While I am not a big fan of steam trains, I like them in TSW because there will be big fans of steam and they are a welcome break for the rest of us to try out and enjoy. However, after all what Dovetail have done with steam, I hear they are no longer making steam trains? Should Dovetail make more steam trains?
I love to drive and see them as a railtour. or on peak forest to drive them as a historical experience. I get it that they are very complicated and dovetail doesn't have the knowledge in house to make them, since they are too busy I would say that at the moment it's best to leave them be. but if any third party or new developer wants to make more steam I'm all for it. hence my vote of yes is a "yes, but not right now" I think steam can add a lot to the game. not just in the UK. and even if static stock or AI I would love to see them on more routes.
They've already shown the SimuGraph system is not capable of simulating a steam engine. No need for more imho - back to TSC for that.
Personally I’m not bothered about steam engines in the game but I have enjoyed the routes set in the fifties themselves (Liverpool-Crewe and Peak Forest). Free Roam is great for this as you can drive any train without having to set up a scenario. I had a drive along Peak Forest in a 158 yesterday and really enjoyed it. It would be a shame to not have any more of these vintage routes but if steam is a non runner, maybe early diesel would allow for these to continue.
I voted Yes, but apply the caveat that if it can't be done properly in the core then best left to lie. I mean if we ever to see something like the Ffestiniog/Welsh Highland or the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch (the latter would probably get away with simplified physics), then DTG ought to be biting the bullet. Sadly I don't think they want to. Seems the talent to fix the core and design/build complex locomotives as opposed to stop/go EMU's has left the building. That also seems to apply to diesel loco traction too, anything with a complex inter related power curve. DTG, please prove me wrong!
Yes, DTG has pretty much closed the book on steam traction. Diesel too apparently, that poor lonely old Class 66 must be worn to a shred by now and they can't be bothered with US freight so.......... As to whether they should build steam locos, of course they should. As I've said many times, any game calling itself a train simulator needs to include all manner of motive power from all eras.
If they do make more steam content then I wish it doesn't involve the Jubilee and 8F again, at least not in the base package. One of the main reasons I did not purchase Peak Forest was because the included content looked too similar to Spirit of Steam, which itself was a disappointing release. IMO Peak Forest should have been a BR Green diesels route from the outset to differentiate it more. I would be more inclined towards a GWR steam route or even German and US steam content than another LMS route.
Yeah, I found that the steam routes seemed barron, they seemed lacking in weeds or plants of any great detail, they reminded me of the NTP route, poor quality in terms of content. I was thankful for the revamp of WSR, finally have a good route to actually use the steam engines on.
Yeah, a train simulator without a steam train seems wrong, but I guess they have some, but to just stop altogether seems really wrong. As for diesels, they need to do more BR blue stuff as well as modern diesels.
I mean the answer had to be yes, having a V2 and B1 in TSW would be a dream. However, sadly DTG seem to have quite literally run out of steam when it comes to steam locos, so there would have to be a bloody committed (some would say totally barmy) 3rd party come in to fix the mess.
Not so much the scenery for me, if any Spirit of Steam had quite good scenery quality. Railways back then were generally more bare in lineside vegetation, partly I believe because the embers and soot emitted from the steam locos themselves helped stop the growth of weeds. The main issue for me with Spirit of Steam is the lacklustre timetable and rolling stock variety alongside the steam physics.
I wouldn't put it that way. The system, I am sure, is capable of doing it; but they have yet to find someone who can implement it.
I see no evidence for it being capable. Given the age of TSW now and the fact other simulators offer a decent steam simulation, I can only conclude that the simugraph system is not capable because it was not designed for that. The thing is, SimuGraph allows good simulations as you are building a loco from the ground up (making it more difficult - as it requires real engineering knowledge). It offers all types of subsystems like thyristors, converters, etc. that must then be wired together almost as in RL. SimuGraph is fine for input (controls) -> output. Steam is much more complex. Maybe Stanier would've known how to set up SG for a steamer . Steam is completely different - there's so many delays involved and other complex factors that this is better done in a top down constructed loco, e.g. Train Simulator where you input the basic performance data (which in SimuGraph is not given but emerging from the way you have wired all the systems together). The rest is then handled by very sophisticated scripts. If SimuGraph was a tool fit for the purpose, it would certainly have already been done - TSW is not "new" anymore. Steam requires more code and less blueprint so to speak. If you look at how Smokebox has done his TS steam locos - they are a game within a game. Code within code. TSW is data within code. That's how I would put it in simplified terms. So my conclusion is it would need a separate "steam simulation" simugraph system to be developed - which might have become apparent to DTG so they stopped steam seeing the amount of new core code it would need, which would probably justify making a new game for that. Another thing which would support your stance is that the release of the TSW Editor came years too late, and DTG doesn't have a single contractor who has made steam locos before, so the whole development stalled because of lack of knowledge. Their own efforts in TSC are fairly rudimentary (see the RSC BigBoy which is utterly flawed, simplistic as the TSW steamers and even has smoke emitters setup wrongly) and it took 3rd party wizards to explore the full TSC potential. Imho, no simulator has surpassed TSC's steam simulation to this day. Because the game core is solid and all dev tools were released by Kuju shortly after release of RS. It's a balance act - if you design your game and dev tools to be too close to reality, you'll eventually find that certain things cannot be done (sounds like a paradox) or become too costly to develop. Imho TSC has the balance, a set of simple blueprints "simulation.bin" + ControlValues + the freedom of Lua scripting. Not how a loco is built in reality, but in the end the output is what is important, not the way you're getting to it. And it works. TSW's complexity is kind of its own enemy - good example is the still wrong PZB indicator blinking behaviour. In TSC, you'd quickly find a line of script code and correct it. In TSW, you must study huge spaghetti SG diagrams and go troubleshooting like a real electrician / engineer. As difficult as a on real loco, requiring not only game design / coding talents but also professional engineering.
Of course DTG should make more steam trains! The only matter I suppose is when... As other fellow forum-users have likely observed by either first-hand driving experience within the game or by reading the forums, Dovetail's current means of simulation are not quite refined enough to wholly and accurately simulate a steam engine. That being said, the current in-game iteration of steam, while definitely not perfect, has been done exceedingly well. By that I mean for a novice like myself to take control of the beast and actually feel like I'm driving it, it is quite good! Small things like brake locks releasing, the entire chassis slightly shifting to the left as you change gear, running gear animations, oilers, even the simple animation of the actual reversing gear moving when changing direction are superb. In absolutely no way whatsoever should the current attempt at steam be a deterrent for making future steam-related content. DTG doing what they could with what they had was practical and resourceful, but even so, I find myself agreeing with Spikee1975 in that I too would be in favor of seeing a specialized tool made explicitly for steam simulation. But if all this was done with SimuGraph, imagine what could be done using a dedicated tool!
It's available as freeware in TSC - in excellent quality. If you want it - consider playing TSC. The upcoming subscription model will allow you to test the game and should work fine with freeware (assumed). I doubt it will ever see the light of day in TSW... just don't put your expectations too high as nothing is indicating any steam development for TSW. If you want it all, don't focus on a single game. https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/prr-s1-duplex-released-by-dsgddr.78234/
As far as American steam is concerned, I'd love to see a 4-8-4 Northern type locomotive: or a Hudson: But across the pond... I'd love to see a 9F:
The only one who really cant handle it is DTG, (not the simmugraph). They came out with a lot of excuses for all kind of their lacklaster situations occured on many releases. When ny - trenton released, the shoddy timetable with basicly many a.i services missing, they said its a performance problem. (Yea right..) DTGs steam release was incomplete from the beginning. TSW never offered an experience which is even close to tsc. End of story. Now we are stuck with an empty crewe and an abandoned traction group. I like sos, but crewe liverpool is in my opinion not the right choice for the introduction of steam without any traction in place. No guys, its much simpler. Steam was already abandoned before the sos release! Never wondered why there are no 4f layers in sos?, not even static stock? Its because DTG doesnt invest time into a dead horse. DTG botched the entire new awaited traction group in just 2 releases. They clearly didnt understand the scope of what they are doing. - making new rolling stock - making a giant route with million of tracks for the small amount of rolling stock. - developing an entire new traction technology. - DTG factor "we just ran out of time to do it properly.., which means steam without the interesting part (coal water cinsumption, water filling from tender, manual firing) Thats just too much to handle. Here to say, the locos and wagons are very well done. And now its the customers fault because the there were not enough sales.
Yes I would like Dovetail to continue making Steam Loco's for TSW. It's just that they need to figure out how to make better steam physics in Simmugraph to simulate steam operations. They should've created the manuel firing feature as part of the Spirit of Steam. They should also have a gameplay mode where the player can play as the fireman or as the engineer. Steam would look good in TSW is that Dovetail should recreate the steam operation physics better to make it look real or collaborate with a third party developer that can help them create better steam loco physic's in Simmugraph so that they can create better steam loco's in the future.
Yup all your fauly or I mean our fault for not buying, but I did buy? Dovetail back pedalled very quickly when it came to steam, rather than just leaving it as an ongoing project it got canned. No more like we were sold TSW 4 with suspension....? And nothing?
They never add new stock to older routes unless its a remaster. You never noticed that? its the reason no ICE show up on HRR cause they dont touch older timetables. Adding new layers to them is a big hassle from what i've heard
If they cant find the time to add a few static 4Fs and wagons on all the empty sidings of crewe liverpool to advertise the nice peak forest route, then i guess we are back at the discussion whats wrong at DTGs house? Clearly DTG points the thing on customers with the excuse "Steam doesnt sell well." But the scope was beyond DTGs capacity which ended in 10 half baked things in the end. Im enjoying tsw and both steam routes a lot, but DTG botched a huge chance to get tsc players on the tsw boat by releasing SOS in a half arsed state on a basicly empty route.
I honestly would've preferred that DTG focused on the steam core rather than make these suspension physics. Has anyone driven the TTC 323 recently? It's gotten a bit too bouncy in a recent update, not sure if a bug or intended but I really don't like it. I can't say for certain but I also feel like it's having an impact on Spirit of Steam, the steamers seem to be awfully bouncy on that route now compared to when SoS initially released. I recommend anyone here to try and drive "The Manxman" service with the Jubilee and seeing if they can leave Crewe, I find my locomotive gets launched into the air now
I voted no. Steam does not add one bit to realism as I probably never have seen a working steam train service in my entire life and I'm already really old. I have gotten steam add ons for free in TSW3 and 4 and haven't even touched them once. Waste of time imho
yeah I think it's for the coming years a lost cause and DTG has enough other things to focus on that they can do. they have some amazing timetable editors for example and 9 out of 10 train models are great too. if I want steam I'd say TSC is a current great option. might get the Harz line that recently released on a sale. it looked great in real life
I'd like more steam, but the physics need to be sorted out first before another steam route, or even a new steam loco, is even thought of.
TTC 323 has new suspension. And try running a 47 on Liverpool - Crewe and enjoy the bumpy ride . Wear a helmet!
LOL, all those people hanging out of the windows to see, hear and smell the steam locomotive ... Remembers me of a steam excursion I took as a boy along with my dad. Hanging out of the window, when a passenger on a passing train running at full speed flushed the hopper toilet, and we all got tiny spatters of pee and poo in our eyes ...
I'm not asking them to, but that's the only way steam development will be able to continue. Anyway, a new steam loco with proper physics would make them a lot of money (if the physivs were right, they'd make a lot of sales from me alone) so fixing the problems is the best way to make that money.
That's very shortsighted in my opinion. Steam traction accounts for perhaps 70% of railroad history and cannot be ignored by a game that calls itself a train simulator. There are probably many TSW players who have never seen a diesel loco hauled passenger train in revenue service. Should they not be part of the SIM either? If DTG confined itself to building only one handled electric toy trains, then many of us would abandon TSW. Actually it's already happening gradually.
Why are you even here if you dont like "one handle toy train" do you even like trains? 99% of what runs now are either one handle toy train or 2 handle diesel train. If you want a historic simulator you should probably play something else. TSW has always been based on diesel or electric units with only 3 of the like 100 loco's being steam. Do you also hate "2 handle toy tin boxes" ?
It's called a train simulator for a reason. Even TSC, DTG's other train sim, has steam locos. Why shouldn't TSW?
Where did i say they shouldnt have steam locos? Its just clear DTG cant make it work so im fine with it being only diesel and electric (as i prefer those anyway)
You're saying people shouldn't be here if they want them. Basically, DTG only have modern day electrics so if we don't like it we should go somewhere else.
You should criticize dtg for handling steam but i dont know why people always try to take down EMU's like they are not what most people actually wanna drive right now. If its clear that DTG arent doing anything with steam and we cant change their minds then its best to play something else right?
Do most people actually want to drive EMUs? From many posts on here, a lot would prefer older traction types. There's quite a few suggestions for earlier eras as well. Also, we came to TSW for a reason. We didn't come here to drive EMUs all the time (we could just become real life drivers if we wanted to do that), we came see other eras too. And, DTG hyped up everyone with steam only to butcher it and leave it on the shelf to dust. But why should we turn away just because DTG decided to do away with steam, when they're the ones who hyped it all up to begin with? That just doesn't make sense.
DTG know the sales figures. There are alot more people who buy DLC than are on this forum. You can say that peak or SOS didnt sell well cause they were bad but we can only speculate and considering DTG doesnt really make anything that isnt modern anymore i think we can both see the answer they got. You can also volunteer at a heritage railway if you wanna drive steam, oh wait thats not how that works. most people who play train sims are not gonna be drivers for that train. And me being in the netherlands i wanna experience modern UK stuff. I imagine alot of people just enjoy driving in the areas they live in right now with stock they are familair with That i do agree with, DTG should have done better and is continueing to dissapoint me
I really want DTG to continue making steam engines. It would be nice to have these steam locomotives as part of ECML. LNER 4-6-0 Thompson Class B1 No. 61306 Mayflower LNER 2-6-2 V2 Class no. 60800 (4771) Green Arrow
