February Roadmap - Q&a Thread

US super bundle are we going to get a discount if we already own the training center and Cajon Pass on console

 

It’s me again!
Hope you like these questions I came up with:

New York-Trenton & Acela:

• The which extent were you able to reuse assets from the old NEC NY route for the new one? Or is this a completely new creation?
• How was the research process for this new route? Were you able to get up close and personal with the new rolling stock?
• The new loco in the NY-Trenton pack shares some considerable visual and technical similarities with some German locos that are already in the game. Were you able to build on your experience with these German locos, or did you approach this new addition to the loco family in a completely different way?
• A more general development question: Are the game developers generally specialized in one region (North America, Germany etc.), route type (passenger, freight) or rolling stock type (multiple unit, conventional loco, steam), or can they just move freely between all types of DLCs that are in development?
• The Acela has obviously been teased by you guys for years, going all the way back to the casual mention of space left for it in the Boston timetable. Can you share when the actual decision to develop it as a loco DLC was made, and what was the main motivation behind it?
• This one is specifically for Matt: In a past stream, you mentioned your desire to bring back parts of the old NEC NY route. This is now obviously happening with NY-Trenton and the Amtrak cab car. Has any progress been made on other fronts, such as the SW1000R switcher?

Left Rhine & Niddertalbahn:

• We all know the standard water texture in TSW isn’t really the best. Considering we will be driving alongside a river literally all the time on the new Left Rhine route, have you been working on improvements for the water texture?
• Will we be able to see AI trains on the other side of the river on Left Rhine?
• Considering Left Rhine is probably way too far in the past to include modern PIS, have you created vintage platform information boards?
• Coincidentally, Left Rhine and the Niddertalbahn are set roughly in the same time period. This does open up the possibility of Left Rhine rolling stock populating some of the bigger stations on the Niddertalbahn, either as AI services or static stock. Have you thought about this?
• As we’ve seen in the Niddertalbahn gameplay preview, a lot of new scenery assets appear to be present. It essentially looks like a completely different game at times, in a good way. Has DTG gotten its hands on these cool new assets as well?
• As we’ve found out recently, the Niddertalbahn gameplay preview included some wrongly activated lighting effects and placeholder sounds. Is there a chance we could get a new preview with all of these dev/debug features disabled so we can see what the route really looks (and sounds) like? I’m saying this because there is a ton of discussion and speculation about these aspects on the forums, which could easily be resolved by posting a new video.

As always, thanks for doing these streams and taking our questions! Looking forward to Thursday

 

Has the catenary on NY-Trenton been updated to be the TSW3 standard of having the weights and tension cables?



Has Penn Station been upgraded to be even more accurate than the LIRR version?



Are there the separate speed limits for the different train types (Acela has higher limits due to its tilting ability.)?

 

Will the new New York to Trenton route have Dresden night lighting? My second question is will we get dedicated Amtrak in New Jersey logos ? My third question is how many timetable services are there in total on New York to Trenton, including the Acela?

are the passenger information screens on the platform the same reused boards from all other DLC or are they authentic to the route? Will there be any new features with the new routes or train? Last, but not least will there be an coupling and uncoupling for the Acela as well as the alp?

 

When will the UK see some modern freight action?

 

Here's my question for February's Roadmap Stream, i hope it get answered.

With the Sherman Hill getting updated to TSW3 standard (New lighting, new volumetric cloud, etc). Is Cajon Pass ES44C4 new "DPU" behavior also implemented on Sherman Hill's SD70ACe? By new "DPU" behavior i mean the DPU also respond to any air brake application (e.g. Apply auto brake from DPU side and bailing off the DPU independent brake if needed in case combining auto brake and dynamic brake to control the speed along the grade).

Thanks.

 

Does Matt think things have got better at DTG since he took up his role as executive producer?

 

Where are the TSW2 fixes and all the bug fixes for the older routes that were promised months ago? Will taking on another title, tram sim, cause even more back logs for the QA and publishing departments given they can't seem to cope at the moment.

Does DTG actually care and value it's longstanding customers, or are we considered a nuisance, Why are all the bundle offers always aimed new users, rather than retaining existing players? Why make these bundle offers so complicated and confusing?

 

I wonder why you didn't also added the sektion to Frsnkfurt, since it is already given in TSC. I do understand, that it's quite challenging to create the Frankfurt HBF but could it be an extension in the future? And Do you also have Plans to continue the Linke Rhein Strecke to Cologne and Do you also have Plans on adding a modern timetable?

 

Also the Sound for the 182 is still in a bad condition

 

Hey DTG JD could the route price maybe lower from $40 to at least $35 or $36 because there is only $3 price increase on the loco add ons and thats a huge $7 increase compared to a $3 increase. So just maybe it could be lowered to the $36-$35 area? Hopefully it happens because im really starting to look for the nearest tree that grows money on it.

 

When will Rivet be held to account for sub par content launches, and even worse post release updates, the latest route shouldn't have even been allowed to release in the state it was in.

 

Regarding some of your questions, dtg has a really good relationship with amtrak. They were on a reference trip a few years back where they captured sounds and possibly reference. And there's also reference captured from making it in tsc. Devs get schematics from the tocs and help from members of the community.

In terms of acela, why wouldn't they lol. It's an iconic loco, goes the fastest on Boston Providence, time was left on the timetable, etc.

Left rhine trains and niddertalbahn trains never ran on each other. The niddertalbahn only had the 628 which got replaced with the 218 and now it's the 245. The 110 and 103 never ran on the route so it wouldn't be appropriate

For most of your other questions, dtg will mostly focus on acela and trenton. Other routes are still heavy in development

 

That's not going to happen

 

With the release of the next steam route in the pipeline, is the Class 45 being worked on to be able to reskin it, would be handy to run a BR Green peak on that route in scenario editor.

Any update on the MK2a bug where you cannot sit down as a passenger.

Is dynamic weather in scenario's any closer to being implemented.

Why is Adam no longer appearing on the Roadmap stream?, it's been a while

 

ET420 has been on the roadmap since the very start of TSW2, just sayin'

 

Will the Trenton route include true Rush Hour passenger density and increased AI traffic at appropriate times of the day?

 

Will we get to see an additional modern timetable for Mainz-Koblenz?

 

Any updates on the guys at ATS, and will news from just trains come out soon because it’s been 2 years since they joined the partner program and they have been silent

 

NY-Trenton: 1)We know we are getting Sunnyside yard, and 150mph in western Jersey for Acela. But what about Morrisville Yard west of Trenton. Most NJT services relay or are stored there on the Trenton end. 2) where will acela terminate on the Trenton end? IIRC, theres only one or two in each direction that stop at trenton. the rest speed past it.

 

I would like to second the post regarding xbox audio. I've submitted videos of the differences in the support ticket but I'm not sure we've had anything official from dtg recently regarding it?

Like the distorted and unbalanced sounds that increase in volume outside the cab (especially aws alarms etc)

I know Matt was in the threads looking at stuff so any update would be appreciated

 

new TSW route
​

question for the class 43,will it have real sounds on the class 43 of the MML (motorization) Paxman VP185

for the german route (Mainz,koblenz) is new coaches come with the DB BR 103 and if so which one(s)
is in the timetable of the new york trenton there are M7 LIRR and M3 LIRR AI trains at penn and the surroundings.
a question for the class 43 for MML and GWML do you plan to add several different tons for the class 43.
question for trenton, new york. there will be freight service in timetable mode?

Preserved route
​

my first question is for LIRR:do you have any plans to upgrade the route.
my second question is for SKA: line do you have plans to add ai trains at koln more service,ICE RE RB and IC.


it was my question for the roadmap.

​

 

Very happy with NYP to Trenton but peeved with the UK routes as both are Just Trains products for TSC. Nottingham Derby Leicester already released for TSC and Peak Forest being worked on for a 2023 release and an addition for MML.

I would ask DTG to release routes for TSW3 that haven’t been duplicated in future please.

 

You can do your part by not buying their add-ons

 

To be fair they don't have any good players in there. Some promise yes, but I can't see them becoming better than decent in the next ten years so sub-bar Bulls should beat them without too much of a problem.
Much more interesting will be Brooklyn to watch in next five seasons as they may actually become a good team by 2028 if they keep on dealing as they did with Irving (I doubt though, they will mess up).
As in the eyes of Mavericks, Kyrie deal probably won't hurt them too much right now but will definitely hamper their chances on the longer run since he is taking up quite a lot of money. So now they have s**t team with one and half good players whereas previously they had one.

Roadmap question: With some new UP content coming out, will we also see SD70 on a Cane Creek at some point?

I actually wanted to ask the Midland Mainline question but saw that JD asked us to wait (which makes sense).

 

Then we wouldn't be seeing certain routes since you said no duplicates.

 

Some of these questions won't have an answer or coming in a future article. Route specific questions for routes still in development couldn't be answered anyway since they're still being worked on. Can't really ask about legacy content either since again you'll get the usual we'd love to but not being worked on/no plans, not on roadmap answer.

 

This would free up their time to develop new and different routes, that are not already in TSC.

 

There's certain content that people want from tsc. Where's the uk mainlines such as wcml or ecml. Would never see those in tsw if no duplicates. You get what I mean. Content such as North american passenger content would be almost non-existent since the licenses are only in amtrak, mta and njt and most of those routes are in tsc lol. That means we wouldn't have gotten peninsula corridor or northeast corridor or the acela. There's no other licenses lol for North american content lol

 

For the Long Island Railroad, is there a chance we can see some Amtrak and NJ Transit trains at Sunnyside and Penn after the release of the Acela and the NEC: NYC Penn to Trenton?

Also, will there be some Heritage or Other Liveries for the ALP-46 in the future?

 

Is Joe working on the timetable for the new US route

 

There are no plans to add heritage liveries. If it's not on the roadmap, not being made

 

And what about TSW players who do not have or do not want TSC, like the majority of players who play on consoles and many PC players? If everything that’s ever been made for TSC is off limits then UK content in TSW is going to be very grim. Two different games, hardly any crossover in players, and having one rule out content for the other makes no sense when players will always request the same routes and trains for both because they are generally separate groups of people. Imagine DTG telling TSW players that they can’t have WCML southern section because it already exists in TSC. That’s not going to happen. Because they are separate games it isn’t duplication.

 

Indeed, there are a number of routes in TSC that I would like to see in TSW. I'd love to see some more of the US and Canadian freight routes, more of the NEC and some UK routes like the Chiltern line.

Bearing in mind that many of these TSC routes are 3rd party creations, of course.

 

What do you say to long time customers who feel that the bundles available are skewed towards newer players, where buying the new items in bundles entails paying again for things you already own?

The release of all this US DLC simultaneously feels rather unlikely to be a coincidence, were all these items given the same development time or were any rushed through development in order to fit a release window so they could be released in these bundles?

 

Probably not, as neither of these are ALP46s, the Pride and Pensy unit are ALP46As and the EL unit is an ALP45DP.

 

My questions are for the Trenton - NY DLC. Are there any of the following?:

1. Will this feature Morrisville & County Yards?
2. Any NJT services that stop at Jersey Avenue?
3. Any NJT services that originate or terminate at Jersey Avenue?
4. Any deadhead / equipment move services? (this will likely be for NJT)
   
5. Will the tunnels in & around NYP be well lit? In TSW 2020 it was pitch black, it's pretty well lit in real life.
6. Previous videos mentioned the Metroliner Cab Car would be used on Regionals, however there's only one Regional that currently uses them, 121. Did you mean Keystones?
7. Any Amtrak services stopping at Princeton Jct and / or New Brunswick?
8. Any use of tracks 1-4 at NYP? (Stub End Tracks)
9. Will there be trains that loop at Sunnyside and then re-enter revenue service at NYP?
10. Will there be trains that terminate at NYP and then switch ends to return to Trenton (and vice versa)?
    
11. Will the timetable be based on real life? (ie Keystone 652, NJT's 39xx trains, etc)
12. Will the horn on the ALP-46 be fixed? It didn't sound like a K5LA in the development video(s).
    
13. Will alerters function in cab cars? I remember the alerter not working in the Metroliner cab car back in TSW 2020.
14. Will there be a good amount of AI trains? This stretch is quite busy in real life. The TSW 2020 version was deserted.
15. Will enough kinks be worked out? I'm not expecting utter perfection, but previous DLCs (Metro North in particular) had a number of timetable sessions that were impossible because of glitches, mainly "wrong path" glitches.
    
16. Any chance for future DLC on this? ie Arrow 3 MUs?

I know it's a hefty list. Answer what you can. Hopefully it makes for good convo in the stream.
Looking forward to the stream / video & purchasing this.
Cheers.

 

Will the sunny side yard be fill with busy amtrak acela, NJT, LIRR, and other rolling stock?

 

FOR NYC Trenton will the Raritan Valley Line Montclair Bontoon Morris & Essex Lines NY Penn services be playable or not? NJCL needs to be playable from Rahway to NY Penn. For the DLC This should be Arrow III ALP-44M Amtrak AEM-7 as Legends of The NEC.
Linke Rheinstrecke Bundesbahn Legends DB BR141 Knallfrosch and DB BR150.
Since I own NEC Boston from TSW 2 do I get an upgrade for Free

 

Why is the roadmap stream used to do Q&A about releases? Shouldn't the release streams be used for that? Isn't the roadmap stream more the place to discuss long-standing issues and general processes? Where&when do we get the chance to do Q&A for all of our questions not related to particular new releases? (And I've seen a fair share in this topic, including myself, who assumed that's what a roadmap stream was intended for...)

 

I know, the standard answer, if its not on the roadmap it is not happening. But,

We all know scenario planner sucks. Only few people create scenarios, compare that to liveries. In TSC the scenario creation tool is quite good and gives a lot of opportunities to do interesting things. There is a long standing promise for Scenario Planner 2.0. There is a long thread with our feedback on scenarioplanner, upon request from DTG. What we got seems in great haste assembled by a junior developer, who does not even understand the datamodel you need for a decent scenario planner.

When are you going to do anything with that? I am really angry when I think about this topic and the endless list of broken promises.

 

Some switches can be set manually, but in many cases switches are set to automatic. Is there a particular reason for that? It makes the game far less flexible and the dispatcher seems to be able to cope with manual switches as well as automatic switches. My plea is to make as many switches as possible manual.

 

Is there any plan to look into the scoring thresholds of existing services and scenarios which in many cases are set too high to achieve the gold medals. My routes are littered with examples that cannot be marked as completed to gold medal level. It seems that with each new dlc the problem is only further amplified. Surely this is a simple fix.
Also, some of the completion rings on my profile page are showing that I still have scenarios to complete when in fact I have completed them all a long time ago. Surely another simple fix. Please can you help me understand what the process is JD or Matt.

 

THIS !!
I also get the feeling DTG is like: let's try and put the focus on the new routes this roadmap stream, so we don't have to deal with the usual cr*p people give us about bugs and all that...

 

Because they want to pay again for what you've already paid for.

 

No mention of lighting tonight. Colour me surprised

 

A few roadmaps ago it was mentioned that you were looking at track shadows and the need to have them present as they are? Any news on that? Also mentioned was looking at increasing the thickness of OHLE wires to make them appear more consistent and reduce flickering.