Winning is a slippery concept, something seen everywhere in today’s gaming culture. Gone are the days when everything was about getting the fastest time or the highest accuracy; to any one of us winning could mean something different – collecting all the achievements, perfecting a flawless run or something as personal building a castle in Minecraft that you think is beautiful. For Train Sim World, winning is about accuracy and control, not speed – which makes it far more challenging than a simple race.
Train Sim World has always had a scoring system but for the Train Sim World 2020 update we wanted a system that reflects the demands on real rail drivers and engineers while also feeling like a game with easily accessible mission objectives, the ability to track and study performance and most importantly a way to understand how to improve your scores so you can truly master the rails. It’s hard enough moving these massive machines without having to wonder about your scores!
Train Sim World 2020 introduces our new Action Point scoring system. Players will be able to see where points are earned for reaching their objectives, along with the impact of any mistakes such as speeding, passing signals or missing a station. When stopping there are more bonuses up for grabs, you’ll be graded on stopping accurately at the right spot on the platform (which new players frequently miss by hundreds of yards) and how close to “on time” you are (no surprise to anyone this can also be quite a challenge…). Earlier delays put pressure on you to speed up to meet your timetable, but speeding penalties mean you’re always fighting to avoid going too fast – with the new Action Point system this impossible problem is now firmly in the players hands!
During your journey we’ve added a live task list which you can pop up by holding the View button down on the Xbox One Controller, allowing you to see what stops you have up ahead and when your due times are to help you plan your time. You can also see at a glance how many Action Points you’ve earned at each of the previous instructions to help you understand how your driving is helping (or hindering!) your score.
The result is that you know what’s needed to grab those last few points, so your score and skills improve. You’ll first learn to stop in the right place, and then get even better as you learn the right techniques for braking so that you can have a precise stop without wasting time cruising in at slow speed or frantically swapping between your brake and your throttle. Keep an eye on the speed limit changes throughout your journey and you’re on the right track for top scores!
Once the ride is complete it’s time to review how you did so we’ve added a detailed debriefing screen with much more data and a graph of your speed and the speed limits over the duration of the journey. Using this you can review your stopping accuracies, as well as see easily how you managed your speed in the face of the line limits and your station stops. Are you too early to brake? Too early? Do you come in too slow for stations? Are you missing speed reductions starting? There’s lots to learn as you review the debrief screen before it’s time to fire up the next service or scenario and get back in the cab – easier than ever as our new ‘Journey’ system will automatically suggest a new mission that follows on from the one you’ve completed.
Train Sim World 2020 is a free update for all existing Train Sim World players, so jump aboard to take these changes out for a spin! For new players (or people looking to expand their collection) we’ve also updated the contents of the main game so it now features the latest and greatest routes from the last year.
See the rest of the story on Xbox Wire
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Source: Xbox Blog
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