Having just watched today's roadmap stream on Youtube it seems that the various preservation updates cannot be released on their own and need to be released alongside a core update. Also that DTG have a limited number of these release slots. Also that Preservation updates from different routes cannot be bundled together into a single update for some reason. Have I got this right?
not 100% sure on your last point but everything else seems right Few points; Microsoft Sony etc only allow a certain amount of updates certain dlc updates can require core update
Also: any update, no matter how small, even replacing a single line of code, requires that the entire DLC be re-downloaded. Therefore they try to avoid releasing updates to multiple routes at the same time.
The issue of the preservation crew releases is "simple, and complex" all at the same time, and one thing to remember is PLATFORMS When the pres crew do an update it then has to be tested, and tested on now SEVEN platforms, all of which might react in a different way to the update. Some things are easy enough to do because the pres crew have done it on loads of routes and it has little impact on any other system, an example is the platform climb up Some things are more complex to do such as the skybox or weather systems which have a different FPS impact across platforms, and ALL platforms have to work similarly for DTG to put the route out. The same goes for things like new passenger "skins" released with the RushHour pack (which isn't the same as passenger density, that comes later). These have CPU and graphics impacts as well as issues at load time all of which impact player experience Then you have the "tricky" or "complex" works such as timetable updates, passenger routes on platforms (there's that density thing) and changes to physics, sounds etc. These have a direct impact on dev time, player experience and how the game works at a fundamental level so need testing and testing and testing on each platform Then you have "bugs" which also need looking at and could include all the above, but could be separate, and again need testing Once the things have passed the dev stage and are in QS or Beta, there's the backlog there because DTG have had three major routes, then a few third party routes and a couple of their own routes all in the last six months. That's a lot of work, especially given updates and upgrades to almost every major system on three separate countries as well as managing optimisations across the board. Lastly you have the release schedule. As someone above said, there are release limits on consoles to be managed, and that for those consoles updating 1kb of info might result in the full DLC being downloaded, and not everyone is on unlimited broadband to manage this. So overall it goes back to "simple, and complex"
