Midland Mainline - Skyhook Feedback

Another issue I have noticed. A lot of bridges sit too low so trains clip into them when passing under them

 

morning Andy, you are quite right and happy to say that Liam has fixed this. I will grab a shot to share for you. How on earth do I upload a jpg here?

 

Upload as a file and just determine if you want to have it full size or thumbnail.

 

Gang, we are currently improving night lighting for the 158 gauges etc. Please note it is a work in progress. Just wanted to share with you guys, in response to the question.

 

All three cities seem to be missing a key landmark visible from the Train.

Leicester: St George's tower. Otherwise known as the Blue monstrosity, Know I get that it's a hotel and so licensing issues are an issue but it's a building that can be seen for miles and is home to Europe's tallest street art.

Nottingham: Nottingham Castle. Now I admit I could have just missed it but it's also a key landmark.

Derby: Pride Park Football stadium is easily viewable from the Train coming in and out of Derby, Again I accept licensing issues are a factor but could a generic looking stadium not be put in its place?

 

thank you Marc, passed to the art team.

 

Good point - and if you can see Pride Park, you can certainly see Derby Arena as well.

 

jane-skyhook Just a following up to my previous message regarding some of the foliage/lineside scenery which should be much denser and closer to the track. Hoping you can look at improving this. These pictures have been taken between Leicester and East Midlands Parkway using a cab ride from 2018.

Foliage should be much denser here:


And here:






When approaching Loughborough from the south the bridge at Loughborough should be an arched variant rather than straight and the platforms should to be covered in foliage

 

Some more examples where lineside bushes are missing giving the route too much of a wide open feel when it should feel more constrained:




Foliage here should be a lot denser:

 

Could do with a retaining wall and bridge support here:




And some more trees here:


I hope this doesn't come across too much as nit-picking and I don't expect perfection but hopefully the comparisons speak for themselves. You should be able to locate all these locations using the distance to next station stamps in the top left hand corner of the in-game screenshots.

 

much improved

 

Looking at everything that's being asked of skyhook I can't see them doing everything that's being asked. The list is endless. At this rate they will be pushing out patches for the next year.

 

Nottingham castle it's that visible unless you

Hopefully that blue light will be sorted as you can still see it lit in the photo.

 

Apparently door released light has been fixed as mentioned in the class 158 bits and bobs thread. DTG are doing the fixes for the 158 separate I think.

 

jane-skyhook plz bring the class 222 Meridian to this route.

 

This isn't the suggestions thread.

 

You’re correct with that one. You guys should receive that fix along with a bundle of other fixes when the update comes out

 

I really appreciate you sending this to us and taking so much time. Thank you. I have passed this to the environment team.

 

Midland Main Line - still an AWS nightmare on PC/ Steam.

A new route that has obviously been rushed out with very obvious and very irritating bugs.

HST 125 services arriving at Nottingham are effected by AWS automatically and for no reaon stopping the train. You are not telling me that this basic fault, which was also effecting PS5 users until a patch was rushed out today for PS5 users, was not spotted during testing of this route.

When can Steam users (Windows 11 PC) expect a fix for this nonsensical situation?

€35 for a badly tested, rushed out of the door route. As ever, what a disappointing disgrace from Dovetail/ Focus Entertainment.

Get it fixed and stop insulting your customers with highly priced, badly tested and bug ridden DLC's on release. Dovetail/ Focus should try focusing more on releasing quality rather than quantity.

 

Be patient. The dlc was only released like 3 days ago. Fixes don't happen in a day.

 

As I mentioned, there is no way this bug was not spotted before release. When I'm paying €35 for this new DLC, this shoddy nonsense should never have been released before this AWS problem was fixed.

 

It's an odd type of 'approach control' that slams on the train brakes when one is well under the approach speed limit. The AWS does not react when acknowledged on approach to the station and the brakes get slammed on.

 

It should never have been released in that condition

 

What is pleasing me. is Jane at Skyhook are listening to all the comments re faults especially missing landmarks and is preparing to do something to put them right.

Something Rivet Games should be doing, as Jasper has never commented or put things right, when I have pointed out to them some obviously glaring mistakes. Rivet are certainly not bothered to offer something to take a pride in.

Well done Skyhook, I hope you take the comments on board and make your route look even better, its something to be proud of!!!

 

Jesus man, your white knighting is starting to look really petty.

Do you really think it’s acceptable for premium priced stuff to be releasing with such obvious flaws?

it wasn’t even 10 minutes after the release that bug reports were popping up - as much lip service as Skyhook may be giving, there is no way half of this stuff wasn’t spotted. Regardless of the QA quality & beta testing, they’d of had to have their eyes closed to not see most of the issues above.

An informed decision was made to release this DLC in its state.

It is indefensible.

 

Jane, if this entire process has told you (as in your company) one thing it should be this.
Don't do what DTG do...
If you'd have put out a preview stream a month before release, with all the warts and all issues you'd had we (these people on the forum who love to vent and point things out) would have happily gone through the stream frame by frame and made these same points... BEFORE all the negative steam reviews, BEFORE all the lambasting on the forum and WITHOUT needing to go back an kowtow to anyone.

So if you can put this message up the chain in your company for us, that'd be great...
When you set your dev cycle, make sure you build in a "tear it apart" period for the community at large to tell you where things are wrong and what to focus on, because it's likely your team has spent hours and hours on scenery which isn't where people will focus, on facilities we don't really use or notice and obviously missed a load of stuff which is really important to those who know.
Who knows, it might just mean the first DLC release with very little to moan about, few negative reviews and people happy to feed back into the process over time without the naysayers preceding you with "Well they messed it up last time..."

 

I am genuinely grateful for you being candid. Can I also be candid and point out that there is no way on earth would we want to ship something with issues. I am transparent in admitting there have been issues and we have a whole team working behind the scenes to address items. I will not sugar coat, or pay lip service here. There are issues and we are working hard on fixes. I am pleased that many people love the route. We see this as the start of something special for Midland Mainline.

I do apologise for issues. That said, we certainly didn't rush anything out. It is more that the work to create these routes are very intricate. Fix or amend one thing and something pops up elsewhere, that may go unnoticed as we had fixed it earlier. The nature of software development of this complexity is to be frank, constant whack-a-mole. Its not anyone's fault, team, DTG or beta testers who have all worked really really hard in partnership. Just the nature of the complexity. This week I have been grateful for the support of all of you, who have pointed us to issues we hadn't seen which have now been fixed.

In response, we are not only trying our best to not only whack the moles that have turned up, but also to concrete over the mole holes!

This unfortunately is the nature of software development. Please don't judge us by bugs, but judge us by the nature of our transparent communication and our willingness to address issues. We care and have the same passion that you do. You are not getting corporate doublespeak from us. I am being very open and very transparent and calling it as it is with all of you whilst we are working very hard to deal with the moles on the track.

I appreciate everyone's patience, Myself and the team share everyone's passion.

Again, I want to thank you for sharing your concerns. We are not only listening, but reacting.

Jane

 

I think you have made a great point about product visibility and thank you for raising it. It is certainly something I will take back to the company. It is not within my personal remit (I just look after technical and not marketing and PR etc) but I will pass it on as I do indeed personally see value in sharing some stuff a little earlier to garner feedback. I certainly wouldn't want to abuse you guys as free beta testers, but there is a wealth of knowledge on this forum that is clearly evident. Not my call, so I can't promise for other departments, but I totally get your point and appreciate you making it. I will pass on to the appropriate teams.

Thank you
Jane

 

With all due respect - I will judge your company by the quality of your products or lack thereof. People are paying £35 not for communication with the developers, but for a solid product.

What happened here is not in the nature of software development, as other devs like TSG show. There can be minor issues on release, but the MML was released in an alpha state. I don't recall any DLC spawning so many multi-page report threads just after release.

Regards.

 

I noticed some magical flying grass in this tunnel

 

I think most of us are aware that debugging is a time-consuming, frustrating and often infuriating iterative process. We get that. But the key descriptor there is the first one: time-consuming: MML (in common with nearly all of DTG's releases lately) appears to have been given an inadequate time budget to allow for programming, testing, and debugging by the ship date. Because it plainly was not finished; I might not go quite so far as Torfmeister in calling it an alpha, it is most definitely an early beta and as it stands represents at best the state at which it should be first circulated for playtesting, certainly not in any fit state for commercial release.

Simply put, it was taken out of the oven before it was done.

 

Exactly this, this route has so much potential and the prep was there but it was served to us undercooked and doesn't taste right

Delays might upset people initially, but how angry they will be if they get something too early is far worse

 

I mean, regardless of what you wanted, it’s what you’ve done.

The same can be said for any dev studio going, this route hasn’t added anything new feature-wise, everything in it exists in other TSW content, and that’s not a bad thing, it’s just silly that we seem to keep getting the same old repeat issues release after release. Nothing is working consistently, it’s always a trade off and then the usual plethora of what are frankly immature bugs.

You say you didn’t rush this to release, so why on earth was it released in this state, if you could of taken more time.

Oh but I am, every Skyhook release in TSW has untouched issues, all of which we’ve had Skyhook employees (eventually) acknowledge and tell us they were being worked on, but here we are. Cane Creek & the BR 187 seriously need looking at.

I am intrigued in seeing what comes to fruition, but until significant progress is made (not only with MML, but your other DLC’s) my view of Skyhook will remain the same.

It’s a shame because Skyhook was once known for its quality, but alas DTG seemed to have got their claws into your studio.

I don’t mean to come off harsh, but we’ve heard the same rhetoric from your CM’s, and then they’ve gone silent & no notable progress made on DLC issues (the 187 actually got worse).

I can only hope you’re the change we need.

 

Thank you. More than happy to oblige with more side by side shots if it’s helpful.

 

When is the 1st update for this route

 

Sorry if it's been mentioned before but with the HST on consoles (well Xbox certainly) the DSD does not get cancelled by the controller button, it does work for AWS. This means we can't use DSD or need to plug in a keyboard to hit Q.

 

Same here, a record for the shortest timetable! - Unfortunately it does not complete in journey mode

 

Ahh OK.I have those routes and have never noticed it to be honest

 

So i shouldn't judge you from the buggy game which i paid £30 GBP on, but rather a couple of replies in a forum thread? Right...

I'm glad you're taking this approach but this is only step one, Acknowledging the problem =/= fixing it

 

I think that everything I have noticed has been mentioned so I would just like to say thanks for communicating this with us and not just forgetting and abandoning the route, as it does have the potential to be the best in game. I do genuinely believe that you and your team will be able to push it the extra few miles (take this however you want) to do this and use it as a seed route (I think that was your wording) for DLC going into the future.

Also pass on my thanks to whoever had the idea to the peaks on the railtour!

I was lucky enough to live in a house next to the ECML so the sound of the Deltics literally is the sound of my childhood and I also knew one of the drivers so managed to get a fair few rides over the years: it's a sound and feel I've never forgot. It's nice to have some LNER blood to join me on here as my predecessors were either LNER railway men, farmers or both!

 

A few early morning shots. Despite the issues the route is still fun. The bridges are the biggest thing for me with the train clipping into them, but the trains are good

 

the waiting room and cafe at leicester (I understand not having the pumpkin license, but a generic cafe would have been fine) are missing on platform 1&2. The WH Smith on platform 3&4 is missing too. (Again a generic shop would have be fine)

 

Additional thoughts, not only for Skyhook, but for all publisher:
I don´t know if it´s so but my impression with producers (whether its Skyhook, DTG, Rivet, ...) is following:
- We want do do a DLC xy. We plan a time in which it will be build and at once or later (but still before finishing product) we book a slot to release it. At the end: time is running out, stuff has to be priorisized, it become "rushed" (missing stuff, not working correctly stuff, and so on), Release slot arrives - it came out - and in a worst case (as yet) most are unhappy.
Often in preview stream we become often told: its a earlier version, not the finished one. And in several cases some stuff what has been found in the streams already exists in release version.

If wrong please correct me.
When right: Would it not better to:
- We want do do a DLC xy. We plan a time in which it will be build. If time running out a transparence communication would be nice: Hey guy because of time/Money (if it MUST come to an end) we can do not do all planned stuff. Perhaps in some cases the community can be asked if they can/want to do without A or B (with an later update?). If done: ONLY THEN book a Release slot.
???

 

If it gives a fortunate response immediately that a maker is forward and makes modifications, I am saved

 

Hi Jane,

Great to see someone engaging with us about issues and I hope they get fixed as the MML is the route I grew up travelling on and has a special place with me.

The route certainly feels like the area but there are a few things I'd like to point out, most of the problems people have already written about so I'll just focus on a few I think definitely need to be changed. My apologies if they've already been brought up but I haven't time to read the entire thread:

Starting at Derby, the lineside foliage after Etches Park needs to be thinned/cleared or at least the trees replaced with bushes as there's way too much, in reality that area is fairly open and you can see Alvaston park on the right past the river bridge.

At Long Eaton, the skyline is all wrong - the town has never had high rise buildings and completely breaks the immersion.

And the bridge at Trent, it's a very imposing structure IRL and the one in game although good, looks out of proportion. Plus the trains clip it but that's been mentioned I'm sure.

Kind regards,

Ant

 

Expanding out a little and touching on something I mentioned just now in another thread… With the increasing saturation of samealike routes in TSW, what is the “wow” factor in MML which might persuade me to part with £30 for it. The 158 alone doesn’t really hit that sweet spot and going forward, developers need to start thinking outside the box and get away from these short workaday routes which really do not engage with the desire to be captivated and want to keep coming back and playing it.

 

I think this all come back to longer networks.

Want more variation In Traffic = modular network

Want more jobs to do = modular network

Feel like you've been somewhere = modular network

 

Hi Jane, thanks for taking the time to come onto the forums and spend time listening to the community feedback. I've put together an (inexhaustive) list of issues, some of which have no doubt already been highlighted but I didn't want to go through six pages on a Saturday morning, sorry!

I've highlighted in bold those issues that I would consider to be major issues, with absolute top-priority fixes for me should be those in red bold.

If I think of more, I'll add them in a separate post later.

Route/scenery
· TPWS set wrongly on southbound fast line near Barrow-on-Soar leading to unexpected emergency brake application
· Unrealistic double-green signal on northbound fast line between Leicester and East Midlands Parkway
· Signage is very small and wrong font on most of the route
· Some speed signs missing or in the wrong place – all signage needs review
· Some AWS ramps appear to activate bi-directionally so occasionally set off AWS for the signal behind you on same track
· Many stations missing car stop signage or it’s floating, in the wrong place or facing wrong direction – full review needed for each station
· Too many tall office-type buildings in Long Eaton town
· LOD issues with Ratcliffe power station – looks poor / wrong shape from a distance

Timetable
· Too few local services, all 2-car DMU services should be represented by 158 and then additional locos can substitute in later if more DLC released
· London-bound express trains all say Leicester as final destination on PIS rather than St Pancras (note if this is fixed, any further intermediate stops should be included on PIS as they have been for 158 services – good job on that!)
· Some AI 158s for Newark Castle depart Nottingham towards Worksop rather than Lincoln (this may be prototypical but it seems unlikely)

158
· Reflection in windscreen
· The right wiper appears to clear the left hand screen – left wiper doesn’t do anything
· Passengers sometimes block exit from cab (sometimes they are invisible and still blocking exit)
· Guard panel issues with buttons set up wrongly
· Some doors have two ‘open’ buttons rather than open and close
· Doesn’t appear possible to connect the two separated 158 carriages in Derby Etches Park
· PIS is too small
· PIS incorrectly reports final destination (eg. Nottingham instead of Newark Castle)

HST
· Can’t sit down in carriages

 

Great write up, the speed signage font is a thing I've been banging on about for months, even years, but barely gets noticed. German routes have decent signage.

To add to your write up, there are a couple of signals north of Leiceseter whith the feathers the wrong way round plus many with incorrect calling on lights - they are of the double red variant which is incorrect (should be off or 2 whites).

The only other major thing which I'd highlight in red text is inadeqaute approach control at a couple of junctions, but I think they have been noticed hopefully (north of E mids parkway heading south - Trent South Jn, 70 to 25mph and the turnout towards Derby from Nottingham - Trent East jn, 80 to 30mph. However, Ratcliffe junction, the junction just before E mids parkway, is signalled correctly - approach released from red).

 

Yeah I saw some ground position lights (dollies/dummies) attached to main aspects, which in the route were showing reds or whites.

These subsidiary signals attached to main aspects should not be GPL signals , but instead 'calling on' or 'cats eye' signals. These are different to GPLs and should show NO lights UNLESS the signaller sets up a permissive route. If a calling on signal is cleared, two diagonal white lights will be lit and the main aspect will always be red.