The timings seem to be unchanged from the original TSW 2020 release of the route but DTG have since done a bit of work on the physics of the 166 without doing any work on the timetable which has made the timings seem tighter than in the original release
The acceleration is prototypical - it was my video and gps speed recordings that I sent over to Adam to had adjusted the acceleration physics and the real life acceleration videos confirmed - rest assured I also did many comparison tests. It’s true to life. Previously before this adjustment they accelerated way too quickly. All fine again now though Enjoy a realistic driving experience! The actual point of a simulator.
I had a look at the real-life working timetable for 2015, as that is when the route is set. Unfortunately DTG seem to have followed the approach of using real-life departure times from point of origin, but leaving the game algorithm to work out the rest. This gives those horrible oddly numbered arrival and departure times (12:14:17 or whatever, rather than 12:14:00 or 12:14:30 as it would be in real life). That aside, there's good news and bad news: Good news - the overall journey times with the same stops are pretty accurate. The time allowed for the full journey is slightly less in the game than in real life, but the difference is in the recovery time allowed in real life timetables, which the TSW algorithm has no concept of. If you look at the intermediate station departure times, they're very close to the real timetable. In real life recovery time is there to allow for variations in loco/unit performance, temporary speed restrictions, station duties delays and out-of-course signal checks. TSW doesn't simulate any of those things, so you could argue that it's right that recovery time isn't provided as there is no possible delay to recover from! Bad news - the TSW schedule provides 1 minute for station stops, whereas in the real timetable most of the stations have 30-second dwell times. This means that the time allowed for running between stations (sectional running times) is 30 seconds too short. That wouldn't be a problem, as you could arrive 30 seconds late, have a realistic 30 second dwell time, and depart on time. But unfortunately the game enforces the full 1 minute dwell time with the 'yellow circle' timer, so you can't. 30 seconds doesn't sound a lot, but if you have 8 intermediate stops that's 4 minutes you've lost over the whole journey, which is significant. Having said all that, I gave it a go (having never driven the TSW Class 166 before in my life) and, considering it was my first go, I didn't find the timings too difficult to keep to. They're fairly tight, but once you get the feel for the brake - which is very powerful and responsive - I found it fine. It helps to press 'door close' a few seconds before the station stop timer reaches the end of the circle. If you wait for it to tell you to close the doors, you lose another 6 seconds per station, which makes a difference.
Near where I live they trialed closing the doors before departure time to improve on time performance. Doing this therefore has real world parallels so is entirely believable and consistent. In fact there were station PAs advising people that doors would be closed prior to dept time, not at dept time.
a question also about 166 - all control lights are white, and "general fault" is both white AND red... I mean, the train is moving, but is this supposed to be like that?
It's the first DMU made for TSW. Reading Lights button also doesn't work. The button lights are not tied to any function or script value. It's just - old
