Please... please... Give us proper headlights for US trains. Staring into the Wyoming/California/Pennsylvania darkness through the windscreen for hours at a time is mind-numbing. Real headlights don't project a cone of darkness beyond 100 meters, they light up everything for a mile or more. Please. Headlights.
This is a perennial issue. It's been mentioned in numerous threads over the years. Some locos have halfway decent headlights, on Cajon Pass, BPE and NYT, but many are so weak that they prevent nighttime driving, on CRR, for instance. I doubt that this is going to change any time soon. One tactic I use at night on freight routes is to drive with the outside camera to improve visibility, especially in poor weather conditions. The " official " explanation is that brighter headlights would be distracting in daylight hours, which, if you're familiar with US loco headlights, makes no sense.
Yea, crosstie is correct. With the headlight system used in previous routes, lights cast even in the morning and if it extended out for miles, it washes everything out cuz of the blind lights or an ai train blinds you. Even with the new lighting, I think there are still the same limitations to why headlights are the way they are. Either makes the day super bright cuz of the headlights extending so far or an ai train blinds you, etc.
It's a fairly common practice among US engineers to dip their headlights when passing another locomotive, just as you would do when passing another vehicle on the highway. It's just common courtesy. However engineers are not allowed to dim or turn off headlights or ditch lights when approaching grade crossings or stations. In the game, AI trains could be coded to use dimmed headlights at all times. That would not affect the player train's headlights, which are controlled by the player.
If it's "not possible" then why is American Truck Simulator able to have decent night time headlights that don't blind you during the day? And why do some TSW routes have halfway decent headlights?
For one, with a correctly set up lighting, the daylight brightness would make even a full headlight have barely any visible effect on the surrounding - just like in real life, in daylight the headlights on your car don't make anyhting brighter. In this sense, TSW3's new TOD4 seems to be an improvement, as headlights and cab lights are barely noticeable now in daylight. So TSW3 might be on the right track with this. For two, you are supposed to dim your headlights when meeting other trains coming from the other way, exactly for the reason you stated, so you don't blind them. There are plenty of games out there that can do headlights properly. It's entirely possible.
It would be nice if lights could be seen from a long distance. IRL you can see the headlights of a train long before you see the train itself. The opposite goes for taillights. At the moment the train ‘pops in’ to view and then the headlights appear. There’s no need to bring the train in early if it’s going to ruin performance but making the headlights visible as soon as possible would be great. Same goes for signals. You can often see the signal light long before you can make out the actual signal itself.
Yes, but there are some instances, I'm thinking of Cajon Pass for instance, where the low luminance of some wayside signals is such that the aspect cannot be seen at a distance.
You sure about "a mile or more"? Train headlights are meant to be seen from a great distance, but I'm not sure it's possible to light up the track that far ahead from the height those lights are at.
One "cheat" sometimes used in games to prevent that is to code the headlights to the time of day or the darkness around you, so that, for example, only the emissive textures are placed on the locos headlights during the day without actually casting any light. And the darker it gets around the loco, the brighter they get. Of course that would mean they would only light the tunnel once inside it during the day, but a fix for that is by placing the "darkness sensor" at the end of the headlight cones as well as in the loco itself and using the average value between them, or a special ratio. How possible that is in TSW I have no idea, but that's how a game dev friend of mine explained it to me.
Heck, my bumper-mounted KC lights used to light things up a mile away... Now, reflectivity helps, but there was that one jackrabbit that ran across the road about 1/2 mile ahead when we were on the road from Limon to Colo Springs. The point is, train headlights illuminate to a far greater distance than 100 meters. If they didn't, train speed would be restricted.
