One concern which made me think of since beginning to play TSW but suddenly brought up by the whole Thomas & Friends topic and its likely impact getting lots of new people (maybe even children) into the franchise, is how does a starter experience and play TSW for the first time? Indeed Train Sim World is a simulator, but having the average player in mind not being used to start up a train or handle the decent power and brake simulation, it requires a certain amount of will and interest to get into the mechanisms of driving a loco. In relation of the "Expert" mode to "Standard" mode of the Expert BR 101 and Cab car, what about an "Easy" one being a way to enhance accessibility for starters or average players. What would that include is just being able to get a loco moving forward and backwards/braking with the W and S key fore example and players don't need to worry about things like traction lock, releasing brakes before applying force or waiting for the brake parameters to establish a certain value. Some EMUs like the 442, which combine force and brake in one handle, already pretty much do it like that but much of the other locos do have separate force and brake handles, which don't allow you to do that as easily. Again, this is not meant for experienced persons and I don't want to suggest more one handle EMUs here as rather providing a help for the starters or occasional TSW player which only want to play the game like other simpler videogames.
well, the fact that you have pretty nice tutorials for basic operations (that rarely cover safety stuff and signalling), combined with the fact you can drive without safety systems (mostly) is a pretty much an easy mode... when I had started with TSW2, thats how I would play - play the tutorial for basic startup and starting/stopping/braking, and then just following speed limits on HUD and stop markers... and that was pretty much an easy mode when I started learning safety stuff, vigilance thingies and such shenanigans, well, that got standard/expert for me, an easy mode was just enjoying the ride itself, accelerating, braking, stopping and such basic stuff... beeping infernos came later lol
What’s needed is something similar to Run 8 with its quick start box which comes up if you click on the loco. Everything up and running in a few seconds, just need to jump in the cab, select direction release brakes and handbrake, throttle up and away. Also many jobs in TSW require a cab set up where in reality you would be taking over from the incoming driver with the desk and controls live ready just to close the doors and go.
