More 1.06 bugz: Prussian choofers G3 and G4.1

[Gumboots]

Been looking up these Prussian choofers lately, as part of this 1.06 debugging business.

So in 1.06 there was the G4 0-6-0 starting in 1907 and available until 1950. Lirio didn't like that, and changed it to a G3 starting in 1872 and available until 1912. The problem is, these are both fictional.

There was a G3, but it wasn't first built until 1877, and they were in operation until 1930, not 1912. The G4 never existed. There was a G4.1, which was basically just a G3 with increased boiler pressure, and that was built from 1884 to 1901. It was also operational until 1930. They were all long gone by 1950.

So, there is bugz in that there 1.06, even with Lirio's balance/update stuff. My 2c is that there are two sensible options:

1/ Since the files in the directories are still called "g4", we could just change the in-game name to G4.1 and make the thing available from 1884 to 1930.

2/ If people really think we need it as a G3, we should probably look at changing the file names in the directories for consistency, and make it available from 1877 to 1930.

Another point is that the top speed given in 1.06 is unrealistic. These locos topped out at 45 km/h, not 45 mph. That's only 28 mph. You'd have to run them on nitromethane to get them to 45 mph.

[Lirio]

There are a few occasions where I took some liberties with realism for the sake of gameplay. For example I had the GS-3 Daylight max out at 120 mph, but it's very unlikely it could do that in reality. The latter GS-4s were thought capable of 110mph, but that's still short of the speed I gave it. So why did I? Mostly because it's pinch-hitting for the Milwaukee Road F7 Hudsons, even though the Golden States are 4-8-4 not 4-6-4. Additionally I wanted a way to distinguish it from the J Class, which could also do 110 mph, so I settled for making the GS-3 faster and the J Class brawnier.

I think my decision to make the G3 available five years earlier might been made under similar logic, it's not just a G3, it's also pinch-hitting for other European 0-6-0. I also don't always put a locomotive's end date at the date they were actually taken out of service. I think I picked 1912 because it was 40 years after 1972, simple as that. I didn't think anybody would be interested in buying new ones by then. Though I guess given how cheap they are they'd make decent switchers, so I could give them another 10 years. I try to stick to realism when possible, and indeed realism was my original main goal, but giving each engine something to do became primary concern. The G4 in 1.06 was completely useless, so I changed it until it was useful. This included giving it both an erroneous time period for the name, and erroneous performance. My G3 does 50 mph, the real one couldn't go higher than 28. It's fictional, but I'd rather have a useful fictional engine than a useless real one.

The reason why I didn't change the file name is because without coding an installer, there's no other way to remove the G4 and add the G3 without telling players to delete files manually, and I wanted to keep things simple.

[Gumboots]

Fair nuff. Well if the game needs a good Euro 0-6-0 in 1872 and we're going to be erroneous about it anyway, I reckon the go would be to just call it a G4 and leave it at that.

Stoker and I are agreed that we ought to be fairly strict about naming of files for this new 1.06.01 patch we're working on. The idea is that a clear naming policy will give benefits for modders, as well as just making general support and bugtracking easier. It's all very well just changing stuff on the front end, but really it should be consistent throughout the directories. Since the existing files are called G4, keeping that name for the front end makes sense too, because people will tend to look for what they see on the front end. So, I reckon for the patch I'll change the name back to what it was, since it's better for humans and makes no difference to the game.

IMO calling it G4 is fine, because the building of actual G3's stopped in the mid 1880's. All locos built after then were with the higher boiler pressure, so were all G4.1's. So even if you reckon it should only be available until 1912, IMO G4 still makes sense.

[Gumboots]

Just tried something with the S3/G4 skin images (same skin for both at the moment). I've alway thought the general effect of that skin was like radioactive vomit. Destaurating it a bit, and giving it a couple of small tweaks to hue and lightness, works wonders on it IMO. It's supposed to be in the old Prussian railway livery, and this tweaked version is much closer with very little effort.

Desaturated_G4_or_S3.jpg (70.99 KiB) Viewed 2984 times