PC Ongoing 'citywide Power Cut' Issues Within Tsw

I'm disappointed that even in the newest of TSW 3 routes, we still have major cities which sit in near total darkness at night.

Here, we have a view looking towards the City Centre of Birmingham, yet there is literally only one or two buildings which are actually lit up. The rest of the city sits in total darkness.

Coming into Birmingham is quite immersion breaking at night, as everything looks very, very dark. Like the City has had a power cut, with there only being emergency lighting available. In real life, there is tonnes of light coming from all directions.

I notice there are some new, custom build assets here - it begs the question as to why these weren't built with any light sources? For a new TSW 3 route, this just isn't acceptable. Especially since TSW 3 is supposed to bring big improvements to lighting.

The lighting here was done extremely lazily, as the buildings are simply lit by one big spot light on the ground.

 

Hmmm.
I wonder how high is the gamma and brightness levels on their monitors to not see this before!?
Or perhaps they have replicated the energy saving measures that most of Europe has in place this winter.

Covid-19 passengers - Check
Energy consumption limitations - Check
TSW 3: Inflation DLC incoming

 

This is something I've mentioned a couple of times in streams, but it's not been picked up. Every town/city is very dark (not just lack of platform lighting, which is a different issue they are addressing) - I suspect the issue is that to really light up buildings at night properly would add a large number of additional light sources, which could significantly impact performance. The other way would be to re-do every building asset to have a properly "lit" version that would not be emissive, if that is the correct term.

I'd love to hear DTG talk about it a bit though.

 

I had almost been poised to rebuy BCC in the sale but seeing this vindicates my decision not to. Have they really learned nothing from all the feedback about lighting and urban areas in particular which should be awash with ambient light pollution. Most routes in TSC display much better night lighting so it's not as if they don't know the feature exists.

Finding myself increasingly disillusioned with TSW at present.

 

BCC is very dark at night, though it is not a deal breaker for me since I enjoy running this route very much. Will all the mods, it is now a nice run.

 

Shame to see that the new lighting has not improved this issue. Two steps forward, one step back

 

I agree 150%. I took a chance and bought BCC in the sale. First service I ran was early evening in December and the route was pitch dark except for station lighting.

Many of us have been banging on about the poor night lighting in urban routes for the longest time and DTG simply do not respond. BCC is just as dark as Cathcart. Glasgow and Birmingham are the largest UK cities outside of London; there should be lots of environmental light sources 24/7. I mean it was the rush hour, for goodness sake.

This isn't Clinchfield where the problem is due to an awful lack of headlight flares. This is a city of 1,000,000 + population, a transport hub and an industrial nexus.

London to Brighton shows that DTG can create driveable night lighting, but, like so many features, this one has withered on the vine.

Go figure. I can't.

 

It would be interesting to get a comparison shot of the TSC route at the same time of day/conditions.

 

Yes it is immersion breaking when approaching Birmingham at night, I can't understand why it wasn't noticed, or maybe it was but was deemed unimportant. It is one of the few disappointing features of the route.

 

Nah. Usually games do this by the buildings having a "lit up" texture for the windows that is not affected by the brightness of the world around them. So these windows remain bright even if the building is dark due to lack of other light sources in the scene. Games have been doing it like this since the PS2 era, think of any 3D era GTA game for example. Most buildings work the same way in TSC as well.

Honestly, this is just incredibly lazy and careless asset creation. Any old TSC route will feel more alive at night with lit up buildings than one of the newest TSW3 routes?

But this is not the first time or issue either. After many years, we still don't have headlight flares for trains or any road vehicles either. The lighting effects is just really bad in TSW, which is sad.

 

Seeing as most routes use a common library of assets, such as generic looking offices and houses, it isn't as though that the lighting setup for that asset will need to be done for each individual route. The lighting itself isn't even a proper light source, it just gives off the impression that that asset is lit, which is fine.

This is down to pure laziness and DTG have had years to fix this issue. The fact that new assets haven't had their lighting set up either says a lot...

Perhaps set a couple of people aside from the 'collectables' team and assign them to add light sources to every unlit asset?

 

Jees, this forum is like bickering old women some times, one minute its complaining that DTG are taking forever to release content, next its that they are being rushed to get content out, then its that the content is sub par.

To me, it's a little dark, but not enough to be immersion breaking or steam refundable.

 

I believe they find it impossible to learn from the forums and the attitude is: this is how we do it. Like it or leave it. I and many others have opted to leave it. I'll stick with TSW2, even with its broken routes.

 

I wonder if at some time ambient light might reappear at night. Some kind of light pollution or even that old thing moonlight which has gone completely now as well. The three of us on the forum that enjoy seeing stuff at night would be most pleased. Whilst it is still depicted with this unnatural dark at night now, having some lights in buildings and street lights etc does give something to look at outside of the glare of the headlights. Having neither is just awful.

 

I mean, that is fair, I havn't run many night services, I usually do the 6am ones through to midday, but even then CCL has never been that dark, so I havn't really noticed.

 

You're probably right. Before I bought BCC, I didn't know about the darkness. Nobody on the forum had mentioned it, so when I ran the first evening service, I was taken by surprise. Couldn't see a thing. And of course the headlights do nothing, it being a UK train.

I don't have the greatest eyesight any more, but I can still recognize an apocalypse when I see one.

Seriously, why do they do this? Does anyone at DTG actually play these services? Do they think we have X-Ray vision? Some on this thread have called it laziness. I don't think so, I think it's more worrying than that. I think it's carelessness. I feel like asking a moderator. But of course I cant, because I've never tagged one and I'm never going to.

And would anyone at DTG really care? After all, it's just a handful of us that are bothered by the lack of light at night.

So this route joins Cathcart and Clinchfield as routes I can't play at night.?

How sad is that?

 

The in my opinion best looking night lightening of riesa - dresden, was probably more of a "one time thing".

Its just another aspect that proofes the rushed release of birmingham cross city. The missing pillars on the "route in the end stadium" says every thing. I guess the story is repeating with dtg, im just glad the 323 is made really well.

 

One thing I have found with running BCC and also SEHS extended at night is that if you turn on the cab light, it increases your visual range.
It doesn't make up for the lack of city/town/village lighting though.

 

I get the feeling every route/version of the game is rushed lately. Money trumps all, apparently.

 

This is why, despite the fact it's a (modernised) 15 year old game engine I'm finding myself drawn back to TSC at the moment. What we've seen of SimRail at night also suggests that will have far superior night lighting than TSW3 which is increasingly (IMHO) turning into a dud sim, whether it's the price hikes, the lighting, unfixed bugs etc etc.

 

DTG needs a bloody checklist - all new features are added to that checklist and appear on new routes. Night lighting shouldn't be anything like this ever since DRA. DRA introduced a significant improvement to night lighting, yet far newer routes dropped it, probably "too much work"... I really can't imagine a customer out of the loop trying to figure out what will and will not be in the DLC.

 

Sadly, many of the really good features seem to be a "one time thing". Like the actually proper headlights on Dresden - Chemnitz. Or the timetable mode with actual freight loading, like Sand Patch Grade with many coal loading runs. Do any other route even features working freight loading in timetable?

Not surprising, to be honest. Night lighting is horrible on most routes, so simply nobody is even trying night runs anymore. Like me, I would love to do them, but they are so bad that I don't even try anymore.

 

Well if DTG don't start pulling their bootstraps up with TSW3, IMHO 2023 will be make or break for the programme. In fact it looks as if internally at the company they are getting ready to blow some of the cobwebs off TSC https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/train-simulator-classic-the-future.62701 which seems to indicate a "Plan B" gathering pace. I just discovered the delights of the Victory K1 and Q6 steam locos along with the Stainmore route and just rediscovered the AP/Railright Class 40, too. At least (as relevant to this topic) I can run the trains in all sorts of wonderful and atmospheric lighting conditions, including night time.

 

OldVern predicts the end of TSW? You heard it here first.

 

Welcome to the games industry, where a rushed project still earns money and can be fixed later *cough CD Projekt Red* *Cough Bethesda*

 

Not predicting the end just ruminating on the tea leaves...

 

New vs old....




Also look at the chimneys on Battersea. You can see that the light draw distance has illuminated the closest chimneys but not the furthest ones!

 

I have a glitch where on SEHS EXTENDED it's very dark and yet the station lights still aren't on.

 

One of the many reasons I'm not and won't be buying full price DLC from DTG again until things improve.

A half arsed effort on a product will get a half arsed payment in a big sale (or a no purchase) from me.

 

That's if dtg actually carry out on their promises.

 

There are freight loading timetables on some routes. There's cane creek, horseshoe curve and clinchfield.

 

Can't dtg add the glow effect like in gta v around the city?

 

I suggested for them to add a 2D backdrop which glows at night for areas which would never be able to be accessible for the player, so high resolution isn’t relevant, thus keeping performance stable. Games since the early 2000s have been doing this and it works just fine. I don’t get why DTG don’t do this.

 

The quality standards, features and night lighting on Sand Patch Grade have rarely, if ever, been equalled in the 5 years since.

Meanwhile we are asked to pay more for the same or lesser quality routes.

 

That's a good suggestion, dtg should pay more attention to good suggestions like this. I also don't understand why they wouldn't implement this? DTG Matt
Could you please add anything to this thread.

 

I totally agree with this. Some routes do it well and some go several steps backwards. I thought we was going to be improving night lighting, this comes as part of it. I'm guessing its a time constraint thing or just lazyness. I would really like to know how building lighting is done, why is it so hit and miss and does is lack of lighting due to time constraints, performance impact and if so why have we not looked at new better ways of lighting. Maybe even and automated tool to help.

BCC is a route now with this problem, others include the Boston Sprinter skyline, I don't think those buildings would be in total darkness.

 

Probably can blame this all on management.
Lack of consistent product requirements result in the highly variable product quality. Sure, you could blame floating fences on lazy developers but at the end of the day, it's management that do not put their foot down and allow this to happen.

 

Honestly, I rarely play SPG, as slow mountain freight is not really my thing, but each time I do play it, I am amazed by it. It looks good, full of details and no ugly empty spots that pretty much every other route have here and there. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's just a pleasant experience and should be the MINIMUM standard for all TSW routes, not something that barely gets topped.

And regarding lighting, the original CSX Heavy Haul version even had proper headlight flares, which is something that is missing from pretty much all TSW rolling stock from the recent years. The only exception that comes to mind my is the Boston Sprinter route - but most rolling stock is completely missing any headlight flares in game. Funny thing is, they do edit them onto the promo images, lol.

 

The "new lighting" system really has nothing to do with this, which is caused by route builders simply not installing nearly enough lights in urban settings.

 

Or for that matter STILL permitting devs to place stop markers smack on top of signals, even on freight services. NOBODY bullseyes a 14,000 ton freight halt 10 feet from the red. Promised over and over and over again to prohibit this- still happening.

 

I mean dtg spent several years making spg which they can't do now. Things are more efficient now, but nothing will ever match spg which got years of work done on it. That is why you get cold start options, lots of activities, etc. Routes may be more detailed these days and have more features, but there is no consistency. One route has this feature, while another does not. Things being rushed out, etc.

 

Almost every TV series, at least the better ones, have a "bible." This is a reference notebook (or pdf nowadays) available to all the writers to make sure that everything they write fits into the continuity and the lore of the show- Bob's mother's name was Alice, Christine drives a BMW 328, the Prime Directive prohibits Federation interference with pre-spaceflight species.

DTG needs something of the sort, a TSW Bible which has a list of Thou Shalt Include. A checklist which has to be ticked off right down the line before a route is approved for testing.

 

The biggest embarressment of 2022 was thr rhtt dlc, where the kfa wagons didnt even had turning bogies!!! Guess what.. its still not fixed. Seemed like intended to me to not animate the hoses connected to the sandite sprayer front.
The bogie frames are static with the chassis, only the axels move out of center, which looks just rediculous.

Stuff like that lets me truely question my investment here.

 

The brake calipers in the curve.

 

Well this IS a long list of discontentment! If this company were to take these forums seriously, they would see people who in the past, have been loyal customers, now questioning not only the ethics of rushed DLC complete with bugs, but also the increase in pricing with a commensurate decrease in quality. I have stated elsewhere in these forums that I see rushed content, full of bugs, and all in order to push more product for the dollars. Seems that is all they care about, to heck with customer loyalty. As P. T. Barnum is alleged to have said, "There's a sucker born every minute." This seems to be DTG philosophy these days. As long as they have suckers who keep purchasing dud product, they will continue to push it on us. So even if a lot of us veterans have woken up to them and their broken promises, they will continue in the same vein. Instead of having touts waxing lyrical on livestreams about the next good (?) DLC, perhaps more time and effort on quality product that fits all our complaints and then we may not begrudge the increase in pricing. I for one (and it seems I'm not alone), will not spend one cent more on this company until my bugs in TSW2 have been fixed......as we were promised.

 

Dear, oh dear! Definitely a slapdash effort here. But then all of it lately seems to be haphazard and halfhearted at best. Sad really, but it angers me.

 

They have form for neglecting promises, don't they?

 

Damn, that's... bad.

 

At the bottom of the line its the only right thing to make threads like this one.

Even as a loyal backer of the franchais, we talk about things here, which were all present at some point in tsw, then disappeared slowly with future addons. So i dont think its just moaning around, there are some valid points said in this thread.

 

Let's just say standards are going to have to rise significantly along with at least some of the promised fixes actually delivered, to waste any more money on TSW3 in 2023. The bits and pieces I just bought for TSC plus loads of existing untouched content, the promise of SimRail oh and plus the Mass Effect Legendary edition which I picked up for a song in the sale, offer me 100s of hours of entertainment going forward, without having to hand over £30 for the next 25 mile bugged to heck TSW project.