New American Locomotives.

[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!