Another Connie (coz we need an uglier one)

[Gumboots]

Do you have the Voodoo graphics fix installed? That makes a big difference.

Stats can still be changed a bit if necessary.

Tender weight is just added to locomotive weight for the purpose of game stats, so there's no point setting a tender weight. It's simpler to just put all weight in the locomotive. One less thing to worry about.

[bombardiere]

Do you have the Voodoo graphics fix installed? That makes a big difference.

No, I don't think so. I have GoG version which runs without Vista patch. GoG seems to modified the exe. They tend to do that with other old games. U tried Blurry texture fix, but I did not see any improvement so I left it out.

Stats can be changed, sure. I am not good making stats and mine are often based on guesswork. Anyway, I did think more about an early Mogul and realised that its stats might be close to game's standard American.

Good to know about the tender. Thanks.

[Gumboots]

I can only test skins on my monitor, so I made it to look right as far as what I could see. It should look like the screenshots.

[bombardiere]

Sorry. once again I explain myself poorly. I am talking about the texture file. Some of Pop Top's engines (but not all) have lighter shade on top of the boiler or near the upper side.

I attach a picture of P8 so you see what I mean.

It is a black engine, but whoever made it, made it lighter but giving an almost white streak on top of the boiler. This is perhaps too much and an old fashioned method to simulate sun reflection. I was thinking as your engine is dark grey, a light shade would create an interesting effect. I can see that you shaded lower edge of the boiler, but I was thinking about reversing it on top.

I did not do this when I was making engines, but I was thinking that I could try something like that with Black 5. As it is almost black, I was thinking that it would need effects. (That "purple" colour I used when I made it for 1.06 is really really bad. I was thinking that it should not be a pitch black and wanted a "midnight blue" but the result was Ceasar's Palace. )

[Gumboots]

The usual way of doing black is to use shades of grey. No black paint or black material ever absorbs all light, so using dark grey instead gives a more realistic look.

The skin for the H3 could be improved, but at the time I had already put so much effort into it that I just wanted the thing running. The boiler/firebox unit does have some highlighting on the upper sections, but I didn't want to overdo it.

[RulerofRails]

Do you have the Voodoo graphics fix installed? That makes a big difference.

No, I don't think so. I have GoG version which runs without Vista patch. GoG seems to modified the exe. They tend to do that with other old games. U tried Blurry texture fix, but I did not see any improvement so I left it out.

Ok. Let me try to explain. The Vista patch ("fix") means having the box in the Graphics Settings "Disable Hardware T&L" (Transformation and Lighting) checked. GoG has ticked this out of the box. They give no warning that if you untick it, the game will probably stop working for you.

Anyway, one of the major advantages of the dgVoodoo graphics fix is to run the game with the "Disable Hardware T&L" box un-checked. (You can think of it as a replacement for the Vista fix, although it is more than that.) This gives better performance overall, and graphics look better. Most marked differences might be in water reflections and a better contrasted price map. See this post for an illustration of the difference it makes and the instructions on what to do.

There is a slight trick (in regards to GoG's d8tx.dll) I mentioned in that post to getting dgVoodoo to work with the GoG version. I think this is necessary because GoG did fix the blurry textures issue. Hence, why installing the Blurry texture fix didn't make a difference for you. I would recommend you try dgVoodoo. Backup your game first and give it a try. Find some more info on dgVoodoo here.
.

---

.
According to wikipedia, "The 2-8-0's forte was starting and moving "impressive loads at unimpressive speeds" and its versatility gave the type its longevity." These stats were based on where the project was at that moment. Progress has been made since then. Its performance has been reduced some. But, it's still a WIP, so it will just confuse everyone to get too many versions going.

Actually, you shouldn't be using this engine for Express traffic because you will only receive 60% of passenger revenue thanks to a "Gruesome" rating on the new pax appeal scale. That will make more sense with the new car weight scale though.

[Gumboots]

The water reflections are nice to have, and the better price map is handy, but the Voodoo mod also makes the skins for trains really come alive. They are much duller and "flatter" without it.

[bombardiere]

RuleofRails. Thank you for explaining all the patches. So much has happen and while I have tried to read posts, there is so much to digest.

I was able to install dgVoodoo fix, but I have an issue with it. I explain it in the post you linked so it would be in context.

The skin for the H3 could be improved, but at the time I had already put so much effort into it that I just wanted the thing running. The boiler/firebox unit does have some highlighting on the upper sections, but I didn't want to overdo it.

I truly understand. Sometimes after a long project I am so mentally exhausted that is almost impossible to continue. I think the best is to learn and move on to next project. The H3 is honestly great. Better most (if not all) Pop Top's locomotives. You have done a great service to RRT3.

[Gumboots]

I may revamp the H3's skin at some point, but I think it would be better to try a few others first, just to get more experience and ideas. One thing I must get around to trying is making the skin at a larger scale, and then scaling the image down to 1024x124 after flattening it. Apparently this is how the pros do them, and it's supposed to give a better result. I can see the results of this, since I already know that some of the detailing seen in some default skins would be literally impossible to do in Photoshop at 1024 or 512.

[TheBonobo4]

It's a shame this locomotive is gruesome, I think it looks awesome. Proper American steam train.

[Gumboots]

Well if you don't want it Gruesome you can change it to suit yourself. If you want it doing 300 mph with purple headlights, that's fine by me. I'm even happy to tell you how to do it.

TBH I'm still not entirely sure about final stats for this one. I haven't played a map that uses it since I was doing Guatemala, and playing a range of maps is really the best way to sort out stats. The Gruesome rating is probably overkill, but it shouldn't have a high pax rating. It really is a freight hauler.

[TheBonobo4]

Well if you don't want it Gruesome you can change it to suit yourself. If you want it doing 300 mph with purple headlights, that's fine by me. I'm even happy to tell you how to do it.

TBH I'm still not entirely sure about final stats for this one. I haven't played a map that uses it since I was doing Guatemala, and playing a range of maps is really the best way to sort out stats. The Gruesome rating is probably overkill, but it shouldn't have a high pax rating. It really is a freight hauler.

Oh I want the game to be realistic, I'm just biased because I love steam trains. I have some fan made diesel loco from about 1940s from I think a British loco pack and I find them ugly, they're designed for freight, but I think passengers find acceptable.

Are there any other gruesome locomotives? So far there only seems one gruesome and one very ugly, the H3 and the Consolidation respectively, with the rest being ugly or better.

Although with the updated locomotives it gives a good selection of locomotives and allows for a variety rather than one overpowered locomotive being better than the rest, like the original consolidation. I find the duke to be kind of overpowered in that passengers like it, it'll do 50mph, it's quite cheap and has good stats, but then I don't remember how it compares to other locos on hills. And I realise it's obviously hard to be both accurate and realistic as well as being fair and balanced.

[Gumboots]

I gave the Camelback a Gruesome rating when I did a stats revamp of that.

I've always found the Duke to be quite weak, but then that was comparing it to the default rocket-powered Connie. My 2c is that if you're playing with default 1.05 loco stats, there's hardly any point in using anything other than the Connie once it becomes available. It's just too good.

I did have some ideas for revamping the Duke as a more dedicated express loco, but haven't really done any testing on it yet.

[RulerofRails]

TheBonobo, the idea behind that is to make it strategic economically more often to separate your cargoes into express and freight. Gruesome just means that you will receive 70% of passenger income, but there is mail too, so you might expect to average around 80% on express revenues. These locos are slower. The passengers prefer the fast ones. It's not so much about the physical looks as usage of the engine.

The idea is that at some point "in the distant future" there will be a pack of cars (thanks 100% to Gumboots dedication) that have a better weight progression, no hammer hits like 1900 and 1950. Express is also now lighter than freight. To go along with this some of the existing loco stats will be tweaked as well. These locos are designed to work with that system when it is finished, but of course they are still great fun to be used with the default stuff too.

[Gumboots]

Gumboots' "dedication" needs another kick in the pants.

[TheBonobo4]

I'm using all the fan made locomotives that I know of, on 1.05, so that includes things like the ten wheeler and the mogul. I very rarely if ever use the camelback, it's ugly and slow, I think it's only good points if I remember are that it's cheap. But I might be wrong.

[Gumboots]

I made it a tad less ugly. Pix here: http://hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 220#p45010

The files for that are here: http://hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 230#p45033

That's set up for short hauls, with a low top speed and cheap running costs, but you can use whatever stats you want to use.

[TheBonobo4]

When I say ugly I mean passenger appeal, not my actual opinion. That camel back does look good, though I'm unsure if I'll use it since I don't use the default one any way and I don't use shunters. But I obviously understand the point of the locomotive and it's very well made on your part.

If that made sense, my explanation felt bad there.

[Gumboots]

Yes, it makes perfect sense.

[TheBonobo4]

I know this was included in the read me or a post somewhere, but I forget, was it that in the old system:

120 - Ultra Cool
110 - Looks Sharp
100 - Acceptable
80 - Ugly

and then in the new system:

130 - Very Cool
120 - Looks Sharp
110 - Looks Good
100 - Acceptable
90 - Ugly
80 - Very Ugly
70 - Gruesome