For a whopping four years, since TSW was launched in 2016, DTG has failed to correctly implement the right colours for signal aspects. This is still the case today, in TSW 2. The colour in particular I am talking about is yellow, which should have more of a orange tinge to it, and not a banana yellow look to it, as it does in the game. Now I can't talk for other countries but I know for a fact that they've got it wrong for the UK signalling. I will provide some in-game screenshots and real life screenshots for comparison: In game: Filament variant: LED variant: In real life: Filament variant: LED variant: Can DTG kindly explain why after all this time, you have still not resolved this issue? This is basic, but important stuff that you should not be getting wrong. Especially as a company which is supposed to know tonnes of stuff about railway related topics and a game which is supposed to be 'accurate'. Even more embarrassingly, it's your homeland country so you should have spotted and resolved this a long time ago.
I noticed this the first time I played the game but have kind of learnt to live with it (along with a few other things in TSW).
The Rail Safety & Standards Board, the authority which is responsible for maintaining the Railway Group Standards, have written documentation regarding the design of lineside elements. The look of colour light signals is described in great detail in this document: GK/RT0057: Lineside Signal and Indicator Product Design and Assessment Requirements. The colours which signal aspects must adhere to is specified on page 34. This document in turn refers to Table 1 of BS 1376:1974, where the exact colours are specified. (BS: British Standard)
DTG, please use this very valuable information which is displayed below wisely. This will probably be the only place where you can view it before it's locked behind closed doors.
Surely the outcome signal colour will depend on the calibration of your monitor or whatever you are viewing it on?.
It will depend on the monitor itself and also any calibration which has been carried out on the PC. I think the important thing is that there’s no real excuse for not delivering the correct mix of RGB for any particular defined colour from within the game software.
Actually there is an excuse. What they are trying to address is gameplay across the majority of machines it will be played on. A monitor is not realistic, there can be no variables for eyesight, particulate, moisture in the air etc.. There must be a large majority who have never adjusted their monitors for colour balance. DTG went for the choice of “viewability” for the majority at the expense of perfectionists. All software is a compromise and we are bound to find fault with some of their choices. Mine is that blasted cumbersome hud. Ymmv.
I’m not sure the following is the reason for the lemony yellow choice but it would make sense if it was. In real life the signal is much brighter than the surrounding scenery because it is an actual light source. On a screen in the game everything is rendered as a light source, so a scenery item will look the same brightness as a signal at distance, as it is not possible to go any brighter with the signal graphic. Therefore to easily distinguish a signal from the scenery an unnatural colour will stand out more. Red signals are okay because there isn’t usually anything near to the track that is bright red, the bluish green is okay because it usually isn’t the same as the greens you get in trees, but the orangey yellow is a colour which is used to render autumn leaves, street lighting, station lights etc, so a more distinguishable lemony yellow for the signals can easily be recognised as a signal and not missed in the scenery at distance. Making a signal stand out in a game is tricky. Adding the halo helps a lot but sometimes signals can be hard to see at a distance so we need all the help we can get, and someone made a good choice with the yellow colour as it is actually the easiest signal to see in the game.