Gazz292

The map sites are nothing to do with the SimRail team... so it's up to the owners of the map sites to update things for the new server names... the ones i use have been updated and are fully working, But some will need the maps owner to find time to make the changes. I just asked on discord and INT1 is being changed to UTC+0 at the next restart 🙂 I believe the server names were changed to try and show the servers are not specifically for use only by people who speak that language fluently (except PL2 where occasionally some people make things very very uncomfortable for you if you are not fluent in Polish) I read that the devs were getting constant questions from new players as to which server they need to use, when they speak xxx language and there is no server with that language designation. Some servers had very few users due to people thinking you have to be fluent in that language to use it, so the idea is to make people aware that the international servers are for everyone, the servers location is shown to help people choose the best one for them based on it's physical location (i.e. likely fastest connection... not that it matters really when the train locations are updated every 500ms... it's not like a FPS game where a 1ms delay means a lost shot) obviously when a group of people speaking the same language are in a specific server, that will over time become known as the one to use if you want to talk in that language by the regulars.

Totally agree, we need more keybinds... a subject i am kind of passionate about.. as i really hate using the mouse when pretending to drive a train.

(a post in the SP part of the forum spurred me to make this post) I've been making suggestions to have a keybind for every control that works in the trains since SimRail came out, and i'm not alone in asking for this, I'm one of those who really really does not want to have to touch the mouse at all when driving a train, as it breaks immersion big time. Most people i believe drive using the keyboard, and i can imagine that most people doing so do not enjoy having to have to grab the mouse, move the view, then drag a switch on or off, when most of the other controls have keybinds. i get that some people do drive solely using the mouse! 😬 for them keybinds do not matter anyway, everything already works with mouse clicks and drags. . We have been getting the odd handful of new keybinds added with each update, for which i am grateful for, i recall back when SimRail first came out, one dev said they could assign every function to a keybind if they wanted, then another said they would only assign functions that you use whilst in motion to keybinds, ones you'd use when stopped you can use the mouse for 😖 One of the reasons i once read about not having all functions bound to keys (not by a dev) was that there are only 78 keys (not including the F keys) that can be assigned on the average keyboard with a number pad, and you need about a quarter of those keys for non driving functions. But with the 3 modifier keys we can now use with those individual number and letter keys.. we get 312 keybinds we can assign. Plus we can also combine modifier keys... i.e. a keybind can be any combo of SHIFT and/or ALT and/or CONTROL plus the individual letter / number key, and we are now up to about 546 keybinds we can set. I am aware there's some issues with certain keybinds where modifier keys are used, causing the non modifier keybind to operate as well, i can only guess that's a bug as it's mostly with the keybinds added with the december 2024 update that it does that. Now if we could have the ability to assign joystick buttons in the keybind menu, then we really will never run out of key / button assignments.. as you can just keep plugging in more joystick boards in button boxes to get another set of buttons assignable. . . Finally... getting to the title subject: The keybinds menu for train driving is a bit confusing and long right now... it really needs an overhaul as there are entries all over the place, sets of switches that are grouped in the trains you have to hunt around for and so on (i.e. the light switches in the older loco's, headlight, cab light, instrument lights etc) An idea would be that we have the ability to bind keys / buttons to each train type... so you'd have multiple pages in the 'train driver' section with the different train types on each page that you can scroll sideways between, You can have a 'universal controls' page that shows up first when you click on 'train driver' key binds button. And that page has a button to click to set all trains to have the same keybinds copied over for all functions that the trains share between them (like power controls, brake lever movement, pantograph switches, cab activation switch, battery, horn, the 'all headlights on/off keybind' etc) Then you can go into the specific train page to assign keys individually, with different train types having different keybinds assignable if we choose..... say you want to use the left and right arrow keys to move the EU07's power wheel, and 2 keys above each other for the power lever in the EN96 and E186, different keys for the ED250 as that lever works differently to the EN96 and so on, same with the brake levers etc, like how we can save different seat positions for the different trains now. And you also have the key assignments for the buttons and switches found only in specific trains on those pages, like the emergency panto drop button in the EN57, cruise controls on the modern trains, door buttons on the EMU's, the multi position rotary light switch in the E186, the pulpit light switch and so on. . Another thing is that all toggle switches need to have a seperate on and off keybind, as there are 2 or more states those kinds of switches stay in when you release the keyboard key, Then add the ability to set the on and off keybind for toggle switches to be the same keybind if you want, i..e you press the same key once for on, press it again for off (but make that optional, keeping the ability to assign different keybinds to each state of a toggle switch as we have now with the pantograph, instrument and cab light switches etc) Then ideally have a different keybind for all rotary switch positions like is done with the radio channel keybinds, but also have the option to have a 'Next / Previous position' keybind to move the rotary switch around one notch each way as we have with the wiper and radio channel switches now.

i've reset all my keybinds, as somehow i had something stopping the fast move function moving for the power wheel and shunt levers. I've still got the need to press the 'new' keybinds twice to get them to react initially, i have noticed in the EP08-001 the headlight switches respond to the first press, the tail lights, high power and 'overall light' switches do not tho, they definitely need a double press to get them initially working.

Yes you can... i use 3D printed switch and button boxes as well as controllers to drive my favourite trains in SimRail... for me it's about immersion, i hate using a keyboard or mouse to drive a train. Can your button box be programmed to send keyboard keys? If so, then that's all you need to do, just program each button on it to send the relevant keyboard keys that you use to operate the controls in the trains (quite a few keybinds need assigning in the controls menu of SimRail first, a lot of things you operate with the mouse can be triggered with keybinds) If the button box only sends joystick buttons, then you can use a program like JoytoKey to change the joystick buttons into keyboard key presses... i use this myself for my home made button boxes that i use a joystick button board inside them. you basically just press each button on the button box with JoytoKey open, and select the input that shows up and set that to the relevant keyboard key that SimRail uses for that control in the trains. Below is a screenshot of the JoytoKey assignment i set up for my EU07 train switch panel :

The latest keybind additions that have only one action... the ones that you trigger the keybind once to turn the toggle switch on, and trigger the same keybind to turn the toggle switch off. So in the EP08-001 with the 5 individual toggle switches for the headlights, it does this with me for the headlight and tail light switches, also the left hand cab light switch does thas, as does the high current switch... first press does nothing, second press moves the switch and it responds fine after that. it does this from my keyboard as well as my switch panels, all the old single action keybinds work from the first trigger. : It would be really nice to have all 2 position switches (toggle and rotary ones) to have a seperate keybind for on and off, like we have for the pantograph switches etc, Then in the keybind setup menu, if you set both the on and off triggers to the same key, you then get the switch changing position for each press of that single key. This is mostly of use to people using button boxes, switch panels and controllers with 2 position switches, so if the real switch is in the wrong position to the one in the sim, changing the real switch position will sync the real switch to the sim's switch position, With a single keybind for on and off, changing the real switches position moves the switch in the sim to the other position... and is still the wrong position for the real switch, if that makes sense.

it all depends on the person who wrote the scenario... the original ones are still there and some are set to start cold, but later scenarios are set i believe part way through the day, so are a sort of mid shift crew change type thing, rather than taking a dead train into service. So they are just being true to real life, you don't cold start every train you take over, most of them are already running and in service, you are just taking over from the last driver,

I should have put that this should be an optional thing, with the ability to turn it on and off via the menu like you can turn the safety systems on or off etc. Perhaps it could be part of some things to help people with visual issues... like an option for colour blind people to adjust the signal colours so they can differentiate between them better,

Just posting a "little" update about what i've been doing with my controller project for the past year (my last post in may 2024 was just the Radmore style microphone being uploaded to the printables site) Basically i've done nothing much... i have of course been using my controllers whenever i drive trains in SimRail, just i haven't been doing that as often as i wanted, and i hadn't turned my 3D printers on for over 8 months, let alone fired up fusion 360 to work on any models. The reason for this is some medication i am on can work a bit too well at times, it's supposed to reduce the adhd hyper states where i start loads of different projects at once and never finish any of them before starting another load of projects, or deciding i want to sell the house and live as a hippy in a teepee in the woods. So it basically made me enter a 'can't be arsed' stage where i lost interest in pretty much everything in life (on the plus side... it's amazing how much weight you can lose when you only eat 3 crackers with cheese a day) .... other medical issues compounded things, it's been a miserable year weather wise where i live, and cold damp weather just causes me more pain than usual. Pretending to drive trains in SimRail helped me stay relatively sane... and i still managed to annoy people with my lengthy posts on the forum and discord. Then it was found i was very low on vitamin D (oohh err missus 😜) and i've had yet another pill added to my daily meds to combat this... possibly it's this that's kind of woken me up and got me back into wanting to make controllers again. . So here we are, near the end of 2024, and today i finally started the 3D printers up again and fired up fusion 360, then started playing about at making a new SimRail button box. My current button box was built to screw to the edge of a tiny overbed laptop table i used to have, that's why it is vertical when it should be horizontal, with the buttons and switches spread out across 5 rows. A change of bed to one with legs this time last year allowed me to get my much larger hospital overbed table out of storage, giving me much more room for controllers, but i simply placed the button box on the table to the left of my laptop and used it for a year. . So my next project is to make a more realistic button box that better resembles the switch panel found to the left of the power controller in the EU07 type loco's... below is the basics of what it will be, this one is going to be sized to fit in the 260 x 140mm space i have between the left side of my laptop and the edge of the laptop desk, without blocking the GPU exhaust vents. So again it's a compromise in size and the number of switches i can fit in, but the toggle 2 switches i've left out are for SHP and Czuwak light dimming, which do not have keybinds anyway. The push buttons i am using are 'only' 22mm outside diameter (the flat buttons having a 15mm actual button bit in the middle) so this is at least half the size of the real thing, but everything about this controller setup is sized to fit around a laptop on an overbed table, I will one day be making a full sized driving desk / cab after the input-output system is released for SimRail, that will be going in a room with my omsi bus driving cab and 3D printers. I do want to share the model files for the controllers i have made somehow, sharing just the .stl files would mean it's very hard for others to modify anything, but i'm not sure on how to share the model files from fusion 360... and then there's the thing that i often go back and tweak things as the controllers are evolving, Also i have not got a specific scale for my current controllers, everything is a mix up to what space i have on my laptop desk, so the brake levers are larger than the power controllers regarding scale. Then the biggest thing, writing instruction on how to assemble everything, there's a lot of parts that all go together a particular way to make everything work, and i'd end up writing a 200 page instruction manual that covers every eventuality including what to do if an asteroid hits the earth whilst assembling the controller 🤪

i really should have replied to the 'raildriver' post with the link that shows mine and a few other peoples controllers we are building instead of derailing this topic... now there's been replies if i change my original post, it will mess things up even more? The link to the controller build 'blog' :

As the owner of a raildriver i can confirm that the raildriver is horrible to use with european trains, people who don't own one often do not realise it's size either, it's only about the size of a shoe box!, so if you have adult sized hands it's levers are tiny.. the shafts of them feel like matchsticks in my hands, then you have the constant recalibration needed due to how loose the connections are to the electronics, and the need to leave 5 to 10mm of travel at each end of the throws to enable you to move the ingame control fully on or off. So about 3 or 4 years ago i started working on making my own 'Euro-raildriver' with 3D printed parts in a laser cut perspex case : The levers had fast swappable notch mechanisms that allowed me to change the levers feel to suit different european trains, and as i was making this to play tsw, i had to incorporate a way to change the controller mapping on the fly, as the tsw raildriver control assignments changed depending on which dev set them up for each train, The control reconfigurator is what goes in the empty holes on the top right of the top panel above : Unfortunately half the switches i'd made would never work due to the very limited keybinds and raildriver assignments in tsw, it would have been so much easier if i could have simply set each lever up as a joystick axis, and each switch and button as a joystick button input.... but the tsw devs said that as most people are happy to play with a keyboard or a console controller, there's no reason to spend time adding user assignable joystick inputs Then i really got disillusioned with tsw when they made it so you basically had to buy the game again to use new dlc's with it, so i gave up when tsw3 came out, and waited for SimRail to be released instead. So my Euro-raildriver controller sits on one of my 'never finished project' shelves, maybe to be brought to life one day when SimRail gets joystick inputs. . So... as i much prefer driving the EU07, EP08 and EN57 style trains in SimRail, i instead made some 3D printed controllers for my laptop desk to suit : The wheel and levers rotate potentiometers via gears, and arduino's inside each controller convert the movement into key-presses ... as that's all SimRail accepts for input right now, for the power wheel, reverser and shunt levers, and EN57 power, reverser and brake levers this is easy, as they all have notches for each position the arduino's simple send an increase or decrease key when the lever moved to a new notch. For the EU07 brake levers, the train brake lever has notches, but it also has the main portion of the travel smooth,9 for infinitely adjustable brake pressure in that section (like IRL), and the loco brake lever is just a 180 degree smooth travel with end stops. So for this to work the arduino's send an increase or decrease key-press for every few degrees the lever is moved, this isn't perfect and needs a stable fps rate to work reliably (thankfully my gaming laptop runs SimRail at between 40 and 100 fps, so i limit it to 60 fps and 95% of the time my brake levers stay in sync). But things will be so much easier when we get joystick support, and then when we get the full input / output system, i will go on to making the indicator lights and gauges work (in a similar way to my Omsi driving cab i built back in 2012) So for me too, it's the input / output system that i am mostly looking forwards to in SimRail, and for now every new keybind added makes me happy, as i really do not like driving the trains having to use the mouse to operate certain switches or buttons. . One day i may get into driving 'newer' trains a little more, as i have the driving desk from a BR111 wittenberger steuerwagen in storage that i've partially converted to work with the computer.... i got this originally to use with train simulator 2012 (now train simulator classic) , as that allowed input and output via an external program, but then i got into tsw for the better graphics, and realised tsw has very limited input, and is never going to get output options... so that kind of made that project useless... it's better to be used with Zusi, but i just can't accept it's outdated graphics 😞 So it was put in the storage container of projects i'll likely never finish (this was before i discovered SimRail) One day i may get back into connecting the BR111 driving desk to the computer, but before i do that i want to at the very least have made a full size 3D printed EU07 style driving cab (i'd really love to buy the real controls from a scrapped Polish loco, but when i have tried buying parts advertised in Poland before, i was met with hostility and told they do not want scrapped Polish train parts going to the uk, and that the Polish train simmers who are making driving cabs should get access to those parts firs, even tho i was willing to pay more to get what i wanted. But then there's the whole brexit thing that makes 'importing' even scrap parts much harder than it was when i got the BR111 driving desk and NG272 bus parts from Germany. Anyway, enough waffeling, i've really taken this post off topic... it was about how some people really hate SimRail and seem to want it to fail, and here's me going on about how much i love SimRail and am looking forwards to it's future.

The ZEW buttons on the Radmore radios in the EP07's, EP08's and ET22's do not make the tone sounds anymore, you just hear the buttons clicking as they are pressed then released. The ZEW buttons to make their proper tone sounds in the EN57's tho.

The recent update fixed the keybind for the anti slip brakes in the EP08... but it still does not work in the EU07 I apologise for not mentioning that this keybind did not work in both the EP08 and the EU07 in my last bug report on this issue, and thank the devs for working again over the weekend to fix bugs like this in this great simulator.

Drove an EN71 tonight and i noticed that using the keybind for 'Compartment Lighting' makes the momentary toggle switch on the trains driving desk stick in the up position.... in the EN57 and EN71 there are 2 spring loaded momentary switches for passenger lights on and off, if you operate the switches with the mouse, they spring back when you release them as expected. But using the keybind for 'Compartment Lighting' makes the switch get stuck in the upwards position... pressing the keybind a second time releases it. There is no keybind for 'Compartment Lighting OFF' so i assume this is the issue here? We really need all keybinds that operate toggle or rotary switches to have a seperate on and off keybind... as things like the pantograph switches do... or perhaps a set of train specific keybinds for the switches that are different in the different loco's / EMU's?

The fast move function does not seem to be working in the any of the EP07's, EP08's or the ET22 for the power wheel and shunt lever... i.e. where you press 'shift' plus the 'move power wheel' keys to rapidly move the wheel from say notch 43 to 28, then to notch 1, and then to notch 0 and vice versa. It does work for the brake levers, just not the power and shunt levers, just not the power controls.

i'm noticing that the newest keybinds added in the december patch... i need you to trigger them twice the first time i use them to get the switch in the cab to operate, after the first trigger they will respond immediately. This is annoying for the switches that are toggle switches or rotary ones, as i have moved my 3D printed switches and nothing happened, then when i move them back it triggers the function... but now my switches are reversed. This would be a lot better if we had dedicated on and off key binds for every switch that is a toggle or rotary switch in the trains... like the original cab light switch keybind has.

i can see what they are trying to replicate in the first 2 pictures ... the large amounts of water that runs down the windscreens from the roof when you slow down... i've noticed that it flows downwards below about 30 km/h, and upwards over until about 90 km/h where it will clear, it does need 'some' tweaking to get it more realistic tho... i wonder if it is the new water shaders making it appear different than expected? . in the other photo's i imagine that's the mist or dirty edges of the unwiped parts of the windscreen, in the 'settings.conf' file there are entries for : WindowsDirtStatus=True EnableFoggyWindowsController=False so i wonder if having the windows fog / mist up in wet cold weather is something being worked on?

That's exactly why i made this post... some people were expecting the 'full version' to have everything in it that was ever mentioned in dev logs, posts on discord and even posts random players said they wanted in the sim, and the wording on steam does imply that 😞 But from following on the forums and discord i knew that there was a lot of things we are getting later and not in this update, but people who only read the steam pages do not know this.

I wonder if it's possible to make the signal visibility enhancement level option work only for the signals that apply to the players route? So instead it affecting all signals as it does now, it adjusts the visibility / brightness of just the signals that are for your train, leaving the signals that do not apply to you at the normal brightness. kind of how in real life on some railways, the signals are angled so they point along the route tracks they apply to at the sighting distance, to try and stop you mistaking another tracks signal as the one for your track.

to temporarily fix this when you get it : Re-enable the 'information about next signal' setting in the interface menu... press apply... then disable the 'information about next signal' and press apply, then exit the menu's back to the sim and the messed up signal hud element will be gone. I have to do this every now and then myself, i often get it when i have been in the menus during a drive changing things, this is until it's fixed properly that is.

I agree, It would be nice to get some more control over exactly which pieces of the HUD we want to display. i like to drive HUD'less... but i want some reminders to still be shown ... mostly the 'you can stop now' message that tells me when i have gone past the invisible stopping point at each station, so i don't have to drive right to the 'W4' end of platform sign for every stop to be sure i've triggered the station stop. but i don't want things like the points deduction messages for speeding showing, forgetting to use the horn, nor the SHP / Czuwak repeaters showing (perhaps show them only when using an out of cab camera view where you would not be able to see the in cab lights ? ) maybe the ability to have 'just some' of the warnings show that have 'real' consequences to your drive... like the missed radio channel change signs, just so you do not drive for ages on the wrong radio channel and not be able to hear the dispatcher,

One of the new keybinds we got with the update is to turn the carriage lights on... i imagine this is to turn the lights on in the carriages when you take a train over in daylight and it gets dark (before you had to give control to the bot and the lights would come on, then take control back) in the EN57 there are switches on the drivers desk for turning the carriage lights on and off... but they are 2 separate switches, and the new keybind only operated the ON switch, Could we get a keybind to turn them off? I am thinking for when driving in the day time and the carriage lights are off, but you want to turn them on as you are about to enter the tunnel at Tunel station, or enter the underground part at Warszawa Centralia... then when exit those sections you will want to turn them back off again.

I made this post in the early access forum in december 2023... posting it here again as i am seeing more and more people saying they want something like this : It would be nice to have tooltips show when you hover the mouse cursor over warning lights and gauges like you get on the switches, or perhaps right click on a warning light or gauge to have a tooltip popup telling you in your language what the light / gauge is for. i.e. 'Converter off (overload tripped)' when hovering the mouse over the relevant light, or 'Overhead line voltage' when hovering over the catenary voltage gauge.

but at the bottom there is a disclaimer saying that dates are approximate and may change. The way i see it, this update is the release from early access mode, and there are lots of new things to be introduced into the sim, just it's taking longer than the dev's expected.

i've noticed this too... if you mean that some players names will show and some do not during the same drive... i drive with a live map running on a tablet so can see when a human driven train is approaching so notice when their name does not show (i did wonder if it was some setting they used to not show their name)