The London commuter route has its issues since when ... TSW2 ? But now the biggest issue for me is the invisibly walled-off freight yards near Brighton. You can get a path in, but your free roam run will be cut short as your TS world goes Poofff : you have reached the limit of simulation progress ? These old TSW2 routes need soon TLC. Btw, TSW2 itself as is sure looks great on a PS5. I have now seen it with the PS5 doing 1440p on a 144hz 27" QHD monitor and it looks great ... especially any loco cabs that were made with care. Meanwhile back to the old PC and Steam launching TS Classic, another great option until XBox TSW4 finally shows up !
I think before we think about free roam issues they need to focus on improving the performance because the route still lacks rush hour passengers
passengers a broke regardless of route anyhows, passengers need fixing before anything else related to them.
There are many bugs that need fixing on this route before even thinking about passengers. There is a signal at Thornton Heath (towards Selhurst) that is hidden behind a wall for starters, and it hasn't even been acknowledged.
AFAIK the track section is still missing at Redhill, various sections of lineside fencing absent on the Quarry Line and Reigate continues to look like a half finished model railway. Sadly I feel this is another overhyped route that has taken its final spin on the Dovetail Flywheel and now languishes en route to the fire and forget route dustbin. Anecdotally, I tried to start a run with BML on the PS5 a couple of days ago in TSW3 (not bought 4 on the console yet). In the cab, went to switch on the headlights, train flipped over and I got a derailment message, game over. You couldn’t make it up!
Heh, had it on Class 66 on SEHS service starting in Dartford, I thought it was actually due to some other train run in my back On the subject though I hope BML will not be abandoned and one day DTG will bring it to TSW3/4 standard + adding all missing content. In my opinion it's one of the best routes all time, mostly because of the intense trains traffic. I'll never forget the feeling it had on me when I play it for the first time - the route felt so alive, so many trains arriving, departing, passing by every few seconds, like never before on any other TSW route, almost as in reality. I remember I finished timetable service on East Croydon and stand there for few minutes to just observe the AI trains movements. Also, it's one of not so many routes when you're able to actually drive train on full route length: London - Brighton, not just "jumping in" on some part of the route to drive it through another part, then leave it for AI to deliver it to it's final destination. And it feels that this route costed DTG a lot of work, definitely the timetable part and optimization probably also (for 8th gen consoles), then later on with resolving AI dispatcher issues, so it would be simply really a shame if it would be left forgotten, especially that it is the last route from Rush Hour pack that has not been updated to TSW3/4 standards yet.
I have to agree with the comments here. DTG cite memory issues whenever we talk about BML, but I think going forward they should perhaps consider a new “premium” version of the route for gen 9 amd PC only (not including the Series S), this way all the embellishments players hanker for can be provided. After all, given the increasing memory requirements, parity cannot be maintained across the various hardware platforms forever.
Indeed. Even though I’m not generally a fan of Electrostars there’s no doubting the immersion Joe’s magnificent timetable brought to the show. I would have loved to see a retro legends style pack done for the route with a CIG/BIG, VEP and maybe EPB pack for a 70’s timetable. Asking for an Oxted Thumper probably going too far though. But I do wish DTG would continue to invest in their older products rather than moving on to new stuff.
Issue is, you can't restrict something from the Series S. It uses the same store and content as the more powerful Xbox as far as I am aware. MS is also EXTREMELY keen that they have the exact same games/content available, so that it isn't seen as a "lesser" console.
In that case they can disable as many layers as necessary to make it work. However, blocking improvements and new features for the Series X because the Series S has a RAM handicap is wearing thin, and IMHO should no longer be used as an excuse not to advance the console experience.
As much as I’d love to see this, it would require a LOT of work. There are missing bridges, unrealistic gradients and a few bits which don’t quite line up that are just lacking to make the route perfect. I’d also say if they redid the route, there would be a call for Hove branch being added and an extension to Lewes from Keymer Junction. It’s a good route but not perfect.
There isn't really anything they can do. The Series X and S have to be treated the same. The S should never have been made to begin with. It's not so much an excuse as a genuine hardware limitation.
DTG has been issuing the split timetable to address the memory issues of the older consoles. They could do it again when, or if, they bring BML up to the current standards. I also really enjoy running this route and find myself falling back on it when I want some comfort. Don't know if the separated tt would allow the room to update the world, which affects all platforms.
This is one of the best routes, and I'd like to see it updated to ToDv4. I wonder how much work it is, is there a global constant light intensity multiplier or has each emissive asset to be looked at and tweaked individually?
Extension to Lewes would be awesome, but I doubt any extension would be added if DTG would decide to revisit BML and update it to current standard, as this would already require a lot of work. Beside there is also the issue of how to change that workload into revenue. To make some money on it I can only imagine to do it the same way as it was done with DRA - sell it in Deluxe pack of next TSW iteration.
We have to be careful asking for this on such an intensive route. Any attempt to upgrade the features could seriously harm the route’s playability and stability on all platforms. I’m quite happy for it to stay as it is and working relatively well. I don’t think there would be any advantage to improving optimisation on the route and then undoing any improvement by adding more features leading to a route that performs worse than it does now. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that there aren’t any more issues introduced to old routes by core updates rather than keeping my fingers crossed that they do a hatchet job on old content by trying to ‘improve’ it. Just look at what has happened to the Class 43 on GWE by them ‘improving’ it with livery designer compatibility. They have just ruined it. Sometimes things are best left alone.
Are you referring to the rain and wiper bug ? I wouldn’t say ruined it just not gone and fixed what obviously went wrong. It’s only broken as it hasn't received the attention to fix it. (No post release patch)
Just ran Gatwick Express Brighton to Victoria service 1M43 just after the patch did is dl and I see no difference to the run I did on Sunday, so this patch does not seem to have 'broken' anything. For reference I am on a pc.
It runs fine as TOD4 I got as far as having it running with TOD4 using the universal mod, had added scenery in the bare bits courtesy of RobS and had nice looking & crucially visible signals alongside the VegetationEP, but sadly hit a brick wall when it came to baked lighting. Without the editor and access to the original files it’s the brickiest of brick walls I’m afraid. Hex-editing lighting values did absolutely nothing unfortunately. Rest assured though, I didn’t see any difference in performance vs any other TOD4 route.
There's also last gen consoles to consider, not just pc. iirc, didn't dtg say that last gen almost didn't get certain services because of memory. Pc and next gen might cope well.
I am indeed. And yes it is only broken because they broke it and haven’t fixed it yet. That is the issue. A bit of a development though… In today’s patch notes it says they have raised the driver’s camera position in response to community feedback. That isn’t even a fix that was required as the height was perfectly fine (not too high like many trains in TSW) but the screen definitely does need fixing and hasn’t been. It beggars belief. I do wonder how the driver camera height could be seen as more of an issue and more deserving of attention than a screen you can’t see out of when it rains. A non-bug versus a real bug. I haven’t been able to see if the camera is too high now as I have been sat in A&E all afternoon but I reckon it will be. I also haven’t seen the alleged community feedback about the camera height in the HST being too low that they refer to. They have raised it by 10cm so I feel it will be too high now, to match lots of other cabs where the camera is about (EDIT - I had said 10cm too high but many are much more than that, as I was actually thinking of 10 inches) too high. And you still can’t see out of the screen when it rains. It absolutely beggars belief.
I was scratching my head also. The position was fine, and I'm used to that since RailWorks - driver's eyes line up approximately with the top of the parked wiper. Already modded my HST cabview back... Who was asking for this, which community gave that feedback?
I don't want to stress Trainsimcommunity too much today (v1.20 is still in the approval queue), here's a standalone mod attached. Will include that in v1.21 later. There you go:
I don’t know who is giving the feedback but it blows any chance of having proper driver view heights in the US locos that I keep reporting as it is clear that somebody somewhere wants the driver heights very high and they are the ones who are listened to. I’m giving up giving DTG any feedback now. The other community can do it! This is all a bit off topic for the BML thread but it is why I’m wary of any changes to routes that work okay as I fear things will be changed for the worse.
Put that here https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/poll-dtg-update-new-hst-camera-position.75723/#post-744384
