Class A1 Festering Pigsty: debugging list...........

[Gumboots]

Meh. This thing is a total mess. Things to fix list:

1/ Putrid skin with several faults (go Tomix!).
2/ Graphics mapping under boiler.
3/ Weird sizing for front truck Bogie 4 (all the others are ok).
4/ Lateral asymmetry for umpteen things (body vertices, bogies, blah blah blah).
5/ Right side crosshead, coupling bar, connecting rod stuff too far inwards. Coupling bar conflicts with wheel gfx. Piston not laterally centred on cylinder. Blah blah blah.
6/ Front truck gfx stupid. Drags along below ground level (different issue to borked Bogie 4).
7/ ROFLMAO. Crosshead support/slide moves with piston and crosshead. Go figure.
8/ Piston gfx not long enough to reach cylinder at BDC.
9/ Probably umpteen other things, but that'll do for now.

Sheesh.

[Gumboots]

Ok, having gone through it a bit I've figured out a basic fix for the worst of the A1 bugs. This should also be usable, with a bit of adaption, for the V2 model (I'll get onto that).

Out of the list in the previous post, it should fix all of these:

2/ Graphics mapping under boiler.
3/ Weird sizing for front truck Bogie 4 (all the others are ok).
4/ Lateral asymmetry for umpteen things (body vertices, bogies, blah blah blah).
5/ Right side crosshead, coupling bar, connecting rod stuff too far inwards. Coupling bar conflicts with wheel gfx. Piston not laterally centred on cylinder. Blah blah blah.
6/ Front truck gfx stupid. Drags along below ground level (different issue to borked Bogie 4).

Well, it mostly fixes 4/. I haven't checked every point in every file, but I've sorted it for the drivetrain and truck bogies, etc so it's good enough for now. It also partially fixes 8/. A full fix can be done but requires more work. Again, it's ok for now.

7/ could be fixed too, but again more work so aint happening at the moment. TBH this model is so crappy in so many ways that I'm not inclined to try and do anything wonderful with it. My ultimate aim is to kill it completely and replace it with something else, but a version with less bugs is a handy standby in the meantime.

Drop these files in UserExtraContent or PopTopExtraContent and they should work.

ETA: I checked, and if the body file and Truck1file are copied, and the copies renamed as V2ClassL_Truck1.3dp and V2ClassL_Body.3dp, then dropped in UserExtraContent they will also fix the front truck height and boiler graphics mapping on the V2 2-6-2 model. The other files wont help the V2 since it has a different drivetrain. I'll whip up something for the drivetrain later.

[Tomix]

Nice work Gumboots. Tested in-game and everything looks great, the only thing you might want to see about remapping is the section under the boiler.



I can probably fix this with alphas, but I would have to be careful so I don't make part of the frame invisible.

[Gumboots]

Nope, not touching that. At the moment I'm not even sure where that is coming from and don't want to spend the time on it. The idea of this was to minimally debug the A1/V2 so they are more acceptable than their original state. IOW, I view this as a quick and dirty stopgap measure.

The thing is that this model is a bad one. The flaws you noticed and that made you wonder how it had been released in that state are not the only ones. It is that bad all the way through all the hex files too. This means it is never going to be a really useful model for modification, because it's too intractable to work with. It's not even a good representation of the loco it is meant to be, nor is it a good representation of a V2 (it's other current use).

I could go through the whole thing and try to fix all the smaller bugs, but we'd still end up with a model that was intractable to work with and not a good representation of anything in particular. IMO this would make the whole enterprise a waste of time and energy that would be better spent on other things. This is why I said my ultimate aim is to kill this model completely and replace it with something else.

[Tomix]

I see. Doesn't matter anyway, got it fixed by the alpha.

[AdmiralHalsey]

This is why I said my ultimate aim is to kill this model completely and replace it with something else.

Maybe with the A3 instead?

[Tomix]

This is why I said my ultimate aim is to kill this model completely and replace it with something else.

Maybe with the A3 instead?

RT3 doesn't have a A3. Although you could rework the A1 to make it look like a A3, since they are almost identical.

[Gumboots]

The thing is that this model is a bad one. The flaws you noticed and that made you wonder how it had been released in that state are not the only ones. It is that bad all the way through all the hex files too. This means it is never going to be a really useful model for modification, because it's too intractable to work with.

I could go through the whole thing and try to fix all the smaller bugs, but we'd still end up with a model that was intractable to work with and not a good representation of anything in particular. IMO this would make the whole enterprise a waste of time and energy that would be better spent on other things. This is why I said my ultimate aim is to kill this model completely and replace it with something else.

Just sayin'.

What I want to do is make a replacement model that is actually a Peppercorn A1, and could also be used as a much better basis for a good V2. I'm pretty sure I can make this out of the 242A1 French beastie without too much drama (relatively speaking, of course). The geometry of that thing has a lot of potential, and it's very cleanly coded.

[Tomix]

Seems like quite a lot of work to use the 242. The problem I see is making the boiler shorter and getting the wheels to look right.

[Gumboots]

That's trivial, and nothing compared to the problems of attempting to do anything with the current Class A1 model.

I'll give you a heads up on what I'm thinking. The Peppercorn and the V2 should have a tapered boiler and firebox. The smokebox is parallel-sided, then the boiler flares in height and width towards the rear, then the firebox tapers in height towards the cab. I can do this if I start with the 242A1, because it has bits that can be made to do that, and I already have them all mapped and bookmarked. The 242A1 also has a cab that is ideally suited for turning into a V2 cab and almost ideal for a Peppercorn. About the only tricky bit would be the running boards, but even those shouldn't be too bad.

Wheels are easy to change, as are the rest of the drvietrain components. The most tedious part of the whole shebang is likely to be the changes in gfx mapping.

IMO this, or something very like it, is worth doing because it's an easy model to work with and the tapered boiler and firebox shape would be useful for quite a lot of different locos.

[Gumboots]

Here dude, just for a laugh I grabbed the 242A1 body file and shortened the boiler. Took a couple of minutes. It's short. No problem.

one_short_boiler.jpg (49.87 KiB) Viewed 5218 times

[Tomix]

First thing that popped in my mind when I saw that was a Garratt.

Anyways, looks like it will be no problem then.

[Gumboots]

Yeah come to think of it the result does look a bit Star Wars Garratt. I've been swearing I'll make Garratts for a while now. I probably should. I've acquired enough knowledge to be able to do it, and the World loco category could really do with them.

[AdmiralHalsey]

What I want to do is make a replacement model that is actually a Peppercorn A1

Dang. And here I was hoping for a chance to have a the opportunity to run the Scotsman on my lines. Well I guess it's nothing a good reskinning couldn't solve right Tomix?

[Gumboots]

Oh hey I'd be up for creating a good pre-war loco or two as well. It comes down to time. At the moment the plan is to fix obvious bugs and holes in the 1.06 loco lineup. Once that's sorted I can think about other stuff.

Even so I still wouldn't use this model because a/ it's rough as guts and b/ it's a total pig of a thing to work with. My 2c.

[Tomix]

What I want to do is make a replacement model that is actually a Peppercorn A1

Dang. And here I was hoping for a chance to have a the opportunity to run the Scotsman on my lines. Well I guess it's nothing a good reskinning couldn't solve right Tomix?

Once Gumboots completes his version of the A1, I'll make a separate loco with the old A1 body so you can continue to use it.

[AdmiralHalsey]

Dang. And here I was hoping for a chance to have a the opportunity to run the Scotsman on my lines. Well I guess it's nothing a good reskinning couldn't solve right Tomix?

Once Gumboots completes his version of the A1, I'll make a separate loco with the old A1 body so you can continue to use it.

Thank you. I've been wanting a decent skin for the A1 so I could have the Scotsman pulling the Scotsman during the British Scenario's.

[Gumboots]

You guys are funny. I'm saying we ought to build a better model for this sort of thing and you're like "Oh noooooooooooooooooo! I want the really crappy one!"

Take a look at this:



That's a scale profile drawing of an A3. For comparison, this the the game's model in Tomix's new skin:



Not knocking the skin itself, but if you think the latter is a better model of an A3 than the former, I'd be quite surprised. The A3 has the tapered boiler and firebox that the model I'm talking about would also have. It has similar runnings boards and several other details. IOW, once you do a decent job of modelling a post-war Peppercorn A1 not only do you have a model that is easily adaptable to make a better V2, you also have a model that is easily adaptable to make pre-war Gresley A3.

[AdmiralHalsey]

Ok fair enough. I was worried that you might forget to keep Gresley's masterpiece in the game.(No train game is complete without the Scotsman.)

[Gumboots]

Ok, change of plan on my part. I wasn't paying attention to the changes in 1.06 compared to 1.05.

In 1.05 the Class A1 had a post-war starting date which corresponded to the build date for the first Peppercorns. This (and the fact that it's just crappy anyway) is why I had been thinking it should be remodelled as a Peppercorn. I hadn't noticed that the starting date had been changed in 1.06, so the new 1.06 starting date corresponds to the build date for the first Gresley A1's.

So, since debugging 1.06 is where I'm at now, if and when I get around to making this putative new model that will be awesome in its hypothetical awesomeness, I agree it would make sense to start by modelling a Gresley A1.

As I said it doesn't matter too much in the end, since the general form of several of the LNER locos was much the same. The same model will still be easily adaptable to several locos (Peppercorn, V2, whatever) regardless of which one I start with. For instance, it'd be easy to arrange for the A1 to be skinned as an A3 since the only visible difference was the banjo dome on the A3, and this will be needed for the V2 anyway.