[Jonatan]

Alot of our steam locomotives have a generator sound and steam FX, and the extended HUD shows a certain steam usage of the generator, but there is no way to turn it on or off.
In many cases the generator would only be turned on when the headlight or cab lights were needed, which rarely happened in daytime.

I would like to suggest a new sound stream for the generator, and a means to link it to the headight or some new function. The former is easier but leaves out the ability to individually control the generator and headlights - while the latter is more work and consumes more of our precious keys.
Likewise, the GeneratorFX would have to be linked to this as well.

Possibly something like the parameter ORTSGeneratorLinkedToHeadlight ( 1 ) in the eng file.

And a sound stream like this:

    		  	Stream (
				Skip ( **** Generator sounds - tied to headlight **** )
				Priority ( 6 )
				Volume ( 0.4 )
				Triggers ( 2					
					Discrete_Trigger ( 50 	StartLoopRelease ( 1 File ( "x_generator.wav" -1  ) SelectionMethod ( SequentialSelection ) ) )
					Discrete_Trigger ( 51 	ReleaseLoopReleaseWithJump () )
				)
			)

I have recorded and looped a generator sound file with a startup and shutdown sequence which I offer here for testing purposes to anyone developing this function, I'll allow its use in any released test equipment.

Attached File(s)

•  generator_sound_looped.zip (2.75MB)
  Number of downloads: 67

[RocketStephen618]

Very nice!

[ATSF3751]

I do like this idea of the Dyno being controlled by the headlight but you also need to remember that the Dyno controlled all of the electricity on the locomotive and some more modern steam locomotives have more then one Dyno on them. Some examples of this is UP 844, 3985, 4014 and SP 4449. The Dyno controlled not only the headlight and marker lights but also the cab lights, radio, lighting for the passenger cars, along with cab signals for steam locomotives that had them.

Brandon

[Jonatan]

Brandon,

I'm aware of those facts and I mentioned it in my original post:

Quote

... the former is easier but leaves out the ability to individually control the generator and headlights - while the latter is more work and consumes more of our precious keys.

Addendum: If someone finds it easy to code a separate generator control function from the get go and a free key to activate/decativate it, then this is the optimal solution and I'm all for it.

[Weter]

Hello, Brandon.

Quote

lighting for the passenger cars

Is it so for Your cars? I encountered only cases, when carriages had own electric system (axle-driven generator and battery of accumulators), before reading Your post.
Steamers turbo-generators, I see before are too small (~1kW power output) for feeding too many consumers.

[Traindude]

Since the GeneratorFX emitter on locomotives so equipped runs continuously, with no way to turn it on or off, I just modified your code for use as an "initial trigger" that plays the sound continuously while the loco is in operation.