I like night services. I don’t do them often but they are a nice change of pace. Depends on the route but some have very different experiences service wise day or night. IE Preston Blackpool with night time shunting, or the freight that comes out at night on some of the German routes. Also if you want to see the cool sunrise from start to finish you need to at least start in darkness.
Yeah I remember when TSW3 first came out with the new weather effects running a night time freight on one of the German routes in the rain/thunder and it was a pretty chill/calming experience with the sound of the rain.
Yeah seriously, most games have gamma/brightness setup screen literally the first thing you get before the intro of the game. It’s only common sense when so many people have different hardware and panels even vary from the same manufacturer. It’s wild that we are going into the 5th iteration of this game and the only way to fine tune gamma and brightness is using the physical settings on the TV/monitor.
The Thameslink service on SEHS that starts at 0340 is a favourite of mine. 3 hours back and forth on the route, and you get to see it come to life, especially better in the winter months.
I have noticed with the tod4 lighting, if I force the game to run hdr it does brighten things up a bit at night. On my old display I couldn't see anything at night! So i will agree with previous posts that's it depends on your hardware. And why there is still no option to adjust brightness, gamma etc is astonishing. This is a basic function that can be found in the settings of any other game.
I doubt the "realism" of night drives that don't let you see more than 50 feet. I know in real life the lights show farther than that (even the lamp on a steam engine) and if you can't do the run without the artificial HUD, that's not realistic. Not that you HAVE to mind you, just that in real life the train driver would have to be able to navigate by eyes and see dangers on the tracks with eyes... so that's DANGEROUS AS HELL. You are literally moving at maybe 100km/h totally blind praying nothing bad happens. That's the role play bit. Then there's the fact that looking at nothing but a black screen is boring.... It's not "skill" either. Now I GET that it may be "realistic" to run cargo at night, especially in Germany where it's less busy. I get that some routes don't have the best lighting. However, for the scenarios/journey missions those are programmed specifically to get that environment. They aren't just in there to fill out the timetable. They CHOSE to have you drive around blind for "practice." What are you practicing? Praying you don't hit something? I tend to not run them...with the exception of more modern routes like Niddertalbahn or Cajon Pass that have some nice night lighting from buildings and even moonlight. You can actually SEE something. Even the rural areas have enough contrast from ambient starlight to see enough to know where you are and make out landmarks. So it's not that it CAN'T be improved.... some routes DO have it improved....it just isn't in many cases.
Headlights on a train are meant for others to see the train, not for the driver to see very far down the track especially if they are going at any kind of speed. Seeing signals is what's important.
Yes this is the best part about the early morning starts. If you can stay on the route for a few hours, you start off with everything parked. platforms empty, etc... then as time passes and the sun rises everything starts to come to life. I did that yesterday on Preston, starting with a Blackpool shunter in the dark, then as the sun rose, taking the empty newspaper train up to Preston and waiting around for commuters to start. The beauty of timetable mode is how it flows throughout the day. I love staying in the world if I have the time, instead of starting fresh services from the menu. Sometimes even when I take a break from playing I just get off at a station and leave the game running so when I come back to it later its like the "day" never stopped.
This is what I do. I play time table mode. I look at my home time which ever time it is in my home I set that up to TSW. Then go from there.
Yes and no. They ARE for other trains to see... but they are ALSO to see what is coming. Like cars and trucks. Granted, it's much harder to stop a train than a car or even a semi truck. However, the lights themselves are (on modern locos) as bright or brighter than those on automobiles. You can judge for yourself whether that's reflected in game accurately or not. Regardless, the amount of ambient and asset lighting is usually underrepresented on many routes. It could just be a need for upgrades to TOD 4, Although Dresden Nahverkehr a few nights ago was still REALLY DARK at 1:30 in the morning. Even in the urban areas.
Hmmmm I wonder if that's why the Class 66 lights are pretty decent... it's partially based on US equipment. I have to say that while it takes a lot of flak, the 66 is a decent worker. It fits on a lot of routes too. I'd like to see it on some of those German routes, even though they didn't have as many on the continent as in the UK.
On this topic I just got Semmeringbahn and I have to say that I am very pleased by how it looks in a rainy evening.
Goblin line Good SEHS Good GWE So so MML Poor London commuter Good Only routes I've run a night time table on so far. I do enjoy em , when you can see enough, rather than looking into your Nan's coal cellar.
London commuter you can see but that night lightning is tod2 which is not a good representation of night lighting
As everybody all of a sudden seems to like night services it's clearly a bad idea to remove them But what if .. The time and day of the service is mentioned in the description in journey. My biggest gripe with the journey mode is that you only notice it is a night service when you start the service. I would also add icons showing if it is daylight, twilight or night. I won't be able to complete the journey's but that way I can't be tricked in opening the same night service every time I think there are still services to be completed.
I agree it would be nice, but I also get it why they don't. Journey mode is meant to be more of a walkthrough/challenge mode, often with next chapters locked behind beating the whole things. Literally every service and scenario available in the Journey mode is available in the timetable, so if you want to run only something specific - you can just avoid Journey altogether and lose nothing.
But journey mode is more to me to see what the route has to offer like the introduction to a route. I use timetables when I get a good sense of what I can expect of a service.
Yes, and it's assumed that a part of a proper introduction is showing everything a route has, including what it looks like at night.
Assumed yes but not appreciated by me. If you stare into blackness for an hour and you finally reached the end station and click continue and next up you shout in dramatic fashion "No! No! Not this again!" than you screwed up your introduction.
The time is included in the timetable screen. On the right hand side there is the time of day and the estimated time to completion..... By which you can see that on UK/German maps over 90% of the freight is at night. That might be accurate for those countries. I know that's not the case here in the States. Freight runs around the clock. *shrugs* Just does present a challenge and require a lot of playing outside the timetable to really get a good view of the route.
I was suggesting to add that information also to journey mode like in timetables. I know how timetables work. I don't have any trouble picking day services in timetable mode.
Ah well, that's part of the "challenge" you see. Because DTG is all about the "challenge." Because sitting for long periods at a red light in the rain in the pitch dark is "fun."
Make new players complete a forced nighttime tutorial that lasts 2 hours and 5 minutes, to screw them out of a Steam refund before they see all the visual game bugs.
Thought of this thread last night, did an Antelope Valley service that started as the sun was going down and ended up in the dark for the second half to Lancaster. It was fun! Night lighting is actually ok on the route and it had a relaxing feel to it.
So, I think for me, it depends on the route and how well the night lighting is on that route. Also, depends on the country and the systems too. For British and American routes, I find it very difficult even during daytime, to predict an upcoming station. So while driving at night, I can't see as far ahead and not noticing the scenery around me as much, so I find it difficult to find the station in time. (also, I almost exclusively drive HUD-less) Though at least Peninsula Corridor has both very bright nightlighting (though unrealistically bright) and also markers showing the upcoming station 1 mile ahead. I play mostly German routes, and their signalling regarding speed and upcoming speed reductions is a lot clearer, though the difficulty finding the station in time still persists. So I usually only do night services for routes I "know" properly. I am excited for the upcoming Dutch route though also in part, among other reasons, for the night driving. Dutch signalling is speed based and very clear at all times and upcoming stations are also properly announced by roadside signs, so it should be doable at night and not leave you in the dark (ba-dum-tss).
Some hints for approaching stations in Germany: Stops usually have a Ne 6 board on braking distance before the stop. Stations can be often recognized by small specifics on signals - they will often have Zs 3 boards for displaying speed restrictions. You can also watch the signalling on opposite track, as modern stations will have some sort of guarding signal on opposite track as well. So if you have distant signals on both tracks on same place (and subsequent main signal too), it usually is an entrance signal for station. Where the opposite track is not fully equipped with signalling, you often find a standalone Ne 2 board on the opposite track at the same position where distant signal is on your regular track. In this case you will often see a small "shunting"-like signal on the left track at the same position where main signal is on your track - also a sign that this place is an entrance to a station. In reality, aside of track knowledge, drivers orientate thanks to the large hectometer signs that tell you your position, and compare it to the book timetable that lists stations and other points of interest. You can grab those in my signature for many of the routes
I had a slightly cloudy morning service turning into a thunderstorm. at those points the lighting does look nice But the full sun services. and that is already with 40% exposure to compensate. it just feels so damn blinding. I did wonder. since when are the EN services on VBG fixed? I remember a door issue on those for a long time (for those thinking, hey! those trains aren't in the game. the first to are on the BRO timetable mod and the NJ coaches are from hannah's amazing timetable replacements.) But hey. for the amazing weather I'll play derail valley B99 in october again. hoping my GPU will be returned by then. The expert 101's lights are great on those pitch black TOD4 routes though. gotta say I really love that.
Yeah. They can be pretty chill. I did a nice evening foggy run with the sun setting and it was really nice. Felt cozy lol.
