Just seen this…. Looks intriguing. Thoughts? https://www.ign.com/videos/train-life-a-railway-simulator-first-major-update-trailer
It's more of a tycoon, management simulator than an actual train simulator. Wrong signals, tracks, etc. Obviously you can do much more than in tsw but it's like a different genre almost compared to tsw. I like being able to drive trains and stuff rather than doing management work if that makes sense
I had a look at this on steam, it seems a very confused game. Does it want to be a Train Sim or the next Railroad Tycoon, IMO it fails at both in its current guise, but Im keeping an eye on it. In other news Railway Empire 2 has been announced for next year which is definately in the RR Tycoon camp.
That's what I'm feeling as well. Not really interested in tycoon-type games and it looks horribly arcadey to me. I mean, if the funny-looking locos didn't give it away, this is anything but the cab of an ICE3. Certainly not what I'm looking for in a simulator.
This game is coming to consoles as well in September. The game is fully released on PC It reminds me of bus simulator 21. A game that clams to be a simulator it really isn't. This game isn't a sim nor does it seem to try to be one. More of a simcade. It's a different type of game. It does have positive reviews on steam. You would have to go into this game knowing it's not a full simulator and manage exceptions
Thoughts? I’ll tell you mine… This is a travesty for anyone who is even slightly interested in trains or railways. Why would you need a mini map with icons telling you which way the next bend goes? Handy in a rally car, of no use in a train. Even in a game (loosely based on trains) you would never need that. What can you even do with that information?
Also, and I forgive me for jumping straight to the most impactful point without warning, but the wheels don't actually go round. Joking aside, it's nice to see different kinds of games that can cater for different audiences - who knows, it might appeal to more casual players who then want to upgrade on the simulation side of things, and join in TSWx. But I hadn't seen this, thanks for highlighting it.
Now on Steam gamers Train Life 251 TSW2 504 TSW2020 30 Train Simulator 822 Trainz2019 303 Simrail Prologue 24 Tramsim Vienna 53 Euro Truck Simulator2 18377 !!! Train Life's result is not so bad, now it is played by half as many players as in TSW2
Our well known Colonel Failure played it and shows some game sessions. Afterwards it is updated a lot, but no it does not give you a realistic train driving experience. They cover all of Germany in the base game, so do not expect any realism.
Played this for a while before getting teed off with it. The below is as the game was about four months ago... Signalling is basically "go" and "stop" so you could be doing 120kmh then hit a red 100 yards down the track There's no such thing as "right side running" so the "GPS" in game will send you down the shortest path, even if that's where a train is coming at you the other way You get animals on the track randomly, they don't move quick enough to get out of your way and you lose points / accomplishments if you do hit them All routes are circuitous with random speed limits, so if you want to go quickly between major cities you find yourself going out of your way and maybe have to do a reverse move to get where you want The mail and passenger system was broken (this may have been fixed) so you didn't know where to go to pick up or drop off The cargo system was also clunky, where you could take "contracts" between two places and these would be specific numbers of wagons (up to 6) but they didn't generate very quickly, but you could manually ask for wagons (up to 12) and these would almost always be available even between the same cities as the contracts I could go on...
Thanks for saving my hd space. I don't think there's anything better than tsw even though it has its problems.
Depends on what you mean by "better" Train Life was OK for doing some "train-like-stuff" but is NOT a representation of real life TSW has OK graphics (for the most part) and has a good base game-engine but of course it's up to DTG to utilise it. What TSW DOES have is a full timetable mode so no matter where you start you're going to get traffic TSC obviously has the best route and asset libraries, a good editor, a good scenario editor (if a bit clunky) and a lot of people doing a lot of things for it (such as reskins and 3rd party routes), but the downside is the 3rd party provision is a bonfire, cluster bomb all rolled into a nightmare... I stick to TSW mainly because I KNOW everything will work (with a given level of "work") out of the box without too much having to find assets or keeping a spreadsheet of 3rd party routes, requirements etc to get them to work properly or learn several third party apps to make my own scenarios from the supplied ones
I've played a lot of other train sims and none of them quite give you what tsw does. I think it's the balance of the way it looks and the driving experience. Other games offer a better driving experience but are lacking in the looks department. I've seen 1 or 2 that are close to the graphics of tsw but lack the driving experience. Tsc offers some better driving than tsw but is old and dated and although it still looks good for its age just don't look as good as tsw. A fine example the other day, I was playing tsw and one of my friends thought I was watching real trains on YouTube. It took a good five minutes to convince him its a game.
Holding off on this one till they remove the head out of the cockpit when in cockpit mode. Seen a sponsored video about it so I was looking at it very sceptically but when I saw you get to see the inside of the avatars head in cockpitview in a sponsored video it's clear that there is still a lot of work to do. But I'm keeping an eye on this game as the gameplay looks very promising
Speed Signals Solid - Solid Green: Continue at posted speed. Blinking - Blinking Green: Expect a speed increase at the next speed signal. Solid - Solid Yellow: Drive at a reduced speed. Blinking - Blinking Yellow: Expect a speed decrease at the next speed signal. Blocking Signals Red - Solid Red: The block is occupied. DO NOT PASS. 3 Yellows - Situation ahead, drive with care as next block is occupied. Blue - The next block is not occupied and neither is any adjacent one. Note: The icon to the bottom right of the mini map, will also show the next signal status. Mini Map Icon Blue - Next block is free. Flashing Red - Next but one block is occupied. Solid Red - Do not enter the next block. The Cargo system is well-thought-out, either you take another contract that brings more income (has a short delivery time) or you take the goods and go to any station receiving the goods. You have to remember about leveling areas, they give you more contracts and open new goods. The problem of sudden red light is solved by the icon on the minimap warning about signals on the nearest signaling device
That didn't exist when I was playing (as I said, a while ago) The contracts didn't bring more income as they were short consists. A 4 wagon contract brought in less than a 12 wagon free haul, again a while back
I haven't played much since v1.0, but from what I can see, the Contracts are for long tours and have different stakes. You can receive TWO CONTRACTS simultaneously to one destination station or to many. The limit is the number of cars of a given locomotive and driver. For example I have Iron ore from Hamburg contract Berlin 249 euro per km x 174km = 43,330 euro (5: 49h delivery time) but this is a short route so it will waste a lot of time on maneuvers and after being delivered to the Foundry, it will waste time on empty driving for new goods after the Foundry now produces nothing. And to Basel, EUR 197 per km x 1244 km = EUR 245 955 (41: 29h delivery time) EUR 27,328 per car (9) Meanwhile, the standard delivery shows 50 euros per wagon The basic locomotive (Vmax 100km / h) is not able to deliver contracts on time, so the revenues are lower because there is a penalty for a late contract. 1 hour in game is 3min in real time. The 42h journey from Hamburg to Basel is 126 minutes in real time.
This is a solid truth that we'd all do well to remember. It wouldn't attract such...passionate responses were it not the case.
You know after reading about all the short comings of this game i would say to be totally fair i would say you could easley make a equal or longer list for TSW.
