Cargo Line Volume 1 - Questionable New Pack From Skyhook

TSW could have done with a fresh wagon type that spans eras, Cargowaggons of some description would be one. It's pretty obvious from the reception to this that many would have preferred a new loco type or another completely different type of Wagon. The OP has a point even if some don't agree with how it was put across.

 

I won't be buying this LOVE, and I don't think you should either.[/QUOTE]

Another troll account that should be banned and this pointless should be locked

 

Which is a monumental design flaw that I thought the Training Centre was meant to rectify, i.e. giving something a unit/loco/wagon could be tied to that wasn’t an individual route. It doesn’t seem to be being used like that but have I completely misunderstood the original intention?

aaronthomas1a If attempting to cancel or shut down things or people you don't like is how you go about things you’re going to find life a massive disappointment.

 

I think I'll pick up this pack, adding a bit more freight will always be good for bringing routes to life.

Hopefully new routes will then also add these in as AI layers, along with volumes 2, 3 etc, much like how Blackpool Branches found a way to use pretty much every era appropriate DLC as a layer.

I do, though, agree with the sentiments about 'yet another EWS 66', but maybe if these wagon packs prove popular enough it will encourage someone to release a new freight loco.

 

The whole reason why the pack needs to include a loco is because it isn't tied to any specific route. If it was tied to a route, it could simply use whatever freight loco was included with that route. But it still needs to work if it's literally the only piece of DLC a player has installed, so it needs to include a loco.

 

You’re completely missing the point of what I’ve said. That is exactly what training centre was meant to be for, so things could be tied to that rather than other routes that people may not own. This thing of putting a million versions of the same loco in the game is a problem that Training Centre was meant to fix. Seemingly it hasn’t done anything of the sort.

 

Yeah, I do understand that. In fact, that's the whole point I was making. The wagon DLC includes formations using the wagons, and these formations need to contain a loco. There are two ways to make sure the player has the correct loco installed:

• tie the wagon pack to another piece of DLC. We don't want that, so that leaves the other option:
• include the loco in the pack

No it is not. Training center has successfully eliminated the requirement for loco DLCs to be tied to a specific route. That's all that it was ever supposed to achieve, and it has done that -- as evidenced by this wagon pack, in fact.

 

This has been going on since early Train Sim Classic days.... basicly every german route known to man includes the class 294. I have that loco about 30 times on my computer in different route folders. If you played Train Sim Classic in the past, you will know alot of these problems and that they are all very old. I really hoped they would overcome all this stuff in a new game.... but they failed.

 

The title of the thread still represents my thoughts, but I'll take your feedback and change it to 'questionable' which should be better.

 

how many new waggons are actually included in this pack?

 

Hiya,
There are 3 different physical models (Long walkway, Short walkway, and ex-Freightliner which has a multitude of differences) and 5 different colours represented (sampled from real examples).

• Black (Short and Long)
• Blue (Short and Long)
• Grey (Short and Long)
• Green (ex-FL)
• Red (Long only)

For scenario planner there are formations of 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24 wagon lengths for each colour, each with a loaded and empty version. That makes a total 50 formations.

 

Good variety. Anyway to get the variants to randomly sub in?

Also, any chance of changing the 66 to a different livery? Just anything that isnt ews red.

 

Everything is locked and loaded for final checks to ensure 12th December release is on track.

As the different flows focused on different commodities in the tankers and were operated by different FOCs, it would be unrealistic to find for example a red Murco tanker amongst a train of blue Styrene tankers. So to that end substitution is not enabled.

Support for Formation Designer has been built into the pack though with single and blocks of 5 tankers for each variant available to build with when the feature becomes available.

 

Mods do work and are working

 

I am looking forward to the pack. But would have loved to see another new type of UK.fre8gh loco included. But am aware that making a brand new loco takes a fair bit of time to do. So understand why then66 was reused. Hopefully these formations include the option of player liveries to substitute in from time to time. I like the idea of the Cargo lines pack . Looking forwardnto.see what else is in the pipe line. So to speak.

Hentis

 

Are you allowed to announce the price of the pack yet?

 

Some mods, not all

 

This thread is far from pointless. Just because you have a different opinion about this doesn't mean it should be locked. It is actually quite common for people to either recommend or not recommend something but you don't have to agree. Perhaps it could've been worded better but the op does have a point about the dlc and isn't alone in his view

 

But the training center was designed specifically to solve the problem of loco dlc's being tied to a route. I don't get how this still is an issue

 

Another golden opportunity to finally add another modern UK freight loco passed up, are we going to have to run the 66 forever? It's about time somebody did something about this crazy situation, loads of modern German and US freight locos and just the one UK one. Add a new UK freight loco then I will buy cargo packs, don't and I won't.

 

No new UK diesel loco.

No UK electric loco.

Most 2nd Gen UK DMUs can't even couple to each other (142, 150, 158)

RHTT has been pretty much only freight DLC if that even counts..

The amount of EMU commuter routes that where produced has some way caused this drought.....

 

Unless I'm an mistaken one of the big issues for me is that, in TSW4, we don't even have a formation that couples the CL66 with the TEA tankers. They seem to be ships that forever pass in the night. (Hopefully someone will prove me wrong on this one).

Then, from a gameplay point of view, you can't seem to add a community livery to a full tanker (only empty ones) in Scenario Editor and, also, none of the community TEA liveries show up in Free Roam anyway. Then you have BPO using a completely different model in-game so liveries etc aren't transferable.

From a creation point of view, everything seems to be much harder than it should be.

 

This is being fixed for the 142 and 158. It seems that JT and Skyhook are working together on this, and some small adjustments are all that's needed to make the 158 compatible; those will apparently come in the upcoming MML patch.

Rivet's 150 uses a completely incompatible coupling system, which seems to be typical for Rivet's approach to development, as their implementation of neutral sections on Edinburgh-Glasgow is incompatible with the one on the ECML route.

Incidentally, I wouldn't normally expect a "wagon pack" to come with a locomotive at all. The whole point of a "wagon pack" is that it should work with the locos you already have. I would also respectfully suggest that a new locomotive is of a completely different order of engineering effort to set up, physics-wise, than a wagon. If someone wants to make a new locomotive, that would be a project in itself, not merely something to "throw in" with a set of wagons.

I also took the trouble to look over the existing TEA wagon in-game. It's a very basic and low-fidelity model. The textures are rough, the markings showing where the handbrake wheel is don't match where the handbrake wheel actually is, and there is no way to configure or reset the brake valves. These are all things that a new version of the TEA could improve on. That's a long way from being "pointless".

 

I have a feeling that the upcoming Formation Designer will go some way towards improving that.

 

Oh it undoubtably will. In fact it will literally be a game-changer.....especially for Scenario Creators.
I'm just baffled as to why we have so many versions of the CL66 in-game yet, whenever a new one has been developed, no one has thought "shall we make a formation for it with the TEA tankers?". (or the Turbots etc).
Having played with the Editor I know it only takes seconds and, had it been done, we would now have more community liveries for the TEAs.

 

There's actually a really good reason why not the Turbots (YCV), specifically. They're vacuum braked, and the 66 only has air brakes. So you can use Turbots with a 37 or a 31, but not a 66.

Yet another Rivet screwup is with the Seacow (YGB). According to the TOPS code, it should be dual braked, but it only has air brakes modelled. So you can't use the Turbot and Seacow in the same train.

 

In the run in to Christmas when people have steam vouchers and Xmas money to spend, releasing a wagon pack and that's your lot seems a bit lacklustre and the reception to this shows. In comparison in the model world new 158s in N gauge coming out and various retooled locos and coaches. TSW needs to stop the excuses that locos are hard to develop because that's what the people want....

 

These are the type of freight wagons I want to see appearing in TSW in the not too distant future. Will look lovely being hauled by a 40 thundering through Preston

 

Respectfully suggest that Skyhook - who have been developing this wagon pack - have been spending much of their development effort on fixing MML. That's what people want, right? Bugs fixed before new features.

Meanwhile, DTG have been working on… Maintalbahn. And then there's whatever Rivet have been doing. Oh dear.

On the upside, though, JT's Blackpool route is definitely worthwhile. They even managed to layer in a lot of the old era-appropriate stuff from TVL and NTP. So there's your stocking stuffer, if you're looking for one.

 

There is a ton of variety of the seacows. The air braked version of rivet is matching the wagon numbers.
There has been definetly the air braked and vacuum piped versions. Also air braked only like in tsw.

For me only the brakes are too strong, they brake like full aplication in the initial step.

 

While I don't check the individual wagon numbers, it is true that they came in different braking arrangements. These are distinguished by the TOPS wagon code (CARKND):

While Rivet may have given their Seacows the numbers of YGAs, the code on the label - a much easier feature to observe - is YGB, which should have a vacuum pipe (not connected to an actual brake cylinder on the wagon). If they did, it would be possible to couple Turbots (YCV) in the same train, further from the locomotive, and still have continuous automatic braking throughout.

 

I think this is likely due to console platform policy of DLC for DLC not being permitted (don't ask me where I saw reference to that policy, I have no idea, might have been these forums), thus a requirement to have it work in all versions of the base game was required, and you can't use wagons without a loco

 

Exhibit A!

 

How much will it cost?

 

One cable snap away from deleting a neighbourhood

 

That applied to Loco DLC (e.g. Class 700), so they could be used freely, without having to own the original route.
It doesn't apply to Gameplay Packs, because you can't sell services and scenarios without the trains that run them. Not everyone will have a 66*

*This ignores the TTC 66, as it's not an authentic one.

Every DLC in TSW, so far, has included a locomotive/multiple unit (on top of whatever wagons/coaches) for this exact reason. Services don't work without the trains.
The only DLC that are outwith this rule are livery packs - because they require an existing DLC anyway.

 

This whole issue could have been avoided if content would be handled properly and with shared asset libraries.

A DLC should not be all in a single .pak file, but instead in separate ones for the route, scenery items and rolling stock. And routes could used common, shared asset packs - similarly to how TSC did it with the original locomotive and asset packs.

For example you buy route A, then you get: routeA.pak, ukScenery.pak, class66.pak, class166.pak.
Then you buy route B, you would get: routeB.pak, ukScenery.pak, class66.pak.
In this case, ukScenery.pak and class66.pak is a common shared library, you would get them by using any of the routes. If you have both routes, then these common packs would only be downloaded once.

With a system like this, all UK routes could use a shared .pak for the Class 66, and this freight car add-on could also use it. So if you already have an UK route, you would only download .teaFreight.pak - if you don't, then you would download class66.pak also.

At the end, all routes would use the same Class 66 (unless a new livery is needed), so no need to bundle another pointless copy paste of it into a freight car bundle.

If DTG so insists on annual re-release re-release, then they should really consider doing this the proper was at some point. Use shared asset libraries, because that's how programming is supposed to work! You would save disk space, probably performance as well and things would just work better.

 

That's a lot to unpak

 

Everyone that own’s TSW4 should own the 66, it comes with ECML.

 

There are TSW4 regional packs that don't include ECML, and the pack will need to work in future versions of the game that don't have ECML.

 

Regional Packs. Whilst I would presume that anyone interested enough in UK Content to own MML/GWE and be interested in Cargo Line would probably have bought ECML, it's not guaranteed.

 

Putting aside the arrangement on the end user device, it must also be considered that the delivery platforms (Sony, Microsoft, Epic) do not permit two products to share files. Route 1 contains File A, B and C. Route 2 contains File D, E and wants to provide File A. The infrastructure literally cant cope with that. It sees File A over there with Route 1. It can't form part of Route 2 as well. Computer says no.
You can't go to the likes of Sony, Microsoft and Epic and get them to change a system that manages and delivers billions of games.

Ironically, it is possible to do this on Steam, but only because the level of access Steam gives to developers allows them to setup 'hidden' files. So you have Route 1 with File B and C, Route 2 with File D and E, and Route X with File A. You then setup permissions that when someone buys Route 1 or 2, they get granted Route X for free in the background. However, that gets really complicated very quickly, and takes too much to manage safely.

It also still comes back to, if you want to fix a bug in File A that occurs in Route 10, you have to test nothing has been damaged in Routes 1 to 9 as well. Boom, the economics of fixing that bug are outweighed by the potential damage it could do to 90% of your content.

Shared files just don't work on so many levels.

 

I’d guess this was something that needed to be built in to the game from day 1. At this point it looks all but impossible, and I’d imagine it sucks as much for developers as it does for players.

It’s bad enough now, what the heck will it be like in 3 or 4 years time? The only way to get round it is…wait for it…stop using the 66 and make another freight loco (hint, hint)

 

I find that very hard to believe, considering shared code and asset libraries are the basics of modern and efficient software development.

By your logic, the whole "buying TSW2 addon gives you access to the TSW3 and TSW4 version of the same addon" would not work either.

Could we stop making excuses for game studios' incompteneces? If done correctly from the start, many current issues of TSW could have been avoided in advance.

 

You are correct Dinosbacsi if that statement is taken out of context. The context it was made in was on the level of major game components like two routes sharing the same train or signalling system.

If you think about it, some aspects are already 100% relying on shared central components. The physics driving the vehicles is central and all individual trains are all linking back to it. Nearly all routes are referencing a central platform character set. So the system already is in place for aspects that it does work for.

The fact its not being used for the components being discussed here clearly shows that the same arrangement cannot be applied or it would be in use already.

 

DTG's own reasoning for doing it this way was that they can avoid situations where for example updating route A would somehow break things in route B. So they wanted to separate content from each other entirely on purpose, I don't remember them saying anything about it not being doable due to any limitations.

I do find this reasoning silly, because it just shows how little faith they have in their own quality control, and also, they keep breaking old content all the times anyway.

Of course, I don't know the details on how different online game stores work. But I highly doubt it would be impossible to do things the "ideal" way I described above, because what I described in my opinion is a pretty basic and the standard way of doing things.

 

I think the technical term in play is "brittle systems". Good software architects know how to build "robust systems" that are not brittle, ie. they don't break easily, but adapt to changes as they occur. Failures would then be the exception rather than the rule, and can be addressed as they arise.

 

Give us an invisible CL66 and we can recreate that in TSW4. (Just like in the good old MSTS days).

The more I think about Formation Manager the more I wonder whether the game is going to be overrun with thousands and thousands of formations many of which are going to be more or less the same as each other. I hope the system is "flexible" enough to cope with that.

 

If the price is right... I'll be purchasing this pack.

I hope that the VTG license allows further rolling stock packs to supplement some of the German routes too