Hi. The truth is that I really enjoy the game, especially the content related to American freight. I'm from Mexico and fortunately we share the same railroad infrastructure as the United States. So I feel very connected to this type of trains. Just like a lot of the Mexican community of this game. Even though we are few, we love this type of trains. Why has American freight content stopped being released? Since TSW3 we don't have a single new route or a new locomotive, not to mention the expansion packs or the new routes where these types of trains can be taken. Is there any plan in the distant future for there to be new freight content? Speaking on behalf of the Latin community of the game and especially the Mexican one, we support this content a lot and we hope that we can see something new from this content. Some suggestions that we in the Mexican community have are: That the ES44AC has the same dynamic braking function as the SD70ACe but obviously with the qualities of the ES44 such as its braking effort and that it has a better sound like the ES44C4 trains that are just as long and heavy as in Sherman Hill or similar some route that is considerably long The truth is that we like the direction that the game is taking. Hopefully our request will be heard
I think you should start appreciating British trains. USA and DE trains are definitely in the background, as the "revelations" show.
Most of the reveals so far have been from 3rd parties. Those don't mean anything regarding DTG's own priorities.
US freight is being hindered by the Class One railroads refusing access for research, recordings etc. Various thoughts have been presented to DTG on how to overcome this - approach short line or heritage railways, indeed even see if Canadian or Mexican railways might be willing to help. Though of course there is the language barrier to overcome in the case of the latter.
If you really want to see US Trucking in TSW again, now is your chance, contact your community and start your work using the editor provided by DTG, don’t wait or expect DTG.
Are you kidding? They are the worst trains ever. They all operate the same, one lever to accelerate and brake. The safety system is just as boring. It's incredible that the cradle of the railway has such boring trains. I'm starting to like German trains. Especially because of the safety system. (except for the LZB, that makes the trains more boring than the English ones)
As a Mexican I can assure you that at least Ferromex would not be willing to provide licenses for a Mexican route, mainly due to problems of corruption, money laundering and embezzlement. The only option could be KCS/CP (CPKC)
Dovetail have produced as many British routes as German routes (both 16) and that's not counting Vorarlberg. Including content on the Roadmap (Cardiff & Mannheim) that stays level, but at 17. Dovetail can't control the fact that there are currently (both present and in the known future) 5 third-parties producing UK content but only 1 in Germany (TSG, who just announced a mostly Austrian route.) Remember we have the likes of RSSLO on their way in. It's just that the UK had a big head-start in the form of Rivet and Skyhook and that Just Trains, ATS and Incredible Trains have got up and running fairly early.
Also Train sim classic is best for its US Canadian content for freight modern and classic also has steam locomotives ,,Big Boy Challengers Cab forward s some others Trainz is better too lots of US locos etc real and fictional routes available on Steam PC trainz is soupposedly coming to console at some point ...but TSC and Trainz PC only may just be best to ditch the console and invest in decent gaming PC to get your US Canadian freight fix ...Run 8 is good but not on steam so i dont bother with stuff that not available on steam
Here is the US freight routes in TSC 1 Cajon pass 2 Tehachapi mojave sub..3 Feather River Enhanced WP ..SP shasta route ..Alaska RR UP Livonia sub, Heartland route UP topeka to K.C ,Horseshoe Curve 1950s B&O mountain sub Grafton to cumberland set in B&O Chessie system era, West palm to Miami CSX Amtrak , Marias pass, Steven s Pass ,The Racetrack,NHRR new haven Springfield, Boston and Albany to springfield in NYC era, csx hanover sub , Clinchfield , Tennessee pass ..soldier summit Sherman hill ,Wasatch Route ,Raton pass Arizona divide CN yellowhead pass CP rodgers pass. cN peace River
As I and others have pointed out ad nauseam, DTG has a large back catalog of North American routes, locomotives and rolling stock. They have chosen to use some of these assets in recent commuter routes. The information is there for them to build freight routes in TSW. What's lacking is the will ( and possibly the personnel ).
By simple logic, one could figure out quickly that as a company which (Presumably) has investors behind it, and a parent company, what makes the most money would likely be the focus of production. A company would not avoid the opportunity to make higher profits by a product of highest demand, unless it was so unfathomably difficult/Unfeasible that pursuing it would cost more than it earns. You could also somewhat read into what people are criticizing American Heavy Freight as a catagory for. It often is the issue of A to B type journeys without much interaction of side industries or variation of service. While I'm not too familiar with the geography of the United States, from a myriad of images, many "scenic" routes are often quite rural and pretty straightforward without much variation in your tasks. I could argue, though it isn't definitive, that the lack of any safety system that a user could be occupied with could also contribute to a rather uneventful route. Things like PTC would at least occasionally give the user something to pay attention too aside from incline slopes, which can be learned quite easily after some time. The other point, which you have made is the lack of will to put any type of major effort into producing something that would stand out. This unfortunately is a self-fulfilling cycle in which DTG doesnt innovate and add stimulating/interesting experiences, therefore receive poor sales number which in turn causes them to invest even less into US heavy Freight and so on. I doubt that DTG/Focus is blind to it, but it's definitely an excuse they could use. It's not a definite reason nor answer, but it doesn't take too much time to realize the unfortunate situation Heavy Freight is stuck in. I believe that if a 3rd party releases a route with genuine effort and passion into creating an incredible experience, when they are rewarded for their hard work I.e high sales. Is when DTG may revisit the idea more often. Or all of the above is just yap, and we're just in a prolonged US passenger phase right now. Who knows.
It the same thing with steam its not that we don't like it, we just don't like it in it's current state as stated in the above post. So as a community we voted with our wallet. And this is unfortunately the way DTG have responded. Common sense is that DTG is a business, the goal for any business is to make as much money as possible. So the DLC the you don't see DTG making obviously they have a reason for it and the most likely one is low sales. They want to make what sells and they make more money from instead of low sales. They keep saying the majority want shiny modern passenger services. Obviously they are seeing numbers and survey results in order to make that statement that we aren't. Sorry but you have been on these forums long enough to know DTG is about profit most of the time by now. When was the last time DTG made a Freight or Steam or a route based before the year 2000. If that sold well they would have concentrated on that stuff and not what we get. Edit: All three types of DLC I mentioned DTG have not released any since March 2023 for TSW 3. That had Peak Forest, Linke Rheinstrecke, and Cajon Pass.
Guess this just another beating the dead horse forum for US freight ..TSW not the space for US freight now or in the future .I dont see any major US freight Co rolling out the red carpet for DTG to get access ..the way thing s going in the world in general nowadays. :they may have harder time getting access to passenger too or getting licences ,Railroads just not open their doors to railfans either i remember going on lots of hump yard car and locomotive facilities towertours, {signal boxes UK} some were not official but we would usually ask permission first and no meant no ..lots of time s just asking would get yes or a make it quick ,other times sign a release form ,,RR just more security cautious and liability concerns to grant access esp for what DTG needs recordings photos i dont eversee a US freight RR letting them access a live rolling freight train to get recordings ..think DTG needs to think outside the box for other ways to do sounds and the TSW community may have to lower thier expectations on sound quality and other things if want more US freight
As for TSC Trainz they dont have perfect sounds or other things either ..the train Sim community needs to realize it s just a game and to expect super realistic everything is insane.. Other wise if want realisim then persue a career on a real RR or join a tourist museum rr volunteer. Im not fit to work for RR but its sure great to be able to experience operating trains virtually in all train sim games, i enjoy TSW TSC and Trainz those 3 are what i like playing most TSW console and the other 2 on PC.
Then.... Is it no longer a train simulator? Just a Train game? You can't advertise as something being realistic, and not at least trying to make the sim as realistic as you can within boundaries.
This is a pretty weak point, as using such a logic would mean TSW is just A train game rather than a simulator, same with about the majority Train Games on the market aside from maybe Zusi though even zusi lacks some "realistic" features. Most things that the real world railway has can be modeled into a video game by one way or another. However, It's important that people control their expectations, it doesn't have to be super low but it definitely shouldn't be into the skies and above to the point where development times for 1 route is 9+ Months.
Where are the 3rd party developers for US routes? This is what's desperately needed for US route and rolling stock development.
Feel like Run 8 doesn't count as they are developing the sim as well as the content. So they obviously aren't gonna jump ship from their own base sim.
Run8Studios (ex 3DTrainstuff) made Donner for MSTS and Cajon / US Assetpack for MSTS and Kuju RailSimulator. Then they made their own game as they felt the game was too restricted for their "real railroading" multiplayer network concept.
The main issue is access to reference material. That includes pictures of the entire interior cab, top to bottom, side to side, front to back but people rarely take good photos or videos of the interior cab so dtg can't replicate the cab realistically. Then you got the perfectionists who are like they got the panel entirely wrong or it's the wrong cab, etc. Even Google might not be of good help. Other thing is getting high quality sound recordings both at idle and at speed since trains can sound different at higher speeds while moving compared to just notching up at idle
I think the not so authentic sounds and other thimgs should not hindering developing new american freight locos and routes. Because german stuff allone has much examples for not 100 % authentic locos. BR 642 and Talent 1 don't have real sounds. Siemens Vectron has the switches for SIFA, PZB and LZB in the engine room not in the cab. Station surroundings Essen Hbf, Dresden Hbf and so on looks not authentic. In Britain we have a WCML South without authentic liveries for 350 and train stations. But it was and will be released. But if it comes to American Freight they say to us, it has to be 100 authentic or we let it be. I can't understand it. I would be satisfied with american freight stuff even if it would not hit the nail to 100 %. Because it's better to have even 50 % instead of zero.
Once again you're discounting the vast amount of research data, visual and otherwise that DTG has accumulated over many years of building US locos and other assets. There's nothing prohibitive about developing US freight routes and locos except the will to do it.
Actually from the statement Matt put out earlier this year it sounds like there is a will, just us as a community with all our nitpicking has turned them off of doing more. So we only have ourselves to blame.
Don't think so. The nitpicking at german and british routes is almost the same. Even TSG earned a lot of Nitpicking although they made always a great work. I think in real it's a economic thing. Because when they make an American freight route they have the same income like with a British route. But they have more effort in route building. For example if you look at Cajon Pass, Sand Patch Grade, Horseshoe Curve, Clinchfield, Cane Creek and Sherman Hill they have one thing im common. They have a nice mountain / rocky environment. That environment needs more effort to build than the most British and german routes and American Comuter routes with their flat landscape. And even by NYT they didn't include the Manhatten Skyline, because it would need to much effort.
I don't buy that argument. It's too convenient. More of a rationalization, I think. Anyway if " nitpicking " were a reason not to develop, there'd be precious little UK content. British players go crazy over the littlest thing, like the font on PIS signs for example, or the shade of brown ballast. Not saying they shouldn't be picky, but it doesn't seem to affect UK output.
DTG overcame the language barrier when it comes to German, French, Dutch and Japanese so Spanish wouldn't really be a problem. But DTG being DTG will always have an excuse ready as to why they can never live up to their full potential.
Actually it does... when was the last DTG older UK route. All we get are modern routes nowadays unless its done by a 3rd party. And they get less complaints about accuracy with the modern content than older. The complaints are about actual bugs. However I don't really believe it when Matt states is not a money thing, I'm pretty sure half the reason is financial. We voted with our wallets and that is why they don't produce US Freight, Older routes as much or steam anymore. And this is what we get because of it. Also they have better resources for UK content. I know the whole back catalogue argument, but thats the stuff we as a community have complained that we are not satisfied with it. So why would you continue to use that back catalogue? They gave us an answer, just because you don't want to accept their answer does not mean it wrong. Just its obviously not the answer you want to hear. But it is a valid answer.
And it all goes back to Clinchfield back in the TSW2 days being the worst selling route at the time, so DTG pretty much axed older US content.
And one reason for the failure of Clinchfield was the glaring omission of banking coms to control helper locos which made much of the content too difficult to play. A promise to rectify that omission went unfulfilled.
Well, at this point I agree with you. It's not possible that we've gone almost 3 years without anything new. I'd settle for whatever they released. Nothing can be worse than Cane Creek.
Which is why I believe part of it has to be based off of low sales as well. If sales were still good we would of had a freight route by now. There was never even one released for TSW 4. Nor a Steam route or a route set before 2000. If these items really sell then they would have made at least one of them. If you look at the comments on the threads for the US frieght routes the majority are asking for 100% accuracy. Or they won't buy it they say. So if thats the view then why bother? Obviously the survey is out to see if peoples minds have changed on the subject as alot was focused on US Freight so time will tell. But I don't really we are the majority here so that is why. Yes people on the forums really push for it and Steam too, but if you look at who is posting over and over again, 100 users is not the majority of players. All the active users on this forum still probably don't even make up a majority of players. We probably play the most and are the most passionate than most, but DTG don't make money every time we play. They only make money when we buy.
i really like USA routes passenger or freight or an combination but then again i really like british and european routes too i like diversity
