Until last night I’d not visited the forums for a while, even though I’ve continued to play TSW more than I should…. I was therefore out of the loop re: TSW6 - another annual release was of course inevitable. but it’s still a surprise to see that a year has already passed since the last one and TSW5 (which in some ways I’ve barely scratched the surface of) is about to be superseded. So what’s the sales pitch for TSW6? I’ve seen surprisingly little info on how it’ll improve on what’s come before. Sure, we’re getting new routes and locos, but what about new features? Bug fixes? Is there anything to get excited about, to compensate for the inevitable teething troubles, huge DLC re- re- reinstalls etc. etc..? I’m looking for a reason to look forward to TSW6 rather than dread it…. Anybody?
These are the new features. And I am very much looking forwards especially to the pax and platform announcements. That's a huge thing imo. The announcements will be only on TSW 6 and newer routes for now. Though it was teased a few times that some of the older routes might get an update at some point (no promises). The random events are afaik also on older routes, so you'll benefit from TSW 6, even if you don't like the core routes and don't want to buy them. The quality of life improvements (not 100 % sure what exactly is meant by it) sound like core improvements. So also your older DLCs might benefit from that.
Thanks for the reply! On the surface that doesn’t seem like much, but I guess the devil is in the details. Is that really all that has been shared so far? Not particularly compelling IMHO.
The quality of life thing, they mentioned it on stream, they talked about the on going blury textures issue on platforms. Its a work in progress still.
Do you live under a rock? Anyway; Here's some links to the roadmap articles; https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/train-sim-world-6-roadmap-august-2025.93337/ https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/tsw6-future-roadmap-august-2025.93376/
They’ve done so many videos this last week about it all, ultimately, initially it’ll be a free update, but if it’s not for you, you can always stick with TSW5. However, I don’t believe there’ll be any further core updates for TSW5, resources, I imagine will be focused on TSW6.
Thanks, guys. I'm familiar with the roadmap, but was hoping for some more substantial improvements for TSW6 versus TSW5 at launch. It'd be lovely to be able to jump into the game without having to wait 5+ minutes for it to start, for instance; at least we have the game resume feature on XBOX, but when that doesn't work due to a change in game state it's like being back in the 80's waiting for my ZX Spectrum to load a game off tape. I'd value these kind of improvements to the core experience much more than additional DLC. Let's hope the promised QoL improvements include a faster start-up. I'll no doubt jump on TSW6 like I have for 2020 and 2-5 once any initial issues are ironed out, but IMHO the time spent on releasing a new iteration of TSW would be better spent on adding more polish and features to the existing version....
They basically added 3 of the most requested features from the surveys. Still there are people who say "this is not much". If you dont think these features are enough, then i suggest you wait until you experience them in-game. "If you thought small things dont make a difference, then try to sleep while there is a mosquito in your room"
They may not look like much but for me, added together, they promise to change the gameplay experience in a very positive way. I think it’s the best updates ever and I’m really looking forward to experiencing them.
If the new features materialize without serious issues then they will potentially create a more immersive game. There have been years when some new features failed to fully appear on all new routes ( Rush Hour passengers in BML ) or caused problems ( eye adaptation ). Like everything else, including the quality of the new routes, the proof will be in the proverbial pudding.
I think Random Events will revolutionise this game especially the TT which is relatively bland and a very easy way to spam up your levels as up to now there has been no real challenge aside from the appearance of a red light bug here and there. Now there will be random events to interfere with your sedate drives, I don’t know about you but I think that is a massive feature - what more do you want?
Proper random events would be awesome; aiui this is not affecting AI services yet which is what we really need (already exists in e.g. Diesel Railcar Simulator and it's one of the things that makes that game) but it's still a step in the right direction.
The random events hint at something very big: an AI dispatcher robust enough and intelligent enough to reroute on the fly. That really is a step change (and if nothing else should reduce the number of perma-reds and traffic jams.
So are the expert locos pointless at this stage? Since the expert loco’s whole sales pitch is to trip up the player with random faults. That’s what we’re getting with train faults. I just hope we get some blocked toilets as a fault because some passengers forgot to flush.
That would require a massive buff to the AI logic, including replatforming at terminus stations. So I suspect any delays will be very minor such that they don’t upset the overall timetable balance. And if DTG could devise an intelligent traffic management programme, they wouldn’t be selling it to us in a £40 game - they’d be on the phone to the real operators! Ah the good old unflushable log. Also frequently spotted in the Wetherspoons toilets. Quick to see, impossible to forget.
I haven’t really noticed in on other routes myself. On Mildway it’s pretty consistent throughout a run.
Texture blurring happens when VRAM gets overloaded: Unreal Engine "defends itself" by reverting textures to lower LOD. Mildmay seems to be very poorly optimized in terms of video memory usage (this is not a slam on the dev, but the route is a solo effort that started as a mod), and so it seems to fall into that "protected mode" more than most routes.
The random events feature, if it turns out to be all it's cracked up to be, could be a major step forward in the game. It might also be the first " feature " that leaves any lasting impression. The eye adaptation, snow kick up, photo mode, conductor mode and dynamic weather features have all been failures in my opinion. Resources would have been better spent on improving useful features like the save game and passenger behavior. Let's hope random events proves to be exactly that and doesn't start to become predictable like dynamic weather.
Am in series x, I get it on wcml south, cathcart, bml, that i have noticed so far, but wcml south and cathcart, its really bad for me.
They say the same thing every year, and nothing improves; in fact, I think it only gets worse on larger maps.
I I wonder if they will fix the problem on PC that when playing on a gamepad when confirming Sifa automatic confirmation of the PZB is pressed? On some trains this has been fixed, but not on all.
Will random events affect AI trains (Signal delay)? I don't think so, even though I asked 5 times on the roadmap live and didn't get an answer, so it probably doesn't apply exclusively to player trains only, which would be completely unnecessary. All AI trains will arrive exactly on time. And I think that instead of random events, a completely new dynamic dispatcher should have been created. This still does not solve the problem that if I play the same service twice, I should at least not end up on the same platform at the main station. But the passenger announcement sounds good, so we'll see how it works out.
With regards to the long loading time, Matt did say they are looking into trying to improve the loading times? Ah yes, the spectrum, I was posh I had the disc version
I’m sorry to hear that, as I already mentioned only Mildway affects me, but you saying all those other routes that it’s happening to is a shambles and totally unacceptable. Wonder how long this issue will take to fix…
Did I hear correctly? Matt said that TSW 6 would ship with the layers turned off. This will make TSW 6 initially look fantastic because now it has more performance, but it is like putting lipstick on a pig if that's the case, it is still TSW 5 with a new digit. If you bought some DLC to layer into your route and now you have to turn off that layer because of performance, then what's the point of buying DLCs in first place? Matt did say they are trying to fix performance, so by the sounds of it TSW 6 hasn't solved TSW 5 problems, lets kick the can down the road. TSW 6 is just TSW 5 with a bit of spit and polish and a bit of fan fair behind it. Now to be fair DTG are not charging you for the update/upgrade/rebadging, but please don't think all problems are solved, I could be wrong and I will happily eat my words if it is the case, but....
I would only like a TSW release that has stable 60 fps framerate and no frequent UE-related "traversal" stutters on Xbox. There has been little improvement in this regard in the last several years. I've heard the developers may be able to improve this finally. I'll be curious to try the new Starter Pack (because stutters occur even there) to see if TSW 6 is really smoother. Framerate has always been unstable and I don't understand why TSW still doesn't use dynamic resolution scaling and any form of image reconstruction (FSR 2 or 3). Fixed 4K is so outdated now and unfit for the constantly changing graphical load the different route sections mean for the game. But, if TSW 6 manages to be smoother and more stable then I'll be back in the driver's seat.
If thats true, that is down right bad on there part. (I want to say something else, but might get punted off here). Lol. Layers off to save performance, whats the point in having layers then, surely best to have layers on and work on performance issues with them on, rather than take an easy way out. Wow, just wow
