Gazz292

Some of us may have already driven 3000+km's in the playtest, but there are a lot of people who are totally new to SimRail. So i guess without a way to port your experience / kilometers driven over, we all have to start out as a newbie again. Having to complete one tutorial is a good thing i think, for those of us from the playtest we can fly through the tutorial as we already know what to do before we are told (tho having every crossing signal showing Osp1 (2 horizontal yellow lights) telling you it was unsecured, so you have to do 20 km/h over it was someting new, this happened when i did my tutorial in the Elf) Personally i'd make it so that you need to complete a tutorial on every train type you wish to drive before you get to drive it in MP... kinda like having a day with a traction instructor on real life railways. it's ok to go bumbling about on single player, mashing buttons, triggering the emergency brakes and then locking the controls out until you figure out the reset procedure etc, your train blocking the main line for 20+ minutes does no harm to the other virtual drivers in single player, But do that in multiplayer and you are going to annoy the other drivers of trains stuck behind you who are real people, real people who are now going to be late for the rest of their run, which has the knock on effect of throwing all other services that are timed around these trains out, Some of those people only have maybe an hour an evening to dedicate to pretending to be a train driver, if you are one of those you're not going to be happy at losing half that time stuck behind someone who's just bought SimRail and loaded straight into driving a train in MP and hasn't got a clue what to do. : : There are some 'reviews' on steam from the playtest, saying: The trains are far too hard to control...... they pressed a random key and suddenly the train stopped and wouldn't move again...... in their country trains are much easier to drive..... after 50 minutes of mashing the keyboard and getting nowhere they rage quit and logged straight into steam to write the above shitty review, thinking they are helping others by telling everyone to keep away from SimRail. Their user stats show they managed a whole hour in SimRail playtest before giving up on it for good.... yet nothing is mentioned about that hour being in MP, and they were the reason one of the servers was blocked up for 50 minutes due to a player train that seemingly "refused to move" after stopping between stations.

When the SDK's are released later on, this kind of thing should be possible, For Railworks / tsc there is a program called TS-MFD, which reads your in game location and speed, and uses it to update a working EBuLa screen that was displayed on a 2nd monitor or an android tablet (i think ipads worked too) tablets were better due to their touch screen, so the buttons on the EBuLa work. Ive shown the picture below before... but i have 2 android tablets mounted on holders each side of my laptop (plus a phone holder, the phone lives below the right hand tablet and usually shows the brake pressure gauges, but i'm using it to take the photo) When i was using train sim classic i was able to use TS-MFD to get the right hand tablet as a working EBuLa that updated it's position as i moved in the game, and the left hand tablet is showing the left MFD screen from the train, with the clock, ole voltage, motor current bars working, and again pressing the virtual buttons around the screen took you to other pages to set things up as you would in a real train. Often i'd drive using my main PC, so the view out the train windscreen was displayed on a 55 inch TV, which is about 2 meters infront of the laptop location, and i'd put the centre MFD on the laptop screen (the speed and traction meters, with the SIFA and the PZB / LZB indicators etc)

Updated to add ETCS signs, and add .pdf versions of all files, plus now the textless sheets for translation include the phone view versions as well as the main sheets.

Just pretend you went to the mine to collect the coal, but the boss came down and told you that this months bill hasn't been paid, so you have to drive home again empty 😄

I agree, i keep trying to move the camera angles to look around the interior of the carriages, It is good that pressing '4' goes directly to looking back along the train (press it again yo look from the other side) as if you have put your head out the window to check it's safe as you are leaving the platform, but sometimes i want to adjust the angle a little.

I'm adding a panel to my signs and signals found in SimRail cheat sheet with the ETCS signs used in Poland on it. I've used the 2020 PKP signal rule book to see which signs are used in Poland, and there are only ECTS signs10 in use, i know ETCS is not operational in SimRail yet, but there are the signs along the route so i thought i'd add them so people know what they mean, I've condensed the 10 signs to 4, as 9 of them are groups of 3 signs with the same sign size, colour etc, just the version of ETCS is different (L1LS / L1 and L2) which is shown on the sign it's self, so it's more getting across that a yellow one means 'Get ready to use ETCS in the mode mentioned on the sign) a white sign means 'ETCS starts from here in the mode mentioned' and the white with a red cross means 'ETCS in that mode ends here' I've also added the signs for ETRMS / GSM radio, again i believe in SimRail the 150 Mhz analog radio system is in use along the whole route, but the signs may be seen as you drive. Can someone who knows the ETCS system please tell me if my wording below the signs is misleading, and an alternative way to convey what the signs mean please, but in no more than 6 words to fit in the boxes and be readable when the whole sheet is printed on A4 paper.

oh i know we need more services in SP, a full days timetable would be nice, but that's for the future. I was just showing a way to drive in the night or day by choosing a different server in MP that is kinda the best we have for now.

and how the feck did i manage to double post, now i've broken the forum too 🥸 I'll use this 'double post' to show a hoodie my GF got me for xmyth that she thought sums me up perfectly...... the red cross i added, as i don't want to get banned for that 'naughty word' 😏

is that similar to when an ozzie calls us english 'whinging poms' ? I often offend people without realising, but that because it's pretty much impossible to offend me so i assume others are the same, Call me any 'offensive name' you like, i'll likely agree with you 🤪

in MP, if it's day time in your time zone and you want to drive at night (of vice versa) choose a server on the other side of the world and it should be night time there, as the MP sim time is tied to local time of the server location.

I have made a 'cheat sheet' that you can print out or display on a tablet / phone, showing the signals and signs you are likely to see / use in SimRail. When we had the playtest forums, there was a General forum that i posted it in, but we don't seem to have that forum for early access, so i posted it in the multiplayer forums, but people who only play single player may not see it:

i had this a few times last night, at some crossings i notice the cars seem to slow down then stop gently at the crossing barriers, but at others they are doing full speed then suddenly stop dead at the barrier. These ones seem to have the most chance of jumping past the barrier and getting stuck on the tracks then.

i would imagine that you need to work as a dispatcher to earn the time credits for access to larger signal boxes. no use driving a train for 6 hours then being able to take over one of the big signal boxes and create havoc.... i've never touched the dispatcher side, i'm purely a train driver, my ~80 hours in the playtest were all driving, i wouldn't have a clue what to do in the dispatchers role.

They should get a 'points loss for radio wrong channel' pop up showing over and over in the top left corner, which also tells them the correct channels in the area (but when there are say 3 channels to chose from, which one is the one the dispatcher will be on) Much as i want to drive with the HUD off, i think that whilst learning the signs and signals along the route, it would be nice to have an option to have the important signs you are about to pass show up on the HUD, So when you are say 500 metres from a radio change sign, a picture of it (below) will pop up on the HUD, telling you the radio channel may be about to change, you can then look along the track to spot the actual sign, and you will get used to spotting them without the hud the more you drive. Same with the signs for a neutral section ahead, meaning you are to return the power lever / wheel to zero and draw no current until you pass the relevant one telling you it's ok to draw power again (meaning the one with a 'L' if you are driving a locomotive, or the next one with no 'L' that is when an EMU can safely draw power again (as their pantographs are further back than a locomotives are)

<sarcastic mode> being a dovetail fan as your avatar shows, you should be used to everything resetting and starting from zero again every time they release a new version of the same game </sarcastic mode> 🤪🤠

i too am hoping there will be more keybinds available. and the ability to move a control the opposite direction using a modifier key (K for cab lights on, SHIFT + K for cab lights off) I do recall from the playtest being told the keybinds part could do with re-writing, but there was no time to do that before early access launch, so i remain hopeful that things will change in the future, i also worry that having a single global keybind scheme will get rather awkward as people start to make new content for SimRail and their trains have controls not found in Polish trains etc, we'd either end up with a 10 page long list of all controls for every train like Omsi did it, where you spend 10 minutes looking for the one that applies to the particular bus / train you need to set the keybind to, or be like tsw, with a very limited set of keybinds, the more complex trains you are expected to operate the controls in the cab with the mouse 🤢 What would be better is to do it how railworks / tsc and some flight simulators do it, have a local keybind scheme that is stored with the train, so the relevent keybind file is loaded as the train is being loaded, allowing you to set the same key to multiple functions that are spread out through different trains, i.e. the keys for 'shunt' aka the field weakening lever in the EU07, 2 keys are set for a control that only applies in that train, same with the cruise control up and down keys in the Elf, I'd like to use the same keys to operate the shunt lever in the EU07 as the cruise control buttons in the Elf, but can't do that with the keybind tool in the control section of the sim (i know i can if i manually edit the 'Buttons.conf' file) Of course when joystick control is released hopefully the situation will change, and the joystick levers and buttons can be set up to individual trains... so the lever used for brakes in the Traxx can also be used for the combined power and brake lever in the Elf and so on.

Yes, that would be nice, as i drive mostly services hauled by the EU07, in the playtest i was used to looking for the first 2 digits, i think if it was 41xxx, it went north to south, if it was 14xxx it was going south to north, But there is a lot more to the train codes, apparently the first digit is the destination, the 2nd digit is about where it branches off along the way etc, Maybe someone needs to make a PKP service number decoder... or tell us on the selection screen a little more info, would be really nice to have roughly where abouts the train is that you will be joining, and how many stops are left etc. I want a loco hauled service that stops at the most stations, rather than one that is going to do 100km with no stops at all, but atm it's a guess for me to find these.

Now that there's a lot more train to chose from, the list of available trains to drive is pretty long, i like to drive the EU07 99% of the time but these trains will be at both the top and bottom of the list depending on the direction they are going in. Wonder if another selection box like we have to select 'passenger' 'cargo' 'special' train types could allow us to select to see only the services that are run by a certain train type.

Made a workaround. 2 lines of code in AutoHotKey.... #IfWinActive ahk_exe SimRail.exe ; AHK only active when in SimRail NumpadEnter::NumpadDot ;map number pad enter to number pad dot ...allows me to to re-map the number pad enter key to the number pad dot key, which i bound as 'power decrease' in SimRail, Now i no longer have the number pad enter key activating the chat window, and get to keep my double height enter and plus keys for power increase and decrease. For anyone who's interested, the top line of code means that this re-map only works when i'm in SimRail, so if i ever did use the number pad enter key as a return key, i don't wonder why it's not working and typing dots instead, last step was to add the hotkey script to the startup folder so it activates every time i start windows, as i found that if i forget to load the autohotkey before script starting SimRail, starting it needed Simrail re-starting to get the key to work (i also re-map my '\' key to left mouse button)

Going off topic a bit, but about loudness, if you have some headphones that do that 'virtual surround sound' thing, have a drive in the EU07 loco after setting the sound to '7.1 surround' in the SimRail sound menu, After half an hour of driving that loco your ears are ringing due to how loud things are in it, at ever station i stopped at i had to turn the converter off... that thing is loud.

i've just posted something similar to this in the general forum, i found this out as i had set up key pad enter to be my 'power decrease' button in the play tests, as i have a double height keypad enter and plus button on my laptop, so these were ideal for the power up and down, But key pad enter is now a reserved key... but had been pulled over from the 'buttons.conf' file from the play test. hopefully this key can be released from being a 'reserved one' as like you say, we already have a 'write in chat' assignable button.. i use 'Q' myself.

i would have thought in real life those buttons do produce a loud tone, they are used to attract the attention of drivers or dispatchers on the radio after all 🙂

ahah, so is the thinking that someone might want to use the number / key pad enter to send a chat message... have to say, if i'm typing anything, even using the number pad to put numbers instead of the row of numbers below the F keys, i always the the main 'return' key.

Just got round to trying to drive the EU07 in the full sim, it handily remembered my key binds from the play test, but this caused a problem, I had set up all the train power and brake controls on the lower part of my number pad, as this makes it comfortable to use for me, and my laptops key pad has double height 'plus' and 'enter' keys, and i set them to be 'power increase and decrease' But when i tried driving just now, trying to move the power control lower using 'key pad enter' was going crazy, turns out that now - keypad enter - is a 'reserved key, and i believe used to activate the chat box? Even tho there i have the 'write in chat' key set to 'Q' for my system. Anyone know what key binds are 'reserved' and if there's any way to change them? there's nothing in the "C:\Users\AppData\LocalLow\SimKol\SimRail\Buttons.conf' file that i can see relating to 'reserved keys' and i'd really like to get my key pad's enter key back as my 'power control decrease' button... as it's ideal with that key and the one above it being double height, so i find it by feel if that makes sense.

Originally posted in the Play test part of the forum, posting here for the new players who have just bought SimRail, This is also the place i will post the latest version... which is : V1.8.1. I've seen quite a few posts from people on here and discord, asking what some signal or sign means that they have seen when driving in SimRail, Especially hard to understand can be the Semi-automatic signal aspects, as different combo's of lights mean different things for the signal you are at and the next one ahead. So i decided to make a guide showing the meaning of the various signal aspects and signs likely to be seen when driving, and i thought others may find this handy. The image above is a low quality preview, please print out the high quality version in the .zip file attached The zip file attached at the bottom contains a portrait and landscape version of the whole guide as seen above, saved in both .png and .pdf formats. You can print the guide out or display it on a phone / tablet / 2nd monitor, allowing you to look up what that signal or sign was telling you that you just zoomed passed whilst driving in SimRail The idea of the landscape guide (shown above) is so you can print it out on a sheet of A4 paper and fold it in half, giving you a handy A5 sized guide with the signals on one side and signs on the other side. Or keep it full sized in either landscape or portrait if you wish. The .png versions of the full guide are saved at 300 DPI, good enough to print at ~A3 size, i believe the .pdf versions are good for A4 size printing. If you can, laminating the print out will make it last almost forever (or until mistakes are spotted and i need to re-release the files) When printing, it might help to set your print settings to 'fit to page keeping aspect ratio' and 'centre on the page' if that's an option. Alternatively, you can display the guide on a phone or tablet (this is how i use it) If using a tablet, 2nd screen or large phone, simply displaying the whole guide may be fine, but for a normal sized 'tall and skinny screen' smart phone, it may be too small to read unless you zoom and scroll about the picture. So i have also made 3 condensed views of the guide arranged for better viewing on a phone screen, you can flip / swipe between the 3 images/pages on your phone and view them in a format that fills a 'typical' smartphone screen as much as possible, however this version does not have the info panels telling you things like passing an automatic block signal at red etc that the full guide has, so i would recommend reading the full sized guide first to see a few explanations about some of the signs and signal types. The phone images are saved at 150 DPI to reduce their file sizes, so older phones don't have take their time rendering the image fully each time you flip between the pages. I have included the ETCS signs on the full and phone sized versions, and semaphore signals on the phone version, the latter was mostly to fill space from arranging the signals across 2 phone sized pages, but i have seen a mechanical shunting signal 'M1' in SimRail already, and the ETCS signs are in place along the line, but we don't drive the trains in ETCS mode yet. The 'Printing or Displaying the pictures' Read Me file explains how to 'use' the images with more detail / waffle. The 'Understanding the guide ' Read Me file has some info on a few Polish railway rules and how to read the semi-automatic signals. There is also a folder called 'Textless guides for translation' inside this folder are the 2 full guides plus the phone sized ones with the graphics but empty text boxes, the idea being people can add the text below the pictures in their native language then share the translated guide with others (If you translate the guide , could you please post it in this thread) You can open the .png versions in an image editor, then add you translated text over the empty boxes, or use a PDF editor and you should be able to type directly into the text boxes. Big thanks to jmluengor for the idea of a pdf version to edit, and he has posted the Spanish version a few posts below this one. ---------------------- Sorry for the poor quality of the 2 photo's below, i will update them with better versions when i can borrow my girlfriends much newer phone camera. And below is an animated .gif showing the 3 pages that make up the phone sized pages showing the signals and signs as if you were flipping between them. The small print: I have drawn all the signal and signs myself in Inkscape as vectors, but i based the signals and signs on other peoples work, listed below: The signal aspect images are based on the ones on the polish railway signals Wikipedia page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_railway_signalling That page has a creative commons 3 license (CC BY-SA 3.0) : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Which means i am allowed to re-mix and distribute the content as long as i reference the page i based my version on, and link to the relevant CC3 license. The sign images are based on the ones shown on : http://pkprepo.net/wskazniki-kolejowe-pkp-epoka-vc/ That page has a creative commons 4 license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Which means that i needed permission to "Re-mix, Transform or Build Upon'' the content, i have been granted that permission by E-Mail from the author of the website. Change log for V1.8.1: Corrected a miss labeled signal (Osp 1) that should be Osp 2. All content available in .png and ,pdf formats. Added ETCS signs and the GSM-R signs. Text less guides for translating are available in full guide landscape and portrait format, and the 3 pages that make up the condensed phones version. 1913687062_SignsandSignalsinSimRailGuideV1.8.1.zip