Anyone who has been playing TSW for at least some time knows that in this game it is sometimes hard to know when something is a feature and when it is a bug, at least those that arent IRL engineers or really knowledgeable enthusiasts I know that we wont get detailed manuals for everything, but since DTG loves to do articles about upcoming locos/trains and such, plus some forum posts/announcements about them, I thought it would be a good idea that when introducing a new loco/train (or a newer version; I know it isnt possible to do this for all backlog), that they would list major and some minor quirks of those Let me explain what I mean... lets say a loco automatically keeps you from going over 45 by cutting power at 40 kph when in restricted mode (recently discovered this on new 146.2), turning on train supply (in older locos called heating) revvs the diesel engine as if it was on notch 7 (when you get to notch 2) (BR 218) or HSP46 getting wild at notch 7 and 8 (or even weirder, when using Speed selector in conjunction with Force selector to brake for lower speeds, e-brake is in range of 0-50% and that translates to 0-100% of e-brake force; this happens lets say on BR 112)... I mean small details, different behavior of a certain loco/MU that arent obvious to everyone but might encounter them during gameplay and that could lead to uncertainty as to if some aspect of loco's/train's behavior is supposed to be there or not I am sure that even beta testers (and others involved in development) experience stuff during pre-release time and as such may notice or know these things, and could note em down to let players know what to expect... like... it is nice to know from articles that this loco is fast, has this and this feature, but it would also be useful to know that it behaves certain way in some situations players might encounter Expert 101 and Mittenwaldbahn manuals do a great job incorporating this kind of stuff, would be nice if we got that also with other locos/EMUs/DMUs etc... because as I said, unless you are an expert in this or other way, you have little means to know certain things
The one that’s been catching me out is the Class 40 hauling WSR stock on railtours. The braking system defaults to air passenger when it should be vacuum passenger. Even to a grizzled veteran like me the solution to, “Why the fudge isn’t the fudging thing moving”, wasn’t obvious let alone a less experienced player. I do believe when taking over a train in Timetable mode there should either be a quick start option or a choice whether the run begins with everything ready just to release the brakes and get going.
on US freight routes it is also the matter of post-Sherman Hill, aka that one and routes released after it already have the other locos set up and you just press Banking COMM to On in the lead loco and set up the rest, but the ones before you have to check other locos... and for ppl who dont know the release timeline and such, it might be hard to know where they have to check MU and other settings in other locos and where they dont have to etc or sometimes there are slight differences between versions of locos/MUs that sometimes are just visual difference, other times real ones... like 442 - on Koln Aachen those have 4 cars, and they dont react that much to descends if you let em coast, but on Dresden Riesa those have 3 cars and they react to descends even as little as 0.5 or... dynamic braking lets say on F125... if you just use B 100% on the combined lever, you usually get to 6 or so on the dial (only sometimes it goes to full), but if you also use the automatic brake while the combined lever is on B 100%, the dynamic braking goes even harder like, little things like these are all over the forums (thanks to rail gods at least for that), but sometimes it would be nice if we got sth more compiled, official and such... I remember Matt used to do videos from time to time where he would go quite in-depth about a certain route/loco/MU, and would often discuss quirks like these (also trainsimguy does this I believe, sometimes)
