Thoughts after playng the game for a week after the new update

[Costel TT]

First of all i really like the game and thank you for the great update, and for the effort you all made for this big update, i never expected that it will be this big, now I understand why took so long .

And sorry for the very long posting.

I play in non vr mode.

So, after playng for a week i wanted to share my experience that i had in the game and the problems that i had or found and frustrations that i had, and some suggestions.
1st problem and in my opinion the biggest is the diesel locomotives fuel consumption which is ridiculously high, (three quarters of fuel consumed from harbour via steel mill to food factory and machines factory as final destination with the shunter or big diesel).

And even more shocking is the fuel consumption when the engine is idling, shunter consumes 1 liter in 26 seconds, big diesel consumes 1 liter in 11 seconds, I think this is many times more then the real locomotives consume when the engine is idling.
I think the fuel consumption when the engine is idling should be something like, shunter 0.01 liters/second and big diesel 0.02liters/second, and fuel consumption when driving should be half or less then half of what it is now, and the fuel tanks should be bigger.

Shunter tank should be 3t instead of 2t and big diesel tank should be 10t instead of 6t, or if you can find out what is the fuel consumption of real locomotives and how big the tanks are, you can make the in game ones the same as real ones.
2nd problem, sand is to expensive, is almost as expensive as fuel, i think it should be no more then 1.50$/unit.

Oil is also a little bit expensive, it should be between 5 and maximum 7$/unit.
Diesel fuel price is mostly ok.

Engine wears out too fast comparing with a real engine, especially the shunter engine, so the speed at which engine wears out should be less then half of what it is now and should only be taken into consideration by career manager when the engine ''repair stare'' reaches 80% and lower, or somehow, so that the engine needs to be repaired after minimum 2 trips or more.

Also the wheels wear out to fast comparing with a real wheels, especially the shunter wheels, the speed at which the wheels wear out should be less then half of what it is now and should only be taken into consideration by career manager when the wheels ''repair stare'' reaches 80% and lower, or somehow, so that the wheels need to be repaired after minimum 2 trips or more.

I can't say anything about the steam locomotive, its performance or fuel consumption because i didn't use it at all and i didn't use it because I read that the tender has problems taking damage because it hits the locomotive so i didn't want to pay for damage that i didn't do, and i will not use it at all until is fixed.

And now, wagons deraiments and damage for no reason.

So, the flat wagons still randomly derail for no reason and even when driving under the speed limit, not as often and as ridiculous as it was before the update but still enough to be annoying and frustrating, and the most derailments only happend on 30 and 40km/h portions of track, i think i had 1 or 2 derailments on 50km/h track (driving exactly 50km/h) and none on higher then 50 speeds.

And sometimes they tremble in the up down direction when stationary after coupling to them with the locomotive or other row of wagons.

The most often derails the first wagon after the locomotive and the last one in the train, and sometimes 1 or 2 wagons right in the middle of the train, and usually when the train had odd number of wagons, when the train had even number of wagons the midle didnt derailed.

Here is a case where the one or two wagons that derailed in the middle of the train pulled more wagons off the rails with him/them, and the place where it happened.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1028455893320647341/822035428DCE69F681990BDC3A1C232894779793/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1028455893320647478/FE720E70730CE0A66C1A7A1A0D68868B893176E4/

The first wagon after the locomotive only derailed when the locomotive was the shunter, and never when after the big diesel, but it did derailed the second or third.

The last wagon almost always derails on 30 and 40km/h curves regardless of what locomotive is being used, train length or if the train has odd or even number of wagons.

Here's how a derailment of a last wagon happened, was driving along, speed a little under the limit, all of a sudden train starts to slow down, brake pipe pressure goes down fast and light is flashing, i cut the throttle, apply both brakes just to be sure and wait for train to stop.

Then i went along the train expecing a disaster, but no, all the wagons where on the track except for the last one which it was nowhere to be found, i went down the track about 200m, i looked in ther river, nope, not there, I was wondering where the heck is that wagon.

And when i went back towards the train I found it, it was hanging down just besides the entry of the tunnel, in the ground, and yes it was a flat wagon, I don't know what happened and how it got in that position, this was the only derailment that was funny, luckily i saved the game before leaving the station.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2107355465

Also i had a case when a flat wagon that was exactly in the midle of the train and also its load got damaged without derailing, it only happened once, it was 2nd or 3rd job after i got train length 1 license, i don't know where, when and how got damaged, i only know that after i finished and handed the job booklet i went and serviced the locomotive and then when i went to career manager to pay the usual emissions fee, i found a big fee besides the regular fee and i didnt know what it was, so i printed the information sheet and It turned out to be damage to a wagon and its load, so i went back to the train that i just parked and found the damaged wagon.

As you can see the wagon is exactly in the midle of the train and is on the rails.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2109545534
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2109545681
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2109545720

The only other wagons derail almost as easy as the flat wagons and only when they are empty are the blue and orange tankers, the most of the times when they derailed it was the last one in the train and ironically it always was a blue one that happened to be the last one, only one time it happened to derail the one in the midle of the train, and yes the train had odd number odd wagons, 9 wagons.

Yesterday i made a long train, 6 jobs, 2120t, mostly flat wagons with containers and some empty tankers in the midle, pulled by 2 big diesels at the front and a shunter at the back only for shunting the wagons on the track they need to be at each station, from the harbor towards machines factory.

First stop steel mill, i detach the wagons that are needed at the steel mill, shunt them on the right track, hand in the job, take the money, no penalties, go back to the shunter, detach from the train, got back to the main train back end, coupled the shunter to the train, turned off the shunter engine and I headed towards the front locomotives to continue to the next station.

On the way towards the front of the train when i allmost reach the front of the train i noticed that one wagon was slightly leaning to one side and slightly wobbling left and right, it was derailed, I checked the rest of the train and in total i found derailed 4 flat wagons in random locations and 1 empty tanker, all of them in the front half of the train, all of them only slightly leaning to one side and all of them had various stages of deterioration ranging from 95% to 0%, both wagons and cargo.

I dont know where they derailed, i didn't feel anything, no speed decrease, and i didn't heard any derail sounds.

That was a rage quit moment when i also realized that i forgotten to save before leaving the harbor and i alt f4 the game.

I went back to the game few hours later, re railed the wagons and continued towards the destination.

After i finished, i serviced the locomotives, paid around 40000 for locomotives service, most of the service money went on fuel, about 25000 and then went to the career manager to pay the fees, in total i had something like 60-70000 in damage for those 5 wagons that derailed, i think i actually lost money this run or at most i breakd even, is not a very pleasant feeling.

And now reversed speed signs at some junctions.

At some junctions the speed signs are reversed, for example 50 for forward and 80 for going left when they should be viceversa.

Forward direction should be the higher speed and left or right direction should be the lower speed.
I only know the ones in the places I've been through, so I'll put the pictures of the ones i know of here.

There may be others, i haven't been on the whole map yet, you will need to check the other ones.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1055477997964223444/D5D7CBD3050C92CD9BE0520E315CD4B3714091CA/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1055477997964223945/EE8BBDE9E51EC2B94ABC9CEEB4C7D508FC4ED3C0/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1055477997964224108/AAF42DBD9636D915831AE9DFA5369623FC48244B/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1055477997964224271/A999E764DF5DC2C9E31FB18EBB26FEE5D8D9B4F1/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1055477997964224612/E93DAEDE7F937E43F8EA250648DD13EC9E5B31DF/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1055477997964224926/7EDB5C26B8587483FD03F460C4A9C1B5D4609A3F/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1055477997964225081/F34C17C4B08CD54EECAC317C9AB29788A99092B2/
A problem at a tunnel
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1055477997964224768/124DD79A411DF360C598581087A8F67BE6E23348/

Service station at the wrong track in the station map

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1055477838083747294/EEB28093BD036A43EDE060708E53983676C450EC/

The inventory, i would like to be always displayed as it was before and the items in the inventory should not change position every time i add a new item to the inventory, every new item that is added to the inventory should be added after the last one from left to right.

What i would also like, would be something like after i pass a low speed zone i press a butto n in the cabin and when the back of the train/the last wagon goes past the place where I pressed the button a warning sound different from any other warning sounds would play in the cabin so i would know that is safe to speed up.

Now I have no way of knowing, if the back of the train passed let's say the 30 zone and is safe to speed up to 50 or whatever the higher speed is after, especially when when pulling a long or very long train.

Regarding the big diesel, for the future it would be good if you could make a manual for it just like the shunter has (i know you made a video but not everyone will see it).

Because I'm a trains enthusiast I knew in what paces to look for the start switch so i found it fairly quickly, but peoples that are not trains enthusiasts would have no idea where to look.

And also for the future it would be great if you could make the engine starting procedure of the big diesel more realistic.

And I almost forgot, tracks name signs should be bi diredtional not just towards the entries/exits of the stations but also towards the the interior of the traks.

I think this is all I wanted to say, if I haven't forgotten anything, I hope I have given you some useful information.

Thank you to you all devs for everything you do, this game is like no other of this kind and I'm sure in the end it will be the best train simulator ever.

[Stephen]

Thanks for the very detailed post!

Lots of tweaks to come in the upcoming patches, so fuel consumption and other stuff may change in the future.

[BigVern]

Bit tl:dr in the OP but you will find fuel consumption has already been debated (along with the economy). I'm definitely with the school of thought it needs to be tweaked to use less, but the other side of the argument is that the world is scaled and that needs to be reflected in the fuel consumption (and the economy). Hopefully the developers will come up with a solution that pleases everyone.

I like the idea of a train length indicator, certainly US locos have these fitted and I believe even the more modern UK ones. I believe at present the speed signs are procedurally generated not fixed as in the other sims or indeed real life but yes, I've noticed some inconsistencies at junctions where the straight on track has a lower speed than the divergent one. Generally though at present I'm not running at anything like the maximum permitted speed as there are no advance warnings for upcoming limits which can change quite dramatically. Running fast also seems to chew through the fuel even faster.