So on todays roadmap, it is revealed that Skyhook is making a gameplay and livery pack for the US. Given the routes that SHG has made and such, only real prediction I can make so far is that it is a Norfolk Southern Heritage Livery Pack for Horseshoe curve, most likely reusing their ES44AC, and borrowing DTG's SD70ACe. Not sure what "new" gameplay would be added to this pack aside from scenarios but I don't know what else SHG would make. Also not much fanfare with this one. With how bad DTG's UP livery pack was, unless Skyhook absolutely nails the pack (Including added ISO cabs to the SD70ACe) I feel like this is one for a sale down the road.
You might be bang on as remember, Skyhook were the ones who made Horseshoe in the first place and hasn't had a DLC to date so this is a good shout
I note with interest, considering the issue of licensing, that NS apparently has licenses or owns outright the branding for Conrail and its constituents, including Penn Central (Pennsy, NYC and New Haven), together with most of the smaller northeastern Fallen Flags.
No denying this, the NS Heritage Pack seems to be the only viable choice for Skyhook to make. Compare to other locos that are made in TSW that are not in NS black yet, ACes, SD40s, the long dead GP40s (would be a very odd route to reboot them though) to name a few in the modern era of the route. As for the whole 'Gameplay' thing, I highly doubt they could make Horseshoe Cure any more interesting than it already is. Scenarios, maybe (that's the whole point with these sims), but service wise in a timetable, they might just end up subbing in as usual with the GEVOs from time to time, much like the UP Heritage Pack for Sherman Hill. But of course this is all just speculations right here. It'll be a weird curveball if they did something else special for the pack than the Heritage units.
I think the thing with Conrail is that NS has negotiated with the CSAO to allow the Conrail livery to be used in any form that the Heritage Unit appears in, which is why we got it in TSC, but not any actual Conrail units. They did screw up a bit with Cane Creek, the SD40 has lettering misplaced too high, and the AC44 still has the CSX style reflective side sills instead of the ones UP uses. The ribbed hopper was also a weird green color instead of grey.
I can see it being Norfolk Southern Heritage pack and NJ Transit ALP-45DP veterans unit 4534 EL 4519 US Space Force 4500
More than anything I am interested in THIS! I have most US routes, so wherever the DLC goes, it can improve the variety for me, BUT if it is like the heritage pack, BIG NO!
I‘m definatley thinking that it will be an NS-Heritage Pack for Horseshoe Curve. If we are lucky there may be an additional loco (like the SD70ace).
So I think we have a depot for this add-on in the steamdb. Numbered 2313310, which has been floating around here for the past 2 weeks, and as of today's update, now has a download size of 321.89 MiB, which is smaller than the download size for the UP Heritage Livery Collection that DTG gave to Sherman Hill (that ones size was 417.79 MiB). Regardless though, I can still see this being a heritage livery pack of it's own, only this time for the ES44AC available for that route. But either way, let's just wait and see on that. Hopefully now info comes out on this soon.
Its small size makes me think it won't be the complete 10 heritage ES44s NS has. Maybe half of that? That's pretty bold... NS has 20 heritage locos... is it going to be 4 packs?
Or only include the railroads that ever owned the Pittsburgh Line between Altoona and Jonestown. But that would only be 3 units, PRR, PC and Conrail which are 2 ES44s and 1 SD70ACe. The smaller download size is something to keep an eye on as this pack gets closer to being revealed.
Of course we have to wait for some solid information, but, at this point, I'm feeling a little underwhelmed, especially if that's an accurate download size. I mean, how many of the approximately dozen NS fallen flags would we get?
Maybe just the ones relevant to Pennsylvania: PRR, NYC, Conrail, Reading, Lehigh, Delaware-Lackawanna, Erie.
Might depend on how much from the license they can squeeze out to make them, not only from Skyhook but Dovetail as well. And after seeing the file size from steamdb, surprised there's gonna be fewer units than what the UP Heritage Pack have (might be predicting the units in NS Black I have mentioned earlier, just a wild guess). Though, having a fraction of the heritage set do seem a little pointless to make, tbh.
The only possible new gameplay they could add that I can think of would be helper services. But I feel that would be weird given the only locos used for helper service on HSC are currently SD70ACUs and, up until a while ago, SD40Es. Also pretty much every service runs with DPUs anyway.
If they're gonna make a new DLC for Horseshoe Curve, would be much better if the route itselft updated to the TSW3 standard, especially the locos physics. Port the CJP ES44C4 physics & Banking Comm capabilities to the HSC ES44AC and I'll be the happiest guy in the world.
I’d imagine the gameplay would consist of a couple of scenarios. Would be pleasantly surprised if we got timetable additions. Would be absolutely ecstatic if any improvements were made to the ES44AC.
For gameplay it be nice if SH used the flatcars that carry semi trailers and trash containers for extra options in scenario planner.These wagons only appear on one single timetable train and nowhere else.I think it's 25W if i remember correctly.
Skayhook has a lot to fix in their US freight routes... lets see, badging them with just livery and scenario isn't the case.
Very doubtful, DTG added broken sd70aces to CJP with no improvement consideration at all, Skyhook will take the same direction I suppose.
But they will need to add the Ace to the HSC. It could be a new UP AC4400 paint job or locomotive setup such as the number boards and lights.
Well if skyhook adds the ace without changing it, it would actually be better than the es44ac simply because dtg made it better. The es44 doesn't have the good braking mechanics the ace has
Next week's stream: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/week-beginning-august-7th.72102/#post-687810 Here's hoping on what it's gonna be.
I guess this sort of confirms whatever we’re getting at the end of August will not be an entirely new game. They would probably not release content for TSW3 if they’re planning on moving on within the next few weeks. Hopefully just a name-change with no need to purchase a new version, like the jump from TSW to TSW 2020.
Not necessarily. TSW2 content still works in TSW3. The same would be true for TSW4. It would just transfer across.
Id argue no.... or atleast this pack alone dosen't prove it. I'd argue the main thing that follows this train of thinking would be JT's route as thats has leaks meaning it was made in the TSW3 engine. Theres also another german loco coming but again the JT route does appear to if anything be the main leading factor to prove whats going on using this logic. EDIT: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/week-beginning-august-7th.72102/ also the announcement here talks more about the main topic of the thread.
I hope that we will get more than the UP fallen flags pack for SMH. It would be nice to have things like: -CSX trains at HSC and NS trains at SPG -UP AC44 or UP SD70Ace at PC -ES44AC in CN livery layers at OSD -NS SD70Ace, AC44 and SD40-2 for HSC -Amtrak F40 at HSC Yes there is some stuff among that, what's from DTG. But even at Cane Creek the base fore the Skyhook UP locos were the CSX AC44 and SD40-2 made from DTG.
The UP livery peach was LOVE! It took me 2 seconds to see all the problems. How 2 of the units had UP 1983 strips. I did like the weather effect on some of them. The number boards were stuck on too!
One thing I did overlook on the roadmap is that it is listed as a "Scenario and Livery Pack" In other words, don't expect it to be much different than the UP Heritage Unit pack. So probably the 10 ES44 Heritage Units (As I no longer expect SHG top put the work in to the DTG SD70ACe for a scenario pack) IE identical to the TSC version.
Well, we did get all 6 of UP's heritage units last time out, but I'm not sure we'll get all 10 from NS. I just hope that NYC, Nickel Plate and Pennsy are among them with appropriate scenarios
The side is now at 321.94 MB from Steam DB. Not sure if it's a big difference between the last time someone checked, but it's still smaller than the UP Heritage Pack.
I don't see the point of these livery packs if PC players can just get mods using any heritage livery and there is the creators club as well. Sure there are scenarios but they are more often than not, extremely boring. Perhaps that's one reason why DTG haven't released livery designer 2.0 and scenario planner 2.0 because it would make these packs quite pointless
And the winner is: https://live.dovetailgames.com/live...uthern-heritage-livery-collection-coming-soon Funny enough, no Conrail livery was added
So it's only a livery pack and the route doesn't get the same treatment of the Sherman Hill. Don't get me wrong, i love this kind of stuff, adding more variation to the gameplay, but the ES44AC from Horseshoe Curve practically undriveable especially in downgrade situation. The dynamics is very weird, the retarding power is not increasing notch by notch but by a big step, very very big step. It's impossible to drive the train smoothly.
