Smokebox Challenger due for release. See article in the link below.

[trev123]

https://live.dovetailgames.com/live/tra ... jxIhl4uaW8

[Brickrail782]

[ozinoz]

No Clinchfield !!

I was looking forward to that for some east coast steam. Wonder what happened?

Looking great though

[ryan9550]

Definitely a day one purchase!!

[EngineerJohn]

The challenger was the real hero of the UP steam fleet. They ran everywhere and did it all.

[ozinoz]

Pre-release stream - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJo-sChCPtc

Release date is tomorrow

Mike confirmed that the Clinchfield livery is coming and will be a free update when available (just not quite done)

Another Mike Rennie masterpiece

[AmericanSteam]

Out now, come and get it.

[AmericanSteam]

No Clinchfield !!

I was looking forward to that for some east coast steam. Wonder what happened?

Looking great though

Clinchfield will be a free update. Coming soon.

[ozinoz]

While you can colonize the galaxy, subduing countless alien species, fight infinate zombie hordes, build cities and fly planes, ,TS is something special; it is a time machine.

Imo this is Mike's best release yet, even exceeding his 1860 wood burners. The fidelity of the model and textures are beyond anything released (even his Big Boy) you would swear the screens posted were of a real locomotive.

Another great example of just what can be done.

[EngineerJohn]

I'm beginning to suspect this challenger may be a little too weak. Not entirely sure. Great model but I think its performance is a little under represented. Looking for others to chime in too.

I don't play the career scenarios. Here's what I did:

D&RGW challenger (2x) in a push-pull config with about 50-ish Smokebox big boy pack loaded coal cars and a soldier summit caboose on the end on soldier summit. Stalled the train on a 2% grade with a full head of steam in both locos. Combined weight of the train was right around 4500 tons. I'm not expecting it to do 30mph consistently but slog it out maybe in the 15-20mph range?

Ran the white striping version on Sherman Hill by itself with 10 old KUJU passenger cars and was levelling off at about 33-35mph on the mainline grades coming out of Cheyenne. Was able to maintain about 250psi. I feel like a medium to heavy passenger train the challenger shouldn't really notice all that much (weight was about 1100 tons total).

In both cases I was using the auto-fireman and in older workshop scenarios I swapped the RSC challenger for Smokebox's (I do the same thing with the big boy lol).

Wondering if anyone else had a similar experience. I'm no expert on what the capabilities are but it's still a pretty beefy articulated. Obviously its no big boy but it still should have some brute strength.

[TheTeenageFoamer]

I believe Mike has a patch coming that didn't make it through DTG before the engine was released. Not sure what it'll fix, but I know there is one coming.

[mrennie]

I'm beginning to suspect this challenger may be a little too weak. Not entirely sure. Great model but I think its performance is a little under represented. Looking for others to chime in too.

I don't play the career scenarios. Here's what I did:

D&RGW challenger (2x) in a push-pull config with about 50-ish Smokebox big boy pack loaded coal cars and a soldier summit caboose on the end on soldier summit. Stalled the train on a 2% grade with a full head of steam in both locos. Combined weight of the train was right around 4500 tons. I'm not expecting it to do 30mph consistently but slog it out maybe in the 15-20mph range?

Ran the white striping version on Sherman Hill by itself with 10 old KUJU passenger cars and was levelling off at about 33-35mph on the mainline grades coming out of Cheyenne. Was able to maintain about 250psi. I feel like a medium to heavy passenger train the challenger shouldn't really notice all that much (weight was about 1100 tons total).

In both cases I was using the auto-fireman and in older workshop scenarios I swapped the RSC challenger for Smokebox's (I do the same thing with the big boy lol).

Wondering if anyone else had a similar experience. I'm no expert on what the capabilities are but it's still a pretty beefy articulated. Obviously its no big boy but it still should have some brute strength.

It's been tested against the actual tonnage rating chart drawn up by Union Pacific in the 1940s and vritually nails the performance in all the tests we did, with trailing tonnages ranging from 1000 (US) tons up to 7000 tons on various grades as well as level track.

One thing to make sure of is that the engine brake is released - I say this only because I've seen people running the locos (the Challenger and the Big Boy) for entire scenarios with the engine brakes applied all the time.

When you use non-Smokebox rolling stock, the performance can't be guaranteed. This is because a lot of stock from DTG and other developers (Searchlight Simulations is a noteable exception) have ludicrous drag coefficients. The aforementioned performance tests were done using only my rolling stock.

For reference, the tonnage rating chart says that on a 1.5% grade (the ruling grade going west out of Cheyenne) with 1,000 tons behind the drawbar, the max speed is 35mph, so it looks like it nails it perfectly. I'm able to maintain 279psi in those conditions.

[mrennie]

I believe Mike has a patch coming that didn't make it through DTG before the engine was released. Not sure what it'll fix, but I know there is one coming.

The main content of the patch will be the Clinchfield E-3 version, plus a few corrections for minor visual errors (which I doubt many people will even notice), a small increase to the capacity of the stoker to fit with data that came to light just recently, and a correction to the code that deals with recharging the auxiliary reservoirs.

[FanRailer]

Quick preview of the revamped injectors that will be included in the next patch:

[trev123]

A free upgrade for the Clinchfield Railroad is available to download via Steam for the Challenger. 988MB in size.