I'm going to have to disagree with this. At least unless it's toggleable to that nights can still be properly dark for those who want it to be that way. Nighttime driving, you're going to be in the dark, and not able to see most of it. It's actually one of the things I think this route does exceptionally well. Mostly because the NS ICM's light don't really illuminate anything, but only activate the reflecting surface of the signal posts. (don't know if that's the pic you posted or not. It doesn't load for me) It's supposed to feel that way. That's what driving a train at night is like. In fact, the nights used to be a lot brighter in older versions of the game. And it got a lot of critique for it. If you know how the signal posts work, this route in particular is entirely drivable at night, no problem. Thanks to Dutch signalling. Unlike lots of German, British and American routes which rarely announce stations through trackside signalling. Now, the game's lighting is a bit weird in general, in that I think just a few good tweaks in lighting, without even necessarily touching textures that much if at all, could make the game look *much* more realistic and vibrant. But that's more an overall thing, and not this specific route. Anyhow. Now that we're discussing light related things on this route. Devs, if you're reading this. AI driven NS ICM's *still* don't know how to turn on passenger lights! It's fairly annoying, as all dark ICM's that aren't doing empty stock moves driving by at night does kinda kill any immersion.
If you're having trouble with nighttime driving, and stopping properly, look for these, in the pircture provided below. They're "verkenborden", and they're used to announce stations. If you see it, apply light to medium brakes, and you should be able to stop about where you need to, with some adjustments.
In fact I don't own this specific route, but yes, nighttime feels really very different from one route to the next. Just like it already was in TSC btw... That's a good idea, as it's already done in Uboat for example (WWII submarine simulator). Especially since we are not all equal when it comes to vision. Some are as blind as bats, while others could drive in the middle of the night without headlights !
NPC Passenger Boarding Behavior – Logic/Condition Suggestion Hi, The biggest problem is that the NPCs are non existant on this map, they don't enter the train at every station almost, there is nobody at the stations, it kills the immersion, that's why I stopped playing, and I love this line... It should be flowing of passangers entering and getting out.. It's even worst in FREEROAM , when you want to complete several trips without going to the menu for 100% immersion, the NPCs completely disapear no one on the map, it's ghost town , this NEED TO BE FIXED... I'm on Xbox Serie X, and there is the same issue with London Overground ! This is very sad ! NPCs behavior should be fixed , other games it works fine, also problem all the NPCs never get off at the END OF THE LINE there are still in the trains, it kills the immersion, fix this and it would be really great. It's just a question of programming !
NPC Passenger Boarding Behavior Someone made a video that talk about this issue in TSW6... Thank you ! It helps the community !
So, nearly a year after release, I'm still finding the following *SEVERE GAME ENDING BUG* which I believe I have reported before! Honestly can't believe this one is still in there, honestly. If you take the SNG out for more than a single service, like that which I'm doing right one (Groningen - Assen, Assen - Groningen), there's a reasonable (though not guaranteed) chance that on a second trip, the brake will suddenly start acting up. When this happens, whenever you attempt to apply any brake at all, the main air reservoir will go wild and starts ticking, dumping air, erratically applying brakes, locking the train in place permanently. There is a somewhat workaround, though it's unreliable, which is by switching off the "Halterem" which applies brakes when at 0 speed with no traction. Only it's not even a guarantee traction will be applied even with cleared brakes, and even in this mode, any braking action will erratically disturb the reservoir and erratically keep applying the brakes progressively no matter what your input is. In the two screenshots below, you can see how the reservoirs are dumping without any braking applied (other than the halterem) Below a single screenshot, after having let the reservoir refill, after enabling the halterem again for only a second or two: I know the problem is hard to replicate, and doesn't seem to be a guarantee either. "luckily" the issue seems to be preserved in saving the game. I can't seem to copy-paste a savefile from my SaveGames files in here. But if any dev is working on this and wants to reach out, I've saved this game, and the last checkpointsave, and backed them up seperately so they can be transferred if needed.
Fired the route up to pursue my March Mastery campaign. Kind of a guilty pleasure really, the scenery is first class particularly at dawn or dusk with a little fog in the mix. But it is let down slightly by the choice of prototype, the long straight run with no stations at the relatively low speed, by modern standards, 140 km/h. Hopefully there is more to come from Holland but despite my aversion to bus stop routes I think this is one region that would benefit from a more intensive network with urban and inter urban running.
When the route was announced, a lot of Dutch players were surprised that DTG went with this particular route. Like you said, it's basically one long stretch with not much variation in scenery. DTG explained that the other routes that were looked at, required more asset and scenery building and they chose this route as an easy entrance. If you compare Zwolle-Groningen to somthing like amsterdam-Rotterdam (not the high speed line, but the classic line), or Arnhem-Utrecht, or Breda-Eindhoven, I totally understand DTG's point. If I'm not mistaken, the route sold quite well, so I reckon that we'll see more Dutch routes in the future. By the way, DTG announced Amsterdam-Hilversum for TSClassic a year or two ago - anyone heard what happened to that?
In fact, I recently learned that the stretch between Assen and Haren is the longest continuous stretch of passenger rail distance in the entire country between 2 stations. Also, regarding Hilversum - Hoofddorp for TS Classic. It came up in the most recent dev diary. I believe it's not too far from release, though they haven't showed any rolling stock yet, but we know it's going to be NS VIRM and NS SLT now. It's a 3rd party developer, Jasksoft, doing it, so not DTG themselves (I don't know how involved they are or not) I also don't really know what to expect with the trains themselves, as Christrains already has both NS VIRM and NS SLT done. Though someone did mention that the route Köln - Koblenz, which uses the Flirt, actually uses Christrains' one. So I suspect that might be how that one solves it. I'm not too sure what that'll mean for TSW though. At first I was happy to hear particularly the NS VIRM was going to be included, and I wasn't yet aware that it was actually a 3rd party group doing it. So I thought that DTG had also gotten reference material for NS VIRM and NS SLT. But now I'm not too sure. But either way, it means that the licensing is not an issue, and that NS hasn't just given license for a single one time route, like we know other operators have done for other content in the game.
