We all know that there is a train to Bristol on the Great Western Express timetable, but in fact you can only drive to Reading. When will DTG extend its route to Bristol? I don’t know if this will make our players look forward to a certain time or do it deliberately!
It's to add flavor and immersion to the route. I don't think any players are actually confused by it. Every route sold clearly lists its beginning and endpoints.
At the time GWE was made (one of, if not the, first TSW routes), DTG was limited to about 30 miles or so tops. Every mile of length is just that much more work, and costs had to be held down to make it salable for a price point. Since then, route length in some cases has doubled, thanks in part to autogen, but also, I'm afraid, by cutting down on locos (GWE, Sand Patch and NTP all came with three; now one is typical.) But London to Bristol is over 100 miles- well outside the limits of what DTG can attempt.
You can either say it goes to reading or bristol. Either way has its problems. We choose to show where the train would be going to, since we make it very clear what the actual driving extents of a route are, that way you can immerse yourself in the section of the world that you can drive within and imagine the trains going on about their business, rather than pretending every train terminates at Reading.
Hi Matt, I see that the end of the timetable is Bristol, but the end of the line is Reading. I can only imagine driving me far away when the red light ahead turns green. I imagined some beautiful scenery waiting for me to watch! The unknown station ahead and how long the passengers are waiting for the train, I want to take them to all possible places. After understanding, I realized that reading is the end and there is no way forward. The sudden sense of loss made me think again.
For me, the biggest problem is the discrepancies between routes. The current system creates too much confusion and on older routes prevents you from setting the destination boards accurately. On some routes, the service names indicate going off-map (GWE, München-Augsburg, London-Faversham,...). On other routes, the service names reflect the real endpoint on the map (Hamburg-Lübeck, Duisburg-Bochum,...) This creates confusion and should be standardized. From my point of view, I would prefer a mixture of both, with the service name indicating the driveable section of the map and the text description with the full train route. Example: ICE 614 - Duisburg Hbf - Bochum Hbf "Today, you'll be taking over the ICE 614 from Munchen Hbf to Dortmund Hbf on a section from Duisburg Hbf to Bochum Hbf"
In some routes (like MSB) the timetable is fictional, it was created this way to be more fun, AFAIK no trains turn around at neither Aschaffenburg or Gemunden IRL, not even when the route was set, with many trains going Frankfurt > Aschaffenburg > Gemunden >Wurzburg So writing on the timetable: "RE55 to Wurzburg" to then see the train stop and turn around in Gemunden would be even worse. Anyway all the post HMA routes should have the actual destination, because that's needed for the PIS to work (only RT is different), on older routes it's hit and miss. I agree this, like many other things, should be more consistent between different DLCs. HHL I believe it's mostly self contained, so the in-game destinations are the actual destinations.
It's interesting we have "real" destinations in GWE and RT, but not in some later German routes like RRO and HRR. Don't know how RSN and NTP are like in real life though. As far as I can remember, in the game most trains are like "Hagen - Finnentrop" and "Manchester Victoria - Leeds" while there are also "Hagen - Iserlohn" or "Sheffield - Leeds" ones.
The changes have been somewhat related to hearing feedback and trying different approaches, but the conclusion is there's no real consistent feedback about preference. Given the journey doesnt go beyond Reading, the question is - do you want the service to say it's going to Reading, or to Bristol, it's real world destination. If you want it to say Reading, what do you want the PIS on the front of the train to say? If you start a "reading" train and it says "Bristol" on the train is that acceptable? Currently you might know that trains to Bristol are non stop to reading, but the ones to Oxford have a stop or two in addition, then you can use that to help you see which ones to play - but if they all say "Reading" then you lose that. I have to say personally my preference is that it says where it would go in reality, normally descriptions in newer addons say "as far as Reading" (probably not in GWE but in newer addons) and PIS then shows the correct endpoint as well. Interested to hear other views though of course. The option you probably want, extend the route to Bristol, is not on the table for this discussion, simply because whatever you think about adding today, then needs to apply for the "marseille to paris" or "st pancras to marseille" type situations where you're just not likely to see that as a single journey anyway. Let me know what you think
Personally I’d prefer it show the real life destination, as well as it show the calling points for stations off the map in TSW. Both on the train and on the PIS.
> the question is - do you want the service to say it's going to Reading, or to Bristol, it's real world destination. If you want it to say Reading, what do you want the PIS on the front of the train to say? If you start a "reading" train and it says "Bristol" on the train is that acceptable? I want the train and station to show what the train and station would show in real life, be it Bristol, Swansea, Penzance or Camarthen... What the menu shows as the title of the service should match that, but obviously the scenario text would say "take over at... you'll be relieved at..." with relevant stations shown. I don't see it as confusing per se that the train says it goes somewhere off the map. There are many many trains in the UK which start and finish with different drivers (I believe Aberdeen to Penzance has at least six...)
I'd like the actual destinations (and the service number) on the service selection screen, and the in-route start and end point, intermediate stations and other info on the description screen. For example, this service within the bounds of Main Spessart Bahn. SERVICE NAME: RE55 [4619] Frankfurt - Würzburg DESCRIPTION: Drive this limited stop service between Aschaffenburg and Gemünden on the Spessartrampe, stopping at: Heigenbrücken, Wiesthal, Partenstein, Lohr Bahnof and Langenprozelten. (If the service calls at all stations, then it could be written "stops at all stations" instead of lisiting every station)
I would definitely like to have the services show where they start and end in real life, with a description including where you are driving between if necessary, rather like it is done on some newer routes already. And most definitely having the correct destination on all PIS and displays as they would appear in real life is a must. On HRR all the timetable services are shown in the menu as only where you drive them and not the services they actually are and then you are at a loss as to what destination to select for the train display (in the old system). That is a bad experience for me, not knowing what the real services are. Even with automatic display boards for the train, it is just good for information and immersion that you know what service you are driving before you select it. You already know what the limits are in the route so you know you are never going beyond them. It’s also good to know if your train is terminating or moving on in case you want to do the cab shutdown as part of your play. I know casual players may not even care what service they are driving and may just want to know exactly where they are driving to and nothing else but I don’t think having the information catering just for them is the way to go. Having the service name as the real service and having the description showing where you drive caters for everyone. The same descriptions for the services that appear in timetable and scenario menus need to show up in Journey mode too. At the moment, there is no description at all and that is also a very bad player experience. I have go to the timetable or scenario menu to find the info and then go back into Journey mode to play the service. I shouldn’t have to do that, when there is space on the screen for the descriptions in the Journey menu.
It makes it easier to set the train displays at the start of a service to have the name of the real world destination as the service name. This way we can just press "T" when the service loads and read the destination we have to use.
Looking at the distance, I think you would need 2 more DLCs to do that. Reading - Swindon, then Swindon - Bristol.
