Nürnberg - Ingolstadt (and Feucht) Discussion Threa

If DLC sales are falling then sadly that is probably down to the game now being saturated with very similar content, just no incentive to buy at full price or even at all. I respect that part of this has been a passion project (though didn’t we used to do those for MSTS and TSC then release as freeware?) but that doesn’t stop potential buyers stopping to think, “Well I’ve already got SKW for high speed running and the experience with this route likely to be similar to the brief fast sections on Munich to Augsburg or Koln to Aachen.” ?

Sadly DTG have monetised TSW to the extreme by retaining control of the distribution process and console conversion there is little or no scope but for route developers to go through official channels. I’m not privy to how much of a cut DTG take from 3P sales but suspect similar to Steam in the region of 25 to 30%, so maybe the 3P’s need to start negotiating more aggressively and demand a bigger slice of the pie for their work. If, as we suspect, DTG have wound down in house DLC production that puts the 3P’s in a strong bargaining position. Pay us more or we don’t work, you don’t make any money and you really will be moving from that lush office in Chatham to a portacabin on a bomb site somewhere outside Birmingham.

Then this is another route where, regardless of the desirability, like the diminutive Thames Valley Branches, Dovetail Direct and the likely release of TSW7 are just a few weeks away. Spend £45 between these two routes (would have been more if Tadami hadn’t been canned) or hold on and see if something more interesting is arriving with the big route and train pack.

So while I wish the developers luck with the release, sadly there are quite a few factors working against this one.

 

It is no wonder DTG wanted to close the general discussion forum.

There is constructive criticism then there is what we have seen in the last few posts.

I certainly wish developers including DTG would hit back at some of the ridiculous conspiracy theories certain members engage in.

 

The Talent2 from SKA is way closer to the real life Talent2 used in Nürnberg (4-car, entry height, etc). DRA/DRL and KWG are all only 3-car.
And if they used the KWG one, you could not really drive the services, as the safety systems have issues on that one.

So the Talent2 from Köln-Aachen is the correct choice, unless they could have made a new one, but that would have been too much work, with all the rest going on.

 

If we have to have that one koln aachen DTG could have updated to make more pleasant to drive.

 

I'd take a shorter superior 442 over an awfully unpleasant one any day. its just not a nice train.

 

It may not be a solution for now but once DTG or another 3rd party does another Nürnberg route and add a realistic Sbahn Nürnberg 442 then it should be possible to substitute the new one, which wouldnt be if they use a 3 Car 442.
Same for TSG, where TSG Lukas said they look at the feedback and possible options, so IF they update the 442 post release then they wont need to redo the whole Sbahn timetable.

 

Matt said, very sternly, on a Roadmap Stream earlier in the year that "Third party developers do not need to deliver all current *Core Features*". So you will see groups like JT and AABS delivering as much as possible, whilst other developers do less.

Also I found it astounding that a comment made on the preview livestream ""we didn't improve the 101 because it might make the expert 101 less appealing"" a bizarre statement to make.

 

Just curious, is it just the suspension? I just tried all three variants of the 442 and the only noticeable difference in driving that I could find was that the Leipzig-Dresden version has suspension, while the other two don't. Or am I missing something

Edit: to add, have to say that I find the 423-430 s Bahn trains nicer to drive than the 442 anyway.

 

I think the comment was in regards to avoid making DTG's standard 101 (which still is a separate DLC despite its age) rather than TSG's own expert 101. Not that this makes their comment any less bizarre though.

 

Not exactly what he said. He said it would devalue the original normal 101 from DTG, not the Expert 101.

 

It's funny to read all the negative comments; they should be more constructive. Just think, Italy doesn't have 1km of TSW! Can it be improved? Of course! It takes time, passion, and patience! Even Zusi3 can improve! Thanks Pilot21

 

The sounds are poor, headlights are brighter than the sun, and the paint on the train is very matte looking rather than the regular glossy red. it's just a very TSW2 looking train. I know it's nitpicky, but at the very least, it should have been included. Basically without a particular layer, several stations on the route are useless. A bit like the Watford DC line without owning the Suffragette line.

The route looks amazing, the updates to the ICE3 are brilliant, however, the 101 not being brought up to TSW6 standards is surprising and disappointing.

 

Agree with everything you have said if them things where addressed I would have bought it straight away.

 

To be fair that's even dumber in a lot of respects, it's been out for years and almost certainly gotten 99% of the money DTG's going to get out of it. The old 101 isn't suddenly going to have a second wind, especially nobody's willing to improve the base add-on. If the 101 can't be upgraded due to other resourced being tied up, that's at least understandable. But content existing in other forms has not stopped others from upgrading included stock, that really does come across as a excuse on TSG's part.

 

Agreed, but in any case it is not right to quote someone and change what he actually said.

PS: Not trying to imply that it was done on purpose. Just explaining why I felt the need to post the correction.

 

Just to confirm, we’re talking about the same passion project that was picked up by an established dev house & published by DTG, for the same cost as their standard commercial product line?

What does it represent? It’s a route that quality & feature wise sits right in with the current standard of route building (to be clear this isn’t a negative). Unless you mean it represents the original devs work? Yes I surely would like to celebrate that, however that’s not really the case now since it’s being sold as a TSG product & published by DTG. Those goalposts are very far apart, especially when the asking price is where it’s at & that cost doesn’t even go to A) entirely to the person who built it & B) isn’t going to the people that put the time into the stock that was worked on.

This last part doesn’t even make sense, this route actively falls below the existing feature set, if anything, buying it displays that you’re happy to see less of the current feature set?


I wasn’t planning on replying to the thread much further, as my original point was that the rolling stock chosen was a let down & is likely part of the reason DTG are seeing issues with DLC sales.

As usual though there’s an astounding level of toxic positivity present that warps any sort of comment into an attack, leading to the usual parroting of “close the forums” & hyperbolic claims of conspiracy theories because someone hasn’t been personally informed of something. The irony is that I’d wager most people who like to turn these discussions into a battle for a non-existent morale high ground, don’t even put their money where their mouth is anyway.

Personally I maintain that selling products which use significantly degraded or abandoned assets, for the same price as current quality & standard content, isn’t a product I’m interested in buying. I’d rather that be stated as opposed to falling sales figures that lead to devs & publishers guessing what people didn’t like.

 

Tbh, this is a really concerning business practice/standard. Throughout TSW6, I'd say 3rd Party releases have been more innovative than DTGs. Yet locos that are reused are not allowed to directly compete with DTGs and can't be the new standard because it's not DTG's work.

Despite this, there is no slowdown of recycled content and this will likely not change for TSW7 as DTG are "busy" fixing core issues and subsequently winding down in-house DLCs.

Yet, in the livestream, one the TSG guys basically said the ICE 4 is more complex to build and is lowkey out-of-budget for them to do.

So newer locos or rather highly requested ones are more likely to be added by DTG yet they're barely making any. Very bleak times ahead of us.

 

very narcissistic, constant one-upmanship like behaviour by dtg that really has to stop. it’s time for them to admit and accept that third parties are more ambitious and successful than them instead of digging their own grave by insisting that they’re the best, the absolute best and no one else can do better

 

Is there a keyboard combination to change the brakingmode for the BR403? cwf.green

 

So, another nice and constructive discussion about an upcoming route has turned in to a borefest of blame and unrelated and far fetched criticism. Everyone is of course entitled to their opinion, but for me it's now time to unwatch this thread and log out indefinitely.

 

Where did they say this?

 

it doesn’t have to be direct; their business practices over the last few years have shown it multiple times. releasing rivet products under their name, despite them being generally good nowadays, prioritising their own dlc for updates ahead of third party products (the ripoff gbr 802 received fixes much faster than the aabs and JT wcml routes), the time they screwed over firefly’s medway preview stream because stamford was broken, which apparently constituted the postponement of an unrelated stream.

none of this is actually to do with the nuremberg route, so i’d suggest discussion about that is the priority, but to make a case that dtg aren’t disproportionately focused on their own products which is of an increasingly diminishing abundance, instead of providing equal care to the main dlc provider, which is third parties

 

So they haven't said it or intimated it.

I've always got the impression they hold the third parties in high regard. But you carry on believing they don't.

 

Goodness gracious … can’t believe this community.. A developer goes above and beyond because of his passion to the hobby and what do we get … complaining from the gallery. Thank goodness I know it is the very vocal minority of very prolific posters and the majority of us really appreciate such efforts as shown on the 403. Wasn’t that interested in the route, but now will pick it up just to support such efforts. It cost less than putting half a tank of diesel on my truck and I am sure I’ll get several hours of enjoyment out of it.

 

That and console users not buying due to blurry textures probably isn't helping either.

 

People do have a point about the situation with the BR101, not being ideal. This loco is only available for an old route and never has been updated to todays standards. However, the DLC is used as layer on many, more current, routes, which doesn't make the situation any better. This really is the downside of loco DLC's once they become old, the DB red BR363 and DB red BR182 are in the same situation. I do somehow understand DTG's viewpoint on this as explained by Lukas, but I think they have to find a solution for those loco DLC's as it now means we can't get a better version of those trains.

This is the main reason for me not to buy new DLC's. For example Leipzig - Dresden has blurry textures, even with not all layers active. I recently bought TSW6 special edition on sale, mainly for the additional older DLC included. However, due to the blurry textures I don't play Leipzig - Dresden. I didn't buy the Stuttgart route, not because I don't want to play it, but because the fact it's having blurry textures.

On the stream they answered the question about blurry textures on the Nürnberg route and they said something like it's not to bad. That's not what I want to hear, I just want a confirmation, this route don't have blurry textures. Also one of the layers is coming from the Stuttgart route (which I don't want to buy because of blurry textures), so missing that layer also affects my interest in this Nürnberg route.

 

Easy solution - get the DB BR 101 expert… it subs in for the 101 you don’t like… oh, yes, I see the problem …it isn’t free.

 

You are not taking into account the fact that the normal 101 DLC includes the BR101 AND the white IC coaches with red stripe (without the cab car). I think 90%+ if not all the normal 101 layers in the routes so far require the white IC coaches to activate the layer, so the original 101 DLC would still be required. Devalue = very low.

I will say more. I bet some players that bought the game after the release of the Expert 101 are also buying the normal 101 to be able to use the Expert in all the possible maps. If anything, I would say TSG is boosting the sales of the normal 101 DLC at this time.

 

There's also the really odd thing that JT just did that for the Class 20. If a new 101 devalues the the old one, so too should the 20, yet JT was given the greenlight anyways, Athena were also handed the Class 40 in the same way, even if their DLC ultimately turned out to be a dud, the point still stands in this case. DTG clearly aren't gonna stand in the way of a dev wanting to improve their content. It's a really odd decision on TSG's part to not want to "step on DTG's toes" when DTG has shown in other cases they really don't care.

 

Yup, surely the 101 included here will be a different ‘asset’ like every other time a loco has been rebundled, plus the coaching stock for it is the MUNEX set, so it’s not going to touch the layering aspect of the IC set. It’s not like they’ve set a precedent for re-working a layer to include a better version of rolling stock that was added later.

Also I’m pretty sure there are a few examples of locos that were DLC packs, that were upgraded (the route specific version only) after being resold in a route package?

Even so, it’s still a bizzare stance to take, to say we just didn’t want to improve a 7/8 year old loco.

 

Yep! It uses the "Dynamic Brake Cut-out Toggle/Increase" keybind
Also worth pointing out (which I don't think was shown on the stream because Matt used the new HUD), if you use the classic HUD the current brake mode is indicated with a coloured symbol. Since the brake mode is not indicated anywhere IRL but can be a bit tricky to predict unless you fully know the rules for what will trigger I thought I'd help players out a bit

As for what the rules are:
- Single press that is held for less than 1.5 seconds: toggles between Normal and Proportional above 40 km/h, below 40 km/h it enters permanently into the buffer stop mode and stays there until 10 seconds after coming to a standstill.
- continuous press above 40 km/h: stays in wheel cleaning mode as long as it's held.
- Below 25 km/h the train automatically transitions to proportional mode (if previously in normal mode) to prepare for the fade out of the electric brakes.
- If in buffer stop mode and the train accelerates above 50 km/h the mode automatically switches to normal.
- If in proportional mode and the train brake is either released or applied to full service the mode changes to normal. Also, if the button is pressed and released without the train brake being applied for 10 seconds normal mode is retained.

Normal mode: The train uses electric braking first, then eddy current braking if allowed and finally air braking to achieve the deceleration target.
Proportional mode: If eddy current braking is allowed the train uses 50% electric braking and 50% eddy current braking until these are fully applied, then air. If eddy current braking is disallowed the train uses 50% electric braking and 50% air brake by force, until the electric brake is fully applied and further increases only adds more air braking.
Wheel cleaning / buffer stop brake mode: These modes uses air braking only. The former to warm up the discs/remove ice & other contaminants at higher speed while the latter is used for coupling.

 

No it isn't an solution at all, why should I pay EUR 36,00 for only expert functionality I don't use and a cabcar? On Xbox, the expert BR101 has never been on sale too and as far as I know the expert also not subs in on every route. If DTG sells a update for the regular BR101 + cabcar, which can be used on every route the current BR101 layers on to and for a normal price, I'm happy to buy it.

 

I can't seem to be able to paste the picture when editing my comment so I'll make a new one. Hopefully this will be helpful for someone, feel free to share it

 

I'm actually looking forward to it.
The close-to expert 403 and the expert 101 and cab car finally under LZB was something I was long waiting for as I don't play SKA, Leipzig-Dresden or the SKW expert timetable because of the bluriness.
In fact, this could be the first blurry-free modern german route for TSW since BRO and Maintalbahn... (not counting vintage LRR and Niddertalbahn here)
Also the shorter runs with a maximum of about 45 minutes fit to my time for gaming quite well... so I hope the statements in the stream will be proven right after release. Some blurry bushes at 300 km/h wouldn't bother me too much, at those speeds you're busy with screaming 'Speeeed! Poweeeeeer!' anyway.

 

Out of interest, as far as I know, the proportional mode does not mean a 50:50 distribution between pneumatic and electrical breaking?! Could you shed some light on how this works IRL and in game?

 

Both IRL and in-game the Zugbremsmanager computes a brake force target based on a deceleration value that corresponds to some train brake lever step. In normal mode it will then check if the electric brake can achieve this brake force and if not it computes a target force for the secondary brake types (eddy current of air brake) to account the remainder of the brake force.

In proportional mode, the ZBM instead essentially cuts the electric brake force in half, but since the maximum brake force that can be requested is more than double the electric brake force you end up with the electric brake still capping out before reaching full service (VB). This imbalance is even greater at higher speeds where the electric brake effort can be almost a third of what is possible at low speeds where.

You also have some additional constraints like that the brake pipe pressure won’t be reduced by very small steps but there is an ”minimum reduction”. This obviously means that at low applications the majority of the brake force is from the air brakes and the deceleration will actually be a bit stronger than in normal mode.

In summary: proportional mode is a mix of air brake/eddy current brake and electric brake, not necessarily an even mix.

One additional thing about the train brake is that the brake force is intentionally reduced at high speeds to not exceed thermal limits of the disc brakes. In service braking this is achieved by the ZBM limiting the brake pipe pressure drop (4.2 bar BP at 300 and 3.8 bar below 160), while in emergency it is achieved by relay valves limiting the brake cylinder pressure.

 

This sounds like a strange design choice

I would be interested how this is handled irl. I would assume that it would be quite good to know what mode you are in?! I assume you will realise after brake application, however, does it not make sense to know the mode you are in before you apply the breaks?! Maybe a rl driver could explain how this works (chirimu )?

 

In what situation would you use proportional over normal mode, and why? Learning new things every day

 

Do not underestimate that real world drivers spend 8 hours in that cab every day, and while it's difficult to "feel up" this type of stuff in a flat screen simulator, it doesn't have to be difficult in reality.

I drive a hybrid car that effectively has also non-linear blended brakes that vary based on demanded brake effort, speed and slope, and while it is different from pure friction brakes in most cars, after couple drives you just get a good feeling for when you can expect certain rate of deceleration and in what edge cases it's worth to for example apply little more brakes to skip the recuperation-only steps.

 

You see the change on the MFD and especially on the MTD Brake Screen. On normal mode you always max out electric brake before it starts using pneumatic. On proportional mode you can see the BP lower and disk brakes applying on the first brake step alr (except if the eddy current brake is unlocked for normal operation, then you can see the cyan bars pop up on the first step). Prellbock and Putzbetrieb is no electric brake at all (and for Putzbremse you need to keep the button pressed) so you can distinguish that pretty good.

You use Proportional Mode if you start to slip so the brakeforce is distributed on all axis instead of on poowercars only and prellbock mode if u arrive in a dead end station to not suffer a sudden loss of brakes when the power cuts out as that could end in a newspaper article.

 

You should always use it when the adhesion is limited (rain etc). Proportional mode will spread out the brake force on every axle in the train, rather than concentrate it on only the powered axles. Less brake force per axle = less susceptible to slipping.

This also means that you should brake manually in these weather/rail conditions rather than let AFB brake for you, since AFB always uses the normal mode.

Like noir wrote, it becomes instinct after a while. You know the rules for when each mode should activate so you can predict what will happen, and a quick glance at the MTD will tell you if you lost track

Also from what I have seen drivers aren't flipping back and forth between the modes, like with most things drivers do it is controlled and deliberate. You know before you start the brake application that normal mode is active (unless you triggered buffer stop below 40 km/h) so if it is raining you press the button once and get proportional. The driver would likely keep that mode until releasing the brakes. So it's very predictable.

Normal mode: Normalbetrieb
Proportional mode: Proportionalbetrieb
Wheel cleaning brake mode: putzbremsbetrieb
Buffer stop mode: Prellbockbetrieb.

 

Thanks for you're reply! It would be very helpful when it will be shown in the German stream

 

It's clear that it's time to update the DB BR 101 DLC so that no one can devalue it with another release.

 

absolutely. i highly suspect the cut dtg take from the sales of this route will be worth more than the money they’ll make from copies of the original 101 over the coming months

 

Even if TSG improved the 101 you would still need the white IC coaches to activate the layers in other routes. An improved normal 101 in this DLC would just increase the desirability of the original 101 DLC.

The reason that makes sense for not improving the 101 this time is that you get a better end result with the Munex, highly improved (partially expertified) ICE3 and the 101 Expert compared to doing just the minimum upgrades to TSW6 standards to the normal 101 and the ICE3.