Human players and possible third party development

[AmazeMe]

This is a great game and congratulations to the Sim Rail team. The game is spoiled by one or two dispatchers who take great delight in regularly stopping trains for no reason - clear ahead, clear behind, I've had one even ask where I'm going (destination), no communication re four trains stopped in all directions, no explanation, no apologies. I am as patient as you can be with someone who makes mistakes (and we all do!), but fess up. I say this because one of the great parts of the game is at least trying to run to schedule and that's very difficult to do. If there is a sense of frustration, it's because if you drive for over an hour and are 8 minutes ahead and then you are held for a number of minutes you are then late, especially so when driving a heavy goods train which takes time to move. Sometimes it can't be helped but when you are stopped for absolutely no reason it's bad form!

This, tied in with AI issues will lead to problems. This morning there were at least 20 trains stacked up waiting around the Warszaw area. This was not human probs but AI. Problems that may well be sorted as the game develops more. However, I am cautious about SimRail going the same way as TrainSim with third party developers developing routes that don't work, charging money for add-ons that never get fully sorted and the issues resolved. So, what I'm saying is combine all these factors together and we have a game that will grow to be unstable and be unusable. I'd hate to see it go that way. Not saying it will, just expressing concerns.

I also believe that anyone dispatching should have voice comms. 

I apologise in advance if this upsets anyone. I say what I've said with the best of motives.

[Gazz292]

SimRail has been out in Early Access mode since January 13th this year, so coming upto 5 months, 

As one of the people who bought the sim the day it was released (and took part in the play tests) it has received many improvements, new features ae added all the time, updates to the Ai dispatchers logic, performance fixes, a free extra train and route extension, new timetables and so on.

Each update fixes things, and there's multiple behind the scene hotfixes and mini updates pushed out that are not shown by a big fanfare and a noticeable download from steam. 

So far the things we were told we'd get we have got, the team are actively working on lots of projects for the simulator, 

This is also something new, a multiplayer train driving and dispatching simulator, based on the simulator used to train real life drivers in Poland. 

Unfortunately being a multiplayer sim is attracts griefers and trolls, some people admit they bought it only because it was multiplayer, and have no interest in railways at all, some thought they could drive where they wanted when they wanted and have their mates along for a 'race with the trains, 

I regularly drive for 4 hours at a time, driving the full length of the main route, part of the fun is trying to keep on time, and just like the real life that SimRail is simulating, running late is just part of the job for a train driver, so is working out how to keep the service running to time part of the dispatchers job. 

Train driving can be boring at times, you drive the same route over and over (thats how you learn the route and improve on your skills, knowing where to brake, when to coast, when to go as fast as you are allowed, stopping at the right point at the station with a single brake application and so on) 
It sure would be ever more boring if every time you drove you got all green lights and you ran to schedule every time. 

[DazT]

I have to say having the new timetable has been an excellent addition, the only downside is in some locations is some AI decision making in some locations has got worse, usually at locations that we still don't currently have control over, so DGZ, the two Lazy boxes and our old friend Dandowka being the main ones.

One example I see regularly is the AI at Lazy station holding the 401** north service to allow an early 41** to overtake by the worse possible route, using the 40 routes, this in turn then starts delaying southbound traffic, but here's the thing, the 41** EIP is booked behind the 401** Regio all the way to Zw so it shouldn't be dragging the EIP out from behind it to stick it in front if both are on time. If that's how Polish railways run for real, they must have really poor performance figures, might as well do away with the timetable and just make it up on the day! 

[noirceur]

I get your point, but for one I am on the opposite side regarding the layovers - I dislike that almost all dispatchers don't give an F about scheduled stops for operational reasons. Yes, you look at the map and all seems good at the moment, but the schedule is created in this way for a good reason, nobody creates it for "haha let's make this freight go two hours more than needed". If you ignore the stop, it may happen that 30 km later faster trains will catch up and there will be no good overtaking point anywhere for next twenty minutes. Pendolino goes three times as fast as freight, that is something that is very difficult to gauge from the map.

Regarding the rest, in the beginning we had EN1 marked as for beginners, but it sort of became the only server with living community, and the label disappeared over time. Perhaps we should aim to get an "expert" labelled server instead with number other than 1, ideally with a softlock on played time (even a low one, people can come with good experience from elsewhere and just need to learn the controls), where people enjoying high realism could actively gather, while newcomers get pointed elsewhere.

It pleases me when I see a fellow driver running on front panto with coal trains (even AI doesn't do that yet!), but at the next station I get a suicidal dispatcher running under the train. Yes, I will trip that emergency brake and let them eat the five minute refill of the heavy freight, but it is fun only once in a while, not in three stations in a row. It would be great if these communities could exist on their own, because currently it can ruin the fun on both sides, people (who can be even kids) who just want to drive a nice train don't care about the lengthy realistic procedures.

[giBBer8]

Reflecting on 5 months of using the systems as given to us, I'd say that 85% of my driving experience has been enjoyable.

Signalling wise, the MP experience is great, you can not beat that feeling of keeping the players and AI moving through problems (be they AI or human), and the 3D "puzzle solving" aspect to dispatching. Let's make no mistake though, much is made of the AI's inability to do the job. However, just one person can mess up the entire server with 2 clicks of a mouse. And be gone before anyone sees.

90% of all blockages, trains buffer to buffer, and associated '🤣wtf simrail' posts are entirely human error. 

As @noirceursays, a "pro level" server would be great, locked behind 100 hours driving, or 100 Hours dispatch etc etc, for example. Something to work towards, leaving 'biGGusDikUZ1337' far behind. 

I'm all in.

[the810]

We definitely need a separate arcade server and a "realistic" server, as those two play styles don't go together. Sadly, all servers seem to be fairly empty most of the time these days, and this would make that even worse.

Realistic server could then feature simulation of various issues on the line. I agree with @Gazz292's last sentence - perfect operations are kinda boring and it's one of very few things that I dislike about SimRail - unless someone screws up big time, the game gets kinda repetitive (especially since there's a clock-face schedule in the game, even though Poland is one of very few places in Europe which in real life still mostly didn't switch to it). Having random track closures, accidents and similar stuff to deal with would make the game more challenging and interesting. 

Also, if you're being held for seemingly no reason, sometimes just asking helps 🙂 I had a case when a train stopped before the entry signal, I couldn't get in touch with him and it took me 5 minutes to notice that the signal stayed red despite the route being set. I quickly fixed it by giving him a substitute signal, but if he called/chatted me, it would happen much faster. 

Personally I also try to give human-operated trains priority over bots, but within some reasonable limits in regards to what happens down the line - see noirceur's excellent post about timetable-keeping. Those technical stops and order of the trains are there for a reason. As a driver, I hate nothing more than being stuck behind a slow train on the main line for 20 minutes, because someone didn't give a damn about the timetable and figured "why not send a freight train that was supposed to stop here for 10 minutes in front of a Pendolino".

[Gazz292]

Thing you got to be careful about with allowing made up incidents, is what happened in the early days of SimRail... before the 'no track closing, events etc' was added to the XX1 servers descriptions, 

That was one dispatcher deciding they would make up a reason to have a track closed.
then the next dispatcher along wanted in on the action, so made up that there was an illegal rave in the goods yard and people were using the main lines as toilets,
Then the next dispatcher made up that the over head lines had been stolen,
the next dispatcher said that cows were shagging on the tracks... 
And so on, 

All great fun for the individual dispatchers they thought, but totally unrealistic and annoying for the drivers who were stuck in queues spending 2 hours getting past a section that should be cleared in 5 minutes, where all the 'issues' were in the heads of the dispatchers in question.... i.e. no shagging cows to pass or the need for a tow from a diesel engine past the missing overhead lines.

In real life trains would be cancelled, terminated short, replacement busses but on etc, 

And in real life there are not that many incidents in such a short section of line, especially not every day, if there were the line would go bankrupt due to no one wanting to use it, 
So in a way, normal operation is the every day normal for a train driver, with just the odd speed restriction here and there perhaps... but also gotta remember that no 2 runs will be the same in SimRail, due to the human factor.

:

SimRail is going to enable it's built in random failures sometime, so i think it should be left to the sim to decide on when these incidents occur,  with the exception of the certain servers which do allow role play (that i avoid for that very reason) 

[Skully]

While we are talking about a potential expert server, might just re-enable shunting and coupling on it as well.

[Goozinger]

6 minutes ago, Skully said:

While we are talking about a potential expert server, might just re-enable shunting and coupling on it as well.

Thats what i really really hope for. In the last weeks skill levels have decreased. That is a good sign that new players follow but it made my personal experience so much worse.

[Pharix IFN.GG]

On 6/1/2023 at 7:40 PM, AmazeMe said:

However, I am cautious about SimRail going the same way as TrainSim with third party developers developing routes that don't work, charging money for add-ons that never get fully sorted and the issues resolved

I believe that whilst that has been the case with TSC/TSW, the SimRail team are different studio, different standards, different deadlines. The "Quality Assessment" that DTG have put out has increasingly become subpar, I would absolutely look forward to where SR branches out from here and the possibility of 3rd Party Dev involvement.

[Gazz292]

well, tsw was always intended to be a cash cow,  
they worked out that their average player does not have the attention span to handle more than 90 minutes, so thats the limit for most routes they make, this results in short routes, 
They boast about their longest route yet, a 'whopping' 186 km!!  but that's driven at 280 km/h, so is over in about 40 minutes. 

Only they are allowed to release routes / trains, or a select few 3rd parties who do so on a franchise basis... so tsw gets a cut of course. 

But their whole strategy is release as many DLC's as they can, they try to release a new route or train every 3 months, again they worked out their average player needs something new that often to keep them interested in their game, due to their scripted runs being the same every time, it's not long until you know exactly what the signals will be and when train will pass you each time you do the run.

[DazT]

I'm up for some TSW bashing, I think what got on my tits in the end was "layered routes", having to buy other routes just so the route I actually wanted to drive on actually had different trains passing, as an unlayered route generally will have only a few types of traction flying around, ie, the ones included with that route only and nothing else. And for me that's where SimRail is winning with "Here, have ALL the trains, no charge"

Bugs, really, I've not got enough time to even start! I did take the time of joining up to their proper/official DTG bug reporting system (rather than plonking it on their forum, which if I'm honest, I don't think they even read!), I'd spend ages reporting faults and bugs, you'd get an acknowledgment (eventually!) and they'd mark it as closed but then never actually fix ANYTHING!

Edited June 6, 2023 by DazT

[DazT]

On 6/2/2023 at 4:24 PM, noirceur said:

I get your point, but for one I am on the opposite side regarding the layovers - I dislike that almost all dispatchers don't give an F about scheduled stops for operational reasons. Yes, you look at the map and all seems good at the moment, but the schedule is created in this way for a good reason, nobody creates it for "haha let's make this freight go two hours more than needed". If you ignore the stop, it may happen that 30 km later faster trains will catch up and there will be no good overtaking point anywhere for next twenty minutes. Pendolino goes three times as fast as freight, that is something that is very difficult to gauge from the map.

Regarding the rest, in the beginning we had EN1 marked as for beginners, but it sort of became the only server with living community, and the label disappeared over time. Perhaps we should aim to get an "expert" labelled server instead with number other than 1, ideally with a softlock on played time (even a low one, people can come with good experience from elsewhere and just need to learn the controls), where people enjoying high realism could actively gather, while newcomers get pointed elsewhere.

It pleases me when I see a fellow driver running on front panto with coal trains (even AI doesn't do that yet!), but at the next station I get a suicidal dispatcher running under the train. Yes, I will trip that emergency brake and let them eat the five minute refill of the heavy freight, but it is fun only once in a while, not in three stations in a row. It would be great if these communities could exist on their own, because currently it can ruin the fun on both sides, people (who can be even kids) who just want to drive a nice train don't care about the lengthy realistic procedures.

I'll honour a /pt/ if it warrants it, in that, it's all down to location and traffic situation. (and that's why I move round locations, so I learn and know what other boxes can and can't do if you were to throw them a curveball.) So for instance, if a freight comes up early on the CMK heading south and I'm on WP, but I know that it's booked time at Psary, I will look at sneaking it through to Psary even if it's early (ironically because either a human, or more likely the AI has just launched it from Olszamowice early), and as holding it at WP on some occasions isn't the best place as you then lose a platform/line that you could actually need for something else/other regulating moves (and I have, and found out the hard way). But even sneaking it to Psary has its downfall as if it's an AI controlled workstation there, it will, and has as I've seen it do it, just launch it on round to Kozlow if the Psary AI can't see other trains that are actually booked first (ie, if they not struck in directly behind at Knapówka, so before launching it to Psary, I also look at Kozlow and ask myself "If I send this on early, will it make it to Kozlow as well without delaying X, Y, or Z train as well."

Since virtracks.stelltis.ch has implemented two of my suggestions to their EDR, it's made dispatching now easier than ever. You can now show in table (it's on the settings page) which location any train reported at last, how late it was, type of report (so arr or dep) and at what time it arrived or departed. Another suggestion of mine was to be able to sort the table by ETA (which went live this week), as the table I thought was horrible when trains were late as they'd get stuck towards the top whilst you were looking at on time trains at the bottom so you'd miss stuff/forget stuff, now you can specify to sort the table by ETA, which also takes into account the trains' last report. After using both improvements my train regulation has improved 10 fold because the information is now there, in front of me so I'm not hunting around looking at online maps, then having to look at another site that say does timetables, etc, etc, which to be honest I could probably now run a panel/workstation without even looking at either now.

I've got another suggestion that I intend on posing to the developer of virtrack which I think will help at big stations, but I need to write it up as to what I'm looking for and if it'd be possible to implement.

Edited June 6, 2023 by DazT

[Gazz292]

10 hours ago, DazT said:

I'm up for some TSW bashing, I think what got on my tits in the end was "layered routes", having to buy other routes just so the route I actually wanted to drive on actually had different trains passing, 

yeah, that was all part of the plan to get you to buy all the DLC they made,
even if you didn't have an interest in the route, if you wanted to see more than the same old dosto's passing you another £24.99 was needed to add a couple more trains to the route you liked...

.... then another £24.99 and another... suddenly the game that you bought in a sale for £5 has cost you £250 and counting, and that was just for the German content which was all i was interested in from the choice of 3 countries that they covered then. 

 

:

 

But their bug fixing was appalling, every bug being graded from 'game breaking so we'd better fix it asap or we'll lose customers'  to 'meh!, can't be arsed with that, leave it as is... only 500 people have noticed it so far anyway'