[Lindsayts]

Matej Pacha, on 12 February 2012 - 11:00 PM, said:

Lindsay,
I really do appreciate any bug reports you post here. Sometimes it seems like nobody is answering but the open source project is not the first priority in our lifes. Please keep testing and reporting, because these bugs will be fixed as soon as possible.
Matej

The text below is NOT meant to be any kind of criticism in any kind of way of either OR os its developers, just making this point clear.

I apreciate everyone has other lives, also not doing much testing of OR in recent times as I am waiting to find out what will happen with the prime mover (locomotive, DMU's etc) "physics". The physics for these appear to be dragging behind the rest of OR's progress. Of course a number of serious problems exist for this part of the development. The first is there is VERY little decent accurate performance reports of any loco's particularly of early (saturated steam) steamers, these being effectively non-existant. The second being very few of the population correctly understand the workings of the machines involved, for instance how many people could give any kind of description of the Diesel electrics control system. An interesting point on this is you have a look around the net for the existance of ANY kind of mechanical simulation say of any kind of engine, only a handfull are in existance and most of these done duite some time ago.
My own expirience of locomotive performance is that a lot of even of the rail sim population are not that interested in accurate performance, just so long as the thing moves, :lol2: :( :(. Still working on my own sim though because of the lack of progress in OR in this area.

Lindsay

[captain_bazza]

Or, the thing that drives the builders is the hope for accurate physics to compliment their hard work. The end-user has to rely on the patience, enthusiasim and persistence of the builder, or else there's nada to drive, irrrespective of the state of the physics development at any point in time during the project.

We just have to be patient and thankful.

Cheers Bazza

[Matej Pacha]

Lindsayts, on 13 February 2012 - 12:29 PM, said:

My own expirience of locomotive performance is that a lot of even of the rail sim population are not that interested in accurate performance, just so long as the thing moves, :pleasantry: :oldstry: :pardon:.

That is true. But anyway, I can feel the responsibility to the crowd to give them a kind of real world experience instead of the fake but moving world. On the other hand, not many people can understand the physics, that well educated or experienced, to be a part of our physics team. And here comes my proposal:

Lindsayts, on 13 February 2012 - 12:29 PM, said:

Still working on my own sim though because of the lack of progress in OR in this area.

Wouldn't it be better for you to join OR team and take benefits from full 3D simulator made partially by you? I will appreciate any help with physics because there are many issues to be solved. We are approaching the steam physics very closely. The steam model is quite complex but it is also the one that is valid for most of steam locomotives in the World. There are many electric and diesel locomotive types of propulsion, resistive regulation, DC pulse regulation, AC transformer, AC half-bridge, multi-system locos, AC induction machines, AC and DC diesel propulsion, diesel-hydraulic, diesel-mechanic, combinations, accu locomotives, hybrids, turbine locomotives, ...
Many subtasks are comming on my mind with electric circuit modelling, force or speed regulators, auxiliaries, protection systems, fault simulations, etc.
There is a lot to do and with this approach comes a need for qualified people, developers, specialists, testers, etc. The only requirement is basic C# knowledge/experience, traction knowledge, and enthusiasm.

[Lindsayts]

Matej Pacha, on 14 February 2012 - 04:30 AM, said:

That is true. But anyway, I can feel the responsibility to the crowd to give them a kind of real world experience instead of the fake but moving world. On the other hand, not many people can understand the physics, that well educated or experienced, to be a part of our physics team. And here comes my proposal:

Wouldn't it be better for you to join OR team and take benefits from full 3D simulator made partially by you? I will appreciate any help with physics because there are many issues to be solved. We are approaching the steam physics very closely. The steam model is quite complex but it is also the one that is valid for most of steam locomotives in the World. There are many electric and diesel locomotive types of propulsion, resistive regulation, DC pulse regulation, AC transformer, AC half-bridge, multi-system locos, AC induction machines, AC and DC diesel propulsion, diesel-hydraulic, diesel-mechanic, combinations, accu locomotives, hybrids, turbine locomotives, ...
Many subtasks are comming on my mind with electric circuit modelling, force or speed regulators, auxiliaries, protection systems, fault simulations, etc.
There is a lot to do and with this approach comes a need for qualified people, developers, specialists, testers, etc. The only requirement is basic C# knowledge/experience, traction knowledge, and enthusiasm.

Thanks for the reply it IS appreciated :-).

I do not know if you will be able to understand my position, anyway here goes...... My Development system is Linux,as previously mentioned I have almost no knowledge of Windows. I use plain "C" using the GCC compiler. For 3D using the open source version of OpenGL called Mesa. Programming being done in a unix/Xserver enviroment. All code I produce comes under the GPL (Gnu Public Licence). One of its main planks is "no one is allowed to restrict the distribution of the source code or the resulting program in ANY way". This makes my work incompatible with the OpenRails licence. I believe in the ideals behind the GPL and will not abandon it willingly. I discussed this problem a number of years ago, contributing code to a "non-free" project, (that is a project in which some restrictions exist in distribution) with a number of people with much knowledge on Intelectual property rights, They said there was little I could do unless one side or the other changed there phyilsophical outlook, something very unlikely to happen.

I will test any of the "physics" of the rolling stock as improvements come about, having spent a good deal of the last 4 years in research in these areas I at least have some idea of what should be going on. I will also defend the OR project and its developers in any way I can as I do understand such development. A final point in relation to this is I will NOT look at the OR source code just in case any of it may "rubs off" on me, not that this appears to be a serious problem as from what I have read on the prime mover development I am following a quite different direction.

I actualy started my project to see if an accurate rail sim was possible and also if I could produce one. It does not bother me if a do not end up with a "finished" product as for me the journey (not the destination) is everything. Seems a pity waste all the knowledge, thats the way it goes though.

Lindsay