Steaming this idea after this thread... https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/us-freight-needs-complete-overhaul.57906/ Essentially, there needs to be a way to make these North American Consists much more realistic in terms of consist formations and colors, it would also tone down on the reuse of the same car for multiple routes. So what's my suggestion? Well here is how and why I would do it..... 1. The base model of each car should be part of the base game So there is two reasons for this. 1, this would make it so we don't have multiple models with the same paint scheme over multiple routes. The biggest offender of this is the tank car, which has reappeared across 5 routes in TSW2 and is reused again for Cajon Pass. So there is 6 versions of the SAME car. Since the liveries are the same across all 6 routes, it would be nice just to have 1 base model for this car. It would also be an incentive for DTG to introduce other type of tanks cars too. This would also be beneficial for livery editor, since all the liveries would be set for 1 car, not spread across 6. 2. New liveries for each rolling stock would be added in with each new DLC. With rolling stock being reused for a good chuck of routes, it means we get multiple liveries of the same car across different route. It would also mean adding a new paint scheme for a new route would be just a simple reskin, which would make subbing them in easier, since you are only subbing the skin of the car, and not the car itself (Similar to the livery editor). EXAMPLE With all the rolling stock we have across TSW between DTG and SHG, this is what a pooled system would look like.... BASE CAR -Livery For car 2-Bay Aggregate Hopper -DTGX 3-Bay Ribbed Covered Hopper -NS -UP 3-Bay Covered Hopper (5201) -BNSF -CN -CSX -DTGX 30,500gal Tank Car -DTGX 50ft Plate C Boxcar -CSX -NS 60ft Plate F Boxcar -BNSF -DTGX -UP 64ft Reefer Car -UP 73ft Centerbeam -DTGX 85ft Flatcar -DTGX 89ft Autorack -CN -CSX -UP BethgonII Coal Gondola -CSX -NS -UP Bulkhead Flatcar -DTGX Maxi IV -BNSF 56ft Husky Stack -DTGX With all the cars here, each one would be available to spawn into a route where the car is already designated to a consist. For example, if a manifest on Sherman Hill had 10 50ft Boxcars on it, any of the paint schemes for that Boxcar would spawn in place for that car. Another example would be an autorack train, which would be only made up of Autoracks, but any livery that already exists in game could be spawned onto that train. EXCEPTIONS So there would be a few exceptions to this rule, mainly Coal Trains, as most of those are usually unit trains with only the railroad or leasing companies hoppers in their consist. In conclusion, if DTG found a way to have a pooling system for freight cars, it would be a good stop gate to help increase the variety of cars that appear in a consist without having to fix the freight car substitution of Oakville, and would hep with trains such as Autorack trains to have a more realistic feeling. It would also clean up the livery editor so we don't have multiple copies of the same car....
