FIXING PHYSICS.... KINDOF

[eyein12]

Last night Mike simpson updated his rw_tools to include a neat little feature i requested a few days ago. in the asset editor catalogue you can now change 2 vital values of your rolling stock items. mass and capacity. This will function will serve to overwrite these values to whatever you'd like them to be. mass is your freight car unloaded and capacity is your car loaded. so i'm waiting to hear from a poster in the other forum about what values he found useful so that all of us could just plug and chug. He says it made a huge difference in driving experience.

i thought i'd enlighten those of you who didnt know that this was an option. This particular method will act as a bandaid for the poor physics of your consists as there is virually no resistance to the force applied from your loco. Now there will be since we are to increase the default values using rw_tools. Now this should create a much more realistic scenario of acting resistance on the initial pull and up and down grades, needing assistance from more locos without rocketing into orbit etc...

[artimrj]

I am here too ;)

[imnew]

Great addition to rwtools ! Thanks for heads up

[eyein12]

I am here too ;)

oh good!

[Machinist]

The problem of dodgy physics is a bit more complex, Kali could explain it better than me. Mass (say Weight Unloaded) and Capacity are just two parameters among many others (say 10-12, for example boggies friction at the rail) related to the realistic running. Is for nothing adjust some of them but keep all the others wrong, the final result will continue unrealistic (maybe less unrealistic than before). And also you should have to correct the engines etc. to make a whole consist prototypicall. A scenario already created with default values probably even won't work if you raise the weight of cars attatched, it may become so heavy that the set of engines won't have anymore power enough to pull the set of cars with new values, it maybe (depends on other factors) will stall in the first high grade on the way. Of course there will be no problem if scenario is created especifically to the modified wagons (and locos), so scenario's author will bid a consist exactly according to the modified (new) physics.

[artimrj]

These are the values I used in my repaints

Mass and Capacities

folder name MASS CAPACITY

2 Bay hoppers 26.19 116.20
autoracks 50.81 30.79
boxcar 30.70 90.00
cement hopper 27.40 106.10
cem 3 chutes 27.40 106.10
coal hopper 21.40 120.50
coil steel 25.72 110.00
covered hopper 26.19 106.62
double stack 19.00 78.64
refridgerator 52.00 90.00
tanker 34.35 105.00

[Kali]

Capacity is the weight of the load, not the total loaded weight: mass + capacity is the fully loaded weight.

[Machinist]

Another thing I forgot to clarify is that almost all (if not all) locomotives in game are currently overpowered. Say a loco with 6600hp, if in simulation file the "MaxPower" is set to 6600 this means it has in fact 6600Kw or something close to 8800hp (1/3 more than correct value). So to build a prototypicall consist you need to reduce also the current (max)power of all locomotives to 75% of the value in horse power.

[Kali]

Almost! MaxPower should actually be the power *at rail* in kW - so you can take another 10%-20% off depending how old the engine is. The MaxPowerAtRail figure seems to have no effect at all.

MaxPower doesn't do anything for electrics, btw - that's entirely set up in the TEvsSpeed dcsv.

[NDORFN]

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.

[Chacal]

Agreed!

[Kali]

Yeah... that's not a patch, it's a project, if you don't organise it as one it'd get ridiculous.

There's common fixable things though:

* Couplers - once you've got one US coupler that works, then you can replace *all* US couplers with it.The coupler model has nothing to do with the coupler physics.
* Brakes - while brake *controls* might work differently, the brake *system* has to be the same, or nothing would work together. Wagon brakes can just differ in the amount of brakeforce ( and even then that's mostly dependent on whether the wagon is loadable ). There's only so far you can go with brakes anyway, the sim won't let you get particularily realistic. Believe me I've tried.

So then you're left with power physics and control behaviour, and integrating all that into repaints, and packaging. As you can see, all best done as an organised project.

[artimrj]

Well we got the ball rolling lets run with it. RW Tools has values for US engines and now we have some weights for rolling stock. I am sure if we come up with other workable values Mike would be glad to put them in RW Tools. Michael Stephan has already started reworking the F7s, so there is tested information available.

[OldProf]

What, no mention of equipment age, level of maintenance, spring tension, ambient temperature and humidity, altitude, wind speed, etc., etc.??? While I appreciate your dreams, I'm still having difficulty figuring out how to get passenger trains to meet their timetables (which is why I prefer freight).

[artimrj]

What, no mention of equipment age, level of maintenance, spring tension, ambient temperature and humidity, altitude, wind speed, etc., etc.??? While I appreciate your dreams, I'm still having difficulty figuring out how to get passenger trains to meet their timetables (which is why I prefer freight).

Hi Tom, where do we get that info and is it in the bin files? I am looking into brake pressures and release/recharge parameters.

To meet the PAX timetables you have to floor it between stations