[Weter]

I heared about button latch for not to put combined handle ocassionally to DB range, when quickly closing throttle.

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it will be possible to have different engines for each axle, with independent tractive forces and amperage for each.

That's great!

[ATSF3751]

Here are a few other things I came up with. A few I know have either been brought up or thought of before but have not been worked on yet.

1. Passenger car and locomotive doors and windows all be separate instead of opening and closing all at once.
2. More realistic snow and rain on the windows of the locomotives and passenger cars.
3. Animated mars and strobe lights on locomotives. Meaning instead of the light just going around you have the actual mechanism inside moving as well.
4. The Sphere of light/head light being able to move instead of just being stationary on locomotives that are articulated while going around curves.
5. Having articulated locomotives be a single locomotive instead of two separate parts.
6. Start implementing Positive Train Control into Open Rails for American Railroads
7. Animation of people along the line and in the passenger cars/locomotives. This would be very nice to have while running a steam locomotive/classic diesel on an excursion.
8. Animation of wheels on cars that go bye.
9. Being able to get flat spots and other issues with your freight/passenger cars as you go along.
10.Having working hotbox detectors along with actually having to stop your train if you have one.
11.Steam leakage on Steam Locomotives and steam heating
12.Having communication with other trains along with a dispatcher on your part of the line you are running on. Very helpful on a multiplayer situation.
13.Having a Pilot crew on sections of track you are not familiar with. Mostly done during mainline excursion trips.
14.Streamlining the Open Rails options. To me it seems too cluttered and way too many options to choose from.

[pschlik]

cesarbl, on 27 May 2023 - 12:17 AM, said:

Absolutely thanks for this information. I was refactoring the dynamic brakes and was suspecting that such interlocking does not exist. But as always, there might be some locomotives with such a locking, is that the case?

Honestly, I've never noticed anything mention a mechanical interlock on the dynamic brakes during setup. Even Baldwin, in all their weirdness, had the operator control the dynamic brakes in mostly the same way as EMD would. Then go beyond the North American designs and dynamic braking is usually implemented as blended braking so the operator doesn't even need to think about a dynamic brake lever.

Even if something were to have an interlock on setup, I would imagine the interlock would only prevent increasing dynamic brakes beyond setup, but would still allow disabling dynamic braking (in Open Rails, you can't disable the setup process once it has started.)

[Traindude]

ATSF3751, on 27 May 2023 - 06:15 AM, said:

5. Having articulated locomotives be a single locomotive instead of two separate parts.

Well, my Challenger test model proves that the bits and pieces are there, it's just a matter of filling in the gaps. Peter (steamer_ctn) says he's working on something for having multiple "engines" in a single locomotive, so I am waiting for that to come around before I submit proposals for the actual articulation.

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Here are a few other things I came up with. A few I know have either been brought up or thought of before but have not been worked on yet.
1. Passenger car and locomotive doors and windows all be separate instead of opening and closing all at once.

Yeah. Having an all-or-nothing attitude when it comes to doors is certainly a disadvantage.

I'll add to your steam suggestions by reiterating some of my other suggestions I've made in the past:

1. The ability to specify the parameters of safety valves instead of going off of assumptions.
2. The ability to specify locomotive water system types (live steam injector, exhaust steam injector, feedwater heater with centrifugal pump, crosshead pump, etc.)
3. When simulating mainline steam excursions, the ability to control the dynamic brakes of a diesel helper located elsewhere in the consist.

[ATSF3751]

Yes I completely agree with your ideas as well. As I mainly run steam locomotives and passenger trains on Open Rails it would sure be nice to have more done to both of those parts of Open Rails but I fully understand that it is just Peter doing the Steam Locomotive coding at the moment.

Brandon

[Weter]

Hm, by the way... About separate windows/doors operation:
We can still have centralized command by single key (all or nothing), but it would be simpler, I think, - to add an entrie to train operations menu (called by F9, then by clicking desired car's pictogram in train's representative view) - about open/close doors/windows, or turning control on/off (as MU control, but for cars), just as we operate handbrakes or angle cocks individually from there now.

[ATSF3751]

Another thing I just thought of and not sure if this is possible with it being open source but for Open Rails to open up with a main screen with the Open Rails Logo and screen shots of Open Rails with a drop down menu where you can pick the route, activity, locomotive and consist. Kind of like the way MSTS was set up but in full screen and not this little window stuff we have going on currently.

Would sure be nice if the game could also auto adjust to a default setting depending on how your PC is set up to handle the game.

The way it is set up currently just seems way too cluttered and some stuff is not needed for all players.

What I mean by this is if we could streamline it just a little bit and maybe put some stuff together.

When you open the Options button you have all of these seperate buttons on top and I think some of them could go together in the following way. The General, Content, Video and Audio together in one box. Data Logger and Evaluation together in another box and maybe put System and Experimental in another box. This way it would not look as cluttered and more streamlined in appearance.

Another thought I had was for people that just wanted to play the game and not worry about all of the experimental stuff or testing features is have a version of Open Rails where you take all of the Testing, Data Collecting and Evaluation stuff out and just have the main game with just the stable version for people to play so we can get more people started with the game who just want to try it out.

That way it would be a lot less confusing and be more inviting for new people to get involved and play the game.

It would also be handy to have a photo of the locomotive that you pick pop up along with the route that you choose to play on.

Just a few ideas I had to make Open Rails look more inviting to others who have not played or are just getting into the game.

Brandon

[Weter]

Hello, Brandon.
1. This is called Graphical User's Interface and it's planned among trello cards.
2. It's done partially, as "target frame rate" setting, but for me. it works so-so.
3. That's why "System" options tab intended and advanced options are being migrated there.
4. I miss loco.ace picture's appearance. a it was with MSTS too. Especially for not familiar stock.

[darwins]

Lots of good suggestions above. Two that appeal to me are

( 1 ) dc generator motor model with transitioning or field weakening for diesel electrics

to which I would like to add series-parallel control of dc electric locomotives.

and ( 2 ) slip control to which I would like to add

the simple anti-slip brake that puts 10-15 psi into loco brake cylinders at the push of a button

and some steam effects for steam sanding. (There is not otherwise much difference between gravity sanding, air sanding and steam sanding so far as I can tell.)

My own additions to the list would be:

( 3 ) Tap Changer - run up / run down throttle for ac electric locos. There is a French and probably a Czech script for this, but it would be good to add to the standard version.

( 4 ) EMU automatic acceleration throttle - as used on almost all dc EMUs and trams from about 1890 to 1980!

( 5 ) Hyro-mechanical transmission. (Pure hydraulic transmission can already be simulated using tractive force curves, but hydro-mechanical transmission widely used in modern DMUs needs to mix both hydraulic and mechanical transmission together.)

( 6 ) Compound steam locomotives - 4-cylinder DeGlehn system and derivatives and 3-cylinder Smith system and derivatives.

[ATSF3751]

Also great idea's Darwins!