High Iron Simulations Thread.

I consider myself a 'US trains normie' and watching the previews I saw things like the box at the end of the train increasing its number but not the box in the cab, had no idea what it was and the train was still drivable.

The colours look like colours, they're not blurry as heck like they've been through a fire.

The sounds sounds like a diesel loco and nice to someone who plays *mostly* uk stuff

It was a reskin apparently of an existing route, sand patch iirc, but I have the SD70ace and the ES44 so this is different enough from them for me and as for cab internal stuff, I'm a mid 30s person from Australia, I have less than zero idea of the Sante Fe in the 90's. I honestly only started seeing things were wrong after perusing the forums and seeing this post.

One problem I can see is that while I'm not what most would consider a full 'normie' - I engage with the forums, discord and upload TSW to YouTube - I still know less than nothing about US locos, and pointing out things I thought were wrong or bugs in the past on UK stuff usually results in "what do you know, your an Australian" (not from the forums, YouTube is a friendly place LOL) so as much as I'd like to point things out, I'm also afraid of getting it wrong and getting dog piled again.

It's the worst attitude to have but 'experts' making you feel like absolute LOVE because you aren't as smart as them on UK trains (it's a thing I'm still trying to let go) makes you just not care anymore about pointing stuff out. It works, it looks right, shut up and drive it and no one gets upset.

 

** I just shut up and drive - wanted to make it clear I wasn't telling other people to do so

 

Glad I could generate some interest!

I do want to stress in my video that I didn't make that stream just to bash on it. As I stated, there is some interesting stuff in this pack and there are a few things I applauded HIS for...

But this is just really unacceptable. HIS needs to do better. From the beginning I was skeptical on how well this DLC would turn out and it seems my fears were correct.

 

They should be called "High Nose Simulation", not a single response, left a very bad first impression for my personal taste and looks like they care even less than Rivet during the time of their dark past.

A lot of hype, the pictures even excited me when they appeared months back. But yea in the end my wallet stays closed

(Bought some of their content 10 years back for tsc, not gonna miss them anytime soon)

 

Also got to wonder why DTG just wave this stuff through, like a disinterested Customs Officer in the green channel. They should be the backstop when it comes to 3P quality, in terms of protecting their customers from overpriced junk. Sadly it seems the £££ win through, the silly headphones get put on (if it even gets a stream) to be talked up and high fived, so they can pay another months rent on the HQ building at Chatham.

Sorry, I'm a bit cynical this morning,

 

Just this morning, Vern? ;-)

 

Not a single word from HIS yet?

Even on his home board RWA where the staunch defenders used to live, nothing but silence.

That board is down to a handful of postings a week already?
No well received US content, neither in Train Sim Classic nor in Train Sim World, there is no need to talk about it?

Best start leeching the RWA file store, since there is no more sponsorship and even with so little traffic the hosting bills still have to be paid.
Already most of the archived background information, modeling and creating tutorials and tools are unavailable, their authors have long left the board.

 

High Iron PLEASE for the love of god give us or sell us some weathered cars so it doesn't look like I'm driving a train of brand new cars.

 

This is it for all I know. Don’t know if they’ve said anything else anywhere. Don’t know what “feasible” is according to HIS but I doubt significant model changes are coming.

 

Doubtfull indeed, since (DTM ?) took and borked up the CSX model, adding a brow and gull wings only for the exterior.

AFAIK, the TSC EMD F3 and BL2 done by DTM still have the swing hangers missing from their Blomberg trucks.

Anyway, let's wait and see what HIS and subcontractors will do now the pressure from DTG is on.

 

This not the best of dlcs but still playable just what exactly were they doing for a year and half feels something they knocked up in a couple of months.

 

What pressure would that be? Have you heard something?

 

The newly appointed USA content liason has collected a lot of remarks from the various threads.
The bugtracker should contain a lot of reported bugs by now.
The liason will report to staff.

I am sure there is 'silent pressure', since obviously, nobody wants to admit their failure regarding this much anticipated DLC.

Whether there will be any transparency as to the improvement of this DLC? We'll have to wait and see.
I am glad I didn't spend my money on this and rather got myself the Somerset & Dorset line for TSC.

 

With all due respect to our new CM, I fear the " bugtracker ", as you call it, is so overfull I doubt it can accept any more reports. Your optimism is admirable. I'm afraid I don't share it.

 

Fair enough.

I'm giving her a chance- i suppose DTG could claim "they weren't aware" that the US/NA community was unhappy with the state of things.

Now, with a dedicated CM, that excuse (as weak as it was) is gone. We've made the issues with the new HIS pack clearly known and she's reported them back.

The results will speak for themselves in the end.

I hope they make a sincere effort to fix it because it DOES have value imo. The timetable itself is pretty darn good IMO, it's just let down by poor modelling and programming (based on the alerter issue, etc).

Some of this is on DTG (core issues) but some is clearly on HIS,- this is their first project in TSW, that's to be expected to some degree!

For me, an acknowledgement of these issues, a committment to fixing them as best as possible, and to make improvements in their dev process for the upcoming GP60 pack would go a long way.

I'd love to hear more from them on these forums, either directly or through Candace.

 

It only benefits HIS to be transparent about feedback and work on fixes honestly. If they choose to not fix something, then that could be explained too. (For example they think the paint color is correct, or there's some Core issue that prevents them from fixing the EOTD)
They are the ones that would be hurt by bad press before another upcoming DLC release.

I can respect a company that explains their actions.
It shows they have responsibility and a vision, even if I don't agree with their decisions.
Sometimes I wonder how much of it is avoidance and how much of it is NDAs or agreements with DTG to limit what they can talk about.
We'll see.

I'd personally ask more about their design decisions on layering, timetables and cross route compatibility than the individual loco design stuff, but that's because I think it's a waste to not expand their work beyond Cajon Pass which is not the most popular route by a long shot. A C40 or the GP 60 would be a LOT more useful addition on other routes. (Would work really well on the Sand Patch and Horseshoe Curve routes) but that seems to not even be a consideration, limiting the usage and value of the pack. That's what I'd like to know personally.

That lack of usefulness outside of Cajon Pass made me hesitate to pull the trigger on this, not the EOTD or artwork.

Still though, I'd like to hear the reasoning behind decisions made because that will determine what sort of content we'd get in the future. If the C40 for example is ONLY going to be on Cajon Pass, then the GP 60 will likely ONLY be on Cajon Pass.

 

I can't lie I despise his thumbnails. He's a actually quite nice to watch but his clickbaity style thumbnails make me avoid his videos.

 

That’s how it is with a lot of the rolling stock in game made by dtg also

 

Yes, I wonder if it's written into the license agreements. Most every loco and rail car in TSW is squeaky clean. The only exceptions are some stock on Clinchfield and I think SPG.

 

Conspiracy theory: DTG & Co. I believe probably could do better weathering, they just don't because it saves them a extra five manhours and a few subscriptions to Substance Painter.

Seriously, people tend to overestimate how much other companies care, I remember with the Truck Sims seeing people for years assume the reason why we didn't get old trucks for years was just down to the companies not allowing it. But it's became pretty clear it has just as much to do with SCS themselves making the strategic choice to prioritize in-production and new trucks. Case and point, SnowRunner actually has a fair selection of older trucks in its fleet, and that has been the case for years.

I would also point to stuff like people assuming that airplane companies actually care deeply about their aircraft being accurate in MSFS. When reality is having something like a "Boeing Approved" badge just means someone said they can use the Boeing name to help sell it. They really don't care if it's a PMDG-level or Captain Sim-level product, if they did, lord knows the latter definitely would not have their branding on it!

 

IIRC, the lack of weathering being a licensing thing was stated outright on a stream quite a while back. At least some rail companies want their equipment shown in the best possible light.

I remember driving U.S. freight trains with a CSX loco that had every branded car in their consist sporting a CSX logo as well. I doubt that was a coincidence.

 

Far as I understand it companies do want things like the logo's unobscured, but they are fine with weathering in general as long as it's tasteful. If we want to be technical even many of the "clean" liveries tend to have some form of weathering, it's just very light. And as far as more done up weathering certainly CSX seems fine with it, the C40-8W has a decent amount, and the Clinchfield units probably has the best weathering in TSW for a US unit. UP probably is too because Smokebox did include some pretty weathered liveries for his Big Boy & Challenger.

You do remember that Sand Patch happened first right? Hard to have trains with different operators and companies when there weren't any others to even pick from. And there's been DLC with multiple operators, NEC: New York having both Amtrak & CSX, notable for having only months after Sand Patch. I think there was at least one TSC route from about the same time that similarly includes CSX & Amtrak together, though i don't remember which off the top of my head. And I do know that the GP40-2 for TSC has liveries for UP, CSX, & NS, all included out of the box, and was done in 2018, so not that long after Sand Patch.

I can also think of Peninsula Corridor having both CalTrain & UP both come to mind in both games. And in TSC Tehachapi also comes to mind as has one with both UP & BNSF units. Going foreign EWS has shared just about every appearance on a route, similarly I don't think there's been a single private operator in German which doesn't also appear alongside DB. I don't see the evidence for train companies secretly trying to snub out each other to get the spotlight. Far more likely DTG just want to put in the minimum effort, we have plenty of evidence that they like to do that.

 

Sure, mix & match dominates, but it was noticeable that in the midst of that, a CSX loco was only followed by CSX equipment, so that felt more like a licensing demand than organic.

Also seems to me that isolating one particular set of rolling stock out of everything available would be more effort, not less.

 

Someone forgot that there was freight car subbing that DTG used to have on freight routes, but it was removed from every route except for Oakville, where any freight car can spawn in a manifest (If its tagged properly)

 

Remember when they pretended they were gonna fix that issue?

 

I remember! It would have been great if anything had come of that. Instead of fixing it however, they have instead abandoned US freight. I would guess DTG probably sees no need to fix something that is no longer supported. To make it worse we can't even get custom liveries to show on some freight cars, including all the available cars on both CJP and CRR. Does anyone know if custom liveries show up on the cars and/or locos in the Santa Fe pack? That would, at least, be something.

 

I only use the Sd40-2’s the C40-8W paint is horrendous and the fact the cab is so bright because of the lack of tinted windows I just can’t do it.