Rolling Stock skinning ideas

[Hawk]

There's 10 individual downloads for his stuff. In order for this to be not confusing for folks, and for folks that may not want all of his stuff, what you have in the zip would have to be packed individually, to replace what is there.

I don't think an all-in-one zip is the best way to go with this.

[Gumboots]

Ok. Well I had an idea then. Just checked his website and he's still active over there. Looks like he's right into his N scale layout at the moment. I'll email the dude and have a bit of a chat with him. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if somebody neatened up the RT3 mods a bit for him, but discussing the details first makes sense.

[Hawk]

I'm sure he wouldn't mind either.
What I'm saying is everything in your zip should be split up just like on the download page here.

I guess I could just add your file as is and let people download everything and they can sort out what they want, but believe me, there's a lot of folks out there that seem to be somewhat lacking in the necessary mental capabilities to understand what's in that zip you uploaded, and what to do with it, if they didn't want everything.

[Gumboots]

Fair enough then. Will see what he says.

[Gumboots]

Ah ok. Just checked and I still have his original zips, so I can see exactly what's what. They should be the same zips that are currently on the downloads page. I can easily duplicate the format of those, then zip all those zips into one big zip for uploading. Then you just unzip it and plonk the other zips on the downloads page. Exact same content, just no loose files. How does that sound?

[Hawk]

I'll be waiting to hear back from you on this. I think it's a great idea.

[Hawk]

Ah ok. Just checked and I still have his original zips, so I can see exactly what's what. They should be the same zips that are currently on the downloads page. I can easily duplicate the format of those, then zip all those zips into one big zip for uploading. Then you just unzip it and plonk the other zips on the downloads page. Exact same content, just no loose files. How does that sound?

Sounds good to me.

[Gumboots]

Cool. I've sent an email. See if he has anything to add. He may have ideas for a few tweaks or something. You never know.

[Gumboots]

Hey I just checked something out of curiosity. In the "Making freights heavier" thread WP & P talks about adjusting cargo car weights to better reflect actual loads, so I took a quick look at some of the values for various cars.

The heaviest of his passenger cars is 20 tons. Weights for freight cars seem to be around 40 tons. A C era caboose (pre 1950) is 27 tons, or 35% heavier than an express car and 2/3 the weight of a freight car. That's one awfully heavy caboose. What are they transporting in that thing? The guard must be Jabba the Hutt.

A D era caboose (post 1950) is 53 tons. That's Jabba and his brother, I assume.

Seems to me maybe there's scope for being a bit more sensible about caboose weights. They're a lot smaller than an express car. I figure one should weigh maybe 15 tons if that.

The idea he mentioned about upping weights for heavier cargoes like iron doesn't seem to have been implemented, even though it would only be a matter of changing one value in the .car files. His D era grain hopper is 45 tons, while his D era Iron hopper is only 35 tons, which seems back to front.

Anyway, point is that apparently it'd be very easy to adjust freight and other weights if it would make the game better.

[RulerofRails]

An interesting idea. I agree that the caboose shouldn't be that heavy. If changes were made how hard would it be to transfer them into a game?

Anyway, point is that apparently it'd be very easy to adjust freight and other weights if it would make the game better.

If done right I think it could be used to separate the freight engines from the passenger engines. I would like to see that in the game especially after the First World War. Right now the disadvantages I can see are increased fuel costs and breakdowns, and decreased average speeds. Maybe even increased maintenance? due to working engines harder? This would make some scenarios more difficult, maybe a handful impossible. Would probably need a bit of testing to really determine the results and balance things out to a degree.

[Gumboots]

Yes, all of that. I was thinking it should cut down on people's tendencies (like mine) to just run mixed consist everywhere.

One possible catch is different areas of the world. For instance over here, the standard coal hopper in the Hunter Valley coal mining area was a small four-wheeled job right through to the end of steam. They had lots of the things, so they just kept using them. They were short wheelbase, rather high, and had no brakes at all. The drivers were usually a bit nervous when coming down the valley with a full load.

Anyway, individually they didn't weigh all that much compared to some overseas coal hoppers, and of course the locos that hauled them weren't Big Boys (usually a bog standard little 2-8-0). So it would require some thought about weights to get them to work properly with a range of engines for different arenas of play, but potentially it does give the really big haulers something to do. You could have different .car files for different regions if you wanted to, and just paste in the relevant ones when it suits you.

Implementing it is simple enough, because it's ony minor edits to the relevant .car files in the EngineTypes folder. It could all be zipped up quite easily, and there's no shenanigans required if someone wants to install it. Just paste the files into the folder. It should be fail safe, because if you miss some files it'll just use the default one anyway.

[RulerofRails]

One possible catch is different areas of the world.

I don't see that as too big an issue. The main part I like is heavier trains which require more careful management. If you are in different areas of the world with the smaller locos, chances are in real life they did things on a smaller economic scale and this will be more accurately reflected in my mind if for example the 2-8-0 can only haul 3 coal cars down the line at speed. Unless you have some super engines if you hook up a whole bunch of coal cars the effect will be a very slow train unless you are going downhill without brakes!

It wouldn't be such an issue for me, after all the games limit of 8 cars is not realistic in the first place. We can never have the 100+ car freight trains that are run in real life. Furthermore, whoever wants the smaller engines to haul a full consist can always use the original weights and they will be happy. Just my

BTW, awhile back I read about somebody making cars "double" by pasting two into the same file. He mentioned that it was in a different thread which I have never been able to find. Have you seen them? Apparently they weren't too pretty going around sharp bends but I would like to test them anyway.

[Gumboots]

Yup. I haven't tried them, but I'm pretty sure they're in this thread.

He did mention they bunched up around either left or right hand corners, and stretch out on the other corners. Can't remember which way around it was, but I do know the default single cars (and tenders for that matter) do the same thing, so I think it's a basic game bug and not something wrong with his double cars. Will take a look and see if I can find them.

[Gumboots]

Found them. Read this and the next few posts for the whole story.

viewtopic.php?f=67&t=811&start=75#p14816

[RulerofRails]

Hidden in the middle of this thread, that would be right! I was looking in the titles and trying to use the search but missed what was under my own nose. Thanks a lot, eager to see what they are like.

PS. Gave them a quick test run. They have a bit sloppy handling on sharp corners and sudden grades, but on a normal network running at normal speed they look fine. I was running a Red Devil and found that after 3 years I had a breakdown rate around 45%. Switched back to normal weight (different product) and the breakdown chance dropped to 15%. Given that the Red Devil has a good rating, this doesn't bode well for the poorer engines.

[Gumboots]

Hmm. Well you could always tweak the weight to get the result you want, if you just want to see longer trains. His ones are the weight of two normal cars.

[RulerofRails]

I didn't say that I just wanted to see longer trains. I would like the normal cars increased regardless. Thinking about increased weight reminded about them. Obviously, I wouldn't mind more "doubled" cars, but that is so much work and increasing the weights would be much easier, right?

[Gumboots]

Yup. much easier. What I meant was that if someone (anyone) did want longer trains and was worried about breaking locos, they could always tweak the weight of the double cars.

[Gumboots]

Ah ok. Just checked and I still have his original zips, so I can see exactly what's what. They should be the same zips that are currently on the downloads page. I can easily duplicate the format of those, then zip all those zips into one big zip for uploading. Then you just unzip it and plonk the other zips on the downloads page. Exact same content, just no loose files. How does that sound?

Sounds good to me.

Check this lot out: Repacked_WPP_custom_cars.zip

It's uploaded already. Should be clear enough. Let me know what you think.

[Hawk]

Got it. This might take a little bit to get updated in the archives.
Maybe later today or tomorrow morning.