[copperpen]

I have been viewing videos of steam locomotives at work on Youtube and have come to the conclusion that MSTS made a much better job of the main steam exhaust than OR has to date. It was and still is tunable in MSTS so one can obtain different styles of stack emission, and further it also mimicked very well in autofireman mode the short bursts of darker smoke that happens when fuel is added to the fire. These darker burst cannot be added to OR because we have at present a constant firing method in Autofireman mode.

Something could be done however to change the somewhat pathetic simulation of steam exhaust that we currently have which cannot be changed by any adjustment in the eng file with regard to volume and height. Even at rest the real engine has some velocity to the exhaust stream by virtue of the draft on the fire. We currently have a system that uses a single ace file in a single line to emulate the visual effects, and it also expands far too fast and too close to the emission point with a semi ramdom direction effect. Further to this, when in motion as speed increases, the emission point moves further back along the model.

[Weter]

Yes, I noted such problems, so it worth to investigate and solve.
As well as tilt of the axle of smoke emission towards direction of locomotive movement.