What Should Be The Next "expert" Loco?

No hints. I just wanted to know what the expectations would be and now, with only two posts, i can clearly say that i won't make them expert at all. Multiple reasons for that. First an foremost the economical side of thing, as always. I mean the 101 expert is in work since 3 or 4 years now? Nothing i can do when i do the job for a living. The 101 Expert is done mostly by enthusiasts in their spare time. If they would need to make a living out of that work it would fail fast. So, nothing for myself to do

 

Not talking about making locos Expert here so a bit off-topic but...
At the very least I'm glad there exist 3rd party mods to make the (however low poly) engine rooms walkable like on the 103 because being c-blocked by an invisible wall from going down a clearly accessible empty corridor is ...stupid. A bit less so if there's a door such as in the 218, but still a big bummer.

I don't know how the 232 is inside, doors or not, but that a better solution cannot be found is silly, if anything for the ease of crossing over to the other side.
The level of detail when crossing the mod-unlocked 103 may not be front page news worthy but I never saw myself puking while crossing the low poly section to the other cab and swearing never to do that again =p
Even for locos that have doors to the innermost compartments, why not at least the teleport feature seen in the latest Vectron update?

 

I'd suggest a US Freight loco, like a GP38-2, or SD40-2. I know we already have them in the game, but they're two of the oldest models and have never been updated with the latest bells and whistles. These are still ubiquitous units so reference materials would be easy to come by. Free roam lends itself well to US Freight, so it would have good value right out of the box.

An expert-level EMD loco combined with an overhaul to the whole way US Freight is handled in the game is my dream for TSW6- give us full manual coupling and control over the air line, maybe even randomly generated waybills to add some dynamism to the gameplay and make better use of loading/unloading facilities that already exist. They did say to expect the unexpected...

I'd also argue if an Amtrak diesel ever appears, it should be expert-level- we're only ever getting it once, so let it be done right lol.

 

I'd personally like to see something from the UK thats expert but not too complicated.

Even if it was an expert update /shunting pack on tees valley or any future uk route with shunting. Class 66 even. I suspect the challenge may be licensing that In, not sure

 

I don't think you can have the one without the other. Also I don't see any UK dev going into the expert direction. Maybe JT? But until proven wrong, we'll only have german/austrian expert locos by TSG in the near and distant future.

 

Whether it would be particularly expert or not I'm not sure, but I'm generally surprised that no-one has taken on building a Deltic in all the years of TSW, I suppose limited "time realistic" route opportunities, but they appear on railtours and preserved lines frequently.

 

From a developers sight it is easy to answer to that. It's just not reliable to do. People want to see full timetable usage and tons of other gameplay today. That's not given with just railtours. At TSG we have a similar train, the VT98. We would love to do it but there is no proper usage on the current available routes. The effort to spend into the production of a loco/MU is way to much to just let it doing some railtours. From a economical sight of course.

 

Absolutely YES !

 

Worth remembering one of the people working on the 101, also did significant work on the BR 158.

I think JT themselves are already at a good level with their rolling stock. They’re not to the level of the exp101 but they’re above average for UK stuff & I suspect they’re only going to

 

I do see where you are coming from. Its just such a glaring omission from the game, and from my point of view, I would be more than happy to part with £50 for a high quality Deltic dlc - and i’m sure many others would also. Are really we going to have to wait another decade simply because there isn’t a time relevant route available to run it on?.

 

BR 110. I would like to say BR 103, but then we would have another IC loco. So I'll go with the BR 110 and N-wagen cab car.

 

Personally expert locos don’t interest me but I should imagine a UK and US one for balance.

 

I will guess a BR152.... This loco is around the same time as the 101 and they have a lot of similarities.

 

Do we really know this though? Other train sims have gotten by without timetable for years, and nobody has really tried to launch a route without a timetable for TSW. And there do exist a number of DLC's that don't add a ton of services or are rather limited like Scotsman & Rivet's Jubilee pack. Obviously some here would complain, but then as many here have said this forum's a minority of the player-base. Do we really know for sure that there isn't a silent majority that really don't care for timetable and would die to trade that mode away for say extra and/or more elaborate scenarios?

Not that I think you're wrong in this particular case, heck, I have complained about the idea of doing rail-tour only DLC's in the past myself. But by the same token that's just my opinion, and I and many others here favor a lot of things that clearly people in the train sim scene would consider not viable commercially.

 

It could fit on Niddertalbahn (Coming with a separate timetable). I don't think there is much that dates the route to the 90s overall. But then you'd be lacking appropriate AI for intersecting mainlines etc. I'd love to see the VT98 in TSW, and Niddertalbahn could be an avenue to pursue here, but your point certainly stands. There's nothing that fits seamlessly.

 

10,000% disagree

Timetable mode is the only part of TSW that's worthwhile imo.

 

I don't think that's true. Timetable mode seems to be favourite amongst the majority.

 

I understand the requirement for the timetable mode, but to suggest it’s the only part of TSW, which is worthwhile is a rather silly.

 

Yeah, but that's his personal opinion right? Not necessarily silly.

 

It is yes. But there is nothing to suggest the timetable is favourite amongst the majority.

 

That's the beauty of opinions, they are very important, but equally at the same time totally unimportant and can be completely ignored, and not effect anything. Opinions are awesome......

 

Put it this way.... what is the easiest to access for developer?
That's the one that's most likely.
I'm guessing something like a Class 47 or Class 66 is your best bet.
I'd guess unless it's the same company (wherein it would be a German one obviously), the other big market in TSW is the UK, so that'd make sense.

Assuming we'll get an 'expert" version of something we can't even get "normally" is ridiculous.

 

A few of you are putting words into my mouth if you think I don't want timetables. Keep in mind I said this.

I actually agree with TSG not doing something like railtour or timetable-less DLC personally. However based on many arguments I've seen over the years both from TSG and many others-

1: Personal opinions mean jack, I can praise TSG for doing something I desire, but that means nothing on its own how good or bad a idea is on the whole.
2: The forum's opinions aren't good a good for judging anything but what the forum itself likes, as it's such a small part of the player base.
3: Other games, including other trains sims like TSC ain't great for doing that either, as TSW's very different from those other titles.
4: TSW really hasn't experimented much with timetable-less content, notably including TSG itself not doing anything of the sort.

This all in all just leaves me confused as to where and how TSG has gotten this info from. As this guy put it-

-at least that we here can publicly verify. Which is why I'm asking, what are we basing this on? Only thing I can really think of is DTG & Rivet sharing sales data with TSG of their respective rail-tour DLC's. I got the impression these groups didn't necessarily share that sort of info with each other. And even if they did I wouldn't think Scotsman or a Jubilee reskin doing poorly would mean a Deltic would do just as badly, especially with how bad steam in TSW is.

 

Most diesel and steam locomotives (steam of course with improvements in physics). In fact an expert steam loco would be a real challenge to drive by its nature.

 

Probably from all the people who say the only reason they prefer TSW over TSC and Simrail is because of the timetables over the years.

It does seem to be their niche of a niche game.

Just a hunch.

Personally I haven't completed one scenario in the game all I play is the timetable. And I have over 186 days of gameplay over all versions.

 

In the stream today talking about the new TSG expert 101 inclusion into the Schnellfahrstrecke Kassel - Würzburg with the new tt, it was mentioned that they are working on a new expert locomotive which we just might hear about in a month.

 

You can bet it will be one of the "tickets" in the Dovetail Direct the 26th of august.
Probably we will find out what JT is working on in the same way.

 

Well it'll be German then. That cuts down the possibilities.
I'd almost say a 94/1020 or some Krokodil variant because they already basically said it was "near at expert level."
Wouldn't be hard to nudge it up to "expert" with a few more switches.
Then again that might cannibalize existing sales of the "regular" one that's still relatively new...and it's pretty simple overall so there's not much you'd get from making it "expert level."
About the only thing I can think of that would really benefit from the "expert" treatment would be something with in depth touch screens like a Vectron. Just don't see them doing an EMU to that level.

 

I am pretty certain it is going to be a new and modernish loco, which is not yet represented in the game. I am also pretty sure that it will be with a focus on freight, this time.

My bet is with a 152 or a 189, either of them I would really like!