Earlier today I was doing a move at Reading. During the move, I slowly passed a shunting signal at danger (I didn't apply enough brake force). The game punished me with a "Service failure: signal passed at danger" message, and dropped me back into the main menu. While I understand that a SPAD is a serious offence on the real railway, I think that ending the game is too harsh for when you're playing in service mode (especially during a shunt move). Getting yelled at by the dispatcher should be enough.
Yeah I will say a SPAD seems appropriate for a game over in a very structured scenario, but compared to TS17 where in standard/free roam you can SPAD all you like, it does feel sorta harsh in TSW services. I get that the dispatcher kinda goes crazy if you SPAD though, and can't handle you reversing or trying to recover at all, but there could be ways around that (maybe a 'game over: off path' if you manage to confuse the dispatcher enough to be an irreversible mistake).
One of the most interesting aspects of this and other TSW forums is the continual conflict between those who want realistic simulation and those who want player convenience. Unfortunately for the latter, TSW is a railroad simulator; I'm not claiming that DTG gets everything right and, of course, some aspects of realistic simulation have to give way to the realities of performance levels, but my point is that accurate simulation should always be the goal. Thus, when "a SPAD is a serious offense on the real railway" it should always be just as serious in the simulator. To paraphrase Chairman Mao, "Railroading is not a tea party".
I think if you spad, you should be penalized for it, not necessarily by the experience ratings, but your other score would be reduced significantly. If you cause an accident as a result of your SPAD, the session should end.
A SPAD is a very serious violation. I reality you would face serious disciplinary action. SPAD ends game has been the rule in TS for years unless you disable it in the game settings. It has been carried over to TSW except there is no way to defeat it.
I agree with you (and like you, I look for realism). It will be interesting to see where Dovetail goes with TSW. They are trying to please two groups: those who come to TSW from a gaming perspective and those who come from a railfan/modeling/simulator one. They may end up satisfying neither group. If you're a gamer, TSW is probably not very good. It's not exciting (unless your idea of excitement is trying to stop a mile of coal hoppers in a hundred yards), the "levels" are basically meaningless, no serious rewards, not multi-player, opaque scoring system makes little sense. I could go on. On the other hand, I think DT has made a very good start for the simulator group -- and if you look at the forums, wow, are we picky! It has gotten the physics mostly right (although far from perfect). The devs did their homework on CSX's Keystone Division, although again not perfect -- did you know that six-axle locomotives are prohibited on the Salisbury Industrial (Shaw Mine) Track? See, seriously picky. From the sim perspective, DT could get rid of the collectibles (are we playing hide-and-seek here?). Ditto most of the achievements -- they mostly reward playing time, not skill. The scoring (if we need it at all) should reflect efficient railroading in compliance with all the rules -- not just counting miles and penalizing speeding. I bought TSW when it came out, and have played it for a lot more hours than I'm willing to admit on a computer that's almost, but not quite, good enough for it. I enjoy it and I look forward to its future (and to a better graphics card). I hope DT can make everyone happy no matter what their idea of "fun" is -- but it won't be easy.
I mean...there is always the potential for an option. One of my personal themes of good game design is Options options options! SPAD game over is an example of something that could be an option-it is that way in TS2018. TS2018 also has the simple control mode. Which is not very well supported...but it has good intentions of letting people play without needing to worry about the specifics. And there are many things out there that already are optional (aka ignoreable) even without a setting. You can always ignore score and collectibles. (But score really needs to remember if you turned it on or off...it resets it every time the game starts) Sure, you could argue that DTG has to put work into those, work which is wasted if nobody bothers to do it, but look at the scoring system and how score has nothing to do with XP sorta says how much work actually went into it...
How about a Quick drive mode for us who like to just drive trains? I do not like the game over thing either.
I understand the game ending when SPAD. Imagine you´re doing an apprenticeship and on your last day they let you in an simulator to test your reactions/actions under pressure etc. Now if you e.g. SPAD it would immediately end. And they´d tell you smth. like we´re very sorry but this doesn´t seem to fit you come back in a year. So i think it´s totally understandable. And for the people not liking it, well you could make use of the "save" option.
Well, if we had those checkpoints you get on scenarios but in services, the game would do the saving for you. That would be nice.
