Question/concern About New Mini-hud And It's Distance Bar

Ah well, yards and feet are a tad annoying (i'd have prefered units of 0.01 miles like TSC does) but after a few runs the pattern is easy enough to remember. After 0.6 miles it starts counting down from 1000 yards (at which point you should already have begun slowing down), or after roughly 2 miles it goes counting down from 10,000 feet (at which point you probably already have begun slowing down, unless you're in a train that brakes quickly). It's a bit silly, but didn't took me too long to get the hang of it.

 

British routes with miles and yards are fine for me. I use simple rough estimates like 1 mi = 1.6 km, 1 km = 0.6 mi, 1 yard = 1 meter. That precision level is enough for railroads.
The REAL problems start when I'm driving an American route and simple miles suddenly turn into confusing feet. Thanks to years of flightsimming, I can roughly convert hundreds of feet into hundreds of meters, but still -- It's a conversion nonetheless, and it still takes some time and brainpower to do, which may cause problems in some situations.

 

To be honest I just use metric units everywhere. I justify it with the fact that no real train driver (except in rare cases where you’re driving from one country to the other or something like that) switches units every day, so I can keep using metric everywhere I go

 

One yard is not quite one metre, so when your countdown switches from miles to 1000 yards you have just under 1km to go.

 

Difference is small enough to be ignored. Bigger problem is converting your speed, because 100km/h with 1000 meters to go is quite different than 100mph with 1000 yards to go...

 

I'm just glad I know imperial as well as I know metric. Have never had to even consider which one to use, cause both are just second nature to me, so just have all those settings set to automatic. I am very much a fan of the new visual signal and speed limit display. Not sure if I'll be using the mini hud yet. Will probably be something I experiment with once it's out.

 

I love the idea of this mini HUD! The only thing which concerns me is that some gauges are hard to read because they are very small or poor visible in the dark. For example the speedo in German loco's MFD or the gauges of the BR 182. So I think a small digital speedo in the HUD could be very helpful.

 

It would be nice if the gauges had overlays so if you hover them they give you the info on the gauge

 

A lot of gauge needles, such as the ones in the 72 stock, are near invisible in the dark - forcing a cab light on if one has any hope of accurate speed. Having had much experience in my life trying to read gauges under near total-dark lighting (called 'black lighting', when the submarine as at periscope depth and the inside of the Control Room has to be darker than the night outside), a lot of our needles had a luminous strip that was enough to see under black lighting conditions. It would be nice if this could be added to gauges, such as in the 72 stock, where reading them is near impossible.

Just a thought, not really expecting it to happen.

 

Same with the German 110.3 - hard to see the needle at night.

 

Something like this displaying current speed in left box, line/max speed in middle box and gradient in right box?

 

But would that be realistic? I don't recall seeing a train at night without the driver's cab having a light on.

 

Looks good. Could you try adding information for the brake in use?

 

I think I'm gonna miss the train door status HUD icon on some trains, but we'll see. Will certainly be giving the new HUD a try. I've been asking for a smaller HUD since TSW2020.

 

correct. These could be a very minimal vertical line on each side of that gradient or another element. When doors are open it has a color and flashes, when closed it disappears

 

This is why the 158 is quite brilliant in that respect as it simulates what having a guard would do i.e. guard buzzes when the doors are closed. Although for it to work perfectly for DOO trains it would be good to have the cameras implemented, but we can only dream of that for now

 

I have no idea, I only pretend to drive trains. However, I do know that even a single light ruins night vision so if forced at gunpoint to make a guess, I'd say that it's likely they prefer darkness. Hopefully someone more experienced can comment - however, I do feel the needles need bumping up in luminosity, even just for those who prefer to drive in the dark.

 

No lights off in the dark, very much like when driving a car at night you have the lights inside off, it is the same with trains just without children turning them back on every 5 seconds!

 

Hud looks good in action. Nice that it is modular. Would be nice for future changes to have even more options of what is displayed in the HUD. Doors is really something I will have to get familiar with in cabs as I always relied on the hud to tell me their status. Stations should also be visible in the distance bar.

 

So have they removed the original HUD or certain details completely? I was hoping they'd done the logical thing: add options to make it more customisable, leaving the original HUD elements available if that's what people prefer.

 

It's an alternative HUD. The original HUD is still there. The HUD is now more customisable.

 

Can I put my hand up and say I actually like the new HUD! It will take some adjustment but it is far more discreet and even better than TSC or MSTS, the latter with all those boxes everywhere.

 

That's good news. I was starting to get the impression they'd replaced it completely with something customisable but lacking current features.

 

Just looked at the stream and overall I quite like the new HUD, but I'm worried about the 1km distance before the station countdown bar starts. 1km distance to bring your speed down for a station stop is quite short in my experience.

I wish station stops would show up at the topright part along with the signals and speed changes. Kinda like in TSC.

 

I'm just now doing a run on Boston Sprinter and am approaching Route 128 station on full 125mph. No way a 1km (0.6 mile) notification of a station stop is going to be enough. I'm really worried about that part of the UI now. I don't want to use the objective marker because it's right there in your face in the middle of the screen the entire time.

What's the idea behind the 1km mark for the station stop approaching countdown bar or whatever it's called, DTG Matt ?

 

LZB (and KVB) will only slow you down for signals or speed restrictions. Not for station stops. While most stations that have these fast trains stop have lower speed limits, you can't fully rely on these systems to cover you for every station stop. If the station is on a track segment with high speed limit and the signals are green, LZB/KVB will do nothing for you to warn you about a station stop.

 

Needs to be an absolute minimum of 2km - 4km even better.

 

With the ACS-64 on Boston Sprinter I find myself letting go of the throttle at 5 miles before Route 128 station, and start braking at 2 miles before Route 128, to be able to gradually reduce my speed.

I guess I could do it within 2km, but it'd be more of a panic brake instead of a smooth speed reduction. But pretty confident 1km is way to short when going 125mph with the ACS-64.

 

For a station stop with a HST travelling at 125mph then i reckon 3km should be about right.
That would be about 1.75 miles.
Mike.

 

I’ve been reading this thread a bit and I have one question about the HUD. With the mini HUD, is it possible to have on a imperial route/train everything in metric except the speed limits? Me as a European would prefer distances in metric, but having the speed limit in metric and my actual speed in imperial is a bit of a hassle.

 

Perhaps they'll allow us to select between one, two, or three, and either miles or km.

 

Ah yes, the HST. That reminds me. I believe Maidenhead on GWE is another station similar to Route 128 on Boston Sprinter. 125mph speed limit and a stop for these high speed trains.

 

Or perhaps they'll stop reinventing the wheel and look at the TSC HUD, which had a pretty fine HUD warning you of station stops well in advance, combined with signal positions and speed limits. Also showed a depiction of your whole consist so you'd know where the end of your train is. I still miss the TSC HUD and I think it's still superior to TSW HUD.

 

I am going to say something which may well be incredibly unpopular: I really can't stand TSC's HUD at all.

 

Care to explain why? I mean, it does contain quite a lot of useful information, and especially in F3 mode it's not too large IMO.

The new TSW small HUD does copy some elements from the TSC HUD, so even DTG seem to realize there's some quality in certain TSC HUD elements.

 

Had a look at the TSC hud but is there also a mini HUD?

I think the TSW minimal HUD is a better approach. Only remark I have on the design is that when you start speeding instead of the background changing color it's the number itself that changes color for the speed limit. I would have used the background as the colour indicator

 

If I remember correctly (been a while since I played TSC) F4 is the default HUD. F3 is the smaller version. Can't get smaller than that. Then there's the F5 HUD which only displays some extra numerical value, which I believe is mostly used for steam trains.

 

I prefer metric and imperial to be selected automatic
so it changes based on what route I drive
so long as that option is still there ill be happy

and for HUD's
there should be an HUD for casual players / normal players and experienced players
or just enable / disable different elements of it in game play options

 

Amen to that. It was disparagingly referred to as the Fisher Price HUD when first implemented and for good reason!

 

The F3 or F4 HUD? And while the HUD may look a tad... well... outdated, it does contain a lot of practical information IMO.

 

It contains too much information and takes up space right across the bottom of the screen especially the bigger one but even the smaller one takes up the whole bottom of the screen. For me it just is quite a large immersion killer and I find immersion hard enough to build in TSC.

Yes it does take a couple of elements for it but it takes up much less screen space and only displays the key information which we won't know, such as where the next stop is, but leaves things the train tells us as, for example, it is more immersive to look at the trains speedo rather than a HUD speedo, which isn't really an option in TSC but is here.

TSW just does HUD better than TSC in my opinion.

 

The bigger of the two, F4 I think.

 

A bit late to the party here.
Barbershop is unnecessary clutter, the distance counter works fine. If you're adding the box on the right for upcoming speed/signal etc you might as well add stations as in TSC.
Personally, I won't be using mini-HUD as all I use now are times, upcoming speed restrictions and stop points, but I certainly see how it would be helpful for beginner-moderate players.

 

Well, the TSC HUD may not be perfect, but then DTG didn't really improve it over the years. While they did spend resources to improve the TSW HUD, and I find it ironic that the result of years of innovation is a HUD that resembles features from the old TSC HUD. Imagine what we could have had when they started out with a copy of the TSC HUD and spent the same resources improving that HUD.

Exactly my thoughts as well. Why use two different sytems for something that's basically the same kind of countdown.