Gazz292

Ditto, the brake is now usable with the keyboard, before i resorted to dragging it with the mouse (something i hate doing) The separate key for rapidly moving the handle to the release position is great, i've been using it already for a few days (i have my own key binds slightly different to the stock ones, but i do prefer the original idea of having all the driving levers on the number pad, much better than the tsw /tsc thing with side by side keys operating levers that move up and down all over the keyboard.

i drive these 'games / sims' to be as accurate a driver as possible, German trains have the SIFA thing where you need to release and reapply a pedal every 30 seconds, English modern trains have the DSD button, The polish trains seem to rely more on the drivers training than computers watching their every move (well, the EU07 does anyway, that's why i love that train) But if having to press an alerter button every minute or so is part of driving the real train, then i will do that. Otherwise where do you go with making the sim more arcade like? a button to press when you can't be bothered to manually operate the brake lever to stop at the station, so the train auto brakes and stops in the right place for you. The same for starting and driving? Do that and you now have a modern london underground driving simulator, where the 'drivers' job is to select from 4 buttons, To start the train you press 2 buttons together, and off the train goes, adjusting it's speed automatically, stopping and re-starting at signals, and stopping in exactly the right place in the next station, You then press the door open button (don't worry about opening the wrong side, the CDSE prevents that) Then about 30 seconds later, you press the door close button, And press the 2 'start' buttons, and away the train drives it's self to the nest station.

That's good they have that kind of thing in place to slow the trains down, Where i live in the UK, there is a level crossing about 50 meters past the town station, and the barriers are closed before the train enters the station no matter which direction it's coming in from, So when the train has the platforms before the crossing, the crossing gates are closed and stay closed until the train has stopped at the station, picked up passengers and moved off again over the crossing, Sometimes it's down for almost 10 minutes, due to the rules that say that the crossing must be secured before the train enters the station, in-case it dosent stop in time. Well i think it still does that, i have taken the longer route into town for the past few years just to avoid that darn crossing.

Yes that is a good idea, I've only had roughly 40 minute drives tops before today, i got on the server just after a reboot (19:00 UK time, it was EN2 american server, so that was it's midday reboot) I had my best run ever of 1 hour and 45 minutes, and got to a part of the map i am sure i'd not been to before.

i just posted in another similar post , that in the train selection screen, there is a 'Required Level' bit at the bottom : I checked the dispatcher selection, and that isnt there, makes sense that it needs to be in the dispatcher role more than the driver role?

Deffo, those asshats need moving to a server kept aside just for the trouble makers, where they think they are causing mayhem to others who want to operate the railway properly, but they are really just harassing each other, Then when they finish the session, tell them this is what they have been controlling for the past few hours:

When selecting a train to drive there is a bit at the bottom for 'Required Level' i had a quick look at what you get when selecting a dispatcher role, and 'Required Level' is missing. Maybe it will be added in the final release? Seems to make more sense that a level requirement is needed to operate certain signal boxes more than to drive certain trains, tho i do like the virtual 'drivers license' idea, you don't get given the control key for the fastest train in the country on your first day on the job, you get handed the reversing handle for a shunter round the back of the sheds (well you used to in the olden days, before you 'learnt to drive' trains in a classroom) Same with signal box work, you'd start out as a time keeping lad/lass in a quiet box, and work your way up.

That's just what i have done, about an hour ago i finished a lovely 1 hour 45 minute run, traveling maybe 140Km? From just before Łazy Łc to just after Opoczno Południe station. i was on the EN2 server, driving 41120, an EU07 EC train, i took over at 17:17 my time (12:17 server time, American server i must have got it just after a reset?) and finished at 19:09 my time (14:09 server time) Shortly after starting i was held at a red signal for about 8 minutes, but that was because the AI had been running that much early when i took over, but instead of exiting the server thinking i was held at a red signal by mistake, i waited a little, and a few trains went past then i was routed into Zawiercie station, and then carried on for the next hour and a half. This run had a mixture of AI and manned signal boxes, i passed one human driver on the route... and there were between 8 and 10 others on the server over the trip,

I've been noticing this quite often, not sure if it's intentional or a bug. You are nearing a station to stop at, or a timing point, the distance to the stop / point will count down to about 2.5Km away, then suddenly jump to just over 4Km away. The picture below shows this happening, I'm approaching the station, and as the distance to the station is counting down, at just after 1.90Km it jumps to 4.01Km to the station. As you can see with the distance to the signal, i've traveled forwards 126 Meters... but the distance to the station has increased by 2 kilometers. I've noticed when the distance jumps depends on your speed, when doing 125 Kph it jumps at about 2.5Km from the station / timing point, It did the jump at 1.9Km here, as i was doing about 80 Kph to keep to schedule by deliberately going slower than line speed to try and arrive at the station on time, rather than early.

the thing about a play test is you are supposed to play the same bit over and over again, you are supposed to try and break things, this is how the dev's know what to fix, I know a lot of people think being a full time play tester must be great, thinking you get early access to a game for free. the reality is you'd get a small section of the game, and you are to play it over and over until you have found every possible way to break it, then you play over and over again to be sure all fixes work, At least with these play tests open to the public, we get 40 to 50 minutes of driving time, and unlimited time as a dispatcher, sure it can get frustrating at times, but that's the idea, work out the bugs before it's released to the paying public. I've been mostly driving the EU07 on the EN servers, and have been doing full 40+ minute runs about 75% of the time, Last night i did a run where i was held at a red signal for almost 20 minutes in a freight train (not on a scheduled layover) but i held out as i could see other trains being routed past me, and eventually my signal cleared and i was on my way as the dispatchers worked through the backlog. It's also fun to be 'chasing yellows' where i am driving just a little faster than the dispatchers want me to, so i am constantly being slowed down by the signals, this is the kind of thing other train driving 'games' don't do, sure there are scenario's where you get yellow signals all the way, but that is all scripted in advance, here it's because the dispatchers are busy and each train takes it's turn.

The idea of a playtest is to find as many problems and issues before release, and find out how people can break things. What is the biggest issue all releases have.... people not reading the manual or bothering with tutorials, just spamming all the buttons hoping to figure it out. That is what's happening now it seems, along with the trolls who just want to mess things up deliberately, or 'have races' etc. So this is all good data being collected to work out ways to weed out the asshats who wants to spoil things, and correct deliberate locking up of the system etc.

oh it was pretty much all working electronically, the levers have mechanical notches (that can be changed to suit different trains) and they turn potentiometers to send the position 'signal' and all the switches work similar to the real things. i was running it on an arduino due, which was seen by the computer as a multi axis joystick, I even had a colour oled in the controller that showed the train selected (as i had to do all the control changes onboard, as tsw only has one global set of control for all trains via the raildriver hack) But it became more and more obvious that tsw was not intended to be used as a simulator, it was aimed mostly at console users as a game, hence the very restrictive control inputs.

i think the playtests are pretty realistic... you can guarantee that when the sim is fully released, people are just going to load it up and start spamming all the buttons, So how it's happening now is showing how people can break the system, intentionally or not, so safeguards can be put in place to try and recover from that kind of thing. Few people read manuals nowadays, and a lot of people skip the tutorials, or don't take in what they are being taught in the tutorial.... look at tsw, they made it so that every new DLC you got, first time you started it you had to run the tutorial runs for each of the train types (even tho you already have 6 copies of the dosto and know it off by heart) People moaned that they didn't like that, ok half of it was how to put up a missing timetable, poster or fix a broken monitor by walking over to it and 'bing' that was it, the poster magically appeared or the monitor was working' of course all that crap was to show you how to earn medals and points, something they put ahead of the actual gameplay,

Just something silly here, i imagine most people would not get into this situation. I believe there is an auxiliary compressor which runs off the battery, but it is not yet modeled on this train ??? When i was stuck in a 'traffic jam' that i knew i would not move again, i played about deliberately running the air tanks down, i'd turned the compressor off and kept applying and releasing the brakes to waste air. Once the main pressure hit 3.5MPa the pantograph dropped, which meant i lost converter power, so the main compressor could no longer run when i turned it back on (it runs on 110 volts but from the converter not the battery... or there is an interlock / contactor that only allows the main compressor to run when the converter is running) It was now checkmate, i couldn't build up air to raise the pantograph and get the converter back online, to run the main compressor etc.

i think the darkness is just right, a billion times better than tsw. you have to remember the time of year in the sim is the middle of summer, so it doesn't get properly dark until gone 22:00 / 10pm, and is beginning to get light again around 03:00 / 3am, i'm not talking about just sunrise and sunset, but the twilight hours too.

i'm glad that's intentional, last thing i'd want as a driver is strangers getting in my cab, and possibly messing with the controls or trying to distract me, With most train companies having an unauthorized person in the cab is a disciplinary offense, the only people who would have authorization would be inspectors and pilots to direct you over routes you do not sign for.

As a driver, you should never leave your cab without putting the brake handle to the deactivated position, if you tried to drive from the other cab after leaving the handle in a braking position, you'd not get anywhere.

sorry about this... i've found out on discord where the switch is for the desk lights (on the desk upright near the radio's mic) I guess the button on the top of the desk is just to turn the lights on for as long as it's held down, and i confused that with the one turning them on permanently.

I'm guilty of comparing RailSim to that tsw game a lot... as you notice i consider tsw a game more than a simulation, but here i was talking about not to expect SimRails winter textures will be crap just because tsw's are, firstly they are using 2 different game engines, then SimRail has the advantage of being something new, built from the ground up, not something thats based on previously released content for an earlier game.

Not sure if this is a bug, or i am just not noticing the correct button / switch, When i spawn into the EN96 / ELF, during the day i can press a button to the right of the door buttons, and it will turn on the desk down lights, but pressing it again does not turn them off. When ever i spawn into one of these trains at night, the desk down lights are already on, Is there a way to turn them off?

little edit for what i've recently noticed with the volt and ammeter for the batteries, they both move realistically. as in the voltage creeps up as the batteries get charged, and the current drops down to zero, I am guessing the ammeter is measuring current into and out of the batteries, hence why it dosent show the compressor current drawn, as the rotary converter will be providing that current once the batteries are fully charged. : I've also noticed there's a battery charge input selector knife switch in under the small flap (to the right of the flap for the main battery switch and circuit breakers) this knife switch has an internal and external position, Wonder if we will arrive for our duty starting at the depot in the middle of winter and find the loco's batteries flat, and need to plug in external power to 'jumps start' the low voltage side of the loco... as without that we can't raise the panto and get main current to run the rotary converter that drops the 3KV DC to 125 volts DC for the control circuits.

I was just driving a passenger service, and i noticed that passing a station with the electronic display boards, they are now active and showing information (before they were blank) And driving through Będzin station there were announcements playing, i didn't catch it all, i think it was in polish first then english, i heard it announcing the next train to stop at platform 1, and to keep clear of platform 2... as my train was passing through that platform.

i think what we need to be careful of here is demanding too much precision on release / fix dates, the devs are humans, they have lives outside of writing a train sim, they have families and it's almost xmas. Things don't always go to plan, what seems like a quick fix can turn into having to re-write 20 pages of code, Just look at tsw, they release on the date they say whether it's ready or not, and the first few hours of play tons of bugs are discovered, everyone is up in arms about yet more broken crap being released to paying customers, and half the bugs will never be fixed as they are now working on the next bit of DLC which takes priority. I often wonder if tsw has any playtesters who are not employed at the main office at all at times, or if they are part of some secret society with funny handshakes and signing contracts in blood. SimRail was initially set to release a year ago, but it wasn't ready, thankfully they delayed the release and kept working on it making it better all the time. And here we are at the end of 2022, with hundreds of playtesters from around the world, with more being added all the time, and to get on the playtest you just have to click a button in steam and wait for the next round of test slots to be opened up.

From the steam page : The quality of the graphics... thanks to use of Unity game engine allows you to lose yourself in the virtual world. The grass and trees moving depends on the wind, dynamic weather system with puddles and snow drifts, living world with animated passengers connected with scenarios randomization. : : I think we need to get away from looking at how that tsw game screws things up, and hope that SimRail does things properly, This is a brand new simulator built from the ground up, not a re-hash of content from decades old railworks.

Surely choosing one of the presets at the top for 'custom, ultra, high, medium, low' etc will set them all up for you, have you tried each one in turn? i'm using a gaming laptop and have everything on ultra or as high as they will go, and all i get are some pauses every now and then, which i have found out the severity of them depends on the server i am on, some servers i get judders when changing cameras and trying to move the camera around, other servers everything is smoooooooth.