FIXING PHYSICS.... KINDOF

[Chacal]

We should come up with a loco physics patch so that everyone is driving the same power around. Scenarios wont work if everyone has different physics.

We need a few physics patches in the form of partial blueprint files, and a way to apply them to existing blueprints.

1- For instance, we need patches for 6BL, 24RL and 26L air brake valves, that can be applied to any engine blueprint without changing the rest of the blueprint.
So when you climb into any engine equipped with a 6BL, you know what to expect. I think this would be better than to publish a F7 with 6RL brake that might behave differently than a GP7 with 6RL brake. Also this would help engine builders.
2- Also we need a physics patch for dynamic brakes. Not sure if there are different kinds.
3- Finally we could have physics patches for some engine models, for values such as weight, tractive power, etc., other than brake parameters. For example: new GP9, old and worn GP9, etc.

Each of these patches would be the best effort using current knowledge, could be maintained by the people who are most knowledgeable (or willing to spend the time) in a particular domain of engine physics, getting better over time with feedback from drivers. Eventually they could be merged into RW3 default blueprints.

I think the new search and replace function in RW-Tools would make these partial patches possible, or we could ask Mike to add such a function to RW-Tools, if not possible I can make scripts for that, this is something I already did for a different game that was also using xml parameter files.

[Kali]

It's harder to patch controls, because that depends on how complicated the base engine is. My GP9 that's around for instance uses a different control name for the brake control so I can also control the brakes in script - if you patched that it'd patch the base control, and nothing would work at all! better to publish control arrangements and let people add them. By all means knock up a patcher for basic repaints, but be aware and make sure people know it's not a 100% safe thing to use.

[Chacal]

I forgot about that. There is no standard for naming controls.
I'll look into that, it may be possible to detect braking controls by reading their properties.

[Kali]

It's either VirtualBrake ( it has to be named that for F4 compatibility ), or it will be the name of the control in the TrainBrake section of the simulation file. However there's a chance someone's done something particularily tricky still.

What would be useful for repainters is to have the brake notches published for copy & paste, that's really the only bit they need to know.