First Capital Connect Class319

[gptech]

...so why have they built a duel voltage unit that in real life can use either overhead or 3rd rail pick so why not model it on just that, just because they have no plans to build a route that would use this they have penelised anyone else from building such route for these units to run on, ....

Excuse me for being late to the party, but from what I've read in this thread you get a variant that can be used on 3rd rail and one for OHLE, so theres nothing preventing you running it where you want; the argument seems to be centred around not being able to switch from one to the other.

[Wikkus]

Excuse me for being late to the party, but from what I've read in this thread you get a variant that can be used on 3rd rail and one for OHLE, so theres nothing preventing you running it where you want; the argument seems to be centred around not being able to switch from one to the other.

That's how I see it too, Gary. But there is some validity to this point and it also highlights something that came up in an entirely unrelated product thread, specifically, that RSC/DG lack, for want of a better description, "standards" beyond the core functionality when it comes to controlling features that are not encompassed by the usual driving controls and what the Fisher Price HUD can do, e.g. multi-mode lighting, variable speed windscreen wipers, instrument lighting, or indeed, switchable dual-supply systems.

There have been a number of inconsistencies in that respect; products developed either in-house by RSC/DG or on their behalf by third-party developers and released as part of "official" DLC. It's hardly surprising that people get frustrated that when the bar gets raised by one product, it's immediately dropped down again by a "newer" release.

With respect to this specific topic of dual-supply selection and as has been highlighted already, it was successfully implemented on the 395 and the 92, so why not here? Using the justification that there's no suitable route to run it on strikes me as a little weak; the technology exists to make it work and yet whoever developed it (and I don't know if it was in-house or not) either a) chose (or was instructed) not to do it, or b) couldn't do it either technically, or because the scripting is the intellectual property of whoever developed the other two. If all three came from the same source then it really is rather baffling

Rik.

[AndyUK]

...With respect to this specific topic of dual-supply selection and as has been highlighted already, it was successfully implemented on the 395 and the 92, so why not here? Using the justification that there's no suitable route to run it on strikes me as a little weak.......

I've not seen anything from DTG on the topic of the lack of a AC/DC changeover function, have I missed it or is the 'no suitable route' justification only in the minds of some posters here? It could be argued that no suitable route exists on which the Class 92's dual voltage capability can be used as they're not cleared for the DC parts of the London - Faversham route but that didn't stop RSC including that feature. I'd prefer that DTG developed models with all the key features of the prototype that would allow the route builders to create or modify routes to take advantage of those features later, neutral sections on WCML North and GEML for example.

Andy L

[spellow3010]

Having seen the WIP screen shot on Facebook a while ago and again in game, I took a full punt on the Class 319 as a prospective instant winner. And I wasn't disappointed.

Looks - I tell you what, I think for a 'modern' plastic EMU, it looks very nice indeed. Really smoothly modelled both inside and out and fully convinces me that this is a Class 319. The best passenger view I have seen, since the 1st Class Pendolino. Really good job there. Inside the cab, we have a few more items than we normally expect for the price you pay to DTG. A working fan!! It's always good to explore all around the cab and this is another release where you can do that and not feel as though you are constrained in a front view only bubble. Textures inside the cab are of a fine standard - in my opinion we are getting much better in this area with each DTG release of late. Do any of the trains in TS2014 have 3rd rail collector shoe arcing modelled? We had it in Microsoft TrainSim days... This would have been a good starting point given the high quality of modelling the train itself. I found the headlights when approaching a 319 coming in the opposite direction very bright indeed - may be that turning headlight flare off might help. I liked the selectable flap on the control desk to remind the driver that they are driving a 4 car, 8 car or 12 car formation. A nice touch.

Driving - I have no experience of driving the real things, but the 319 seems to have greyhound (somebody somewhere refers to this as 'arcade') performance on the throttle. I would tend to expect this though from a 100mph (plus) capable unit designed for outer-suburban semi-fast services. Braking is probably too good, but as I say, I am not a train driver by trade... if only the Voyager would brake like this, I would use that train more. I prefer driving this Class 319 over the 377 to be honest. Easily turn on and offable DVD - good for those of us that like to take external screen shots and make the most of track elevation views. I keep the DVD turned on and still go outside for a quick screen picture - I just press Q regularly just in case it goes off while I am outside!!

Sounds - I liked the sounds on the Class 455 for the clickety-clack rail joint sounds in and around suburban London. Seem a bit misplaced on this train though if I am being honest. Sounds seem to have been a weak point of recent releases, which is a shame. Not a show stopper or deal breaker in context with others.

AWS Issue - I've seen some of the comments and guidance on here. This is for DTG to fix. I'm not messing with my game only to have a system update eradicate all that work again. No AWS ding upon passing over the magnets for successive green aspects. AWS horn and ding upon passing over the magnet for cautionary/stop aspects. Yep, that's for DTG to fix and ticket submitted. Doesn't stop me driving the train, but makes you feel as though you really have to pay more attention than you would normally. I checked through the manual to see if there was anything in there that I had missed and noted the praise given for the beta testing team for this unit. Hopefully, more rigorous testing will follow in due course.

Scenarios - this is becoming a 'bad habit' of DTG lately. Not enough scenarios. I enjoyed the one in the rain running northbound from Brighton. In fact, I enjoyed both main scenarios. That said, I thought there were too many 319s running about in comparison, but I am not an expert in the timetable down there. I guess they wanted to showcase their new toy, and why not. Always seems a shame with so much stuff available as part of the L2B route, why Three Bridges always seems so empty...

Overall - A very good value for money model... More scenarios needed and there is scope for better sounds and more liveries soon. Nice drive. 8 out of 10 from me. To score a ten, more scenarios, and don't publish something out of the box with a 'major' AWS fault. To quote Margaret Thatcher, 'I am enjoying this...'

Bring on the re-skins... Original NSE (dark grey), the U-boat battleship grey of the mid 1990s, the Connex yellow and white (you can do the Gatwick to Rugbys then...) etc. Yee-ha.

[freewarescenarios]

I always read these threads with much enjoyment and i seemed to have stumbled across this one at quite a late stage....

I agree and disagree with several points raised thus far...

I agree that given the functionality of the 92 and 395 is does seem odd that they have not implemented this with the 319, the point i think to raise here is; They make 100% of their decisions for commercial reasons and this no doubt will have been one of them. The reason behind this clearly lies in the hands of DTG. Those that like to try and figure out the why's and wherefore's no doubt will have their own theory on why this was not implemented, maybe they DO have a route in mind that will require both AC/DC to be enabled and are planning on releasing an upgraded version of the 319 at a later date. Obviously it does not need spelling out why they would do such things, just like a car manufacture brings out a newer model with extra features.

In relation to the topic of these new .OUT files that we are now starting to see, if you personally think this is hindering your capabilities to alter/amend or further create projects in TS then i think this is something that we are going to have to get used to over time. DTG have always publicly prided themselves on giving the end user the tools to take the game to another level and give us free rain to use what i would describe as 'one of the most advanced editors seen in a simulation' (and before people start jumping on the whole 'the editor is not that good, you cant do this, you cant do that') find me another simulation game that allows the end user to edit as much as DTG allow us to? I think you will struggle.

It is interesting though to see how far they will go with allowing us to create our own work, i personally think they are and will hold back on the tools we have access too. LUA scripting was mentioned quite a lot in the build up to the launch of TS2014 but they have not actually made the process available to us unless you are very technically minded. They are a commercial outfit at the end of the day and its all about 'supply and demand' The more we keep purchasing their 'sub standard' products as some like to describe it, the more they will produce them. What you also have to remember is we are fortunate enough to have a select few Third Party companies that are producing quality DLC and in a lot of cases better than DTG, this has seen the quality of DTG material increase i think, but remember both parties will approach their projects in different ways......DTG need to produce something quickly to make money but other developers that have produced outstanding work have time to spend to ensure its of as high quality as possible (jordi for example) as its not their full time job.

[749006]

RSC/DTG are going to be in a pickle if they cannot decompile an .OUT file

As holders of the source files, DTG wouldn't need to decompile their own compiled scripts, as Dave says. One of the reasons most scripts included are compiled is that the code is not open source, particularly as the script is now as much a part of overall product as the model and sounds.

Chris

It was a joke - hence the smiley face.

[749006]

...so why have they built a duel voltage unit that in real life can use either overhead or 3rd rail pick so why not model it on just that, just because they have no plans to build a route that would use this they have penelised anyone else from building such route for these units to run on, ....

Excuse me for being late to the party, but from what I've read in this thread you get a variant that can be used on 3rd rail and one for OHLE, so theres nothing preventing you running it where you want; the argument seems to be centred around not being able to switch from one to the other.

Got it in one.

[xguerra]

Got an email back, quite a standard reply so I'm not going to expect anything realistically to change.

Dear Xavier,

Thank you for contacting the dovetailgames.com customer support team with your feedback and suggestions regarding Train Simulator, this is very much appreciated.

Your suggestions and comments about dual voltage, have been passed to our product team, they will be considered for any improvements or changes that may need to be made for future releases of Dovetail Games products.
We appreciate your taking the time to let us know,
Please reply to this email rather than generating a new email, this will avoid any confusion, it also enables us to read the history of all correspondence in order to provide you with quicker assistance and better support.
Keep an eye on the Train Simulator website:http://www.railsimulator.com or Like us on Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/railsimulator for all the latest news and details about upcoming releases.

Regards

Brett, Dovetail Games Support

[swtcn91]

Got an email back, quite a standard reply so I'm not going to expect anything realistically to change.

Dear Xavier,

Thank you for contacting the dovetailgames.com customer support team with your feedback and suggestions regarding Train Simulator, this is very much appreciated.

Your suggestions and comments about dual voltage, have been passed to our product team, they will be considered for any improvements or changes that may need to be made for future releases of Dovetail Games products.
We appreciate your taking the time to let us know,
Please reply to this email rather than generating a new email, this will avoid any confusion, it also enables us to read the history of all correspondence in order to provide you with quicker assistance and better support.
Keep an eye on the Train Simulator website:http://www.railsimulator.com or Like us on Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/railsimulator for all the latest news and details about upcoming releases.

Regards

Brett, Dovetail Games Support

We need to make our voices louder. Dual voltage is a core function of the 319, and they should put it in if we can't.

[gptech]

Got an email back, quite a standard reply so I'm not going to expect anything realistically to change.

More than a standard reply I'd say; at least you received a reply from a real person with a name and weren't advised to verify the game....

We need to make our voices louder. Dual voltage is a core function of the 319, and they should put it in if we can't.

Shouting rarely achieves anything, a reasoned and polite (and I assume with suggestions) mail such as Xavier's does more good--as evidenced by the reply.
Lets be realistic; we're not talking about an *issue* that makes the unit unusable or causes the game to crash so it's never going to be a 'top concern'. The ability to use the single model on both DC and AC lines is desirable but in truth the lack of a realistic 'switch over' would only impact on a scenario calling for such a switch; something we don't have at the moment and a work round to that would be to create a 2 part (even chained) scenario with appropriate MOS coaches in each.
The DC enabled coach in the pack isn't---it's actually a 'crippled' version of the AC coach with the reference to the panto animation removed so no amount of key pressing or mouse clicking will get the panto to budge. As far as the game is concerned the panto is raised, for 'panto up' read 'current collection: ON' so the unit will happily move even though we don't see the panto up so to alter the scripting to enable 'current collection' with the panto down seems an odd call from a bunch of realism junkies.

Would it be possible to link the panto animation to another, additional, key press so that the control for panto up (read 'current collection :ON') stays valid but pressing (for example) 'O' runs the animation so we're fooled into seeing the panto lower?

[Juanillo99]

The DTG guys just released a video. In the second 13 appears a poster that states "Power: Electric Bi-modal".
What a joke!

http://youtu.be/FYkYn4-Tg6g

[37114]

Now here's a sight I can finally recreate.

The class 319 passing Kings Cross Thameslink on my ill-fated Thameslink route.



The big irritation for me is that they've made the AC and DC separate, which means they're not interchangeable en route. So with the AC version I can't go any further than Farringdon, and the same the other way round.

Can it switch from AC to DC when stationary? If so that's as per the real thing. I'm ex West Hampstead PSB they switch over power at Farringdon

No, that's the point. The fact that the AC and DC is in separate models means it can't be changed at Farringdon.

Oh dear. That's not good.

[gptech]

The DTG guys just released a video. In the second 13 appears a poster that states "Power: Electric Bi-modal".
What a joke!

Yeah...when describing the real thing.

No, that's the point. The fact that the AC and DC is in separate models means it can't be changed at Farringdon.

Oh dear. That's not good.

Part 1 of the scenario ends at Farringdon....part 2 picks the story back up at Farringdon with the MOS swapped.

Not perfect granted, not what everybody would like certainly, but all you've got at the moment.
Given that dual voltage change-overs are handled more realistically in other stock does suggest that there should be no reason for it not to be ported over to this model (eventually) but consider again Wikkus's post:

But there is some validity to this point and it also highlights something that came up in an entirely unrelated product thread, specifically, that RSC/DG lack, for want of a better description, "standards" beyond the core functionality when it comes to controlling features that are not encompassed by the usual driving controls and what the Fisher Price HUD can do, e.g. multi-mode lighting, variable speed windscreen wipers, instrument lighting, or indeed, switchable dual-supply systems.

There have been a number of inconsistencies in that respect; products developed either in-house by RSC/DG or on their behalf by third-party developers and released as part of "official" DLC. It's hardly surprising that people get frustrated that when the bar gets raised by one product, it's immediately dropped down again by a "newer" release.

With respect to this specific topic of dual-supply selection and as has been highlighted already, it was successfully implemented on the 395 and the 92, so why not here? Using the justification that there's no suitable route to run it on strikes me as a little weak; the technology exists to make it work and yet whoever developed it (and I don't know if it was in-house or not) either a) chose (or was instructed) not to do it, or b) couldn't do it either technically, or because the scripting is the intellectual property of whoever developed the other two. If all three came from the same source then it really is rather baffling

Wheels within wheels, office politics, conspiracy theories...take your pick

[Wikkus]

Wheels within wheels, office politics, conspiracy theories...take your pick

It was Derek, on the grassy knoll.

Rik.

[749006]

With respect to this specific topic of dual-supply selection and as has been highlighted already, it was successfully implemented on the 395 and the 92, so why not here? Using the justification that there's no suitable route to run it on strikes me as a little weak; the technology exists to make it work and yet whoever developed it (and I don't know if it was in-house or not) either a) chose (or was instructed) not to do it, or b) couldn't do it either technically, or because the scripting is the intellectual property of whoever developed the other two. If all three came from the same source then it really is rather baffling

Rik.

I presume now we go down the road of "if they can do it now we want it on Everything!"

The top Headlight works on the Class 92 - do we start demanding the Class 57 & 66 be modified to reflect this.
You can drop some Cab Windows - do we now critisise DTG for every new item that comes out without this Feature. And how many people USE the drop window feature?

Most people are jumping on the 'Have a go at DTG' bandwagon because they have not given them something they will not use.
The Class 325 has been out for quite a bit with not many people complaining they carn't use the dual voltage changeover.

Peter