To be honest I'd rather DTG focused on the core updates. Most of DTG's TS content just isn't very good, whereas they've been much better with the largely successful recent core updates. I'd rather have another optimisation update than one or two crappy routes or trains. Yes, it does mean DTG are the secondary developers for their own game, but they make enough money from TSW anyway.
I think DTG have upped their game on German routes, bringing in Schuster signals, better vegetation etc… Dresden Riesa and newer was pretty high end stuff.
I can't speak for German and US content although I expect it's a similar situation, but DTG's UK content is still outperformed functionality-wise by AP packs that are getting on for ten years old. Sound is a very similar story. The only thing DTG are semi-consistently good at is visuals.
The AP packs only improve on what DTG have made and if you don't like DTG UK routes what is the alternative?
I mean that could have been worded a little better, no offence (I can say one thing - we tried with what we had at hand - unless you mean more the trains than the actual scenery? )
Yes, most of the criticism is aimed at the trains themselves, less so the routes. Recent DTG routes are generally very good looking (bar some minor inaccuracies) although some of the longer ones have struggled in scenery quality, such as the western end of North Wales Coastal, the launch version of WCMLS and to a lesser extent the Rhones-Alpes extension. AP's EPs are usually the weakest stuff they make with some exceptions, but the loco packs are consistently good. Even their first ones have features DTG trains still don't have consistently. Granted their are some great DTG trains; the APT has dodgy sounds but is otherwise brilliant, and with the AP sound pack and Major Wales pack the Class 390 is almost as good as it can be. However, a quick trip through reviews of DTG's trains from the past and present don't paint a good light on them. Out of the newly-made trains by DTG, most range from average to terrible. The Class 323 is the latter even with the update; even VP's pack can't save its horrible model. The new Class 465 looks fine on the outside but has loads of little issues like the incorrect moquette (not sure how they managed that twice), weird controls, odd cab textures and sounds that managed to be worse than the original one which is getting close to ten years old I think. The Class 89 is probably the worst one I think (and based on its Steam reviews I think it's a unanimous verdict), its textures, sound and functionality is all just bad.
The problem is (and it's completely understandable to anyone with a mental age +13) is it's a balancing act between time (to research/develop/build), financial outlay (wages and overheads), verses returns (sales). I am in no doubt that the DTG crew could produce content that would blow any third party content out of the water with detail, custom assets and functionality, the issue like I said above is as a business DTG have to find a balance and having a paid team whittle away months and months and possibly even years on a singular project whether it be a route or rolling stock asset is just not financially viable and would be bad business practice in any industry. the way I look at DTG produced content is it provides it's core function it gives a good (ok sometimes not so good) out of the box representation of that route/rolling stock which is then usually a solid base for people with more time and inclination to tweak fettle and enhance. We all give DTG a hard time (myself included) but let it be for the right reasons, i.e. lack of communication, poor bug fix turnaround times and so on, let's not slate them for providing content though even if it does give the rivet counters sleepless nights.
My typical suggestion is to bundle some nice, less used loco DLC to the pack one way or another. The North Jersey Morristown route is one such example, supplying the ALP-46. I doubt that people still hoard middle aged packs, yet they would certainly improve the experience for Steam players. Heck, they could add some veteran AP packs. It isn't just the livery, but also the class. No matter how pretty it is, the umpteenth F7-GP9-SD40-ES44 quartet (or subset) will still be the same to drive, eventually boring. Like literally, by now the classes represented by RailWorks would best be blacklisted due to overuse. Even though I understand that these classes were overused and overloved in these countries. In contrast, even though basic, touring British classes like the 31, 33 or 67 was fun and interesting, even with their old sounds and bare minimum driving functionality. Yes, people can take the extra step and involve themselves with 3rd party suppliers (including freeware), but then there's little point in supplying scenarios and rolling stock with these routes.
And if the rivet counters can do better why don't they? - I am referring to the complainers - if they can do better why don't they do it instead of complaining. I totally agree with your comment albeit a misunderstanding of mine, c'est la vie.
I just hope that once they're happy that the core is as good as they can get it, we start to see more routes and traction from DTG because, as has been said above, they provide the base from which others can enhance. Where things fall down is the lack of new traction. If you're happy to pay third party companies for products then there's no end of new and updated routes on the way, but we're running out of good quality trains to drive on them. In 2023 there should be no need to use Kuju-era units and locos as has happened frequently with Steam releases.
Agreed! Although it makes a big difference depending on which country we are talking about. The UK has a big network of routes and it has ATS/JT closing many gaps. DTG´s last effort (Manchester-Leeds) was also a big "gap closer". ATS has even announcend a transpennine express merge including said route and Manchester-Liverpool. In general I´m really happy with the UK route map... in the future, DTG can focus on closing some last little gaps in the network. the missing parts of the London for example (Lee Valley Lines, Surrey Quays-Cannonbury, Thameslink core with custom assets). The Southeastern routes are famously beeing devolped by Nick in his amazing ever expanding route on the network. On the german side things look very different route wise...there a massive gaps and many mainlines missing. Also no one on third party side producing german routes like ATS or JT do in the UK. Things have been really bleak since DTG has cut down on the frequency of making routes. The german communities "lifeline" was waiting for DTG´s new German route and updating it (as sad as that may sound). With rolling stock im generally happy with my personal huge collection. Even on the german side there it not much left, that has not been made.
I still maintain that Newcastle - Carlisle is highly needed (and Glasgow - Carlisle via Kilmarnock as well)
Newcastle to Carlisle is a lovely route and would very welcome in either sim, might be a good one for TSW as they only have one scenic route atm (Leeds to Manchester). It's strange that German TSC fans have the opposite issue to UK ones. We have nearly a full UK network but we're really missing a lot of traction from the 50s,60s,70s, 10s and 20s.
In the last 2 years (approx) there have been 4 German routes from RSSLO (with a 5th coming soon). 1 from Waggonwerkstatt, 1 from Just Trains, with a second coming, and one from Virtual Track, with one coming soon, and one from TSG, which sadly seems to be their last. And we’ve had 4 DTG routes as well. Add in quite a few Austrian routes from both RSSLO and Railworks Austria.
I actually make a commentary on this in a yet to be published video. I know the last first-party route was Pegnitztalbahn on February 9, 2023, and they have since focused a lot of attention on the core of the game. What I can't say is whether they will make all the improvements they want to make (it sounds from the article like there will be at least a third phase, and who knows, maybe a fourth), and it's probably extremely difficult to try to make new routes while also restructuring how the game works. Therefore, my theory is they are focusing on the core exclusively, which is supported by the absence of new first-party content in the last six months. That said, perhaps they may be making plans after the core updates are complete to bring out new content on the game once again, with third-party content being the current method of new content, but such a decision would be made later in 2023, 2024, maybe even 2025. That's on DTG to announce, though, so treat what I say only as speculation as I do not have a first-person insight to that plan and would be barred from discussing it with full knowledge anyway (NDA type things). So for now, all focus for new first-party content is probably on TSW3 (and whatever follows, I've seen posts about such that I will not discuss further here as it's speculation). Will TSC be sunset after the core updates are complete? I can't say what they will decide to do, but it would be a sad day for all of us if that happens. Third-party support will continue to exist for this game in new content, however, if MSTS is any indication, so this game is far from dead regardless of what DTG does. It is therefore in their interest to concentrate on the core for the sake of those developers.
I think even DTG people told us that it's different teams, skills, tools. The core team is working in Visual Studio with languages like C++ or C#, integrating UI frameworks and other components. Content creators are using external tools to build assets and then wire them up in the world editor and test scenarios. One reason to withhold is trying to support and utilize some extremely impactful improvements. And, of course, content pacing. Regarding content from US, UK, DE, I suspect it reflects the size of community and the best aspects of each place. Notably, RS/RW was UK focused, with the US delivering spectacular scenery and continental Europe bringing high tech trains.
A route from TSG? Have I missed something? I thought TSG is only doing TSW3 now... Well, your list is surely correct. But many of the mentioned routes are S-Bahn, U-Bahn or branchline routes in a countryside setting. RSSLO are the only ones doing mainline routes and thank good for Passau-Regensburg and the upcoming München-Ingolstadt route. On the the mainline side there is nothing else happening besides Pushing Tins Bremerhaven-Hannover. And yes, I´m not making things better with my Harznetz diesel branchlines project on the freeware side ^^ ... To just give a few examples of what I´m talking about. One of the busiest ICE lines runs from Berlin through Hannover and Dortmund to Düsseldorf. We don´t even have one small piece of this entire service. Bremen/Hamburg to Munich is also only represented in TS up to Hannover. South of that it´s crickets on the high speed line and the old lines. The high speed route and old lines from Leipzig/Halle towards Nürnberg and Munich is also not present. Frankfurt-Köln high speed also missing, but I think it can´t be built trackwise because of TS restrictions. Bremen-Hamburg-Berlin .... I could go on.
TSG did the Rübelandbahn as their farewell to TSC project. Though it was an old project that Maik finished. RSSLO just hinted at more german main routes on their FB. (Unfortunately RSSLO has the slowest signal scripts imaginable)
What sort of restrictions? Not gradients as the Swiss routes have steeper lines than the ICE route and the Rübelandbahn is one of the steepest I have seen And there are other countries outside Germany that are even less represented in TSC.
That's continuous gradients, so mostly up hill (obviously downhill if you go the other way), the Cologne to Frankfurt High Speed line is more up and down (i've heard more of a rollercoaster mentioned - with the biggest gradient up to 4% ). I think only ICE 3 (ICE 3, ICE 3M, New ICE 3 etc) and ICE 4s can go on that line. Restrictions - TS1 struggles with a lot of steep gradient changes (not the actual gradients), I think Southeastern High Speed struggles with bumps on the 1 in 40s. The LGV route isn't as steep as it should be because of those restrictions. (so it's the up and down, not the going up the mountain routes )
IIRC users on Rail-Sim.de have tried their hand with Frankfurt Köln sfs, and found that it is a nogo with the rolling stock we have. Perhaps for the very readon atomicdanny mentions.
Changes like in the super old versions do not actually happen in real life. It's always smooth. Not only because it's one piece of rail (could be cut), but also the wheels, bearings and the whole suspension might not like sudden changes. Donner Pass already has gradual changes for that. The rest is really just coupler physics and it shouldn't be any different from running a transition from +2% or -2%. It's challenging in real life to minimize slack action, but. What else am I not thinking about? Anything similar to my consist separation struggles, tile load resets and alike causing havoc? ps.: Hagen-Siegen has 3.5% if I recall correctly around the midpoint. It is smoothened a bit. I also understand some old stock is extremely prone to overreact on some forces, just running the ICE 1 at speed shows it excessively. The oldest stock is pretty much impossible to topple in order to avoid issues with that.
Freeware and some payware routebuilders (I think even Maik Goltz) have said on Railsim, that it can´t be done.... some have tried it in the editor and failed as far as I know. I guess that would not stop anyone making it "semi fictional" with lesser gradients and working the landscape around that. Rolling stock situation has changed for this route though.... ICE Velaro is on Steam in very good quality. 3D Zug has done the ICE 4 and the ICE-T and ICE-2 are in the works. I guess they will also do the ICE 3 at some point in high quality. When german highspeed was announced for TSW 3, I was really hoping for Frankfurt-Köln to be honest.
PS - I have done track in TS1 Including London to Faversham (the route where this was discovered at least in DTG ) I mean it is a long route - and frankfurt is a horrible station (trackwise) (I thankfully got out of adding OHLE to Frankfurt Hbf in TS1 )
Correct on both points. It is very visible from the adjacent autobahn and has to be seen to be believed.
