MLW Audio Enhancements

[AmericanSteam]

I have been working with jalsina on enhancing Tehachapi Pass locomotives and have been doing some testing to see if MLW Audio enhanced locomotives work in DP configuration. After doing a few hours of testing I came to the conclusion that whether you use searchlight Simulations or generic rolling stock, enhanced DPU units will add power to a consist and no additional setup of the locomotives is required. The trailing DPU's head or tail light can be turned on as well. This was surprising because the instructions from MLW Audio state they will only work when connected together in lead configurations. I used the Tehachapi Pass Mojave yard for the test and the bridge at the end of the yard as a measuring point for speed using the speedometer on the F4 HUD.
Note: MLW Audio products are part of Searchlight Simulations. PM me for details.

[kris120]

I read this different :
Manual : "When building or editing a scenario, place (LOCOMOTIVE NAME HERE) followed by the Suffix "DP" as your
distributed power. This can be mid train or rear DPU.
This is not necessary for trailing units as part of the main consist."
However, the last sentence seems meaningless to me.

[AmericanSteam]

Here is what the SD70ACE manual says:
--
DP UnitsDistributed Power Units or short DPUs are locomotives with the designation “Engine-Name_DP” that are supposed to be placed in the middle or rear of a train. They are not fully functional as the regular engines and are not meant to be actually driven by the player.A regular locomotive placed at the rear-end of your train will not respond to input from the lead locomotive despite the isolation switch flipped. Regular locomotives will only respond to input from the lead locomotive if directly trailing behind the lead locomotive. This applies to all of our sound enhancement packs.

[jalsina]

I read this different :
Manual : "When building or editing a scenario, place (LOCOMOTIVE NAME HERE) followed by the Suffix "DP" as your
distributed power. This can be mid train or rear DPU.
This is not necessary for trailing units as part of the main consist."
However, the last sentence seems meaningless to me.

There are several situations in the MLWAudio enhancements.

1) The older GEVO package manual mentions the DP (or DPU) in the manual (page 11), but in fact the enhanced GEVO DP and ND units (when present in some of the DLC´s) have the same code, though with no drivers but with a different name. All three variants use the same scripting.

2) By the other side, the SD70ACE (EMD 16N - 710G3C-II package) is quite clear in the manual (page 4) and only does two distinctions, main loco and DP loco. They never use the ND. But here, the DP which can be used in the middle or as a trailing loco do have a "different scripting than the main loco".

3) The other SD70 locos deal with SD70M and SD70MAC types (EMD 16N - 710G3B package). In the case of SD70Pack03 (MAC) SS only shows the main loco .bin, with no ND or DP. Sherman Hill (M type) has the added problem of the enhanced brakes which the SS locos don´t want to mess with).

4) The GP38-2 (pack EMD 16-645E) and the SD40-2 (pack EMD 16-645E3), establish in the manual that there is no DP available for this locos types.

Finally, it´s not the same the process of enhancing a repaint that is located in the same (supported by SS) DLC of the default enhanced loco, than a loco in another later DLC (like Tehachapi Pass). For some reason, the scripting in a new DLC doesn´t work well). Enhancing the SD70ACE in TPass has been pretty difficult and I have required to use links to a supported DLC (UPHeritage).