Route Hopping was a work around to allow a players to jump from route to route without going back to the menu. To stay in the simulator, to have the same time of day and weather on another route to help keep players immersed in the game. On paper it is a fantastic idea, in reality it works pretty good and the only thing beating that is to actually join the routes. Enter several 3rd party developers into the mix along with DTG. Now we have several peoples creating new routes, installing route hopping onto each of their routes....All good so far....!!! So, you drive a newly added route, then you decide to want to connect with another route via the "Route Hopping" feature, you jump through the portal end up on another route. Fantastic you think, but now you want to go back to the new route.........? You are now trapped in 1985 with no way to get home Is there a way or can there be a gentlemen's agreement regarding "Route Hopping" that if anybody creates a portal, they can or should create it both sides? The whole idea of "Route Hopping" is immersion, but if you can only travel one way then immersion falls on its ass. It gets long fingered, taking several updates and usually a new version of TSW for routes to be joined if at all?
It would be nice if it actually worked. On my South Coast to Scotland epic journey the other week, it never worked properly once. Either dumped me in a great blue void, somewhere remote from the actual location, or at the station but never loaded in the specified timetable. And to me personally, unless you can stay in the cab of your train and continue forward with it on the next portion, kind of pointless.
This ^^. I find Route Hopping pointless. I might as well go via the menu and choose a new service to play which puts me directly in the cab of the right train at the right time.
I Route Hopped from.St Pancras to Victoria the other day and it spawned me at Stone Crossing in front of a 700
Route hopping as it is implemented now isn't adding much value (imo). With it being a novelty (back in early TSW 5 days) I tried it a view times, but it didn't stick. It should be left in for people who actually enjoy it, but it would be great if one could hide the route hop markers when wanted like you can hide other UI elements.
I'm hoping improved route hopping comes with TSW7. I haven't had the amount of bugs with it that some people have reported, but it's certainly underbaked. The dream is obviously an automatic process where the game loads you into the "next" service on the appropriate route without much or any delay. The player remains in the cab and all settings/cab state are carried over. In fairness to DTG, I'm not entirely sure how it could be made a universal feature. It would require the timetables for two routes are intentionally synchronized ahead of time- and even then, what if the player is late? Does the game have you travel back in time to start the next service? If there were a way for a player to join a service in-progress (thinking of SimRail), it might work, but I've seen no evidence that TSW is programmed to do that currently. But that's for the devs to flex their creative muscles on, I guess lol. Generally speaking- how would people feel if they introduced it with the understanding it would only ever be for selected routes/networks? Or more intentionally created new DLC to make it work better? E.g. what if two of the three routes for TSW7 were developed together with a "synced" timetable? Maybe two sections of ECML? Would we want this knowing it might limit variety in the future a bit? Personally I think it would be an awesome feature if they could really get it working seamlessly
I never use it so never come across any issues except that I can’t hide the markers which are a blight on the game. Hopefully TSW7 will allow me to hide the markers and simultaneously save the forum from a whole load of complaints from me for the third TSW edition running. They ask for feedback each year and then just ignore it. #hidethemarkers
This is probably impossible or very difficult to achieve. And it could add yet another problem to solve.
Even if it only works for a few cases, that would already be pretty good — for example, two services with the same headcode. There’s nothing technically difficult about it, it’s just a simple loading operation. Or alternatively, a marker that would not work for a player moving on foot, but for one traveling by train (that is on track, like a portal) : you spawn a consist at Euston (free roam/timetable mode), you arrive at Milton Keynes, run on the marker, and it automaticaly loads Trent Valley with the same train, cab setup, weather, etc. Same here : not often useful, but better than nothing, and no technical obstacles !
See? You came up with a great solution! I don't know if it actually would work, but it makes sense to me. Hopefully DTG are cooking up something similar
Oh man, I hope so... I miss my Caledonian Sleeper sessions in TSC so much... It didn't happen often, usually a friday evening/night, but I loved traveling long distances at nightfall — in perfect tranquility, with a free mind... With the merges available for TSC, we didn't have to see the main menu very often... But I remember someone mentioning that Matt P had big ambitions for the route-hopping feature. We'll see... Thank you mate After all, there are only two cases where this "in-cab route hopping" function would be useful : Route 1 and route 2 match : that means there are indeed real-world services that transition from one to the other. So, they will inevitably have the same headcode. (Obviously that won't be the case between a 1986 route and a 2025 one...) And if there’s no actual service running between the two routes, or if you want to travel from London to Carlisle in TSW... well, why not go for a railtour ! TSW already knows whether it is possible to spawn a train at a specific location and time, since pressing Tab sometimes causes the location to appear in red as long as the space isn't clear... The more routes available in TSW, the further we’ll be able to travel — truly travel, not just going back and forth. It’s time to make the most of it !
perhaps, there could be an option when choosing the first service whether you’d like to seamlessly transfer to the next route without leaving the cab, and manually select which service you’d like to be transferred to, along with a backup service in case you’re late. if you’re too late even for the backup service, then most likely it would be cancelled in real life as that’s what TOC’s tend to do, being the helpful folk they are
Remember the game engine knows where to place all the AI traffic at any given moment. For example, when you choose to spawn on foot in timetable mode, it’s not a disaster — everything is exactly where it should be. But indeed, your platform may be occupied if you arrive late — if only by the train that was following you on the first leg... So let's assume you arrive in Milton Keynes from London at 4:20 PM instead of 4:15 PM (WCMLS). When the game loads the Trent Valley, it has to start the simulation at 4:15, locking the player's starting location (where the player is supposed to appear when arriving from London — Platform 6, I believe). The simulation then runs until 4:20, but "invisibly", the player continues to see the loading screen (this would last a few seconds I suppose). In this way, AI traffic builds up around you, but your position remains free — reserved for you, and you spawn on Trent Valley at 4:20, ready to resume to Crewe. So yes, the later you arrive, the more of a problem it creates for the dispatcher — which will likely crash if you hit it with delays of tens of minutes — though that is unlikely (most of the times, it's only a few minutes). And as you suggested, it is indeed possible to place a limit on the ability to chain services, with a message appearing to inform you that the next leg of your journey has been cancelled ! But often, the timetables don't match up exactly. So you'll arrive in Milton Keynes at 4:20 PM, and you'll leave... at 4:05 PM (which you already can do today... but only by going through that darn main menu !)
