I have been using the Premium WIFI for just over a month. Granted that's not near enough time to fully understand all it can do versus its ancestor the DCS Dedicated Remote. I call it the Television Remote.
But in the month that I have had the immense pleasure of using WIFI, I have discovered some "interesting features" that at a glance appear to be, shall we call them, oversites. I may be wrong, hope I am, but based on the search I did this morning of all DCS WIFI threads and topics, as far back as 2015 I didn't see any topics that touched on what I am about to touch upon. Not to say the body of those topics didn't touch on these things, but based on the title of the topics, I didn't see any lead in to them. One topic did touch on WIFI loss of connectivity to the TIU, which I have experienced and received help. But this has to do with how the Premium WIFI release that I have, December 17, 2019, 3.2 something something I think, handles certain aspects of Engine management. My goal is to see if anyone reading this has experienced what I talk about.
Do you see any use for the BOOST/BRAKE feature in the WIFI app? The television remote made it a valuable feature in that it gave you a sort of "throttle" to use to slowly increase or decrease the speed of the engine rather than use the herky-jerky, sometimes completely manic thumb wheel. The problem, at least as I experienced, and found out was a programmed feature, even if you set the accel rate to 1, it only held true for 3 ticks of the smph. After that it bumped up a notch to 2 smph rate and stayed there all the way to 60. Go figure. But I've used the icon version of this feature, and can find no real use for it as it is programmed. One it's on the second half of the ECS screen and you can't see the speedometer. Two, you can press the icon and hold, but after a few miles per hour increase, it drops off. Three, Stay is not a feature any longer, only return. Anyone else have a comment?
ALL switches. When I tap the ALL icon on the switch screen, I tap the straight arrow, all 19 switches change to straight unless of course they were already straight. The issue is that once I tap ALL, it won't relinquish control. Unless I leave the switch screen and return, the ALL icon remains purple. So hypothetically as well as in reality, if I wish to straighten all 19 of my switches to get my faculties gathered before I start opening various other switches, and I use ALL to do that, selecting a single switch to open or turn out if you will, won't cause ALL to let go. The first time I did this, and learned my lesson, I selected a switch to open, and all 19 suddenly opened. I was expecting one click of one switch, and when I tapped the curled arrow, it sounded like a 100 rifles all locking and loading at one time. That'll get your motor running. Unless I am missing something, and I would like to know what that is, I have to leave the screen and return to get single use control back.
Keeping with this subject. Are you aware that if something else on your layout, including you personally with your finger, reposition a switch, the WIFI won't pick up on that? Easy example. All 19 of my switches are straight. I walk over and move the Detroit switch with my finger to the, what I like to call, open position, turned out. I get into the WIFI and go to the switch screen and when I select Detroit, I look at the arrows and instead of the curled arrow icon being purple, the straight arrow icon is purple. I moved said switch to the open position, but the WIFI still thinks it's closed. My thoughts on this, and I am probably wrong, the WIFI unit talks to the TIU, the TIU talks to the AIU that houses this switch, if the AIU always knows where the switch is located, and the TIU takes it's commands from the WIFI and sends information back to the WIFI, why can't MTH program the system to be able to tell the app at all times regardless of how the switch was moved, what arrow to purple? This issue is true when the engine moves a switch using the non-derail feature, and, get this, if I have a route set up, and I do, 32 of them, when the route changes the switch location, the individual switch screen still can't keep up. Detroit gets opened (curved arrow) in a route, and when I go back to the individual list and choose Detroit, the straight arrow is still purple. Any thoughts on that?
I love the engine name change. CSX ES44AC #8382 is nice, but being able to rename it to it's call sign is even better. So I did. Settings menu, edit, typed the call sign name, save, done. Brought up my next engine. Settings. Union Pacific ES44AC #7986. Edit. And thus the confusion began. If I am looking at the settings menu for the Union Pacific engine, why is the call sign name of my CSX engine showing in the line that you edit the engine name? Instead of ENTER NAME (16 CHARACTERS), what is this the 80's, I am staring at the call sign name of an engine that isn't activated. It's still on the active list, but it's not the engine in the title bar. Instead of being able to just type the new call sign name for the UP engine, I have to backspace out the name already there, and then type in the new name. Not so bad, but why? I thought this was the settings menu for the UP engine, not a generic template you have to massage. Where it is worse is when you catch a mistake. I type Patriot 84, meant to type 83. So I go back to the CSX engine, get into settings, tap edit, and wouldn't you know it, there's the UP engine call sign name in the block. Most recent change. Instead of seeing Patriot 84 and being able to back out the 4 and change it to a 3, I have to fully delete what's there and retype the entire call sign name again just to change a 4 to a 3. Not the most up to date modern 21st century way of going about it, but I guess.
I'm not complaining, ok I am, but one would think that a company that designs something to keep up with the modern age that allow the millennials to run their trains using items they are most familiar, phones and tablets, one would just naturally take it on faith that said system would at the least have modern bells and whistles when it comes to editing text. Purple arrows not on the same page due to uncorrectable issues yet to be invented, I can see that. Features that were once affective in the old system being completely useless in the upgrade, or so it appears, not sure about that one. It irritates me when I buy something that's supposed to be an "upgraded way" of doing things, and come to find out it has bugs and beetles and poltergeists just like everything else. But the real slap to the face is when it came out in 2017 and I bought it in 2019, two years later, and it still has the problems that one would think were found during the two years and fixed before John bought it in 2019. Just saying. Your thoughts on this are greatly appreciated, even if you throw rocks at me. Oh, one more thing, I have and have read Barry's latest WIFI guide. Great stuff, but I don't think he touched on any of this.
Thanks for listening
John
