My wish list

Wish #1 that it would be possible to drive a second loco (consist), so that helpers/pushers could be driven to join, and leave, the consist.Wish #2 that it were easy to apply different numbers to copies of locos, so that those who are not into photoshop etc. could build up a fleet.Wish #3 that it were easy to apply different colour/livery to locos and cabviews.Probably all too much, but I wish.Eric in UK

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RE: My wish list, tchouftchouf, Jul-04-04, 07:57 AM, (1) RE: My wish list, landnrailroader, Jul-04-04, 11:45 AM, (2) RE: My wish list, tchouftchouf, Jul-04-04, 01:13 PM, (3) RE: My wish list, mquist, Jul-05-04, 01:34 PM, (4) RE: My wish list, ctillier, Jul-05-04, 01:57 PM, (5) RE: My wish list, plainsman, Sep-14-04, 11:51 AM, (24) RE: My wish list, tchouftchouf, Sep-15-04, 03:54 AM, (25) RE: My wish list, decapod, Jul-05-04, 04:28 PM, (6) RE: My wish list, RailDriver TS, Jul-06-04, 10:48 AM, (7) RE: My wish list, muskokaandtahoe, Jul-06-04, 01:12 PM, (8) RE: My wish list, muskokaandtahoe, Jul-06-04, 01:51 PM, (9) RE: My wish list, sniper297, Jul-07-04, 03:12 PM, (10) RE: My wish list, muskokaandtahoe, Jul-07-04, 04:22 PM, (11) RE: My wish list, runaway_b_unit, Jul-07-04, 05:55 PM, (12) RE: My wish list, USRailFan, Jul-08-04, 02:11 AM, (15) RE: My wish list, runaway_b_unit, Jul-08-04, 01:00 PM, (16) RE: My wish list, DRGWK36, Jul-19-04, 11:23 AM, (22) RE: My wish list, rjbradley, Jul-07-04, 07:38 PM, (13) RE: My wish list, runaway_b_unit, Jul-07-04, 08:09 PM, (14) RE: My wish list, Traindude, Jul-14-04, 03:04 PM, (17) RE: My wish list, highball5, Jul-15-04, 10:34 PM, (18) RE: My wish list, Stumbl, Jul-16-04, 09:02 AM, (19) RE: My wish list, Traindude, Jul-18-04, 09:55 PM, (20) RE: My wish list, cn_bayview, Jul-18-04, 10:14 PM, (21) RE: My wish list, runaway_b_unit, Jul-19-04, 05:59 PM, (23) RE: My wish list, Downunder Tom, Sep-18-04, 02:27 AM, (26)

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The correct brake simulation of:- Triple-valves with or without Emergency part, US and Europe.- Distributors ( Graduated Triple-valves... ) with or without Emergency part.- Fonctionnal EP brake.- Vacuum brake.- Air propagation time.- Air reservoirs.- Differents Train brake and Engine brake levers type.- Passenger or Freight position selection for engines and wagons.- Retainers.- Handbrakes on engines.- Engineer AND "blended" Dynamic brake.- Flowmeter, and correct brake pipe/equalizing reservoir working- ...I know, this is too much!Jean-Louis

Make your job seriously, but don't take yourself as serious.

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Definitely retaining valves.I'll challenge anyone to get down Lookout pass, once the RMD-4 is released, unless you have retainers. They were SOP on this grade during NP days.J. H. Sullivan

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YES I agree with you J. H., retaining valves fist!Jean-Louis

Make your job seriously, but don't take yourself as serious.

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LAST EDITED ON Jul-05-04 AT 01:36 PM (EST)

The suggestions in the posts above are very good and I second all of them but first things first. There are two issues that MUST BE FIXED!!!1. Fix the front coupler. A definitive fix of the front coupler problem including fixing whatever they use for the functionality of the "train operations window" which currently shows the six cars in the vary front. Also you should not have to pull back to couple with the front coupler either.2. THIS IS A MUST and it is often overlooked. Fix the Unswitched Switch bug. This is the problem caused by MSTS not aligning the turnouts when passing through the trailing point side of the switch - usually over the diverging side. This causes a number of problems including requiring you to pull the train all the way through the turnout so you can through the switch from the facing point side before backing up. Rather a problem in yard or industrial switching. There is also an occasional problem on some routes when using a XO where the second switch is unswitched - lined for the straight exit - where cars jump to the adjacent rail breaking the couplers. I would like to see the capability - preferably the requirement - to switch a turnout from the trailing side if it is not lined properly. In the real world failure to co this derails your train, damages the turnout, and ruins your day. Once a switch is lined it would stay in that position until the user switched it again or the dispatcher program sets up a path using the switch. This would allow the user to return switches to be returned to the normal position before leaving the area - as the prototype guys do - from either side of the switch. Now you can do this only from the facing point side. While fixing switches it would be nice to allow setting a switch's default position to diverging at this time all switches default to straight - This could be done either in AE (preferred) or RE. Other Turnout refinements - allow setting both turnouts of an XO with one throw and allowing manual setting of a path trough an interlocking. These last two are "nice to haves" but the blasted Unswitched Switch bug needs to be exterminated.3. Make the physics, coupling, braking, and engine dynamics as accurate as possible with out going too far - of course some of us would go further here than others.On the outlandish end of my wish list how about permitting gravity switching - cars with out an engine operable on down grades. In the real world nearly all coal mines are switched this way. Another example on the Clinchfield north bound trains at Elkhorn were sent to the lower yard and the caboose was cut off at the mouth of Pool Point tunnel and run down the main line by gravity and hand brakes nearly two miles to the cab track at the Elkhorn Wye. Such an embellishment would probably make hump switching and kick switching useable operating techniques. Not sure how this would be done but if as suggested above the sim could support more than one user driven engine perhaps the gravity switched cars could have .eng files to drive them. The only control that would be needed would be a graduated hand brake - no power of course and train brake features of the car would be fully released.
Be Seeing you.
Michael

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Michael,PI Engineering isn't rewriting Microsoft Train Simulator. Therefore, one can take it for granted that the front coupler will work just like the rear coupler... there won't be anything to "fix".TMTS will probably have its own set of bugs, but from what I've read, its creators seem quite unlikely to let their bugs fester like Microsoft.cheers

--
Clem

http://www.tillier.net/speedworks/index.html

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Hi Jean-Louis,
I will second all those and underline:
Air propagation time.
Blended brakes.
Retainers.
Also, I am looking forward to being able to set couplers such that poor train handling causes couplers to break, not nodes. And to traction motors that fail after overheating. Also end of train data in cab. Hope this is all part of the new simulator!
Bob Boudoin

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Hi Bob,The end of train data in cab is essential for realistic North American train handling.
All we can do is to hope, all of that would make a very good train simulator!Jean-Louis

Make your job seriously, but don't take yourself as serious.

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Can I add a new one to the list?
(having played with a real kettle here in the UK for the first time today)A steam operated reverser.Two controls - forward and reverse lever which controls the direction of the change of the reverser and a valve open/close which moves the piston that drives the reverser.The control looks a bit like a westinghouse air brake on some UK locos.The image below shows one I'm building...

Paul
UK GWR Highworth Branch - http://www.highworth.freeuk.com
Other Projects - http://www31.brinkster.com/decapod

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Cheers Paul An interesting one I must admit, I will have to have a look at that.ALL of the wish list posts have been copied here and the relevant information extracted, by far the best way to give people what they want is to go with the majority, anything else we can add on the way without too much effort than we will where possible.One thing to note is that everyone is very quick at giving us "Whats wrong with MSTS" type answers/requests, many of the faults in MSTS will magically disappear with writing a new sim anyway, then comes the hard part - dealing with your own Bugs! Tim

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LAST EDITED ON Jul-06-04 AT 01:14 PM (EST)

> Wish #1 that it would be possible to drive a second loco (consist), so that helpers/pushers could be driven to join, and leave, the consist.This is a really interesting comment. I would think the feature set needed to jump from the front end locos into the helpers could also be applied to jump from your train into an AI train. Essentially a train is a train is a train. So taking that thought further one could say the only difference between a player controlled train and an AI train is the source of the inputs to the controls. And from there to multi-player isn't that great a step (at least at the application level).Looking at it from a different angle, if all trains were AI trains (with established activity paths) then the role of the player (in any given loco) is to simply over-ride the established commands (which could be all of them). Leave that train for another and the games figures out the transition from where the player left that train to get it back to the what the activity path expects.Food for thought.Dave NelsonWP mainline, Oakland-Stockton: 100% complete;
SP mainline, Oakland-Stockton: 20% complete;
Aug 1950
<<new .sig under construction>>

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LAST EDITED ON Jul-06-04 AT 01:53 PM (EST)

a couple of other ideas I've not seen mentioned yet... mostly MSTS "features" that would be nice to lose.The 2km visual distance is really way to short for lots of situations. An increase, even just to 4 or 5km for instance, would help out on routes that have large vistas. For example, the route mentioned in my .sig includes a section directly adjacent to the SF Bay Bridge that spans the bay between Oakland and San Francisco. The MSTS 2km limit excludes 2/3rds of that bridge and all of the distant SF shoreline. Same problem looking up or down the bayshore (the actual vista from that point is 10-20 miles). DM doesn't help because it brings the DM terrain to just 2km away and in viewing it you know the DM has the right shape but the foreground is way too narrow.Any chance of getting to smaller terrain polys? 8m is good enough for situations a bit farther away from the camera but up close it tends to look so boxy when the height difference between adjacent polys is a couple of metres. There's an odd problem in MSTS when you're at sea level -- you cannot push the terrain underwater (zero altitude is the lowest) which in turns causes other problems as water layers have altitude. I've solved that by lifting everything up by 20m and then doing seabeds but it would be nice if this wasn't necessary in any future game.What's the secret behing the microtex.ace? I'd love to desaturate it (to get the green out) and add back some browns but all efforts fail when viewed in the game.Lastly, when MSTS displays DM it doesn't provide a "dropcloth" that hangs from the DM tile edge altitude. The absence of this "dropcloth" can result in white voids whenever the near terrain height fails to reach the DM lowest levels. Essentially you're peeking up the DM miniskirt instead of looking at a gown.Dave NelsonWP mainline, Oakland-Stockton: 100% complete;
SP mainline, Oakland-Stockton: 20% complete;
Aug 1950
<<new .sig under construction>>

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Hmm, I dunno, Dave, the further the distance and smaller the terrain polys, the worse the framerates are gonna get. TANSTAAFL, trade offs are gonna be necessary. Better program will automatically improve that, the OLE in MSTS is its biggest handicap.Tim, Michael, if it's not a secret, what graphics engine will you be using, and will it have an OpenGL option? I thought from the beginning if KUJU had licensed the Quake 3 graphics engine and included an OpenGL version it would have been a lot smoother. Even after several years of fiddling with it, DirectX 9 still don't run as fast or smooth as the oldest versions of openGL."many of the faults in MSTS will magically disappear with writing a new sim anyway, then comes the hard part - dealing with your own Bugs!"http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/23982.htmlAll you gotta do to make me happy is get consistent bugs and a halfway decent set of editors. The MSTS editors are like trying to light a cigarette under Niagara Falls, you're pretty sure it's possible, but you're gonna need a lot of time and repeated attempts with a strong dose of luck. A compiler would help tremendously, instead of loading zillions of little files in and out of RAM just the way they came out of the editors, compile the whole mess into DOOM style "wads" or quake style "paks" for the actual running. Speed everything up and eliminate a lot of errors caused by stack and buffer overflows.

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> Hmm, I dunno, Dave, the further the distance and smaller the terrain polys, the worse the framerates are gonna get.Yeah, I know. Just ideas. If I narrow it down to just one of these two tho, longer viewing distance is *much* more desirable than smaller polys. I figure most of the polys at great distance are thrown away anyway (or at least should be thrown away) so what's left should be the really big things you *should* be seeing. DM wouldn't change at all. Foreground terrain can have polys removed thru the bias value. Heck, a whole lot of stuff positioned beyond 250m is often done with flats costing very few poly's so all that I'm asking for here is an extension of world space that's ideally suited to that technique. Dave NelsonWP mainline, Oakland-Stockton: 100% complete;
SP mainline, Oakland-Stockton: 20% complete;
Aug 1950
<<new .sig under construction>>

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My wish List....
1. Improved loco physics, including how the engine reacts to the weight of the train and grades; more realistic brakes; I could think of more....
2. Superelevation and train sway. Superelevation would be more realistic, and trains do sway and shudder as they travel down the tracks.
3. Signalling. The signals in MSTS don't work realistically and there are a lot of bugs. There should be real passenger and Freight train speeds that work according to train type, maybe specify Freight or Passenger train in activity editor. Some type of interactive radio would be a nice feature.
4. Improved route editor. The RE in MSTS has a tough learning curve, it is a bit buggy, and it is hard to see what you are doing. The track pieces are hard to remembe, I would like better names, and a dynamic piece that actually works, and loops. Routes should also have electrified and non electrified track.
5. AI Trains get in your way and won't move sometimes. They need a better code.
6. Camera Views. I want to have more control over the camera, pan it around the train and take better screens. I would like to see the whole train pass by in the trackside view, be able to move it too. How about a "switchman's view", on the last car of a train, and a better passenger view, maybe move around in the car and be able to switch between views in different cars. The MSTS views also have bugs that should be fixed.
7. Cab. The cab should have 3D capabilities, and the hood and various parts of the loco should be visible. 2D cabs should also be an option. They are easier to make.
8. Scenery Animation. Examples are rotating gas station signs, boats moving around, some people. That would be cool. Turntables and transfer tables should be movable.
9. Dynamic weather. The weather should be made to change during an activity. Fog that effects visibility would also be a nice weather feature.
10. Ditch broken couplers. I am sick of these, how often does this happen anyway.
11. Multi player. Several people driving trains on one route, and a dispatcher.
12. Compatibility. I know this is already being worked on.This is my input, some of it may be wishful thinking but I hope it is considered. I spent some time thinking about all this, I will probably have more.........

C h r i s

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More:1. Ability to switch cabs in a dual-cab locomotive/EMU/DMU, or ability to switch between engines/power units or switch from engine to driving trailer2. ability to mix electrified and non-electrified track in the same route3. proper-looking catenary in electrified routes4. prototypical simulation of tilting trains5. retain the possibility of "AI-only" locos, ie locos that has no cabview and stuff and are not player drivable - in order to save framerates and make AI engines sound more realistic

Leiv Eiriksson was first - Christoffer Columbus used a Viking map!

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Yes, I agree! The MSTS catenary looks BAD!!!! Some parts of some routes don't even have anything holding up the wires. I would also like to be able to switch between cabs in one train, a feature that would be useful for the commuter cars I am making. For push/ pull trains, something like shown below where you can right click on the operations window......

C h r i s

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Don't ya just love these kinds of threads? I want this, I want that, and then all we have to do is wait and gripe 'cause they didn't put in all the suggestions. And were late in releasing it as well! Sounds like my management.... Since I probably spend more time in the Route Editor than anything else, so - Please, please! An editor that works and doesn't require add-on packages to create, modify, and paint terrain! Sorry JohnCS - but it would be nice if I didn't have to have DEMEX, Mosaic, and Jumper to make the basics of route editing work.I really like the suggestion of smaller terrain polys for near the track. Trying to re-create the wall-hugging, narrow shelf look of the Colorado narrow gauge lines is impossible with the current poly size.In terms of operation, it would be nice if there were items that could be placed along the route for a given activity, but didn't need to be there permanently. I'm thinking of rockslides, shunt tracks, or washouts. It would also be great if it would have the ability to identify a section of track as "rough" so that you could simulate repairs or even "permanent" poorly maintained branch lines.Ah, wish, wish, wish. Where's the genie when you need him/her?Andy

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I too would like the viewing distance doubled, especially for terrain. I found that DM terrain looked too distorted (compared to the real thing) in the closer ranges. Out beyond 4 or 5km it isn't noticeable. Also some improvement in texturing DM (multiple textures) would be desirable. Perhaps some software switch that would allow switching off regular terrain and switching on DM could be beneficial for modifying/texturing DM.Will it be possible to create routes across UTM zone boundaries? I understand there was a problem in MSTS with white voids showing up at these boundaries.

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Some more...........
13. Some type of "Automatic Engineeer" mode, where the train runs itself and the player can just sit around or take screenshots without worrying about driving the train, do some "virtual railfanning".
14. I think retaining valves are a good idea, press a key and wait a certain amount of time according to the length of the train for the valves to be set.
15. Control of several locos and trains. Make some of the trains in an activity driveable, such as hepers, but not all trains.
16. better sounds. The sounds in MSTS were horrible. Real trains are very noisy. The cars should make noise going over a switch, sound like the wheels have flat spots.........
17. Rolling stock. Cabooses shouldn't have to be called "engines" just to have smoke, and cab control cars shouldn't have to be engines.
18. Object library in RE. Objects should be categorized better- track, trees, vehicles, buildings, misc.....
19. Shutdown or off feature on locos
20. This would be cool but not a big deal...dust that flies up when the train passes.

C h r i s

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I'd wish that the new TMTS would use less memory. MSTS is infamous for not only eating up a computer's memory but also its demanding game engine.

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Excellent suggestions/wishes all... but throw in a working fred/mary in-cab unit that will count off distance and I'll be happy as a pig in slop.

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I just wish I could help www.vnerr.com

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Although I like all the aspects of Train-Simming, my specialty is steam. Here's what I would like to see:1. an AI fireman similar to that of MSTS
2. compatibility with other fuels Besides coal (such as wood, oil, and (in particular for park trains) propane)
3. The ability to render artics (such as the 4-6-6-4) as a single engine and not two (SHAME ON YOU, NALW!)

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My wishes (sorry if they're repeated)1: Distance counter- be able to turn on and off to count feet train has traveled. That will eliminate the need to be in #3 view to make sure your train is in the clear. 2: Radio Frequency's. Allow user to change frequency in cab radio system. Possibly allow link up between Team Speak for multi's and online rail radio stations.3: Controls for rear head lights, ditch lights. Have ditch lights flash when bell or horn sounded(where applicable)4: Doors open on coaches and locos. Coaches for Stations. Locos for those hot summer days or while you're in the depot grabbing a coffee.5: Shut down units, start them up, randomly fail. Hotboxes, broken knuckles, etc.6: If possible... Working industries. Such as in TRS 2004. Being able to load up your coal train would be a great addition.7: AI dispatcher. But for him to actually be "intelligent" Like for him to set up meets based on you're location etc. Especially for in an activity where you start off by switching, it throws off the AI dispatcher because the meet isn't where expected.8: Dynamic weather. Maybe set in AE you want sunny to turn to rain then snow . Be nice if snow or rain could accumulate on the ground and on the units. Nothing would beat running a train after a large storm hitting all the snow drifts along the line 9: Proper meets in Dark Territory. Where you can tell a train to sit in a siding until a certain one passes before he can proceed.10: Dynamic motion- Cab sway, tilting on a superelevated curve, hitting a rough switch and being shook around.11: Sounds- Going over switches, running on jointed rail, thru tunnels, echoing of horn in mountains and more.Thanks for reading! Rob

TH&B Van #68
www.greatlakesrail.com

Check out my train photos!http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=472

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I like using common folders for cabs and sounds and it would be nice if the game uses these by default.The route editor should have an option of importing maps or satelite photos to make it easier to make a route.

C h r i s

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I agrre with being able to change cabs to the other end, but could it detect when your running MU sets and go the other end of the set.a way to setup the points easyer, mostly when your going to leave a complex station, does not have to be as fancy as a track diagram though it would be nice but could just be that when you set one point the next one on that route shows and you can click on them in that little window so you can change them.Talking about the track viewer could it be made a little clearer, probly would have to to add the new inprovments anyway.Tom

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