Didn't see a thread for immediate reactions to Lucerne-Sursee, other than the one that started before it was released, so will try and make one here. I have done the first few scenarios and a timetable run, and I am very happy with what I see. Both train and region are lovingly recreated, and an entirely new safety system to learn altogether makes this right up my alley. It feels like the better RSSLO routes for Train Simulator, travelling through mountain scenery and light industry on your way up towards Sursee, and the FLIRT seems nicely done. Yes, only one loco, so everything rests on it being perfectly executed but I don't think Rivet have done a bad job. Lots of interactive buttons (albeit not everything), down to an audible fan system, nice passenger section and the acceleration and braking seem pretty close to real life, as someone who has travelled on FLIRTs many times. Learning ETCS was a good challenge that really hammered home how natural I find the German system now, and it was really helpful in learning the unit's braking capabilities versus what is comfortable. The much-feared window tint from the preview stream isn't there, and you can see everything pretty well both in night and daytime. Downsides - there's apparently a missing instruction in the first non-tutorial scenario, where you need to raise the pantograph again without instruction. Also, without knowing the ETCS safety system better, it is hard to say whether it is broken, but it only seems to register the next trigger point. If a braking curve will get steeper shortly after your next signal, it doesn't reflect this, leading to emergency braking kicking in. Again, not sure if this is accurate modelling or an error in design, but as far as I can tell there is only one point this is an issue on the route anyway (approach to Sursee) so it is easy to learn. I have noticed, too, the wheel screech on turning a tighter corner is on a very sharp trigger, leading to an artificial sound that really reminds you this is a game, not reality. Finally, there is no escaping that this is an end-to-end route, with a straight choice between passenger services that stop everywhere and ones that don't. Nothing for freight heads, no real yard work (no pun intended, despite DTG using it themselves in the past), you will just be driving an EMU from one end to the other and back. More or less though, I am happy with my pre-order. Early days so no doubt I and the community will find more bugs and teething issues as we go on, but for now this is a compact but well done route. Longevity might be an issue, given the limited timetable and single EMU to play with, but going into it knowing these restrictions and considering the lower than usual price, I'm happy with my purchase.
Yes, I also like the route and the Flirt. The DLC is definetly up to DTGs recent standarts, who knows how the quality would have been if the line went all the way to Olten.... But the Flirt is nicely done, it looks (and sounds!) nice and has good physics unlike Arosa or the 150, Rivet definetly made a huge step up with this one. Timetable mode isnt bugged as far as i know, ETCS has only some flaws one way, but integra is also there and is working just fine. I would even say the scenery is better as on some DTG routes, as you will see something very different here and not your same generic warehouse or Apartment block over and over again. Some scenes like construction sites are very detailed. And yes, you have seen the whole route if you have driven it once or twice, but so do you on most other routes. So even if its a short route, its quite fun, and the fact Rivet made it isnt a negative point anymore on this one, I'd recommend it. Would have been a nice gimmick if they'd have made a copy of the flirt with PZB for germany, as you can realistically use it on RSN, HRR, RRO and i think MSB
I was surprised when I checked the Steam store page and found the reviews to be mixed and somewhat negative, but these reviews seem to come from users who are more intimately familiar with the area than most would be, if their Swiss spelling and ranting of Flirt sounds is anything to go by. Amusingly, one reviewer said that Luzern-Sursee lacked the love and attention given to UK routes like SEHS, which greatly contrasts the general criticism of that route here in an Anglo-biased community. The primary complaint seems to be the Flirt sounds and over-cleanliness of things, the former of which I have absolutely no prior experience and the latter being par for the course in TSW. Overall, the route looks nice. I will probably not pick up this route because it lacks variety, but I think a loco pack later could persuade me to purchase my first Rivet DLC. From what I have seen here and on YouTube, it appears to be a massive step up from any of Rivet's previous developments. Das werden wir sehen. Cheers
The route is interesting, and apart from some badly modelled scenery and floating cars nice to look at. The biggest problem so far seems to be the signalling and ETCS. It had been already showcased on the preview stream, and I ran afoul of it multiple times now as well - if you want to drive without HUD, you will run into ETCS emergency brake applications where you cannot do anything, especially when going towards Luzern. It seems like some of the balises are placed incorrectly, so that the braking curve is triggered too late and you get an emergency braking (e.g. when the speed limit changes from 160 to 125). Another example is coming into Sursee, where you go from a yellow signal to a red one in 300m at a speed limit of 140 - obviously you should be braking for the station stop, but I feel like some speed limits are missing here that would slow the train down before entering the station and approaching the red, thereby also making ETCS work better and avoiding an emergency brake application. Other than that, as people have mentioned before, the route seems a bit dark from the cab and the AI trains don't have anything on the PIS.
A bit of a sidetrack, but I really liked this on Cathcart - the route wasn't super pristine, especially underpasses in some stations had graffiti and rubbish making them look a lot more realistic.
I would mostly sign your statement but I have one part where I disagree: The faulty ETCS is a joke! It was announced as the main new thing for the route yet it's unusable because of the regular emergency brake applications happening because of unannounced speed drops / yellow signals. I also observed some other bugs like the brake curve going under 40 km/h and giving you an emergency brake there too.
Well... for Switzerland this is actually very realistic. Also I hardly read any comment about cleanliness. I don't think this is THE big negative point. But apart from that, i am with you. I like the route, it's Rivet's best one, yet. Sounds are okay, scenery is well done. Big downer is the ETCS implementation and the window tint (i just drove the185 on Lunzern-Sursee and it kinda feels like a completely new experience tho).
Rivet mentioned on the preview stream they could, in future, add PZB to ETCS STM. Maybe We will get a DB version at some point.
Yes, the standards in this DLC are really very high! You can let the AI drive for you for the first time to win points and medals! https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/totally-crazy-ai-lucerne.53203/
yeah. ETCS turned out to be a crap shoot. It gets annoying as you are expecting to brake on a curve but it jumps awkwardly to another speed, 160 kmh-125 kmh and does emergency braking. It gets annoying really quick as you are braking well over 500 m for speed reduction but that's apparently not enough. And I found a bug with achievement not unlocking in Steam this morning which is probably more an minor annoyance but should have been caught in QA as it is literally the first achievement to be unlocked. Over all, Rivet has landed on my watch list, so no more day 1 pre-orders.
Exactly this. I thought you guys were going to set stricter standards/guidelines for third parties, thus leading to higher standards/more consistent quality level of DLCs? What’s the point reporting issues AFTER release as no doubt it’ll take a lot longer to resolve? It seems both DTG and Rivet have issues communicating with each other during the development process.
One more comment: The night lighting is terrible, well actually, non-existent. Not only that the train headlights are a joke, the station lighting is so terrible. I am running the late night scenario, and the only thing telling me there is a station is the stop marker, I can't see anything, no lighting at all. This is quite disappointing
Well, I'm enjoying this route. During my walking hunt for collectables I came across this - the crossing signals are the wrong way around. The only other comments I would have are: - it would ne nice to have some people walking around the towns and villages. - If DTG allow it, can the Shimmns and Habbiins wagons get a repaint, and be placed in some of the empty sidings. also, is it possible to back port the middle distance trees to the mountains of Arosa. The versions used here seem better.
I'm enjoying this route quite a bit, but totally agree about the night lighting- it's back to the pitch-black bad-old-days. Really jarring coming just a week after Harlem, which looks great at night/in tunnels. Maybe since a big chunk of Harlem is underground, the devs paid more attention to it, but the inconsistency between routes on what I would consider core features is maddening. I also find some of the signals hard to see at distance (say > 200m)- like the lamp is partially obscured or it's an LOD issue, but i've never had that on any other route fwiw.
Well if you distinct between DTG and Rivet routes, rivet is very consistent with the non-existing night lighting
Don't knock the cleanliness. It's a Swiss national characteristic. Well done Rivet. They are coming along nicely and learning from experience.
From what I saw in the creators club they turned Rabe 523 into DB BR429 for RSN RRO. ETCS is the European positive train control
Last time I travelled in Switzerland or for that matter watched YT cab ride videos, there’s still a fair amount of graffiti and grime in places.
Is it prototypical that the RE services turn around at Sursee on track 3? I thought they would be going to Olten in reality, and on the way towards Luzern stop on track 1 at Sursee. But it seems like they are not using the portals to leave after Sursee, and the PIS also says that they just go to Sursee. Also the S1 services towards Luzern, don't they continue towards Baar? PIS says they end at Luzern, and they around there back to Sursee.
Personally, I am very disappointed that Rivet Games didn't even get the distinction between ETCS Full Supervision and Limited Supervision right. The functionality in this add-on (sporadic supervision of speed limit and signal approaches, with no full in-cab signalling and external signals taking precedence) is very clearly that of Limited Supervision, and while this may not be obvious to most users, it should be glaringly obvious to anyone who has ever looked into either the ETCS specification (which is available to the public for free) or the BAV's operational guidelines (which should also be available to the public for free, if you know German, French or Italian). Also, as far as I know, ETCS Level 1 Full Supervision is not at all used in Switzerland - it's either Level 1 Limited Supervision, or Level 2 Full Supervision. But I might be wrong here, I only did some cursory research here to confirm my gut feeling that Rivet Games didn't do their research. I'm willing to accept some bugs in TSW's safety system implementations, like the issues with the LZB indicating signal states even beyond the point where LZB coverage ends, and the complete mess that is the LZB-Ende procedure, but Rivet seems to just have implemented the wrong safety system entirely, and I don't know if I should be impressed or disappointed.
Scenery wise, this may be my favourite scene from the DLC....absolutely superb You may have a point, here's a screenshot I took from the Midnight Rush scenario:
There may be another glitch, but I don't know for sure. I'm running from Luzern to Sursee, and there seems to be a bizarre speed increase near Emmenbrucke station. I have chosen to ignore it as you can't get up to speed and back down again in such a short space.
I was running a timetable scenario yesterday and noted a speed limit ahead of 165 km/h which went away very quickly. I think you are seeing that on the graph.
You had me going there for a minute until I looked more closely at the top image. Who did they have build this, a five year old? This is £20 that will be staying in my pocket or getting spent on some DIY materials for the house. Same old Rivet, never change...
Ugh, it's HRR all over again with respect to the (lack of) night lighting. Also the bumper cars are hilarious with some of them following very closely.
I had the intention of writing another thread with my thoughts on it, but honestly I don't think it's worth the effort, and since this thread exists I will post my feedback here. ETCS I would like to say I'm disappointed, but I'm not, I was 100% sure it was going to be bad, and the preview streams confirmed it. I am not sure how TSW is structured, but it seems like the way the game handles signals and speed limits is hindering a lot these more complex safety systems: ATC, ACSES, CSS and ETCS. At least ETCS "works" in the most lenient sense of the word, unlike CSS on Sherman Hill. It is a shame, as it seemed like the selling point of the route at some point. I honestly don't understand their whole rationale behind this one, they included a more interesting but unrealistic system, but they somewhat failed, given us other options (such as level 0) but didn't give us the option to use the realistic setting (I believe Zub+Integra) isn't Zub very similar to PZB? How hard would it have been to implement it? The Train (RABe 523) My biggest problem about writing about the train is that I am not too familiar with the prototype, this not being a "review" I'll remain on broader lines, as again I wasn't willing to do much research on the real train to give some feedback for a route that will likely receive one or no updates in the future: Sounds: It sounds good for a general EMU, the addition of "flange squeal" while going around corners is a big improvement compared to older trains, such as the BR422/425, but I think the BR423 is on par if not slightly better. Again, I don't know if the real 523s sound like this, but I have a slight suspicion the sounds are not super accurate, as I feel I can hear sound clips from other trains (for example with open windows I think I can hear a bit of Talent 2), so if I had to guess they focused on making a good sounding train rather than making it sound like the real thing. Again, speculation/guessing. Physics, again with no idea how the real train behaves it's hard to tell, however it seems a bit on the Formula 1 side, with very powerful brakes and acceleration, especially at higher speeds, but maybe I'm just too used to the rubbish 423 brakes... it doesn't seem too dissimilar from other EMUs, I'm mainly thinking of the 422 and 425, although it performs much better than the Talent, which is the other "long distance-y" EMU. Cab, systems and interior details. They are decent, it's very clearly not a Train Sim Germany train, I have a feeling the PIS system is odd, as by default it shows the same destinations for both REs and S-Bahn, so you have to set it yourself to have it display the correct destination (again, guess/speculation). Tempomat is annoying, I don't know if it can't be switched off in reality, but especially for the S-Bahn services near Luzern is more of an annoyance than a helping hand, the way it works reminds me a lot of the system used in the TGV rather than AFB or the Talent's tempomat, which means it's very good at keeping the correct speed, but it will sometimes just ever so slightly overspeed, and will command a brake application unnecessarily on some circumstances. I hope the vigilance system in the real train is not like AFB or VACMA which requires resets, but rather just keep the pedal depressed and you are good, in both cases I can't understand why they didn't implement it... as both systems would have been a copy/paste job from other trains Why are the cab views so awful, I can't help but feel this has to be a bug, there are two options which are nearly equivalent and nothing else, I guess I am supposed to use the mirrors to check if passengers have boarded the train instead of looking outside the window, it's a shame those don't work in TSW. Route Scenery is overall excellent, apart from a few areas, but my fears were proven correct, just like Cane Creek it's victim of the rendering distance/tile system (not sure what's the cause), but basically you can't see terrain far ahead, the issue is not as bad as in Cane Creek where it seems like you are driving towards nowhere before a huge chunk of terrain pops into existence, but turns a scenery which is a low point, encircled by mountains into a plain, which is a big shame. Here are a couple of photos from MSFS, the close scenery is excellent, but it lacks that feeling of being in a mountainous region Stations and buildings are excellent, the roads are average for a TSW route, which means they are bad, but we got used to them, other pieces of scenery near the tracks are also very good, this an area where Rivet really shines, Cathcart was also excellent from this point of view, the cleanliness I guess is right for Switzerland (or at least it fits with the stereotypes), and I believe Rivet have demonstrated they are able to do weathering as we can see in Cathcart. The signals are a big shame, "Text" and "TextText" on a release build? Come on... it's not game braking by any stretch of the imagination but surely you didn't just run out of time or will to place some writing... I hope Stopping at every station under a yellow... I guess we are back to the RRO regional service days, Ironically it turns out it helps with ETCS as that means you are slowing down more to signals compared to speed limits (which don't work on ETCS), the cynic in me thinks it's done on purpose, but then again Rivet has shown they are not brilliant at timetabling and signalling. Timetable From what I saw all the trains turn around at Sursee... why? Are we back to the MSB days of passengers trains going up and down the line only? It eliminates a lot of realism from the timetable and it just looks wrong. It doesn't make sense that Regional Express trains, and most of the S-bahn that goes to Olten (further away from Sursee) all have to start on the "opposite track" and go back to the left hand side via a switch... only the trains that actually terminate at Sursee (which from what I understand is just a fraction of only the S-bahn traffic) should do that... The timings while they seem autogeneated are decent, they have enough leeway to seems believable on the real world while not having to wait 2 minutes at each station... it's not BML but it's not awful either. I appreciate the variation between S-Bahn and RE. Again, NO TIME TO SET UP THE TRAIN, don't think I need to add anything else I will probabily edit this comment later if something else springs to mind. This purchase to me was mainly to support Rivet in their endeavour to give use more SBB content, this release is decent/mediocre, and it's ok. I am expecting much better for the next route though, especially for ETCS.
Ok, I'm going insane: there is clearly tresselation going on in this screenshot, yet it had been disabled in a previous patch by DTG for all routes before this routes' release. Is this on PC? Was it a mod? It looks so much better than the standard flat texture and I want it too, yet, I haven't found a way to enable it - I know it's off topic, but the amount of tresselation-enabled screenshots and the lack of finding a way to enable it myself leaves me puzzled!
I don't think DTG disabled it. It's still on by default for me. You may have disabled it with the following Engine.ini command: Code: r.MaterialQualityLevel=0 This gives better (further) grass rendering but disables the ballast heightmapping. Cheers
How is the catenary, another weak point in every DLC? Zig-zagging throughout, pulled to the outside of curves, no ridiculous changes in height of the contact wire, no sections of wires missing?
The rendering of catenary by Rivet is very good. It is one of the better things about Rivets' modelling.
about those bumper cars i even saw those on older routes now maybe something broke global a few patches ago i guess
with regard to - If it helps - It is on PC. I don't think I have any current mods installed (I think I had/ have the scenic upgrade for RRO)- Shadow; effects and Texture are set to high, the rest are set as ultra.
This is an interesting idea, but then you have the PZB and LZB which (if correct magnets are installed) both work pretty well. And ETCS should control the train in a similar fashion to LZB.
Rivet said it was difficult, and given that similar system are not working or had problems in the past I assumed it was true, I honestly have no idea why or how LZB so far has seemed to be the only system that works consistently and without major bugs on inaccuracies (except the need to reset AFB).
I know this is a joke, but that's a train problem, put the ICE or the BR101 on RT and it will work fine, the system itself is good... implementation of LZB on a lot of trains is really bad though.
I tried it, and it worked, I'm amazed! Thank you very much, the tracks look a lot better now - tho the draw distance doesn't anymore. I wish we could choose this on our own, without having to tweak an .ini file. But thank you for your help!
It is a very good trainset, the only downside I can find is the night light that not quite there yet, and the headlights that are extremely weak The main good point in this trainset, is the Journey, finally we have a Journey that is lasting over week to do unlike all previous trainset where the Journey is completed in a matter of days, now if either the third parties or DTG could just make it that Journey, scenarios and the timetable could be reset, so we can redo them over and over Well done Rivets Games, very good trainset
If you look at the VVL Website which is written in Swiss German you are going to see that the S1 goes to Baar from Luzern
The length is very similiar to their other routes. But it kinda does feel really short, like a round trip is 45 minutes short. Granted, they do a lot of work on the background and make it look good and adding the same granularity over more distance is probably going to make their routes cost more. Tbh, I am ok with that but their overall sales volume may take a beating. But if they keep making these kinds of routes, it might happen anyway. They need to have this conversation within their own team and DTG to see if they can sell for more money like their routes in TS Classic.
Does anyone know what PIS code should be used for the RE services? There's one listed in the manual for Basel, but what about the other direction?
I highly recommend to take a look here: https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/mods/c3-train-sim-world-2/c19-patches Because our great modders have fixed what will take at least months and months for an official patch, and without this, the PIS is just garbage, the correct destinations are not there...
Tried this again after the patching and it's far easier to recommend this now. The night runs seem fairly lit now, though smaller stations still skulk in darkness and that's something to work on. The removal of red lights at every station made a big difference in operating the safety system, but perhaps made it harder to judge your braking in the FLIRT. Well done Rivet, though, a couple of fixes here have made all the difference.
