[Hobo]

Maybe it's just me , being somewhat older , but I find that the manual for OR , although very thorough , is quite confusing concerning diesels . It has much to do about theory and very little in the way of explanation of a practical engine file construction .I don't think most of us really understand much of the explanations for applying the options provided in OR .
It sure would be a big benefit I think to see an actual example of a complete working Diesel Engine File for OR so that we could see the proper format , position and placement of the options . So far I've never seen one on this forum or elsewhere . Coals to Newcastle touches on it but doesn't go very far with it either .
Sure takes a lot of the fun out of the " Fiddlin ' " aspect when you're not sure of the rules of the game .

Just Askin'

[markus_GE]

I´ve also once asked for sort of a "template" diesel .ENG file to start from, but that request has gone... nowhere.

That said, Hobo, you´re not alone. I´ll second that request.

Cheers, Markus

[asullenger]

I'll third it.

[Hamza97]

I will fourth it.. . :)

[Genma Saotome]

Hobo, on 02 April 2016 - 01:48 PM, said:

It sure would be a big benefit I think to see an actual example of a complete working Diesel Engine File for OR so that we could see the proper format , position and placement of the options.

I've been putting in a lot of work experimenting w/ include files and while I don't think I've yet arrived at the best answers I think I'm quite close, as least as far as a KUJU defined .eng would look. I expect adding all of the extras for OR should follow the ideas I've developed w/o much fuss.

I had hoped to work w/ Lindsay in finalizing the ideas and presenting a proposal but his health occasionally requires an extended time off and that's cropped up again.

Take a look at this thread. In post #4 there are several "spoiler" buttons -- they do peek-a-boo displays. The third one is a 53 line .eng file; the original .eng files was 865 lines. All the stuff that's been moved into the .inc files are lines that are either in common with most other rolling stock for that country (e.g., couplers) or other e.g files for the same mesh. What is relevant to your suggestion is the individual .inc files are organized by topic. One for brakes, one for couplers, one for locomotive controls, etc. etc. Each of them can have its purpose easily defined; the lines in them are all related in some way which should help define what they are. What is not easy to do, not now, not ever, is to know what are good values. Some are easy, like Mass() and others are hard, if not impossible.

Interested in using this approach? Lemme know. I will be publishing something eventually and it seems what you want is also a part of what I'd like to see done.

[copperpen]

I have been dabbling on the fringes of inc files and have to say that it is definitely the way forward in OR where a lot of files need to have parameters altered. One inc file for a related set of parameters and one line in the eng file. Make a change in the inc file and all files that call it are changed.

Far as the call for a template diesel eng file goes, something like the steam eng file would be a very good starting point. It drops all old MSTS parameters that are not used and shows where the new OR parameters fit.

[Genma Saotome]

copperpen, on 03 April 2016 - 02:09 AM, said:

I have been dabbling on the fringes of inc files and have to say that it is definitely the way forward in OR where a lot of files need to have parameters altered. One inc file for a related set of parameters and one line in the eng file. Make a change in the inc file and all files that call it are changed.

Exactly.

Mervyn, as I worked the problem I realized well on there is a need to put country-wide .inc someplace outside of the rolling stock folders but still inside of \trainset. I chose a folder name of \Common_Fleet_Stds. Well after that I concluded it would be wise to add another level in that folder for individual countries so now I use \Common_Fleet_Stds\US and have set up \Common_Fleet_Stds\UK as a placeholder for when I fiddle around with some .wags from the UK. It was a PITA to go back and stick \\US into everything I had done but I knew it was the right thing to do. I recommend this country-specific solution to you and I think it would work for everyone, even if they hold rolling stock for just one country. I believe if you try the same approach you'll see it's value.

More complex is what to do when there are many .wags that use the same mesh file. Sometimes they're all in the same folder, sometimes, they're found in many folders. This took me a while to work thru. Obviously the example when all the .wags (or ,engs) are in one folder it makes sense to create any new .inc files in that folder (excepting of course the fleet std files). What went thru several iterations was the example of many .wags (or .engs) spread across many folders inside of \trainset. What I have to-date is not quite right... but pretty close; I created \Common_Model_Stds and started to populate that w/ the .inc files but as time went on there were too many and and I saw the potential of too many similar names... so I added another folder level inside \Common_Model_Stds for the name of the model itself and put the relevant .inc in there. That gives me this example: \Common_Model_Stds\FM_H10-44_Stds_Percy_&_Norton_Model; Subsequently I went back and inserted \US which now reads as \Common_Model_Stds\US\FM_H10-44_Stds_Percy_&_Norton_Model. What I'm not sure about is the wisdom and utility of adding \Locomotive and \Cars after the country name.

I believe both "common" folders and the tree within each will work well as far as providing a home location for shared .inc files. There are however two open issues: (1) What does one do on receiving an .inc file destined for that structure that is in conflict with a file that's already there (e.g., a coupler.inc file with different values in it)? It will require a judgement call made by the recipient. (2) Should the OR team be charged with any responsibility for the names and content of any of this as well as distributing a set of acceptable files? Doing so would greatly speed the distribution of standardized parameter values in .inc files. NOT doing so might lead to a rather chaotic roll-out of the concept.

[Hobo]

So far , from the discussions on eng. and wag. files , friction , wheel slippage , and adhesion I now realize that we might as well leave our old " working files " as is and simply add the OR additions to those files because they override the settings that they replace and yet there are many settings from those old MSTS files that are still used in conjunction with OR .
No one really seems to know just what , where , when or how some of those old settings affect the performance . I for one won't worry about all of the theory for every adjustment . I'll just add what seems to work to suit my tastes in overall operation and performance . I surely don't need OR to be so complicated that it takes the fun out of running a Steamer .
Just my humble opinion !

[Lindsayts]

Just a brief visit after nearly a month, some comments...............

It genuinely puzzles me why inc files in OR is having SO MUCH trouble making any headway. ITS THE ONLY WAY to go.

You do not really need a full ENG file template, and ENG file has a number of sections within it that are common to all eng files.
There is the wagon section (this has a number of different sections, ie coupling, friction, braking, lighting and effects) and in the engine section there is all the brake parrameters as well as most of the controls, All these can be placed in INC files without to much problem.

So all one needs for a diesel specfic ENG file is the OR parameters specfic to a diesel.

I have INC files for most of the above, things like braking are usually common to a system and could be placed in directory so labeled (say INC/AUSTRALIA). Lighting and effects are usually for a particular class of loco and reside in the machines own directory. The order of reading the include files is important, in a given section (wag or engine) one reads the system wide includes first, this allows one to specify a parameter that may be indivdual for a class of machine (or even an individual machine), as if two identical parameters exist OR over writes the previous read parameters with the last one read (Note 1).

Note 1: This can cause real problems as OR (or MSTS for that matter) give no indication if a parrameter has already been read, and this (multiple occuences of the same parrameter) is a relatively common problem in faulty ENG files.

I will check back on this some time in the future,
Lindsay

[copperpen]

The steam locomotive does have a template eng file of sorts based on the UK Hall class locomotive and can be found in one of the OR physics test packages on the coalstonewcastle site. The hall pack contains 4 different eng files for comparison.

What is needed is something similar for diesel and electric engines, and an example file that uses inc files so people can look at each method and make a choice as to how far they wish to go in modifying eng and wag files.