Are there any plans for DTG to bring to life the train destination board on the CL166 and the passenger information system on station platforms to life in TSW? I think I remember seeing something on these forums, that the Unreal engine does not support the above features at this time (or something to that effect) and DTG are working on it. I just wanted to make sure I (as well as others) are not missing anything.
The last we heard about it, from Jay, is that it's mostly ready but they're having rendering issues in the engine. My take from that, is that the boards are flickering badly. We've seen similar issues with the overhead lines on GWE and Rapid Transit.
I hadn't heard that update. Last I had heard was that it was "complicated" and it was unclear whether it was being worked on.
James posted it somewhere on the forum, recently enough, in response to a question. I can't remember which thread it is in, otherwise I'd have included a link to it.
I'm not sure about it being mostly ready but I do know it's certainly high on our wish list - it's absolutely something I want. I do know that this system would rely on a key feature, that is planned for a future UE4 update that Epic are still working on, to make it work properly. Sadly, I don't know any more than that but we'll endeavour to keep you posted once we get more info. Best, Steve
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/how-will-multiplayer-work.3738/#post-23641 This is the post, by Jay, that I was referring too.
That's useful info to know Steve. That sort of info is the sort of thing it would be helpful to have in a prominently marked FAQ as it really requires a lot of work to trawl through all the threads to glean this type of information.. Since you mention a future UE4 update then it appears that PIS is at least six months away as I've noticed that DTG avoid being on the latest UE4 version.
May I ask if the feature you are talking about got recently released? The Bus Simulator 2018 uses the Unreal Engine too and the destination display works in there. Would be nice if you could give us a small update on that!
Indeed. After watching several videos of Bus Simulator 2018, it can display the bus destination display with scrolling text without a problem. Seeing as it uses the same game engine as TSW, I really don’t know why we still haven’t got working displays. Pretty poor really.
The problem is not the displays itself, its the underlying controller that has to gather all the trains current timetable and estimated arrival and departure times, even those that are not yet on the map, and then calculate all the information that the displays have to show. Also those displays may show many more things than just departure times. And this system does not only have to work correctly on one route in one part of the world, but should work for any system that train-company's around the world use. Those company's have spent millions to develop their systems and DTG try's to develop that same thing for a niche game...
Just needs a trigger on approach to the station, difference between desired time and actual time, done. Its a game not reality after all, so doesnt have to work like the real thing, just appear to do so.. just my two pennies worth Sintbert
And i already hear all those that say its not realistic, it hast to show more than one train, it should do this and that... And your approach to this only works for your train, what is with the other platforms? What when the train is still 20 min out? Or not on the map jet?
The dispatcher knows which trains are expected at a timing point at a given time. There is no signaller who can override the train priority, so recalculations are not necessary at this point in time. In TS2018, the game is able to give an ETA estimation for each planned stop. It should be possible to implement this in TSW, and link this to displays on the platform - the actual display of which may vary. UK routes would show "Exp. 11:45" while German boards could show "Heute etwa 15 Minuten später". I am not sure how unspawned trains could be treated, as I don't know how the game's internals treat them. I think displaying them with their planned time until more information is available is a reasonable approach - that's also what happens in real life
There’s no update on the PIS due to time constraints and priorities (I don’t even think it has been touched) as well as the team working on other things so it’ll be a while before we see a working PIS I think.
Can the game spawn trains? I'm sceptical when I've spawned in Old Oak at 04.00 ish and it says the train's next service is 14.something or other. It would work a service or two in the morning before forming that service at 14.xx in the real world...
Hi Mkdog45, I will endeavour to get an update on this in the New Year when Matt and the Dev Team are back in the office. Please feel free to remind me by DM if I forget. Best, Steve
In regards to the PIS possibly being implemented, I’ve heard the reason we haven’t seen it yet is because it would take quite a lot of time to implement it. While I think it would be great to have a full scale PIS system with the screens at the stations and everything, I think just having the destination displays on the front of the trains would be a huge improvement for immersion. Maybe relay to dev team that they did a great job with it on the 101 and hopefully that can be done for all future trains that have destination blind/display. The 166, talent 2, dosto, and M7 just felt like a missed opportunity to implement it considering that’s a function that TS1 has.
I feel like the best way to improve GWE is to have the announcements and the displays on the train. And also the station boards and maybe a 387.
I fear that there will be no update/change in status of the Passenger Information System once Steve gets an update in the New Year due to lack of resources/spare time but I am happy to be proved wrong and hope I am as this has been missing from day one and is quite an important feature of railway operations. Not to mention it will bring things to life quite significantly at stations, which are like ghost towns at many of them.