Discrepency Reports

[SurvivorSean]

I'm going to use this thread to highlight weird issues I've noticed, and perhaps I'll even do one of stuff that is going well.

So I picked up a cargo train after 2pm EST today on EN2.  The train was way ahead of schedule (something that is normal as the AI boards do not hold cargo trains to their schedule).  

I was approaching Lazy LC and I got into range where another train I believe ahead of me was either supposed to go on track 1 but was routed to 3 because of an "issue with the track".  Now I don't know what that issue was but what I do know is by the time I made it to Lazy LC suddenly I began picking up "failed to stop at station messages".  In fact I know I was not routed properly becasue the upper right hand corner would say "closest station so and so" until eventually I rejoined.  I also noticed many passenger overtaking me in the left track.

I don't know if this happened before Lazy LC because I already noticed some people on speaking another language and trains in the left hand track overtaking my track.  So I'm not going to name any names because there was plenty of creative stuff happening on this server.

"issues with tracks" to me is something that shouldn't be simulated if the program is not causing the issue.  If it is I guess I just haven't heard of any issues.  As for so many overtakes the cargo train should of been held back at a siding.  That could have been an AI issue or simply people just trying to push stuff through.  Anyways not naming names but I don't know what the solution is.

It is dissapointing not hearing an official word on this as well.  I don't mind picking my servers as I have plenty of control in that matter and can find what works well for me.  It was still an enjoyable trip regardless and I was never stopped at any signal for more than a few minutes.  I did however see plenty of passengers including Euros held up along the way which isn't right just to make humans feel better about their trip.

Thanks

Sean

[Gazz292]

Maybe the 'track issue' was the dispatchers agreeing in advance to do that?

i've read about them doing this on some servers to change things about a little... it's something that would happen in real life.

 

[Kaito Kid]

Yup, we do situations like those on the Spanish server, like failure of level crossing, failure of a signal on a certain track, failure of some points, etc...

[Gazz292]

i read that when something like that was happening (role playing) on i think a french server, most people were fine with it, but some drivers got really arsey and demanded to be routed properly.

That's the problem you can get when someone who is so focused on earning points thinks they are going to lose out on some 😞

 

Which is why i don't give 2 farts about points myself, it was something i hated in tsw along with those stupid trophies for pressing a button you had to press anyway,

But i understand some sort of scoring system is needed to allow people to advance to other levels and access harder trains / signal boxes.

Maybe the points thing could be more in the background, like is is with Omsi, your driver record gets updated at the end of a drive, and you have to go and look at it to see how you are doing,
but you don't get that '-1000 points for missing a stop' flashing up on the screen when your freight train was allowed to carry straight through the sidings 20 minutes ago.

[SurvivorSean]

This is where we get into a whole other ball of wax and that is how people want or expect to play.

Personally I have seen or heard way too much of "this happens in real life".  Actually I'm not from Poland and I could pretty much assure you unless their tracks are absolute crap it doesn't happen all the time.  Things can happen but the simulation is not simulating these issues.  I could care less about points either.

This where the true simulation that this brings begins to die off.  Saying everyone agrees is not true.  No you and a couple of dispatchers agree so what that doesn't mean the players agree (they count just as much).

Again this is where rules or private servers come into play because stuff like that can be truly organised.  Because this is not a play test I don't care as much right now.  But I'm beginning to wonder what is going to happen when this actually releases.  I don't drive that often as I dispatch, but I personally won't partake in it.

Thanks

Sean

[Gazz292]

True, everyone is different with regards to what they want out of the simulator.

maybe some of the public servers could be set for role playing things like signal failures, broken level crossings and so on where the dispatchers are routing trains differently to normal,
And the rest of the servers are for playing normally.

But not if it results in there not being enough servers to go around so people are forced to drive in a role playing one.

i do see that sometimes a dispatcher is bored, they route my passenger train in a snake like pattern through the sidings and out the other end back to the main line, and when i pass the signal box they are outside jumping up and down on the track i am driving on.
 

[SurvivorSean]

Yeah the jumping up and down doesn't bother me.  But I'm not a fan of being routed onto a 40KMH siding for no reason espeically if my goal it to try and keep on or behind time.  This happened to me the other day and I was never able to gain it back. 

I think this is where private servers could help because then those that have systems or whatever rules they want can agree to join the server and do what they want etc.  

The other thing is this is a playtest.  There are some serious issues already taking place and there are good theories but I'm not exactly sure what is causing them.  Since there is no emergencies programmed in I think it will help the team to focus on what we are finding in the stuff that is programmed.

Thanks

Sean

[Fightdrug]

vor 13 Minuten schrieb SurvivorSean:

Yeah the jumping up and down doesn't bother me.  But I'm not a fan of being routed onto a 40KMH siding for no reason espeically if my goal it to try and keep on or behind time.  This happened to me the other day and I was never able to gain it back. 

I think this is where private servers could help because then those that have systems or whatever rules they want can agree to join the server and do what they want etc.  

The other thing is this is a playtest.  There are some serious issues already taking place and there are good theories but I'm not exactly sure what is causing them.  Since there is no emergencies programmed in I think it will help the team to focus on what we are finding in the stuff that is programmed.

Thanks

Sean

yeah i know what you mean that one day was a dispatcher at the Dabrowa signalbox he was finding it funny to let me hold at the station and then wait 10 min till he was so gracious to switch it to green at the meantime he was just jump at my train 😕 wasnt so funny for me to be Honest

[Skully]

To expect a clean run on a public server with randoms is an unrealistic expectation. It can happen sometimes, it probably won't happen most times. Early services tend to be clean ones, the late evenings are usually a mess just as in real life. 😁

As long as a dispatcher makes the traffic flow it should be fine.

We should have a proper scoring system for dispatchers so only the experienced ones can do alternate things (risking losing experience). Low level dispatchers should be guided by the AI to get points. Losing time on the board or bad routing should mean penalties. Losing too many points in one session could mean a temporary ban.

[SurvivorSean]

I'm all for a random failure and it's something I believe the developers said would eventually be in the works.  But just doing it because you're bored should not be a reason to hold players hostage to your gameplay.  Remember it's not just the players who are already on but it's the ones coming on taking those AI trains.

Thanks

Sean

[Gazz292]

i got fed up of tsw* as that is always the same run, it's all scripted so you soon get to know which signals you'll be held at, what the other train moves around you will be etc.

thats why i read about people who say they've 'completed the game'   what they've done is driven every timetabled run once, and there's no point running them again as they'd already seen everything.

i too would get bored if every run as a 'green lighter' drive at max line speed, stop at the stations on time... repeat for the next 500km.
I love the randomness live drivers and dispatchers bring to SimRail,
It's awesome when i keep getting speed checked by amber signals ahead that clear as i approach them, and i realise there's a 'live drivers' train ahead of me, running late but going just a little slower than i am, 
then i can ask the dispatcher if i can 'overtake' them at an appropriate place,

this is the kind of stuff that separates a simulator from a game i think.

 

*i also lost interest in tsw as they changed from saying they will offer joystick controller support, to only offering raildriver support, So the controller i was working on became useless,

Edited December 31, 2022 by Gazz292

[SurvivorSean]

Absolutely.  Run8 has been very good at that for the past 10 years and has only impoved on that.  I still monitor Run8 but I'm hoping for DLC more suited towards of all things single player or smaller groups and servers.  It's a bit different in North America than Europe because there is lots of switching involved in North America.  They have AI everything except switching right now and this is where it gets difficult to try and run a big area because you need people to run it, which makes the MP aspect so much better when you have a good group of people that can agree on times etc.

I suspect single player here will be very much like TSW which I may play once and then it's back to MP for me.  Unless it has some kind of randomness to it then what's the point.  The MP is what this requires to work the most thus why having AI that work, controls (seems to be getting better), and people who participate with everyone (not just their friends) is important.

Thanks

Sean

[Footz]

That's good point, if sb is fixed on maintaining the timetible, SP would be the best option for them. If on the other hand sb prefers everyother run to be different, MP is the way to play with all its quirks and irregularities, delays etc.

[DeadlyKungFu.Ninja]

On 12/31/2022 at 4:39 PM, SurvivorSean said:

I'm all for a random failure and it's something I believe the developers said would eventually be in the works.  But just doing it because you're bored should not be a reason to hold players hostage to your gameplay.  Remember it's not just the players who are already on but it's the ones coming on taking those AI trains.

Thanks

Sean

Hi,
There is a big difference between doing it because you are bored, and an event all dispatchers and most players have agreed too.
The lack of private servers and the fact we cannot know before server start who is going to be dispatcher makes it impossible to prepare in advance, but there was some level of organisation and planning to it.

Just to reflect that it is not only "Bored dispatcher doing wierd stuff" vs "Perfect dispatchers without any deviations to game plan"

(I was on FR1 during the One Track event)

Thanks.
 

Edited January 2, 2023 by DeadlyKungFu.Ninja
Funny meme because

[Lactic]

😁 This is EPIC @DeadlyKungFu.Ninja 💯

[SurvivorSean]

So when the "creative dispatching" starts on an English server, will we get an announcement in the forum or something you just decide to do because you chat with your buddies and a few people playing which happen to be the majority on the server at that one moment?  BTW this isn't a democracy it's called true anarchy.  Anarchist or Liberterian priciples actually respect ownership, and private property rights.  The issue here is the owners are the developers and they aren't saying anything so I guess Total Anarchy lives. 

It's the same thing of saying well me and 4 friends are the majority on the server (we were last night) and we agreed to send an AI train down a side track between Bedzin and SG to test it out.  Turns out to be a little slower but a good way of keeping cargo traffic rolling.  It didn't disturb anyone else's game play.  I assure you if anyone was a player that came into that area I would route them properly despite any agreement.

Let's go further and hypothetically speaking the 4 friends that were on the server with me last night decided we were going to see if we could break the system.  I guess nothing is stopping us if it's total anarchy correct?  If someone else came on and the server was buggered up that person is in the miniority correct?  Where do you draw the line?

Thanks

Sean

[DeadlyKungFu.Ninja]

1 minute ago, SurvivorSean said:

So when the "creative dispatching" starts on an English server, will we get an announcement in the forum or something you just decide to do because you chat with your buddies and a few people playing which happen to be the majority on the server at that one moment?  BTW this isn't a democracy it's called true anarchy.  Anarchist or Liberterian priciples actually respect ownership, and private property rights.  The issue here is the owners are the developers and they aren't saying anything so I guess Total Anarchy lives. 

It's the same thing of saying well me and 4 friends are the majority on the server (we were last night) and we agreed to send an AI train down a side track between Bedzin and SG to test it out.  Turns out to be a little slower but a good way of keeping cargo traffic rolling.  It didn't disturb anyone else's game play.  I assure you if anyone was a player that came into that area I would route them properly despite any agreement.

Let's go further and hypothetically speaking the 4 friends that were on the server with me last night decided we were going to see if we could break the system.  I guess nothing is stopping us if it's total anarchy correct?  If someone else came on and the server was buggered up that person is in the miniority correct?  Where do you draw the line?

Thanks

Sean

There were multiple radio calls announcing the issue. The few players (2) that voice their disagreement were given priority and we reopened a track for them so they could enjoy the game how they wished to enjoy it.

I understand your concerns, and all I can say is that we did our best so everyone enjoyed their game.

Some did not voiced their disagreements but were annoyed nonetheless, 2 more, and I apologized to them after the shift was done.
This is the only time I was a dispatcher an made an event, I tried and saw that it was not perfect just yet for everyone and did not make anorther one personnally.

The forum post is impossible to make becase there is no guarantee who will be dispatcher at any given time, so no planning on when it can or will happend can be done as of now. 

Thanks

[SurvivorSean]

I could be on a 2 hour run and I wouldn't hear the stupid radio until I got into range.  By the time most people are routed to the track what difference would it make bitching to the dispatcher.  After all apperntly the AI does it too and they're working on it.

The developing team has no comment as I guess they're busy working on more important things right now.  

Thanks

Sean