Tsw/2 Core - Instructions Need To Be Improved

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by londonmidland, Oct 9, 2020.

  1. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    Ever since day one of launch for TSW, it’s had a major weakness in the way instructions are distributed. The main two reasons is that it only has to ability to show the user one instruction at the time and it doesn’t allow for any human error, as it’s very strict on preciseness.

    In more detail

    - If you close the doors a second or two too early, before the HUD circle is fully completed, the game will force you to reopen and close the doors. Just because the bar wasn’t fully filled up.

    ^ How is the player meant to play HUDless when the game literally requires you to make sure the yellow circle is fully filled?

    - The game advises you to close doors ON DEPARTURE TIME
    ^ This is wrong in many ways. Depending on the start point, current location, service and type of train, the driver would close their doors anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes. To ensure RIGHT TIME departure.

    - Why does the yellow circle fill up and then say wait until XX:XX:XX (time)?
    Why isn’t the loading bar dynamic to relate to your current arrival and booked departure time? It has a default loading time of 30 seconds, for example, and then tells you to wait until departure time. To finally tell you to lock doors, ON DEPARTURE TIME?!

    - Limitations of only being able to show one instruction at a time/no seeing ahead
    ^ This limits the user experience in so many ways whilst driving. From being able to see upcoming speed limits, to seeing the next few signals ahead. Even a 20 year old game such as MSTS had the ability to show this.

    In TSW we can only see ONE set up speed limits ahead. Not very useful for when there are various changes in speeds in a small area. It doesn’t give the user enough time to react to the changes, forcing them to slam on the brakes and overspending. GWE was notorious for having this issue.

    If you have any comments or suggestions regarding this topic, feel free to comment below.
     
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  2. montes_1234

    montes_1234 Well-Known Member

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    Yes all true. This is another example why the community needs to have a list of all the suggestions and issues or bugs. I think that some of issues mentioned above are already been asked on the forums. But as time passes it becomes buried and easily forgotten. Also why we wont have the chance to skip a station. I mean you can but game would never accept it and change the objective accordingly.
     
  3. Trenomarcus

    Trenomarcus Well-Known Member

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    Could agree more. Especially the "The game advises you to close doors ON DEPARTURE TIME" is no sense. Every time I've to remember that, for example, on BKL the doors need 5 seconds to close and start the procedure accordingly.
     
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  4. Thelonius16

    Thelonius16 Well-Known Member

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    Seems like each passenger train would need new variables showing:
    • Absolute minimum boarding time: for when you are late. (Perhaps with an added time value for short platforms when you need to give people time to walk from one car to another.)
    • Standard boarding time: as scheduled, built into timetable instructions.
    • Time needed to fully close doors + release brakes: Subtract this from departure time and place the close-door instruction at this time. Base this on whatever the drivers actually do in real life.
    Alternatively, just leave the instructions out and let the driver figure it out without forcing later instructions to be dependent on specific actions. Give extra points when you perform a good passenger operation, but still allow us to race through a stop to make up time in the schedule (which I'm sure is realistic on some railroads). Currently we are locked into the same (or similar) instruction set that AI trains need. It would be cool if the user train ran a little looser. That same philosophy of having separate instruction sets for the user train would improve yard operations as well.
     
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  5. mclitke

    mclitke Well-Known Member

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    One thing I want to mention, if you arrive early and get the "wait until x" prompt, you can already close the doors in order to depart the second you reach that timer.

    Not to argue with you here but just as a tip for people who might not know.

    P. S. Some rapid transit scenarios don't allow this, other than that, worked on every route so far
     
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  6. Disintegration7

    Disintegration7 Well-Known Member

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    Agree with all of this.

    Somewhat related- the passenger loading times on RT are SOOOO long. I've only really driven like 1 service (just never got into this route in og TSW) in the Talent 2.....i like the scenery, but wow, it's a slog.
     
  7. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    Suggested elsewhere that the loading bar changes colour at the three quarter point, allowing the driver to close his doors early if needed.
    Would more closely reflect reality.
     
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  8. LT586

    LT586 Well-Known Member

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    I don't mean to criticize and this is true as I've anticipated on the Bakerloo Line to close the doors just before the bar is filled up as it takes the doors on any train a couple of seconds to close, problem is though It doesn't feel right.

    The passengers don't seem to react to what train is in the station. There's no atmosphere almost, it's just robots walking about.
     
  9. globbits73

    globbits73 Member

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    Having been on many trains where the doors are locked 5 seconds before departure time so the driver can launch at the earliest possible second, I agree that it would be nicer if the loading passengers part was more flexible.

    However instead of changing the way the "Loading Passengers" timer works, which would presumably require coding changes to the engine, I wonder if there is an easier solution that might be possible using the existing checkpoints / scripting system? This could quite possibly make such an update more achievable for DTG if it only requires someone to change the scenario scripts, instead of a getting an engine dev to make core code changes, who will most likely have higher priorities to work on.

    As we know, when you approach a station, the checkpoint display on the HUD shows the arrival time, and you get awarded action points based on how close to that time you stop. Then, when you get the "Unlock Doors" checkpoint, the "time" part on the HUD clears until the end of "Loading Passengers", and only gets another time when the checkpoint updates to the next station.

    So what would happen if the "Loading Passengers" checkpoint was replaced with a "Depart Station" checkpoint with the time on the HUD showing the correct departure time from this station? When you do launch, this checkpoint can update to show the next destination as before. This will then make the departures more flexible, and allow for a variable amount of action points based on how close to that time you leave, which is something that the current scripting system can obviously support. And to match reality better, the action point penalty can be much harsher for leaving early than it is for leaving late? This wouldn't even need recalculating the points thresholds for the medals, as you already get a potential 500 points when you lock the doors - we're just introducing a new way of reducing that 500 :) Plus, if the scripting system supports reading options from the engine, it might even be possible to add an option for "Realistic Departures" if people really prefer the current "Loading Passengers" system.

    (edit: this is obviously assuming that the handling of the checkpoints for each station is handled through scripting, and not baked into the code - I still think it might be an easier change to make based off other things they already do with scenarios)
     
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2020
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