Good afternoon all, I hope you are enjoying the new route. Me personally, I was intrigued to see the Far Rockaway branch go all the way to Hewlett in the preview stream and decided to investigate today. Here are my findings: Attached below is the map of LIRR Commuter as seen in the PC Editor. The Far Rockaway Branch is the one that heads south just past Valley Stream. The area around Gibson looks to be almost completely modeled. Granted, there are no platforms, but the station data appears to be there: Right at Hewlett is where the route turns into portals. There is no station data for Hewlett. Unrelated to the Far Rockaway Branch, East Williston station north of Mineola appears to be fully signaled and scened, missing only the station data itself and the platforms: IRL this station is just south of the grade crossing as shown below: The line to Hewlett is 1/3 of the entire Far Rockaway Branch. What are your thoughts on these areas of the route? Was Far Rockaway a scrapped plan? Should it come back? How about West Hempstead and East Williston?
Probably the same reason as with Fife Circle Line, Nahverkehr Dresden and SFS Kassel - Würzburg. Honestly it's just wasted time that could have been put into optimizing and polishing the usable and playable parts of the route, instead of putting all the work into something that may be thrown into the bin after all, because this isn't the first time that this has happened. If they are aware that a extension or some extensions may be too much to handle for the team, or too much in a constrained work environment, then they shouldn't plan it in the first place.
Addendum: the scenery tile patterns around the Far Rockaway and West Hempstead branches give STRONG indication that both of these branches were planned but ultimately cut.
No, the Port Washington, Oyster Bay (portals extend all the way to Albertson or even Rosslyn), Ronkonkoma, and Port Jefferson branches are all untouched relative to the original route.
Far Rock, East Williamston and West Hempstead have never been part of the plan. Considered in project outline and then cut long before anyone went near the editor. They add that kind of scenery because they've assessed that they need it to fill out the background. If you pushed out the playable extents to there, you'd need to model further down the line again, etc. Matt.
I think I read somewhere DTG were considering Port Washington but passed on it cuz it was considered too isolated, specifically not connected to Jamaica. Might DTG consider adding that branch in future, just to get it out of the way even if so disconnected, sort of like removing a (giant) thorn in your side?
