WIP:US Locomotive Enhancement Pack

[petersde]

Andreas, a more direct reply would be: "This should be payware". The amount of effort and skill required to read and modify, then test, this type of enhancement is significant. And the payoff for the sim player is beyond the small sum required to purchase. Like your scenarios, this is science and art melded into an outstanding product! You will get my dollars,,, First, though, let me go get those Cajon Pass scenarios...

Dave

[Samwolf]

So far I have't regretted a penny spent on TaD's packages. They are all top notch.

[MikeK]

How did I miss this thread? This upgrade looks to add dramatically to the immersion. I have no problem paying for quality upgrades, and I will definitely get this when it comes out :)

One suggestion though, take or leave as you see fit. Tilting the default view inwards on the SD40s works since the window is smaller and the controls and instruments are all to the left.

However please reconsider the change in angle for the wide nose cabs (ES44, Dash9 etc.). Is there really a reason not to face directly forward in those cabs?

[Machinist]

Thank you all for the kind words, we are really focused in provide you a more immersive experience (driver's eyes), and there is a lot of hard work behind the scenes in order to tweak everything as fine as possible. We are considering different types of Monitor's Screen format (the main are 16:9, 5:4, 4:3) etc., so there are many things to be tweaked carefully...

The change in angle, combined with TaD Reduced Instruction Screen (75% transparent), take in account these goals:
1) to allow you to drive reading the gauges (especially in smaller engines like SD40, GP-7, B7 where they are well designed), and even mouseless.
2) to place the Instruction Screen in a cab dead-zone, to let you see everything is happening at the track ahead. You won't need anymore to handle the mouse to close the screen, just let it go on by itself (usually 20 secs.).

@MikeK
Yep, we can review the angle of huge engines. BTW, while betatesting the default (buint-in) engines pack, we are already working, for example, in cab views and lightings to the RSC-DLC SD70 packs (future RSC-DLC updates will be for free for owners), which have better (and more readable) designed instruments than ES44, and the driver is looking likely straight forward, as you are suggesting. Suggestions are welcome, always...

[Csxgp38-2]

Nice to see someone is doing what RSC should've done.

[MikeK]

2 questions:

1) What happens when you use the up arrow key to zoom in to read signs and see signals? Is there anyway that the up arrow key could be made to straighten the view then zoom in, and the down arrow key could zoom out then revert to the previous camera position? Or do we have to grab the mouse and point the camera forwards before zooming?

2) The brighter headlights are a huge improvement! Is there any way that this technique could be applied to signals as well, so that we can actually read the aspect at realistic ranges without zooming?

[Machinist]

Hi Mike,

1) There are some unusual colateral effects when you set the camera a bit downwards and/or leffwards, may be good or not that good:
a) good one if only downwards, you will see more track and less sky when zooming:

19- All Default left hand Cab View.jpg

20- TaD Combo, and new left hand Cab View closer to the windshield lets you see a bit more track in front of loco.jpg

b) not usual if at same time downwards and leftwards: in this case when in zoom driver may not see signal ahead, we are tweaking this in beta test. But here comes the new way of drive... Usually engineer drives (accelerate, brake etc.) and conductor (to the left hand) is responsable for the safefy (check speed boards, tracks to diverge, signals in advance, aspect of next signal etc.), so if you are driving (right hand) and need to see the next signal aspect in zoom (like using binoculars), just hit left and up arrow and let conductor check this for you ;) We have a Cajon WIP pack in which you'll drive with a conductor helping you, like in real life, so you won't need to zoom because you already know what is the next signal aspect (of course we recommend to not use F3, otherwise is funnyless).

Resuming your question: there is no blueprint function (actually) to change the direction when you zoom, so if the camera is "looking" a bit downwards, the zoom will be straight, a bit downwards also. May be good, may be not that good.

2) Here there are 2 aspects:
a) what is being projected ahead (the lighted scenery you see from cab, for example). We got enhanced the lights iluminating up to 3.5 time far (SD40-2, F7, GP-7) with quite the same fps, which is very good.

68- SD40-2 UP Default Lights and Cab View, headlights on and none cablights.jpg

67- SD40-2 UP TaD Lights and Tad Cab View, headlights on and cablights.jpg

b) the headlight you see in the loco, from external view, for example. That's a default model issue that must be correct by RSC, being a Kuju product in the origin I can't understand why headlight isn't brightner yet as in MSTS (likely blinding you). What we create is a visual effect (mind freak) making the lights more visible from far, with a grey halo around the headlight. But if you wanna know, signal lights are better than headlights. What RSC needs to do, to make signal (and headlight) more visible from far, is create a halo of light (even with rays being projected forward using alpha channel) greater then signal/headlight size (like happens with MSTS headlights).

65- SD40-2 UP TaD Lights (center) headlights turned on.jpg

Sorry my English, it's a bit hard to me explain all this, hope it helped you.

Cya,
Lisboa.

[Machinist]

Given some suggestions made on here we reviewed some cab views:
SD40: now looking more straight forward, but not much due to the gauges and instructions screen, now holding signal ahead in zoom mode.
ES44AC: now looking straightly forward, but still a bit downwards to hold more track and less sky.

Coming soon... (I also hate this statement )

150- Reviewed SD40-2 TaD Cab View, looking straighter forward then before, signal aspect can't be seen.jpg

151- Reviewed SD40-2 TaD Cab View, right hand in zoom, now signal aspect can be seen from far.jpg

154- Zoom in Right Hand, holding only track (tank is 210ms far, and lighted).jpg

152- Reviewed TaD Cab View, right hand looking straightly forward.jpg

153- Reviewed TaD Cab View, right hand in zoom, less sky and more track.jpg

[hughes407]

You have referenced MSTS a couple times in this thread. I have another MSTS capability that I would like to see in RW. I like to stay at the keyboard as much as possible when playing RW and having to go to the mouse to clear messages is a nuisance. You have stated that your messages will clear automatically in about twenty seconds. With MSTS, I could hit the ESC key and messages would go away. Obviously, the ESC key isn't available but some other key, such as the Enter key, could be used to remove messages from the display. There are times when a particularly long or complex message comes up when twenty seconds may not be enough time to read or comprehend the entire message. The ability to manually clear the message would give the player all the time he needs to complete processing the message content. He could also clear the message immediately with one keystroke if he wanted to.

Like many others, I am anxiously awaiting this release. Just about the first thing I do in the morning is check this forum topic to see if it has been released yet.

Don

[Machinist]

Thanks, Don, release is about to come...

Personally saying, since I started with trainsim 10 years algo, all I ever wanted is drive my engine inside my cab, with good graphics, functional and readable instruments and gauges, good sounds and so on. TS2012 is now close to realize my dream, but there is much to do yet: physics, you know...; they just added lights but they are not thinking and working brightly yet, engines don't have cab lights, truck lights etc. Also RW instructions screens and cab views was ever terrible for a driver who likes to drive as an engineer.

After TS2012 was issued I posted to support some suggestions to the Screens (a keystroke to close screens: enter is available or any other; instruction out of driver vision etc.), but they answered they were too busy at that moment with the problems of new TS2012... What we get as new was the HSC jumping instruction screen (even more unduly larger with uneeded photos, with a scrollbar hard to click and handle with mouse, unbelievable indeed).

The message automatically clearing only after 20secs is not ours, is RSC default: is too much long sometimes (I'd like to set some short instrctions to upmost 5secs in scenarios, but the minimum is 20secs.)

Then Trains and Drivers started to do what should be done (as someone stated here), enhancing lights and cab views in order to allow a more immersive driving experience. For those who likes to drive mouseless, and especially for Raildriver owners (98% of my time I play mouseless and keyboardless, I put them far of me), our pack will make driving experience easier and more semi-realistic than the current default pattern is.

Cheers,
Lisboa.

[Machinist]

Just hacked this radio-shot transmission...

UP 1475. Approaching fast. Check Point Final Tweaking. Track Beta Test 0. Speed good. Over.

TaD Control. Copied that, nice job Sir. Remembering next under Authority are Approaching Faster at CP Couple Days to Release. Control Out.

Authority confirmed. Shots transmitted. 1475 Out.

160- B7 Default lights, close to the engine.jpg

161- B7 TaD Enhanced Lights, close to the engine.jpg

162- B7 Default lights, at the far limit of external front view.jpg

162- B7 TaD Enhanced Lights, at the far limit of external front view.jpg

[kevhead]

no thanks. rw are going to up grade and it will overwrite them every time. i smell money money money.

[Hawk]

no thanks. rw are going to up grade and it will overwrite them every time. i smell money money money.

If you clone whatever you want to edit before doing any edits, the Steam connection/updates won't change anything you do.

[thecanadianrail]

hey i am willing to pay if it can improve FPS and give a better experience!

[Machinist]

no thanks. rw are going to up grade and it will overwrite them every time. i smell money money money.

That's a point that appears to be out of subject, but can be highlighted, and in this case it is everyone choice:
a) to play with a quite bad (or not that good) default asset (sounds, cars and track lights, cab views etc.) all time long; or
b) spend 1 minute after an update in the default assets (rarely will happen) , or spend 1 minute after cache was verified (how much it happens in a month? once? twice? more than that indicates another unusual problem of the user), and then play all time long with better 3rd party (I'm refering to anyone) assets.
A personal upgrade inserted into a "*.bat" file (or a folder associated to a "*.exe" file) lasts less than half a minute to go, and this is what is needed to option "b" above.
To the refered pack in wip, it was already considered this quesiton, and this is the reason Lights pack will come in *.exe format (two clicks to go), instead of the *.rwp stuff (slow and more complicated to handle).
Currently is becoming more and more usual to have 3rd Party assets that overwrite default assets, like the awesome Engine Sound pack for SD40-2 by Simer4, the outsanding Wagons Sounds pack by Krellnut, or the ultimate UK Engines Sounds and Track Lights by Armstrong Power House etc. I, myself, prefere to run a exe file with their sounds and wait 1 minute to play with them all time long, than save 1 minute a month though play with the default engine sounds. At least for me, my last verifying cache was 45 days ago (due to my fault), and never had default assets modified since TS2012 was launched, i. e., it's rare indeed.
There are many ways to make all post-automatic-updates (or post-cache-integrity-was-verified) easy and fast: one is using the old "DOS bat file" (mostly Windows generation people aren't aware of this ancient though powerfull resource); other is joint together all the updates into a single fake Railworks folder to be updated by "RW_AssetSetup.exe", a RW2_Tools feature.
So far I have more than 30 mini updates to be used post Steam update (to clear cache, delete all annoying radio chats and front end loop sound, replace new 7 engines and wagons sounds, UK track lights, 30 engines lights and cab views etc. etc. etc.) inserted into one single bat file or fake folder, therefore after any rare steam "update" (or not often verifying cache) of existing assets all I need to do (once or twice a month, 2-4 minutes not more) is two or three clicks and wait one or two minutes to have installed assets better than defaults (from any, and all, 3rd Party creators).
It will be my pleasure give you all the receipts, tricks and tips to assist you in handling this post updates stuff, just let me know PMing me.
And thank you by the input.