Another Look At Locomotive's Exhaust Smoke Physics And Behaviour

It's an extremely challengeing task to make the smoke behave like real life. Every train simulator i've played has not yet got this mastered. Althought TSW has improved this majorly the physics aren't quite there yet.

For example if there was no wind and you have an old class 47, it's going to smoke up the whole place as you push the throttle cause all the smoke which is heavy and dense would surround the locomotive. The life span of the smoke should be taken into consideration as well, it should "live" for a realistic time period before it dissapears

 

Well, this has been mentioned couple of times yet. When I remember that we didn't have any exhaust smoke in the very beginning, then I'm almost happy that by now we've got some now, which doesn't look too bad. But I agree that there is still much potential to improve our current exhaust fumes.
E.g.: When I'm driving the HST in summer the exhaust seems much "too visible" for me. It rather looks like white steam coming out of the loco. Exhaust may look this way, but just in winter when the water which is in the exhaust immediately condenses coming out of the loco because the air is so cold (I presume it must be colder than 0 degrees Celsius?). But water doesn't condenses in the air when the temperature is about 20 degrees Celsius, as it appears in summer. So in summer you shouldn't see that much "white clouds", the exhaust must be smoother and less visible. Sometimes everything you can see is "flickering air" coming out of the loco - this happens when the exhaust is completely diaphanous as it doesn't contain much smut - usually appears only with newer locos with effective filters.
And when we're already talking about the HST: Even when the loco is idling, the exhaust kind of "shoots" out of the loco, as if the loco would be running on full power. But this "shooting-out" doesn't change, no matter which notch I use. It always shoots out. That seems unrealistic to me as the exhaust should only "shoot out" of a loco whose engine runs on high speed, but not out of an idling loco.
And especially in GWE the exhaust seems to "white" for me. Remember that exhaust doesn't only contain water and carbon dioxide. Especially older diesels (and the HST isn't actually a really new one being in service for over 40 years by now) with less effective filter systems blow out much dust and smut, especially when spooling up (Mostly because the engine can't get enough oxygen to burn all the fuel which was pumped into the engine, so that some fuel remains unburned or partially burned and appears as smut or dust). TSW does simulate this (e.g. try it on a SD-40-2: Move the throttle lever from zero to maximum at once and look outside, the same should work for the the WSR diesels, too, if I remember properly). Unfortunately DTG hasn't implemented this feature on GWE for some reason.
And that's just a short overview what could be done. No one knows if we'll ever see something of this done in TSW.

 

I do hope it's not going to turn into another "train simulator 2018" where you have over 100 pices of DLC and low priority on improving the game's core and experience, filling in blanks and reviseing alot of current features and effects. I'd rather have 3 or 4 DLC that functions correctly rather than 50 DLC which all need re-working and twisting and pulling it back into shape and out of shape, etc.

 

I think we all do. We all started converting to TSW with the hope that DTG has finally understood, what we players really expect of a simulator: A high degree of reality, but nonetheless no boring "driving to and from and to and from…". We want a highly detailed, but varied game with good graphics and sounds, and we need some helpful tools to have the ability to implement our own conceptions and ideas into the game. And in the beginning DTG actually seemed to understand our wishes as they announced a new, revolutionary simulator with an unseen depth of reality and spectacular graphics and a spirit of optimism came across us, who hoped to experience something really great. But with the release of CSX:HH the first problems appeared and the atmosphere among the players has begun to cloud over until know as we see that DTG is barely able to deal with and to solve the problems they have created and are still creating with their too fast, unconcentrated and profit-seeking strategy. Instead of caring about the topics we mention here day by day with a little rest of hope that someone out there might read it and work on it, DTG keeps the concept we know from TS2018: Creating as much new DLCs as fast as possible to earn money as fast as possible.
Of course there was an update regarding the diesel-electric locos (although this hasn't been finished yet), but if you take a look over the dozens of complaints and problems reported here, then you must admit that this is just a drop in the ocean.
By now I have still got a little hope that something might change with the next DLC, so I bought it and prayed that the 23 € weren't a waste. Maybe we may see some improvements, and I'd be happy even if they were minor ones. Maybe we may recognize a small signal that DTG begins to understand that they can't go on the way they have done for some years now. Maybe it is not too late for this game to turn into that what we always hoped it would turn into. That's the last bit of optimism that I can raise by now.