Horseshoe Curve - Definitive Feedback Thread

I am not reducing anything. Some services are designed this way, eg 10k ton coal trains hauled by 4 GEVOs
But you can easily do it as you described (MU/DPU custom config). BR o7

 

Ohh ok thanks. I thought this was on the "empty" intermodals. Will have to try the loaded coal.

 

Guess you can't expect them to get all the train symbols correct, 294 is an intermodal.

 

I'd like to point out a very much welcome and positive bit of feedback that I've just found.....

I have the ES44AC in the Livery Designer for something I'm starting on and I can confirm that you can now paint and apply layers below the solebar level (As we call it in the UK) so the fuel tanks and the areas around the couplers and snowploughs along with the steps at each end are all paintable or can have layers applied. The numberboards can also be used and have layers put on them. This will be great for some of the heritage unit liveries that have stripes that go below solebar level.


I'm thinking this is the first loco to have all of this functionality included in LD as I can only think of the numberboards being usable previously on some locos.

I've not tried the HSC GP38-2 in LD as yet so not sure if it's just the ES44AC or both the locos that get this new treatment/upgrade.

 

Only on gen 8 consoles. The gen 9 console experience is the same as PC with just one notch less draw distance.

 

I'd have to say after 72 hours of play. I'm just a slight bit disappointed with the sounds of the ES44AC's under load.
This video (at about 1:20 in from the start) really shows how these guys sound when pulling a load. I also have the NS Lehigh Line in multiple areas I travel through for work, so I do get to hear the GEVO in person quite regularly. Hopefully, one of the members at TSC will do a mod like the one that was done for all the SPG units.

 

Yeahh, the GEVOS definitely needs more love for the sound.
The one in the game didn't have that distinctive GEVOS low rumble & bassy tone. Also i didn't hear any traction motor whining sound present at the moment. And where's the woop? I maxed the volume and cannot confirm that there is the distinctive GE whoop sound from the compressor.

 

Having completed a few end to end runs, I kinda like this route. Like SPG but a little faster and more interesting. It looks good and performance is good, worst place I've seen fps-wise is the north end of Juniata yard. There you get drops kinda like Cheyenne and Laramie yards on SMH. I've seen a few scenery anomalies and it could use some more trackside bric-a-brac in places but hopefully those things will get polished out.

I'd agree that locomotive audio seems to be the achilles heel.

The GP-38 sounds good when giving it throttle but the dynamic brake noise has a tendency to start stuttering and changing pitch which makes it hard to listen to on a long downhill run. (The CSX GP-38 has the same issue only worse and also effects the engine noise when throttled up, so maybe some issue got carried over from SPG?) The SD70 has a very similar dynamic brake noise and it never starts stuttering like that. There is also a compressor noise that kicks in when the main reservior drops to a certain point that can also start stuttering, given it does this every minute or so it can get quite grating. The volume of the horn from the external camera also seems really loud to me, like it could be turned down to about 3/4 to 2/3 what it is now. Normally I like a loud horn, I hardly drive the GP-9 on OSD because the horn is super quiet but wowzers this one is booming.

I don't claim to know exactly what an ES44AC is supposed to sound like but I too feel like something is off with it's audio. There doesn't seem to be much change in pitch or speed of the engine noise when changing throttle settings. At notch 8 going up a steep hill it sounds like it's still kinda idling which creates a real disconnect between what you're doing and the aural imput you are getting. At full power the sound makes me think more of an idling WWII-era radial engine. It just doesn't give you the same sense of a powerful locomotive pulling a heavy train that others in the game do. The horn also seems a little peculiar, like slightly tinny or distorted? I think the bell is a little on the quiet side too.

The issue with losing locomotive engine noise at the front locos when switching back from a camera at the rear of the train happened sometimes on SPG too. Seems like it happens mainly at low speed or before you start moving. Once you are rolling for awhile you can switch without any ill effects.

Anyways, thats my 2 cents + so far.

DW

 

You can not just walk down from any of the locomotive, like you can in other North American trainset, in this one you have to press a key to get down

 

Question: Should Slow Speed Control work over MU trio?
I try to load Coal but SSC work only in lead unit and other two generate full power according throttle notch.

 

Skyhook, the Hi-Ad truck is NOT two pieces of a frame on the sides, it is a U-shape.


The truck needs a lot of structural integrity, that's why the massive frame goes AROUND the inner axle to the other side. It is so on most of the GE locos and most of the EMD locos, nothing new or rare. Though that's yet another proof SHG GEVO started from their Cane Creek AC4400, where this first appeared.

 

That's a serious flaw in the loco model. I was expecting more care for the trucks from Skyhook after Cane Creek.

 

skyhook- sean skyhooktom Just gonna tag you guys to see this thread

 

When are there promotions?

 

Sales you mean?

 

Next steam one is in 16 days

 

The route is really top, can only say and find mostly positive things.

About the loco (rolling stock), which was developed by skyhook..., i rather have a bold opinion.
Maybe sh would be a good 2nd party dev like rivet did with cathcart. Looks like they dont care really that much about accuracy and detail when it comes to the vehicles, so my point of view is more that with every loco sh made from scratch, its blown and creates annoyance.

At least for my expectations its not passing the quality standard at all compared to other good dtg products.

Can i recommend horseshoe curve? Yes

Longterm, who gives me a 187 and gevo comming up to todays quality standard of tsw? Really not expecting an answer to that...

 

I've just tried to do the 10K GP-38 service as part of the 'journey' and I was immediately faced with a red light that stubbornly refuses to clear. If I run the service directly (not as part of the journey) the red light clears as soon as you start to roll.

(Apols if this has already been mentioned and I missed it.)

 

The route is relatively nicely made, but when I play my second service (grain from Cresson to Johnstown) and:
- distance counter doesn't work properly (895 yd is about 1850 feet according to it)
- wipers seriously don't match with the line where the raindrops disappear
- the route randomly goes through a meadow (between South Fork and Johnstown)

- trees clipping (classic)
- wipers give up at the end completely
- dynamic brake just does whatever it wants (I don't even remember it being THIS bad on SPG AC4400)

QA has been discussed a lot of times in various threads, but I'm sorry... This is my second service on this route and 4 of those points are something that absolutely shouldn't have gotten through, one of the other two (the dynamic brake) just points out how little effort went into the simugraph systems of the GEVO. I'm fairly active on the forums and know what's happening. If that wasn't the case, I would be left baffled by how it is possible I got a route with so advanced physics as SMH (not free of bugs for sure) and half a year later the next US freight DLC almost completely jumps back to 2017 SPG era. It is a third party, but I seriously doubt a casual gamer would care. The game carries the DTG logo and that's about it for them. The route is lovely, but held back by such unnecessary mistakes, the rolling stock... well a lot less effort than expected went into it and it's sad.

This was a premiere of GEVO and it's basically an AC44 reskin with slightly improved sounds. I am left worried about what future DTG entries of GEVO might look like if they happen because this needs a rebuild from the ground up basically. The model is OK, the cab is lacking and sometimes straight-up wrong, trucks are wrong and physics are disastrous. Again... as a player... I see this after two services... why hasn't QA caught this? Especially with the route being postponed so heavily (I really don't want to know the state it would've released in back then).

 

It might seem like an AC44 reskin but have a look at it and the GP38-2 in Livery Designer and you'll see it very much isn't with the newly added extra functionality of what can be edited and painted etc.....

 

Yes. The more I dug into it (before refunding and seeing the more recent comments), the more it became apparent that it was just the AC4400 with the altered radiator section and cab. Which is quite sad and honestly something DTG really should be looking after if they're branding TSW to be authentic. Some things will never be perfect, but there shouldn't be obvious signs that shortcuts were taken during development, especially at this point in TSW's lifecycle when they know the community will nit-pick even small details out.

The GP38 is still all recycled from SPG, with all its bugs and issues (that got even worse with TSW2)

For the GEVO, there's a lot of great youtube videos that capture its sound quite well. Still doesn't beat hearing it in real life, but its quite close, especially with a good set of headphones. Whatever was used in game was awful though. It sounded like it was recorded on someone's phone, which doesn't have nearly the fidelity required to capture a giant engine, and then sped up/volumed up for the notches. There was also a lot missing. And fun fact about GEVO's, the engine actually maxes out in N4.
-Start/Stop sounds (recycled from the AC4400)
-Low Idle/High Idle (missing, only high idle present, maybe)
-Low/High idle with skip fire (missing, skip fire is a GEVO thing that will skip cylinders in a defined order to save fuel, but keep the engine running)
-N1 = High idle
-N2, N3, N4+ are all distinct (N3/N4+ are the recognizable "chug" of the GEVO)
*At slow speeds if the computer detects its struggling and in N8, there is an extra boost for a bit more HP
- AC traction motors (missing, and unmistakable sound)
- GE air compressor (missing, classic 'whoop' sound)

As sound is one of the most important things to me for the "simulator experience" of TSW, I'm probably more critical than some, but I'm also not so full of it I expect perfection, as that's impossible. For comparison, look at the SPG engine or SD70ACe mods on trainsimcommunity. They're not perfect, but they sound much closer to the real thing than whatever DTG has in their library. Mods can only go so far though, especially if the loco wasn't properly set up. It does seem to me that for whatever reason DTG haven't made the connections necessary to make up for when then can't do reference trips for good NA loco audio, and why we keep getting shafted with every new NA route. And yes, this was a Skyhook product, but DTG should be saying to their third-party devs, "if you can't get/don't have the resources you need, here's our list of contacts - we can hook you up"

 

I’ve noticed that when changing viewpoints, using either key 2 or 3, or the appropriate keys on Raildriver, in order to get to the rear or return to the front of the train. My screen temporarily jumps to one of the load screens.
Previously, it would simply change to the next viewpoint. Is this an HSC route glitch or a new game feature? It’s rather irritating!

 

These GEVO mods may be helpful or of interest; they’re linked in the description for this YouTube review by Schnauzapowahz.

 

That’s the game loading scenery a mile away isn’t it?

 

A longstanding i

It does it on Sherman Hill too, because the train is so long. The back end is in a scenery tile that's already been unloaded from memory, and has to be re-loaded.

 

Yes I love the route to. Beautiful scenery.
But some things is not good. ES44AC Dynamic brake. Hopeless.
Dynamic brake from 1-8 should be linearly stronger. 1 weak and 8 strongest
But 1 and 2 is very strong and 4-8 almost no change. Very difficult to brake trains when it is like this.
This is not prototypical

 

Thats why i think skyhook should cancle being a 3rd party dev instant and use their talent in creating routes as 2nd party dev.

Nomatter how good looking hc is (and it does look good), skyhook blows one loco after another.

 

This applies to HSC and every other North American cargo route. I’d just like to throw this out there…on the consisits, especially the manifest trains is it possible to mix up the companies that are found in the consist? For example, on any of the routes you wouldn’t find nothing but NS cars on the train, there would be literally every company out there. I’ve seen BC Rail flats, Florida East Coast and even railroads that don’t even exist anymore here in the Southwest on our manifests, not to mention every class 1. Maybe mix up the cars a little? Even its the only ones in game that’ll add that little bit of realism.

Another one that I can’t let go is the cars are perfectly in order. A to B end (the B end is the end of the car with the handbrake on it) they’re not mixed up as you would find on an actual train. Same with the auto racks the would be found on the side of the car but they would be on either side.

That’s all I got for now, I know more will come. I’m tired and out, y’all have a good one.

 

I agree with you both here. I know how much Matt loves saying “It’s never just a reskin” (and to be fair, they did change the model) but the GEVO certainly seems to be a copied AC44 with some model changes. To me, it seems like Skyhook have a real knack for scenery - Cane Creek looks gorgeous and HSC does as well from what I’ve seen in streams - but they really need to step up on the loco side. The Cane Creek AC44 suffers from the same issues as the SPG one, which I don’t blame Skyhook for since they specifically wanted to re-use an existing loco. But then they introduce a bunch of new issues like non-functional number board lights and quite frankly disastrous trucks (ride height, animations, orientation). The Br 187 is pretty much a complete train wreck (pun fully intended). The ES44AC is not really an ES44AC but rather an AC44 in disguise with all of the issues the latter has. Not only that, Skyhook still managed to get some important elements of the trucks wrong (yet again). Making that mistake once is not so bad to my mind. Making it again after that shows a lack of care.

I don’t like bashing anyone and the forum has enough negativity without me adding to it. I want Skyhook to succeed and improve. But slapping the lacklustre AC44 physics on anything American is not the way. Neither is getting such important elements of the model like the trucks wrong.

 

I personally would like to see more creativeness with locos. It's like having two identical cars and saying one has heated seats. I remember one stream for one loco them saying it's different because of the window surround. How does that impact gameplay?
I appreciate there's limitations in overall volumes of differing stock but I can't really recall a properly decent different US freight loco since the F7.

playing these 97% similar locos (other than slightly different cab set ups, window surrounds etc) is not conducive to my wallet opening. Im hanging about for steam

 

Its been stated the reason DTG doesn't doo that is it only works with unloaded cars, hence why Oakville is the only route so far that supports this. Which is a shame, cause its very annoying seeing the same formation for a manifest on EVERY DAMN TRAIN. Its like I'm watching a model train go round and round......

 

I'd say the fully pumped train is all you need. Yes, there's something to pumping it on your own, but you wouldn't do that on a mainline train that just arrived and hasn't changed. Other than that SMH physics are definitely superb to HSC (GEVO). Can't see a situation where a casual player would enjoy this mess of a dynamic brake.

 

I still demanding physics improvement over HSC GEVOS. My muscle memory already adapted to SMH SD70ACe physic.

 

Thanks for the explanation guys, that makes sense that it’s because of the extremely long train

 

Where is the GEVOS, I have all the DLC for the TWS2, and I can not find it, is it like a mod, that can only be added to the game separately

 

GEVO, which is a nickname for the ES44, which is part of GE Evolution series of locomotives.

 

Well it should be call the way it is called in the game, that would avoid any confusion and frustration

 

Thats not a community name. Go look some youtube videos.

 

Just be glad we aren't calling them Bonga's.

 

Is that an actual nickname for them? Why?

 

I honestly don't know where the "Bonga" term came from for the GEVO's, unlike something like "toasters", which was given to most modern GE locos due to their frequency to catching on fire and burning themselves. (Unlike the AEM-7's which were called "toasters" for their visual looks)

 

What you guys are writing doesn't encourage me to buy this add-on so far
Although I like the atmosphere of American freight trains, especially Norfiolk Southern trains.

It seems that the producers have repeated the faults and bugs that spoiled the fun in SPG and other add-ons. For me, it's the interactive part that's important, the experience of driving the train, following the procedures... stuff like that.

It's damn hard to get a good idea of the quality of a product before buying it.
We are buying a damn pig in a poke

But this time I don't want to risk another disappointment. I've been bitterly disappointed too many times. Maybe I'll wait for the "unofficial demo version" and see for myself what and how badly they screwed up this time and if it's worth paying.

 

Indeed.

The only legitimate method is to buy then if you don’t like within two hours refund on Steam. However even that is not infallible, do it too often and you will get a “friendly” warning from Steam that the refund system is not there to buy goods on approval and if they deem you are abusing the system can withdraw the option from your account.

 

I’ve held off a bit lately as I’ve bought a few dlc and refunded so wanted to be more considered in my approach. I do not condone any unofficial DTG demo routes , or ripped copies as they’re known to me

 

I think @j.t "unofficial demo mode" is the refunding policy of steam, since technically every product there can be tried out that way.

But I agree, should have taken the time to explain instead of leaving the statement up for interpretation;-)

 

Actually...you are right and I overread that whole waiting-part...

Back to Horseshoe I suggest!

 

Unfortunately, with two hours of gameplay I have no chance to detect all the major bugs and flaws in the game that would spoil the fun. After all, it takes an hour and a half to drive one way from Cumberland to Rockwood. And that's just half of the first of three routes and one of six trains to check out!

Simulators are not adventure games that you go through once or twice and then you put it back on the shelf. Even taking each of the implemented routes multiple times doesn't reduce the value of the product.

And let's be honest, DTG has a very bad reputation when it comes to the quality of their products. Most of the products I've bought from them I'm deeply disappointed with and consider a waste of money. Unofficial demos help you find a gem in a sea of LOVE. I'm really sick of buying pig in a poke. I've been scammed too many times.

[Removed - Benjamin - advocating unofficial demos] - We host preview streams across our channels to provide players some insight into what an add-on may entail, and trust that reviews from the community will provide players with additional context before they invest time and money into our games. If you are unhappy you can report issues directly to us or request a refund via the store you purchased from i.e. Steam. However, Dovetail Games have no control over the terms and conditions that apply to refunds.



Now that I've explained myself, maybe, indeed, let's go back to the topic of "Horseshoe Curve ". Maybe I'll learn something that will change my initial opinion to this add-on

 

Very very bizarre justification for stealing. I do hope DTG can unofficially explore your dovetail live account to see what they would like you to pay for

 

I respect your opinion, but if you look at it that way, then selling incomplete and defective products is also thievery.

Thank you. I am ready for such scrutiny and do not fear it.

It's just a pity that such an inspection of the fulfillment of obligations doesn't work the other way round. It would be good if someone checked whether the customer always got what he was promised and whether the reported defects were removed by the producer within a reasonable time.

P.S.
It also seems to me that colleagues have missed the fact that I'd use the unofficial demo version with the intention of buying the full version. Of course, if the product turns out to be playable.

 

No, it isn’t. There’s nothing to stop you from reading reviews and watching videos/streams to see what the product is like. I have not played a single second of HSC and still know pretty well what state it’s in just from reading the forums and watching the first preview.