Hey Guys & Girls, There has been a lot of interest in DTG doing new underground routes from District to Metropolitian. This has not gone unnoticed by DTG, when Matt was doing his chairty live stream on the weekend he did mention about all the interest in getting another underground route, but he did spill the beans on how the Bakerloo was created and things didn't go well. Light baking on the Bakerloo was a nightmare with all those tunnels involved and because of that and many other issues Bakerloo went way over budget and nearly broke the company. So, with this information in hand, it looks unlikely that DTG will do another underground sadly. Any ideas or suggestions on how DTG could create another underground?
Well first thing hopefully lessons learned from the first experience and they can approach the job forewarned. Personally I would say doing the complex track around Willesden and Wembley was a bigger hit on route building resources. Second, something like the Met or District Line is mostly cut and cover, the majority of the stations are in open air cuttings. Not that I would want a part route but hey could do the Met out to Uxbridge, Amersham and Chesham starting at Baker Street. Most of the Central Line is above ground. And if it is such a big issue, once again calls into question the choice of UE for a train game. TSC handles underground stations and tunnels fine, there’s several subway style games kicking around on Steam not to mention the old Aerosoft/TML World Of Subways title. DTG themselves registered a trademark recently for some sort of Subway game. So let’s hear solutions, not problems!
Going Underground? - I can only see DTG getting into a bit of a Jam attempting that (I'll get my coat).
Tomline was criticised in the Suffolk Chronicle for building the stations where he "thinks people ought to be, rather than where people actually live. Does Dtg Build the routes they think people want, rather than the routes the people actually want.
No, I think their first route was either the Island Line (original version) or Arosalinie which came after TSW2 was released. Bakerloo Line was a TSW2 core route.
I think the Isle of Wight had adverts in the train itself advertsing a line Rivet already done alone with a funny swipe at Matt.
The solution is to do a sub surface line like the Metropolitan line, which has been requested constantly for years! It doesn’t have to be a deep level line, so not sure why there’s a problem?
I believe either the District or Metropolitan line would be great for a release however I believe to attract more players to that specific route they would need to add regular train routes such as Chiltern or C2C services for example alongside even if it's short runs for 20-30 mins it still creates that variety and value of gameplay to players. I think the Metropolitan would do great if it had Chiltern services to Marylebone & C2C services, GWR & Services would be for far too complex to add for the amount of terminus' for the district line. However I believe if we have a strong rail passenger line with the use of potential freight for Amersham - Marylebone as so many people were flaborgasted with WCML with the use of the Class 66, 377, 350, 390 & 710 a lot of people was really inspired to play this route and I believe the same thing could happen if they do the same thing for the metropolitan line
That was like 5 years ago, that route, one would definitely think development has improved substantially and trickier things in the past should be more doable now. I don’t think we should just accept a status quo all the time and actually want more and better routes and locos.
Bear in mind that Bakerloo was 5 years ago, and light baking is so much better in tsw. Besides, a subsurface line is much less in tunnels
It can’t be totally impossible for them though, or we wouldn’t have the two New York termini in LIRR and Harlem respectively which are not only firmly sub surface but have complex track and tunnel layouts on the approach.
Neither of those are constant transition from Dark to Light though, with multiple stations within to bake. Not saying it isn’t stupid, because it is. It’s just another factor of train simulation to add to the list of things this train simulator can’t do.
I wonder how they got it to work on Rapid Transit, which actually predates Bakerloo by a year or two, even if not the same amount of underground running. I mean even in the very basic Train Sim Modeller for MSTS, we were able to specify half bright or bright material properties for object faces and surfaces. Scotty’s famous saying from Star Trek IV comes to mind, “The more they complicate the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.”
Again RT is what, 3 stations subsurface? Comes back to the biggest drawback with TSW, you get less because DTG chose poorly when it came to the game engine. UE has some very complicated plumbing & DTG seems to have exasperated that by using their own “extensively modified” version of UE.
Except for the rain/snow that fell from the ceilings all through the tunnel section. I haven't played RT in a long time not sure if they ever fixed that.
5 stations and last time I played it if you have rain or snow on it comes through when your in the tunnels.
Like dtg have said previously, there is no game engine that does all the things train sims need. No matter what they choose, they have to extensively change the core code to make it do what they want it to do.
Not all game engines are the same though, it'd still have helped if they chose one that would be easier to work with. UE doesn't seem to be the one. If anything, it's caused more problems than they're willing to admit.
Yes, I am sure things have improved since and I am sure DTG has a wealth of knowledge gained by doing Bakerloo, but you have Matt who is DTG executive producer isn't he? And he doesn't seem to keen to make another underground route, so progress mustn't be that good then.
Ah, but Scotty also said "...you need the right tool for the right job" (Star Trek V) So, is unreal the right tool?
I’d love to johannes (incredible trains developer) tackle a sub surface line such as the met line or smith and city line, and as we already have a deep level line we don’t really need another one, and I personally am a bit fan of the s8/s7 stock that runs on the sub surface lines
For me, it would have to go to Chesham as well as Amersham. Firstly because I grew up there and secondly, it is a beautiful station (as can be seen in the superb rendition by JT in TSC).
