Hello everyone! The new TSW4 mini HUD has been an interesting addition to the game for sure. Many have praised the increased immersion, but for a lot of us, there is perhaps a bit too much info missing from the HUD now. Especially the current speed, which becomes very noticeable if you’re driving a unit with a badly visible speed dial, or none at all (e.g. in the old steam locos). A missing speed display in the HUD also causes lots of issues if you’ve set the speed to metric or imperial only in the settings, because the speed limit in the HUD and the actual speed that shows up in the train cab dials might not match up. Thus, I thought I’d design some possible solutions! I always kept it really simple without trying to over-complicate the mini HUD. First, a little refresher - this is how the standard release mini HUD looks like: Secondly, here’s the addition of the speed display in a very simple way. I’ve added “SPEED” and “LIMIT” to the HUD elements in order to be able to distinguish both of them: You could also further differentiate the speed and limit displays with different colors or font thickness, for example by making the speed limit display a bit more grey-ish and with a less-bold font variant. I thought it would make sense to combine the speed and speed limit HUD “cubes” because they’re so similar, so here you go: And to be honest, I kinda miss the door indicator sometimes, so here’s how it could look as part of the HUD: I also have a suggestion regarding the color of the speed limit indicator that is already present in the mini HUD right now, regardless of whether a current speed display is added or not: Right now, the speed limit display doesn’t change color until you’re over the limit and will thus receive a XP scoring penalty. This was fine with the old HUD that clearly showed how close you were to the limit, but it’s not ok at all with the new mini HUD that doesn’t give you any indication of your current speed. Thus, I’m proposing a new way of coloring the speed limit indicator, allowing you to recognize when you’re approaching the limit and should decrease your throttle input to avoid a scoring penalty. This uses the existing steps of approximately 3 MPH that determine how much of a score penalty you get, but adds another step before reaching the limit to give the player enough of a warning; New mini HUD speed limit color suggestion: More than ~3MPH below speed limit: WHITE ~3MPH to 0MPH below speed limit: YELLOW 0MPH to ~3MPH above speed limit: RED More than ~3MPH above speed limit: FLASHING/BLINKING RED I’m really looking forward to what the UI devs come up with! DTG Matt hinted at some work going on right now in that area. Feel free to discuss what you’d like to see or add your own ideas down below!
Maybe an other option: your speed dynamically change per route (kmh/mph), but the rest (weight, distance etc) stays in metric/imperial. But for the rest, pretty neat. But I personally don't think your own speed is really necessary.
Own speed is necessary on trains where there is no speedometer (steam locos) or where field of view restricts your view of the speedometer. (IOW 483)
I'm in favor of increasing customisation options for the mini hud, but I don't want it to lose some of it's purpose. Isn't the point of the mini hud to get you to use the in-trains gauges more? If any of these options such as the current speed came I wouldn't use it, the only option I would probably use is a mile/km count down instead of the bar. I don't wanna see the screen become full of info again just in a smaller format.
I really hope they don't deface the new mini hud with tons of additional info.. colors and whatever like the OP suggested. Its way to much clutter in it with all this additional (unwanted) informations. It defeats the whole purpose of a slim and smaler hud. If i understood Matt right in one of the streams, than the intention for the minihud was to have people driving the loco and not driving the hud anymore (for those who want that realism). The old hud, with all bits and pieces, is still there for those who just want to drive a hud simulator.
To be clear, the additional HUD options should obviously be able to be toggled on/off in the settings. I believe this is also what the DTG UI team is planning with the new additions. You can go for the basic experience or add additional stuff if you want or need to. And the colors won’t be noticeable most of the time. I just really didn’t like how the new HUD doesn’t give you any sort of visual indication that you’re approaching the speed limit until it’s too late. By simply moving the “speed limit color changes to yellow” step a few MPH earlier, players would now have the chance to react in time and avoid an XP penalty. I believe this change would also do the color yellow more justice than the way things currently are… think of a traffic light. If it’s yellow, you can still drive through it, but beware it’ll switch to red soon.
