This is something that I suggested a while back, I believe this also would be a great addition to TSW as well.
Do you want them active, as in they have an effect in game, if so what would you want the effect to be?
For example ”CSX Equipment Defect Detector Milepost 289.6 Track 2 No Defects No Defects Total Axel 284 End of transmission”
I disagree, TS has this feature on come US routes and it does add to the immersion. Listening to railway Radio feeds and you will hear these defect detectors all across the various routes. Many railfans use these broadcast to know where and when a train is so they can intercept. Since defect detectors are part of real railways, why not include them in a simulation?
I didn't say not to. If you want immersion then have it in service mode that can randomly detect a failure and therefore restrict the speed of a service or take the unit out of service. ie make it fully immersive and impactful rather than "Hey, your train's wobbling a bit but you can continue at 125MPH into Paddington"
I could see randomly having a real defect from time to time, having the requirement to walk the train to inspect and possibly fix dragging equipment, or the need to set out a bad car. Those kind of things would go a LONG way towards making the sim more realistic, because those things really do happen. Would sure be more interesting than driving from point A to B with nothing to do in between but adjust the throttle and brakes.
I know it's a different sim, but AP have some scripting on their wagons which can add a bad wheel which activates a different sound, so it mat well be possible to add in a random trigger such as this which could end a service. Might be annoying for some who expect to drive for an hour having it cut short at 20 minutes, but the old phrase "S&*T happens" could apply
I don't think a defect needs to end a scenario, just requires you to do something about it, fixing dragging equipment or setting out the bad car at the next side track etc. I've long been an advocate of giving the player the option to control how much "realism" there is. If you want the locomotive to be easy to drive and not run into problems, set everything to easy, if you want it to be as realistic as possible and have problems come up along the way that you have to overcome, have a setting for that, that way every type of player is happy. DTG has something like this on some of their locomotives in TS, you can adjust how realistic the brakes behave, I always set it to the hardest setting because I enjoy the challenge.
I would definitely like to see something like this added to TSW it would bring more sense of realism to the game. I agree with StratPlayer62 this would not end the game, instead you would stop the train before the next signal and fix the issue.
Defect detectors are just warning devices... any remedial action is up to the driver and or dispatcher. Could be worked into a scenario where a defect is detected then appropriate action discussed with dispatch for a stop or divert into a siding and cut the bad car out.
I was thinking about various consist options going forward. Certainly if a HST set got a flat they would have the whole consist out of service for a few hours. Admittedly on a freight run you would just drop the one wagon off, but even then that could be built into a scenario which would make the point of having detectors more valid for me than a warning message and nothing else
That kinda relates to the "technical difficulties" scenario on RRO, where the pantograph has a fault and you reset it.
I actually brought this up on day one when TSW came out. Someone in this thread mention that the "engineer" and the dispatcher makes that final decision. That's actually WRONG, try again! The engineer will probably won't say anything or do anything. That's not their job to do so. The only thing the engineer will do is IMMEDIATELY bring the train to a stop with good train handling. That's ALL! There's only two people that can make those decisions, and not the conductor or the engineer. The conductor will visually inspect the train car and maybe use special marker know as "heat stick" depending on the situation. It's the mechanical help desk and they will send a carmen to inspect the rail car and make the necessary repairs. AND Dispatcher will be notified of the situation and the dispatcher may have the engineer proceed at restricted speed to the nearest siding. IF ITS SAFE TO DO SO AND DEPENDING ON TRACK AUTHORITY. (But the dispatcher as the final word) since dispatchers are managers. So NO the engineer as absolutely no say so in matter, neither does the conductor. As far as putting track detectors in a "train simulator" goes, well you either want a train simulator or train acade. But I was the very first person that brought this up in the forum, among cab away and other things.
Well, y'all better hope that Searchlight Simulations ports their new defect detectors from TS2020 to TSW.
I assume they are more like Chris Longhurst of ChrisTrains: "As long as TSW doesn't have official mod support, I'm not even looking at it."
A lot of Devs aren't happy, as the hobby has hit a brick wall with TSW, but at least TS2020 is still there but a lot of the devs are probably itching to do the detail that can be achieved now. I am sure scenario testing is greatly improved as well with UE4 probably. But I am keen to see what a third party dev can do without DTG's time restraints on development
This post is a clear example of why a third "instant reaction" option is desirable. While I'm happy to see the X option gone, something like "disagree" seems appropriate.
Actually Chris did export hit Flirt to the Unreal Engine, worked fine. But as long as DTG doesn't have a public editor available it, TSW is not of interested for people like Chris because he creates things for Train Simulator, they hardly drive any scenario. That is most of the people who a creating routes, loco's, assets or anything they tend to play less TSW as a casual gamer. And he has a lot more to do in Train Simulator (rounding up his latest project). I am sure that TSW has a road map, all of the suggestions keep adding to the roadmap and it keeps growing but DTG doesn't share things that are in the works until they are ready to be shown and shipped in a few days/weeks time (they made the mistake with the editor, showing it off, then, a possible beta and the end of 2018. It was postponed to somewhere around march/april 2019 but then it went silent until a little while ago with 'still work in progress'). I am interested to see the editor and start to use it, although it would be for scenario's as I am not a route builder, asset modeler or such. So for now, I enjoy the content we get and switch between the games. Anyway, we are stranding off-topic which was a suggestion, which I think was heard by DTG.
Having driven TS scenarios that include defect detectors, I agree that including them in TSW would add some spice, especially to break up the monotony of long runs. I also agree that defects that require action from driver, dispatcher, or both would be interesting. However, the latter would require some kind of "if/then" "if not/then" algorithm that does not seem to exist in TSW at present. TS scenario creator jbfried successfully experimented with LUA to incorporate fault detectors and other situations, such as speeding penalties, into his work. I had the honor and pleasure of test-driving some of his scenarios and always enjoyed the challenges he built into them.