Deep Dive Into Possible 3rd Party Projects

So, we have a big list of new 3rd party developers. Let's see what they could be up to...

• Rivet Games
• Skyhook Games
• SimTrack
• Luminaries
• Alan Thomson Sim
• JustTrains
• RailTraction
• Train-Motion
• TrainSim Germany
• Union Workshop
• Ticket to the North
• Halycon Media
• RSSLO
• High Iron Simulation
• Athena Simulation
• Incredible Trains
• Travel by Train

Rivet Games

• Working on the Leven branch as free update for Fife Circle (released)
  
• Five Circle Line: Edinburgh - Markinch via Dunfermline & Kirkcaldy (released)
• Bernina Bahn (released)

Skyhook Games

• NEW: Cargo Line vol. 3 & vol. 4
• NEW: Class 158 Levenlink Livery DLC
  
• Scotrail Class 158 for Fife Circle and Edinburgh-Glasgow (released)
  
• Cargo Line Vol 2: Aggregates including the HOA Aggregate Wagon as well as adding new scenarios to both Midland Main Line and Great Western Express (released)

SimTrack

• Centro Regional Railways Class 323 (released)
• This is their Facebook-Page
  
• Now their next project is the BR Class 104 & Peak Forest Expansion Pack
• 
  
• German loco DLC.

Luminaries

• I have no idea. Probably a new studio, as i didn't find anything about them in the internet. An english name could hint a UK Studio? But that's not necessarily true - TSG is also an english name, but only focussed on germany. But it kinda gives me the vibe that Luminaries could be a developer who started developing when the editor released. So a community project going the offcial way?

ATS (Alan Thompson Simulation)

• WIP: Manchester Airport Commuter Route DLC
  
• ATS is a well-known UK-only studio for TSC.
• The Website
• ATS on Twitch

JustTrains

• WCML Preston - Carlisle with BR Class 87 announced (Released)
  
• Blackpool Branches (released)
• Class 86/2 (announced)

RailTraction

• Now that's an interesting one again. They released a good amout of freight waggons and EMUs for TSC. No route, if i see it correctly. Since german content lacks freight waggon variety, they're very welcome to do packs kinda like Skyhook does right now. I'd be happy to see new waggons!
• RT posted this pic on facebook showing Sgmmrs (?) waggons. So as expected they're working on freight waggons. It remains unclear how it will be layered into a route. Similar to Skyhooks freight pack I suspect a BR 185.2 will come with that pack as well.

TrainMotion

• TrainMotion is a TSC developer from Romania, doing romanian routes and locos.
• They also did czech, german and hungarian as well as croatian rolling stock which all look pretty nice.
• Check out their website!

tbc...

 

TrainSimGermany

• In Development
  • NEW: German Loco Pack DLC
    
  • BR 420 (according to Lukas we'll have a Frankfurt variant --> It will be a DLC for S-Bahn Frankfurt)
    
  • 
    
  • BR 232 (Beautiful big diesel loco, but I guess far away to be released)
  • 
    
  • IC Cab Car and BR 101 Expert DLC (released)
  • Mittenwaldbahn with ÖBB 1020 DLC (released)
    
  • BR 218 (released)
  • Niddertalbahn (released)
  • DB G6 (released)
• Check out TSG on Facebook!
• TSG is specialised on german locos, so more german stuff to be expected.

Union Workshop

• Developing Tadami Line: AizuWakamatsu – Tadami
• This is the first asian/japanese route in TSW!
• 
  
• It seems to be confirmed that their Loco will be a KiHa40 DMU!
  
• Judging by their DLCs for TSC, we can expect more routes from Japan and/or China!

Ticket to the North

• It looks like Ticket to the North is the person who develops the Husum-Tönning route with the editor.
• Check out his forums thread
• And a video of the route:
• Now we don't know for 100% yet, what the "offical" project is going to be, but chances are good that it is indeed the Humum-Tönning route! No confirmation, yet.
• It seems either german or danish content is to be expected by TttN!

Halycon Media

• This one came as a big surprise. Halycon mostly does Omsi-stuff. On their website they also have gameplay addons for TSC, but as far as i can tell they're just publishers of that, not doing it themselves.
• So I guess there is someone (or a few people) who develops something (maybe gameplay packs?) in the name of Halycon. Halycon then is the studio in contact with DTG and DTG publishes it. But no confirmation at all, yet.
• Check out Halycons Website!
• NEW: Halycon announced, that they're developing a german route, somewhere in southgermany! Nothing else is known, other than it will release in 2025!

RSSLO

• I know a lot of people have mixed feelings about RSSLO, but hear me out! Their older routes in TSC are indeed not very good. But their newer routes look fine to me. Also their new Desiro ML isn't too bad!
• We can expect a lot more austrian routes (I'm happy!) and even more eastern european stuff. RSSLO is from Slovenia. They also did a bit of Slovenia in TSC as well as a little bit of Italy (for expample Innsbruck-Brenner)
• Their base loco will probably be the Taurus, which came with Semmering.
• Check out their website!

High Iron Simulation

• New American 3rd Party
• Announced: Santa Fe Gameplay Pack for Cajon Pass
• Announced: New American route

Athena Sim

• NEW: Announced ECML Diesel Railtours Pack
• Their Forums Thread

Incredible Trains

• IT is a new 3rd party, announced on the novemver 24 roadmap. It's a one-man-studio by developer Johannes Hartmann.
• Mildmay Line (released)

NEW: Travel by Train

• New US third party!
• Nothing else is known, yet.

Conclusion (for now):
I'm happy that TSW is now so big. We started back then with Rivet doing the 204 all the years back as first 3rd party DLC, and now we're talking about Romania and Japan! The argument about the "big three" doesn't work anymore. Not even for DTG, who seem to include Austria now as a regular thing.

With RSSLO, Ticket to the North, Halycon, TSG and SimTrack, a lot of german and austrian routes and locos are to be expected.
With ATS, JT, SimTrack, Skyhook, Athena, Incredible Trains and Rivet a lot more of UK stuff is ahead of us.
And with Rivet, RSSLO, TrainMotion and possibly Luminaries, a lot of other countries like Switzerland, Romania, Slovenia, Italy etc. have good chances of a representation. I'm really excited, especially about future german and eastern european content!

I think the fact that Ticket to the North is now an offical 3rd party is going to motivate and inspire a lot of other modders who (I'm sure about that!) are good enough to also offcially join the 3rd party project!

And with High Iron Sim we have the first USA-dedicated 3rd party.

 

Thank you for your research. Glad to see several new third parties on board, and good to see they come from different countries too. Hopefully it'll give us more variety in future content. Who knows we might actually see one or more new countries represented in TSW too

 

It looks like the new influx of German/Austrian 3rd parties, may allow DTG to step back slightly
and concentrate on purely UK and US content.

As I've said on previous posts, I could see the need in the not too distant future to upgrade all previous DLCs to TOD4. Including revision of the loco models and associated effects to recent BPO levels, and then include layers from all the DLCs that are available.

Next few years could see a big leap in output for TSW.

 

It’s good to see a lot of 3rd parties working on TSW now, the future in terms of content output and variety is bright.

Although, I’m surprised to learn that the reception to RSSLO’s work seems to be quite poor, I was under the impression them & TSG were the best when it game to German and/or Austrian content.

 

Great summary and overview! The future is looking great.

 

RSSLO's work is best described as "workmanlike", in my opinion. They have released a lot of addons in a short space of time. They've built pretty much the entire Austrian main line network by now. Merge it all together and you could drive from Lake Konstanz to Wien and on to the Hungarian border. The addons are solid and they don't make big mistakes like broken track or signals. However the amount of effort and care put into scenery and custom assets is not up to TSG or VirtualTracks standards. I don't think anyone could do so and also maintain a release schedule as busy as RSSLO.

As for the rest, I'm really interested to see what TrainMotion come up with. It would be great to have some Romanian or Czech content in TSW.

 

I don't think this is going to happen. There are people at DTG working who are specialised for german content. German routes sell very well. There's a huuuuge demand when it comes to german routes. So there's no reason for DTG to step back. It just doesn't make sense.

 

Very cool table you did here. Since I'm relatively new to TSW, I didn't know many of these "well-known" third party creators before. It was nice that you kind of "introduced" me to them.

I would like to throw my two cents in after the first few answers have been given.

Now, I see 2 issues with this mindset.

1.
The public Editor that DTG gave us with the TSW4 release is still a Beta and many functionality is either missing or very complicated because it either crashes the Editor or workaorunds are stressful. Plus creating good material is not that easy when you don't have any help from the developer, anymore. In fact, the last masterclass video where they really gave us help dates back to the 12th of October 2023, exactly 4 months ago today.

Since this point, there were no masterclasses, written tutorials in the PC Editor forum or any other help from the developers with replies to our problems and questions provided anymore. All what we can rely on if we have a problem is other users who gained experience with it.

This is not ideal.

And I explained my critic on that point to DTG in the Q&A thread for the February Roadmap tomorrow.

2.
I thought about that topic very often, but releasing content with DTG is maybe not the thing everybody wants. Yes, indeed I also thought how charming and cool it could be if DTG would decide to take their hands on my project and make it available with that also for console players, plus maybe having a bit of a financial benefit of it as a nice side effect.

However, after thinking about it more and more, it also has some downsides.

For example, a major issue I think of is the case people would have countless bugs with the route after release. I don't know how that issue a developer team of multiple people is going to solve, but in case of a single person project, that would mean a lot of pressure and stress a.k.a. sleepless nights and exhausted days trying to fix these issues.

On the other hand, releasing a project for free does not give me that pressure on it.

Another thing is DTG probably has a word in what actually is provided in the end result and what not, which might not be the thing you want as a creator.

In the end, providing a route for free and maybe set it up as donationware with a link to the respective Paypal account to support the creator, does free you from all of that and you still could earn a few dollars with it.



To summarize, releasing the projects with DTG can be pleasant but it also have a few things which could turn out to be big problems attached.

Anyways, I would wish that DTG would help us more in the future to bring new content into the game. The improvements to the PC Editor seem to have been wiped off the TSW4 Roadmap which is not a good sign for me and many other creators who put trust into this tool and developer.

There are a lot of people which would love to create content for the game, but Dovetail Games should have an interest to support them, too. If DTG wants to get people into the Third Party Partner programme, they also should do something from their side of the game (no pun intended).

At this moment in time, this is not provided sufficiently IMHO as we are literally left alone by them now since a 1/3 year already and now with the improvements to the Editor wiped off the roadmap does not seem to get better soon.

 

I did some research - could this be Luminaries? If yes, we then know they're UK based:

 

I totally agree with all you said before! And yes, if you feel like this is the way to go for you, this is perfectly fine!

Also if you take SAD Railsim's "Im Köblitzer Bergland" route for TSC in count: They first released this for free as a passion project. But then they reworked it so much, that they made the third version of it as payware (while the freeware version is still available). And that route is maybe one of the most scenic routes in TSC, though it's completely fictional.

 

You're really a detective, aren't you?

This could be them. But I wonder why their company name includes "Marketing" while the business description rather says "software development". The word "marketing" in their company name assumes rather likely a software publisher to me than an actual developer.

Hmm, maybe as you said in your video, an english publisher for a private person's project? But if it is so, it also technically could be a german or austrian project released through an english publisher then.

 

I also would like to add a detail shown on the roadmap sheet.

It says
"New Content and Partner Programme Releases will be added consistently to the Roadmap over the coming months."

With attention to "will" (and not "may" or "can") suggests to me that they already in cooperation with more partners, but these partners either do not want to be named yet or their progress is not finished enough to tease it.

So you probably have to refresh this thread in a month already when the March roadmap comes out.

(EDIT: I just realized this was a dumb post because the projects of the forementioned third party partners are not mentioned in this sheet yet.)

 

Well, doing research is basically my job irl
But I could be very wrong. Maybe it's a coincidence. But the "software development" title as well as the incorporation date are fitting. Let's see. I wasn't able to find more info, yet. But that's fine. Sometimes surprises are a nice thing

This could just mean the 3rd party studios that we know about. Like ATS or RSSLO. But who knows? Maybe there is more going on behind the scenes. I'm sure DTG is constantly in talk with new 3rd party studios. At the end, it's up to them to contact DTG about it and not the other way around. I'm just very excited that we're in for a lot more central and eastern european routes!

South and West Europe are kinda underrepresented with only DTG doing the LGV and Rivet going for the first time over the italian border. I hope, there's more coming from France and Italy in future

 

It's just a general statement. New content is constantly added. Partner programs are also adding content

 

Yeah, I've edited the post being dumb. In fact, I wrote it while waiting on the dentist and couldn't do enough research at that moment in time.

But I could do so a bit now, and the interesting thing is that this statement seems to be added to the roadmap for the first time in the December Roadmap, in the November roadmap sheet it wasn't there.

So maybe let me place the theory that since November/December maybe DTG is actively engaged to bring more third party creators in, because in the Roadmap sheets before (October, September, August) this sentence was not present.

Here the November roadmap sheet and there this was not mentioned:

 

Not sure if Matt said a "leak"(probably just me going crazy), but 40 minutes ago he said a third party could bring knowledge of romania, so it maybe is an indication of train-motions addon...

 

It is very exciting to see all these new developers getting involved. Before TSW I was only really interested in UK railways but now love the content we have from other countries, I can't wait to add more to the list. It is shame that there seems to be a lack of American third party developers.

 

Theres been talks, but no one official.

DTM toyed with the editor when it 1st came out but nothing since.
HIS stated they may have plans, but nothing solid.
Reppo has made posts asking for some help in the editor part of this forum, but nothing official.

 

Okay, hopefully they might get on board. If TSW expands its market with these new third party developers and gets more popular, I assume it is more incentive for others to join in.

 

Of those 3, there is only one I wanna see in TSW. The other 2 are, a bit controversial in TSC.....

 

Well cuz the 3rd party dev focuses on that area but there's nothing to share. They are brand new to tsw so have a ton of learning to do

 

I mean that's not really surprising, isn't it? But it's kinda nice to know that TM seems to actually focus on a romanian route. But he also said it in the context of 3rd partys from different countries bringing different knowledge with them,

 

It's former Skyhook's Jane Whittaker's new company.

 

How do you know that?

 

According to this post, it's pretty safe to say that UW works on a KiHa40 for their Tadami-Line
I've added that to the original post!

 

They can use their TSC model, it's on par with TSW already. Just needs reassigning UE material properties and Simugraph setup.

UK Company Register, no secret.

 

RailTraction posted this screenshot on facebook. Could this be their first TSW related release? Or is it TSC? We don't know for sure.



Edit: It's for TSC.

 

For me the most important things are variety and quality, if other routes aside than the big 3 can be done then that is good for the game and the future. I think the big 3 were restricted by the lack of 3rd party devs to begin with, but that is changing and long may it continue. I truly hope the game can encompass the world like TSC has.
I also believe we need more variety in the big 3 too, by that I mean livery variation.

 

, era, location and traction

 

I agree, variation is something I'd love to see. Although DTG did a few routes that really had a different vibe from their usual stuff, it's mainly third parties that add variation. I think Rivet did a good job at adding variation too, despite their add-ons having their flaws, they do add something different from the usual stuff.

 

I just hope that some 3rd party devs have the courage to do more retro stuff as well, we have an awful lot of modern stuff in TSW4 and a lot of the releases are getting kind of samey; modern sleek nosed EMU/DMU’s that all look to have come from the same blueprint, and not very long linear routes that go from A to B. Trains have been around a hell of a long time and many of the older ones just have more character. TSC does this better.

 

We had JT do a BR Blue route after we were told "BR Blue doesn't sell well", hopefully other third parties will follow suit (same for anything DTG claims doesn't sell).

 

The decision should rest with the 3rd party devs rather than DTG, after all it’s their baby and their profit margin at the end of the day. Certainly Blackpool was a success. Let’s hope others follow suit.

 

Was it? I mean, it was well-received by the community, but did they sell enough copies to make it a commercial success?

 

We don't know. Nobody here has any numbers about that. So that's at the end just specualtive.

 

Btw this turned out to be for TSC!

 

I sincerely hope they did, surely enough real train enthusiasts play this game to compensate for the speed freaks who are only interested in getting from A to B as fast as poss.
It is head and shoulders above all other routes imo.

 

That's what RailTraction posted yesterday on Facebook which is very interesting if you look at the sentence: "we also invest time in TSW, we prepared all our latest addons for Unreal Engine".

So let's see what their "latest addons" are:

• Two days ago they published the Sgmmns1 waggon for TSC - fit's on basically every german TSW route
  
• 
• In January they released a FLIRT 1 EMU, which fits very well on a modern timetable for RSN
• 
• In November 23, they released these awesome Tanktainers:
• 

So... some of that might follow in TSW. But as they said - follwing the DTG channels is the way, because when it comes to TSW, the communication goes via DTG, which imo is fine, because everyone get's the same info.

 

Oh hello again, Railtraction! That's an interesting hint:

 

In my opinion RailTraction will become the "official supplier" of rolling stock for TSW, at least as far as European rolling stock is concerned. I would love to see Tanktainers in the game! We still lack the right variety.

 

RSSLO shared this project - the Voith Maxima! BUT: As normally all the communication on TSW goes via DTG, it's probably just for TSC.



But even it's for TSC, it could hint a future TSW release.
Also - when it comes to 3rd partys, in a lot of cases the 3rd partys give the first hint. E.g. i remeber Rivets first IoW screenshot. It was shared by Rivet, not DTG. So...minimal chances this might indeed be for TSW. Don't have too much hope, tho.

Edit: It's confirmed to be for TSC!

 

Pretty sure it's the Voith Maxima and not the Stadler Eurodual

 

BR 420 (TSG) News:

Maik said this about the 420 which is very interesting because:

1. It's not abandoned, as some suggested here.
2. At least two variants of the 420 will come with this DLC.
3. One of these variants will be the Munich 420 with LZB.
4. As the Munich 420 will only be additional...
a) Munich will not be the Main DLC home anymore.
b) Munich won't have a TOD 4 Upgrade and a new timetable.
c) another 420 version will be the main focus.

So this implicates that it'll come either for a route we already have --> SKA is the only nearly realistic candidate, but also suffers from the need of a TOD 4 upgrade.
Or: It will come as loco DLC for a new route we don't know about.

Possible: A new Munich route, but rather unlikely as we had 2 southern route in a row.
Or a new route around Cologne.
A new route around Stuttgart, but I also doubt that as we still can't access LIDAR of the state.
Or a new route around Frankfurt. Which is possible, but still the issues need to be adressed how Gen 8 consoles can handle Frankfurt.

So judging by his words that the Munich 420 will only be a nice little addition but not the main product, a new munich route is out of the race.
Leaves us a new Frankfurt route or a new Cologne route (or did a forget another place where the 420 ran?)

Something exciting is coming.

 

Maybe it could be a loco or dlc for Pilot21's route around Frankfurt, but if I'm correct, their 420's have LZB. I think that this route might be an official dlc, as we haven't heared anything about it in a while.

 

I've updated the first post, so it reflects the newest development.

 

I really hope now that with so much German content coming from partners that DTG concentrate more on UK content, I think it’s a bit of a joke that after 5 years the first London Overground route has finally appeared, and even then it’s only 13 miles. There is a huge wealth of variety to be done in the UK with the railways currently being privatised.
Asian and East European content is very welcome, currently the feature of Trainz22 and it fun.

 

It does make sense if they want to keep releases balanced and not just overwhelm with just German trains and routes. Also DTG is a British studio and owners of the franchise, it is much easier for them to do UK routes with regards access, recording etc.
There is so much that hasn’t been covered in the UK yet and the variety here is so much more than basically what amounts to trains that all look the same in Germany. TSG do German routes VERY well, I think German players should understand more that this is a UK based game and so why shouldn’t DTG do more UK stuff?
UK stuff sells very well too and as you can see from this forum is very popular with frequent requests for routes and trains. Please see the view from our side as well.

 

The forum is English-speaking, which naturally biases it towards Anglosphere (US, UK, etc.) countries.
Access isn't strictly easier for Dovetail as it depends on the license agreements and it's 2024 - international travel isn't really that difficult.

There is no reason for Dovetail to turn their attention to "balancing" the release schedule by focusing on the UK - Especially when Rivet, Skyhook, JT, Alan Thomson, SimTrak and probably a couple of others, have produced or will produce UK content.

Only Skyhook (once) and TSG have made German content.

Yes, there are more EU-oriented 3rd parties coming, but some are community groups, and it's likely that none are anywhere near release.

"Seeing the view from our side" only translates to "please see why I should get more than you".

 

That's not true at all, DTG just hasn't had much luck getting licenses from German operators that aren't DB. The railway in Germany is every bit as colourful as it is the UK.