Weather variation looks great, adds variety and increases immersion level to the simulation, but I'm trying to determine if weather in TSW is mainly eye-candy, or also affects train performance? It certainly VISUALLY impacts my driving performance, with fog, heavy snow/rain, obstructed windows, wipers sweeping, etc, all affecting being able to see platform stop positions & signals/signs ahead... and thus my SPEED! How about TRACTION, BRAKING capabilities & other engine performance factors? Do the "Sanding Application" controls actually work and help wheel adhesion when applied? In some areas, real railways even have official environmental caution signs for locomotive drivers (like a black leaf on a yellow sign showing poor adhesion in some wooded areas in the fall, or wind caution signs, etc). Just wondering what players have noticed... any insight, Dovetail games?
I can confirm there's differences on rail adhesion depending on weather. Most likely you will experience wheelslip in raining conditions. Winter and autumn season could be a factor for wheelslip as well, however I can't confirm it's implemented in-game. Same with sanding, there's a working switch in most locomotives but actually I think they're not simulated (tbh I always use sand when experiencing wheelslip even knowing that)
Im not sure if the sanding switch works. I know that different seasons effect the amount of day light, on ntp if you have the br heavy pack you can select a 5am service and depending on the season it will be either still dark or sunrise.
Would vary according to the train and rail scripting, so even if the sanding button animates, doesn't mean anything else happens. Same with wheel slip, wheel skid etc
'ANSWERED' Matt from Dovetail, basically answered a similar question in a recent stream posted (about two weeks ago) on YouTube*: Question: “Does weather really have an effect on how you drive a train?” Matt’s response: “No… obviously it changes the visuals, but does not currently effect the physics… adhesion is sort of partially implemented, but is not all there yet”. My take-away: So, it of course can impact performance in real life… apparently not as much currently in TSW… but may be more fully implemented in TSW physics in the future. *[…about 4:44 minutes into a YouTube posting titled: “Train Sim World - 6M49 Heavy Oil - BR Class 40 on Northern Trans Pennine” from MattPlaysTV].
