Hi folks, I've had my eye on a certain third-party route that is old enough to receive decent sales nowadays. Good ol' Horseshoe Curve. It's currently on sale for $19 USD! But the sale does end literally tomorrow, so I might as well ask a few questions about it: - Are the sounds good? Any sound bugs or anything that could be distracting during a normal drive? - Are the yards populated with rolling stock? They seem pretty empty for what I've seen. If they're empty, does this detract your enjoyment of the route at all? - Are there any substitutions on the route, or does it stick to just the Norfolk Southern locomotives? - How does the driving experience compare to routes such as Sherman Hill or Cajon Pass? Besides those questions, feel free to provide any of your own personal thoughts about the route. I've browsed through a fair amount of Steam reviews and videos, but I thought I'd ask here, since perhaps things have been made better or worse with TSW 3. Thanks! A cool image because why not:
The route overall looks pretty good, sounds are ok, horns are meh and will probably break like they do on most US routes. The driving experience is mixed as the GEVO here still uses the broken physics of AC44 (dynamic brake), so SMH and CJP are still better in that regard. I've seen a UP AC44 sub, but it was probably not intentional. Two new freight cars, one of which is not used at all, the other appears on one or two services. Overall the route is... OK... a LOT of missed potential. It would seriously benefit from a big patch that would update the ES44 to the CJP quality, improve sounds, actually use the new freight cars in the timetable and overall polish the experience. (not sure if they ever fixed the speed signs which were a big yikes)
So perhaps it plays a lot like a shorter Sand Patch Grade? It's very foresty, has not very realistic dynamic brakes, and there's a coal branch. Fair amount of similarities, but possibly lacking the charm of Sand Patch?
The sounds of the gevo traction motors and horn aren't good. It's like really loud and muddied and you don't have the traction motor howl at speed as seen in the cajon pass es44c4. There is a bug where if I switch to rear camera, I lost engine sounds when I switched back to the driving camera. Doesn't happen all the time and don't know if it was looked at or not since I rarely play hsc. The yards can have freight wagons, other gevos, gp38-2s (peninsula corridor subs in and playable). I even saw the oakville one sub in onto ai trains, but not playable and didn't see them in yards. I don't really care tbh since I rarely pay attention to things around me. The driving experience is poor. The braking mechanics don't utilize the sherman hill braking mechanics. Sometimes the dynamics do not work at all or struggles keeping your speed steady as you are going downhill. You will get constant oscillations in the speed graph. The gevo also lets you apply both the dynamic and automatic brake without needing to bail off. The amps of the dynamics just stay on full. You can still bail off if you want out of realism purposes, but it's not there like sherman. The train and consist does not feel heavy like sherman hill. The scenery is really nice for a freight route though. It is colorful with lots of greens. Much better than cajon pass and sherman hill. There are also some red light issues that prevent a service from being completed. For example, the holidaysburg service for the gp38 does not work since it gives you a red light for a train blocking your path when there is nothing there. If you are looking for a realistic experience with braking mechanics like sherman hill, this is not the route for you. If you are looking for a beautiful looking freight route, hsc is for you. The coal branch is neat, but it is slow. My opinion: I don't like the route. Even though sherman hill does not look great visually, it gives that realistic freight experience. At the end of the day, visuals don't mean anything if the operating does not feel right. Horseshoe curve is one of those routes I bought that I now regret buying but can't do anything about it route. Not my go to freight route.
I remember it being delayed cuz of the weird braking behaviors they encountered. It wasn't to implement smh physics. It was to change some brake values and stuff i believe.
Depends what you want. Good scenery, but the physics are not as good as Sherman Hill and Cajon Pass. Would benefit from a big overhaul. Still can be enjoyable, but could be better. Although I at least give Skyhook some credit for how they responded to feedback which was better than DTG or Rivet would.
Enjoyable route. Very pretty and, yes, much more like Sand Patch (geographically it isn't too far away) than like the Western routes. Sounds are meh but there are very good mods. Real problem, for me, is a bug under which all containers are treated as empty and so intermodals are all shockingly light. Wouldn't call it a must-have, but a worthwhile sale pickup.
HSC needs work as mentioned above, but it has its high points- i think the scenery and signalling are pretty good (i didn't have the redlight issue mentioned above for the Geep Hollidaysburg service fwiw), and being fairly familiar with parts of the route IRL, it captures the "atmosphere" for lack of a better word. It could really benefit from an update to the dynamic braking and of course TOD4- trying to think of a loco DLC that could make it make sense financially ....SD40M would be the most obvious missing piece but a helper loco is a hard sell tbh. The NS roster is pretty thin in TSW obvs, so there's other mainline loco choices too Amtrak diesel- the route has 2 stops at least, and if it's ever going to come the Curve would give good views from the passenger cam...but i'm dreaming lol Kinda agree that the modern setting is limiting for this route.....i'd happily pay again for an 80's legends of old US freight pack or whatever they'd call it, provided they did an actual retro timetable... It brings up an interesting point, and maybe someone from DTG would like to comment- if a route is created by a 3rd-party, does that mean they have "dibs" on any other further content for it? We've seen Rivet do additional DLC for their routes, but afaik there's been no DTG content produced for routes developed by 3rd parties, right?
From what the team mentioned, they were both developed at a similar time and when SMH managed to get 100+ car trains to work relatively effectively, it was decided HSC would get delayed to also implement this (which was mostly about brake simulation changes).
HSC is pretty much the only US freight route I barely touch at all, granted like Cane Creek Skyhook did a very good job on the scenery, even working on small details like the Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona was a very nice touch (Unlike DTG who completely omitted the museum in Barstow for Cajon). But the stock is subpar, the Gevo sounds are bad (Especially when you have it next to the ES44C4). The TOFC cars were a lazy import of the 85ft trash flats from NEC:NY, using European trailers, mixed in an awkward consist in service mode with the trash flats. The gondola afaik barely even appears in the route despite being a new piece of stock.
The gevo sounds are there (bassy chug) but mixed poorly and doesn't sound like a gevo at speed. It was sounds from the community which means skyhook was able to use real sound recordings. However, not excellent. Have a look at the video. He goes into the es44ac at the end and you will hear what it sounds like. This is what a gevo should sound like. Pc only sound mod but it brings it closer to a gevo
I find them very unpleasant. You also quite often get that thing where the same sound file is playing twice and that makes it even worse as the phasing with the bad sound to start with is unbearable. I often turn the volume right down when playing it. The dynamic brakes are a pure work of fiction too but in TSW3 the combined braking being bad doesn’t seem to make it jump off the track like in TSW2 when combined with the derailing bug. In TSW2 I used to use the independent brake as a substitute for the dynamic but so far have been able to drive properly quite successfully in TSW3.
Hmm. I must admit that I'm not very picky about the sounds of the ES44AC. Seems like something I could tolerate. Though the bug that stujoy's mentioning is a bit more of a concern for me, I doubt that the sound playing twice would be very pleasant! But from what you folks are saying, Horseshoe Curve sounds like it may be a fine route with a not-so-great locomotive. Seems like all it needs is an improvement to the ES44AC, and it could be a fairly enjoyable freight route. The route itself is good, the timetable appears solid, just the quality of the ES44AC drags it down below the western freight routes. Honestly, perhaps I'd like it, but I feel like I'd be better off waiting for it to get a slightly better discount. It's 35% off right now, but perhaps a few more dollars off would make this worth it. It's currently at the same price as Powerwashing Simulator, now that's some tough competition right there! Also, one relatively small thing that I'd like to note is that Horseshoe Curve looks like this on the route select screen. Kinda bothers me admittedly! If I were to get the route, I'd at least want it to look somewhat nice in the menu! But yeah, thank you folks for the input! Looks to be a lovely route with some nice-looking trains, but a mediocre driving experience. Seems like something that will most likely be on my list if it gets a slightly better discount!
Also weird issue. If you like to play with safety systems on the alarms on the GP38 on this route are really quiet so if you don't keep your eye on the screen it can be easy to miss.
Dunno if you got it or not but I for one love Horseshoe Curve. One of my favorite things is the rail museum right at the curve. There is even an old Pennsy GP on display in front of the museum. And if you like to play on foot and watch trains it's a great spot to watch freight go by.
I like this route. It is well done, but I will not comment on how you perceive sound. Your driving experience is better n that with Sherman hill, mainly because the service duration is shorter. I think Cajon Pass is a better route. Yes, yards are not as filled as you may like. This may have to do with performance considerations. It is still a remarkable busy route. I think there is no substitution.
