Gradient On The Pause Screen, Why Isn't It An Overlay?

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by paul.pavlinovich, Jun 29, 2021.

  1. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    I welcome the addition of the gradient map with speed limits, but why is it on the pause screen. It would be loads better as an overlay on the live play screen as a moving overlay. This is a really useful feature on other sims.

    Screenshot_20210630-062715.png
     
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  2. Ghostface1701

    Ghostface1701 Well-Known Member

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    I believe it was Matt who said in a previous stream that, in analysing players behavior with TS2021, it was noted that users tended to "play the HUD", or words to that effect. Basically, in having it on display all the time, people just stare at it the entire time, rather than looking out the window, around the cab, etc. I know I've been guilty of that.

    A good comprimise might be to have it on the map screen, so you don't have to pause the game to look at it.
     
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  3. jolojonasgames

    jolojonasgames Well-Known Member

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    I understand why people would want it in the HUD, but personally, in TS2021 I find it too big and intrusive.
     
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  4. Nick Y

    Nick Y Well-Known Member

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    I'm sure Matt said on the stream that the reason it's on the pause menu and not as an overlay on the screen like the HUD is so that it doesn't reduce the visual area on the screen whilst you are driving
     
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  5. Inkar

    Inkar Well-Known Member

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    I think it should work like the Schedule screen. You can look at the schedule screen in the ESC menu, but you can quickly take a look while you drive by pressing "T".

    In this case we would just press something like "G" and get the "quick look" gradient overlay.
     
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  6. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    TSW HUD is considerably larger than TS HUD, despite showing considerably less information than TS did.
    I agree that HUDs souldn't be too large (and I still wish to be able to scale the TSW HUD down quite a lot), but I disagree that TS HUD is too big. All information was concentrated to the bottom of the screen.
     
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  7. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    I guess that does make sense. After I have figured out how to read Arosalinie's trackside gradient signs, I rely more on them than on the HUD.

    However, according to this logic, they could as well remove several other HUD elements. I find myself keeping an eye on the speed limit HUD all the time.

    And, not showing the gradient profile during the drive also has the same effect; You need to keep an eye on the gradient indicator if you do not know when to expect a gradient change. However, if the HUD told you the gradient won't change the next mile or so, you would have more time to enjoy the scenery.

    Similarly, I keep an extra eye out when the speed limit HUD changes to the new speed limit, because only then I can see what the next upcoming speed limit is.

    Looking at the map screen while driving is not a good idea in my experience, so moving this gradient info over to the map screen would be equally useless IMO.
     
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  8. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    Once you have seen the gradient profiles for the routes a few times it will be easier to remember the gradient changes for future runs as you will have seen a picture of it, and that will stick in the mind quite well. You’ll be able to check every few miles what the gradient is going to do and after a while playing a route you won’t need it, as you can pair up the changes on the graph to scenery features and still have a mental picture of that graph in your memory. It’ll still be there for reference even if you don’t remember it fully.

    It’s a lot better than what we currently have, which is no information at all about gradients until they happen. It may be a bit of a pain having to pause the game to see it, so it isn’t perfect, but having it there constantly would be even worse, especially if it scrolls along. As soon as you animate something it’s hard to take your eyes off it.
     
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  9. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    Even if you could toggle it, like the timetable behind the "T"-key?
     
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  10. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I think it would use up too much processing power/memory to have it there scrolling along while the sim is running. That’s always a concern with TSW being close to the edge on a lot of machines. There is a reason they have put it in the pause screen and that’s probably it. There’s also the problem of not having a button available on console controllers to toggle it but that’s probably only a secondary consideration to the performance hit.
     
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  11. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    I guess you guys don't use Trainz 2019 which has a transparent scrolling gradient map. It should not add too much in the way of processing demands. Trainz will run on potato and they can do it :). Because its transparent its not intrusive at all. It takes up a small part of the bottom left of the screen. I find I don't watch it all the time but going out to another screen and back totally breaks the immersion - any time you have to leave the cab to find something you know you're in a game not a simulator. Even professional training simulators usually have one display screen with the gradient and feature map of the route you're trying to learn.


    upload_2021-6-30_21-30-53.png

    A lot of locomotives (including some of those in TSW2) could show it on one of their dual screens - might be cool to have it on screen there too.
     
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  12. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    I believe earlier versions of Trainz didn't have this. I was under the impression they got the idea from Train Simulator, which shows the gradient profile, along with any upcoming signals and stations, in a similar fashion. I really liked that and I do miss it in TSW.
     
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  13. Mich

    Mich Well-Known Member

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    You'd have to have the worst programmers on Earth to have a flipping HUD element take a sizeable amount of performance. Seriously, I've heard of very few instances of a HUD taking up sizeable resources in games, when you're on the specs TSW requires a few 2D images ain't gonna make a difference.
     
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  14. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    Yeah I am not sure exactly when it got it, I had Trainz 2004, 2006, 2009 but stopped until I got 2019 and it was not in 2009 but is in 2019.
     
  15. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    I would prefer in all instances of when something might or might not be shown on the main screen, give me the user the choice via settings. If I am persisting on trying to run an immersive game on a potato then good luck to me, but if I've got a beast then it should be up to me what I want to spend resources on.
     
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  16. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Frankly I'm less stoked about the gradients per say than the inclusion of the speed limits (you know, what EBuLa would show if it were ever implemented......). This would be especially helpful on lines like NTP where surprise 15's pop out of nowhere 100 yards past a line speed marker.
     
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  17. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    Oh yes and LIRR. I know that feeling only too well!! It would be awesome to see some more in advance and have it properly tied to the route being generated from the route so its always right (or perhaps equally wrong!!).
     
  18. Disintegration7

    Disintegration7 Well-Known Member

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    The scrolling gradient/speed limit map is my favorite feature of TRS2019 by far- wish DTG would have just copied it wholesale. Like you said, the best HUD solution is to simply allow the player to toggle individual elements on/off as they choose. What's the downside to that?

    My suspicion is that there's a significant performance hit (somehow) to adding it to the HUD- i can't understand why that would be, but they've said instability is the reason we don't have a proper 2d map with labels, so....

    Maybe it will happen with TSW3 and a full move to the new consoles, which presumably could brute force through inefficient code or whatever the root cause is?
     
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  19. jolojonasgames

    jolojonasgames Well-Known Member

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    At the end of the day that's the perfect solution. The current system where you can toggle signal aspects, distance and speed limits is a great example of that.
     
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  20. Disintegration7

    Disintegration7 Well-Known Member

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    Yes, exactly, they're already most of the way there. Maybe there's a fear that if they let the player turn off the speedometer, for example, they might get confused about how to turn it back on and quit in frustration? But, a "reset to default" option solves that issue.
     
  21. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    Yeah I don't get it with the maps, I've done plenty of mapping in my non train sim life and they're just not that hard.
     
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  22. stevegad

    stevegad Member

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    Agree with this 100%
     
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  23. stevegad

    stevegad Member

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    Don't take this the wrong way, but anyone who forgets how to toggle features on and off, shouldn't really be in a train simulator, seeing as it's mainly about pressing buttons and pulling levers.
     

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