Watching a Train Sim TV video of a stream of a pre-release version of the route it appeared that the neutral section between Aston and Duddeston isn't modelled. It's there in TSC and the person doing the commentary was expecting it but made no further remark. Is it there in the latest copy of the route and if not can DTG please indicate if it will be added later?
I also don't know what it is but I think it's like a section where you don't get any power, hence the name neutral section.
You can't put power on to wires over unlimited periods, it needs to be segrated into power districts each with their own power supplies etc. When you travel from district to district, there's a dead/neutral section between them so the train will go off power momentarily and then back on again. How his manifests in each train is different, modern trains you will feel the power go out, the line light go off, and back on again and you can apply power - some will automate even that and re-apply power automatically. Older trains you literally had to make sure you'd notched down fully and then manually notch up or you'd run into problems. On a 323, it's basically a line light going off and on again with appropriate momentary loss of power to the motors. Matt.
Thanks for the swift reply Matt. Having seen that the 3rd rail has gaps on East Coastway, albeit the trains don't respond to them prototypically, I thought it would be quite easy to simulate the same in OHLE.
The breaking of the overhead supply separated by neutral sections is, apart from avoiding excessive voltage drop over long distances, done to balance the load on each phase of the 3 phase National Grid supply. Each section is fed from a different phase of the grid and the opening and reclosing of the train's supply breaker when passing through the neutral section is done to prevent an arc being drawn across the dead section which if it happened would briefly connect two different phases of the grid - not a desirable thing to do!
That's very disappointing to hear, unless you just meant in the current route and do have plans for it for future electrified routes.
I definitely want to get neutral section support at some point. But there are no plans to add it to Cross City. Just trying to be totally clear and up front about this to avoid confusion. There are many soft fluffy and warm aspirations I could share, but, we know where many of those lead, so let's keep it really simple.
So, in TSW we lose power on DC rail gaps, which shouldn't happen. Modern 750v EMUs have bus bars so any shoe touching live will power the whole unit. But not in AC neutral sections when a train passes over the APC magnets when it should lose it's supply. Bit arse about tit isn't it?
Why was it not inluded? Cant be that hard to do... If it is there in real life it should be in the game.
Then why don't you do it yourself then if you are going to say can't be that hard to do. If things aren't difficult, then we should have every thing simulated shouldn't we. Every button clickable, everything doing something, etc. But at the end of the day, dtg can't do all that cuz then dlc would take years or decades to make if that's what you are asking for. They have to build each feature and simulate it, model it, etc. Unless you are a game developer making games like dtg does, it is wrong to say "Can't be that hard to do..." Just my two cents.
It cant be that hard because other 3D Train Simulator do it like Hmmm Sim, which is basically a 1 guy indie game...so a multi mullion dollar company like DTG should be able to do it with their dozens of devs... Or they could hire someone who knows how to do it
many exceptions to that, modern DC isn’t as severe but I’d still say more DC trains at this point are susceptible to losing power over gaps than not, so on balance that’s fair.
Yeah, but my point being - devs went to the trouble and time for DC gaps, but not for AC NS's. For the latter they just could simply simulate VCB opening and closing as you drive over the APCs.
Also, remember how TSC had AC neutral sections? Interesting that they were deemed necessary in the ‘old’ essentially defunct sim but not in the current ‘new’ title. Surely neutral sections should have been in there from day 1, not a ‘nice to have’ at some undetermined point in the future. I honestly don’t get TSW, and have had enough of hoping it might ever change. What is it about this title, Simugraph or UE4 that has rendered so many things that were de rigour in TSC as wishful thinking in TSW? Why are so many aspects of this title just, well, LOVE? Genuinely, why is it like this? As someone who enjoys Train Sims and has spent an awful lot of money on DTG products, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in the way TSW has turned out, and DTG’s relentless pursuit of the low-rent end of mediocrity. That scenery patch for BCCL is pretty much the final straw. If ever a games company was basically saying ‘f-you’ to its customers that is it. I’ll watch what ATS and Just Trains can do and hope against hope that they can make this sim what it should have always been, but as for DTG content I think I’m properly done.
Because for 3rd raild DC gaps are caused by the rail not existing, where the train shoe is, so there is no rail for the train to drain power from. It similar to trying to raise pantograph on the javelin when there is no overhead catenary... that is working, and you will get no AC power. Neutral section are different, there is overhead wire present, but there is no voltage in that wire. You also need to modify the catenary generating engine, so it can actually depict visually the neutral section. You also want the accompanying signs, and for those sign to be visible from distance...etc.. I don't mean to say that it is hard, but it isn't a 1 hour job. As to why there are gaps in the 3rd rail? Becasue you cannot create a complex rail intersection with a 3rd rail without gaps in the 3rd rail system. So they either had to implement the system, or you would have 3rd rail crossing the main rails.
It can already do that though. In Arosa, for example, they have the overhead wires properly modelled. DTG simply doesn't take the effort to do it on their own routes.
Not really a fair assumption, on the grand scheme of things. It is most likely that a neutral section is in the category of "features that would be nice to add if time allows" and seeing as DTG said that the gap between TSW3 and the first route was already quite considerable, I'm not surprised the "Features that..." stuff didn't get added.
This is not a feature that specifically needs to be added though, I highly doubt it would require any core development. Neutral sections are just places where the wire doesn't have electricity in it. TSW already simulates the need of overhead wires for trains that require it. And Arosa showed us that it's not that hard to model the wires looking properly. So from what I can see, all you really need to do is make a section of track that is set as non-electrified and then place a "dummy" wire over it. That's all. No development needed, just some more time for route builders. The only thing I don't know if TSW works similarly to TS, where you set the electrification on the track asset itself (so the wires actually are just visuals) or if the game actually detects the wires over the tracks and works based on that. But either way, I highly doubt it would be that difficult to make. But I do agree that it's probably not that high on the priority list, there are countless of more important things to do first.
