The First Japanese Route In Tsw Discussion Thread

Hopefully yeah, lol. And with a full timetable resulting in more dynamic encounters, we will hopefully hear them more!

Also I do wonder, does this mean they got a JR licence? Or it will be unbranded just like in TSC?

 

I’m sure they will come if you are patient.

 

I think this is a great choice for the first Japanese TSW route! I had a quick look at some satellite imagery, and the route seems to go from mountainous valleys to big fields/plantations. Will be very beautiful and breathtaking!

 

They do not, in one of the preview shots, you can see the JR logo is replaced by UW.

 

If they add the older KiHA40 loco, then yes, bing bongs are coming

 

Ok, I have to ask. What are these "bing bongs"? Some sort of jingle for announcements or something?

 

The Lanscape is so beautiful especially when its snow, i hope the team will do an amazing job on this route. This is what i like about Japan Railway

 

It is a safety system alert. When passing a yellow signal that is followed by a red stop signal, a mechanical ring will start sounding. You have to acknowledge it in a few seconds (otherwise emergency brakes kick in), then the mechanical ring will be replaced by a more pleasant "bing bong" sound playing until you come to a complete stop.

So the sequence is:

• Pass yellow signal (next is red)
  
• Ring starts ringing
• Acknowledge ring alarm
• Bing bong starts playing and keeps going on until you stop
  
• Acknowledge bing bong once stationary to stop it bing bonging

 

I wonder if arriving too late or too early will result in a 'service failure', ending your session.

 

And will DTG be shipping a complimentary set of white gloves with every purchase?!

 

Probably not, but I guess they can set stricter rules for being on time and stopping in the correct position for the scoring system? That can be modified on a route-to-route basis in TSW, right? Would also make more sense than service failure anyway. They don't fire the guy right away in Japan if they are late by 30 seconds. They might scold him afterwards, but that's it.

 

Press Q to point finger at signals, lol.

 

Maybe there will be a shortcut so you can issue a formal apology if you are arriving late.

 

More specifically this is the ATS-P system.

 

OMG the route is just so amazing and breathtaking i watch this youtube video of the whole line, and its just gorgeous you past the more scenic view passing mountain tree, cover in gorgeous snow. Here is the video, Hopefully they will do justice and blow us away with the train model itself, the scenery and the whole route, along with real Japanese announcement on train and station. Can't wait
Tadami Line: AizuWakamatsu

 

here is the map of the line

 

A little addendum. I just found out that Union Workshop already created this route for TSC. This with TSW graphics must look amazing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/...adami_Line_AizuWakamatsu__Tadami_Route_AddOn/

 

Yes, this route already exists for TSC.

Not a bad route, but graphics are not as good as Forest Rail, Wakayama Line or Hidaka Line. Performance is also a bit weak, because the KiHa 40 is pretty high poly and underoptimized, so you get bad framerate if you have more than 1-2 in the screen.

Hopefully it will be better for TSW. If they keep the same style for the whole route that the preview screenshots show, then it will be a gorgeous route.

TSW also seems to handle more trains in the screen better, hopefully it will run nicer.

Also can't wait to do proper full services instead of it being split into 3 scenarios like in TSC.

 

As I said, my lingering concern is that some of the assets - including cabs and train interiors - on their TSC routes are a bit low poly/res. I also found their sounds to be a bit low quality too. That has to be a bit of a worry given it seems to be harder to get sound right in TSW as opposed to TSC. Hopefully it will work out okay as I really want this in my TSW collection.

 

I'd say it's the opposite, their train and interior models are too high poly on their recent routes. They will model spiralling phone cables in full detail, even though not even TSW rolling stock does that. They will also model the grille of each interior fan to the fullest, which is unneccessarily too many polygons.

This results in low performance, because their rolling stock in unoptimized.

I do agree that their sounds are quite bad usually, hopefully it will be a bit better this time.

 

Really looking forward to this route. I didn't get the TSC version as I had already migrated fully into TSW when it was released, and I've been hoping for a TSW version ever since. I just hope UW will include the KiHa 40 with it, although it no longer runs on the line. It just has that classic look that I love.

 

I would love that, too. I have fond memories of the Wakayama line from TSC.

 

I am super interested for this one. I know nothing about Japanese railways but love variety in the game. A few years ago I had absolutely 0 knowledge of German or British railways, and now know quite a bit thanks to playing TSW. Will be fun to try out a new country.

 

Wakayama was my favourite of the few Japanese routes I owned for TSC. Didn't get the TSC version of Tadami as by the time it was released I was only playing TSW and hadn't touched TSC for quite a while. I hope we can expect more awesome Japanese routes from Union Workshop, like the Wakayama line, but I guess we''ll need to be patient

 

I assume the KiHa 40 is more likely, as they already have that one fully modelled from TSC.

I am also hoping it will be that one, although the KiHa 110 or E120 would also be fun, and fitting for TSW's style of mostly present-day stuff.

Best case scenario we could get any of them, then the other one as an add-on with a timetable set in different year. One of my biggest problem with UW routes for TSC is that we have never gotten new content for older routes. Hopefully this will change and we will see train add-ons for existing routes in TSW.

 

They've released some rolling stock in free updates, and they've said at various times they want to do the Akita Shinkansen for Tohoku High Speed and the Yamanote and Chuo lines for Tokyo Commuter...

 

Other than the 105 series for Wakayama Line, what other rolling stock update did they have? I know they announced a free livery for the KiHa 40 on Tadami Line, but I don't believe it ever got released? And as you mentioned, they did say they want to extend the Tokyo Commuter by making the Yamanote Line driveable, but I highly doubt it will ever happen. They said they want to make more rolling stock for the Wakayama Line as well, but they never did.

They seem to have high ambitions for these routes, but I assume they don't have the capacity to do everything they want.

 

They released the H5 for Tohoku after it was released, they were also supposed to make Yamamoto Line E231-500 that came with Tokyo drivable at some point, but it never happened.

Also to note, there will probably not be very much subbing in on their Japanese route as time goes on. Not much stock can be used on other routes without repainting, rebranding, or small changes to models.

 

Did I read it correctly earlier in the thread or elsewhere the trains will be unbranded? If so, I guess JR East have focused on their relationship with Ongakukan and their "drive the video clip" sims.

 

Well, it's not the railroad operator's responsibility to get in touch with train simulator developers, but the other way around. People looking to make train simulator content can try to get in touch with the operators to get reference material and licence.

But I highly doubt Union Workshop did that, since they are based in China, and I imagine getting in touch with a japanese railway company from outside the country is not easy. I would guess DTG did not either, because honestly, we barely see them trying to step into new territories themselves.

Even if they did, JR probably would not be interested, because it is a foreign game anyway, and they would probably see it as a competitor to their JR EAST Train Simulator. Though they did give licence to Densha de GO in the past, so who knows how open they are to these things.

Anyway, I am not too bothered about that, on PC a logo mod will be available pretty quicky anyway, I would assume.

 

I have always been a fan of the Shinkansen (Series 300 and 500 above all) but I must admit that from the TS videos I find the Shinkansen lines very boring and with almost no view (also due to the very low and super elongated cockpit). The Tadami line, on the other hand, seems very good (a sort of Niddertalbahn of the East). On the other hand, however, I find them not very long-lasting.

A fun fact that I recently discovered: Between Morioka and Akita the train leaves the Shinkansen line and travels along the traditional line.

 

Unfortunate too, as from Sendai to Tokyo, its usually coupled to the tail of the e5's

 

Union Workshop on their Weibo page have just shared a post where they seem to be asking people what features they would like to see accurately represented in a game for a KiHa 40. They are also asking what complaints people might have regarding their KiHa 40 made for TSC.
On the sidenote they also seem to be looking for reference material in the form of some documentation or book on the KiHa 40 written by the Hokkaido Railway Company.


So I guess it's a pretty safe bet to say that KiHa 40 is confirmed?

 

Which gives the vibe the route is some way off release, then. A bit concerning if they have chosen this route and train but are without any reference material for it and can’t approach JR East who will only work with Ongakukan.

Well I would definitely say the sounds of the TSC version were the weakest feature, very basic and not very train like.

Hopefully the hurdles can be overcome.

 

Well that was already expected, considering the preview shots showed some good trackside scenery, but then just gray emptiness in the distance. I would guess that they are at the stage where trackwork is laid down, most of the scenery object library is made, but this is where the real route building begins.

They do have other options than JR themselves. After lurking around a bit more on Weibo, this Mr_Donkey guy also shared a post yesterday where they seem to analyze Myanmar Railways' KiHa 40s and - if I understand correctly - trying to find which running number is an usual single unit and which one is a doube-unit KiHa 48, coming to the conclusion that running number RBE3089 is the unit they need. Maybe they are trying to get in touch with Myanmar Railways and get reference trip and material from them? It would make sense - probably easier to get in touch with someone from the neighboring country and speaking mostly the same language, than trying to get in touch with JR, who will not like you because you are a foreigner.

 

I have seen footage of Kiha units on the Yangon (formerly Rangoon) circle line around the city. There’s a few video clips on YT which are quite fascinating. However given Myanmar/Burma exists in a rather volatile political and military state, probably not the easiest place to gain access for research.

 

I looked over a Japanese review of the TSC Tadami Line with Google Translate and found the following complaints about the KiHa 40 (I don't know when the review was made, so some of this issues may have been fixed):

• The windows are those used on the variant of the Kiha 40 for warmer regions, not those used on the variant used on the Tadami Line
• The gear lever's positions are reversed.
• There is also some sort of issue with the brakes that I'm not confident in Google Translate's ability to translate

 

Another great thing about a Japanese route is it might open up TSW to the entire world of Japanese customers who might not have been interested in non-Japanese stuff. Rail sims/games are actually quite big in Japan, they even have arcade game versions of them in physical arcades.

 

Railway hobby is indeed insanely popular in Japan. Although I hope that having a local route available will increase TSW's popularity among Japanese users, I doubt it'll have a huge impact. There still remains the problem of TSW not supporting Japanese as an interface language. If DTG could solve that, it'd help a lot in getting the Japanese userbase expanded and maybe even catching the interest of some local 3rd party developers. But as long as the language barrier exists, the local target audience would be limited at best.

 

For this route I can see it giving the Kiha 40 to Kansai Region routes like the Haruka route KIX airport to Kyoto

 

I don’t really understand why some people play TSW or TSC, why not play them both and enjoy the best they both have to offer? As for the graphical element it’s over simplified to say the TSW graphics are better every time than those in TSC. With the addition of payware such as RW Enhancer 2 the graphics can be made to look better than most routes in TSW and TSW2 and equal to some of the later ones, excepting the new mountain routes. The lighting is so much better and everything sharper and better finished with shading, highlighting and weathering.
But most important of all is that program optimises the game to a very high level and everything now runs smoothly regardless of how many trains etc are on screen at the same time, much better than TSW.
There are routes in TSC that I will bet will never come to TSW such as those in South Africa, New Zealand and Turkey.

 

Maybe because they play on console.

I for example will be playing on Tadami in TSC really soon (like in a half of hour), but people who don't play games on PC but on console instead will need to wait until it releases for TSW.

 

Noone said you can't play both. But TSC has aged poorly, so people obviously are looking for a modern replacement.

Sorry, but that is not really true. While you are right in that many TSC routes are better made than their TSW counterparts, because they have more correctly set up lighting, better texture and more realistic weathering. In comparison lighting is often off in TSW, and while the 3D models are good, textures are often tiled horribly and lack weathering, giving many assets an underdetailed, plastic toy look.

But the TSW engine itself is far superior to the TSC one. Unreal Engine offers much better graphics, like better material properties and reflections, realistic motion blur, smoother antialiasing, etc. And for the most part TSW will look better graphics wise, even if the route building is not always as good as it was in TSC.

And that is just objectively wrong. TSC is an old, underoptimized engine. It does not even support multithreading. The engine just can't handle what content creators nowdays try to achieve with it, because everyone tries do to very detailed trains and routes, but the engine can't handle it, so it will run poorly even on modern hardware.

I don't know where you get this idea that it runs smooth regardless of how many trains there are, because TSC will have noticeable performance drop even with just 2 or 3 trains in a scene. In comparison, TSW can handle it much better and will be running more smoothly while also looking better.

Given enough time, other countries will hopefully come as well. We finally have Japan coming, so it is a step in the right direction. I agree with you, I would also like to see South Africa as well. The TSC routes from South Africa were quite poorly made, but I would like a good looking African route in TSW.

 

You have completely missed my point, I am not saying vanilla TSC is superior to TSW but rather a MODDED TSC with Railworks Enhancer 2 is superior to many older TSW routes. RW Enhancer 2 is an incredible program that transforms TSC into something that you just don’t understand unless you have it installed, completely modernising the graphics and optimising it way better than TSW. Don't believe me? Then look it up on YouTube and see for yourself.
I have it installed so I know what I am talking about.
I suggest you try it first before attempting to lecture me.
Until you install RW Enhancer 2 yourself and understand it, then you are basically ignorant on the subject so I’m not going to get into an argument about it with you.
Have a good day.

 

it also takes up to 4 hrs for a one way trip due to the speed limit and the amount of curves

 

Yep. Even though the section we (will) have is not the full route, as it only goes up to Tadami, it still takes like 3 hours. I wonder if they will split them into different services, like on other longer routes?

 

I hope the tsw passenger system can handle the disciplined Japanese queuing.

 

Unless improved, the passengers' behavior will stay the same. Of course there will be some delay between passengers alighting and boarding, but while we may get new character models, they will likely still be wandering on platforms without purpose, dancing in circles, waiting on platform for another train which may not come in the next half of hour, instead of boarding the one that just arrived (unless they are made as "dioramas" who won't board the train anyway).

 

I think splitting the services would be the better idea tbh

 

Is that the same one in Wakayama line (TSC) or is that a slightly different one?