Sherman Hill - Review And Necessary Edits

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Cyclone, Oct 29, 2020.

  1. Cyclone

    Cyclone Well-Known Member

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    I have finally started playing the first of my varied DLC, and have now completed all of the Sherman Hill scenarios. I have comments on things that need to be fixed across the scenario list. I will eventually be posting videos of all of my play (I will not advertise it here), and I make a similar review to this during the sixth scenario (fourth Career), Arrival of the Thunderheads - which is actually the only scenario in the pack that I have absolutely no problem with. The rest have issues.

    Let's start with Introduction to Sherman Hill. The train breaks. All the time. The only way to complete this Standard scenario without tripping the PCS is to disconnect all of the cars, leave them sitting there on Track 2, and take the engines on the journey. Forget the rest of the train. Even when I took a third of the train, I still had a PCS trigger along the way, and as I did the entry into Cheyenne THE ENTIRE TRAIN RIPPED OFF, recoupling by ramming into the back of the train followed by my forward movement beyond that. I know it all ripped off because the consist view showed my three engines. Ironically, I was just checking on my hand brakes when that happened. On one of my four or five attempts, I had the exact same decoupling occur of the last five cars as my prior attempt, in the exact same spot before the #3 track first rejoins the main. I backed up to reconnect them (first try at this), carried on, and five minutes later a larger chunk came loose. I came to a stop passing a signal for the other direction. The cars stayed there. The dispatcher said no, you cannot reverse. I cursed at him and reversed into them at a fast enough speed to apparently send my entire train flying into the sky and abort the scenario. So this scenario is broken (and not because trains flew). It needs to be modified, all the more because you are selling the route as part of Battle for Sherman Hill. This MUST be fixed. There is no excuse to leave this broken scenario in. Script replacement cars, put them on the train, and contact me to test it. I will be MORE than happy to do so, and we need to do this posthaste.

    Welcome to Cheyenne is a nice scenario, but it has a problem of spelling and grammar errors. For instance, you are advised at one point to do something "behing" you. This is just sloppy and shows that you don't care. I also had a graphical glitch with the turntable on one playing, I'm not sure what caused that. It worked on other occasions. I had another gripe about the fact that what looked like the front of the switcher is treated like the back, but since you can look at the cab and see the guy's back I guess that is supposed to serve as a hint. Even so, a reverser tip at the start might be helpful to some.

    Granite via Wycon is a fantastic scenario. I love the extra activities you do to put together a train by stopping at Wycon and Granite to get cars. A shame that we don't drive the train back ourselves, but clearly the scenario goal was learning how to move around the track. My only complaint: the timings are off. Borie's timing should be one minute later (it's also pretty darn close to the Wycon Reverse goal) and Granite's timing, on the Inner Loop, should also be one minute later. I got a perfect score despite this with 190 to cap out on the final timetable marker (57 seconds late, so I scored 1,053 technically), but I had to literally run at the Wycon yard signal while requesting to pass it to be able to pull it off. Also, this was my 14th attempt because I kept screwing up other things in dumdum fashion.

    Running the #3 Track also needs one adjustment. The first timetable marker at Speer needs to be moved further back to allow us to be able to stop for what would be a red signal. As it is set up currently, you have to literally rush in to be on time, and then try to stop in the space of about 2 hundredths of a mile to not pass the red signal. I passed the red signal to be on time, but I had fortunately braked enough to not crash into the train and I took the time to back up in front of the signal as if I'd stopped there. I requested permission to pass after I watched the train take the path to #1 and #2, permission was granted, and I continued on my merry way to get a perfect score. So either move that back to the milepost (you might be able to chop a minute or two off), let the player hit the brakes and stop in a reasonable space before the signal instead of crashing through it to be on time, and leave it from there...or add a minute to that signal so the player can drop to a slow speed and creep up to the marker. The rest of the scenario is fine and should not be touched, and I did enjoy a chance to drive that track, though I wish we got to finish the trip to Laramie through Red Butte since you don't go that way in any of the six scenarios.

    The Midnight Magnet. I have taken video proving that you cannot score in this scenario. You literally cannot. Here's how I know: I made the timing at Dale and got the full 300 points. The emergency brake was then applied per the story right after that. I took off while Tom was still fixing the train. I ran 40 the entire way. I was 7 minutes late. -3400 or so points, and sorry, you get a 0. The Laramie timing is all wrong. THIS MUST BE FIXED. You currently cannot get a score in this scenario, and the fact that you have to run 61 cars up a 55 MPH uphill stretch where you cannot even get up to or maintain that speed is part of the problem. Meanwhile, what's with the wheel slip penalties? You put intended wheel slip into the story and then we have to pay 100 points out of our score on drive quality penalties when it's clear that it's INTENDED to happen? Remove that penalty. Remove the emergency brake penalty to compensate for the storyline triggering of it. Move the Laramie arrival up to 12:25. Another option might be shrinking the train so you can run up the hill at 55 MPH and be able to get up to speed out of the crossovers a little quicker. Adjust the other timings to make it a little easier. That's fair. I am going to eventually post video of this 0 point run, and I call out to DTG multiple times to fix this in the video. This scenario is flawed and this is unfortunate, because there is one element of it that is fantastic and makes playing the standard version a good idea. change the Laramie timing and bump the Dale one back slightly as well (even though I made it, I think I was lucky to do so), and that one will be fine after removing the wheel slip, drive quality, and emergency brake penalties, which are a quick edit in the toolbox.

    Arrival of the Thunderheads is the best scenario in the pack because it does pretty much the exact same thing as Introduction to Sherman Hill (diverting you instead into the yard at the end) without ripping your train apart. It's also a nice drive where all you have to do it meet the timetable. I arrived three minutes early. The only glitch is that you can save inside of a weather zone and restart without the weather, which makes the dispatcher calls a bit comical. It wasn't until my second run that I got to see the extent of the final band of the weather.

    I am going to assume the Railfan scenarios are excellent. I have no idea. I am going to be looking at those with others in a segment later on in my channel's life, or when I stream on Twitch.

    So all in all, a great pack from the scenario variability standpoint, but several timings need to be changed with two scenarios needing wholesale changes.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2020
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  2. triznya.andras

    triznya.andras Well-Known Member

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    I was showing the same enthusiasm in 2016.
    I got no feedback whatsoever from DTG.
    Fellow players said I'm lying and must be driving wrong, so I posted a video. They got silenced, but no support anyway, except for one player.
    I verify integrity & other stuff every now and then, so there shouldn't be a problem.
    Have no expectations.
    There is a chance that there is some interaction between various installed DLC, or the lack thereof.
     
  3. Cyclone

    Cyclone Well-Known Member

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    No, typically a DTG-produced DLC has no dependency on another to be installed. If there was, it would say so. Of course, if it's a standalone train with scenarios on a route, you need the route to run the scenarios in question and then all objects from that route are also available for the scenario design. That said, most of the changes I suggested can be achieved in about 15 minutes. It should not be hard to fix scenarios 2-6. It's absolutely necessary for DTG to remake scenario 1, because this is the scenario people will play first and, based on a bad experience in there, will request a refund for. DTG is not doing themselves any favours by leaving a broken and buggy scenario, and the best thing they can do is remake it from scratch with a different cut. I imagine a couple of hours can accomplish this, and again, I will be the guinea pig.

    EDIT: I just thought of something. I saw someone say that he also had issues with Donner Pass. Apparently, he also had issues with Rascal & Cottonwood. What is the chance that the dependency needed is buried in a DLC that is no longer available? I'm serious; it may be that the problem that causes these cars to derail is tied to something that is not available, or - even worse - the dependency could be a BNSF loco model. After all, some people have said they have no problems with the scenario. I would ask anyone not having problems to note what DLC they have so testing can be done by those NOT owning some of the DLC to determine if the issue is a missing link from tat DLC. It might even be tied to the original BNSF loco that came with Railworks. And if it did, that's a very bad thing. I have the 2012 Railworks 3 installed, so I have everything from that - including Castle Rock, which has ALSO been reported by people to have issues - so I know I still don't have the missing link. So the missing link is before September of 2012 and affects Donner Pass, available December 2012. If we can identify that missing link, then perhaps that item can be added to the US asset pack and then everyone will be able to use the routes I just named correctly. In the meantime, I will have to test the routes I just named myself to see if I have issues with any of them. I am currently going through my Word listing of every single DLC (created February 2020, so it includes some removed DLC since then) and pulling everything from 2009, 2010, 2011, and prior to September 2012 just in case we want to run tests on anything there. (It is worth noting I OWN many of the routes from that period save a few, but I honestly don't think those are the issue.) And yes, I know the US asset pack isn't sold with Sherman Hill, but it's sold with Donner Pass. I know because that's how I got it. Euro pack came from Ruhr-Sieg. It might be necessary to add it with Sherman Hill if it's a way to fix the problem and the fix is added to that US pack.

    Meanwhile, I've asked two longtime players to get back to me regarding DLC they have. I'm hoping I can get experiments run to determine if removing certain DLC can trigger the issue with the Intro scenario. If I can identify a culprit, I will be looking to immediately contact the bugs team.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2020
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  4. triznya.andras

    triznya.andras Well-Known Member

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    I meant something funny and unlikely, but still possible.
    I had a topic about tilting rolling stock. It's awkward, really, but not unique - I got some nice suggestions about it.
    What's funny is DTG asked me to check integrity of my files (which I do regularly). So everything should be fine.
    What was weird that I recently removed some archaic DLC (old NS High Nose SD40-2) with some excessively tilting stock, and created a scenario and I had a hunch that some cars are tilting (swinging) less than before. Still a lot, but less. Maybe.
    A lot of definitions in this game are based off another definition, or referencing fragments, such as sounds. It's a very shallow observation, mind you. Point is, it's theoretically possible that some rolling stock references some physics file, or script, which is normally missing. However, if you own it due to some specific old DLC, it will work. As I have nearly 400 items, and about 350 still installed, if anything like that exists, I likely have it. That's the same reason I can't just go and reinstall from scratch.

    (It's unlikely but not entirely. A year ago I ran two scenarios back to back. In the 2nd, my UK HST brakes were acting funny - after running the first scenario with some US brake scripts. Also, I randomly discovered that some US locos actually have UK safety systems entirely in order. Even with British sounds. Maybe it's copied, maybe it's referenced.)

    I think you've found Me, Myself and I. ;)
    The rest of your paragraph is what I was thinking about.
    I played Castle Rock recently and I had no route related issues whatsoever. However it's the workshop version, also missing some assets (whistle signs are milk bottles). I created my own free roam.

    As a matter of fact I don't recall separated trains for a while, maybe I could give this Sherman Intro another go. It's not too difficult anyway.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2020
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  5. Cyclone

    Cyclone Well-Known Member

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    I have both versions of Castle Rock; I found a 2012 key on eBay and it worked. Too bad I couldn't get an older one to get me a BNSF train since I can't acquire those. I think the issue would have been with one of the included scenarios, and obviously, the workshop version has no scenarios, so one would not experience the issue. I plan to visit Castle Rock.
     
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  6. DTG Jamie

    DTG Jamie Staff Member

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    Thank you for telling us about the issues you have found with Sherman Hill, I have passed this on to the team for you.
     
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