Train Sim World 5
Train Sim World 4 Roadmap: March 2024
TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) Summary
- Bahnstrecke Rosenheim-Salzburg – Released last week
- London Overground Suffragette line – Coming March 19th!
- Fife Circle Line: Edinburgh - Markinch via Dunfermline & Kirkcaldy – Coming Soon
- Semmeringbahn: Wiener Neustadt – Mürzzuschlag – More Details and screenshots!
- Updates on San Bernardino Line and BR Class 104 & Peak Forest Expansion Pack
- New Spring Core Update – Coming soon
- Community Talking Points
- Community Corner & PC Editor Highlights
- Player Survey Acknowledgement
- Xbox Simulator Sale and Mega March Sale Shout-outs
- March Roadmap Livestream Tonight – Starting at 19:00 UTC
And just to cover the changes from the previous graphic:
- Removed Winter Core Update (Released) and added Spring Core Update
- Removed Salzburg-Rosenheim from 0-3 months (Released last week)
- Moved BR Class 104 & Peak Forest Pack to "Release Date TBC" section
- Added UK Route to 4-6 Months
The Train Sim World Roadmap
It’s already March, and we’ve got another monthly developer update for you all on Train Sim World!
In this Roadmap, you can expect more information recent on upcoming releases which we announced back in February, such as the London Overground Suffragette line, and the Fife Circle Line by Rivet Games. We’ll also share more information on future route add-ons, talking through important commonly discussed topics, opening the floor to introduce Union Workshop into TSW, and highlighting some fantastic community projects made on the PC Editor.
As usual, we’ll be live tonight (Tuesday, March 5th at 19:00 UTC) to talk you through this full article. You can set a notification for this on our March Roadmap YouTube event, and find an embedded video at the end of this article. Let’s get into it!
Bahnstrecke Salzburg – Rosenheim – Released Last Week
Last Tuesday we saw the release our mountainous, cross-border hilly adventure with Rosenheim-Salzburg, running mostly through beautiful Bavarian countryside on German rails before entering one of Austria’s most important cities.
Alongside the ÖBB 4024 Talent 1, as well as the DB BR 185.2 (with Habbiins wagons), it also introduced the DB BR 111 to Train Sim World - an electric locomotive from the 1970s that is still used today, featuring tap-changer controls and a distinctive horn. Eastbound services from Rosenheim to Salzburg have the DB BR 111 leading the train.
If you’re interested in finding out more about Rosenheim, head over to our Bahnstrecke Salzburg – Rosenheim launch article which also explains all the potential service layers and details for the wonderful scenery across the route.
Content Up Ahead
London Overground Suffragette line – Arriving March 19th
It’s time to go Overground on the latest London line to come to Train Sim World. Get ready for an Aventra adventure in Train Sim World 4: London Overground Suffragette line: Gospel Oak – Barking Riverside, arriving 19th March!
In case you missed it yesterday, we shared a London Overground Suffragette line - Coming Soon article which goes into full detail of the upcoming route, scenery details, timetable services, and today we’ve got a new First Look video we’d like to share:
150 years in the making; the Gospel Oak to Barking Line was happenstance-constructed through the means of multiple companies building adjacent lines. As links, junctions and various termini were built and changed, this meandering route through no less than 7 of North & East London’s boroughs took shape as a vital strategic railway.
The in-game route has scenery that represents the built-up area around this part of north London, including dense collections of residential buildings and lighting that recreates the suburban atmosphere after the sun has gone down.
A dedicated team of route builders have put a lot of effort into unique scenery assets on the route, including the two distinctive stations at Barking and Barking Riverside. The former being a large interchange station for other London lines and the latter being a brand-new station in anticipation of the riverside development that is very much under way.
One of the latest trains in TfL’s fleet comes to Train Sim World in the form of the Class 710 Aventra. Introduced in 2019, these sleek and modern electric multiple units replaced older stock and have variants running under other operators throughout Greater London, including the Class 345 units on the Elizabeth Line.
Up to four trains per hour (tph) run along this line between Gospel Oak and Barking Riverside resulting in 154 playable services for the Class 710 in and amongst a total of over 1,000 services when factoring in AI and layers from other pieces of content. Timekeeping will be important throughout each service run, as will stopping points with trains fitting snug into the length of some platforms.
Freight services will be available to the vast majority of Train Sim World 4 players as these will layer in from the East Coast Main Line Class 66 and FKA wagons, though other Class 66 variants (including from recently released Gameplay Packs) will be available to select for those that own that content. Additional freight using other forms of rolling stock will also layer in such as those from Southeastern Highspeed.
Other playable service layers include the RHTT from the Train Sim World Compatible Loco Add-on Bundle, as well as both diesel and steam rail tour services from other Train Sim World route Add-ons.
Between Crouch End and Harringay, the line crosses the East Coast Main Line, where players will glimpse passing LNER Class 801 Azuma services in the form of AI traffic utilising the full ECML timetable. Other AI services present include the Thameslink Class 700, Flying Scotsman and a 1938 Underground Stock rail tour for players with the relevant content.
There are also some sneaky Easter Egg AI services that players may spot throughout the route, similar to those found on Southeastern Highspeed. We’ll let you enjoy hunting those down for yourselves...
Community Question: Will the Class 710 Layer on to the Bakerloo Line?
Not at this stage, it isn’t something that will be included for release, and is something we’re looking into the possibility of including.
Train Sim World 4: London Overground Suffragette line: Gospel Oak – Barking Riverside route Add-on will be available from 19th March for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Epic Games Store, and Steam for £24.99/€29.99/$29.99
Join the Railfan TV team on Twitch and YouTube at 19:00 UTC on March 14th for a preview of Train Sim World 4: London Overground Suffragette line: Gospel Oak – Barking Riverside.
Fife Circle Line: Edinburgh - Markinch via Dunfermline & Kirkcaldy – Coming Soon
We’d also like to share more details about the upcoming Fife Circle Line route developed by our partners at Rivet Games!
Just yesterday Rivet shared a preview of the Scotrail Class 170 in the form of a walkaround inside the cab and outside the DMU, which you can watch on their YouTube channel, and for those that enjoy a behind-the-scenes peek into development, they’ve also shared their latest Rivet Games Dev Blog talking about how they modelled the Class 170 cab, with more into detail about how they use photogrammetry to make it even more true to life.
The Class 170 will also feature a working GSMR system and automatically announce the next station upon approach.
As for more details on the route itself, you can expect to find 52 miles from Edinburgh Waverley to Markinch via Kirkcaldy & Dunfermline (the full circle) including 20 stations. Rivet have also added the Edinburgh Tram line between Haymarket and Edinburgh Gateway (including the depot) and of course the iconic Forth Bridge, which spans over 8000 feet across the Firth of Forth, and recently celebrated its 134th birthday just yesterday!
And talking about new, additional features you may spot across the route will include working escalators, which actually affect and move the player, alongside working lifts, complementing an enhanced Edinburgh Waverley station that adds new exits and new buildings on the north side.
Additionally, Rivet Games have commented that once the real-life Leven branch extension opens, their teams will be able to research this area and look into the possibility of including this in the future.
We look forward to sharing more of the new features and details for layers and services in upcoming articles. Oh, and as far as the route collectibles go - our lips are seal-ed, but you may find a teaser shared from Rivet’s Instagram page.
Semmeringbahn: Wiener Neustadt - Mürzzuschlag
Who’s ready for an Alpine adventure over Austrian forested peaks? The Semmering Pass is getting closer to release, and we’d like to treat you all to new screenshots of this incredible mountain railway route!
For those that want a refresher from our Dovetail Direct, you can expect 68km of track, from Mürzzuschlag to Wiener Neustadt via the Semmering Pass.
As a bonus treat, we've been able to get a sneak preview walkaround inside the ÖBB 1116 “Taurus” cab!
On to some new juicy screenshots, you can expect to take control of ÖBB 1116 “Taurus” electric locomotive in ÖBB red livery as you traverse through the mountains, through tunnels and over viaducts.
Question – Is there any differences with this new cab for the Taurus?
You can expect to have a similar driving experience, however the interior cab will look very different, and this new 1116 features updated sounds as well as being paired with the ÖBB Bmz coaches.
And we can’t forget to showcase the ÖBB 4024 EMU, in ÖBB livery, which is also included with the route.
Expect more information on Semmeringbahn soon, including many more screenshots of the stunning landscapes, and we look forward to the future photo mode competitions featuring this wonderful Austrian route!
San Bernardino Line: Los Angeles - San Bernardino
During our Dovetail Direct event, we announced our upcoming US route across the San Bernardino Line, being our second Metrolink route with 57 miles of track covering 16 stations and featuring the MP36PH.
As with the nature of the Direct, we showcased a range of routes in-development at various stages, and whilst we’re confident you'll enjoy it when released,, it is still a little way out yet. We will share more details when we can, and as a reminder for what we’ve shown already:
The route will start from Los Angeles Union Station, heading East and connecting to San Berardino-Downtown, experiencing a more intense service pattern in a densely packed urban environment with the Metrolink MP36PH, and you can see a WIP of this loco which we shared during our event:
Whilst you’re here, we do want to mention we do have another listed US route which is deep into development, currently in the ‘No Release Date’ category, and we’re still working on getting this delivered to you all when we can.
We’ve not got any news updates today, and we're continuing to work closely with the licensor on the required approvals. When we have them, we'll begin to share more details with you, so thank you for being patient in the meantime.
BR Class 104 & Peak Forest Expansion Pack
You may have noticed from our March roadmap graphic that the BR Class 104 & Peak Forest Expansion pack has shifted into our “Release Date TBC” section. We reached out to SimTrack Studios to give us an update on their progress.
SimTrack Studios: “Work on the 104 is progressing well, however it is taking longer than we initially expected. We want the release to go smoothly, and the extra time will be spent to make sure it releases in a polished state as best as possible.”
Our Roadmap is a live document, reflecting the sometimes-changeable world of game development, so we'll keep you updated on the BR Class 104 & Peak Forest expansion pack as soon as we can. We look forward to sharing it with you when it’s ready.
Patches & Updates
Suspension Improvements
Our teams are continuing to work hard on delivering the Suspension Improvements, and today we want to share a new Suspension video showcasing the system implemented on the Class 66.
Matt: “In this video you're seeing the Class 66 on ECML with the new suspension system, first from the interior so you can see it from the driver perspective as it reacts to going over a series of junctions. “
“Notice how as it goes over the closer junction pairs because the front and rear are going over different sets of junctions the shake in the cab is a little more obvious.“
“The second half of the video is the same journey, but this time from the outside looking at the wheels so you can see them individually reacting to the track underneath.”
Suspension Feedback – Your Thoughts
Our development and beta teams have been discussing for the suspension system over a wider range of trains and routes is whether the effect of the bounce over junctions is too much, or if it’s appropriate to "hyper-realise" it for the experience.
In reality, you may expect a much less visible jolt over the frog, and more of a gentle dip into the junction generally, but that would remove much of the effect. Currently it is affected by your speed too, so as you go faster the effect is much less noticeable, as you'd expect, but at slow speeds you feel a lot more as shown in the video.
In reality, you may expect a much less visible jolt over the frog, and more of a gentle dip into the junction generally, but that would remove much of the effect. Currently it is affected by your speed too, so as you go faster the effect is much less noticeable, as you'd expect, but at slow speeds you feel a lot more as shown in the video.
We’d like to open up the debate and invite in all of your opinions - It'd be great to get some feedback on the Class 66 Suspension video shown above from the community, especially any of you with practical cabride experience to help! Please share your thoughts on our Class 66 Suspension feedback thread we’ve opened.
You can expect us to come back next month and continue to share more progress on the suspension improvements we’re implementing.
Formation Designer
Last week we asked you questions on the recently added Formation Designer feature, including how you were getting on using the tool, getting access at an early stage via the beta on Steam and Epic Games, as well as talking about any feedback and struggles you’ve encountered so far.
Q: How have you found Formation Designer so far?
It's lovely to see that many of you have been greatly enjoying the feature, and we’ve seen a large range of support for being able to bring Steam and Epic games players access through the beta release, with the opportunity to help support and shape the development of the tool!
- “I am enjoying it, I think it is a great addition to the game, one of the standout features “
- “It is nice being able to access a feature early to see how it works, and to give feedback. I would enjoy more features having early beta releases.”
Q: What is your favourite part of Formation Designer?
Aside from being able to create thousands of original and new combinations of rolling stock, you’ve shared that the best parts of Formation Designer come from the ability to quickly create and test unique formations, without the need to manually build them in Free Roam, as well as the opportunity to utilise liveries you’ve created or downloaded across your collections in new ways!
- “Being able to create something new and, hopefully, original to improve gameplay for both myself and others.”
- “[Creating] unique formations quickly saves a lot of time when compared to spawning things individually in free roam.”
Q: What elements do you struggle with, and any areas of feedback you have?
We’re still taking in feedback from our Formation Designer forum and across community spaces, and we’re grateful for your thoughts on how we can improve the feature. Specifically, you’ve mentioned the camera controls and the UI (including more details and general layout) being common areas you’re having challenges with.
Additionally, you’ve mentioned that it would be great to have more functionality to showcase Formations you’ve built within the tool itself, whether this is new options for backgrounds (train stations and depots) or the ability to hide the menu UI for screenshots.
As a note, we have a thread detailing known issues, as well as a list of what we’re targeting improvements for on our What you Need to Know thread. Some of the key areas we’ve highlighted are:
- General UI Improvements (Reducing Clutter)
- Creators Club Integration
- Multiple Unit Formations in the UI
- Loading Cargo
We are currently aiming to bring Formation Designer into the next stage and reviewing the steps we need to take in order to conclude the beta. We look forward to sharing more information about what this means with you all soon.
Thank for everyone who submitted their thoughts and given feedback on our Formation Designer Discussion forum, we’ll keep you informed on improvements to the new feature through our regular announcements.
Progress on Improvements
Spring Core Update
Our next large update coming to Train Sim World 4 is the Spring Core, for which one of our aims is to investigate how to improve substitution, fixes to community issues, a range of scoring adjustments to various routes (Maintalbahn, Blackpool Branches, Vorarlberg and more) as well as additional improvements to fix issues when completing specific tutorials and training modules.
Ahead of this update, we will have a smaller patch, which will aim to resolve HUD settings not saving between sessions on Console, and an issue with Teisendorf station announcements being audible further than intended on Rosenheim/Salzburg. We expect that in the next week.
We’re still finalising the details of this patch, so expect an update from us soon when we’re ready to release this. As standard, alongside this core update we will also have smaller supporting updates to prepare for add-on releases.
TSW3 Improvements
We are still working on delivering improvements to Train Sim World 3. So far, we've released two batches of improvements:
- TSW3 November 27th Update – Core improvements to fix various scenarios and introductions
- TSW3 December 14th Update – Focussed on Midland Main Line improvements
We're now in the process of readying a third batch of TSW3 improvements coming to the game, with the intention of releasing them very soon, and it will focus on improvements to Peninsula Corridor and the Norfolk Southern Heritage Livery Collection, including timetable changes and fixes to various scenarios.
New TSW Partner - Introducing Union Workshop!
Our Train Sim World Partner Programme continues to grow, whether it’s brand-new studios, or perhaps partners we’ve worked with in the past. Union Workshop have previously developed multiple routes for Train Simulator Classic, and now they venture onwards with their first release for TSW.
If you caught our Dovetail Direct, you may have seen a few WIP images that show Union Workshop will be bringing us back to the Tadami Line, also marking the first Japanese route into Train Sim World! Let’s hear more from their team on who they are and why they chose this route:
Q: Can you tell us about yourself, where people may know you from?
“We are Union Workshop, mainly focused on Chinese and Japanese railway contents like Wakayama & Sakurai Lines, Guiguang High Speed Railway. Keihin-Tohoku & Utsunomiya Lines is our latest route.”
Q: What made you want to come back to the Tadami Line, since creating it in Train Simulator Classic?
“The Tadami line is famous for its beautiful scenery, we hope that with the power of UE engine, we can better present its beauty to people; and signal and safety system are easier for us to start with.”
Q: How has it been different working with the Unreal Engine for TSW?
“Developing in UE has higher requirements for model details and textures. The Japanese theme also requires us to create various assets from scratch. Vehicle physics simulation and signaling system are also different from before which require lot of work.”
Q: What is the best part you're excited about for the Tadami route?
“In addition to the beautiful scenery along the way, please allow us to retain a little suspense here. We wish players can have some different experiences here.”
Thank you very much for your time, we will share more in the future for developments from Union Workshop, if you’d like to keep up with their socials, be sure to follow the Union Workshop Twitter/X page!
Community Corner
Community Talking Points
We see common questions frequently asked across our community, and we wanted to reach out to our Executive Producer Matt Peddlesden to share more details on those various topics to share more insight into our processes and thoughts. Heads-up, it's about to get very wordy!
What does it mean when we say “upgrading a route to TOD4”?
Matt: “First step is to switch the time-of-day object over to the new one, which is pretty quick and global through the route - that's the foundation and easy bit. From here on, you're looking at up to a month of time required to upgrade the route lighting. In that time, you're going through all the lights around the entire environment and tuning them up; every single light and every single light source (emissive textures for those who know the lingo) all need bumping about 1000 times brighter and need tuning in position because it's now visible due to volumetric fog.”
“Reviewing all the lighting and making sure it's the best it can be now that it's more visible is important too, which means a full pass on the route (possibly multiple to be honest). All the trains need a similar pass, every instrument gauge light, every "emissive texture" light source, the light beams, all needs tuning.”
“If a route has big, covered stations or tunnels then we need to do something called light baking where all the dynamic lighting is then calculated and turned into a static texture - this gives a beautiful effect with much better visual output but it can take as much as an hour or two per station or tunnel to do a light bake depending on how complex they are. This is where a lot of time gets spent on some routes.”
The scope is highly dependent on the route in question as mentioned by Matt above, the modern elements found in newer stations and on modern trains (such as emissive screens and boards) as well as tunnels, all need additional checks. Recently, the West Somerset Railway route received a TOD4 upgrade, and whilst this still required a good deal of work and dedication, it is a more approachable task being a heritage railway when compared to other, more modern releases.
Microstutters and how to help reduce them? (Caching)
We’ve also seen some confusion from the community over what caching actually does, and how this can help improve your experience when playing Train Sim World.
Matt: “For textures to come from the disk to make it on the screen in the 3d world, on a texture with all the bump maps or pbr and lighting effects, the display driver does something called shader compilation to help speed things up - but the problem is this compilation step happens during the runtime of the game and each one can cause a stutter. Combinations of these happening in one instance can result in the effect know as micro-stuttering.“
“By running the route, the display driver caches the result so that it doesn’t need to do it again (there's a caveat on that... coming soon). What this means is the first time you run any route it's probably going to stutter a lot more than it should, but subsequent times will be a smoother experience.”
“The caveat on the above is that if you upgrade your display driver or even sometimes change some settings that cache gets wiped, and you start again!”
“From our tests, we've seen that something like 80% of the stutters you see the first time you run a route are gone the second time you run it.”
“Now, that's not the only type of stutter - there are others that are due to how the core game works and those are still going to be there and are much harder to try and resolve. One of the biggest causes of hitches outside of the shader caching in the display driver is something called "world origin rebasing" - this one is quite a big topic to explain and probably needs a 4-hour PowerPoint to do it justice!”
“However, the essence of it is that due to how large-scale worlds work in Unreal - they actually can’t be that big so what happens is as you move around the map the "origin" (the 0,0 from which all coordinates are based) actually moves with you - because you can’t have coordinates that are "too big". That whole process of "moving the origin of the world" is difficult.”
“There are some other causes but really display cache stutters and world origin rebasing really account for the two you're mostly experiencing. Keep that in mind - first time you run a route, just let it run end to end and then come back to play it when that's finished, it'll make your first proper experience a much smoother one.”
“As a final mention, for those who are in-the-know there are techniques for pre-building the shader cache using something called PSO's or Pre Shared Objects, but this doesn't work with how UE4 and DX11 works and we've been looking into what would be involved in it for UE4 and DX12 but nothing to report there - suffice to say, anything you read online which says "just turn it on" should probably be safely ignored.”
PC Editor Highlighted Projects
This month we’re continuing our trend of highlighting a selection of fantastic community projects we’ve seen on our PC Editor forums. Firstly, if you’re looking for more support resources on learning the PC Editor tools, Matin, Aka TrainSimPlay has created a public TSW Editor Documentation spreadsheet, which has links to all of our official resources, a huge range of community resources, and plenty of tutorials/guides all in one place!
Now, let’s check out just some of the incredible creations you’ve submitted so far:
NexuxscraftHD is working on Eisenbahnstrecke: Magdeburg-thale-blankenburg-(potsdam-berlin), a very ambitious full route project which has had substantial updates over the last couple months!
You can follow their continued progress on their forum thread and you can even catch them live showcasing their development, they even have a clip of them playing on their current route which you can view on their Twitch page!
Vindicity has started work on a new timetable for Munchen-Augsburg, creating services between 3 am and noon for all routes utilizing the Stammstrecke between Hackerbrucke and Pasing. This includes: S1, S2, S3, S4, S6, S7, S8, and S20 services and more. Follow their progress from the Updated MAG 2024 timetable thread (https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/updated-2024-mag-timetable.77967/)
CFTFC has created a Toronto Commuter route on the Oakville Sub, featuring a brand new timetable with all passenger services using the latest timetable (Nov. 2023) and prototypical freight services.
Follow their progress on the Toronto Commuter forum thread
There are too many amazing projects to share them all, but we’ll come back each month with new projects to give the spotlight!
Community Suggestion: Could we release a starter pack with one uncooked scenario, one uncooked RVV, RVM, Simugraph file, one uncooked PIS, signal, etc... to support people learning the Editor?
Matt Peddlesden: “A great suggestion, this is something we discussed and remains as something we’re looking into.”
As we stated in our last roadmap, the current PC Editor is still an early look at what we have in mind, and we’re grateful for all of the feedback you’ve sent in, and we encourage you to keep it coming.
We don't have a timeline on delivering these improvements at the moment - when we do, we'll let you know - but we're thankful for your continued support and work supporting each other to build some really impressive projects so far!
Finally, over the next couple months we’re planning to share more guides for the Editor in the form of shorter and slower tutorials, based on feedback that our original Masterclasses were a little too fast-paced to follow along with. Keep an eye out for these, and we’ll let you know once we’ve got content ready to share.
Train Sim World Player Survey
Thank you for taking the time to complete February's Train Sim World player survey. Your input is really important for how we shape the game we all love in the future.
Given the sensitivity of some of the information shared - we won't be sharing the results publicly, but we wanted to say a heartfelt thanks for your feedback.
We contacted all players who have been randomly selected to win an Add-on of their choice on Friday 23rd February, so keep an eye on your inboxes (including Junk folders!) to see if you've won! Thanks for your continued support.
Xbox Simulator Sale/Mega March shout-out
Players on console can still take advantage of sales happening this week with 70% off Train Sim World 4 Standard, Deluxe and Special Editions on Xbox and up to 75% off selected Add-ons for PlayStation players.
And remember, if you're on Xbox Game Pass not only can you play Train Sim World 4: Standard Edition but also get 10% off route Add-ons, including Blackpool Branches, Berninalinie and Salzburg - Rosenheim.
Roadmap Livestream
Exec Producer Matt, and Community Manager Alex, will be talking about all the things we’ve featured above, and answering your submitted questions in our March Roadmap livestream. The stream will begin from 19:00 UTC on our YouTube and Twitch channels.
Have a question for us? Put it in our March Roadmap Q&A thread and we’ll answer as many as we can live tonight!
And that’ll do us for March! Please share your thoughts to us on all our community spaces as usual, and we look forward to the month ahead!
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Train Sim World 5
5 Mar
Train Sim World 4 Roadmap: March 2024
Train Sim World 5
1d
TSW5: Gameplay Packs - Coming Soon!
Train Sim World 5
2d
Autumn Encore Sale - Now On!
Train Sim World 5
3d
Xbox Sale! Up to 90% off Add-ons