The Problem With Rivet

Not been keeping a close eye on this thread but it wouldn't surprise me. The other week there was a thread started around a issue with ATS regarding a potential security loophole either with their ordering system or their installer. It ran for about half a day then just utterly vanished. The assumption has to be that third party "partners" are trying to influence what gets posted. Back to the old IHH vs. UKTS situation again. And the irony is, before he went over to the dark side, the bearded one used to be one of TSW's biggest critics in some of his YT reviews - I remember him laying into WSR when it first came out.

Anyway, enough forum politics. I've got an 87 to thrash over Shap...

Edit: Well I see Jan has responded so I redact some of what I said above, but would still be interested to know what happened to the ATS thread and whether there were any conclusions around the alleged loophole. Not that I buy anything from there anyway, having gotten flamed by him on the FB group for having the temerity to query the subscription based system.

 

Thank you DTG Jan, I hope you enjoyed your dinner? It would be great if Rivet would answer some of the criticism about their work as this isn’t good for DTG. With a new Train Simulator on the horizon Train Planet, Rivet will need to improve three fold or customers might swap to TP on release if it’s as good as it looks.

There is a lot of unhappy Rivet customers posting on other social media channels especially Facebook, as well. Cannot understand why Rivet doesn’t work hard to correct their deficiencies.

 

Ah fair dos Jan mate. It just caught me out a bit earlier in my break as I were more skim reading this in between having a conversation and I thought that what I were reading were familiar, then realised it were!

 

Wow. I am definitely not buying this route. Lol

 

l am waiting to hear what Rivet will announce in tomorrow’s Roadmap before l post some similar images. I would add if Rivet can replicate the Forth Bridge why is it that this bridge shown by zzw1983 is not up to the same standard. Was the Forth Bridge done by someone Rivet got to do it and the rest is Rivet’s usual abysmal standard?

 

Again, thin lines don't show up well in 3D graphics.

 

The cables on The Queensferry Crossing are not thin. The cables on the 1st Forth Road Bridge are far thinner than those on The Queensferry Crossing in real life. Just look at the above photograph, you can see how thick The Queensferry Crossing cables are compared to the workers in the cradle. As intended, The Queensferry Crossing dominates the 1st Forth Road Bridge and its cable design compliments the design of the Forth Rail Bridge. It's simply shoddy work that Rivet thought they would get away with. It looks appalling and should never have passed quality control.

Now, compare the thickness of the the cables on the above photo to this one. This is a photo of work being done on the 1st Forth Road Bridge. These are the thickness of the cables on the 1st Forth Road Bridge. They are many times thinner compared to those on The Queensferry Crossing. So, in this case and in my opinion, your above claim doesn't really hold water I'm afraid.



The other well known major blunder on this route is the desert that is Edinburgh International Airport, with not a plane in sight, neither on the ground nor in the air. Not to mention it's missing runways, which can facilitate landings of B747-200 Jumbo aircraft. This photo shows an Air China B747 Jumbo landing at Edinburgh. Even the US Presidential Air Force One B747-200 has landed at Edinburgh Airport. If not planes in the air, why then none on the ground, which in real life are clearly visible from the rail line? Again, cheap, shoddy workmanship.



Here's photo of a train passing Edinburgh Airport. It's on the Edinburgh to Fife line. Look at all those aircraft on the ground that Rivet simply couldn't be bothered modelling.



Here's a flight crossing over the Edinburgh to Fife rail line.



The poor excuse given by Rivet about resources and modelling EDI AIrport simply doesn't add up. Rivet has cut corners to save either time or money when producing this route. It's in no way up to the TSW4 standards which we now expect for the money we are paying. It's as simple as that, and both Rivet and Dovetail know it.

 

I'll just post this here as the view of the bridges from the airport on take off

 

When you see that, then I’m afraid the “L” word which we know the devs hate, firmly applies. This is a commercial project not a freeware TSC route where the builder is scratching around looking for stuff to use from other routes. If there are no airline livery licenses in place, nothing to stop a few fictional ones from being applied.

 

Even tees valley had an airport with planes, and popullated depots / yards. (4-5 yars ago?)

So yes, the decision to release fife circle with all the angry community reactions is somewhat lazy. Same on the rivet forum, same comments on steam reviews.

My answer for DTG to allow a release such as that, will be my purchais of the semmering in summer for 70-80% discount.

With the substitution mess got introduced in tsw4, my support ended for DTG, Rivet and skyhook.

Still a "fan" of this simulator, but the time i spend money for dlcs is definitive over. Its funny after 10 years and 20k of purchaises in total, the word "laziness" made my decision.

 

The funny thing is that DTG already created pretty good looking airplanes for other DLCs. This for example is the "SM_Aircraft_01_parked" static mesh from the Left Rhine folders.



Rivet could have simply placed them at the grassland which should be the airfield of an international airport for them.

Creating at least an authentic airplane scenery this way, is a job under or within 10 minutes.

Jasper stated that performance were a problem being a edge spot where the Forth bridge spawns in.

Knowing now that the entire route to Glasgow is sitting unused in the DLC, with 2 branches running around north and south of the airport (both said to have complete scenery), I can understand that performance might have been a bigger problem to the spot where the airport is located. I give them that point.

However, I'm asking then why they decided to get those branches and most of all the entire way to Glasgow in - being either completely or mostly unused by playable services, if performance were a problem, resulting in sacrificing the airport for it?

Apart of the above, I really can't understand how a few airplane static meshes, that didn't even move, not even a runway, which basically is one oversized road landscape spline, could had such a big impact on performance.

For me, there seems to be a lack of interest from their part to at least get it done in a way which has almost no impact to performance or getting rid off other unnecessary things which influence the outcome and had provided a better scenery and timetable for the mainline.

That is exactly the experience I was hoping for in the DLC. Running your train there and seeing (and hearing) airplanes taking off and departing directly over your head.

Sadly, they were not even capable of replicating the airport without airplane blueprints in move.

I don't even know if "lazy" is the correct word for it. Because being lazy implies to me that someone is aware of doing something better but refrains having not enough interest or discipline getting it done.

However, in regard that this is a commercial product and there seems to be kind of a elobarte business strategy behind the curtains, plus adding that there are no real signs of responsibilty/apology from their side that their product didn't met costumer expectations and quality standards, I think just being lazy is not the correct term for it.

When I go into a supermarket and get something different than I thought I would pay for (f.e. a product of lot less quality than advertised) but the seller still is confident enough that he sells me the right thing, I would call him a cheater or fraud.

 

We have Aeroplanes landing at Gatwick in London Commuter, and in a scenario in Antelope Valley, that doesn’t effect performance.

What really amazes me is that Rivet turn a blind eye to all this adversity concerning their products, apart from banning you on their forums. As a company they are not strong enough to either acknowledge their continual errors or respond with genuine reasons as to the reasons why. They just continue to chuck out their lazy unfinished and shoddy products and expect us to fork out £29.99.

If you were in a Restaurant and ordered a £10 full english breakfast and on your plate you received a poorly presented mashed up egg and half a slice of bacon and nothing else, wouldn’t you complain!! If they continued presenting their food like that, you wouldn’t go there again and you would tell your friends about the experience you had. Customers talk and word of mouth can do so much concerning the reputation of a business, both good or bad. Rivet and Jasper never comment constructively or explain why they have made a mess up. I have never been a Rivet fan since they made a disgraceful whooping big mess of my beloved St. Ives and the whole Cornish route and will continue to voice my opinions if their work is shoddy. For what I pay for, like the full English breakfast they tried to serve you with, I expect more on my plate!!! Wouldn’t you too? If they banned you, you’d tell the world of your experience.

lt’s about time Rivet grew up, and work hard to correct all their shoddy products or fold as a business because what they present is certainly not good enough and they are not worthy of competiting with the Proffessionals. If you compare any of their routes with Just Trains Blackpool Branches, Rivet’s best is a joke in comparison. Rivet please either step up to the mark or give up and concentrate on making better locomotives.

 

I hope skyhook announcement will possibly be an extension to Sheffield for the MML but I doubt it cause they will probably have to to the whole route again or it could be a entirely new route

 

As I may have already remarked, Rivet are very much becoming the Abacus of TSW. Except that’s probably an insult to the one or two half decent products Abacus did manage to make for MSTS, like Train Sim Modeller.

 

My guess...

Why is the entire route to Glasgow unused and uses resources unnecessarily? Because of laziness!!! They simply used an initial construction stage of the 'Scotrail Express' (but with the tracks already to Glasgow) so that Edinburgh train station and its tracks did not have to be built again. The FCL was then built more badly than well on top of that.

There is no other explanation, but it shows nicely that no effort was put into building the route and only the bare minimum was done.

 

The thickness of the cables in real life is entirely irrelevant to my point, which is that thin lines - remembering that something thick can appear thin if viewed from far away - don't show up well on monitors. No one has actually posted any proof - e.g. from the editor - that the cables are in fact missing.

 

Even from a distance, I would expect at least something resembling the cables.

 

Taken from Microsoft Flight Simulator.

 

Yes, but honestly I can understand the decision why they used the elemantory Scotrail Express route as a starting point for Fife Circle, because everything in Edinburgh is in place where it should be. It doesn't even need to be recreated. But as defending Rivet this may sound, for me it's rather the opposite. It's even one point of effort less they put into this product, recycling pure work done for the Scotrail express. And the time saved by doing so, easily could have been put into enhancing the product on a different point.

However, DTG probably did similar things with MSB and Maintalbahn I guess, but and this was my point, it doesn't explain why they left the entire route to Glasgow in the final product.

There are ways to remove the tracks and the landscape tiles, once they reused Edinburgh and build the Fife Circle upon it. There is no reason why it should remain in there and consumes ressources for no reason. Ressources badly needed for essential elements of the route of this DLC, the Fife Circle, and not the Scotrail Express.

I think instead of just being lazy, it's rather a complete braindead move unless it has no other explanation (for example a future fusion of both routes) being there.

 

Not sure the extra E-G trackage would be an issue, as I believe only certain tiles are loaded into memory at once.

 

Whats the ETA on the fix

 

please banned Rivet as Partner for there awful Quality

 

Yes, the tiles of landscape and scenery are loaded due to level streaming. But it can affect the entire route nonetheless, if certain actors are moved to the persistent level for example. Depends upon factors like this, which are only known in its capacities to the actual developers themselves. Another disadvantage I can see is that it unnessarily makes the route DLC files a lot bigger in size on your hard drive and maybe requires a few checkup readings before launching the route - maybe even when being on it.

Actually quite a good question. Need to do more research on that matter.

 

Wow. Just, wow.

Puts it to shame on Fife Circle.

 

I think Microsoft used satellite and other aerial photos, then they had an algorithm to create the scenery automatically.

A technology and game engine like this maybe would have been better for Train Sim World.

 

Seems a sensible idea Robert, but I am not asking for perfection from Rivet, I just want to see a more life like effort that shows that Rivet have tried to recreate it. That is just not happening. What annoys me, is that they will make a building look really like the original but the rest of them bares no resemblance whatsoever.

 

Again, where is the proof that the cables aren't modelled?

 

Those bridges aren't photogrammetry, they are actual models in one of the official scenery packs.

 

Yes, I thought about something like that for landmarks. Because they look too adequate for being made by photogrammetry. However, I think replicating the terrain and vegetation in the way Mircosoft would not only save a huge amount of time when creating new routes, but also provide the scenery a bit better.

I think the side effect would be that DTG and third parties could have made way more routes, if they had such an algorithm.

 

It has it's pros and cons, it works well for FS because of the amount of time you spend a long distance from the terrain, when you get close, which you do in a train, it becomes less appealing, that said, a lot of people enjoy driving cars and boats in FS, so.....
You also have the other issue of bandwidth, streaming that scenery takes a huge amount of bandwidth, and I am not sure that MS would allow access to the azure map streaming services to a non MS product.
But yeah, that's probably the way things will go in the future.

 

I don't think this system would really make sense for a railway simulation.

From the air, the shots and graphics in Flight Simulator look great, no question, very great. But you should not forget that railways run on the ground and there are completely different requirements for the quality of vegetation and buildings. A good comparison is if you turn on the 3D function on Google Maps, because it uses the same system as the Flight Simulator.

That still looks good!



But the quality drops significantly from close up or even from the ground. Otherwise, something like this wouldn't be possible in terms of performance, so in my opinion it doesn't apply.



Trees don't look so good either, so they would have to be placed and designed manually.


The system fails at the latest when it comes to the bridge itself and construction would have to be done manually.


That's why such a system makes sense in a flight simulator - you're in the air - but not in a train.

 

I still think it really impressive for something that models the entire planet.

 

The algorithm could analyze whether there are trees on a certain spot and populate these with tree assets like we have in the DLCs. Same goes for buildings. Already a tool like this would help so much creating routes. But I guess yes, the quality is simply too less to do something like that with it. Nice to talk about possibilites, though.

 

Yep, nothing to stop having a few "Boring 4.74"s parked on the runways in "UK Airlines" and "Simpleplane" liveries.

 

My money has the same problem with Rivet Games bank account.... It just never shows-up there.

Must be a pretty widespread bug or something?

 

Ooh, or the plane could be a "SkyTram DTG360"

 

This or what DTG already did. A simple unbranded "Airlines" - Copyright infringements impossible

 

Absolutely thrilled to see on the roadmap, another Just Trains UK route. What is on the horizon and what l have, there is no need to invest in another future Rivet failure. It looks like we all will have some satisfying routes that are better modelled than a Rivet route, to keep us busy and occupied for a long time. Who needs Rivet now.

 

Can't say as I don't own the route.

But, if you're adamant they are, why not prove me wrong and show they are.

 

I'm not adamant they are. I'm adamant no one so far as proved they aren't, which is different.

 

No one's proved they are either. Only proof of that we have is you saying so.

 

I'm fairly sure someone posted a screenshot where it looked like they were there...

 

Look at those beautifully modelled cables. Not a single one to be seen. I've never seen a beautifully designed bridge look so awful. If this Rivet modelled bridge was built in real life it would collapse. As I said before, shoddy workmanship. What a complete and utter joke.

I do own this route. I can only conclude that Rivet are so touchy about comments on their own forums regarding this release as they know, apart from the well modelled Class 170 DMU, that many corners have deliberately been cut during their sloppy and unprofessional overall design process.

No doubt Rivet will go for another deliberate cash grab when they most likely try and charge £10-plus for the re-skinned Scotrail livery Class 158 DMU that they've yet to release.

PC Stats for running TSW4:
Graphics Card: ASUS - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti TUF 8GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0
Board: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING Rev X.0x
RAM: 32Gb
SSD: WD_BLACK SN850 500GB (Only used for TSW4. Win 11 operating system is on another SSD)
CPU: 3.70 gigahertz AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core
TSW4 Resolution: 4K

 

I remember around the time of the release of the route they did mention that the route was built with extensions in mind... who knows.

 

That's some evidence, but I'd feel more comfortable seeing a close-up shot in the editor.
Also the specs of your PC besides the monitor are irrelevant in this case.

 

In the Roadmap an update from Rivet on the Fife Circle Line and Scotrail Class 158 from Skyhook Games also Cargo Line Pack 2 but nothing else mentioned from them.

 

Only more services and railtours mentioned. Nothing mentioned about scenery updates.

 

If you look at the roadmap you'll see that many improvements suggested by the community will also be included in Fife update.

 

A certain person seemed to say a lot of things, a lot of it now looking like a load of bullocks.