Sam and Matt, thank you so much for the gameplay video about Koln Aachen route! Really useful and interesting I watched on youtube on my living room TV. The same which I will use for the PS4 for the game. It is at around 2 meters away of my sofa. From there, the numbers which indicates the distance to next signal, and to next stop, looks really small, and difficult to see. So as those measures are very important for the right driving of the train, I kindly ask you to please make them bigger. In order to clearly see them, as it was with the previous HUD design. You have enough space on the screen for make them bigger., as there are the dark gray bars with no information on it. Even the font of those numbers implies really narrow numbers. Please use the same font as before. As to the black area of the new HUD, are ok in order to clearly see the information, which on the previous ones with transparency, it was difficult on some locomotives dashboards. But the top left one it is so long with much area with no information, does not allow to clearly appreciate the route in front, the clouds, and some objects or buildings. Please make them less intrusive in the front view. Thank you very much. Regards!
I think the text next to the signals needs to be bigger. Also, the distance to next stop up in the top left, instead of being an icon with the distance written quite small underneath, this could benefit from just being text. Maybe under the expected time of arrival and clock.
The goal here is to remember that the text and numbers don’t need to be stylish but they do need to be legible. As well as having everything too small, they have chosen a poor font. It may be okay in larger sizes but it is not a good font. There also appears to be a lot of it in a bold version of the font. So we have a narrow font in bold at a very small size. That’s a recipe for poor legibility. Being able to see and understand the text and numbers easily, at a glance, is key. A more rounded font, not so bold, in the same small size may actually be okay, but bigger would be better. This goes for the destinations, the instructions, the numbers. It’s an awful font. A bad style choice, which may be acceptable in 4K on a huge screen two feet from your face, but not for the majority of players. Another issue is the segmented number displays used throughout the HUD and for all the time displays. It’s been chosen for style rather than substance. The one decent number is the speed in the centre of the HUD speedometer. That one, you can read.
As to the distance to stop, I was referring to the one at the top left side on the black area with the time. The one that is displayed and moving around the train on the front view on the route itself, I did not use it! For me, it is ok when you are starting with the game for better reference to stop. But once you get used to drive the locomotives, the one fixed at the top left, it is right and better. The other in my opinion, it is something that loses the realism of the simulation, as it is not part of the realistic world as this sim wants to be.
I'd like more options to customize the HUD to your own desires. I like to keep my HUD small, and put away in a corner as much as possible. I realize people with another setup have different desires for their HUD, so the only good option is to allow people to adjust their HUD to their own needs. And with 'adjust' I mean more than just simply toggling elements on or off. I think in many ways the HUD from good old Train Simulator is still better in many ways. Sure it was technical, but it was small and had all the crucial information you needed. You had the option between the bigger 'F3' HUD, the more compact 'F4' HUD, and even the technical 'F5' HUD, and the option to change opacity. I'd love to be able to set up my TSW HUD in a similar fashion.
