One thing that stood out for me in today's stream was the omission of right bank AI trains. While it didn't surprise at, the reasoning for it took me off guard. The traffic on the right bank supposedly isn't represented because of the width of the river and TSW render distance. While I do agree that the render distance in the game for trains is small, it is not THAT small. Trains in TSW pop in at pretty much exactly a 1km distance from the camera. The distance between the two routes in the valley is usually around 500 m (in the best-known spots, this goes down to as little as 270m), so given the 1km circle around your camera, you would still see plenty of trains on the other side for a long time, let alone if they run in the same direction as you do. Seeing traffic on both sides is an essential element of this route that was left out and excused poorly. Together with the recent NYT fiasco, it seems to me DTG is either completely missing the important factors of the routes they make, or they are simply cutting corners wherever possible. If you make this section of the route, you HAVE TO know both banks are busy with rail traffic, and the river itself is busy with ships. Both the river and the right bank are completely DEAD (it has been mentioned there are some moving ships, but there was not a single one in the stream, so that was a straight-up lie). Shame... this route was one of the potential 9-10/10, especially with the 103, but it again seems like another underdelivering product.
But trains on the far bank would appear as little more than moving dots, while taking up significant CPU/GPU cycles on what is likely to be a demanding route.
Ignore Solicitr, I saw one or two meandering around on the water but it’s not nearly busy enough. It’s one of the busiest inland waterways in Europe. I can see why they didn’t add trains on the far bank but it looks completely deserted at the moment, like there’s nothing there. They could of perhaps laid the track and had some basic models shuttling around- maybe like how Rivet did the Edinburgh trams. That way they wouldn’t hit performance too hard but there would still be something going on over on the other side.
Exactly, especially in the area where the two banks are really close together. And the ships - they have the system - it worked on Bremen and we could even add our own variety to it with the LD.
Even TS classic had boats and planes you could make move. You’d just make a path like you were laying track and they’d follow it. No reason why this can’t be done, the boats don’t have to be very detailed. Maybe some of the river cruise ships could have a bit more time spent on them as they come in close sometimes.
Well, for one, I would take every excuse DTG throws at us with a grain of salt. They have proven it several times that tend to make up lies to explain things. For example, remember when they said that the derailments on Arosalinie were realistic, then later confirmed that it was actually incorrect buffer physics? Or a more recent example, the New York - Trenton timetable, regarding which at first they said it is low on service numbers because they didn't want to overstress the new signalling system. Then later on they admitted to simply not finishing the timetable because they have ran out of time... But to be fair, I do think this is a correct excuse this time. As you have said, the render distance for trains in TSW currently seems to be 1 km. That means you will start seeing trains from 1km when they are on the same/adjacent track to you. But if they are parallel to you and 500m (or even more) away to the sides, the area they actually render will be much smaller, as they will be close to the edge of the 1km radius circle around you. So they would barely render for a few hundred meters when they are the closest to you and because they are out in the open over the river, the pop-in would be very, very noticeable. To fix the issue, it would be really time to increase the draw distance on rolling stock. The current render distance was set up for SPG, which was a twisty mountain route with shorter trains, so you never had the issue of seeing trains popping in, as you never had big open spaces. But since we have more open routes, flat straights, an overall increased scenery draw distance and longer trains. This results in much noticeable pop-ins, and also on US routes with long freight trains, you can literally see the end of your own train stop rendering, even incoming AI trains popping in and out.
I can excuse them not fully modelling the right Rhein line, however what I would have liked to see is in key sections clearly visible for our tracks would be static (even if it was just low res outlines) trains across the river sat at signals. I feel that would have been a happy compromise rather than pretending the lines didnt exist at all.
Let's say this is right, which i'm not totally sure (been a long time since Geometry lol), but even so doesn't this again call into question their project management? When the team are pitching route ideas (assuming that's how it works), shouldn't someone be like, "yeah, that would be a great choice if we could push our render distance out further, let's table it until the tech is there" So many of the (justified imo) complaints about recent releases really boil down to project scope and management IMO. When the public explanation for the lean NY-Trenton timetable is "we ran out of time".....sorry but that's just lame
Has there been a route they made that didn't had a missed opportunity? Maybe the ones still under construction cause they're not finished yet... No PIS either because It was hard to make. One would think that after many years of repeated issues caused by "lack of time" they would plan better, right? Well, we'll treat each other then with same amount of "time" then.
Maybe they had plans for a full barge / boat timetable for the Rhine, but simply ran out of time and could only put a few pieces here and there to meet their deadline
Well, its obvious that Right Rhine Train AI was cut due to time/too much work reasons. It didnt even make it into the TSC version and you really cant expect them to lay another 90 kms of properly set up track just for AI. What is more important imo is the ship/barge traffic on the rhine, which wasnt quite visible in the Stream apart from a few static boats. Maybe i missed it but were there moving boats anywhere, and i dont recall them saying something about it in the Stream other than it should be there.
They did mention moving ships are present, but none were visible in the stream nor in 10-in-10 highlights.
That I think misrepresents what was said. Matt was describing the process of timetable building, where you add a handful of services, not too many because too many would overload the dispatcher, test that, then add a handful more. Lather, rinse, repeat. This all takes time, and they ran out of that. I still fault them for not budgeting enough time, or not delaying the release until they got it finished, because the current state of the timetable is unacceptable, but it's inaccurate to assert that the two statements were separate, or worse dishonest.
Matt has said that yes. But before that, I believe JD wrote a reply here on the forums that only said something along the lines of "trying not to overload the dispatcher". Of course, might have not been an intentional lie. JD does not seem to be fully aware of the technical things regarding TSW, so maybe he simply didn't know how to put it in words.
My own view is that recent routes like NYT and, possibly, the upcoming Rhine route are unfinished, not because they ran out of time for those particular projects. After all, there have been occasions when DTG has extended the time allotted to a route. The first time was the delay in releasing Heavy Haul/ TSW for about 3 weeks and then the delays in releasing Rush Hour routes, particularly BML, back in 2021. I think the time constraints are because, for whatever reason, they are rushing to get more routes out the door these days and they can't extend deadlines for individual dlc even if they wanted to. Just look at the crowded March schedule. Even 3rd party products crowd the release timetable, I would imagine. Then you have the phenomenon of people rushing to " polish up" routes right up to the last minute before release. There's a " hurry up " attitude going on here. I'm speculating here, but I think there are probably those at the company who would like to take more time with each route, but may be overruled by their superiors. Of course, this is just my take I hasten to add, and I may be reading things totally incorrectly.
