[railguy]

For most of my experimentation with OR, I've used existing or slightly modified MSTS activities. As a result, my AI trains use AI locomotives with speed-controlled sound streams. Yesterday, however, when experimenting with coupling with AI trains (discussed in another thread), I set up my test activity with one of my "player" consists as my AI train. To my surprise, the AI train sound streams reacted to the AI train throttle settings, not the speed-controlled "AI" Scalability Group. Way cool. To further my little discovery, I deleted all but the Scalability 5 sound streams in the AI locomotives' .sms files. Worked like a charm.

Now, this brings a point. Is there any reason for OR-specific locomotive sound files to have anything but Scalability 5 streams? And is there any reason in OR to have AI-specific locomotives or AI-specific sound streams? If AI lighting sections are included in the locomotive light section, I really see no point.

One final question: I have not downloaded the "experimental" versions of OR beyond the stable 0.8 release, so I don't know whether it has been addressed there, but is there/will be an enhancement to remedy the issue of sounds silencing when they are more than a couple of hundred feet from the source (say, a locomotive)? "Fixing" that would really make OR a neat deal as far as sounds go.

Thanks again to the OR developers. They really are thinking about improving all of the right things in the sim.