Midland Mainline - Skyhook Feedback

jane-skyhook

Firstly welcome, secondly thank you for this quick response, this is really welcomed and appreciated.

As a feedback, I'm in that ilk of player that loves busy time tables so the route did feel quiet. Whilst I appreciate you cant lay all your cards on the table Tom hinted at extra bits for the route.

With any of this mainlines I genuniely think route extensions are a cash cow to make them longer and more network based.
Equally, I do think if you know the team are working on train XXX to bolster the time table that it'd be worth putting to press

"brand new route is getting further trains to increase service numbers within the next xxx month".

Appreciate that you cant say too much confirmed straight off the bat but at the moment believing that route will be as sparse traffic wise doesnt inspire me.

I think the challenge your team and any other third party walk in to is Joethefish BML title set a huge benchmark for any route thereafter.

 

Hi Jane, welcome to the forum!

I’m enjoying the route. The 158 and HST are great fun, and sound amazing! Honestly, some of the best sounding stock in TSW right now.

Scenery-wise, the route could with more clutter alongside the line. It can feel empty in areas between stations. I feel some freight action is also needed on the timetable, that alone would bring in some more activity along the line, whether it’s AI only or not.

I also want to point you to this thread:
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/wip-midland-mainline-enhancement-pack.69411/#post-640808

One of the beta testers londonmidland makes enhancement pack mods for routes with certain adjustments that really add to the general atmosphere. He’s currently making one for MML. Now I understand certain aspects like the adverts can’t be picked up for licensing reasons but is there any chance of liaising with LM to see if there are certain aspects of his enhancement pack that could be added to the route in an official capacity so that console users benefit from them? Things like more accurate track ballast colour and improved station lightning are things that could really improve to the atmosphere of your route

 

I’m very pleased to see a response from Skyhook. questions should be asked though about why some seriously big issues were left unaddressed on release.

I don’t much like or need the training modules but this is the first release I’m aware of to not bother at all.

I’m glad to see somebody take ownership of the issues, but it shouldn’t be after the horse has bolted so to speak.

please get them fixed so we can all enjoy the simulation.

 

Thank you for all that information and I'm absolutely loving this route but can I ask is there any chance we can see an extension to the route from Derby to Sheffield in the future as the route could do with an extension in my opinion and Sheffield is the terminus and starting point for trains coming from and going to London St Pancras. Thank you

 

Let's let them sort this one out first

 

Issues with collectables:
East Mids Parkway: Ticket machine on P1 is half inside the building.
Leicester: A route map towards the north end of P3 is in the wall as well (you can see the frame for where it goes, but not the map itself)
In general, I think the placement for some of the collectables was a bit questionable (I think I counted 4 route maps at Spondon and 4 bins which needed cleaning at Sileby!)

Nottingham:
Floating car stop marker at east end on P7

Regarding the HST:
-Can't sit in any of the passenger seats (already been mentioned)

These points listed below aren't game breaking nor a big deal, but are just small details I've picked up on:
-The buffet/first class coach is the wrong way round in the consist, FC seating should be facing towards the other FC coaches.
-Luggage racks in First Class should be a light blue.
-FC stickers on the windows should be bigger and at the top centre of the windows.

I did notice that when passing under bridges in HST the saloon and vestibule light in the mk3s turn black.

Also:
Why do all London bound trains only show going as far as Leicester on the departure boards, whereas 158 services show their intended destination (Matlock, Lincoln etc).

 

This level of communication is great, hope to see this consistently moving forward, and as others have said, hopefully Skyhook can "walk the talk"

I don't own the route due to the issues present but I would like to point out the scenery, for example, this is Spondon in-game:


versus Spondon in reality;


These images weren't taken by me, they were posted in the TSC Discord by someone else, but there are a lot of examples of the stations in the game looking quite bare compared to their real-life counterparts from what i've seen in screenshots Hopefully this can be improved in patches and hopefully these patches can influence me to purchase the route in the future.

 

I haven’t seen it mentioned yet - the catering vehicle on the HST is in reverse formation.

The first class seating should be facing the first class coaches and bar area towards standard (end of bar currently faces the first class coaches). Would it be as simple as rotating the coach to face the correct way?

I used to work HSTs as part of my diagram, including an ex-EMR HST and an EMR HST on loan so can speak from a degree of experience with this one. I’m happy to provide reference pics if you’re needing them.

 

There is need to review the speed signs as Skyhook adjusting the font. Some of them sees not right as this one infront of Leicester on NR's diagram seems being a 25/40 instead of 40/40. Some speed reduction board also seems lacking AWS for example the 70 shortly before EM Parkway. https://www.networkrail.co.uk/indus...ators/national-electronic-sectional-appendix/

 

With due respect, that would be entirely incorrect. Firstly in the tech department we aim to deliver the best we can all of the time to all of you. We don't get involved in the commercials at all. We product focus. There was absolutely no intent to deliver anything with minimal content. We actively want everyone to love the route. We have spent a LONG time and thousands of hours creating it.

There was a genuine belief that the tech team had delivered a great timetable for people to enjoy. I put my hands up this morning and agreed that the timetable was a little thin and we are addressing this. There was certainly no cynical financial mindset. The technical devs, artists and others in the development are driven to give all of you something to enjoy. That is mirrored across the entire Skyhook infrastructure. Do we always get everything right? I would be misleading you if I said we were perfect. We make mistakes but we are here (and our devs are reading this with me). We aim to be transparent. We want you to get to know us as people and not just be a company name on a product. We care and want to engage with you all.

We are not cynical, we are fans just like yourselves. We put our hands up to our triumphs and mistakes and want to share the Midland Mainline process and vision with you all.

all the best
Jane

 

Now i know DX12 isn't officially supported by DTG, however running this route under DX12, causes multiple CTD's specifically near Leicester, I've been using DX12 all the way back since TSW2 and never encountered any CTD's before until this route was released, may i add CTD is only on this route

 

Thank you for this, I will pass this on to the tech team. Appreciate you spotting this. We will take a look.

 

Apologies if I don't reply personally to all the reports here. I only have limited time given work commitments (which I am sure you all want me to deal with ) ) I wanted to point out though every one of these posts are being fed in to our reporting system, so you are ll very much appreciated.

 

Is Jane a ChatGPT chat bot?, or have I just spent too much time using ChatGPT....

 

arrgh, don't say that, as I am here in the flesh. I don't want anyone thinking I can be replaced at work anytime soon

 

Welcome to the forum Jane, it's really nice to see you and the team at Skyhook are wanting to try and work with the playerbase to sort the bugs and issues rather than 'brushing it under the carpet' like other companies seem to do.

I'm not going to list all the problems I've encountered as I'll been repeating what's already been posted however a few that I've encountered that don't appear to of been mentioned in this thread:
*Wipers in one of the 158 cabs do not clear the windscreen, the rain/snow is actually modelled on the inside of the glass.
*Trophy for completing the 158 introduction doesn't unlock on PS5.
*Earlier when running the 2K06 service in the 158, approaching Nottingham and shortly before the 25mph limit, where the waypoint is go via the C line, the game crashed completely and closed as the train passed over the AWS unit between the rails.

Looking forward to the fixes coming in so we can enjoy the route to it's full potential.

Andrew

 

I don't mean to critique, but I have spent a ton of time evaluating ChatGPT for certain purposes, so if a real person can get my thinking that it's a bot, it's probably good enough for the job I have in mind!

 

thank you Andrew (and everyone for the welcome!) I appreciate you taking the time to write this. I have forwarded these issues.

We all really genuinely care about engaging with the user base. As I mentioned before taking on this role I have spent far too many hours driving in TSC and TSW as a committed fan.

 

One of my first thoughts on seeing this post was "won't someone kind of wait and see if this is a real person and not a troll/AI/chatbot...?"

 

We're Blade Runners in training lol

 

If it translates into tangible fixes and improvements, great. Though as I said in the other thread, the damage is done by letting it out the starting gate in this state and I would be inclined to wait until it gets a discount before picking up again. Even if the route and traction was perfect, questionable if really worth £30.

 

Hello, I'm not sure if anyone here has mentioned it already, but it does not seem to be possible to sit in the passenger seats in the HST's. This usually would be more of a minor annoyance than anything else, but there appears to be an invisible wall that extends out onto the northbound fast track halfway between Leicester and the junction, which will eject you from the train if you are standing up.

 

There is also no smoke from the exhausts on the 158

 

Passengers also appearing out of thin air at sileby station

 

Nothing new for sileby people

 

if it was Hogsmeade Station I could say it was by design

 

Not entirely sure that's a Skyhook problem! The HST on GWE had that exact issue in TSW 2 that broke to the 00000 power car numbers we have now. Coaches still all have one of the powervar numbers on them though. I'm actually going to check TSW2020 and see what the HST was like on that as I still have a few routes for that installed.

 

They've put this version of the HST out so it is a Skyhook problem now (even if the issue didn't originate with them)
Same would be any CC issue with the MML HST as opposed to the GWE version

 

Just want to say that I personally appreciate these posts by Jane-Skyhook answering many questions on behalf of Skyhook and things are being looked into.

 

On hst cars my character was unable to sit in the seats

 

I can see the polygons for goodness sake (Xbox One S)

 

thanks for this. We have this on our list and are already investigating. I appreciate you sending to us.

 

Hi jane-skyhook Welcome to this forum.
I am going to start off with a big THANK YOU not just for the Midland Mainline route as a whole but for the VP185 HST and the Class 158. Mainly because in Scenario creator your guys created pathways to and from Yards, Depots and sidings that we can actually use in scenario creator.



Apart from the bugs that have been mentioned already (I do wish people list what platform they were using, surely it's not that hard?)
I was doing my Streams yesterday and in the first stream at 5.3 miles from Leicester on the PS5 version of TSW3 the game crashed (and I lost the stream Whilst doing the Not Quite Awake Scenario. It was quite embarrassing as I was doing the DTG Ambassador MML Showcase stream at the time.
Whilst doing the evening stream last night I was running the Class 37 with 387 running to Leicester service and the game crashed 5.4 miles from Leicester. I'm just wondering if there is a problem with scenery or assets in the route around the 5.5 mile mark North of Leicester that's causing the crashes?

Also in my evening stream I came across this bug with the Europhoenix 37. Although I have not encountered it anywhere else whilst using it. Bit hard to explain. You open the door, but it doesn't open but the inside of the door including the rubber glass surrounds opens like a door. Check the video below . if the link doesnt work properly its 3 hours and 16 minutes into the stream.

https://www.youtube.com/live/P7O1ot61h2E?feature=share&t=11750

I also managed to have a slight run into Toton Depot last night. Along with more freight and AI services I really hope you manage to bring Toton into use. It seems a waste of time just putting it in there and not using it. Other than that looking forward to the updates.

As per Toms requests from Last Tuesday as mentioning what we want to see. Perhaps a class 60 or 56 as another freight loco.

Cheers
Hentis

 

Hi Jayne, I have an issue with the 158 Guard pannel, when you have the key in the unlock position its all well and good and you flick the switch to open local door but nothing happens, also when you do have the door open, when you close all doors using guards pannel it also closes local door even though the door should remain open, is this something you are looking to fix??? Many Thanks

 

Any chance you can make it so when you use the guard panal to open the doors that when you close the doors (NOT LOCKING THEM) that the press button on the outside of the train is lit up like it would do . Because remember your just closing the door your not actually closing them by the guard panal which would be closing it and locking it . Which would deactivate the button on the outside.


So when you pres the button inside on the passenger control but it closes the door but the light on the outside stays on because the door is still unlocked because it has not been closed by using the guards button.


If you know what I mean.

 

I will address this directly and openly. I agree with you that Ratcliffe is a massive asset. Unfortunately, if we added everything that we wanted (never mind everything from all of yourselves) we would have been here whilst 2030 and you all would be paying £600 a copy to recoup dev costs So decisions had to me made as Tom alluded to on the live stream.

In relation to Ratcliffe it was felt (and I agree) it has enormous potential for freight services and can be a pivotal point for content. Unfortunately given all the commercial realities and release window, to release that now would have meant a half baked effort which would have not only caused disappointment, but would have been locked in to the route for time immemorial.

Our vision (and it may or may not come to pass, based on decisions that do not sit with me) is for MML to be a seed route on which we keep on growing and building. We wanted to do full justice to Ratcliffe and do it properly with fantastic services down the road. It was one of those things we didn't want to rush and trash, but leave hooks for future content so we can do it really properly. I would rather not do it at all than not do it justice. I want to do something really special with lots of places in the route where we see enormous potential, including route extensions to other cities and locations. Again, my usual caveat is as the development group we cannot guarantee what comes next, but we have no shortage of things we want to do and aim to do, should we be given the greenlight.

Is this some sort of DLC cash grab? Actually no, the dev team and myself just concentrate on delivering the best we can with the time and budget we have whilst planning out a product roadmap that we hope comes to commercial fruition. The dev team put in an enormous amount of voluntary late nights because we really care. Tom and I were doing this stuff right through the Easter weekend as were many on the team, because we wanted to do all we humanly could.

The upshot though, is only so much budget and so many hours to get things done and we really wanted to do Ratcliffe justice, which we hope we still can do. We can't promise what comes next as those are commercial decisions but we have worked long and hard to seed so many things in the route for future growth potential.

all the best
Jane

 

Loving the openness and communication with the community. Thank you Jane.

I’d love to see the Class 222 on the route in the future, plus freight services!

 

Also. The passenger lights on the 158 go into a eco mode when the engine is off not when you open the doors

 

Thank you Jane for noting the issues and quickly look to resolve them i look forward to the new patch to come

 

Hi.

In addition,

There is an issue with AWS magnets on the bidirectional slow line between Leicester and Long Eaton. The AWS magnets appear to have been set up wrongly. You get aws clear and cautions being picked up for the signals and fixed warning AWS in the opposite direction. These in real life are suppressed, so they only act for the direction the train is going in. To test drive a 158 with AWS on, between Leicester and Long Eaton and vice versa. Perhaps the wrong type of magnets are used. They need to be a one direction type of magnet instead of both directions.

I do feel that the route is many places is sparse in lineside assets. There's no junk lying about, no cable trunking and weirdly no lineside equipment cabinets for signalling, comms, and GSMR.

There needs to be more weeds on the lineside which encroach almost up to the running line.

Good luck, I'm one who bought and refunded. Entice me back.

 

Firstly, Hi Jane, it’s great to see a new source of comms from Skyhook over here, Sean seemed nice but was rarely heard from.

I see you’ve addressed most the issues (timetable being the biggest) so I can only hope to see an improvement ASAP, then I can get my hands on one of my favourite trains (158). It is a shame that DLC’s keep releasing like this though, although I understand you won’t be getting into that, we all know why it’s happening.

Secondly, with all things above aside, can anyone confirm if the guard buzzer is mapped to a KB on PS5 (usually B), this seems to be a very inconsistent feature but it’s pretty being for immersion, to me.

If that’s not the case, could Skyhook please look into this?

 

A huge thankyou for giving the reply that I was hoping for.
You have now put a huge smile on my face. So thankyou for that also
It really does sound like you and the team are really going to make this route something very, very special?
Fingers crossed!

 

Feedback is some of platforms have a big gap in between and one of the i fell down I think it was Nottingham but East Midlands Parkway has a big game between the platform edge and the train wondered if it could get sorted out? But overall first great passenger route

 

Oh dear, someone from a dev company said the word "roadmap" and hoped we wouldn't notice...

 

One thing I would gladly pay a good amount for is the 222 used to love fixing them

 

We never intended this as a deliver and forget route. So I am glad I brought a smile to your face. Again, as always, I can never promise anything that requires commercial decisions above my paygrade, but there has been a definite aim to create something that we just keep on expanding for just as long as you guys want to drive this route! With a fair wind and commercial greenlights... We have so many ideas for expansion that we deliberately put technical seeding in to this initial release to support that.

 

Just out of curiosity and I'm really glad to hear that .but has anything at the moment been given a good ish chance of coming k know you can't go into detail but I just thought I would ask .

 

On Journey Chapter 2, there’s a bronze medal. So I unable to get green checkmark

 

A small addendum on the windscreen wiper not clearing any snow: If you turn on the windscreen wiper for the right side cab window, it will magically clear the snow on both windows, whilst the wiper on the left window won't clear any. This may also help with playability for the time being.
I also noticed that the dial on the 158's speedometer doesn't light up, which means I have to turn on the cab lights in tunnels.

Other than that, there are many things to love about the route and the rolling stock: beyond the amazing sounds on the 158, it really is a great challenge to drive it in snowy conditions and keep up with the timetable!

 

Personally, I have nothing to complain about about the vehicles themselves. For me, as a GB layman, they are good as they are. Perhaps the somewhat disturbing reflection in the driver's cab of the 158.

However, the bad timetable and the relatively dead stretch bother me. In addition, there is nothing going on in the main train stations: hardly any passers-by and hardly any AI. Furthermore, the route is relatively short and a service takes no longer than half an hour.

My questions would therefore be whether there is an update to the timetable and whether an extension of the route is being considered?

Otherwise, I think it's good that you're facing criticism here. Thanks a lot for this.