What do you want to see on the Wiki?

User Information Information for users of SimSig, including simulation manuals.
Simulation Manuals Manuals for released simulations.

User Information |Information for users of SimSig, including simulation manuals.
Simulation Manuals | Manuals for released simulations.

No, what we need is a proper tutorial sim, which by its very nature will have to be fictitious, since it will have to incorporate just about all the features of the more advanced sims into one compact one-page package in order to keep newbies from drifting elsewhere. Let me propose one based on the major terminus of Newby (nowhere near Cumbria or Yorkshire!). It should include ARS sections, manual routing sections, etc., etc. and its manual should spell it all out so well it will become an unmitigated pleasure to run!

Some of the comments in reply seem to belong to a general wish list for SimSig rather than the Wiki in particular. Some criticisms directed at the Wiki are better aimed at the writers of the sim manuals.

- Each sim may be so different from the last that it requires its own learning curve. Don't move on from Royston thinking you have learned enough to tackle any other sim. Each new sim will feel a bit like starting SimSig for the first time.

- To fully enjoy any but the most basic sims, the player should be encouraged to purchase a large monitor or, preferably, three monitors side by side. Even a large laptop ("desktop replacement computer"won't really cut it.

- The novice should be prepared to use extreme measures such as Remove Train early and often to avoid delaying other trains until the obfuscatory terminology associated with railway signalling, and UK railway signalling in particular, is mastered.

- The player should save his game frequently even when all seems to be going well, as the next train to arrive may make impossible demands on his intellect.

Whoever half-finished the Royston tutorial should complete it, or it should be removed entirely, as it is most irritating to someone following it to be abandoned halfway through.

Royston, with its unintuitive catch points, functionless level crossings and (quite unprototypical) freight trains, is really not a beginner sim. Even Pause works differently here from other sims.

Some criticisms directed at the Wiki are better aimed at the writers of the sim manuals.

The manuals are intended to tell the user the bits they need to know for that specific simulation. The player is assumed to know the basics - if they don't, then that's what the wiki is for. Certainly we don't want the sim manuals repeating the same huge amount of stuff about how to set a route or interpose a train description.

Or you could finish it yourself. (I don't recall who was writing it, so I don't know what they didn't finish it.)

Catch points aren't unique to Royston, nor are they unintuitive once you know what they do. You seem to be whinging because you weren't aware what that symbol meant

The level crossing is fully functional. Watch the RAI light go out and the LWR one come on as a train approaches, then it raise again once the train is over it. Watch it fail if you stop a train in the wrong place for too long. Those three lights are what a real signaller gets for an AHB crossing; what were you expecting. Oh, and wait for the geese.

What is unprototypical about the freight trains?

The supplied timetable is based on the weekday service of Summer 2003 plus a few imaginary freight trains.

There's nothing special about Pause in Royston; what on earth are you talking about?

None of the above is, or should be taken as, any kind of an objection to more and better documentation, whether in the wiki or elsewhere

I couldn't agree more with you on this, that's why I suggested all the verbosity be confined to a training sim, of which Royston now appears the prime candidate.

I think you would agree that somewhere between the the authoritative statements made in the Wiki and the manual for a particular sim lies the need for an example to illustrate (verbally and maybe graphically) any item that requires it. I don't think it helps to add a reference to the Wiki along the lines of "For an example of this, see such-and-such in the [name] sim" as the poor newbie will end up flitting from sim to sim to try putting all this together and only ending up frustrated.

Better as jc92 suggested to amplify the Royston sim so that all examples point to this one

Since it wasn't even on the symbol list (it is now), I didn't even know where to begin searching. In retrospect, I should have asked the forum first.

Anyway, consider me here as a mouthpiece for the silent crowd of disenchanted newbies.

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The level crossing is fully functional.

Good stuff - should have been in the manual, along with explanation of all the acronyms. Now I know I'm allowed to edit manuals (reminds myself to add it).

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There's nothing special about Pause in Royston; what on earth are you talking about?

Just that in Royston (probably because it's an early sim) pressing P displays "PAUSED" in the bottom LH corner, whereas in every other sim I've tried, pressing P displays a brown aspect on the main menu without any other immediate indication to the sim driver that the sim has come to a standstill.

Hmm. Okay, well if expanding Royston is unlikely, the alternative is Clive's suggestion, to focus on different sims which illustrate specific events very clearly and to include the time and location so the user can begin at that place and time and follow it through, even though he/she has not played that particular sim before. I'll see what I can contribute in the way of this.