Hi, I have one major suggestion: I would kindly ask you to "get smart" and switch to Unreal Engine 5 or Unity 6, or another engine, or preferably your own proprietary engine. The reason is that the lighting in the game itself is very unrealistic, and there are too few graphics settings, at least for Antialiasing. Also, the gameplay in almost all locomotives in the game doesn't allow me to interact with all the buttons around the engine and in the locomotive's cab. If you could at least make it possible to press those buttons, even if they don't have any effect or anything else, that's the first reason! Second: In modern (German locomotives), I can't, as a person, go from one cab to the other through the engine room and other areas. Instead, I have to go outside, even if it's raining or snowing, just to switch locomotive cabs. I mean, really! Why didn't you just make all locomotives "Expert locomotives" from the start? Third reason: Non-functional level crossings on German routes and free camera limitations due to invisible walls, WHY? Fourth reason: Overly blurry clouds in the atmosphere! Fifth reason: Buggy and broken couplers on locomotives and wagons. Why don't you make dynamic couplers that would adapt to the wagon's and locomotive's hitches and simulate train handling and behavior? Sixth reason: A bug with snow and rain droplets on the window: When snow or rain droplets accumulate on the locomotive's windows, and I switch to the free camera or external camera, and then when I return to the cab camera, those droplets that were there and should have been falling on the window are no longer there?! Seventh reason: Too little choice for your character at the beginning of the game! Eighth reason: A bug with sounds: for a start, one I discovered on the BR Class 66 locomotive is that when I get within a certain radius of the co-driver's seat, the engine sound can no longer be heard. Another is a bug with the horn; for example, on the Vectron 193 or ÖBB 1116 locomotive, if I pressed the horn too quickly, the horn would make a short, strange sound, and while holding it, the horn wouldn't sound until I released Space or Ctrl+Space. Ninth reason: The blurriness of some textures (especially in the cab) are blurry. Others are on external parts, such as blurry and poorly modeled shock absorbers and suspension on British BR MK1 & MK2 wagons and German Sggrss wagons, WHY? Tenth reason: Too few details on the overhead contact lines and strange rock textures on the tracks. Additionally, on almost all routes except American ones, the rail guards are always the same. Eleventh reason: Too little selection of locomotives from AROUND THE WORLD; where are the Czech, Polish, Balkan, and other locomotives??? All these mentioned reasons are reasons that, at least for me, compromise the enjoyment and pleasure of the game. P.S. When I mentioned the lighting, I meant that when I enter the DB BR 101 in the middle of the day (noon) and go into the engine room, the lighting inside the room will be almost the same as outside, regardless of whether the light inside the locomotive is turned on or off! And you're asking so much money for that? I'll see, we will also most likely have 4 open spots for a train sim games competition: Century of Steam, Train Sim World XX, Train Simulator NEXT, and Microsoft Train Simulator 20XX. MSTS is questionable, but from now on I will choose Train Simulator NEXT, which is coming out sometime at the end of 2025 or most likely in 2026 or 2027! Oh yes, I forgot about Trainz, which is also progressing well! Best regards and good luck with your work, I wish you all the best!
Switching to a new game engine will solve nothing. All it'd do is cause more problems as everything has to be rebuilt from scratch. A lot of these reasons you've given don't even have anything to do with TSW being on UE4.
UE5 has been discussed on and off and numerous reasons why it couldn’t happen, certainly not and keep existing content without major reworks which neither DTG or third parties have the manpower to do. Unity would be an all new game which would mean losing all of the existing content. SimRail uses Unity and has to content itself with a 2km maximum draw distance and even then can still be stuttery and hitchy. And I can’t help but chuckle at any post which lumps Trainz in as a serious contender for a simulator. Apart from building model railway layouts in Surveyor, it’s junk. Poor ancient graphics, no timetable mode or easy way to set up player scenarios, lousy physics, lousy sounds, trains that rely on alias to ancient Auran cabs or sounds. Did I say - Junk.
I think DTG have looked at Unreal 5 and it is easy to say lets move TSW to Unreal Engine 5, but not so easy to do. Matt went through a whole list of problems trying to move TSW from Unreal 4 to Unreal 5, you can't just port it over from 4. If Matt could pin a post explaining why it is not so straight forward, it would be very interesting, but damn it is a long list.
"Bait used to be believable back in my day." Going to be honest, if people are already struggling to run TSW on UE4, they're going to be having Console ignited house fires on UE5. Moreover, DTG is going to have an absolute nightmare of a time trying to work with UE5. They're already taking up to a year to fix certain issues on an engine they've used since 2020. Don't think fancy lighting is that worth it, chief.
1. A brand new engine and ue5 means nothing is compatible. Building a proprietary engine is really expensive because dtg would have to manually create everything and keep it constantly updated. That is a lot of work. Buying an engine that is already made makes their job easier. 2. Creating all locos expert locos means the price has to go up and it takes years to make a single dlc. The expert 101 took over a year to create. Now imagine it with multiple locos per dlc. Some train operators don't want trains to be simulated in close to 1:1 detail 3. If there is no collision, you would literally enter into the asset itself and you would probably fall through the world constantly. 4. Remember it is still a whole simulation they have to build and code. It is not as simple as just simulating it. It includes physics, code, math, animations. 5. It is to save on memory. When there is not a lot of memory, the game has to compromise elsewhere for it to not crash 6. New locos from around the world requires licensing and an approrpriate route. No license=can't do. Then 3rd parties are needed.
this game already on UE4 almost makes my PC rig into a flaming hazard... UE5 would make it a nuclear ticking bomb or a pyromancy flame (for those who like Dark Souls they know lol)... so... no... I am keeping my fingers crossed for them to solve the biggest engine/memory issues with this one so they can keep making more content with an engine that my PC can still handle
Literally just this week, they had a showcase finally showing off what Epic and CDPR claim are some impressive optimisations which, if true (And I have seen many doubts from a bunch of devs, but Digital Foundry seem convinced it's legit), might have finally overcome the previously insurmountable issues which essentially ruled out any kind of UE5-based TSW title working on current gen consoles. This new tech ought to provide the groundwork upon which a potential future TSW title could be built, integrating it from the ground up, were they to begin development now on a new Train Sim "Platform", if you will... But yeah, such a title could now feasibly be ready as early as 2028, which ought to allow for a cross-gen console release, maintaining ninth gen support for several years over the intergenerational period.
