Loco Substitution: Better Or Worse Since Initial Winter Core Update?

The December roadmap stated the first part of the Winter Core Update would help substitutions appear where intended regarding relevant routes/content etc - but DTG would continue to review feedback to address any further issues with later updates.

So, what is everyone's thoughts regarding substitution, better or worse since the initial update? I can provide two examples from different routes where substitution has either got better or worse:

Firstly, starting off with the good, Maintalbahn is no longer just all 642 services as the 612 subs in almost as much, which personally I like as the latter is a great loco and means more variety. However, the 628, or the G6 too for that matter, never subs in for AI services, however.

Conversely, substitution on Hamburg-Lubeck seems to have gotten worse now, at least for AI passenger services. For example, the 112 is now the AI loco for every single AI service; prior to this, you'd see the 146 on some services to Lubeck; also this loco would be present for the AI-only services to Bremen etc. Additionally, the 182 (and even on the rare occasion the 143) would also be seen quite a bit, again for AI-only services to Rostock etc.

Finally, the 187 in general - regardless of which route - I don't think I've ever seen, or still yet to see since the latest update, as AI in TSW 4.

This is only brief feedback for two such routes, but how is loco substitution currently for other routes and what needs to be further addressed?

 

I did an experiment just yesterday on this, on West Somerset I loaded into Minehead at a time when three trains are present (One service and two in the sidings) and repeatedly restarted to see what subbed in. The vast majority of the time it was either WSR's own Class 47 or 52 with one appearance from the 33. As far as subs from other routes goes, the NTP Class 45 was there pretty frequently, at one point appearing as both locos in the sidings. There was also one appearance of the Class 40 on the active service. So basically one loco subbed in a lot, there was a one off appearance of the 40, and that left the 31, 33, two 37 variants and four 47 variants that made no appearance, not counting custom liveries.

As far as I can tell substitution might have been fixed to a degree, but it's barely a noticeable difference and still nowhere even close to how it was in prior TSW games.

 

For me, on Blackpool Branches it's still very good with the 101 and 142 often subbing. For West Cornwall Local though it's still non existent for local services. Just solid 150s.

 

From what I've seen so far, only BR143 and BR185.5 spawn in Dresden-Riesa. So no change

 

No change, dresden riesa still major broken in terms of subbstitution.

By the way this problem is a major factor im not currently buying anything from rivet, dtg and skyhook.
The 40 euro routes will picked one by one at heavy sales.

Not enjoyong riesa dresden since tsw4, just annoying this major problem is ignored. Technically a huge variety with only spawning the 3 core locos? Br 187 never appeared on any route anymore...., it was a good loco with the soundmods which also dont work anymore.

Ever thought why vorarlberg has such a low substitution possibility with all possible german locos ??("caugh" they knew damn exactly there is something broken big time when releasing tsw4)

Blackpool preston works great in this aspects. All locos are appearing.

 

Im done as a beta tester

 

Finally indeed, now you don't have to throw your headset on the floor everytime it runs by as an AI...

 

Its worse. Earlier it was 182(MRCE/Dispolok), 187, 185 even saw 193s. Now I can only see 155 in DB/Press in Bremen - Oldenburg route. It was so good before. Now it doesn't have that feel. Very bad update for substitution. Broke even more routes.

 

Still trying to figure out if everything got messed up by trying to solve a problem ps4 related with the dlc limit, just wird it broke from one to another day. doesnt make any sense.

 

Yeah the addon manager has broken so much stuff. Tons of mods still unavailable due to it, not to mention longer startup/loading times.

 

Whats supposed to be the benefit of the addons manager?

I choose my platform to not get across any problems of other platforms.

Congrats DTG, you spread the problem from 1 to all platforms..just no words on that. Pathetic.

 

BPO still appears to be a variation heaven, with random locos appearing (both liveries and classes) spawning at the same time, on the xbox.

 

JT found a workaround for the substitution errors right from the beginning, said as much in their thread somewhere. Not sure if DTG asked them for the info on how they managed that, but I suppose if that system was what they went with then they might have to update it into every route, doesn't fix the core of the problem.

 

If it has been three months waiting for a fix and still nothing then Im getting a bit worried this could be a wait for TSW5 kinda fix
hope not, layers are one of my favourite features

 

Probably this very topic hasnt turn out into a huge wave of user complaints because the amount of players who own all dlcs are way lower than the casual. So its less noticeable.

So why for example the mrce 185.5 doesnt sub into vorarlberg? My guess is they knew exactly about this and covered it in a bad attempt with no substitution at all except the vectron.

From my perspective this is inacceptable. Basicly jts blaclpool release prevented my intention to uninstall tsw4 right away.

What a surprise, maintalbahn started with substitution problems too. They only gave attention after many players in the feedback thread were reporting. And for what exactly should i pay 40 bucks ?

 

Personally I see this as a blessing

 

It may have to do with Riesa-Dresden's upgrade to TOD-4 lighting. You see, rolling stock has to be modified to work with TOD-4, or it looks terrible. So it may be that all TOD-3 (ie pre-TSW3) rolling stock has been disabled.

 

On PS5 I no longer have access to any of the Class 66 services on MML.

 

As in, it isn't present in the loco selection menu?

I was on MML earlier (Xbox) and it was there.

 

this wasn’t a problem in TOD4 BRO with almost all locos substituting into services. With the latest update this substitution broke.

 

It seems that every german AI sub is broken. Haven't seen any on RRO, HRR, HBK end BRO

 

I've seen all manor of different locos on DRA especially on freight services including CC liveries I downloaded for certain stock. Not really seen much on other routes though as I've not tested it properly.

 

I think substitution is intended as a core feature of the simulation. It seems more reasonable to me that the problem lies with the implementation of add on manager that is now working on all platforms. I am sure it will be fixed if it isn't already.

 

I think the substitutions got worse when the add on manager was introduced. Xbox Series X.

 

I think you may well be right but I also suspect that substitution may have been intentionally reduced for reasons of stability and to reduce crashes…. Maybe wrong but am suspicious!

 

This would be hell of a customer pis off! Again, i choose my platform to not get across any (performance) problems of other platforms.

Bremen oldenburg was really nice on substitution variety and it was running smooth in tsw3 too. Now all static stock substitution is either 155red / blue or 182. No 187, no vectron etc. Same mess in riesa dresden and other routes. To me suspicious is the low amount of sub in vorarlberg, No 185 mrce, no 182 mrce on freight...this would point to the fact they made it intentionally (which "if" in that case would be the most stupid decision for this franchais. Tsw only can survive with the variety and interesting timetables).

Whatever it is, i dont see a point to support the franchais at this point anymore, and with tsw dlcs, i bought 99% on day1. Not even mods are working (except the few were remade for tsw4), had to reinstall the entire tsw3.

Jt proofed what makes a route a good route. "guess what, even the substitution is working perfectly with all the uk diesels".

Well i skipped maintalbahn, and will skip a hell lot of content if not all. Is TSW really improving with the new features considering so much on older content breaks with each new release of tsw?

Im happy to progress on a lot of railway projects in 2024 will be an interesting year. But currently im done with DTG and their weird approach on TSW, i really am.

 

Pending a statement from Matt or another staffer, I would venture that the culprit is DLC Manager. The old way, you effectively loaded all the assets of all your DLC, and the game was free to glo onto any of it, including trains and cars from anywhere,. But now, the only thing that gets loaded is your particular DLC and its stated dependencies, cutting the connection to all those potential subs from elsewhere.

 

That's pretty much my thought process of it too, and while I fully understand why it was done and we got the DLC manager, I definitely miss the complete randomness of what you would see travelling in the opposite direction and in what livery it would show up in.....

 

We shouldn't all be suffering on other platforms because the Playstation can't load all the DLC.

 

So they obviously didn't factor substitutions in then. Makes sense.

 

DTG should just ask JT for the solution. For some reason they are capable what DTG isnt. Unbelievable, literally the entire TSW customerbase is getting involved now with ps4 problems. wow..

The complete randomness how people describe, is what i expect tsw to be for the highly needed variety. The current situation is just not worth getting into it.

 

Please bear in mind that JT may be able to get substitution working but at present timetable mode is broken after more than a couple of runs. Swings and roundabouts.

 

I think most people are less likely to do back to back timetable runs, than are going to notice Substitution issues though.
I've never done more than two timetable services back to back in my entire time playing for example.

 

Yes, its caused by the pacer which doesnt open the doors at the service starting time. The bug occurs after 45 - 60min in the timetable. When manually open and close the doors with the free cam, it starts to move for 1 station .

Doesnt matter if people like to do services back or not, a 24h timetable has to be capable of running without problems. I hope jt finds the cause, since it slso breaks after 60min when only spawning on foot.

 

Did it work before the update do you know? If if did it can be fixed. I was hoping for a fix before the break up for Christmas. I hope it can be fixed quickly as I do like to use the timetable back and forth. And the product does advertise as having a 24 hour working timetable.

 

Correction: the 24 hour timetable is the franchise's selling point, the whole reason we play it.

 

Has anyone noticed a considerable improvement in loco substitution recently?

While playing Rosenheim-Salzburg the amount of variety in AI traffic seems to be working fine - in one timetabled service for freight alone I saw everything from a 155, double-headed Vectron, 185, 182 and even a red 363 etc.

But it's not just this route that seems better regarding loco substitution, but older ones too. For example, Hamburg-Lubeck seems to be much better again as the 182 now appears for certain AI-only services again. The 146 also seems to be back for Lubeck services - moreover, I even saw this loco on an Ahrensburg service which is normally a 112. For context, the last time I played this route loco substitution was non-existent as everything was operated by a 112.

Anyone notice an improvement on other routes, such as Riesa-Dresden?

 

I've noticed more of the freight services on DRA having more variety on them as of late.

 

Ah right, very interesting. I must say though, the 187 - with exception of Koln-Aachen - still does seem to be a lot less frequent though than other locos.

 

something I used to get as a random service too when using the random service function is a heavy freight service on Kassel - Wurzburg with the 112. and I hope it gets fixed because unless rare usage in old Deutsche Reichsbahn times I doubt the 112 was used as a freight loco ever. Wondering how much that underpowered thing blocks timetables as an AI. got it once for a car transport from chemnitz to dresden and it took me 5 minutes to get it to move using sand. a fun challenge but not realistic I'd say

 

worse absolutely I just tried to spawn dmu from niddertahlbahn on ecml stupid thing force closed on me

 

Don't worry, i did the same service with a Vectron and it also took tens of seconds at full power to actually slowly move the train at a crawl pace. Sine this happens with a top of the line locomotive that should be handling much heavier trains , I suspect that not the lack of power is the problem, but the ultra slow release of the brakes trough the train, and thus the higher time until you can see the train moving.

 

Exactly. Unfortunately, German trains aren't equipped with an EOTD with a brake pipe readout, so all you can do is wait [guesstimate] time and try it.

I wonder- IRL with long freights, do they station a yard worker by the rear car, to radio the driver when the brakes release? (It's quite audible, and the car should roll a little too).

 

ahhh yeah and I remember before releasing I put the brakes on G because for some reason passenger trains have them on R and freight on P. that'll be it. managed to drive the service with only one zwangsbremsung with the 112 though which I am proud of

 

I am still having issues with substitution on Steam. Any extra loco that is not included with the route will be missing in action most of the time. Issue is really noticeable for freight
Take the latest release , Salzburg Rosenhiem, all freight is being driven by 155. And I mean all of the services
Also on DRA 95% of freight is with BR 185 MRCE.
Still a long way from the variation that was present in TSW3

 

Strange, it seems to work ok for me. Yesterday playing on Salzburg-Rosenhiem I've seen 155, TRAXX and Vectron in different liveries.

 

It seems to have gotten better since i engaged in this thread but loco's like the 182 and 187 are very rare to come by without mods. it seems the 155 is way too common. Other versions like the RP 185 are rare aswell

 

Hi Alex, thanks for engaging with this thread. As I've mentioned loco substitution is much better overall - I'm on Xbox Series X - however the BR 187 seems to be an exception; I don't think I've ever remembered seeing this loco appear as AI on any German route (old or new) since TSW 4. Even with the fantastic amount of variety in Rosenheim-Salzburg for example, the 187 just never appears which is odd as you'll see lots of other freight locos subbing in such as the 155, 182, 185, 193 etc.

 

Regarding the 187, I forgot to mention it does appear very frequent for Koln-Aachen the last time I played this route - however, this isn't surprising considering this is the loco's home route.