How to increase the water usage in a steam loco

[cunningn]

Hi folks,

I'm currently building an enhancement pack for an existing 3rd-party loco and want to alter the physics so that the water usage matches/gets closer to the historical usage. At present water is consumed at only half the rate that it should be. There doesn't seem to be a single, convenient factor that I can alter and I'm not really sure where to go next.

There is a rate for water usage when priming - but I need to affect the usage the rest of the time!

Other candidates in the 'Injector' section might be:FeedRateMulitplier or SteamUsageMultiplier - but I'm not convinced!

Any ideas?

Cheers
Neil

[mikeadams2k]

Try increasing the Boiler MaxOutput in the engine simulation .bin file. It's under EngineSimComponent/SubSystem/Boiler/MaxOutput (lb/h).

[cunningn]

Thanks for the tip Mike - I'll give it a go. Difficult to know what to tweak without knackering the rest of the loco simulation.

Cheers
Neil

[cunningn]

Sadly that didn't seem to do the trick. I've had a tedious and depressing time changing and testing all sort so likely-looking factors - none of them make any significant difference AFAIK.

I've altered the:

BurnRateVsSteamUsageRate.dcsv - quadrupling the steam usage - no effect - is this table even used?

SteamUsageMultiplier - doubled in both injectors - possible slight change (hard to tell)

CutoffSteamUsageScaler - to '2' (the max)
SpeedSteamUsageScaler - to '2' (the max)
TotalSteamUsageScaler - to '2' (the max)
BasicSteamUsage - to 2000 (the max) ===========these made no discernible difference

Also tried increasing the injector cone size - this affected speed of boiler fill but not the overall consumption

I'm mystified - it feels like I could enter random numbers to half of the simulation parameters and make no difference to the way the loco runs!

Neil

[mikeadams2k]

I did a quick test using the Allegheny. I used the Challenger's simulation file as a starting point for the Allegheny's simulation file, and it has the MaxOutput at 134,000 lb/hr. I ran 2 tests, both roughly the same distance and speed. For the first test, I had the MaxOutput set at 134,000. For the second test, I doubled it to 268,000 lb/hr. At 268,000 the water usage was about about 15% greater for the same 4.5 (approx.) distance. I had Auto- Fireman turned OFF for the tests. MaxOutput is the only value I changed.

[FanRailer]

I've found that adjusting the effectiveness value, superheater value, and the drafting effect value will change your steam generation rates as well. Max output simply governs the maximum steam generation rate, but does nothing to control the rate at any intermediate point.

[cunningn]

Thanks guys.

Mike - I did try it but couldn't get a reliable increase - I will give it another go with even more silly values and see if that helps!

Fanrailer - thanks for the ideas - wouldn't have looked at superheater settings so I'll try the three things you suggest too.

Overall my problem is that the steam/water usage is only one fifth of what it should be - so any changes look like they'd have to be massive. I may have to effect a bodge using lua.

Cheers

[mikeadams2k]

I'm not a good source for this anyway. I've only started tinkering with this recently, trying to help out someone else. I like to 'run' trains, but I'm not much on 'operating' them. I usually have Auto-Fireman turned on. I think FanRailer's suggestions are the way to go. I'll probably experiment with them also.

[cunningn]

Hi guys - I've tried the changes as suggested (using maxima in all cases) - I can increase steam generation up to the 100,000 limit doesn't affect water usage! Superheater etc also increase steam generation but again, no effect on water.

One thing which has improved the realism AFAIK is reducing the 'MaxWaterMass ' - I halved the existing value. This doesn't affect overall water consumption - but means that the boiler empties quicker than it did - so the injectors have to be on more frequently. But each time they are on they are filling a smaller volume hence no real impact on water usage.

In the absence of a killer idea I am going to do something in the engine script to reduce tender water every time the injectors are on. Sledgehammer meet nut. My aim is to reduce the water volume by 5 gals for each gal that the game injector takes out.

Neil

[cunningn]

Quick postscript to this. In the end I used both reduced boiler mass (for increased use of injectors) and some lua script that increases the rate of water coming from the tender. I now have a loco that uses the correct amounts of water and therefore actually needs to use the troughs!

All the best
Neil