PC Ongoing 'citywide Power Cut' Issues Within Tsw

I think all these issues boil down to one thing and that is i just don't think DTG have the skill level required to produce products to the required quality in UE4

 

I feel that definitely comes into it, but if you look at the absolute gulf in class between DTG content for TSC and most 3rd party offerings (particularly rolling stock), I think it’s indicative of a company that simply doesn’t have that level of quality and attention to detail in it’s DNA. It’s still going on, have a look at the reviews for the TSC Class 700 on Steam. It’s barely better than the freeware AI version, and of course needs the AP EP to make it useable.

I get the impression that their MO is literally ‘just good enough is good enough’. They do put features into the game but they’re always half-arsed and over-egged by the guys that do the streams to be much more than they are. That is all over TSW3 - the eye adaption, the absolutely pathetic attempt at snow kick up, the ‘spray’ from the RHTT, ‘the new lighting’ which is half-finished, the missing scenery in BCC, the broken achievements in BCC and SEHS, the missing scenery in CP. The list is literally endless.

I really don’t think they have it in them to do it right. Whether that’s through lack of the requisite skills or their famous disregard for detail and for just getting things right. DTG is not a small indie developer and the only conclusion you can draw is that they simply don’t care. As long as the mugs keep stumping up the cash just good enough is good enough.

 

I think it's completely fair. Unreal is a standard engine, among the most popular in the world. Lighting works pretty much the same in every UE game, and you can probably find tutorials for it on YouTube. The PS3 Gran Turismo games had better night lighting, on a unique engine on one of the most difficult to develop for consoles ever, running at 1080p at ~45fps - which TSW struggles to achieve on the significantly more powerful PS4. Code is code, light sources are light sources. DTG don't need a seven-figure budget to light up their routes, they have all of the skill and resources needed to fix the issue. They just choose not to.

 

I think the devs are more than capable of throwing some decent lighting Into the game.

At a guess i think the main problem is upper management, more interested in meeting deadlines than customers expectations. That's just business!
Devs are given a budget and time frame and have to stick to that.
All you have to do is look at the state routes release in, its like build it, make it work ok ish, sell it and then worry about all the problems.

To be honest if the community had access to the editor, they could fill the voids left by dtg, probably even address a few of the ambient lighting issues.

 

If we had access to an editor, routes like the Somerset & Dorset, Cambrian Coast, North Wales Coast, Central Wales, Stratford On Avon and Midland Junction etc. would be in TSW by now.

 

Possibly yeah and much more. That's what I like about ts. If dtg don't wanna go the distance, someone else will.
Instead of waiting for dtg to ok a dev to spend a few minutes putting something right I can shift e and do it myself.
Although I don't know if the same is possible in UE, can one just open up UE and modify a baked route?

 

To be fair, (re)Creating an accurate train & physic behaviour as software developer isnt quite an easy job. While for people with knowledge in railroading & rail systems things are way more obvious how they function, as for somebody without any experience & background this is a huge task to perform.

Considering that DTG does a great job in "simulating & deliver this experience", in my opinion i cant really say the dont understand their core business or they dont have skills, because its simply not true.

I guess with birmingham they simply ran out of time, what could be seen in more aspects than just the night lighting.
Compared bremen / oldenburgs night lighting are way better & convincing. Not on a riesa dresden level, but never entire dark villages.

 

Not to mention route extensions

 

They do have the skills to pump out good lighting or content. To me it simply boils down to time. Devs have to make content on a certain timeframe (self imposed of course) so if they run out of time, you may naturally see corners cut and then patches to address certain issues post release.

The problem with DTG is that there are so many issues that it creates a huge backlog of fixes they have to do which takes ages to address if ever.

Whilst some studios like TML with "The Bus" are clearly taking their time before releasing that game (that game has been in early access for ages) along with taking their time to release Fernbus Coach Simulator for console (which was supposed to come out at the end of 2022 but was pushed back), it does seem quite common for devs now to just push stuff out if it's "good enough and patch it later. They are a business and people will buy anyways regardless of condition

 

Well I just folded and bought this again (sorry SimRail, just used your funds!) after having tried the very early access version a long while ago and refunded it. Looks much more promising now and I also note if it's not already happened they are updating to UE5.

 

The bus already got the ue5 update in December I believe.

 

Wishful thinking but the only reason I can think that DTG have been completely silent on this issue is that they may be secretly working on significant upgrades for it?

If no action is being taken to resolve these issues, then it really is a poor reason for them not to participate in this discussion.

 

Must admit it's not too bad. Had to bring some of my settings back from Epic to get a reasonable frame rate but better than I remember. Haven't done a night drive yet as still finding my way around but for a TML title I'm reasonably impressed. And to stay on topic if a small studio like TML can pull this off, there really is, little excuse for DTG and TSW.

 

Highly doubt it, to be honest. I mean most of it is just up to poor asset creation - missing lit-up window textures, wrongly set up light cone values, missing light flares, etc. And while these could be relatively easy to fix per asset, there are a bunch of assets. Especially when we consider that every asset is copied for every route, due to the absence of shared asset libaries. So unless they plan to do a round of fixes for every route, I don't see much chance.

The lack of replies is probably simply because there is not much to say. I mean they could say the usual "we are aware, sorry, we could do better, we will try" response, but we have heard that how many times now? I mean saying sorry and promise to be better doesn't mean much to me personally, if at the end nothing is changing.

But I would really like them to finally start using shared asset libraries, because at this point it's ridiculous. At least that way they could go back later and fix those assets for once. But the way it's done now it's ridiculous. And makes your assets properly from the get-go, because if a route is littered with badly made assets, it will make a big impact in the overall quality. Think of buildings that actually have shiny glass and buildings that don't. Such a big difference. Many assets also miss any form of weathering and light baking together, which makes them look toy like.

 

Amen. Exactly that.

 

Lol, vern does your "limited" gaming time has actually something to do with all your refunds?

 

No, I refund if something doesn't live up to my expectations or the hype. Fortunately, "The Bus" seems to have come a long way since my first encounter with it. Not a title to play day in and day out but will be good to dip into now and again.

 

Fear not! I've found this cool Train Simulator that solves all of the problems. It's full of atmosphere and variety, features really in-depth simulation, looks amazing (with great night lighting!) and has a community full of passionate people with an commitment to attention to detail and realism. This might just be the future of train-simming. Maybe.

 

Is that the vanilla game, or does it have any mods installed ? I can't remember the game looking that good

(And sharp)

 

The AP Sky/Weather pack, track pack (where applicable) and my own RWEPro profile. Other than that it’s vanilla, but obviously 3rd party rolling stock on JT’s Midland Mainline, ATS Chat Moss & DTG’s Leeds-Manchester.

Looks good doesn’t it?

 

Really good!
For a PS4 Slim schlepper on the lowest end of the virtual world´s food chain like me, what´s that? TSC?

 

Yeah, the ‘old’ sim.

It’s certainly more costly to get into than TSW, largely because you have to buy almost all rolling stock twice. Once to buy the DTG base model which is invariably utter rubbish, and then again for the 3rd party enhancement pack (invariably Armstrong Powerhouse) to make it good. It also requires a bit more perseverance and knowledge of files etc but it’s definitely worth the effort.

I guess the point though is that if TSC can look like this there is no excuse whatsoever for TSW to be the mess it is. You could cut TSW some slack when it first came out but we’re over 5 years since that point and where the product is right now just isn’t good enough.

 

I´ve been following de modders in the forums closely and TBH I´m impressed what they´re capable of. No surprise though, many moons ago I was part of Project Tupolev, a freeware project for MSFS 9 which was par, if not even superior, to the best addons from PMDG and Aerosoft. So much that it was licenced for real life pilot training (for the modeled FE sub systems).

I guess there´s no way around a PC purchase for simming. PS4 is bending its knees, PS5 has the famous DLC limitation (I have my doubts that DTG is capable of delivering a decent addons-manager). And the Xboxes have other troubles like sound, drawing distances and alike.

 

Like ATS and ETS2, The Bus has an excellent representation of rain on the windows, which is something I was hoping TSW3 would improve. TSW rain (and that of TSC for that matter) behaves more like wallpaper paste dribbling down vertical surfaces. One day perhaps eh?

 

Of course as I found out yesterday evening The Bus has more than its own share of bugs despite the fact it's been in early access for a year and a half. AI vehicles doing a zigzag path along the road and a weird graphical artefact, like texture curtains rising vertically out of the ground. The bus suspension "bounce" is also a bit overcooked too and could induce motion sickness in people prone to that sort of thing.

 

Ignoring the game play side of things though (as it is early access), what about the visuals, particularly the lighting?

 

Visuals are fine, as stated the rain is impressive. Not done a twilight or night run yet to judge the time of day effects.

 

This was talked about briefly in the Q&A at the end of the roadmap stream, referring specifically to Birmingham, after some prompts in chat. Matt said that it's on his mind, they are aware, that the team does need to spend a bit more time thinking about how the assets look at night-time vs day-time. And that he needs to understand if it's a time issue, tech issue, etc.

Apparently in the forthcoming Special Projects update for Boston, it's "now lit up like a Christmas tree" so that might be a good benchmark for comparison. Hopefully it can lead to improvements in the future.

 

Yep, really looking forward to seeing how Boston will look like.

 

The scene over Edinburgh Waverley at night. At least Rivet made an effort to make it look decent.

Now compare this to Birmingham and it’s completely laughable. I sincerely hope DTG has learnt their lesson in time for their next route release.

 

I had a bit of a chuckle towards the end of the last stream, when both hosts had to walk back the notion that " recent routes had pretty decent night lighting. "

It was pleasing that this ( your ) thread was actually mentioned in the stream, confirming that they had read it.

 

I've never seen you cooperate in these forums, so I'm not sure where you've piped up from. At least londonmidland bothers to make the game look better and works hard.

 

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Apparently you can only share your opinion if you have heavily modded the game or leave ones credentials at your place

 

I haven’t watched this stream. What was actually said, may I ask?

 

JD mentioned the " power cut " thread as they were discussing night lighting in general. It's in the last 5-10 minutes of the Jan 12th Roadmap stream.

It's encouraging that they are aware of the problem and are " on it ", so to speak.

 

Other than the station asset itself (which, to be fair, looks excellent) and Edinburgh Castle (both assets I’m guessing that have been custom built by Rivet) absolutely nothing else is actually lit. If you look closely it’s that weird, low resolution, horrible looking, washed out window texture that is used the to fudge interior light in TSW. It looks identical whether it is night or day and because the asset has been built using that texture for each window every single window looks like that. Again, completely unrealistic.

Barring the Castle that image could easily be from GWE which used that same methodology extensively, so essentially zero progress in 5 years. It should also be noted that nothing is casting light either; no street lamps, cars, buildings, shop fronts etc. Edinburgh is one of the most spectacular cities in the world at night and though Rivet have had a stab at ‘painting’ it, you can’t help but feel they’ve been made to hold the paintbrush in their mouth. Of course, what is important is how this looks from the cab driving in and out of the city and again whilst walking around the station. We haven’t seen that yet, but given the extensive use of those same awful assets I wouldn’t hold out much hope.

On that note, I don’t blame Rivet for one second. I honestly felt that their revised IOW route was one of the best examples of scenery in TSW2 and they have clearly pushed the ‘attention to detail’ envelope with this effort as well which is excellent to see. DTG could do to take note. Unfortunately however, they are cursed to work with the generic assets, game core and lighting system that DTG are responsible for.

If you stick ‘Edinburgh castle overlooking waverley station night’ into Google Images and have a look at what it actually looks like versus this depiction I’m afraid, for me, other than 2 lovely custom built assets there is essentially no bigger picture progress being demonstrated here whatsoever. That said, we still need to see what it looks like from the cab to fully judge it.

ps Just to add, DTG being aware of a problem and DTG being ‘on it’ are almost always diametrically opposed. Just because they mentioned this thread on a stream doesn’t mean anything at all in reality, so don’t expect anything at all to change.

 

I installed the game again to load up GWE to take a shot to back up my point above re the lighting of buildings at night.

This is what I found. This is Paddington & Central London looking in both directions at ~20:00 in mid-january.

FTG.

 

Yeah, it's those kinds of images above that I find really difficult. To be honest, much as I'm glad I persisted in asking the question about the issue in the stream, and eventually they discussed it - even then they did seem a bit vague about how much of a problem it is.

I hope they take it seriously - the screenshots above would obviously not sell a single copy of the game to anybody, yet it's representative of key sections of a large number of routes at night.

 

One thing to add: according to the stream Boston in the future update "is lit up like a Christmas tree" so I wonder - if that's a significant improvement on non-station night lighting, I will have more hope (even though it would also make it clear that any route would need a Boston-sized makeover to bring it up to scratch).

 

Good for you for pushing it on the stream. I’ve all but given up watching them because 99% of the time it’s hot air they’re spouting.

There have been a couple of screenshots released of the updated Boston haven’t there? It didn’t look much different to me but maybe I’m mistaken. I really hope it is because I just can’t play this game anymore whilst it’s like this.

If that was a standard of work I had ever produced I would be utterly ashamed of it, to the point of thinking perhaps I was in the wrong career.

 

Well we will have to wait and see how the "lit up" Boston looks like. After announcing it like that, I do hope it really looks better than it used to.

 

They knew their in game presentation wouldn't sell any copies of TSW3, hence the big marketing hooplah using pre-rendered CG, bizarre music, and a low brow catch phrase to hype up the game prior to release. I'll 'master the machine' when DTG decides to master UE4.

 

Now that's one I haven't heard before, but a real good one. Should be the inofficial subtitle of the game now !

 

Well, look at it as the most expensive screensaver since Windows Vista.

 

I think my screen is broken, I can't see anything.

 

On reflection ( pun intended ), I don't think that the couple of minutes of night lighting discussion on the stream last week offer much hope for future routes.

You would hope that a thread with almost 200 posts would be a learning experience for the developers and that they would make a real effort to implement effective night lighting in upcoming routes.

They surely realize that large urban centers are extremely well- lit 24/7 and even the boonies are not totally dark at night, especially in a smallish country like the UK with a high population density.

I have driven through Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and I was never in complete darkness at night with plenty of moonlight and structural lighting.

We are not in the Middle Ages anymore. The world is heavily polluted with light, among other things.

DTG and its partners need to pledge to make all routes drivable at night.

 

Either that or eliminate sunset to sunrise timetables and just admit to the community that they don't know what they're doing with nighttime scenery. Although that would be a very big admission. They have yet to fully fess up to the facts that they put TSW3 on the market unpolished, unfinished and remain quiet on that front to this day (apart from a small piece in the bottom corner of the roadmap titled performance improvements - the placement of which shows how serious they are about the issue).

 

Crosstie

Absolutely, because without that, and as it stands right now, the game simply isn’t as described on the platforms it’s been sold on.

Those screenshots are not just bad, they’re utterly unacceptable. That these products remain for sale at full price with nothing by way of a health warning is a joke frankly. I do sometimes wonder what Trading Standards might make of it, and I wonder that because I’m so hacked off at the amount of money I’ve wasted on this having initially bought into the BS they’ve been spouting for the last 5 years.

 

I dont think the newee routes are too dark, it was annoying in early tsw routes to see every corner at night time.

My only criticism is the almost non existent light sources outside of stations. Also here it varies a lot.
Bremen / Oldenburg has a quiet good lighting, at least on a decent convincing level.

An entire dark birmingham is the other side of dtgs releasing policy of unfinished routes. Redditch branch needed a heavy scenery update and the bridge in birminghams final screen shots didnt even have pillars.

I prefere to say bugs happen, they can get fixed with an update. But sloppyness is neither worth my time nor my money.