Info Br101 Expert: Some Clarification

Maybe it’s going to be more realistic than the actual train
I’m also really excited about being able to play it in 4 Days!

 

At the beginning i thought the price was too high, but, with this thread and the messages by TSG's stuff you understand there is an enormous work behind the making of this dlc. So, the price is right.
I'm a little disappointed to no have a discount for db br 101 owners (but you just explained the reason in the previous messages). I hope this dlc will be included in TSW 5. It may be in Deluxe version.

 

Okay, we are finishing the final touches now, and we're sending it tonight. We don't know at what time it will be made available to you, but I don't expect it's going to be long. Not today (Sunday) but sometime from tomorrow (Monday), depending on when the official approval can be made. We are at over 140 pages. We're not going to cross 150 this time.

A little figure:
From my counting, the BR101 has 114 circuit breakers, each with their own fault, + several internal faults that can happen independently as well. The Cab-Car has 50 circuit breakers, and several internal faults as well that requires a pretty thorough and patient diagnosing process, as it does not have a display with help like the BR101 has. The steps to fix both are all explained in the manual.

EDIT: Turn of the day, the manual is ready, and is sent for review.

 

btw, sth I asked in one of the other threads - since the setup is quite extensive from what I understand, will we be given more time before departure so we can depart on time? I assume even those who are proficient in this will take more time than usual 101...

and second - since the faults may happen, of course they will cause delays in many cases - will the game just penalize us for coming late like usual?

 

Can I just check this means we'll need to jump into the free/"8" camera to quickly shut the doors at each station before we depart? At least, in the initial release?

Very excited about this now - thank you for your detailed posts, and thanks to noir for adding in the table for quick reference if we run the 101 as a freight loco.

 

Manually as in turning the Door release button to All closed, as opposed to doors closing automatically after 15 seconds of nobody going through them.

 

Sorry to ask but I'm a bit excited. Is there an exact time when the manual will be released, or just during the day?

 

1 - The time will be the usual for the timetable, I don't think extended set-up times have been added, at least, yet, I'm afraid.

2 - I honestly do not know. I haven't had the time to finish a lot of services during testing myself as I had a lot of work.

 

No with the new scoring its not included anymore! Thats noting to do with the 101 Expert but with a game core future from TSW!

 

Now that suspension has been officially released, is there a rough timeline for when it will come to the expert BR 101?

 

I don't have an answer for you on that yet, but when I do I'll include it in some form of post release thread (as I usually do if you check my history). I know that's not a very satisfying answer but it's the best I have at the moment

 

cwf.green Is there any updates made in the orginal 101 whats updated today?

 

Just a few minor things that allow the IC coaches to be detected by the BR101 Expert. Nothing very interesting and none of it will be noticeable when using the original BR101

 

Thanks for youre fast info!

 

No that's not what I meant. Sorry if that is what it read like. I'll update the OP to clarify (fitting in a thread with this title I guess )
On release the door closing procedure will work like on other German trains in the game. When the loading task is complete and the scheduled departure time has passed (or some short time before since the doors take a while to close) you as the driver have to move the door side selector to "close all doors".

In real life the conductor sends the door lock signal and then informs the driver that it is safe to depart. The plan is for this to be simulated as well (somewhere in the train a virtual conductor uses the UIC key to send a lock/TB0 signal) when it is appropriate to do so.

The whole UIC key and jumper cable signalling is already implemented (only on Expert coaches and the cab car, it requires the new jumper cable protocol). You can test it yourself on release by walking up to any door and inserting the key and turning the key to "lock" and all doors except that door will close. The TB0 signal is transient, in contrast to the door side selector which is permanent, so after some time the doors can be opened again (which is why the driver has to move the side selector as well). In the active cab the "Schließvorgang eingeleitet" alert is also heard.

The thing that is missing is the virtual conductor knowing when to use this key (so as not to close the doors too late or too early).

 

So the cat is now finally out of the bag, the manual is here! The work of a few good weeks is finally out

 

The manual has 143 pages it will take until Thursday to go thorough

 

17 total services….. is that it?

 

Thanks. I have my bedside book for a few evenings

 

I assume you mean the BR101 Expert, since the manual states 22 services for the cab car?
The BR101 Expert also substitutes on 23 services for Bremen-Oldenburg, 5 services on Dresden-Chemnitz and 6 services on Kassel-Würzburg.

 

I am wondering what this means:

I understand that the original 101 is the standard for layers, but what does that mean for the Expert 101? No layers at all?

 

It means what it reads
Any new route DTG releases where the DB IC layers in will use the original BR101 and coaches. A BR101 Expert layer will be on us (the developers of the BR101 Expert) to make as a duplicate timetable.

With the way the substitution works in TSW you have 4 options:
1. Only have a single timetable with the original BR101 and coaches. Everyone who bought the BR101 Expert will be missing out on services.
2. Only have a single timetable with the BR101 Expert and cab car. Everyone who bought the original BR101 but not the BR101 Expert will be missing out on services.
3. Have a mix of services using both (as you suggested). Both BR101 Expert-only and original BR101-only users will get half the content.
4. Create a duplicate timetable that uses the BR101 Expert and cab car in place of the original BR101/coaches. Both groups of players get the full number of playable services. Yes, you get two timetables which some people dislike, but it's (imho) a lot better than the 3 other alternatives

 

Thank you, William, for confirming this.

Is this standard for DTG, though, to ignore 3rd party DLCs like this?! I would have been expecting them to push sales for those DLCs as well, hence I would really have thought they (DTG) would go for the option 3. After all, DTG gets a share for each sold copy…

Anyway, full trust in TSG to push this in the future and keep providing new gameplay for this (I am sure it will be) masterpiece!

 

So no, I don't believe that's simply DTG ignoring 3rd parties. You have to remember that there are people who will have paid for the original BR101 from Maik, those who will get the BR101 Expert, and those who will have both. It's a very tricky situation in which you have to try to appeal to everyone. The reason William chose this layer is because, sure, you could have a mix of services between the 101 non expert and expert.

But then what if, for example, the "NJ" numbered services on Kassel - Würzburg, if we imagined that it had used option 3, are attributed to one, and people who want to play it have the other only? They don't get the full experience. They would have loved to use what they bought on the totality of services, not just say, half of them. Option 4 is definitely the better compromise to let everyone use what they want on everything.

 

Does this mean that I need to own the original 101 DLC to drive on e.g. Bremen - Oldenbrug with the expert 101?

 

Fair enough, but my point for option 3 would have been that rl services with a cab car are served by the expert version only, all other services (like eg the NJ) with the original one. This could have been a good compromise and would have meant some kind of automatic game play for the expert version.

I fully respect the decision, though, and as I do have the trust for future game play to be coming I have absolutely no problem with it!

 

I suppose I forgot about this cab-car dilemma. What a tricky little one this is.

 

Is there somewhere where we can read about the probability of a given fault happening on a service/per 100 km/whatever the unit is? For example, if chaos factor is set to 1.

 

Congratulations Raph' you have done an incredible job with the manual!!!!

I've only skimmed it a little bit and you can see all the care and love that the whole team has put into building this DLC. Thanks to everyone involved in this project for making it possible.

I also want to say something as a console gamer; that I will be able to enjoy a simulation product with this level of detail seems to me something very special. At least on PlayStation, I don't think there is anything in their entire catalog that is even remotely similar in terms of complexity and specialization. And we're talking about thousands of games, so I think it has a lot of merit for TSG, and also for DTG.

Definitely me, as a lover of the railway world and who has never played on PC, I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to enjoy a simulation with this great level of detail. I find it incredible and in my opinion it is worth every penny of its price.

 

It’s a joke now that we Not get the Cab Car with the original 101, because it sucks now that not all Routes have the Cab Car

 

Thanks a bunch for your support, it means a lot. I do really hope that this experience will live up to your expectations on console!

 

I don't know if we have such figures, if we do, cwf.green will have them, but they're very hardly relevant to the game, when you should really be more concerned about fixing them at all if they happen. I don't quite think we have an actual table with every single probability also because that will depend on a few things IRL, which makes it difficult to predict, such as weather or the level of maintenance.

 

If this has already been said here, I apologize for asking

So when a person buys a BR101 Expert, will he see the trains with the new control car in AI operation, or not and will it only be within the given service that he will be driving?

Thanks for answer.

 

The new/copied timetables on Salzburg Rosenheim and Dresden Riesa of course also include the Cab car on AI IC Trains

 

Among the people who had intentions to print the manual, has anyone here done it? I already got one person who sent me their print. I can't believe this already.

 

I might do it tomorrow, just for the feeling. I mean what’s better than your loco Breaking down and you pulling out your 140 Page Book and searching what you can do?

 

I suppose so. *laughs*

 

The 101 also subs on all pre-existing 101 services, but without the cab car

 

I have a question on how the failures are generated in a train consist. On page 94 of the manuel it states that in case you are driving the cab car and you want the loco to generate a failure as well you need to go back to the loco and enable failure generation (and I assume also the chaos factor you want)

The way I interpret this is that if I start a service in the cab car and enable failures and a certain chaos factor, it will only generate failures on the cab car and not in the loco, correct?

Have you thought about a toggle or something on the screen you are currently using to enable the same setting also for the other side of the train? In other words, allowing to remotely set the same chaos factor and failure mode enablement for the whole consist, rather then only the end you are driving (or sitting in at this moment)?

 

If you have Expert Mode enabled, then both the loco and the cab-car will have their fault simulation enabled by default, so they both can develop faults, but the default chaos factor is 1x. You have to manually change it in the loco if you want to have the same as in the cab car. About the idea of using a toggle or anything, William will probably have a better answer.

 

I guess I will have to study the manual extra hard then and do a lot of self testing in Training center to get it into muscle memory or sth so I can do it extra quickly which... we will see...

 

Again, a question about substitution (of the expert 101, without Cab Car) and I am very sorry for this, as this has been asked a million times before but I just don't get it

And this is what the manual says:

ALL pre-existing services... so what about its "main" route: Hauptstrecke Rhein Ruhr?

 

DTG definitely hasn't ignored us, but since this DLC is unique in that it requires duplicate timetables for the cab car to be drivable (and not remove content from people that only own the original BR101) it is on the developers to provide this, and we are the developers.

DTG has offered a lot of support to us though. Some of the advanced physics features like the heat simulation of the transformer, power converters and traction motors would not have been possible without help from engineers at DTG that added certain features to Simugraph. I'd like to linger on this point for a moment. I'm not sure of how much of this was shown in the preview stream but there is a temperature diagnostics page on the MTD (left screen on the BR101) that shows temperatures of the traction motors, gear boxes, power converters (SR), transformer etc. These temperatures are actually simulated, not just "fudged", and the same is true for the cooling (which has a very complex behaviour on the BR101 where the fans will change target speed based on tractive effort, requested traction power, speed, temperature of the components etc).

In addition to this, all the localization (translations to different languages), voice acting etc is done by DTG.

I want to add some QoL features to the fault simulation, like enabling and disabling it on all vehicles in the formation, from the lead vehicle's settings page, or applying a uniform Chaos Factor on all vehicles in the formation. I'll update on this later when/if it is changed.

Unfortunately that is a mistake in the manual. The routes that the BR101 Expert substitutes on (at release) are: Bremen-Oldenburg, Kassel-Würzburg and Dresden-Chemnitz. Sorry about the confusion

 

Would it be possible to get some automatic calculation of the raw ZDE values in the future? Because IRL it is something the driver doesn't calculate (as it is a potential risk if the number is not verified, and he has also no way of knowing i.e. the weight of cargo), but is given in the train manifest.

 

Just went to the copy shop and printed it. It’ll be ready in 1 Hour.

 

The 101 has services on Dresden-Chemnitz?
But what exactly is it, that the Expert 101 simply cannot sub in for all services of the existing 101? Talking about the loco subbing in only, not the new coaches or the new cab car.

Another question, is the chaos factor saved or would you need to set it up every time if you want something other than 1?

 

Is already confirmed earlier for some freight services

 

Will the manual be available in German ? When I play on German routes, I switch TSW language to German and want to have everything in German.

 

No only the information in the locomotive is in German!

 

In fact it will be translated into German, DTG Jan mentioned it here
https://rail-sim.de/forum/thread/41186-tsg-expertline-br101-ic-steuerwagen/?pageNo=19

No Date for it though, not sure if its ready for release given how long it is.