Hi Dovetail!, On TSW3 I have just purchased the Birmingham Cross City Line and when i approach a station, I start braking but the brakes are not affective, when I'm 30 yards from the stop marker, i am cruising at 20-15 miles per hour then instantly I put the lever on Level 3 Braking and i always stop 3-6 yards off and get 499-496 Action points for stopping, Which means that the stop accuracy wasn't good enough, Which means that but its very weak, As in, the brakes are not strong enough for accurate stopping, I also rarely get Accurate Stopping. Can you please patch it up in the next TSW3 update? Thank you.
I don't have an issue with braking. One suggestion I have for you is to brake earlier or brake harder if you want. Practice makes perfect so as you play more, you'll know exactly how far out to brake and how much to brake. But not all train brakes are strong. There are some that are very weak and some that are very strong as per reality. One thing to consider is the weight of the train with passengers which will affect braking force. It's a new mechanic that's simulated for this train.
This means you are not driving the train properly. Where did you get the figure of 20mph @ 30 yards from? I don't recognise that as a requirement or recommendation... In other words if what you're doing isn't working, try something else. The BCC timetable is loose enough you can be doing 20 mph at the end of the platform and still stop with good time to keep to timetable Mostly when coming into stations I'll be doing 25mph if stopping at the far end, 20 if at the close end (subject to linespeed) And notch 3 braking should really only be used minimally when for whatever reason notch 2 wasn't applied (by you) soon enough. All part of learning to drive a train I'm afraid
Then you're not driving as they would in real life in the UK where notch 3 is avoided (with a nice meeting with your manager and possible reassignment to platform duties may result)
With the 323 traveling at 70mph you can hit notch 1 around 500 yards from the station then notch 2 as you enter the platform.
Dependent on where on the platform you're stopping... If you're stopping at the near end then you'd overshoot the stop marker. At the end... maybe so depending on platform length
I did say around 500 yards. It's upto the driver to perfect on that. Going down hill into a station will require at bit more stopping distance. The 323 has pretty good brakes.
This is the point. Rather than an arbitrary "I'll be doing x speed at x point from any stop" and then complaining that it hasn't worked
This is the problem with a train simulator. That simulates driving a train but does not offer any kind of training. There are tutorials that show you where the brakes are but that's about it. In real life you go through training that informs you of the stopping distances of the train you are going to be driving. Then in rl you can feel the brake force, you can approach a station, brake and instantly know step 1 isn't enough.
When I did TSW playtesting way back when I suggested a training system akin to gran turismo which would give you a license and teach you this sort of thing, but DTG want people to pick the game up and play any run on any setting, with the player essentially choosing what they do. With the training centre, journey mode, scenarios and timetable I would say that "training" could easily be implemented with TC and journey being the basic default and scenarios and timetable being opened after you've completed journey for example. Maybe toggle this off as a menu setting for those who literally want to jump in having played loads of routes before...
The big disadvantage of a simulator is that you can’t ‘feel’ what the train is doing. You have to rely on sight either judging the stopping point directly, or the simulated speed versus the remaining distance. Once you’ve had enough practice though, you’ll get the hang of each train in the game.
15-20 mph 100 yards away works great not 30 yards away. At 100 yards, you’ll only need to use mainly step 1 with a bit of step 2.
Training is a must, even if you have driven dozens of trains on dozens of routes, you can't jump in a new train and know exactly how it drives. Don't even need to toggle it on or off. Just have the tutorials in the training center, like you said.
For me the training centre would be "this is how you get the thing moving, get it to stop, start from dead, make dead, do a station stop" etc etc Journey mode would be "this is how this runs on a route, with stopping distances, gradients etc" Timetable would be "you've done this already, now watch, no hands!", ie safety systems on, minimal or no HuD etc etc
Well the reason for using step 2 normally is it allows yourself a bit of leeway if you find yourself not stopping quickly enough, braking in step 2 means if you find yourself slowing down too quickly you can ease back to step one, or if you find you aren't stopping quickly enough you can always increase to step 3. While a lot of of trains nowadays have enhanced emergency braking, there are still cases of step 3 and emergency giving exactly the same braking rate, so if you were braking in notch 3 you wouldn't have any additional brake force available if you found yourself not slowing down quickly enough. There is also the defensive driving aspect, if you are always counting on notch 3 for your braking point sooner or later you're going to hit poor adhesion and you will go sailing past your stopping point some considerable distance as you have left no leeway and are counting on having sufficient adhesion for step 3.
For passenger comfort and also because you have something in reserve in case you need more brake. If you hit the end of the platform at 40mph in step 3 and you’ve misjudged your braking or the wheels start to play up because of low adhesion, you’re going to go sliding through the station and have nothing else (apart from emergency) to go to. All your braking should be done in step 1 or step 2 and there’s no reason why you couldn’t do most/all your braking in step 1 tbh. You could and there are some drivers that will brake very hard (50/60+ mph into 300m stations in full service) but it’s not recommended in this day and age of elf and safety. Even if you do brake hard, I hope you still finish smoothly in step 1. The final impact in step 3 will have passengers thrown about even in their seats.
Because it's what drivers do in real life... Not sure if you drive a car but imagine coming up to every red light or junction in the road and waiting til the last moment before slamming your foot on the brake That's step 3 You know when you're going to stop You know where at the station you need to be at a stand (stopped, 0 mph) You should be on time already so no need to rush about So really no need to make rash moves or brake harshly when the second most important thing after not causing accidents (either by hitting the train into something or causing people to fall over and hurt themselves) is passenger comfort.
I can’t speak for train drivers, but as a bus driver, my number one priority is the safety and comfort of my passengers. That means accelerating and braking smoothly and gently, taking corners carefully and not taking any risks. We have a system installed in our buses called MyDrive which tracks acceleration, braking, cornering, speeding and lane handling.
