Cathcart Circle Line Or East Coastway?

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by aglomarsale, Jun 18, 2021.

?
  1. Catchart

  2. East Coastway

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  1. aglomarsale

    aglomarsale Well-Known Member

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    which is better
     
  2. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Cathcart gives you more variation in services and is a very detailed route with a few flaws

    ECW is a longer, faster route, but it is very much "go to and from Brighton". I also found the "journey mode" on ECW to be fairly boring. Too much "drive a 66 from Lewes to the aggregate terminal", "Run around your consist", "drive back to Lewes". I realise this may be true to life but I didn't need fifteen scenarios to learn how to do it...
     
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  3. TinTin_57

    TinTin_57 Well-Known Member

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    I would say Cathcart after playing it a lot over the last week. A little bit more variety although East Coastway is still pretty good and probably many peoples favourite
     
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  4. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    Cathcart gets my vote despite the flaws raised in my review.
     
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  5. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Haven’t bought Cathcart yet but I found ECW and the supplied train so incredibly boring, one of the few TSW routes I have refunded.
     
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  6. Ben_Broomfield

    Ben_Broomfield Well-Known Member

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    Cathcart by far personally.

    ECW for me is just boring and needs something extra to make me engage with it more. Although I do prefer the more faster style, it’s more just A-B with nothing else in the mix to keep you on your toes. However the route still is quite nice, just wish there was more going on.

    Also personally not really a fan of the current 377, mainly because there’s no FOV slider and can’t stand having my FOV so narrow.

    Cathcart is a real step up, your always doing something, and offers a varied interesting experience (A-B via C & D etc), instead of a driving to one end of the map and the other, at 75mph.
     
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  7. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    If you're doing 75mph the whole way you're seriously missing the 10mph crawl into Lewes...

    Agreed ECW isn't the most dynamic route, but it IS a rural branch in essence. There isn't much going on on the route IRL to make it interesting (which I believe was pointed out by the community when it was announced)
     
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  8. Ben_Broomfield

    Ben_Broomfield Well-Known Member

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    75mph & a 10mph crawl - minor details ;)

    Very true and agree with that. I do like the route, I just wish there was that bit of something to make me want to go back and play again on it.
     
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  9. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I find this true on just about all simulators. You get to a saturation point where unless there's a substantial difference you're just doing the same thing time and again
    It does mean that once you've played one run of the route you're looking at details rather than major changes. The scenarios are just about the only things which have some differences, and even then DTG seem to still work on the premise of "to make it interesting, make it rain" rather than having actual interesting play.
    The only one on Cathcart which is substantially different is the rescue scenario
     
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  10. Yerolo

    Yerolo Well-Known Member

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    Honestly I find both routes kinda boring. Even though Cathcart has 3 different destinations, the end to end experience can be rather drab....maybe addtional traffic would have made it more interesting?

    I do like the Seaford branch of ECW though so it gets the edge for me
     
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  11. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    And yet to some it's just another train passing in the other direction... the "ooh it's a 380" is only interesting so many times
     
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  12. Ben_Broomfield

    Ben_Broomfield Well-Known Member

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    Definitely enjoyed the scenario, actually enables you put into practice ‘advanced features’ on stock, that less knowledgeable players would probably never touch/utilise.

    Agree, you see a lot more of the ‘interesting’ bits playing the route again. The rain however can bug off.
     
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  13. Ben_Broomfield

    Ben_Broomfield Well-Known Member

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    Seaford branch is one of the things I like about ECW. Just something different and a little more ‘interesting’.

    GCC could do with more AI definitely, that’s one of the low points, especially when at Glasgow Central.
     
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  14. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    People should now avoid buying both Cathcart Circle and Cane Creek until the end of the year, because there is potentially an extremely long hiatus in support, in the event that DTG declines to offer a patch for these DLCs before both of these titles are baked to UE 4.26 (as is), and re-released alongside Rush Hour.

    However, If DTG now commit to patching Cathcart Circle in the next few days, then I would strongly recommend it over ECW. Until then, avoid Cathcart Circle like the plague, as it has serious problems with audio, lighting, passengers, etc......... and these might not get fixed for a very long time, if at all (assuming that this is what we were advised in the Roadmap stream on 15th June).
     
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  15. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    In retort to the above...

    If you want working PIS, decently modelled trains, scenery and a whole heap of other things, get Cathcart.
    If you don't want PIS and don't mind if the trains are "point and go" get ECW

    Patching is an issue for all routes, not just the two mentioned
     
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  16. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    PIS for ECW would be un upgrade and a redevelopment for that DLC, as part of a planned set of upgrades for older DLCs.


    However:

    - fixing pasengers so that they don't fly into the sky, derail your train, walk through buildings and bury themselves in concrete, would be an urgently needed patch for a recent DLC like Cathcart that was released when it wasn't really ready;

    - fixing the audio mix so that you don't have to raise the volume level on your TV/audio by 100% to hear the train, and then be pummelled by the sound of the "objective complete" siren and the thumping of the windscreen wiper........ would be an urgently needed patch for a recent DLC like Cathcart that was released when it wasn't really ready; and,

    - fixing lighting output on the front of the Class 314 so that you can enjoy the immersion that it brings from the (realistic) reflections off trackside infrastructure, rather than clawing your way through a dark and dismal sewer/trench....... would be a patch for a recent DLC like Cathcart that was released when it wasn't really ready.

    It is just an opinion.
     
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  17. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    Personally I much prefer Cathcart. Despite its shorter length, its loops and different lines and destinations make it much more of an interesting route. It’s also one of the best modelled routes in TSW to this date. More variety of trains and AI traffic would make it more interesting, however.

    East Coastway I found got boring very fast. I think it was because the scenery wasn’t particularly interesting as well as constant green signals for the whole route. Made even more tedious if you’re driving an express service.
     
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  18. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    Do I just have abnormally good speakers in my laptop or something? I can hear the motors and everything fine without being deafened by the UI and wiper.

    This is not a Cathcart issue. This is a core issue with the passengers themselves that happens on multiple routes, although I've never experienced a derailment due to passengers.
     
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  19. Djb1990

    Djb1990 Active Member

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    I've not completed this scenario yet. What are these advanced features you mention?
     
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  20. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    On Collector, if you enable AWS, you need to use the TPWS Train Stop Override to prevent a penalty brake application when you have to pass a red (obvs obtain permission from the dispatcher first)
     
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  21. Ben_Broomfield

    Ben_Broomfield Well-Known Member

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    I use the term 'advanced features' more for players new to the railway simulation environment.
    The use of TPWS & the Train Stop Override button is great to see, to prevent a brake intervention, as more casual players may not ever experience or understand its use. So being able to use these more 'advanced' controls and 'features' within a scenario is great to see.

    Although personally for me, it isn't that much of a 'advanced feature' as its featured & works in most stock we get to play with.
     
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  22. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, it's more it's now properly implemented in the route (GWE's TPWS being broken apparently).
     
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  23. Ben_Broomfield

    Ben_Broomfield Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, GWE seems to have issues with TPWS thinking your overspeeding on approach into RDG under caution (bugged OSS Sensor id assume - although thought DTG didn't think they were modeled?).

    Isolating TPWS/Safety Systems mitigates the issue for now.
     
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  24. Djb1990

    Djb1990 Active Member

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    Ah I see. I usually do play with aws active. I wouldn't say I am particularly knowledgable about trains but I do know about using the train stop override. Will be interesting to actually need to use it.

    Getting back to the topic of this thread, at the moment I prefer cathcart, but that could just be because of the novelty of the route. It is definitely better looking, and I love the whole network feel, with multiple destinations and paths. That definitely needs to become a regular feature of future routes.

    I agree that ECW can get a bit boring after a few runs. But to be fair, I feel that way about pretty much every single route. I very rarely do more than a couple of consecutive runs on a single route. I prefer to do one or two runs and then switch to another route. I get bored quite quickly if I just do the same route over and over again
     
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  25. Inkar

    Inkar Well-Known Member

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    We are getting Rush Hour soon, which includes the Brighton line. I think it is important to consider if it will supersede the experience of any of the current route options.
     
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  26. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    That's the notorious Platform 9 at Reading, where the mid-platform TPWS loop is wrongly set as a main signal SPAD protection loop rather than a 15mph OSS loop. the Brake Override button does bypass it, though, once you know to expect it. So I wouldn't say that the system is broken on GWE; rather, there's one bad loop.
     
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  27. Cramnor

    Cramnor Well-Known Member

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    I enjoy Cathcart a lot, although I expected it to be much more busy (same applies to ECW as well though). However, I'm getting more and more annoyed by these little things that don't work on GCC, like that my train is always empty, passenger behavior at the stations, weird AWS and signals, trains not turning around properly, and so on. That hasn't happened to that extent on ECW for me. So overall, I'd rather go for ECW.
     
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  28. rat7_mobile

    rat7_mobile Well-Known Member

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    No contest, they are both great
     
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  29. Michael Newbury

    Michael Newbury Well-Known Member

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    Agreed both routes are great and I enjoy them both
     
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