Overall I thought tonight's stream was much better, really glad they took the extra time to polish up, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
It's route building 101 and should be picked up and fixed after one quick drive through and something the beta testers should have picked up on and reported for action. If they can't get something basic like that sorted for release of one of the keynote routes, it doesn't give much hope for other aspects either.
I did think it looked very good and I am tempted. However HS1 doesn't look very interesting. Overall though it was certainly more positive and I did like the dynamic weather.
Thoroughly excited with tonight’s stream allaying many of my concerns, my only feedback as part of ebbsfeet was empty as hell
On the whole I was rather impressed. Although like some others I think the weather change cycle moves too fast.
I reckon it should be random with some variable time parameters. I’d prefer the cycling weather a surprise than expected at minute 15 each time
I believe that's implemented. AIUI, a RNG first determines how long the current weather state is going to last (within a given range, of course). Then a 3-option RNG determines if the weather will remain the same for the next cycle, get one step 'worse," or one step 'better'. My concern is that the low end of the time range determining cycle length is too short to be realistic.
Yeah, it might not be a big deal, but it is happening on nearly every route and could be fixed so quickly - one run in each direction, note where you've clipped trees, and pass the information to the routebuilders. Done and appreciated.
Saying it is not a big deal when DTG keep saying this game is a sim of Train driving if this happened in real life (which it shouldn't) the driver would certainly make a big deal out of it. I admit I haven't seen the stream yet, too busy looking in the transfer market, but it does make you wonder what the coders see when they first play through the route no?
I will say that I enjoyed the stream and MP and JD's enthusiasm seemed genuine. I don't have a lot of interest in high speed routes and I haven't played the original SEHS in over a year. I probably won't play the new incarnation much either. The weather feature is quite impressive, as is the new skybox. I do think, however, that the " randomness " of the dynamic weather remains to be seen. I agree with those who say it changed too fast. I also wonder if it actually improves as often as it deteriorates, or did I miss something in the stream. The other thing that struck me was the number of relatively deserted stations, especially the major ones that you would expect to be fairly busy in the rush hour. This is an ongoing issue with DTG commuter routes. Also, in the recorded parts, the " snow blow " effect looked as fake as it did the first time I saw it, like it was painted on. The Cajon Pass route looked very well done for the most part, though not a quantum leap advance on existing US freight routes. The one issue that stuck in my mind was the " model railway layout " look of the track and ballast. It's awful. I hope I can learn to ignore it while driving. The C4 looked very good on first impression. I'll take a rivet count when I have it on my own computer. The one thing I picked up immediately were the puny headlights, very UNAmerican. Here we go again. Apparently there are some problems that DTG cannot or simply don't want to solve. Overall, everything looked OK. I'll check sound and lighting later. But there's nothing revolutionary here. Not really enough for a whole new digit.
I only saw bits of the stream, but I’m excited for South Eastern Highspeed. I already know I’ll like the German Route as I’ve been wanting the ICE 1 for a long time. I’m not that interested in American routes and only caught a few minutes here and there, but what I saw looked really nice. So although it will probably not be my favourite I might give some scenarios a go. Looking forward to watching it in full and playing it soon. I also think the dynamic weather changes too fast. I can see that being a novelty that I’ll switch off after a while, but overall I’m feeling optimistic.
Sorry, but I live with those US headlights every day. Before I moved, the UP locos could light up my bedroom when they passed by. Anybody who lives in the US or Canada will tell you that DTG do not know or are not able to replicate headlights ( or even ditch lights ) accurately. They can illuminate long stretches of oncoming track and the surrounding area.
Yup, weather cycles move too fast and it seems it is way too easy to get a thunderstorm in the summer. I think they should make another balancing pass at the weather probabilities.
Well they don't have the tech. With the current headlight situation, if they were to make the headlights extremely bright, it would wash out the screen. Also you would get blinded if an ai train was coming your way with bright headlights on. Dtg would have to create the tech to create noncasting headlights during the day and not wash out the whole screen during the night runs
When you say they don't have the tech, do you mean UE4 does not give them the ability to write the software, or that they simply don't have the programming capability to write the necessary code?
Yep it seems you’re pretty much guaranteed for it to turn to a rainstorm which may seem accurate for the UK (/sarcasm), but surely not for deepest California even in the Fall? In the space of an hour you’re surely more likely to see changes in cloud cover or maybe a few spots of rain, rather than full on thunderstorms, although that may happen on rare occasions.
The dynamic weather changes was to fast for my taste. I still have hope it was just done on purpose for the stream to "showoff" the new dynamic weather effects.
When the whole point of the software your producing is to simulate driving a train then I'd say yeah it is a big deal having tree branches in your cab. The ones on BML really annoy me, because its such an easy thing to spot and fix. Like someone as said "just drive the line once" easy
If you're referring to trains levels, it's because services generally don't pass there. So it looks quiet but has the correct amount of services to it.
Oh, sorry joe no. There was like a tunnel Matt ran through and with how great the scenery looked either side it was really empty. I don't know the station so don't know if it was like an underground walkway but there was no posters, stuff on the floor etc so it looked really empty. I have zero doubts about your timetables mate. I know they'll be full of surprises
One thing that surprised me was the large number of NPCs wearing baseball caps, I think more than 50% of the men. I know this is not a big deal, but it is not at all realistic and looks horrible. How many people do we see every day IRL with this element on? TrainSim-Matt , could the parameters for the appearance of this element be modified downwards? I suppose it's something that can be done in a few minutes.
I think maybe as a future enhancement they could add a weather change factor for how quickly things changed. This would still be random, but the decisions on whether to change would happen more or less quickly depending on the setting. It could go in the Settings, but ideally would appear when you are setting the weather prior to driving I think, as a slider. That way depending on how much you want it to change you could move the slider accordingly. (Still possible that it would never change regardless of the setting, but it would make it more or less likely).
For the major issue for TSW3 is the lack of a game save and no idea when it will come, despite all promises. Love to see the preserved route updates Sep 6th as well, so a big dilemma, with th game save, even a crappy one, it would be a no brainer.
I love the stream with some prerecorded video. I also like it they covered two routes in little over 2 hours. I think these informative streams were far to long in the past.
Almost as bad as the huge number of people wearing straw boaters in Spirit of Steam. Something you might see at Henley Regatta but in 1950s Liverpool? What were they thinking? Flat caps or Trilbys would be a better idea.
I know, it is a dilemma. Despite my cancellation I am going to watch how things evolve over the first week or two, maybe go back in with the cheaper £30 single route option. But I am torn about the whole thing.
I think many of us in the UK would like a rainstorm at the moment, my garden looks very sorry for itself! I do agree that the dynamic weather looks like it is too predictable, and if the dynamic weather becomes predictable it becomes pointless! I hope they can adjust it. Thunder storms seem to be getting relatively rare now and certainly shouldn't be appearing regularly in the sim to be realistic.
Re: The dynamic weather. I believe Matt stated that in both routes the season was 'autumn' per the September date, and with the autumn settings dynamic weather will tend towards clouds and rain. He said it was weighted differently if playing in a summer season. In terms of how fast it happens, it is perhaps a little unrealistic, but given most people only sit down and play routes for between 30-60 mins at a time, it wouldn't be worth investing in a feature that didn't make any appreciable differences during that time, people would instead be asking "what does it even do?", and I can't help but feel this is once again a situation of "give us this feature! no not like that". Overall it does do what it says on the tin, changes the weather in an interesting way that adds a sense of unexpected challenge, you remain able to choose whether you take the risk and turn dynamic weather on, or focus on the challenge at hand without worrying about circumstances changing by turning it off.
Glad you caught that branch. Now they can delay release for another three months while it goes through quality control. Think those blank walls after the tunnel were meant to be a chalk cutting. Working from memory here.
Yes. I think here is a misconception and a poor communication on part of DTG (again). The lumen values are accurate. BUT: the casting distance of the light is different to that. You can have the brightest light and design a relatively short cutoff for the light. Realistic length light casting of a dynamic light that low (in comparison to sun) would create very long shadows and hence require massive computing power. While the brightness of the lights is accurate, their casting distance is not and won't be for the forseeable future. The same problem you have in Germany with night driving and the bright headlights. They are supposed to illuminate a very long distance but in the game, they don't illuminate anything more than 200 meters away.
And absolutely vital for night driving if you want to enable PZB as you need to be able to see the reflective advance speed restriction boards and acknowledge, otherwise you get a penalty brake application.
I watched for 5 mins before turning it off! What i did notice was rain with fog/poor visibility with blue skies! Another untextured tunnel. I don't know unreal editor but with tsc it takes several seconds to change the placement of a tree.
In that case, you usually see them early enough. But you need to pay close attention. Even the reflective boards are not visible a kilometer in advance.
I was only able to watch about the first hour so far, luckily YouTube will save my spot for when I have more time to finish. SEHS looked good; there was an annoying, recurring tunnel exit flash effect in the North Downs, but overall I would be interested in this route. I will save further judgement until the players start giving their feedback. Totally agree that the ballast/tracks on Cajon looked pretty bad, only watched the first few minutes but plan to catch the rest. I have read some other negative things like flying cars on the interstate; if that's a harbinger of what's to come then I'm not sure what can save this route. The presentation was so much better than before, sure it took a week but at least they got it right; nice save. The 10 things in 10 minutes was good and I would appreciate seeing more like that in the future. One problem I have right now is that the only route I'm really interested in is SEHS, which I already own. Truthfully though I wasn't planning on buying right away in any case, so perhaps at some later point I can just buy TSW3 when there is another route I want to go along with the SEHS upgrade. Guess I'll just save my money until then. Save. Game.
I think that is exactly how I feel. I wavered last night then decided I am not interested enough in the extension to purchase TSW3 just yet. Of course things might change next week but I have a shopping list of stuff for TSC so TSW3 can wait awhile.
I absolutely agree. Launching a new game in the year 2022 without a save game feature is quite ridiculous, embarrassing even for a game deve!oper, especially one that is touting longer routes as a major new feature. Despite all the mea culpas and assurances, we will find out in the next few weeks just how sincere DTG is about restoring save game and whether they are honestly and truly " gutted " about its absence.
Sounds like the length of Cajon may have come at the expense of quality then. So the single route option either leaves us with that, or Kassel to Wurzburg with the disco strobing tunnels, as I already own SEHS and SoS. Definitely putting prospective purchase in the holding pattern, seems like this might not even be worth £30.
The lighting problem in the tunnels has been fixed by DTG. There is no longer a blueish light as seen during the Kassel-Würzburg stream and the eye adaption works leagues better.
They might be software engineers, not known for their sartorial etiquette, also seen at Route 128 on BPE.
No idea but if they were able to, they would have done so by now. I'm not even a dev but if it's not in game, they don't have it in the code or something, idk