Just wanted to say Thanks to Matt for his brake tutorial. I didn't realise how much I didn't know! Really learnt alot. I find that the more I know, the more enjoyable the game/sim becomes, pzb for example, learning that (eventually!) has totally transformed how I enjoy the German routes. I shall now go away and read more! Thanks!
I loved the stream! Part of why I like simulators is that they're not only a game but you can actually learn real things with them. It was a highly useful, informative stream with lots of interesting information.
I'd like to echo the praise for Matt's brakes tutorial. His passion, breadth of knowledge and accessible presentation style all made this a hugely enjoyable and informative watch. The 3.5 hours flew by, and I came away having learned an awful lot
Small question, for all non-English speakers, could we have a translated article that includes tips and what could be said during the live? I think of all the French, Spanish, Italians, Germans and many more who border our beautiful community, thank you in advance.
I’ve just finished watching it and thought it was very good. I think the examples chosen to show the different types of brakes, braking techniques, and what’s implemented in the game were great and I’m glad you included the Class 101 in there as that has been asked about here on the forum and can be difficult to explain in words alone. I thought I knew enough about all the brake types and what can happen if you get into a problem but I was unsure about exactly what to do when changing braking from air to vacuum and didn’t know anything about the cords on the BG’s, so I got some helpful stuff out of it too, and shows that it isn’t just beginners not knowing about such things and getting stuck. I’m glad all that was covered.
I'd like to chime in with my thanks as well. Great tutorial! It has helped me especially on Clinchfield with some of the more challenging routes (One southbound coal with a 1,5% hill start in snowy conditions comes to mind)
I didn't even watch the tutorial. All I relied on was a scene in an old Santa Fe film titled "The Freight Train".
TrainSim-Matt I liked the braking tutorial in general. My major comment is that it is far to long for a single video. My second comment is that DTG seems to focus now on video tutorials for the various locos. I am not very happy with the game manuals, as far as there still are game manuals. They miss to much of the fun into my opinion. Two tiny examples: The F7 for clinchfield has a number of gear like settings. I always put into series/parallel or braking. Why are the other settings there? The units switch seems not to be functional, but still it would be nice to have some explanation in a written manual. For the MPC150 same thing. It has more gear like settings which are not discussed at all. The Baby Bullet has an ep switch, and it would be nice to tell people when to use it. I see lots of especially starting players who feel unsupported and do weird things not using the potential of the game. That is a pity and in a sense it is disrespectful to the developers that crafted features that go completely unnoticed. So, video tutorials, yes please but you also may investing written material. In general I prefer a manual above a video, because it is so easy to read it.
Tutorials are all well and good, but they are neither as handy or as useful as a good, comprehensive written manual - one which explains the function of every interactable switch, knob, button and valve, and how to deal with nearly all non-bizarre driving situations. When I'm coming up on an unfamiliar German signal at 160 per, I can't be fast-forwarding and rewinding through a video looking for the point where I think I remember they might have mentioned it. At one time the argument for the death of manuals was printing costs- but that's hardly an issue with .pdf distribution.