Jurassic freight hauler - LMR Samson

[Gumboots]

Ok, it's on. Have made a start on skinning Samson. Mesh isn't completely finalised yet, but near enough to get a move on. I'm gonna see how fast I can get this thing sorted.
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Edit: Some more progress. Not much to this one. Very simple indeed. If anyone's wondering why the coal is so pale, early UK choofers burned coke. There was a law which said the they weren't allowed to make smoke, so coal wasn't used initially.
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Since it's intended to give good performance with the new heavy freight category, which at 7.5 tons is 50% heavier than default A era freights, the amount of grunt has been chosen to give roughly the same performance as a default Planet hauling default mixed cargo (ie: 4 ton cars on average). I figure any slower than that will drive everyone nuts.

The extra consist weight will probably require a boost in reliability, since Planets and other early locos are at their reliability limit even with 5 ton cars. Provisional stats are looking like this:

Top speed = 22
Free weight = 22
Pulling power = 3
Locomotive weight = 22
Tender weight = 0
Fuel rating = Very Poor
Acceleration = Very Poor
Reliability = Below Average
Passenger Appeal = Ugly (80% revenue)
Purchase cost (probably) = $20k
First year maintenance = $8k

Not exactly sure on the prices yet but, pending live testing, the rest should be pretty close. With this one available it'd make sense to re-purpose the Planet for express. That actually did 31 mph in real life. To be exact, it covered the 31 miles between Liverpool and Manchester in one hour flat, including dealing with whatever grades and curves were on the line. Obviously this was done with a light consist, but it did do it. So I'm thinking the Planet would get changed to something like:

Top speed = 31
Free weight = 9
Pulling power = 1.5
Fuel rating = Atrocious
Locomotive weight = 31
Tender = 0
Acceleration = Very Poor
Reliability = Poor
Passenger Appeal = Very Cool (120% revenue)
Purchase cost (probably) = $20k
First year maintenance = $8k

Again, not quite sure on the costs, but my feeling is that the default Planet is too cheap at $10k.

[Gumboots]

Got some more done. This stuff is easy if you stick to dead simple locomotives.
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[Gumboots]

Got some more done. Going for a darker look, since after checking more references it seems LMR used a fairly dark green boiler lagging on freight locomotives, and didn't use polished brass boiler banding on them either. At a guess, it was probably iron.

Express locomotives seem to have been done with varnished timber for the boiler lagging (most likely teak) or painted with a cadmium yellow. And extra polished brass, of course.

The unusual tender, with pressed metal side panels over the axle hangers, is a style which was used on some tenders of the period. It seems to have been used on either freight or express locos. The UK Science Museum's replica of Planet has this style of tender. Since there are no pictures of Samson's tender available, and since we didn't have this style of tender in the game so far, I figured we should have one.

Mesh is close to finalised now. Skinning not far behind. Should have it running pretty soon.
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[Gumboots]

Mesh is finalised now. Only a bit more rearranging of UV's to do, then the final bits of skinning, then we can play games with it.
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[Gumboots]

Got some detailing done. More to go, but the end is in sight.

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[Gumboots]

A bit of a delay on this. I had guests for a week or so, and have had other things on my plate as well. I'll get back into it over the weekend and get a trial version running. I find that once I can see something live it gives me a better idea of what needs to be done to call it finished. It also gives me more motivation to finish it.

[Gumboots]

Ok, 'tis done. One Jurassic freight choofer. Has lots more grunt than a Planet.
Although top speed unloaded is not as high, this one will keep on chugging up hills when hauling a heavy load.
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Stats should be pretty good for overall balance, but can be tweaked if more playing indicates this is advisable.

Zip is attached. Go for it.
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[bombardiere]

Only one scenario played, but I am instant fan.

It was useful pair to Planet. It was useful only in limited time period and gets obsolete when Baldwin 0-6-0 arrives, but until then, it is unbeatable in its own niche.

I do not use Lirio's stats, but it I think I could boost Planet's speed up to 30 mph, so that these two would be even better match together. Does anyone have idea how much Planet's pulling power should be lowered, if I raise top speed to 30 mph?

Your texture work is splendid. I said this about coach A, but I will say it again. Rivets and other raised materials are great.

This is just my opinion, but the boiler's green is bit too intensive to my eye. Not necessary too dark, but I would say the colour is too saturated to my taste. I also looked the texture file in a paint program. Not a big thing. I would say that other RT3 objects are saturated too. It is just that I have spent so many years with SC4 and that game requires desaturated look so perhaps my eye is stuck with that. I think SC4 did it to simulate distance haze as it is not a full 3D game.

[Gumboots]

Yes the skin balance isn't quite perfect. There are a couple of things I could tweak, but I'll play with it a bit more before deciding.

It's only meant to have a limited lifespan, since locos in that period became obsolete very quickly. My plan is to get the LMR Lion going too, which would take over from Samson in the later 1830's (IIRC Lion was an 1838 build).

I had planned on changing the Planet into more of an early express. Stats for that are:

Top speed = 31
Free weight = 9
Pulling power = 1.5
Fuel rating = 10
Locomotive weight = 31
Tender = 0
Acceleration = 2
First year maintenance cost ($k) = 6
Pax appeal = Ultra Cool

Purchase price should probably be increased a bit too, since $10k Planets are a bit ridiculous IMO. I'd bump it to at least $20k.

[bombardiere]

You had the stats all ready higher in the thread, but I did not see it.

Anyway thanks for the stats. I will try those with Planet. However, because of this I think Alder's speed should increased. It has so low pulling power that I guess that pushing the speed up to 35 mph is enough.

I have a book that say that Planet top speed is 35 mph. The top speed of steam locos is not definitive thing. So I am sceptic about this kind of statement, but sometimes these can be useful starting points.

By the way. I really like how you made last wheel plate slightly larger than others. I think this simulate nicely wheel flange. I don't think Top Pop did this kind of thing.

[Gumboots]

According to Wiki, the Adler could hit 40 mph flat out.

In normal use it drove at a maximum speed of 28 km/h because the locomotive should be preserved. The normal run time was about 14 minutes. Demonstration trial could be done at a maximum speed of 65 km/h.

But there's also scope for having Samson a bit lower in top speed, and with more pulling power and/or free weight so that speed fully loaded stays the same. I think with a bit more tweaking we can get all three nicely balanced, so that all are usable but top speeds aren't insane.

I remember reading somewhere that Planet did a timed run on the LMR that included a 31 mph top speed.

I got the idea for the wheel flanges from one of the PopTop models, but a lot of them don't do it. It's easy to do though, so I figure we should do it.