I think timetabling has always been the issue - if you have a load of services that go from A to B, then you introduce station C, do you simply replace all of those services with an A to C service? If so, what happens to all of the routes on the timetable that people have already completed? Do they just get removed? Or are they marked as complete, even though they have only been driven as far as B? The best solution to this is to plan extension from the very outset - the example I gave previously was my suggested WM Trains / Cross Country route. In that, you could build the initial pack with all of the local, EMU stopping services from Birmingham New Street down to Bromsgrove with the Redditch branch adding some variety. Then later on, you could extend down to Worcester/Malvern/Hereford and include the WM Trains DMUs on that route without affecting any of the existing timetables. There's also potential to extend further to Cheltenham or beyond and add on the Cross Country Voyagers/DMUs/HSTs that use the extended route. They all run the length of the existing line to Bromsgrove, supplementing, but not replacing the existing services, but where the original EMU services terminate, they continue onto the new extended rails.
Hopefully with the new route building tools, routes can be extended at relatively quicker paces than they were initially built in. That however relies on there being scope for expansion which I imagine would depend on each routes replayability
The new layered timetable tech is hopefully going to unlock a way of being able to do route extensions: Layer 1 - the initial stand-alone route Layer 2 - the merged route Layer 1 is specific to one DLC, layer 2 is shared across two or more routes.
DTG always have a trick on their sleeve to improve the game which is cool. With the layered timetable, hopefully extensions are now possible
I think with longer scenarios, for example now that we’re not just a train but part of the simulation. To get out at Bristol Temple Meads from a run from Paddington to check your train, head back to Paddington; with this engine it would look and feel realistic. Even down to Dawlish. I would like to see at least, London to Bournemouth or Poole as Clapham Junction can now suffice as we have both 377 and 375 - or London to Brighton with extensions to Worthing / Portsmouth. A section we’ve not had. Some coastal scenery would look remarkable - 27 minutes on average must be across TS2020 which can get mundane after a while due to being stuck to the train
I'm sure this has already been brought up before, but I really believe it would be amazing to connect some of the shorter German routes together in particular. Being able to seamlessly have dlcs pick up where another leaves off would be amazing, and start to paint the picture of TSW's namesake, Train Sim *World*
I'd question that data, As Leadcatcher as said he as over 5000 hours playing time since 2013, that works out at 2hrs every day for 7 years. I myself play for more than the 27 minutes as per your data. I would say mor of like 90 mins would be more accurate. A decent save function would give the best of both worlds
So if DTG were to work out the average play session on just two players’ habits the average would come out more like 100 minutes. We can call that the Leadcatcher-Jamy average. I have a suspicion that DTG took data from more than two very enthusiastic players to get their 27 minutes
I think you should take a look at this thread, makes my 2000 hrs seem like a noob https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/hours-played.28391/
It does suggest of course that many people play for less than 27 minutes at a time! Maybe it is even skewed by some very short times. How much of the very short times are down to glitches and reloading would be interesting, maybe they can discount times where the end of the session co-incides with a bug report.
Even if I can agree with the request the point is what we would do with longer routes that is different from shorter ones in terms of gameplay? Now Sand Patch is quite long and it takes 2 hours to complete the run as the speed is not high. If you want more driving time you can always play a service concatenation and play the route in one go and then return again in another service without stopping gameplay. You can do that indeed during the whole day if you want. If we want different landscapes then you can just switch to a different route. I mean... Being practical I don´t see what the real added value of longer routes would be in game despite being more expensive to buy and taking longer to release to the shop. LGV is a short route in terms of service duration for instance, but making it 2 times longer wouldn´t change the gameplay too much as it´s a high speed line so therefore you can´t have too many stops nor freight operation nor shunting as in a regular line. So at the end you may have maybe two more stations. I think it´s more important that the routes are more versatile instead. So they can allow passenger, freight or high speed even if you want. The latest german routes are a good example but there freight is quite boring compared to others like RRO, MSB or RSN, as in the later the landscape is amazing compared to the formers, where is mainly flat. In MSB you have banking operations which is a unique feature. You also have the docks area. So freight there is very intensive. But you can still do quite good passenger services even up to 160 km/h. That route is a good example of versatility. Cheers
DTG has said numerous times that the price won't change because of route length. Now with the new tech that they developed, prices for a 100 mile route would not change as they have said thousands of times but I guess you haven't caught the memo by now. I supspect longer routes will come in the future and hopefully we will get a long full line route and not another non full line route as it seems to be the norm with this game.
I see how well they implemented their new tech in the LGV case, as we got a nice but short gameplay route... If cost was not the reason for that, then what else? They could have included the Valence portion, to double its lenght, for instance. And the worse example so far is Oakville. I like the route but... 24 miles only? Why, if not due to developement costs? I want to believe in that but recent releses speak by themselves. Let's see what future brings. And also remember their automated scenery generation just populates the base tiles so that they don't need to start from a blank canvas. But they still need manual placement of scenery content anyway. That was what they explained in the streams at least. Cheers
I would reply, "Because it's a simulation. People play sims to emulate the real world vicariously." And the real world includes long train trips. Some people don't want to play for longer than 30 minutes. But there are others who like making marathons of it - over in TS1 there are complex community-made scenarios that take hours to complete.
Oakville was made way before they developed their new tech though. When it came out for tsw2020, it was badily riddled with bugs to the point where it became the worst dlc for tsw2020. The main reason we get routes that are not very long is down to development time. Any route they make has to meet a deadline and the idea of this new tech is to speed up the development time which opens the possibility of getting much longer routes then before
Yeah, I agree. But time means costs as well (you need to pay the guys while they work on a DLC, and until it´s released it´s still a cost). At the end of the day all this is about the money. There are no technical constraints or wathever else behind. They decided that 30€ was the selling price for a route DLC and they dance around that constraint all the time. All have the typical 60 km lenght not because it takes longer to produce them if they where 120km and sold at 60€ but because it takes longer to get money out of them if they sell them later. This is what I meant. This is just my personal opinion obiously. But if there was a real intention to include more content on the DLCs (either being longer routes or including more new rolling stock with them) it could be easily solved by putting more people on the team and sell them more expensive. Many people would purchase them as well, including myself. But that didn´t change in years, even since older TSW, and when something is not changed during so much time it´s clearly a decided marketing strategy (I have nothing against that, by the way). Cheers
Which, again, is an argument for modular joinable routes. Sell Route 1 for $40, Route 2 for $40 and then for those who are interested in Great Big Routes sell a 'linking' DLC (with new timetable layer) for $5 or $10 or $15 .
26:50 Long routes extension? (new tool set. Dovetail moving in that direction longer routes) 1:23:30 Longer routes (economy) and build routes faster/cheaper (tool set) 2:05:40 Route extensions (must even be stand alone) 2:21:45 TSW evolution in future (fun and longer routes)
Here is a reminder: The save function of the game is still not really working in a proper way, so longer routes wont even work since there is not even the basic function of saving your game. As long as TSW is in lack of this, I dont want longer routes or extensions because spending 4 hours on a route without the ability to save is just slighty suboptimal.
It is a commercial decision. You can sell a route extension only to people already owning the route, so the market is relatively small. An alternative would be the option to combine routes you can play independently, but it is not so easy to keep all services matching. For me RRO is one of the best routes. Services have a good duration. In general I prefer serves you can complete in max 45 minutes. Keeping that in mid, Sandpatch is to long for me, RRO is OK, Munich Augsburg is quite good, because most stopping services only drive till half way. NTP is to long, TVL is quite OK, except for the class 1010 drives over full length. Calculate route length in driving time, not in kilometers.
Just a clarification- yes I have a ton of hours - mostly because I am a road warrior and spend 6 to 7 months a year on the road and most of the “play” time was my evenings in the hotel rooms. Even so, I still preferred scenarios that were 60 minutes or less. Now, I might run two or three scenarios a night. Just looked at my TS2021 collection and most uncompleted scenarios are 80 minutes or longer.
If Dtg thought route extensions were a good idea we would have seen them long ago in Train simulator. That suggests that they don't think it would be that profitable for the amount of work involved. They are not a charitable organisation.
But if we are talking about joining existing full routes, then they are each independent marketable products. Most DB-heads have both RRO and RSN.
I can remember that someone merged RSN and RRO together a few years ago, so it is possible to do that. BUT, at that has been clear since then: It is very hard to merge the timetables so essentially DTG would have to completely redo the timetable from scratch and I highly doubt that they put effort into this because it would take too much time and ressources.
They could use a layer ,like they do with the trains and locomotive, if the other DLC is present, then have joint run Like there are 2 train set that end a Hagen, if I am not mistaken, well if one of them had the layer to enable the joint, that coul make an "extention", and in this case there are still 2 seperate train set that can be use if you only have one or the other, and be joint if you have both
There are no passenger services to join up with those two routes, as there are no services that do that in real life. So there is no point joining them.
Because, as I said, you cannot just merge the two timetables together. You need to create a new one which takes a lot of time.
Then just do it. If you have RSN and RRO you can now create your own train journeys with the scenario editor. No problem, just create a freight train from Finnentrop to hagen on RSN and then on RRO from hagen to Wuppertal and you have a train on both routes.
I don't think some people would like though to have to do one part of a route, quit then do the other part of a route. That is also unrealistic as well. This is a simulator after all
If we are then unrealistic, why then merge 2 routes on which there is no continuous passenger traffic and where it is questionable whether there is continuous freight traffic at all. Because the freight trains that pass through Hagen mostly run through the Hagen-Voralle freight station and this is not available on RSN or RRO. So much for realistic. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahnhof_Hagen-Vorhalle
A lot of people asking for the merger just see two routes both with Hagen at one end and think merging them gives them a long route, end of thought process. They don’t care about realistic services or anything of the reality of doing it. What’s strange is some of the same people are the first to pop up when the wrong kind of lamppost is put on a station or a platform curve is slightly wrong, claiming things are not realistic enough. Very odd.
reminds me of Wham back in the 80's....I used to think if they released "Humptey Dumptey" it would get to number one, but I digress, apologies
I think many would not have a problem with it. Such scenarios are not unknown in TS202X.. in fact had several scenarios that used multiple freeware routes to cover the ECML . That was a very enjoyable project... once you got all the routes loaded. In fact Railworks had an option when building scenarios to have one scenario end then automatically launch another one. Not without its problems and was removed around 2014 but had several nice runs over multiple chained scenarios.
I get that there is no through traffic via Hagen. RRO/RSN come up because they happen to exist- but then again, given the timetabling issue, it might be more practical to do a linked route from scratch with through-timetables part of the planninfg. DTG obviously believes or their market research is telling them that customers like bullet trains- a lot. TSW2 launched with the ICE3, and since then they have rolled out Munchen-Augsburg, the LGV and now Southeast Corridor. To that add TSW 2020's Intercity 125. Now, the fastest HST route in Germany is Koln-Frankfurt- and HSTs are one specific type of railroading which really require long routes to bear much versimilitude. You can spend a lot of time getting from Point A to Point B in a slow freight or a whistle-stop local, but at 250 kph, it's over in no time. Now, not only do numerous ICEs make the run Koln-Frankfurt in addition to the ICE 10 and 79 from Aachen- but the Thalys does too, a highly demanded HST which DTG could include in a route from Koln south to, say, Koblenz. (incidentally, a branch of the ICE 10 and the ICE 31 run via Hagen and Wuppertal on their way to Koln.... Loco DLC with timetable for RRO?)
If Console players make up 60% of this game's customer base and most have not even played ts2021, what makes you think many would like that. TS2021 and tsw2 appeal to different markets. TS2021 is a game that only has scenarios and a quick drive. TSW2 has a timetable mode, you can walk around the map, it has a 24 hour timetable mode and scenarios. Just because something did well in a PC exclusive game doesn't mean it would do well in this game
Unless I am missing something - TSW2 also has SCENARIOS — could not care less which platform you play on, the ability to carry on a scenario theme into another scenario would be a nice addition — I pointed out it has been a feature of scenario designers for TS20XX for a long time so why not also include it in TSW2? I think it would be successful since for the past several years I have been a beta tester for a scenario pact developer that has done very well creating what I have described. It would be a solution to the lack of route extensions many seem to be asking for on these very forums - Very simple to have one scenario end in a common station, then a second scenario using the same consist start on that common station for. Different route. if I remember right you were not for scenario packs being made for TSW2 as well. Fine- if the timetable mode is all you want - stick to the timetable mode , why be negative on features others would find desirable and have proven successful in other venues? It isn’t a platform division what so ever.
I'm not against scenarios at all. I do play the scenarios that come with a route. Do I replay them several times over, no. Some might play them over and over while others don't. The reason why I was against PAYING for scenario packs was because it would make more sense for dtg to upgrade the scenario designer and then allow people to share their scenarios with others which is something they are working on doing via crossplay. What's the point of spending $2, $4, or $6 on scenarios when you can share scenarios that will probably be made to a similar or equal quality as the ones that would cost money. It makes no sense and would probably only be popular to those who have done this in ts2021 which is a pc exclusive game. Again this game appeals to a different market then ts2021 so I highly doubt that would be a popular thing to do. Just because something did well in a pc exclusive game does not mean it will do well in this game when 2/3s of the player base play on console and most have not even played ts2021 which has less features then this game. It's better to do a route extension or making the extension a standalone route and combine both routes if you own both instead of limiting it to one service in a two part scenario which would be unrealistic and probably not popular.
I disagree with many points - especially with that it is a difference between PC and Console players - Even thought TS Classic does have a scenario editor and a very extensive workshop where people can share their creations and yet there is a healthy demand for Scenario packs and there are instances of the multiple scenarios linked for extended runs. As for running a scenario once - that is a valid point - but I view it as going to the theater to watch a movie - if the film is good and paints an interesting story, it was money well spent. Making the same run over a route time and again as you do with the timetable mode gets rather boring for me. But I am all for choice - if you would rather not pay for scenario packs - that is fine - but for those who would, why are you against them being developed??
With the Plym to Penzance route in TS2021 and would often sit there and do the whole 2 hour route but also did many sessions of just half way. It’s nice to have the length if you wanted the full route but to have a mixture of different length scenerios. GWE however is ridiculous. 20-25 minutes of 125mph ? Should be at least until Swindon or Bristol. The NTPE and Tees Valley routes are great length though.
I'd like to bring two questions up that I haven't seen brought up much in this thread, 1: How would you feel about them doing extended versions of routes that don't require the original? 2: How important do you think new engines and rolling stock should be for a route extension?
With regards to point 2, it makes sense to have traction added too. Some networks have lots of traction so the original route is unlikely to have most of them. There are some traction which would be appropriate to add on certain routes because that’s the only/main route they operate on and/or they operate a significant proportion of services on said route. Take GWE, for example: 1. Reading to Basingstoke. Add Class 220/221 2. Reading to Oxford. Add Class 180 3. Reading to Staines. Add Class 450 and/or 458 4. Hayes-Heathrow. Add Class 360 and/or 332 Even for routes that don’t gain any additional traction, they could revamp (or dare I say, fix!) the existing ones. For example. 1. GWR Branch lines (Windsor/Greenford/Marlow/Henley). Add Class 165 and/or FGW livery 2. Reading to Swindon. Add FGW livery HST, maybe add in Automatic Train Protection (ATP) feature. And then of course you’ve got freight such as Class 70s. And if you’re not too worried about it being from 2015/16, you’ve got the option of Class 80x, Class 769 on the Reading-Guildford line, maybe Class 387 to at least Hayes, etc... Perhaps with GWE, if they extended it from Reading to Bristol (in say, 2 extensions) they may get away with not adding any traction. But somewhere like Waterloo-Woking would feel very silly if all you had were Class 444/450s when in real life, there 7 or 8 traction that operate out of the station/route throughout the day. Also, if they added traction, they would get more interest as it’s better value for money. E.g. Let’s say Reading to Oxford with Class 180 costs £25. Whereas with the route extension only, they would be charging at least £15 maybe £20. Unless it’s a really iconic line or an area that you know well/line in, I can’t see many people buying it for the route alone. A chance to see an extra, unique traction may be a sweetener particularly for people who don’t live in the UK/GWML and just want to see some more variety.