General Feedback on Fernbus Coach Simulator

After spending around 33 hours in the game, I can say I believe in this game, because it has a great potential and after some polishing, it can be best bus simulator ever;) Keep up the good work:) The AI is already much better after update;) Thank you;)

Hello guys,

First of all let me say that this is a most welcomed game game on the simulator scene. We had everything from trains and airplanes to city busses. But a coach simulator was nowhere to be seen, at least not a standalone one. So with that in mind since you guys are the first to dare with such a concept i am going to try and share my opinions without being too harsh. It might be a long read, but I hope you will take your time to read this as much as I enjoyed and will enjoy playing the game. I have about 11 hours of gameplay racked up so far.

I hope you guys are keen on working on this framework you laid out and not be superficial about it, because this has a lot of potential and you can expand on it in the future via DLC (new vehicles, new maps etc.).

Graphics wise the game looks great with jaw dropping lighting. The trees could use a bit of work because they look a bit awkward. The bags that people are holding could use a bit of variety. The passengers could be better, a bit more variety wouldn't hurt. Also make them a bit more human, make them get on and off the bus and not just teleport, add a bit of ambiance to the bus by making them cough, talk, sneeze etc. but I know you guys are working on that.

The fact that you can get out of the bus and interact with the passengers is the delight of this sim. Such a small feature yet it adds a lot to the immersion.

Some of the issues encountered is with the gamepad I am using to play the sim. There seems to be no sensitivity setting that I can fine tune and so i am getting a lot of steering misbehavior. I am trying my best to keep a decent speed and take the turns with caution but it seems I am pestered by that message too much. Perhaps you could tune it a bit to be less harsh.

And this takes me to another problem that causes me to get the dreaded steering misbehavior message, the navigation system. Since it is hard for me to anticipate turns because there is no auto zoom feature i get nagged a lot . I urge you guys to please implement such a feature since it will be a major help.

Driving long distances is a favorite thing of mine and the fact that you implemented rest stops adds to the immersion, I highly appreciate it. But be aware that I ran into problems because of this. There are not enough rest stops in the game. For example on the Nurnberg – Dresden route i was asked to take a break but there was no rest stop along the way. So I was nagged all the way to Dresden. Please do add rest stops into every petrol station or add dedicated rest stops along the way, i know motorways aren’t short of these so this sim shouldn’t be either. Perhaps you could also make the rest stop feature a bit more immersive than just fading to black and passing time. Perhaps you could let us park, stop the engine let the passengers out for a cigar and some leg stretching and also give us the option to skip time (just like before departure).

Dynamic weather is a great addition to the sim and works pretty good but I found problems here too. For example if you set dynamic weather to on it will cycle good with periods of rain, sun, clouds etc. but the temperatures are off, for example in august in rainy or cloudy weather the temp gauge showed 9 to even 0 degrees Celsius which is really taking you out of the immersion. Also the transitions between weather cycles seem to be a bit rough and could be smoother. Be aware that rain droplets do not form on the windshield with dynamic weather on. They do form when you manually set it to rainy but don’t seem to work with the dynamic feature.

I don’t know if this has anything to do with the weather or the way they are designed but my side mirrors seem to draw some sort of fog on them, even in clear weather, it is really a burden to change lanes since i can’t quite see the cars from far away to switch lanes safely. And the AI that seems to be coming one after another doesn’t help with that either so i hope you look into that too.

But my biggest concern is the AI traffic. Like most of the people out here playing this promising sim, the traffic seems to be the most irritating thing about it. And for a sim that is about driving, I say that this should be your main concern right now. While I know you guys released a patch that fixed the red light bug, some of the AI traffic still manages to skip a red light getting stuck in the middle of the intersection causing a bit of a jam. Another serious problem is when AI traffic is entering the highway. The cars that are on the highway seem to be stopping to give way to the ones that are entering causing a bottleneck on the 1^st lane of the highway and the merging lane. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed as soon as possible since it interrupts the flow of traffic on the motorway. I’ve also seen a couple of cars that were turned into oncoming traffic or were flipped on their side (needs ironing out). Spawning traffic in front of me at 50 m is also a big immersion breaker. Perhaps you could also add a bit more variety to the traffic, maybe some trucks with trailers and such because there are a lot of them on highways in reality, other buses etc.

I know I have only underlined problems with my experience but these are the things that should get addressed as soon as possible since it will make the game perfect. I have enjoyed the game so far even with it’s quirks, driving long routes and kicking some tunes in the background is a really relaxing experience for me. I don’t regret buying it, because I know you guys will deliver in the end the best coach driving experience after all you are a german company, and It is known that germans are keen on delivering quality products. So with that being said I am looking forward to the upcoming updates.

Can you explain by what you mean "might also not be the last coach we develop for the game" ?

I wonder why there are so many traffic lights, it is really annoying to stop every 10m, can you please reduce them?

The more coaches the better. Also if you guys expanded the map as DLC I'm sure there would be a good number of players intrested in buying it.

Do we have an ETA for the next patch?

The patch (update is here!!)

However, there is one little or big bug as always...
The wheels follows any movement of the wheel instantly, but there is a problem with any released TML Studio's bus simulators, corrected later with patches or while tampering in the config files.
There is a lag input between the wheel turn and wheels reaction, which doesn't exist in the real world...

There is still one thing to know, there is differences in turns while moving the wheel between city bus and a coach, this is due to a different "differential settings"
(the speed at which the wheels turns accordingly to a wheel turn at a different speed in turns in dependency of driving speed).

There is also not linear steering applied sometimes:
- the wheels are turning at the same rate that You turn the wheel
- at some point the wheels turns more than You turn at the extreme ends of wheel turn to give more radius of turn in a very low speed to pass difficult intersections or turns (to do not "R" - dangerous )
- in city buses You can even turn a little more than allowed, thus You force the wheel to turn even further when below 5 km/h to make a tight turn to avoid for ex. a parked vehicle in Your way of turn

It depends of the steering model applied in the bus or coach, but in any cases the REACTION is INSTANT.

The brakes however in any cases have some delay to start braking (air pressure), so in a rush it comes sometimes to push it very further in quickly and release a bit to do not bring the passengers to a front windshield.
The more pressed, the more the pressure is produced and therefore the quicker also the effect of braking.
Optimal is to keep the distance and to look around and analyse any potential dangerous situation that may come real, a pedestrian crossing in a second, a car cutting the road.
With experience of driving, You have some kind of intuition, ability to judge is it really needed to brake, reduce speed or to keep it.
The more comfortable drive come from that experience and gentle acceleration/braking.
But there is also time alleas (advance or running late)....
That's why it is not so easy as it's not only driving a bus or coach, the fatigue comes from analyzing the situation on the road and around at any time since there is not much time between the spot, the brakes reaction and a potential hit.
The car is much easier on that, since the brakes do the job instantly while pressed. But even that I prefer a bus or coach, because of visibility and diameters
That's why You accelerate Your bus quickly, then put Your foot up of brake pedal while not accelerating any time or while a danger is spotted, the seconds counts in that case.
But the brakes are very badly simulated in this one and there is a lack of retarder stick movement as well as turn indicator stick (as animation on the dashboard, it is sticked to the wheel at the same position)

Cheers,
Dominik

A good day. Nice game but I have comments map must always increase could remain as it is at the beginning of set 2. passengers often wonder parking lot are just somewhere to rest and be on every road and in all areas could be a staging point for passengers

Dobrý deň hra mohla optimalizovať Isla hladko a ja pomerne výkonný PC 3,70 GHz GeForce GTX 645

Hi, first of all thanks for a wonderfull groundbraking game in my own opinion and many thx for the mouse control add-on.

a couple of questions

1. will the "camera be fixed" so that the steering whell is in the middle of the screen?

2. is it going to be possible to change the mouse control layout, example: choose mouse button to accelerate and brake?

3. will zoom availabilty to the navigation be implemented?

Post moved in feedback topic // Chris

one quick question. What is Contact with central?

I hope the TML dev team read this and perhaps they might be able to justify the minimum specs advertised to play Fernbus. First of all there must be a common definition of 'play'. If they agree with me that 'play' means ....remembering of course that this is a simulation therefore the standards of play must meet most if not all the criteria of a simulation. If the FPS falls below a certain level or the flow of the simulation becomes unstable then the simulation becomes flawed and the enjoyment in the simulation diminishes exponentially.
I began this simulation with an i5 -4690 3.5 ghz cpu 12 gb ram with sli twin nvidia 560 GPU's which meets the minimum requirements set out in the advertisements for this simulation. However, I became aware that one of my 560 gpu' was faulty so was offline, therefore I was running the basic minimum requirement. I was hoping that this would not be apparent in the simulation, but I was dismayed to find that driving along the autobahn at 100 kph was more than just uncomfortable as the FPS was sluggish to say the least, night driving was like a nightmare as the graphic quality suffered.
I enjoy and see the potential of Fernbus...so I invested in an nvidia geforce 750 ti 4gb OC to upgrade the graphics....and the difference is remarkable....and I am thankful I did not need to upgrade the CPU in order to get the most out of this thoroughly entertaining simulation.
I used to be a salesman, so I know there are ways in which to encourage sales and maximise profit....believe me the kudos from this simulation will come by word of mouth and that can only be spread if people really enjoy the experience.
So please ...be honest with your potential customers....don't let them settle for mediocre....update your minimum specs and forewarn them about what to expect from a lower spec.
By the way ....I have enjoyed CBS2 Munchen and had no problem with the graphics.
Thanks

Hello here is a few little things I hope you are working on and i am sure you are. I think the random events need tweeking a little as I have it on 100% but there is hardly any random events happening, Also some of the AI needs a little work ie on the Auto Bahn some of the cars go very slow in certain interchanges also please zoom the navigation out a little. Also can you please put parking areas at every petrol station as it seems we need more parking areas than petrol stations so why not combined them both?

Thanks

So, i finally had the chance to play the game and these are my feedbacks:
- The game has a really nice "feel", even if i'm having performance problem and i think i will have to upgrade my system. Lights effects are awesome, i love the way it renders the sunlight and the shadows, it feels very real!
- Cities are quite well modeled even if they still look a little bit empty at the moment. (i've read somewhere that maybe in the future pedestrians will be added, so maybe this will be fixed)
- Having the chance to get off the bus and checkin the passengers is great

Taking a look now to things which need to be fixed in my opinion:
- Sometimes the highway has too many curves or they're just too sharp for an highway
- Speed limits and passengers complaining about low speed. They're just generally too high in my opinion, especially on the junctions of the highway and the passengers are too anxious about my speed!!
- Very low performance in tunnels
- Rest areas and passengers complaining. No need to explain, there are few resting areas and it would be nice if the time you spend on a stop if you arrive early can be used as resting time. It would be great if you can actually see your passengers deboard and smoke a cigarette
- Bus sounds. There's something i don't like about the internal engine sound. I think it can be improved. It would be also nice if you can hear some rattling noises when you drive. Also passengers chatting would be good!
- Steering. I've read here that someone explained a problem about the streering differential or something like that. I can't really explain it but i feel there's something wrong in the steering.
- Weather changes. It's clear that it should be more gradual.

That's all for the moment! I just wanted to share it with other users and with developers with the aim of making a great game!
Overall i really liked what you put togheter and i strongly believe this game has a great potential!

Hi TML, firstly I want to say well done on this beautiful game and i have been playing alll your games since cbs 2010 and bus and cable car sim and i can really see a differance but still a few thing can be changed!

The steering wheel should be centered.

The wheels should move a bit more when turning the wheel a little ( i have a g 27 and i feel im turning half the wheel to take a little corner)

I feel that the graphics good be better as the game is on unreal 4 which has an amazing power and good be put to good use.

Hope you take these into consideration for future updates

Bis bald, Tschuss