[ATSF3751]

Hey everyone,

I know I have not been on here for quite some time but that doesn't mean I haven't been messing around with Open Rails. On a few (Test Runs) with my Milwaukee Road 261 I have come across a few things that either I have observed or came up with some ideas to improve steam locomotives. Some ideas I have brought up before but thought I would refresh everyone and see what others thought. The main thing I have noticed is that when I go to save a game then start it back up the Coal level stays the same but the water level triples or quadruples what it should be. so for example the water level was at 99% but when I started the game back up again it was all the way up to 4449% or even higher. Another thing I have noticed is that steam locomotives finally slip correctly and have more realistic physics. I have modified my Milwaukee Road 261 eng file to about as accurate as one can get as far as physics go to the real locomotive and it performs fairly close to the real thing. Still need to figure out a few things on it though like idle fire mass and max fire mass along with smoke units per pound of fuel and other stuff like that. Another thing that would be nice if not implemented yet is for you to be able to switch cab views as I some times do push/pull operations with a diesel on the other end but can never figure out how to switch the cab over. Now some ideas I had for Open Rails is realistic chuffing for the smoke is kind of a big one for me and have it synced to the drivers/pistons. It just doesn't look right when you have the steam hanging in the air without it blasting out the stack. A few more ideas I had are as followed.

1. Blow downs on steam locomotives
2. Being able to blow 2 different whistles on one locomotive. Many American steam locomotives have more then one whistle. The Milwaukee Road 261 has 2 whistles and an air horn on it.
3. Notifications for when you need to stop and service a steam locomotive. Example- Greasing/lubrication of the rods and bearings
4. Notifications of possible failures or maintenance that needs to be performed on the locomotive. This could go for all locomotives essentially.
5. Having the blower on a steam locomotive actually work when you turn it on.
6. For oil burners having to clean out the flues and tubes by putting sand in the firebox and creating the black smoke along with helping to keep performance up.


Well thats all I can think of at the moment and I fully understand this still is a work in progress with limited people working on it. I do want to thank everyone who is involved with the programing and making Open Rails a success in its own right.

Brandon

[copperpen]

I don't think you can do anything with firemass because that is predetermined by the code using the grate size, and uses a continuous stoker to maintain firemass. Smoke units per pound of fuel is something else that as far as I know is not used.

The timing of chuffs to cylinder/wheel rotation was attempted a while back, but as far as I know is unfinished. The stack emissions do not have enough velocity and are currently controlled by the throttle and reverser settings for colour. Even at rest there should be some velocity behind the stack emissions because that is driven by the draft on the fire which is not modelled beyond the firemass currently.

I have not seen any changes to water level after a save for a while, what version of OR are you using.

[ATSF3751]

currently I am using the most recent version of Open Rail. Version X4168. Also thanks for the tips on what can and cant be used for the Eng File. I was also curious if any of the things I mentioned have been thought of or implemented already.

Thanks

Brandon

[copperpen]

If you have not visited the Coalstonewcastle site, in particular the pages that Peter has added dealing with OR steam physics I can highly recommend going there. Peter is the person who is developing the steam code. http://www.coalstone...ics/stock/#gear where you will find an OR ready version of Mike Laxer's Niagara in two versions. The Advanced version has everything that OR uses in terms of data from the eng file.

Those things that you mentioned earlier are probably possible, but finding an ideal key combination to initiate the action could be more of a problem.

The blower is something that should be made to work properly because it is intrinsic to the operation of a steam locomotive and does actually have a key assignation in MSTS where it works.

[ATSF3751]

Yes I have seen that site and have used it before. Also I have thought of the button issue for new addons. A few ideas I came up with are as followed for it.

1. Second whistle- SHIFT/SPACEBAR would switch to a different whistle/horn
2. Switching Cab Views on locomotives- F9 then click on the locomotive and have it included in the drop down menu.
3. Cleaning flues in Oil Burners- Use the F Button since there are no Firebox doors. It could be coded into the Eng file too in some sort of fashion.

The notification thing could just be a pop up on the screen saying you need to service engine soon or some thing like that. Yes the blower on a steam locomotive is a huge factor that has not been implemented yet and would make a huge difference I think in the way the smoke looks along with how the steam locomotives perform. I also wanted to bring up another thing I did notice not only is the Water messed up when you save the game and restart it but also the F4 and F5 speed indicators do not match. There off by a couple of MPH/KPH. I have attached a photo to show you what I am talking about with the errors I am noticing.


Thanks

Brandon

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[ErickC]

Timing anything to wheel rotation isn't hard and doesn't require any code, you just need to do the proper math with respect to wheel diameter and the distance between chuffs in the final audio files. I suggest creating a blank wave file with cue points set up at the calculated intervals for the calculated speed. You can then mix the chuffs in at the cue points. I would suggest creating a few different clips for different speeds and blending them together with volume curves. Remember that there is a direct 1:1 relationship between rotational speed and the frequency curve (the same as with diesel engine RPM), I do this with flat spots and have achieved perfect synchronization without too much effort.

Here's an example. At 35 MPH, I calculated that a 36-inch wheel completes a rotation every 0.183605 seconds. So I created an empty wave file and placed a cue point every 0.183605 seconds. I then mixed in several short samples of flat spots, and saved this clip. This is the resulting stream:

			Stream (
				Skip ( flat spots )
				Priority ( 6 )
				Triggers ( 2
					Variable_Trigger ( Speed_Inc_Past 0.1 	
						StartLoop ( 6
							File ( "freight/flatspots/36/fs_36-0.wav" -1 )	
							File ( "freight/flatspots/36/fs_36-1.wav" -1 )
							File ( "freight/flatspots/36/fs_36-2.wav" -1 )
							File ( "freight/flatspots/36/fs_36-3.wav" -1 )
							File ( "freight/flatspots/36/fs_36-4.wav" -1 )
							File ( "freight/flatspots/36/fs_36-5.wav" -1 )
							SelectionMethod ( RandomSelection )
						)
					)
					Variable_Trigger ( Speed_Dec_Past 0.1	ReleaseLoopRelease ()	)
				)
				VolumeCurve(
					SpeedControlled
					CurvePoints ( 4
						-35.00		0.5
						-2.00		0.0
						2.00		0.0
						35.00		0.5
					)
					Granularity ( 0.01 )
				)
				VolumeCurve(
					DistanceControlled
					CurvePoints ( 3
						10		1.0000
						40		0.2500
						200		0.0000
					)
					Granularity ( .001 )
				)
				FrequencyCurve(
					SpeedControlled
					CurvePoints ( 4
						-53.645		151200
						 -0.447		1260
						  0.447		1260
						 53.645		151200
						)
					Granularity ( 0.001 )
				)
			)

Note that I have several randomized flat spot clips. At 35 MPH, the frequency value would be 44100Hz, but there's no point in having a curve point here. I instead set my curve points at 1MPH and 120MPH. 1/35 is 0.0286. Multiply this by 44100 to get 1260. 120/35 is 3.4286, times 44100 is 151200.

Asking OR to handle it is overthinking the problem.

[ATSF3751]

Erick, I was not talking about sound files I was talking about syncing the Smoke to the cylinders and chuffing and that does require coding. I have already mastered syncing the chuffing sounds to the wheel rotations. I do that all the time.

Brandon

[ErickC]

Ah, I missed that, sorry. I saw "chuffs" and thought it was referring to sound for whatever reason. Yes, more accurate smoke and whatnot would be nice. I'll leave my post, though, because the methodology may be helpful to others.

[copperpen]

Brandon

I have done several saves and restarts and I am not seeing those differences that you are in speed and tender water.

[ATSF3751]

Thanks I actually think I figured out the water issue. Could it be because I had a water tender behind the locomotive? I ran a test wtihout the Aux tender behind and everything worked just fine after I reloaded the game. As for the speed issue I am not quite sure where that is coming from.

Brandon