Ic Cab Car Discussion Thread

Ah, great to hear, no pun intended, I don't own TSW4 so I wouldn't know

Completely agree!

Agreed, one could only hope for the best

 

Well..for example..
Salzburg-Rosenheim (z.B. EC 114), HMA (z.B. EC 114), LFR (z.B. EC 114), HRR (EC 114 again...), SKW (z.B. EC 218 AI in Fulda, IC 1174), RT (z.B. IC 1950 AI in Bitterfeld), Editorproject Hamburg Hannover (z.B. IC 1993), Editorproject Bahnen Münsterland (z.B. IC 2004), RRO (z.B. IC 2028), HBL (z.B. IC 2220)...

 

if they don't, I will. it's already in my research spreadsheet to drive cab first like they did on the route.

 

Key features of this Expert version include:

• Expert DB BR 101 with 2 cab variants: MFD and MFA
• New refined physics for a more realistic simulation
• Fully functional screens within the cab, including abilities like disabling specific traction motors.
• Extensive Fault Simulation if enabled.
• Energy counter to measure how efficient you drive!
• Realistic door operation with TB0 and SSTF door control systems
• Full digital displays (All screens and sub screens)
• Real train data input (PZB / LZB Data entry)
• Sound improvements, with new sound recordings upgrading older capture.
• Player-enterable Machine room (Engine room) modelled in.
• Accessible driving mode main menu setting, for setting functionality at a level typical to other TSW locomotives.

This sounds like a great idea overall, and I am even fine with buying this extra. Hopefully the pricing will be reasonable and not a robbery.

Just, perhaps.. 101 was already at great place. A replacement for 146/185 would bring much more benefit across the board. But eh, we have to start somewhere.

 

My poor wallet.

 

That sounds pretty exciting, to be honest. Most of these things are stuff I've wanted to see in TSW for a long time. Agreed on an expert 185 or even 186 potentially bringing more to the table but I'm certainly not about to complain about an expert 101.

 

Does "full digital displays" mean working Ebula or not? I can't say I'm too impressed, the new features just look like stuff you set up once and then ignore.

 

Does sound like something what will need a timetable adjustment, 2 minutes start up times can be a rush as it is with many trains, not too mention what an expert one could take.

 

So, as someone who never bought the 101, how will the layers be handled, for past and future routes, now that there will be two 101s? Is there a need to buy the old "non expert" 101 anymore?

 

I’m guessing the new will override the old, though how that works for cab car services with how timetables work I don’t know, or they do it in another way I don’t have a clue about. Though if they don’t then it definitely makes the old redundant probably sounds better to uninstall it.

 

Wait, is this coming ? Or is this just an idea of what "expert" locos could be ?

 

It’s coming/in the making by TSG.

 

Have a read.

 

Coming in 4-6 months

 

Lots of opportunities to buy things again popping up but at least with this you will be getting more extras for your money. I suppose there will be a lot of head scratching to be done with how two different 101 versions will work in timetables. Maybe it could be scenarios only, like in TSC, or some routes get the expert and others get the simple one. Or clever substitution going on. All things for other people to worry about. It will be a good experiment in any case.

 

Interesting.... Not sure im good with the idea of just making locos not good as they could be just to sell them at higher price with more features later.... The 101 already is quite a fantastic loco dlc. Guess I'll judge it by how deep it'll go.

Also: the IC1 Cab Car isn't mentioned on the Roadmap ? Sure it'll come with the expert pack i assume.

 

it’s part of the expert

 

Although I "complain" about a lot of things, the lengths they've gone to add new features and detail according to the list, as well as adding the cab car on top of those, I think it should be well worth the price of a normal loco DLC, at least. In this case I wouldn't have a problem paying "full price" since I haven't bought the original. Though I wonder if there will be any "loyalty" discount for the OG 101 owners?

EDIT: Ah, they actually mentioned "higher price point" in the article, so yeah, not a normal priced loco DLC then it seems.

 

Be interesting to see the base price range they go for, when they say higher it seems a bit unhelpful to know what they are talking about, cause say thinking £20 is higher but I don’t know whether I could be massively underestimating that.

being completely unfamiliar with this kind of stuff.

 

It's mentioned right in the beginning of the 101 part in the roadmap article: "This new Expert edition, developed by the TSG team, comes with a brand-new cab car “Bpmmbdzf”...".

 

Gesundheit.

For those of you who are doubting if it's worth to pay extra for features that you will "set once and forget" or doubting if it's worth on top of the regular one, it honestly probably is not for you. You can still have the excellent base 101 if you don't need those features, and you can probably get one for like 5 eur in sale.

But there is a lot of expert users around especially for german content, and for us, this is a godsend. In this way, it's great that the base addon is still one of the best ones out there, so you really pay only for things you want to use.

I am bit worried about the pricetag, I think €20 would be fair, €25 if they take the effort and revisit the timetables across the board to implement it properly into routes. I fear it will be higher just to milk the few of us, but perhaps we can get there at least with some discount for having the base one.

 

Its not in the graphic, although it is mentioned in the article with screenshots

 

BTW, what's the difference in the mentioned "2 cab variants: MFD and MFA"?

 

Im one of the "expert users" and am quite excited about this. I hope it comes with a working Ebula.

 

Analogue vs digital instruments, I believe.

 

Ah, thanks. The analog instruments would be those that are in the original 101 DLC then.

 

The current 101 is one of the few DLCs that I can totally say I’ve had my monies worth from - My favourite Loco by a long way. So I don’t have too much of an issue with paying for a new Expert Version with a cab car. It’s TSG, so it’s likely going to be high quality. Really quite exited about this.

 

It would probably require much more development time and resources and much fewer releases throughout a year to account for that. Also imagine doing it for every single train. You would probably only get like 1 dlc a year or something (bit of an exaggeration I know). We don't know how long tsg was working on the project

 

TSG’s times would be anomaly for DTG times to do it, another issue would be the access needed to the real trains in order to get these kinda features.

 

Wherever you got these translations from: There wrong.
MFA = Modulare Führerraumanzeige (modular train cab gauge) = analogue style instruments, as in the existing BR 101
MFD = Modulare Führerraum-Displays (modular train cab display) = digital style instruments, as in the BR 401 or BR 403

PS: Your terms would translate to "Machine driver diesel" and "Machine driver driver's cab"

 

Yeah, I was wrong about that. I have been looking for them myself since the roadmap article was published, and that is what I found thus far. Sorry for the incorrect information. And thank you for providing the correct information.

 

So, MFD will be in the IC Cab Car? Or a DB BR 101 with digital displays?

 

Bingo
Take a look at the rear wall of cab "1" in the BR101. That's the ZDE (train data input) panel for the MFA variant. The MFD variant has the input in the MTD (left screen) on a certain page

 

No the MFD would be in the BR 101. A few BR 101 have been upgraded with ETCS and are rumored to stay in service as emergency haulers for ICEs on high-speed lines, as the last BR 101 will be retired by DB Fernverkehr in 2025 (at the same time as the IC1). These locos have MFDs, whilst the rest has MFAs.

 

You're shure about that? Older locos (like the BR 103) would have their train data input on the rack unit itself, but if I remember correclty, the BR 101 always had the data entry via the displays.

 

Affirmative

The panel is basically identical to the one inside the IC cab car (not sure about the Metropolitan cab car though). The BR101 is probably the last locomotive (unsure about EMUs) with that old panel.

MFD variant:
"For locomotives with ETCS equipment, the train data input for LZB/PZB and ETCS is integrated in the MTD."

 

this is honestly the most appreciated way to implement the cab car. I'm fine waiting 6 months on an expert 101 and can't wait to see more updates or get my hands on it. hope to see this as the start of a working EbuLa too. I've always wanted those expert loco's in tsc to be a thing for tsw. glad TSG is working on this.

 

Bear in mind that hasn't been confirmed...

 

Ebula is a route feature, not a loco feature. Scripting the display in cab is work for one afternoon, but without placing markers along all the routes, there is nothing to show there.

 

that's why I am hoping. It isn't a very easy thing and you will need every bit of track and markers into the system. which will take a while to make. but some people have done it already. seeing as the vEBuLa app has a practically fully functional EBuLa system. So if they say all screens and subscreens work I am hoping on it.

 

Its quite obvious that it would require more time. Thats not my point. Also pretty much an argument which i dont really care about. They are the developers, they decided to make a train simulator. That this requires research is mandatory.

Im interested in what they offer and at which price it comes. Why should i care what effort it has took as long as the product meets my expectations.

Also, i fear that they will have a look if this expert loco thing is accepted by the community. Sure the expert 101 will sell because it brings the IC Cab Car. But will this be something that is asked for in a great manner ?

Can i ask, as i don't own it, is this something common on TSC ?

 

Tsc has armstrong powerhouse who make ep's for existing trains and they create their own. There's also the expert level category on steam which has more features. Some developers also do expert mode on their trains. So it does exist. Only issue is that you need a bunch of other content for the scenarios to work fully

 

You're conflating AP's stuff with all Pro Mode developers here.

 

What route is it going to layer on to? Kassel? Dresden? Koln?

 

Salzburg - Rosenheim I think.

 

I hope for the fact that this is an expert level DLC and probably costs more than a normal loco DLC, the Expert 101 and the Cab car substitute into every other 101 service we have, yet. That would be awesome!

 

More details in future roadmaps and updates

 

TSC has its pro/expert lines, but in general that means locos in a level of detail comparable to TSW baseline, most buttons in cab work and do something, in contrast with TSC baseline which is usually just throttle and brakes, nothing more. And there is certainly interest in that, virtualRailroads are one of the main producers of such content.

What DTG now promises as expert line in TSW does not have a lot of precedence, it would probably be among the top simulations out there. The only comparison that comes to mind is K-Trains locos for TSC, which have fully implemented simulation of ETCS, automatic train control and other very complex systems. But TSC will always suffer from lack of ability to move around aside of few camera positions, lot of things during cold start are just done physically in the engine room.

 

That's probably quite optimistic
I'm definitely not the best widget designer, that's not my expertise by any means, but I have some experience working with UE widget/train screens, and I find quite time consuming.

Even if EBuLa in TSW would be mostly a route feature, the interface would have to be quite complex, and designing that will take time. Far more time than a single afternoon.

Maybe you mean that a core blueprint would already exist so the "work for one afternoon" is just hooking up standardized components. If so, maybe. But that's quite an abstraction away from actually designing the system in the first place

 

It's an overexaggeration for sure as I don't even remember what all the whole ebula system can do, but to get a screen with speeds, signals and stops, you can probably reuse a lot of code from LZB, which does generally the same thing: it looks forward down the path and notes things like speed restrictions and signals. Just enrich it with data about platform markers and times from the service schedule.

This will obviously not do the prototypical thing where the whole route of the train is written, but it is as much as you probably can automate. Without data feed from the game dispatcher, you would have to create the data manually for every single service by hand, and that will never happen. With this, the position dot would simply run to the top of the screen until you are dispatched further, then it would load another portion of track, which still kinda gives you all information that you need, when you need it.

Ideally in next TSW generation we would get much more properties of services, allowing to assign it data like required BrH (compared with actual BrH for substitution), maximum timetable speed.. and primarily train number, if you want to ever have a full blown ebula. Because as it stands, lot of routes simply have services named like "westbound freight at 12:15" and you have nothing to enter anywhere.

(Note that I write this as a former game dev, but I have no insight into UE)