With TSW6 I was hopeful one of the quality of life improvements would’ve included a new key mapping for the bell on US trains when using a controller. Ever since the “immersion” control scheme was introduced, this functionality has been missing. It is especially tricky to press the in-cab button every time you are arriving/departing from a station. Since operations shift has become a thing for controllers, (holding down the X button on an Xbox controller), I don’t see a reason why the bell toggle can’t be added as an combo with the X button and another button on the controller. There are still pleanty of combinations left unused that could be mapped to the bell (X + left bumper for example)
Well many of us who play American routes have been asking for this for a very long time, basically since it was taken away with the immersion controls as you correctly point out. The only feedback I have ever heard is that DTG don't have any plans to add any functionality to the controller. Of course when the Vectron came out and needed an extra step to acknowledge AFB speed changes it was updated to X + D-pad up very quickly. That was great and a welcome addition, but then again between the two the bell would have been better because the Vectron's AFB button is always in exactly the same place, whereas the bell can be anywhere based on all the different units that have one. Why the bell can't ALSO be X + D-pad up, since there are no locos that have both AFB and also a bell, hasn't really been explained.
I actually used to use a remapping software called reWASD. I set X+D-pad up as a shortcut for the “B” key and it worked really well. It was also useful for using the guard buzzer in UK trains (maybe that’s how we convinced DTG to give us this mapping). The software wasn’t free though, it cost me $7 just to have a convenient way to turn the bell on and off. Unfortunately, some online games I play now (mostly EA games) outright ban this software from being installed on your pc so I can’t use it anymore.
This was addressed recently by DTG: Have you made any changes to the Playstation/XBOX controller layout for TSW6, namely mapping the bell and fast external camera? If not, why? It’s a large job that we haven’t been able to dedicate time too.
Sadly DTG are only interested in console players for their money, they only ever do the bare minimum to take our cash.
One would hope they should give more attention to players who contribute 2/3 of total revenue for this game
Only if you are using the older, clunkier control scheme from TSW2020. Since the “immersion” control scheme was introduced in TSW2, there has not been a way to turn the bell on or off on a controller.
