Why Is The Heavy Freight Being Forgotten?

I have absolutely no idea if you share rat7's opinion or not.

Not that it matters anyway...

 

Sorry, to clarify I were pointing out how far fetched the last part of the Rat's comment were, about Matt supposedly saying you must be graduated from university to write a suggestion.

My fault for the confusion - I know sarcasm doesn't work in text, though I seem to keep trying!

 

Never give up on the power of sarcasm, you will hone it to such a fine sharp finish it will cut through absolutely anything, even the thick barrier that is text form, and when you first achieve the desired sarcastic mocking that you are after, you will feel like a god amongst Muppets.......

 

I certainly never read Matt P’s take on suggestions that it is absolutely essential to have some sort of fabulous monument or centrepiece in there. Otherwise by that standard, justify Glossop or the Goblin Line neither of which feature anything particularly iconic and are the quintessential electric stop start bus fest.

If what Matt (P) said was taken literally then it beggars belief that we haven’t had the Mallaig line with Glenfinnan viaduct as the focus, or the Riviera line with the red cliffs and sea wall at Dawlish.

No what Matt (P} meant I’m sure is that suggestions need to be sensible. Something that’s going to appeal to a substantial percentage of the customer base and not present huge challenges to build. Still not sure how Glossop or Goblin came out of that but still…

 

Glossop and Goblin are the quintessential bus stop lines, their assets can be re-used quite easily in the other lines featuring those plastic front one handle EMU's the crowds seem to favour. In TSC we've gotten more or less the larger part of London's commuter network, and their rolling stock was used elsewhere too, so we got a few of those lines as well.

Anything challenging the asset creators or demanding more of the track layers will have to be short, otherwise it won't fit in the budget.
Those more Cornwall and Scotland lines won't fit the budget and cannot be sensibly cut up in interesting sections. Not that DTG has ever been hindered by sensible selections of what segment to model and what to omit ....

 

CN Tower is pretty famous and there's the AMTRAK Maple Leaf that goes from NYC to Toronto, plus Ottawa has a pretty neat little rail system that goes by it's urban area with what look like Desiros or Talents and I think a variant of that train they use on the Swiss map to Luzern. Quebec is very historic and they have their own light rail which is pretty scenic. GO Trains would be a nice regional one, but that's a no-no with licensing.

For freight it's pretty limited of course (getting back to the topic at hand.) The Class 1's (CP/CN, CSX, etc)
The smaller railroads seem to be run by the bigger players (like the very cool and scenic Cape Breton/Nova Scotia would be really amazing visually and from a freight point of view with variety, but I think it too was bought out by Genesee & Wyoming which is another no-go with licensing.

Licensing is a real restriction in Canada just like the US.

 

Who runs the Algoma Central these days? That was quite a nice run out of Sault St Marie to the Canyon and back, but didn’t see much freight about. There’s also the Labrador line out of Sept Iles.

 

Could just have a smaller route involving St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, they have a line from Maine to Montreal. It's quite neat.

 

It's own by G&W like QGRY between Gatineau and Quebec City

 

I have the Sand Patch Grade and the Oakville Sub DLC like I mentioned in the original post.

 

The stretch of track between Hinton and Prince George has many "monuments" like Jasper itself. It has the original CN bunkhouse built in that area in 1936 and it that line also passes by Mount Robson which is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. Other areas of British Columbia also have monuments such as the spiral tunnel through Kicking Horse pass, see this link for more information.
https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/bc/yoho/culture/kickinghorse/visit/spirale-spiral

 

I didn't see you say you had those in the original post. Have you looked at any of the other freight focused DLCs? Is there anything specific you are looking for from BC? Terrain? Architecture? Sherman Hill to my eyes is very similar to the prairies of Canada. Horseshoe and Clinchfield are some more hilly, winding tracks.

 

I keep running into that with the smaller lines. GW has been very busy.

List of small railroads owned by the Genesee and Wyoming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railroads_owned_by_Genesee_&_Wyoming

122 so far and counting. As nice as it is that a local company has branched out, their stance on licensing means that's a lot of off limits track....

 

In fact, you don't have to worry too much about the US heavy cargo series. It exists in DTG's plan, but now it has encountered a license problem. We just need to wait. From my personal perspective, this is how I understand DTG. They are a planned commercial company. Although there are enthusiastic suggestions from everyone on the forum, even DTG has too many restrictions on US cargo routes. What I am more worried about is the mileage. DTG does not have a DLC of more than 150 miles in this series. I hope its mileage is more than 100 miles.

 

There is no licensing problem.

 

Do you need a route over 150 miles?
The average freight speed is around 50 mph.
That's a 3 hour session without stops.
I dunno how many people want longer than that.
The only longer runs are the route featuring HSTs (like Kassel) that go 125mph so they can get an hour to run.
There is a general acceptance that most players don't want runs longer than an hour at a time.
Most services tend to be about 45 minutes to 90 minutes tops.


Not saying there isn't a masochist who wants a 6 hour run and has the free time to do it... but that isn't the huge majority of the player base and you don't tend to make things for the tiny minority.

If you do happen to be one of those fans of a long session, then there's Cajon Pass which can take 3 hours end to end.

I've run freight on the whole length of the Kassel map just to try it out and wow does that seem like a long time. It does work for a Canadian/Western "feel" since it has mountians, valleys and plains with tunnels but it's a solid 2.5 hours and for me personally it gets kinda monotonous.

However, we've discussed this previously in the thread. I don't find freight that's just an A-B run (especially a LONG one) without stopping as very immersive.

If you want longer than 3 hours then ask for something specific and tell DTG why in the Suggestions thread?

 

I'd love to have the full westbahn from Wien or Bratislava to Salzburg or München. a long trip but with a save function that actually works it'd be great to drive a 6h service in parts or when u have the time, completely. is it a niche thing like the expert dlc? yeah, but on long 6h full trip routes there are also shorter trips to do. people tend to forget the existance of saving as the function is pretty buggy I heard. I personally fully run my services 99% of the time too.

 

Aren't longer runs what the save game is for? Yes it needs buffing and more than one slot but that's the solution to the longer runs. After a few stop start runs on SBD I would much rather be dragging freight over Shasta or Feather River as we can in TSC. Another reason why the new MBTA route doesn't really interest me.

 

Save is for saving progress.
The length is irrelevant.
20 minutes in, an hour or two hours in.

I think we're starting to go in circles again regarding "well I can do this in TSC...."
But TSW isn't TSC and that's intentional.

 

My personal opinion is that I would like to see 500-1000 more miles. I really like heavy freight in the US, averaging 30 mph and driving slowly.

 

You're wrong on both counts.

Length is very relevant. I've played MSTS, TSC and TSW for many years, and although I've sometimes used the save function to cover sudden needs to stop playing, I've mostly used it on long routes that I've been unable to complete in my usual playing window which is fairly short.

As for your point that TSW is intentionally different from TSC, this is true in other ways but not for the save game. It doesn't make sense that DTG would deliberately hobble the save function for TSW.

It's clear that they simply don't possess the technical skill to create a feature that:
a. would make saving bulletproof or
b. enable multiple saves of different services as its predecessors did.

 

Not sure if you thought I said a "bad save option" was intentional. I meant that the focus of TSW is different than TSC. That's not an opinion. It's the stated goal of the DTG team on many occasions. They are different games.
The save feature works (or doesn't) equally on any length run.
I get that you personally use it more on longer routes, but it doesn't function differently.
The save is still the save no matter how you use it.
Not sure what "wrong" means when they are two simple facts.
1-TSC and TSW are different games.
2-The save feature works on all routes.

As for multiple saves, I don't know why that's not implemented.
Not my field.
I'd guess it has something to do with limited drive space on consoles and TSW being focused on console players but that's just a guess.
To my knowledge there's never been an official statement by DTG on their thinking behind the save feature.

 

Definitely not because of drive space on consoles.

 

You say that... but again it's a guess.
*shrugs*
It beats the usually silly answer "they want it to be broken" for some unknown reason.
I'd sincerely like to hear your alternative.

 

Perhaps the fate of the save game is the same as that of steam physics. They got it working with the intention to improve/fix it later, but after a few fixes found that it cost too much for them to do relative to how much money they would make off it.

 

Save works for me.
There's only the one save slot, but I don't need any more than that.
I'm not so sure it's "broken" at present, so much as people wanting more save slots which isn't a "bug" so much as a choice to not program in more save slots.
Unless there are save issues on specific computers, platforms or hardware conditions which are more limited in scope.

In any case, back to the original topic.... we probably aren't going to see routes longer than the ones we have with the current game engine and console memory limits. I would rather we saw more quality of routes rather than length anyway, but that's just me.
I also think HSTs are boring as heck because they don't stop either.
"They go fast" is irrelevant.

 

I don't use the save function (largely due to how unreliable it was during TSW2), but those that do use it claim that the save function does not work if you reach the end of a service and take over another service in the same session. There was also a bug about saving during the passenger loading sequence that meant that the objective would never complete if you reloaded the save.

 

It can’t be it because of how much storage other games use purely for saves.

There are many plausible explanations. DTG have commented on their lack of UI artists in the past, which would be crucial to implement multiple saves. DTG also have little to no reason to spend resources on it - flashy features like suspension attract new customers (=revenue), something as trivial as more save slots likely doesn’t.

I don’t mean to be rude, so please don’t take it that way. It just seems to me that you’re quite happy to lay the blame for many problems at the feet of consoles (and their users) when there seems to be little sense to it.

There are problems that consoles have brought to the game like the yearly re-releases or the add-on manager, but save slots certainly isn’t one.

 

Sand Patch Grade is what made me love this game. It is, and probably always be, the GOAT in my humble opinion.

 

Yes that is currently the two main ongoing issues, the first being an old bug from way back. The EP stated a while back he was getting the programmer(s?) to look at it but so far remains extant. However neither issue would directly affect a two hour non stop freight run, just the lack of extra slots should you want to go off and play (and save) something else in the meantime to break it up.

 

Personally I've never used the save game, even before I found out about its reliability. If I've got an hour to play TSW, doing a complete one hour run gives me a much greater sense of having accomplished something than doing one third of a three-hour one.

 

The save game doesn't work for me unless I am on the original run. As soon as I start the next service in timetable mode the save doesn't work. You lose the objectives. I can't remember when it last worked if indeed it did.

 

Don’t the Canadian Rockies count as something monumental? They looked pretty stunning in my 2 visits.

 

i do want to question though. Has all sort of US freight routes been represented then?

 

In terms of hilly/mountainous terrain, sort of. In terms of the vast majority of heavy freight, no.

 

And what might be the other vast majority of heavy freight be?

 

By mileage and tonnage? Long, flat pieces. Texas, Arizona, Kansas, Ohio, Florida, etc.
There's Cane Creek and Sherman Hill (and even Sherman Hill has up to 1.6%), but in much of the United States it's pretty flat where they put train lines. The places the hills are tend to be where game designers choose to put the "more challenging" routes though.
Just like TSW tends to put terrible weather in their scenarios for additional challenge.
Does make them sometimes unenjoyable though, simply because you can't see anything.
*shrugs*
Personal tastes I suppose.

 

Ah i see. There is something that came to my mind just when i was typing this. For some reason I kinda wish I get to drive a freight train alongside a coast. Do we have anything like that in the US?

 

Didn't someone just ask that in a recent thread? I swear I just saw it a day or two ago.... would save having to repost all of it.

Well, short answer is there's a lot of coastline routes.

WCL (Wales), ECW (East Coastway), BPO (Blackpool), (FCL) Fife Circle Line and WSR (West Somerset) in the UK

There are Swiss and Austrian maps with lakes in them which are pretty bit (big enough to drive on the "coast" anyway)

Slim pickings in North America. OAK (Oakville) you drive along Lake Ontario.

Your best bet is to look at the map and see what you like.
https://www.tswmaps.com/

 

I'd be careful mate. Carry on like that and you may have to walk the plank, skating on thin ice mixing Cornwall for Wales. They have a fit if you dare to put cream on on first so they won't like this for sure!



WCL is in England (the county of Cornwall) not Wales.

 

Hey, y'all can't keep Canada and the USA separate, let alone the different states!
Cornwall, Wales... two sides of the Channel ;-)
(Bristol channel, not the big one)

I figured they'd be more upset someone suggested two Rivet routes to buy in the same paragraph.
Heart palpitations for sure.

 

DTG continues to release new DLC content every month, and I can only hope that there will be American Cargo DLC next year.