New American Locomotives.

[nedfumpkin]

I am trying to get as many as possible, however, it does take time to make these, but I am open to suggestions and will try to accomodate the needs of the game. I like the idea of putting in more Russian (including East European) and Chinese locomotives. South African?, Australian? Why not.

Since it is pretty likely that the Orca, and most likely Zephyr will be tossed, then still means there are about 15 slots I'd be okay with filling. I want to leave some slots open for future consideration. So I am open to suggestions...and by that I mean also suggest the best model for converting to the new locomotive since that would save me time from going through a bunch of them.

[Stoker]

Doing away with the fantasy "Orca" I understand, but why trash the Zephyr? It is a real locomotive with plenty of history.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Zephyr

[Moggie]

Complete with a mascot

[KenRuof]

Complete with a mascot

And a donkey at that

[thietavu]

Doing away with the fantasy "Orca" I understand, but why trash the Zephyr? It is a real locomotive with plenty of history.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Zephyr

You have a point there. I think it's rather a question of whether RRT3's (limited although pretty large) engine list needs these kinds of one-off specialties with limited general use, or whether we should concentrate on more generic classes. For example, now we're (still) missing 2-6-2s and Garratts + many popular international engine classes. But you're right; the Zephyr has its real place in history, so I suppose it should live. :)

[nedfumpkin]

But you're right; the Zephyr has its real place in history, so I suppose it should live. :)

If only for the sake of the donkey. :)

[thietavu]

Since I'm now (again) testing my Northern Europe 1862-2020 map, the "pain" of not finding decent freight engines before ca. 1903 or so, is, well... painful. To me it seems like RRT3 makes many types available "too late" - am I wrong in this? Here's some data I found from the Wikipedia:

Year of being in commercial use in the USA:

2-6-0: 1860
2-6-2: 1900
0-8-0: 1844
2-8-0: 1866
2-8-2: 1884
4-8-0: 1882
0-10-0: 1868
2-10-0: 1867

You see the reason for my pain? ;) Right now, the only even remotely usable freight engine in RRT3 before 1903 or so is the 2-8-0 Consolidation. And yet, there could be at least these 8 types available far before that, if we aim for realism - am I right?

I'd suggest that we would have two versions of the "main classes" in the game. The first would be available as early as possible in the game -and the second "evolution version" later representing the class at its prime: more powerful, bigger, etc etc. This would be of enormous help, for example, in scenarios like my own Northern Europe and China Ultimate which cover many countries and the years from 1850..60 to 2020. It would also give us a clear upgrade path.

What do you guys think? I'm planning on making more of those "huge, long-time" maps available in the future: Africa, South America, Russia, ... Having all the basic classes available as early as possible would really make those scenarios more playable and interesting.

[nedfumpkin]

I'll work on it and see what I can do. I'm still working on the list from above.

[thietavu]

I'll work on it and see what I can do. I'm still working on the list from above.

Thanks! :) You have plenty of things to do, so it's unfair for us to ask for anything more!

[nedfumpkin]

Not a big deal. Althought it does take a fair amount of time.

[KenRuof]

Ned,

Are the cowboy engines available for 1.0.6 yet?

[nedfumpkin]

Not so far. I'm still debating on how to make them available for previous versions and I am doing the TM stuff first. Let me think some more.

[KenRuof]

Thanks Ned

[KenRuof]

One thought, since we are limited in the number of engines why not have multiple engine packs? I know it would be more on the player to switch them out between scenerios and the designer would have to say which one the scenario uses but would give greater variety. Say a US pack, a UK pack a EU pack, RU pack etc...

I have played other old games with user community modifications that do this to extend its playability.

Just a thought...

Ken

[nedfumpkin]

Sory folks...I haven't be able to get much done the last week due to 'life crap' and that my back is giving me problems ...so things are taking time.

Unfortunately, the difficulty in have loco packs that remove locos entirely and must be replaced would be too cumbersome that too many people would have problems and give up. We're doing okay so far with the number of locos so it's not much of a worry right now.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Those all look like great updates! I'm especially excited for the new 2-8-0 for industrial use in the '40s!

[Gumboots]

As an European I miss tank engines for minor duties. Swichers with tender are very rare in Europe. Once I had an idea of halfing the Mexican Fairley, another to my opinion useless engine, into a 0-6-0 tank engine, but Bombardiere told me that it was beyond his skills to do so, pity! it could have become a useful little engine

I was just browsing around for tips and stuff about locomotives when I saw this. I'd never bothered looking at the Fairlie model, since it's not the most exciting engine in the game, but just on a whim I opened it up and took a look at it. It turns out to be an exceptionally cleanly coded and simple model. All the components are logically laid out in the hex, with no points jumbled up. All the points for each component are in the same block of code. Nice and handy. I got the lot bookmarked in hardly any time at all.

There are a couple of other interesting things about it. It's basically built like a tiny Garratt, or another way of looking at it is a double-ended Mallet. The running boards, boilers, tanks, cab, etc form the body of the model. All the wheels and cylinders, etc are on the front and rear trucks. You can see this working if you run it through some tight S bends. The trucks do a pretty good job of following the track.

Another thing is that the wheels have three layers instead of the usual two. I've never seen that in any other locomotive model. The textures used in the DDS are very nice too. The backhead detail in particular is one of the nicest in the game. Someone really put quite a bit of care and attention into this model. The performance may be unexciting, and the mesh geometry a bit crude, but in some ways it's a little gem. Modifying this model would be far easier than many of the others.

Anyway, yes you could turn this into a tank engine if you wanted to. It's quite possible. However, it would be a reasonable amount of work to get it all done. If you want to do it, let me know, but having thought about it I think it would actually be easier to just add pannier tanks to an existing tender loco and lose the tender. That would be a comparatively simple job.

[openheaders]

Is Ned Still working on these Locos? I have to admit seeing different variants of locomotives would be cool, I mean after all the 2-8-0 was one of the most popular freight runners at one point, and still were used by shortlines up until the 50s. It would be cool to see some updated ones without the funnel on the top lol.

[nedfumpkin]

The 2-8-0 remains a work in progress, you can d/l the cowboy engines to get a look. The problem right now is that the funnel is gone, but remnants still show up, and the night glow is in the wrong place. The other thing is that the American and Standard 4-4-0 have their skins switched accidently. The earlier Standard 4-4-0 is supposed to be black and the later American green.

I tried to seduce gummie into fixing them, but to no avail so I am going to make an attempt in the near future to get the models and skins right, then they will be available for general d/l.. For now you just have to grab the works in progress. download/file.php?id=1963

[Gumboots]

Gummie doesn't want everyone to be calling Gummie whenever they want something fixed on their favourite toys. Gummie is smarter and lazier than that. Gummie wants to encourage them to do it themselves, especially when they have more RT3 modding experience than Gummie.