Alright guys, I've been back in business for a bit now. School's back in session, so any work on mods will have to be done on weekends.
A bit of a discussion about the mods:
Most of the improvements I make on the mods nowadays for locos like the Challengers, Big Boys, Berks, etc. are little things here and there. I'm getting to the point that there's not much else I can mod without having to be a professional developer/programmer and tearing the model completely apart and sticking it back together again.
For the base models of the steam locomotives available in the steam store, I am planning one last round of mods. This next and last round will be the best that I've figured out how to do over the last year-and-a-half working in game and studying other outside sources such as archives, footage, official sites, and even horsepower to speed charts from ALCO, Lima, and Baldwin for various locomotives. In addition over the last month I finally discovered an official rule of thumb used by locomotive builders to approximate the top speed of a locomotive pre-1910, post-1910, and during the Superpower era (which if you've been following the thread you'll know that that particular bit of information has been very hard to come by). Based on these calculations, I have settled on the following for top speeds for the following locomotives (in projected release order):
SP AC 10-12: 87mph
PRR K4s: 100mph
NKP S-2: 96mph
SP&S E-1: 106mph
SP GS-4: 110mph
UP Challenger: 86mph
UP Big Boy: 85mph
Each of these are actually pretty close to what I originally estimated, but it's nice to finally have something a bit more exact for these mods
. This figure is important because it helps to better put together the appropriate distribution of power given the speed.
Based on this information, the power curves will need to be adjusted (heck I've never programmed the Big Boy to go over 80 before). Also, last summer I made a big deal about figuring out how to calculate exponential functions in applications to steam locomotive mods. I've decided for this last round to go with a more linear model because in TS tractive effort is determined not just by the speedvste file but also in tandem with the speedvscutoff file. Both of these files working together will probably make the bell curve without the exponential function anyway.
To preserve the integrity and experience of scenarios already written for the workshop by users who probably over 90% of the time don't use the mods and for any career scenarios already written by DTG, this next round of mods will not replace the base models. They will create an alternative that will have the prefix MOD in the scenario editor. For locos such as the Big Boy and the Challengers which had at least 1 sub class, I will also be making alternatives to represent each sub class (so for example for the Big Boys you'll have locos that represent the 4884-1 class and the 4884-2 class).
Numbering schemes for all locos will be overhauled (where necessary) to represent every member of their respective classes.
Due to how long it takes to write scenarios, no scenarios will be written for the release of this next round of mods.
I'll start with the release of the AC 10-12 class since that's been on the back burner the longest. Then I'll release the K4s, etc. like the list above. I want locos that haven't had a physics mod applied to them yet put out there for everyone to enjoy and give you guys something new to play with.
The GS-4, E-1 and S-2 will come in one download that will update all of them at once. Same for the Big Boy and the Challenger. That will be a total of 4 downloads for this last round.
When these are out of the way, I can finally get to work on the repaints here in the library, which I've intended to do for a while now, but have continuously been sidetracked on. I'll start on the GN 4-8-4 repaints, then the Kanawha, the Pere Marquette berks, and the Erie + weathered berks. Other repaint physics mods will be done by request.
I'll also take some time once the mods for the base models are released to write some scenarios. BTW, anybody know of a good route where I can take a berk for a decent fast freight scenario? Horseshoe curve is okay for modern excursions, but the wrong area for period scenarios. Same for Castle Rock. The berks probably wouldn't do too well over on Donner Pass and Marias Pass, and the same goes for Stevens. Also, it just doesn't "look" right on Cajon Pass. Any suggestions from the library?
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I'll be back, but it could take a bit.
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