Railworks America

I have found that the Dynamic brakes are WAYYYYYYYY to powerful. 5 SD40-2's should not bring an 80 car loaded grain train to a screeching halt downgrade on Cajon.

Has anything been done about it? I cannot do much at TS except read posts - still banned and it will not let me search the forums, so if there has been, could you please provide the links.

Thanks

Hi Kevin,
As you have found, RSC has the MaxForce value set way to high. What I've been doing is dividing the MaxForce value by 5 and rounding down to the whole number. The values I'm referring to are found in the Engine's Simulation.bin file, found in the Simulation folder and the section you are looking for is the DynamicBrakesSystem section. I've also been adjusting the SandFrictionMultiplier found in the Engine's bin file as this value seems to be set just a little too low, making the sanders almost useless. So far I've found a value of 2.0000 seems close for this setting. Lastly I've updated my automatic brake settings for all North American diesels that use the 26L or newer brake handle, so you don't have to move the handle almost half way before you get a minimum reduction, those setting were way off the chart. To automate the process for the Air Brakes, Mike Simpson has added it to RW_Tools. The update can be found under menu option, Edit Assets, Asset Editor, menu option Edit Rolling Stock, Change US Diesel Air Brake Settings.

Regards,
Rich S.

From what i have noticed TS isn't what it used to be. Too much bickering & fighting between the RW & MSTS camps have ran some good people off. But the good news is that this forum is growing.

Thanks Richard.

I can only tell you that you'll really like the dynamic brake of the upcoming Genesis locomotive.
It's the first dynamic brake that really works realistically.

well the ones on the GP9's weren't too bad at all in my opinion.

micaelcorleone wrote:I can only tell you that you'll really like the dynamic brake of the upcoming Genesis locomotive.
It's the first dynamic brake that really works realistically.

Amen to that!

I'm also most likely going to have to look over the Physics to the AEM-7DC & Acela Express once release to make sure the data is correct. I don't think RW2 at the moment supports Electric Train Brakes does it?

EP brakes or are you talking about some system of applying pressure to the brake disks with electromagnets or linear motors or some other direct application device? RW supports a lot of brake types, and you can fake the rest.

Well any sort as you mention "brake disks with electromagnets", but I'm glad it supports a wide range. I was thinking in terms of the described "Electric Braking" referred to by MSTS on their HHP-8 models.

I have absolutely no idea what that is, not having MSTS. I would probably assume that's regenerative braking though.

I am fairly new to RW and have been pretty underwhelmed by the standard physics.

I was not aware that there were replacement setting floating around that people have been working on.

Is there a set of recommended files and settings for each loco in the game that I could grab from somewhere?

You can edit the physics yourself with RW tools to what you want. I release 2 test files that edited the SD40-2 & the Gevo. I will release a Comprehensive Pack on all of the US default Locomotives including the the AEM-7, P40, P42. The data will be compile from my searches over the net. It should fix some problems people have with Locos having rocket fuel & sci-fi fantasy braking.

MikeK wrote:I am fairly new to RW and have been pretty underwhelmed by the standard physics.

I was not aware that there were replacement setting floating around that people have been working on.

Is there a set of recommended files and settings for each loco in the game that I could grab from somewhere?

It depends how underwhelmed you are: to get engine power response really right you have to indulge in scripting and some fiddling around involving working out the equations to graphs, and then dealing with engine audio yourself. If you do that it can make a huge difference to the feel of the engine, but it's an awful lot of work and you also absolutely have to drive it using the cab dials, because most of the secondary displays won't read right.

If you tend to run either at full throttle or coast then you can tweak the upper limits of the engine's performance into a shape that resembles it's real tractive effort; if you can use a spreadsheet then you can do this yourself, however it's best to learn where all the files are first by studying the wiki and pulling one of the engines apart yourself.

Beware that some settings either don't do what they say, or don't do anything at all! and also be aware that units are generally SI - it's quite common for people to put horsepower numbers in blueprints when they should be putting the figure in kW, for instance.

Brakes are a good place to start, mostly because once you've worked a country's brake system out then everything has to use the same settings.

Actually, I wish a few of the other MSTS folks I worked with would jump in, esp. Bob.

I am wondering how much will be fixed in the new sim coming. It kinda makes me wonder if I want to jump in and start reworking the files or wait and see what the new one brings.

I implemented Rich's modifications using RWTools and though I've only had a little bit of time to drive, I really really like what I've seen so far! I like the GP9 brakes and these new modded brakes on the default locos are even better. I'm so glad that you guys put that together.

I foresee the need for a new tool someday... some kind of "checker" to list out which of our locos have modified vs. default settings.