Are Routes Long Enough + What Truly Makes A "great" Route?

How do you drive ICE between major cities?
Koln Munich Hamburg Dresden...
I haven't heard Augsburg Oldenburg Riesa Kassel Wurzburg.
For me, there are no "real" Germany high-speed, until I played TSC Dresden-Leipzig.
Please forgive my ignorance. I don't know how many kinds of ICE there are. I know Europe through DTG games, I don't have money to go to real Europe. TSW says that there are only two types of ICE in Germany.

 

Kassel - Würzburg is probably the most 'high speed' of the routes as it clocks in the best part of 180km with only one stop along the way.

 

There are about 7 ICE types in service at the moment (maybe even more, but I’m not sure).

yeah, Kassel Würzburg is about the Fastest ICE line playable in TSW, although there are also other lines (for example Nuremberg-Ingolstadt) with speeds up to 300km/h

 

I found a graphic showing the ICE services, with the high speed lines highlighted

 

I am poor at English. I mean TSW can't show German rail well.
If UK HS1 only has shorter route: Stratford-Ashford. Would you buy such the DLC?
TSW route is fragmented, incomplete. The biggest problem is that you can't merges DLC.
Unable to merges routes DLC. How do you drive ICE from Koln to Munich?
Loco DLC also can't layer in route DLC. I can't see ICE1 in old route.
I have no interest in buying short UK route, too expensive compared to TSC. I haven't heard of these places, and I don't know how special they are?
For me, 5 short routes and loco DLC, not as good as 1 long full one.
Not long ago I bought TSC pack: 8 routes, less than US$30.
Dresden-Leipzig, Euston-Birmingham, Washington-Baltimore...
Why not try TSC?
TSC has a list called professional range. I don't think TSW is pro of TSC. Both are usually full of bugs.
But TSC has mods eg. Open Northeast Corridor Project. Fix NEC signal successfully.

 

Mergers can't ever happen, at least not for a really long time due to how complex it is and not having the track of course. It means rebuilding the entire timetable from scratch and the game would have to know exactly what dlcs you own and dynamically change the timetable. For instance, merging 2 routes requires 3 separate timetables (1 for each route, 1 merged). Merging 3 routes (1 each, 1 merged with all 3, 2 merged for having just 2 dlc). That number will only grow exponentially. Then you have to consider if your system can even handle it. It has to load in or have everything ready to load in and the world becomes massive due to the merges, possibly causing performance problems. Some routes are already really resource intensive and merging them with another would result in more problems.

Adding in a loco dlc also requires some rebuilding of the timetable. If the route isn't futureproofed for all future dlc to layer in, you can't just add in the train and everything works perfectly. Nobody would have known an ice1 would have come to tsw. To add it into existing German routes would mean rebuilding the entire timetable. That is several months of creating it and testing it while they have other big projects to do. Game development is a lot more complicated than you think.

 

You can't prepare for ICE1? Is this a technical difficulty? More like no vision. It sounds ridiculous.
Is it IMPOSSIBLE to create ideal game? (better than TSC)
If the extension is difficult, why is it so short in first?
For old DLC, buying more new DLCs NEVER get better results.
I stop investing in TSW. Too expensive and not ideal.

 

A longer route is no guarantee it be a better route just a more broken one.Yes you read that right it be more broken and don't kid yourself into thinking it wouldn't.

 

Dtg can't predict for every single future unreleased dlc that is going to come out and guarantee it will be in every single route.

Deadlines exist, meaning it's not possible to create a 100+km route for every single route release. In that time frame, they have to model all the scenery, stations, rolling stock, simugraph setup (sounds, physics), 24hr timetable, signaling logic, features/new features, simulation, testing for that entire 100+km route. Things take more time the bigger the route and results in certain decisions. Cajon pass for example is around 85 miles long but you see poorer scenery in some parts and there is no modeling of stations required or passenger services. Harlem line was only made to nwp due to making the new york skyline instead of making it all the way to southeast where electrification stops, then it would have resulted in a poorer looking new york city. Kwg may be long but you've got the same looking scenery and tons of tunnels and only 3 stations. Once there's more and more things for a route, it becomes time consuming and tedious. Dtg can't survive by releasing only a few dlcs a year.

 

Fully agree that raw route-length does not make for compelling gameplay. Kassel-Würzburg is the perfect example of that. If they had included the parallel conventional line (that is, more of it than the short section you can see at Burgsinn), that would have been a fantastic opportunity to include much more traffic variety (freight during the day, not just at night; local and semi-fast passenger services; diverted high-speed services on the conventional line). However, it would also have sharply increased the content creation costs due to the need to add *another* 100km of lineside scenery and track furniture, even if most of it is only a few miles from the main line. This is likely why they didn't do it.

I'm generally a fan of "network" routes for that reason, though it can take much attention to detail to take full advantage of the potential. Midland Mainline has not yet explored all that potential, and I note that many of the yards connected to the route are inaccessible (ie. out-of-bounds), not merely unused by the current timetable, which may sharply limit *future* potential for the route unless fixed. Peak Forest looks very promising in this regard, with the important branch to Buxton connected by a triangular junction.

Gameplay is also inextricably linked with the quality of the trains provided. I notice *very* quickly if the physics are not at least qualitatively correct (which is why I avoid Rivet products). This is the one thing that Midland Mainline unequivocally gets right. In other cases, such as Tharandter Rampe and Spirit of Steam, there are significant physics problems (yes, even after SoS's recent patch) which directly affect playability. In some cases the mapping of keyboard (or controller) inputs to train controls could profitably be improved. There are a few recurring problems (AFB on German trains, brake behaviour and strength, diesel-hydraulic physics) which deserve dedicated attention by someone actually familiar with the subject.

There's an overarching theme, too: attention to detail. It might have been noticed before release, for example, that several of the southern stations on London Commuter have no service whatsoever in the timetable, had there been a release-checklist item for this. Similarly, several stations on Bremen-Oldenburg have only twilight services; nothing during the day to serve commuters, shoppers, or leisure travellers. There are also some small but puzzling omissions; the BR182 and BR101 are both entirely capable of performing passenger services with their impressive top speeds, but the BR182 is available only on freight services in Timetable Mode, while the BR101 is only used on a few services specific to itself. This makes it difficult to enjoy these two otherwise excellent locos to their full potential.

On Midland Mainline, a tester familiar with UK signalling might have noticed several unprototypical signal aspect combinations, lack of correspondence between speed signs and track speeds, some TPWS grids set for the wrong speeds, and some AWS magnets just plain facing the wrong way - all on a simple drive from one end of the route to the other, as the player is invited to do very early in Journey Mode. More generally, having at least one tester habitually driving with the safety systems switched on (which is not the default!) would quickly discover bugs in these, as well as timetables which cannot be adhered to whilst also obeying the associated defensive-driving rules.

What Kassel-Würzburg *does* establish is that long routes are feasible in the TSW3 game engine. The length of this route is, coincidentally, similar to the length of Shikoku island in Japan, from northeast to southwest. This island is home to JR Shikoku's complete railway network, connected to the mainland at one point - the Great Seto Bridge - with a well-defined handover point to JR West at the first station beyond it. The north-coast line is electrified, while those running to the south are not; there is a mixture of express passenger, local passenger, and freight services sharing a mostly single-track network with many passing loops. There are even a few unique trains, some set up specifically for tourists, others simply with special cosmetic treatments - including one railcar, working a decidedly backwater rural branch, which has been incongruously modified to resemble a Series 0 Shinkansen. It would be an enormous (and expensive!) undertaking to actually bring this network into the game - but technically feasible, to be sure.

 

"However, it would also have sharply increased the content creation costs".

DTG is a multi-million and maybe multi-billion dollar company that just got bought by one of the biggest entertainment groups/companies in the world..

To say that it's too expensive for DTG to eventually expand all routes that need to be expanded, over time, no matter how long it takes, is the biggest nonsense I've ever heard.

 

Bill Gates* didn't become a billionaire by building stuff for $100 and selling it for $50.

* insert your least favourite billionaire here

 

Can't help but laugh at this post.

 

I

I think the poster was referring to development time to create a brand new section of track. Just cause dtg earns all that revenue doesn't mean they have the budget, employees and time of that of a triple A game developer.

 

They did it with SEHS.

 

And SEHS was a totally different situation to just "any old extension"

 

SEHS was the most popular of the routes not included with TSW2, so a pretty safe candidate for a redo.

 

And to think I agreed with and admired your opening post........

 

You suggested that Dovetail could be a multi-billion $ company, and that focus were one of the largest companies in gaming...

...and, ironically, whilst calling someone else's point

Accidentally comedic.

 

You both can disagree with me while showing a tad more respect doing it.

I have no idea who Focus Entertainment are. I readily admit that, but anyone who thinks DTG are wanting for money needs to probably re-evaluate things.

I would like to end the discussion here as we are going around in circles and clogging up the thread.

Any further posts, depending on its nature, will either be ignored or reported.

 

Respect is earned, not given freely

- King Hussein Nishah (1538–1599) (probably)

 

These stations which currently have no services in London Commuter are actually served by Thameslink a majority of the time in real-life, however, there are still some Southern services which do actually serve such stations in reality though.

 

solution is adding portal junctions to routes

 

When DTG first stepped into the development of TSW, I believe that they encountered many difficulties, and they have enough reasons to convince us, (for example, the intensity of development far exceeds that of TSC, time relations, scenes, and various complex environments.) As time goes by Moving forward, I don't think DTG has any reason to refuse to develop longer routes nowadays, (of course they will surprise us every year), I think the surprise once a year is far from enough. Five years have passed, and the DTG development experience is mature enough, but they still insist on short-distance development? Has the development tool not been upgraded in five years? Are all the developers in five years still new employees who just joined the company? Has the game engine not been upgraded in five years? Haven't mastered development skills in five years? Has the difficulty of development not decreased in five years? What the hell have you been doing for five years?

 

Nothing wrong with short routes whatsoever, and it's nothing to do with skill of workers or engine tools, it's to do with time.

The longer a route is the longer it takes to make, and in turn the more costly it is.
As techniques and technology improves its possible to cut time out of this, but you'll never make it so that a short route takes the same amount of work as a long one. Simple.

 

The way DTG seem to develop the route is that they start from a blank canvas each time (with a few core aspects in the core game) and then make everything from scratch each time, adding in new developments along the way (deep snow being one of the new ones which needs to be built in from route commencement as an example)

So for me it's not "what have they been doing for the last five years?" because we know what they've been doing
We also know that because of how they make routes, and how those interact with the core functions they often "dev themselves into corners" meaning that old content might get broken when putting in new functions and features.

I guess this is one thing that DTG may have against them that other developers (who would have abandoned 5 year old content most likely) may not face

 

It's probably better in some parts. There's a lot to do within the timeframe that they have. From the actual modeling, timetable, simugraph/simulation setup to testing. If you read their latest roadmap article, they mentioned about lidar to build terrain and elevations which makes route building easier but it's not in a state where it will do everything. They still have to manually place lots of assets which is a lot of work if you do that over longer routes. Game development is complicated and the more you add to it, the longer it takes. Dtg don't have the budget or team size like a triple a title.