Train Sim World 2020

[D16]

I've been playing TSW2020 on the PS4 as my PC doesn't have the muscle to play the game (and I don't want to spend loads of cash to upgrade at this time). Generally I find the graphics to be fantastic but best of all is the sound when you open up a 45 out of anywhere on the Trans-Pennine. Annoying though that pressing L3 only plays the horn sound high note. If you want two-tone you have to look downwards at your console and move the cursor onto the horn button. Also, would be nice if the game gave you brownie points for sounding the horn as you enter & leave a tunnel, pass the rear of an train heading in the opposite direction or warn one of the many dosey station users who seem to stand quite close to the platform edge as you wizz through at 80mph.

 

[Statto]

One thing i do find irritating, when playing Great Western Express, on the class 166 service, the section between Twyford & Reading the train switches between slow & fast then back to slow at the next junction, i don't see the point of this as the unit when on the fast, can't get to line speed of the slows before slowing down to to switch to the slow, the 166 doesn't even overtake anything, & invariably you end up late at the next station.

 

[071]

Yes, this is somewhat annoying, although I find it provides a bit of welcome variety rather than just getting green signals everywhere.

I wondered if it might be pathed that way to overtake a slower ghost-train that doesn't appear in the game. I have read somewhere that the routing system in the game tries to choose the physically shortest route which results in swapping between Slow and Fast lines. Don't know how true that is though.

 

[AlexNL]

The weird routing in Great Western Express is definitely not by design, but a consequence of what @071 has written above. The game tries to assign the shortest possible A-B path for the route specified. In some cases, a move from the relief lines to the main lines may be a few chains shorter (due to curvature) than staying on the relief lines.

Back when Dovetail Games built GWE, they did not have tools available to them to visualise which route a train would take. They could only see that by actually driving the service end-to-end, which is rather time consuming. Making and verifying a timetable was no easy job either, as this verification would take place in 'real time' and could thus take up to 24 hours.

Nowadays DTG have much improved their tooling, but they haven't done any routes like GWE anymore

 

[071]

Thanks for the additional insight @AlexNL. I don't doubt the complexity of creating this at all.
I had hoped they would expand GWE with the branch lines, for variety, or onwards to Didcot or Newbury, but alas, it doesn't appear likely. Hope the next route is a UK one, since the last two were in the Americas and Germany.

 

[AlexNL]

DTG's Matt Peddlesden is working on refreshing the GWE timetable in his spare time, so it's not completely out of the question that an improved and enriched timetable comes to the game at some point. It's purely a hobby project for him though, there are no timelines or any estimates about when it'll be released - if DTG are willing to release it at all!

 

[Robnw67]

Driving to Darlington. Best I could do in lock down...

 

[Crossover]

For those on a PC, the AWS/DSD can be turned on and off together with a keyboard shortcut. It is a little grating that there isn't a menu option to leave it on (I appreciate not having it on by default for the beginner users who, with it enbaled, may never get a train moving!). Regarding the earlier comment about the horn, it is the same on PC as well when using the keyboard - only one tone can be achieved

All in all its a good game - different to TS but better in numerous ways. I do wish there was more option for free roams and more scenarios but I remain hopeful that this will change in the future as things develop

 

[AlexNL]

it is the same on PC as well when using the keyboard - only one tone can be achieved

On PC you can use the low torn horn with spacebar and the high tone horn with N. You can also go into the game's options and change the keybind to something else if you prefer.

 

[JohnMcL7]

Have they made a change to mix up the stock a bit? Something I've not been keen on is that each environment only has two or three locomotives so you keep seeing those same locos over and over again even though I own a variety of locos, I don't mind if it's not historically accurate. However I was out for a spin in the 66 on the Brighton pack and was surprised to see the 37 from the Tees Valley pack pulling blue and white liveried coaches with a 66 on the tail.

 

[071]

That was the rail-tour that you saw. If you drive it you can choose from a wider range of locomotives. Disappointingly, not everything is available, such as the Class 33 or 52 which would have been nice to stretch their legs, as it were. I bought the 33 solely because I thought it could be used here, you can imagine how crestfallen I was.

If you have the Heavy Freight pack it brings a bit more variety of other trains to the Northern Trans-Pennine route.

 

[AlexNL]

Sometimes you can use trains from one route on another route. For example, if you own Main-Spessart Bahn you can use the double decker coaches (+loco) on the newly released Hauptstrecke Rhein Ruhr route.

 

[Whistler40145]

Most signals are green I think really they need to up the AI trains in the game to make more congestion.

I play TSW on exbox,
I have most of the routes including ECW, the vintage Railtour if you have the 40/47 add-ons from the Leeds route pack, that has you chasing reds and is very intense if you play as the 66.

What routes do you have?

Do you recommend TSW on XBox?

 

[Statto]

I do which they would introduce a proper free roam, which would be ideal for route learning & so on, you can complete one of the timetables & go into free roam, but it's not a proper free roam as you still have to follow a timetable when you pick up the next train.

 

[trainmania100]

Do you recommend TSW on XBox?

If you can't afford a high end pc then yes I would recommend it. Be prepared to spend a reasonable amount on dlc though.
Only thing I would say, the Xbox controllers aren't great as they use AA batteries and the shoulder buttons don't feel very responsive after a while.
Better to get it on PS4 really as it's a more durable controller

 

[AlexNL]

TSW does not have a free roam or quick drive mode as in the old Train Simulator, and I don't think it ever will.

The game is developed around the concept of accurately representing a certain piece of railway (timetable mode) and having additional scenarios to provide unusual experiences, such as rescuing a broken down HST. Adding "drive what you like" or "just do whatever you like" modes would go against that idea.

 

[JohnMcL7]

If you can't afford a high end pc then yes I would recommend it. Be prepared to spend a reasonable amount on dlc though.
Only thing I would say, the Xbox controllers aren't great as they use AA batteries and the shoulder buttons don't feel very responsive after a while.
Better to get it on PS4 really as it's a more durable controller

A lot of that is going to come down to preference, I much prefer the feel of the Xbox One controller as they're more solid and a better size for me than the PS4 and AA's is a big plus over an internal battery which needs charged. I have two pairs of AA batteries and when they go low I can just swap them, no need to plug the controller in to charge it and I've not had any issues with the shoulders buttons on the four X1 controllers I use. If you ever need to use a controller for PC the XBox one controller is generally natively supported these days where as the PS4 controller is not.

 

[HA25322]

At a loss here so hoping someone can help me. (I suspect it is probably really easy as well) As you maybe able to see of the left hand side of the screen I have 3 boxes. 1 shows training, other shows scenarios and finally timetable. I am running on PS4. So how do I actually get rid of these boxes please? It is the same on any of the lines I play. Many thanks for any help.

 

[071]

Those are the menu options prior to going into drive mode. They shouldn't be there when you're driving.

1. Are they there permanently for you?
2. Have they always been there, or is this a recent change?

 

[HA25322]

They are currently permanent. However I have had a thought, as they have only appeared over the last couple of days, to close it down and redownload it and see if that makes any difference.

 

[HA25322]

So that worked then. Managed to uninstall it off the PS4 and then downloaded it again. And signed in again and those items have now disappeared. Must have been a bug in the system. Glad it is sorted anyway.

 

[071]

Glad you got it resolved. I couldn't find any way of making those menus appear whilst driving, so looks like it was a bug.

 

[Giugiaro]

I made a timelapse during sunrise on Train Sim World. Overall it looks amazing!

 

[071]

That's really nice. Looks stunning when the sun starts to clear the trees.

 

[Giugiaro]

Thank you!

Here's another one, this time in Paddington:

 

[AlexNL]

I have made a couple of these timelapse videos.

The first one is a timelapse at Iver, at the start of the rush hour:

I've also made a timelapse showing a "driver's view" journey from Reading TMD to Paddington with a 166:

And I've made a timelapse of the morning rush hour at Brighton:

Enjoy!

 

[Peter C]

Those look really good - well done! An interesting view of the trains and the services along the routes.

-Peter

 

[JohnMcL7]

I bought the class 52 pack but very disappointed to find it's a total waste since you can only trundle the mighty twin diesel at 10mph with brief stints of 25mph which seems a strange design choice especially when you aren't given free choice of route. I tried a mod to allow any engine to be used on each route which appeared to work and I chose the 52 on the railtour for the Brighton route with a class 66 on the back. No matter what I tried I couldn't get the 52 to move forward though even with all the brakes released so tried another one which worked fine, came back to the original one and no problems moving off. As the train accelerated faster though something weird happened and the train slowed right down to almost a stop which I thought was due to wheel spin after being a bit aggressive with the power but no matter how gently I did it as the speed increased, I'd suddenly lose it all like a brake was being applied.

I wondered if there was something wrong with the 66 at the back and switched to the external view then as I went down the train I could see something moving on the locomotive which didn't seem right. As I reached the end of the train I realised the problem:

I restarted and checked the rear engine before setting off which as the camera neared the back of the train I could see blue again but this time a class 47 and no problems completing the scenario.

 

[Iskra]

I bought the class 52 pack but very disappointed to find it's a total waste since you can only trundle the mighty twin diesel at 10mph with brief stints of 25mph which seems a strange design choice especially when you aren't given free choice of route. I tried a mod to allow any engine to be used on each route which appeared to work and I chose the 52 on the railtour for the Brighton route with a class 66 on the back. No matter what I tried I couldn't get the 52 to move forward though even with all the brakes released so tried another one which worked fine, came back to the original one and no problems moving off. As the train accelerated faster though something weird happened and the train slowed right down to almost a stop which I thought was due to wheel spin after being a bit aggressive with the power but no matter how gently I did it as the speed increased, I'd suddenly lose it all like a brake was being applied.

I wondered if there was something wrong with the 66 at the back and switched to the external view then as I went down the train I could see something moving on the locomotive which didn't seem right. As I reached the end of the train I realised the problem:

I restarted and checked the rear engine before setting off which as the camera neared the back of the train I could see blue again but this time a class 47 and no problems completing the scenario.

I share your frustration about the Class 52 Western being released on the West Somerset Line and not being able to use it on the Great Western Express. It was good that they introduced the railtour scenario on East Coastway to allow you to do a bit more with some of the loco's. That's funny though about the 08 on the other end!

Train Sim World 2 includes a Scenario planner. I haven't got to grips with it fully myself yet, but once the preserved TS2020 stock is added to the game, you should theoretically be able to run anything anywhere, which should massively increase the playability of the game

 

[Peter C]

Train Sim World 2 includes a Scenario planner. I haven't got to grips with it fully myself yet, but once the preserved TS2020 stock is added to the game, you should theoretically be able to run anything anywhere, which should massively increase the playability of the game

I saw a few videos and a couple of livestreams of TSW2 and the Scenario Planner seems to be both quite detailed and quite basic all at the same time.
I say this because, having watched the livestreams from the developers before the game was released, myself and several others were led to believe that it would be a Quick Drive-style system, whereby you chose an origin, destination, train, and off you went. It's a bit more advanced than that (hence the "detailed" comment), though, as you can add other trains - albeit to a limited degree: hence me thinking it's still very basic in comparison to what you can do with the likes of the TS2020 scenario editor. I would only think about getting TSW2 for myself if the Scenario Planner turns out to be more detailed and some more engines/routes I'm interested in come out - the Isle of Wight being one of those. That route is coming to TSW2 at some point so it makes me think about getting the game more, but I don't have a computer powerful enough to run it at the moment

-Peter