Atomic Systems

I don't know if they read the forums here, but it would be nice to have a less sterile world when driving a route. When driving through towns and cities, it's like a ghost town. Perhaps they could have more cars on roadways. (if the time is around AM or PM rush hour), have a traffic jam here and there on adjacent roads. Also more people along the route - at platforms, or a few people scattered around looking down from bridges and fences. In the country side have farmers working some fields. The don't necessarily need to be moving, just the image of life on the planet would be good.

I don't think that will happen, DtG hasn't bothered with more realism in that respect even for TSW, look at the New York route, deader than routes in TS20xx!

As a scenario author, I'll often throw in some extra people, vehicles or animals appropriate to the scene if it looks a bit dead - sometimes you can make quite nice little vignettes and the positioning tools make it quite easy to manipulate, which can help - I expect you could do the same in the route editor if you wanted to add something permanent. I think it depends on the route, and also on circumstances - if the player is going to fly past a scene at 125mph, there's not much point, but if it's a slow part of the line, or a long wait at a signal. However, frame rate and memory consumption are always going to be considerations as well - there's a line between making a route life-like and turning into a slideshow.

I did have higher hopes for TSW - being able to utilise more computing resource I'd assumed this would leave headroom for a bit more incidental detail, but it does feel rather clinical - but perhaps this is another reason why we should hope for dev tools to be released soon.

Passenger density on platforms depending on the time of day is already a feature, though admittedly not all routes use the *right* platforms that are configurable. Possibly that idea could be extended to a road loft.
As ade says though, there's a resource issue to consider so it's not something to force on everyone at route level.

Scenarios from the German provider 3DZug already have a lot of extra platform figures, although they become a little bit too monotonous after a while.

The fictional German route Koblitzer Mountains is very good: all the clutter and densejscenry really makes it feel alive instead of sterile.

I think also that we have come a long way already. Compare for instance the back gardens of houses in a recent route like NLL with a route from five years ago. Still, a lot more could be added and some scenario authors seem to put a lot more effort into that than average. That always helps to make the route feel alive since the details then also vary between scenarios.

Cheers,

--Tim

tnleeuw01 wrote:I think also that we have come a long way already. Compare for instance the back gardens of houses in a recent route like NLL with a route from five years ago.
Cheers, --Tim

Yes, but, the flip side to that is that every route now has trampolines in every back garden on today's routes, which is so unrealistic, there needs to be more diverse scenery placed about these layouts, there seems to be a distinct lack of creativity around. However, of course, DTG won't make assets for foreign routes, so, we have to rely on the 3rd party creators from countries throughout the whole of Europe, Russia and North America, etc, to provide varied scenery items as they can to fit in with what they find in their own countries, and we have hundreds of different things to choose from nowadays, everything from grand pianos to aeroplanes, so, it is up to us end-users to search out these free goodies and decorate our copies of all freeware and payware routes to our own personal preferences, nobody is going to do it for us.

Cheerz. Steve.

Muggles wrote:I don't know if they read the forums here, but it would be nice to have a less sterile world when driving a route. When driving through towns and cities, it's like a ghost town. Perhaps they could have more cars on roadways. (if the time is around AM or PM rush hour), have a traffic jam here and there on adjacent roads. Also more people along the route - at platforms, or a few people scattered around looking down from bridges and fences. In the country side have farmers working some fields. The don't necessarily need to be moving, just the image of life on the planet would be good.

Yes that would be nice, also rubbish along the lineside around surburban lines as people don't care where they throw there rubbish, but can not see it happening DTG don't really go for realism, not much extra has been added to TSW which is one reason I have very little interest in it, there is a lot more that can be added to TS as seen by third party developers.

I agree with the OP, DTG routes can feel sterile at times. However I don't feel they are completely at fault. Making a route is no easy task and they have to make them at a speed that turns a profit. It also makes no sense to over detail a route that may be 120 miles long with items that are glimpsed at 125mph. Not only that but a fine balance of detail versus performance has to be kept. I find high load stutters to be more immersion breaking than lack of detail. On the other hand, if its a slow 40mph freight line, i'd expect to see more details. Some of the reviews of the recently released York - P'boro echo the above. People found the detail lacking (its an older route) yet praised its high performance. AP released a performance addon to help routes use less memory so more detailed stock could be used in their scenarios again showing how fine the balance can be. No one likes a crash to desktop and APs' addon helps this. Like others have said, you can always add details yourself. Think of it as DTG providing the base for you to finish off. Or like many model railway enthusiasts, might never be finished

Don't forget that scenic items added to a route are there no matter what time or season any scenario is played at----it's not always applicable to add stuff.
Most scenic items can be added as scenario specific instances, so rather than having a pop at DTG have a polite word with those scenario writers who don't seem to know how to use the tools provided.

I'd like to see the buffeting effect you get when two trains on adjacent lines cross and when you enter a tunnel at speed.
pH

I agree with the OP but I also agree with others that it's not likely to happen.

peterfhayes wrote:I'd like to see the buffeting effect you get when two trains on adjacent lines cross and when you enter a tunnel at speed.
pH

Yes Pete, I remember that being implemented on the Geislinger Steige route for MSTS, a realistic "whump" as trains passed.

[quote="TransportSteve"
Yes, but, the flip side to that is that every route now has trampolines in every back garden on today's routes, which is so unrealistic, there needs to be more diverse scenery placed about these layouts, there seems to be a distinct lack of creativity around. [/quote]

That is indeed absolutely true, way too many trampolines in backyards now!

--Tim

I don't think TSxxxx is too bad life wise considering it's limitations, at least the roads do have cars/buses (too may)/lorries on them.

As for TSW, there's more life in a morgue, I'm yet to see any cars move on the road, the whole route just seems dead

I think I'm correct in thinking that "scenery objects" can be ADDED to scenarios ?

It means that daytime scenarios can have different objects, people, cars etc dotted about in a daytime scenario than a nightime one.

I'm sure I did this in LMR, I do remember dotting lots of vignettes around in the scenery and then getting bored cause they were there all the time even at 3AM so I added them to the scenarios instead.

Funny thing is that as you drive around familier areas you keep saying to yourself, "I'm sure there were some people standing there last time I past" still that's what immersion is all about.

Maybe thats an idea for a nightime scenario > Spot the Burglar <

Cheers John