An 1800s USA Steam Pack

[LV628]

Soo, I've been playing this game since it came out (like most of us). But i've finally grown tired of relying on the early 4-4-0, then waiting out till the 60s for the Connie so i can hit the grades, mogul replaces the American, and besides the fairlie and the shay, those are the only real useful things to come out of the 1800s. Sure theres a camelback (which is fairly useless to be honest). The High Tired 4-4-0 isn't bad, but the ten wheeler for the late 1800s i might as well not even use. Now this is all my personal opinion on the use of them. But I'm gonna to take on a project to solve my wants, and in the end, we'll all gain some new 1800s steam (mainly around the 50s, 60s and 70s) that will bridge the game between American and Connie more smoothly.

I'm going to work on a 4-6-0 that would fit nicely around the late 1850s and early 60s based off the 1855 American.

I also want to add an older looking mogul for the 1864 version (looks close to the 55 american again).

Some other surprises I am definately adding that will just show up as a random screenshot in this thread ;)

In all there will be several new locomotives to run and use for different problems (grades/heavy haul, flat running-fast/or not).

Shout out to gumboots and his scripting friend for the blender script! Without that, I wouldn't be doing this.

If anyone here has pictures (internet or otherwise) of old US steam that fits the era that they'd like to be able to see in game, post em.

See You around;
Nate Haydt

(you may also know me as Trainsimer101 for many many moons ago)

[Gumboots]

ROR and I have been (slowly) working on revamping loco stats to make them more useful. I fact I have to re-do the stats on a few of my double-headers. We have spreadsheets now that will predict speeds and running costs for any distance or consist or grade. If you want to use those to cut testing time, check out the threads around here.

And I'm glad someone is showing an interest in using the Blender export script. The more the merrier, IMO.

Oh and just FYI, I did some testing and found that loco/tender units with 2,000 tris (all components included) were a bit heavy on the graphics card when running a lot of them, but AFAICT 1,500 is pretty much fine and will only cost a couple of fps even when running over 200 locos. So I'm generally trying to hold them to 1,500 tris or less. That allows for some pretty good detail anyway.

Don't expect RT3 to provide the sort of detail and quality you'd get from a full-on train sim. It's an old RTS, and assets have to be kept fairly basic.

[LV628]

I will have to find those spreadsheets! xD

That script is saving my butt right now because there is nothing else useful AT ALL to import export models for vertex editing. However I am a total noob to blender, so i cheated cause I have 3DS Max so i used the script to export to blender to export to object to import to max.....it works lololol, so I'm editing the meshes right now in 3DS Max, which I also know the mapping interface too. Then I'll reverse the process.

1,500 tris (thats Polys right in 3DS terms?) I assume tris means a triangular surface. In which case that is VERY handy to know...cause I've been known to go overboard on MSTS models (30k Polys for a truck and wheels)....so I'll keep that limit in mind.

Thank You :)

Also, sending you a PM.

[Gumboots]

If you already have a good workflow going in 3DS then not bothering with Blender makes total sense. The export script is only a tool to make modelling easier, so use it however is easiest for you. I had no experience with 3DS or Blender, and Blender is free, so learning a bit of Blender made sense for me. It's not hard to pick up, so should be a good option for any other beginners too.

And yeah, tris is polys. Polygon really means "many sides". A triangle is a the least poly you can get while still enclosing any area at all, so it beats me how they got to be called polys. Anyway the mesh is triangulated for use in-game, but you can call them what you like.

[Gumboots]

I will have to find those spreadsheets! xD

I've been finding them for you. I should make a handy compilation for the so anyone can grab them all in one place.

Anyway, these are the spreadsheets:

Speed_&_Grades_Final_v1 spreadsheet

RoR's lifetime running cost spreadsheet

RoR's spreadsheet guide to acceleration ratings

And check out these posts for a good intro to RT3 loco balancing*:

Effect of locomotive weight on running cost

Note on simplified game mechanics

More on simplified game mechanics

Two posts about game bugs (.cgo file weight and stats pop-up)

Mogul/Connie stats balancing

For setting loco stats I find the best progression goes like this:

1/ Always set tender weight to zero. It's just weight like any other, and having it all in the loco's .car file means one less thing to keep track of. Makes no difference in game, but is easier on the brain.

2/ Decide on what running cost you want, with what consist. This will determine locomotive weight, because running cost is simply [(loco weight)+(tender weight)+(consist weight)]x(fuel economy rating)x(distance travelled). So once you decide on consist and running cost, fuel rating and loco weight are easy to nail down.

3/ Deciding on loco weight first makes things a lot easier, because loco weight affects speed up grades. Not only that, but it does it the opposite way to real life. In real life you need a heavy loco to haul up grades, but RT3 coding means a loco that weighs nothing will haul freight up grades like a rocket.

Anyway, nail down loco weight first, then you can tweak pulling power and free weight without chasing your tail due to the effect of weight.



*Note that most default and third party locos have pretty badly balanced stats at the moment.

[LV628]

Yea, turns out the American's "Body" is already at like 630ish, which surprised me for a poly count. Having some fun trying to get back into 3DS.

Also, it appears you have a blank post there?

[Gumboots]

There's a server glitch at the moment which appears to be borking the url's. I'm getting error messages onscreen.

I can get the content by the edit screen. Here's a .txt with the post content.

Edit: Crap. It's borking the attachment links too. Just wait for a bit and see if the host fixes things. If not, I'll sort something out for you.

[Gumboots]

Server seems fine now, so the post content is visible again. Check out the links at your leisure. Anything else you want to know, just ask. We've figured out most of the relevant stuff (although some bits are still a total mystery).

[LV628]

Awesome bank of information. Very useful, thank you!

The reverse logic of RT3s adhesion is gonna throw me off for a while, but I'll figure it out >.<

[Gumboots]

Tell me about it. I was like when I first deciphered that part of the coding.

The best way to think of it is it's just bytes. It's never seen during gameplay. It's not really weight. It's just another of the limited options we have for adjusting locomotive performance. Use it on that basis and set it to whatever value gives a well-balanced unit. If that means a Big Boy weighs a nominal 10 tons, or whatever units the .car file uses, then so be it.

---

Oh and while I think of it: I've been doing all my modelling to a consistent scale of 1 unit = 10 inches. This seems to be the basis the original team used, as far as I can tell from analysing track graphics and loco/tender/consist models. The scale of default models isn't always consistent, but I figure if we do all custom stuff to that scale it will makes things a lot easier. It fits well in the game, and the straight 1>10 conversion is easy on the brain.

[LV628]

1:10 that is pretty simple, as a mechanical engineering student, I appreciate simple scales

[Gumboots]

Yeah. I was using a basic scale of 20 pixels per unit (ie: 2 pixels per inch) for the H3 UV mapping too. That fit well with the available space on the 1024 DDS, and was easy on my brain when it came to sizing and positioning stuff. Some bits were done at different scale, but most were a straight 20:1.