Couldn't find a thread for this so here it is. Thoughts on announcements? I'm disappointed but tbf I have an unrealistic expectation that these would have true to life voices. Still though it'll certainly create an atmosphere at stations. I personally might turn them off onboard. Not sure yet though.
A great idea, but so disappointing and typical of them not to make it backwards compatible with the TSW5 routes. DTG moving forward need to be a bit more committed to previously released DLC and immediately move away from releasing with a patch or two and moving onto the next project. It’s greedy when DLC are becoming increasingly expensive. I personally feel there should be a commitment to support and fix DLC properly and update it for full compatibility for the current and next iteration of TSW at the very least.
I guess I'm definitely more negative than most on this topic, and I acknowledge this isn't how most people feel, but personally I have always just found the train announcements to be annoying, for multiple reasons. Most obvious is just that it is hearing the same thing over and over again. But also, for some trains the driver wouldn't be able to hear them at all, or quite muffled, they never really seem to be done correctly sound wise. And as for the station announcements, I could go without them if they wont be the real voices. It just seems like so much work to be done well on every route. Maybe for routes I don't know in real life I will have the station announcements on but... If the option exists to turn them off, I will.
I wonder whether the announcements will be the same on every train or they'll use different voices to vary it. They didn't sound like the actual voices they use on UK stations but they did sound alright, I'll be looking forward to standing on the platform at Exeter St. Davids and hearing the announcement for the train to Waterloo.
The TfL ones on the recent add-ons have left me wanting more really. The quietness of busy stations is something that needed addressing, as well as the passenger noise on trains and stations too. For backward compatibility they’d need to record all the possible phrases and words and somehow implement that into a pre-existing route build. They must have made significant changes to the new routes to allow them to work seamlessly (in theory!) I think the SC 170 used on track locations to trigger announcements on board - which if that’s the same method DTG have used too now then it would obviously require heaps of work across existing routes!
One of user mods brings fake announcements to the Salzburg, and even if the announcements don't match what's really happening on the station, it brings so much to the station immersion. (18. seconds+) Having properly mixed announcement that actually match what's going on will be a huge immersion booster. I'm not suprised they are not reintegrated to the older routes, as I imagine it might require additions to the timetable + new recordings.
It will be some sort of AI generated function, I guess. With scores of compatible route and thousands of train service and stopping patterns it would be impossible to live record all of them. I just hope the on train announcements are restricted to the calling points as it can get quite intrusive. On our “Tuesday Cucumber Club” trip to Reading yesterday, first of all you get the automatic welcome on board, this is the train from xxxx calling at yyyy, next station stop is zzzz. Then you get the Guard coming on and repeating the same thing, then the see it, sort it security announcement. Guard again about advance tickets only being on the nominated train. Then the trolley steward starts on about coming through with refreshments, keep the aisle clear, not taking cash (!) today. By the time it finished, train was halfway to Didcot!
Not even ai is needed Vern. You’d have the station names, the hours and minutes, platform numbers and the other conversational filling recorded, then the system would pick and choose the right words and phrases and mash them together into a sentence. Pretty sure that’s how it’s done with most ‘automated’ ones now. Something to the effect of: ‘The next train to arrive on PLATFORM THREE.. is the.. TWELVE.. forty TWO, Great Western Railway service to.. PLYMOUTH, calling at Newton Abbot and PLYMOUTH!’
Haha I wonder if they’ll be able to replicate the “enthusiastic” LNER (or is it XC, I tend to tune them out!) robo-voice telling us about the selection of delicious snacks…
Indeed, actual station (and train) announcements have been doing this for decades. Chopped up bits of recorded speech joined together.
I'm curious to know whether deleting a train via the map will cause them to say "we are sorry to announce that the 09:46 Great Western Railway service to Plymouth has been cancelled"
DTG use AI for this, it's written in the game description on Steam so don't expect real voices We use ElevenLabs' Text-to-Speech tool to generate voiceover elements in Train Sim World 6. This is used in features such as training modules, as well as platform and on-train announcements. All scripts and content are written by Dovetail Games staff, with ElevenLabs being used to generate the audio in these cases.
I like announcements both onboard and in the station, the reason is simple, for extra immersion. Are they going to backdate the catalogue?
Did I understand correctly that I will be able to turn off the announcements inside the locomotive, but they will continue to sound in the MU and cab cars with this toggle in off position? I want realism. And not to have to go into the settings every time to achieve it.
I don’t know about you but I hear the AWS going off from the first carriage behind the driver quite clearly, so I’m sure he’d hear the announcements from the first speaker behind his cab.
I mean the locomotive aka the engine aka separate unit. The announcements in it can only be heard through an open window from an open door of a train car.
Depends if your talking about a loco hauled train or a dbso/cab car. Yes I agree if it's loco hauled though. Announcements would have to be pretty loud too for that
I think it's a fantastic feature that i've wanted for ages, and something that much lower-budget titles (e.g. Subway Sim 2) are doing with ease. Don't care if it's the real voices, i wouldn't know anyway lol.
Maybe they don't do it for all routes, some are true, others aren't because of the problem of having the voice
No plans. It is a train by train basis for train announcements and route by route for station announcements, so expect it to be large amount of work just for 1 thing. It's like the lighting in tsw3 which is also a lot of work. Some may happen, but expect majority will not happen. Unless they get the actual licensing, it is not true to life. Authentic in terms of making it sound like an announcement
Had to smile at Reading on Tuesday. Stood on Platform 12 while wife used the loo, auto announcement came over the PA, "Fast train approaching, stand clear of the platform edge." Turned out to be a Class 66 hauling some cargowagons doing about 30 MPH!
Matt talked about it quite a lot in the roadmap stream and it sounds really good to me. The only way they could have easily made it backwards compatible is by making it very generic, one type of phrasing, one voice etc. This is custom to the route and whilst it won’t be 100% authentic I still think it will be really good.
In therory a good feature like most tsw "improvements" But knowing dtg in the past, a lot of train related features took a bad hit from prioritizing gimmick features which take time and eat the hardware ressources. The brake modes on german trains arent simulated well anymore because they had to keep up with the suspension feature in tsw5. Yes an old roosT timberwagon is used on new dlcs while the tharandter ramp updated wagon type is ignored. The D2 brake valve implementation on the 114 is a joke, abandoned the loco after 10mins of static testing without driving it. Pgr selector didnt actually do anything until the patch. So my point what features have to go away this time, to make announcments & random events possible?
Yeah i'm glad they decided to make it a comprehensive feature tbh. Hopefully this is a sign of improved project design/management overall. TSW6 has me ever so slightly optimistic- they at least SEEM much more confident and excited this year, when you could practically see the anxiety seeping through during the TSW5 announcement. I'm fairly confident now that the tools exist in-game, we'll see them get added to some of the older routes over time as has happened with TOD4.
