Decent, I think. The sounds on the Baby Bullet are not very nice, but the route itself looks quite good, bar the awful lighting. My friends and I have been watching the stream together and unlike the WCML one, we got quite bored because there wasn't much to complain about.
I mean TSW's awful overly bright lighting - when they were driving alongside the motorway the road was completely white. I think the idle sounds are fine, but when under power the locomotive sounds very tinny. That may be how they are in real life, but I'd struggle to believe that without proof.
Another thread has described the track itself popping in at short distance and maybe the same old thing with floating cars? Just not really there to justify reinstating the preorder. I really think at this stage DTG need to invest serious time and money sorting out these core issues of lighting etc. Doesn't matter how mucg care and detail goes into making the content, if it's not looking right then the game is starting to become worthless as a platform.
The track shadows have been upgraded but not the ballast ones, and there were points in the stream where the shadows on the ballast wouldn't appear until the end of the existing shadows goes into the cab's blind spot. Not great.
Honestly I think this looks great. The F125 was already great, the new MP36 looks well done, the mixed consists are great, and overall scenery looks very good other than a few oddities here and there. The freight seems to have been much improved from AVL as well. Some small bugs visible like cars going through crossings but its not across the board and those get fixed usually. I was on the fence with AVL, I liked the trains but there were quite a few scenery snafus (floating stuff), the route itself I didn't find the most engaging, and I felt like they could have improved it by having a second loco and the accurate mixed consists of real life Metrolink. San Bernardino seems to have addressed all those things, and seems to be a more engaging route overall with more stops/urban areas and less meandering slow mountain running. I like US diesel commuter runs, Boston is one of my fav routes and Caltrain was as well until it got a little bit long on the tooth, I think I will love this one. My excitement level is back up for TSW5. MP36 sounds I am waiting to experience in my living room. The stream through compression and little speakers probably isn't the best. I know when I run the F125 on my TV with surround sound and subwoofer it is awesome, shakes my whole basement and is the best sounding US loco. If they recorded the MP36 at the same time with the same equipment I am expecting it to be good too. I hope (but don't expect) they can do a pass back on AVL and update it with the mixed consists and maybe the newer Metrolink schedule.
The route looks great so far but there’s one thing in particular which bothers me and can be problematic for the future in terms of licensing, it’s the fact that there’s still on some level crossing, vehicles crossing when red lights are lit or/and gates lowered.
I think it looks well made and nicely detailed, the scenery and stations look great. The trains look well modelled. It seems that there is quite a lot to do on the route. Some of the motorways were too bright when the sun was on them, they were practically white with no colouring. I also noticed cars getting stuck on the crossings which hopefully will be addressed. The night lighting looks pretty effective too. Overall it looks like a polished route, more so than WCML south.
One handy hint around sound- consider getting a good headset. It can be a game changer for audio quality instead of speakers, as I found..
It looks like a well made route with quite a lot of attention to detail. The roads and track textures are too reflective which is an issue we have seen a lot before and quite odd that it still persists (and will be worse under some date and weather settings) but there are some extremely nice stretches of scenery on the route. The trains seem fine too. Just need to see how it all plays on PS5 when I get it. Obviously as a single track route there isn’t much opportunity for passing train traffic and for me that’s why the scenery has to be good to maintain interest and I was quite impressed with it. There is also a fair number of freight services for some variety alongside the three passenger cabs so that’s good to see. I can see it being a nice relaxing route to drive.
Pretty good in my opinion, night lighting is also quite good. What I really like is that the landscape is beautifully filled. There are a couple of small bugs that can be quickly fixed. Maybe a slider could be added to the settings and there you could adjust how many tickets should be checked. A complete bug fix of AI traffic is needed because some cars are flying and some crossing not working.
Well, having watched most of the stream, I think they did a pretty good job on the scenery, stations and trains. However, the same old problems of floating cars, popping track shadows and cars crossing in front of trains were present. The disturbing thing was, as usual, no one on the stream mentioned these things which presumably means they won't be fixed. And I still saw some light poles on the expressway. Did they think we wouldn't notice? Plus, the suspension didn't seem active to me. There was a tedium about the single track running mile after mile with very little AI, just a few meets here and there. However, I will say that the night lighting was pretty decent for the most part, though not uniformly. There were some very dark areas. If it were not for the freight layers, I don't think this route would have legs in terms of gameplay. But as part of a bundle, it would just about be worth a punt. ( Post moved from QA thread for relevance. )
Generally games on UE 3-5 got this ugly overbrighting materials, when you face up the sun. IRL asphalt or concrete can shine like this if it's wet, but there is no rain. Also the ground doesn't shine like this IRL(maybe some nuclear badlands does, not sure). To me this looks like a problem with incorrectly set materials/surface textures that shouldn't reflect light so hard, but do. That's why I've never plays westbound trains on evening or eastbound in the morning with sunny weather, cause it's looks such unrealistic and painful for the eyes. When you play with the sun behind you, the game looks 1000 times better.
Yea this route is better than decent it's looking great! I'm glad I was one of those who jumped the gun and refunded their pre orders, now if Frankfurt Fulda can live up to expectations like SBD then great. SBD is the first American Route I've been looking forward to since LIRR 2
This was immediately what annoyed me about this route. If Frankfurt is a good showing then I probably visit this route by foot and teleport from station to station. This route is probably very detailed but the performance really took a hit of this.
Interesting to see that people have so different opinions on this. I generally dislike any American content and I never play it, but this route actually looked very nice. There was a meet at almost every double track section, lots of layers, the variable consist feature is nice, night lighting was exceptional for TSW standards (although, shouldn't LATC be brightly lit by floodlights?), and I found the modelling of stations absolutely stunning.
Agreed. I think the split for me might not actually be route based but rather underlying issues based which falls across all routes. Objectively, the route is magnificent. It clearly has had a lot of attention given to it and that is rightfully acknowledged and celebrated. The other side of the coin is that issues like floating cars, some shadow issues and general lighting issues remain unresolved and so it is likely that all routes will suffer from some degradation to a greater or lesser extent as a result. I'd like to think that any negativity around the route is centred around this context, as then some pressure can be applied towards getting that resolved for all future routes.
agreed. I never really played AVL as a big 2h run into a single track desert seemed very boring. this looks way more interesting with a constant change from one to 4 tracks and everything in between. I expected this to be a lonely route. but going straight through the city with a lot of meets and even some freight variety. I might start learning to drive american routes because of it. and yes I would love a brightness slider as every route I purposely start dynamic with clouds now because it's so damn bright. I can't wait for longer nights so I can have sunrise trips in the winter.
Looked nice the route . A shame they can’t fix the flying cars , is it that difficult ? But other than that, I liked it .
Cars drive along a line (called spline in UE) - I have placed many of thelm into my route and theoretically you can draw the line exactly as you want, but it takes time..... ------‐--------- I didn't expect San Bernardino line to be that interesting! After buying TSW4 with AVL included, I only did one service and found AVL pretty boring, but thus route looks like the much better alternative to it! Now, I have to change my mind about what I want to buy when....
If they can't fix the flying cars can they atleast swap them out with dmc 12s! That is of course if they can get the licence for it.
Same here... this does look interesting. What would really peak my interest would be San Diego-Los Angeles Pacific Surfliner like in TSC. That route would amazing in TSW, if it´s excuted well.
Well, I feel that there is a possibility, in the future, for us to get at least as far south as Oceanside with Metrolink. If we do get this line would want the Pacific Surfline cars and locos to run on it.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the way materials are being set up which the existing lighting regimen amplifies. It all comes together to create this overly bright, washed out mess. The most obvious example is the fact that the track ballast and track bed have different levels of reflectivity. You will have also noticed certain surfaces in many cabs reflecting light that is not, and could never be visible to the player whilst the rest of the cab doesn’t. The roads being almost white is also a material issue, not the lighting itself. I honestly would be quite happy if all TSW6 brought to the table would be a standardised set of parameters for assets, materials etc that just work and got rid of these issues once and all. It is still the Achilles Heel of what is otherwise a much improved game, WCMLS exempted.
What is nice, and something I haven't seen mentioned yet, is that Antelope Valley Line will be getting enhanced suspension!
During the stream last night something quickly flashed in the screen that stood out to me... it was a large sign trackside, clearly a unique asset that I've never seen in TSW before. It looked like the type of large sign you'd see at a Target store or a mall, so I was curious if it was something that exists in real life and what it could be. So I fired up google and took a look around roughly the area where they were, and checked google streetview. Sure enough: This kind of attention to detail is what I love in a route... sure, its just a car dealership, but with a sign that big so close to the track its somewhat of a landmark. They could have placed some generic asset there as they often do but to actually take the time to replicate it with a unique asset (minus the licensed brand name of course) shows that time and thought went into this route.
