Union Pacific FEF-3 4-8-4 Northern type steam locomotive, by Smokebox

[FanRailer]

Hey Mike, would I "break" anything on the locomotive if I increased the starting water level in the tender from 19,567 gallons to 23,500 (the actual max water capacity of the tender)? I found myself running low on water after about 3.5 hours of hard steaming on the Pacific Surfliner route (which doesn't have any water towers that I'm aware of lol) and the extra 4000 gallons would provide for about an extra hour of high speed steaming.

[OldProf]

Mike, do any training scenarios come with this package? (Didn't see any listed in the users'' manual.)

[AdmiralLeviathan]

I've been driving this engine since yesterday, mainly the Advanced Version with Mike's Auto Fireman on-- however there seems to be a problem: Water isn't being put into the boiler! If I continue to drive the engine even after I lose steam pressure I get the "Engine out of Water" game over. Am I right to assume the Auto Fireman should be the one taking care of this, or am I missing something that I need to be doing myself?

I haven't tried the HUD version yet, I don't know if this happens on that version.

[FanRailer]

I've been driving this engine since yesterday, mainly the Advanced Version with Mike's Auto Fireman on-- however there seems to be a problem: Water isn't being put into the boiler! If I continue to drive the engine even after I lose steam pressure I get the "Engine out of Water" game over. Am I right to assume the Auto Fireman should be the one taking care of this, or am I missing something that I need to be doing myself?

I haven't tried the HUD version yet, I don't know if this happens on that version.

Isn't the Advanced version the one where you have to fire the locomotive manually? Run the HUD version; the expert fireman is on on default.

[AdmiralLeviathan]

I've been driving this engine since yesterday, mainly the Advanced Version with Mike's Auto Fireman on-- however there seems to be a problem: Water isn't being put into the boiler! If I continue to drive the engine even after I lose steam pressure I get the "Engine out of Water" game over. Am I right to assume the Auto Fireman should be the one taking care of this, or am I missing something that I need to be doing myself?

I haven't tried the HUD version yet, I don't know if this happens on that version.

Isn't the Advanced version the one where you have to fire the locomotive manually? Run the HUD version; the expert fireman is on on default.

The Advanced Version has an option that lets you toggle Mike's "Expert Fireman" by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+A, I'm assuming this is working since I can't manipulate the fireman's controls myself after I toggle this.

[FanRailer]

I've been driving this engine since yesterday, mainly the Advanced Version with Mike's Auto Fireman on-- however there seems to be a problem: Water isn't being put into the boiler! If I continue to drive the engine even after I lose steam pressure I get the "Engine out of Water" game over. Am I right to assume the Auto Fireman should be the one taking care of this, or am I missing something that I need to be doing myself?

I haven't tried the HUD version yet, I don't know if this happens on that version.

Isn't the Advanced version the one where you have to fire the locomotive manually? Run the HUD version; the expert fireman is on on default.

The Advanced Version has an option that lets you toggle Mike's "Expert Fireman" by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+A, I'm assuming this is working since I can't manipulate the fireman's controls myself after I toggle this.

I see.

[dfcfu342]

I believe even with the expert fireman there are still things you have to turn on yourself such as the dynamo and feed water pump.

[plicpriest1]

Now with all the anticipation on this one, and with day one over, I wonder if there is any stats about number of sales on the first day. First week? Month?
Just curious about the other side of the coin.

[mrennie]

I had a chance to use the HUD version yesterday and did a short run on RW&A. Even the HUD is a challenge to get started without slipping the wheels. It's a beautiful model - now I just need the time to read the manual and learn how to drive the non "toy" version lol. In the mean time the HUD will have to do.

Excellent work - worth every penny and then some.

I'm very happy with the response it's receiving from everyone.

[mrennie]

I've been driving this engine since yesterday, mainly the Advanced Version with Mike's Auto Fireman on-- however there seems to be a problem: Water isn't being put into the boiler! If I continue to drive the engine even after I lose steam pressure I get the "Engine out of Water" game over. Am I right to assume the Auto Fireman should be the one taking care of this, or am I missing something that I need to be doing myself?

I haven't tried the HUD version yet, I don't know if this happens on that version.

Isn't the Advanced version the one where you have to fire the locomotive manually? Run the HUD version; the expert fireman is on on default.

You can run the Advanced version with the expert auto-fireman too - just click on the fireman's seat (or press ctrl shift A) to toggle it on. With the HUD version, it's on all the time (there's no way to turn it off).

The super-important thing with every version is to turn off the game's own default autofireman (it doesn't understand oil-burners ... actually, it hardly understands coal burners either, but that's another story )

[mrennie]

I believe even with the expert fireman there are still things you have to turn on yourself such as the dynamo and feed water pump.

That's nearly right. In the Advanced version, the expert auto fireman doesn't turn on the dynamo or the air pump (for the steam-driven air-compressors that recharge the main air reservoir for the brakes), but he does turn on the feedwater pump when needed.

Incidentally, if you work the engine very hard, even the feedwater pump can't quite keep up with the water consumption, so in that case, you can use the live injector to top up the boiler. The expert auto-fireman doesn't do that for you because it's the engineer's job, not the fireman's

[mrennie]

Now with all the anticipation on this one, and with day one over, I wonder if there is any stats about number of sales on the first day. First week? Month?
Just curious about the other side of the coin.

That's something I'd like to know too - I'll find out soon enough (but it'll be company-confidential information, sorry).

[plicpriest1]

Now with all the anticipation on this one, and with day one over, I wonder if there is any stats about number of sales on the first day. First week? Month?
Just curious about the other side of the coin.

That's something I'd like to know too - I'll find out soon enough (but it'll be company-confidential information, sorry).

No worries. At this point there is nothing I can complain about. A question though: when I run sometimes I notice the Firemans waterglass is nearly full, but the engineers is lower. What does this mean? Ile get pics when I can.

[FourEightFour]

Hey Mike, would I "break" anything on the locomotive if I increased the starting water level in the tender from 19,567 gallons to 23,500 (the actual max water capacity of the tender)? I found myself running low on water after about 3.5 hours of hard steaming on the Pacific Surfliner route (which doesn't have any water towers that I'm aware of lol) and the extra 4000 gallons would provide for about an extra hour of high speed steaming.

I had brought this up during the beta. The unit of measurement in the game supposedly is imperial gallons.

[mrennie]

Now with all the anticipation on this one, and with day one over, I wonder if there is any stats about number of sales on the first day. First week? Month?
Just curious about the other side of the coin.

That's something I'd like to know too - I'll find out soon enough (but it'll be company-confidential information, sorry).

No worries. At this point there is nothing I can complain about. A question though: when I run sometimes I notice the Firemans waterglass is nearly full, but the engineers is lower. What does this mean? Ile get pics when I can.

That means the fireman's sight glass is clogged and you need to blow it down. At speed, it's even more noticeable because the clogging greatly reduces the amplitude of the sloshing - the water in the unclogged glass will be sloshing up and down much more. That's how it happens in real life.