Hi!

I just received, for the second time, a private message from a moderator, suspecting me of doing some shenanigans with my TD2 user.
Since it's not the first time, I'm going to write down everything here. To anyone in the future suspecting that I might be doing something illegal with my user: please be kind and read this post.

Last time, I've been accused of being Sistonami. Which would be funny. He's a dear friend of mine, but I never suspected we were the same person. Crazy how life is sometimes.

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Just to be clear: I know that moderators are only doing their job; it's not even a job, since they're volunteers.
Let's take a moment to appreciate the fact that we have moderators and admins that keep this community a good place to have fun. I am an admin in a small forum, and I've seen what happens when, in another forum, there are no mods. And nobody wants that.
So, shout-out to all the TD2 forum staff!

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Back to the main topic. What happened now? Why am I writing this?

A moderator sent me a private message asking me to explain this:

Image link

Two things to consider: first, the picture above; second, yesterday a couple of dispatchers complained that I was spamming the chat (I wasn't, I wrote 5-6 messages to drivers during the whole session, plus 4-5 private messages for the permissions to send trains on single track; this will make sense later, I promise).

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I have a group of friends - most of them are IRL friends, we used to meet and do things together a lot before the pandemic - and we play TD2 during the weekends.

If there are at least 5 of us, we do a private session, with a timetable that I carefully design and with all the documents, prepared following the Italian regulations, so an M53 module for each station, a Scheda Treno module for each train, and a graphic timetable for the line. Each session must have a lot of shunting, for lots of fun! We even tried to use phone block between stations, following the Italian rules; it took us almost a minute to send each train! Phone block in Italy is way more complicated than in Poland.

If there's 4 or less of us, we play on the PL1. Usually I take a big station where we can do a lot of shunting, a couple of friends take SM42 locomotives, and if there's a 4th pal he drives somewhere from or to my station. Meanwhile, we talk on Discord, we tell each other how things are going, we joke.

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This weekend, we should have done two sessions: one yesterday (Saturday evening) and one today (Sunday evening). Yesterday there were 4 of us, today we should have been 5 or 6.
Unfortunately, two days ago, my video card died. I still have the integrated one, so I can use my PC, but in no way I can play TD2.
Today we're not going to have a session, because of other issues of some of us - unrelated with what I'm talking about here.
Yesterday, being 4 players, the plan was to play on the PL1. I should have played as a DR in Hel, a station that we never tried and where shunting can be performed.

I couldn't open TD2; but I could still open SPK: so I asked Gaglialpino to open two TD2s, one time with my user (he can't open Hel as he's level L as dispatcher). I then used my SPK, on my computer, at my house, to control his SPK, on his PC, at his house. Since Hel has no overhead wires, it's on single track and only has one szlak, we shouldn't expect many trains, right?
Right. I had two random users, plus the arrival and departure of one of us. And everything went smoothly, as planned.
If the random drivers had to ask me anything, they knew they could use "/swdr" since I told them before entering my station - but if for some reason they wrote in the chat, I had 2 or 3 friends who would see the message and tell me on Discord.
This evening we're not going to play TD2 because of unrelated issues.

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As soon as the pandemic is over, you, dear moderator, can come here in Milano and I will offer a pizza to you and Sistonami, Gaglialpino, IlFerroviere, Carlo220498, Feb9610, and all the other dear friends of the sessions - there's 14 of us... ok, I won't offer anything, everyone pays for himself.
We can visit the central station, which is stunning, and you can confirm that indeed we are not the same person. We are just a group of friends who play TD2 together during weekends.

By the way, why should I make a second user? I'm level 12 as DR and 11 as driver. I can open any station I want, except Stare Lipowo (too heavy for my poor PC) and the few ones that require being in a white list (I never applied) or that require being a supporter (when is it going to be available again?). I contributed with the translation in Italian and the Poliglota project. I made the Rozkazów Pisarz webpage to help with written orders. I design private sessions to play with my friends. It's clear that not only I love TD2, but most importantly I have no reason to make a second user.

Please, dear moderators: if the computer suspects some shenanigan, be the human, be the smart, be the one that can understand what does make sense and what does not.

Yours faithfully,

Angelo