/or conductor would run down the entire length of a train checking every car, inspecting air line connections, installing the EOTD, pulling off hand brakes, etc. But I'm sure the huge majority of people just want to hook up and go, and I don't blame them. Now that I know this is the issue, I guess I get my wish until they fix it.

 

Actually, I'm not so sure about handbrakes anymore. There's a scenario where you assemble a manifest train from 2 consists and move it to the other yard, and I double-checked all the cars, and handbrakes were off. Train still really didn't want to roll.

 

On the Passenger train, what is the keyboard control to unlock the passenger doors. Thanks

 

Hi,
The "Tab" Key.

Mike.

 

The problem is that I don’t think even that is realistic. In real life, you’d just empty the brake pipe and let the air brakes do the job (while in TSW all freight cars magically retain brake pressure even when uncoupled), maybe setting the hand brakes on a few cars, but definitely not all of them. Hell, on a hump yard they don’t even use any brakes at all. The cars just stop and rest there due to rolling resistance.

General thing to keep in mind is that when you have a 100 car train, you do not want to need to spend a minute at every single train car making sure the handbrake is off. Just a few handbrakes work to keep a whole train from moving, or the emergency brake.

 

I haven't tried this scenario yet, but let me suggest something that often resolves similar problems in TS: when a scenario stops responding in any way, save it, exit the sim completely, then restart and resume the scenario. Rebooting your computer may also help between the save/exit and the restart. Others have also reported a problem completing this scenario. Although I'm not a great fan of passenger runs (mostly due to my own lack of skill with them), I'll give this a try and report back.

 

Here are my initial thoughts on this route after playing a short freight route and the city sprinter scenario.

I am both very impressed yet very underwhelmed at the same time if that makes any sense. The first thing I noticed coming into this was the increased performance and frame rate. Rarely did I dip below 40 fps and if so, it was only for a second. The level of detail on the ACS is great and the coaches also look incredible. When I first loaded in the game I spent a good few minutes just exploring the locomotive and the set of coaches. All the scenery in the route looks really good too and I can tell care went into constructing the route. As I was approaching the Hell Gate Bridge heading towards Penn Station, I was looking towards the Manhattan skyline and the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and was pretty amazed at how good it looked from a distance!

Now for some things I wasn't very impressed with. Firstly, the audio is all over the place. The new freight cars sound great driving by but the passenger coaches barely make any audible noise when the train goes by. Then we have the horn and bell for the ACS which blasted my ear drums out after turning my audio up to hear the rest of the world around me. The sound quality of the e-bell and horn are great though; just wish there was reverb and doppler for them! This route takes place in NYC right? Why is everything so quiet!? I feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere when in reality I'm in the middle of Queens! I wish there was also some AI vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the game too. When I look out over the city, all I see is a ghost town .. nothing is moving or making a peep when in reality, that certainly won't be the case. Everything looks pristine too .. it doesn't at all feel like I'm in NYC and it took me out of the experience entirely.

I love the route so far and I can't wait till we got more stuff added to it. I can't wait to see what this route will turn into down the line.

 

I also like the new route. As some have already commented, there are some bugs but It seems normal to me and everything can be fixed with time.

I would like the route to be extended in the future, especially to be able to run at 125 mph with the ACS64, and, in the future, perhaps the Acela too, who knows.

 

Glad to hear all your ratings, criticism, suggestions etc. Hopefully DTG has tuned into some of the great conversations taking place, and we’ll work on the things they missed!

 

The bugs in this DLC are just to much for me. The route is nice in many ways but DTG has had a year now to get their act together on the new engine. I like to play simulators, but when I can't play with the safety systems on because they are broken it just stops being fun for me. I will move on and spend my time playing something else for a while. No more getting burned on pre-ordering DLC for me.

 

Played first scenario and got stuck behind a red light in a tunnel which refused to turn orange or green before the station.

 

I ran into the same thing when I ran the scenario. But now having seen a video on youtube I know what what happened to cause that. Like me you too were probably late arriving at the last destination.

 

I arrived in good time like 4-5 mins before I was supposed to be there

 

That is strange than you should have gotten into the platform.

 

Just ran the scenario again and the same thing happens literally got to the tunnel and I'm 389 yards from new York Penn station and still red lights. It says I should arrive at 07.25 it's 07.23 and counting I can see a train like mine at the station in front.

07.26 still red lights

 

Matt from DTG had this problem happen during his live stream the day before release of NEC NY. He had no clue as to why it happened either and instead just ended the scenario without completing it. He was late arriving because he had been showing us stuff, but that shouldn't matter. He wasn't so late that he should have been held up. I ran the scenario and it worked fine for me, but I've only run it once.

 

Very odd I watched the middleagedgamers video on youtube and he was able to complete, maybe have a look and see never hurts.

 

How many services are they on the Boston To Washington and return ?

 

Open the route, select the ACS-64, select Services, count. (The basic answer is, lots!)

 

its all the same service duplicated every 5 to 10 minutes

 

I just played the City Sprinter scenario again and was able to complete with no issues a break down the first two stations I was ontime and for the final destination I was 1 minute ahead of scheduled. That got me all the way into New York Penn Station. So what it comes down to is arrival times.

 

I Like it, however was a bit disappointed at the lack of a Manhatten skyline as you cross the Hell gate bridge? where as Manhatten gone to?
will this be added at some point? also lack of Vehicles/people makes the whole thing seem a bit dead? will they be added at some point?

TS2018 NEC ddon has all that plus twice as much track, why does TSW seem like a downgrade?

 

Isn't that pretty much like real-world trains? And even if the schedule doesn't change, what about the time of day and thus the lighting? I'm not making fun of you: these are serious questions.