Atomic Systems

Hi guys,

I've posted in the beginners section as that's how I feel, having just reinstalled MSTS after a long break. Now in the past two years, I have worked closely with real life steam locomotives, got to learn the ins and outs, and coming back to MSTS, I have noticed the AI Fireman is absolutely rubbish. He just can't seem to keep up with the pace.
For example, on the default Settle and Carlisle route....if I open the Regulator fully and have the reverser at 75% with the BATS Black 5 No. 45110 going over Ais Gill summit Southbound with load 7, the PSI drops by 3 per second...and I find myself struggling at 146psi within 30 seconds. Now in real life, even taking in to consideration that we were double heading with No. 45231, we on 45407 only had a drop by 1 or 2psi, and that was fully open, 75% cut off with load 10.

Now this just doesn't happen with the Black 5, this happens with all my steam locomotives in MSTS. Is there any sort of patch to improve the fireman universally at all, or am I going to have to struggle over Ais Gill at 20mph?

Edit: WOuld just like to say, I don't be silly and drive the whole route with the regulator fully open with 75% cut-off, I just did it as a comparison run to the 40th Anniversairy of 1T57 so drive as close to what happenned on the footplate that day as possible.

Jonathon,

After lots of study in the cabs on how the AI fireman works, or doesn't I have come to the conclusion that you need 2 different eng files depending on wether you use AI firing or do it yourself.

There are several adjustments which can be made including a firbox door which never shuts.

The only problem here is that they cannot be driven through a tunnel in operator firing mode without dropping the plugs

The two injectors are both either on or off so I just use a single larger one to get more even usage

The dampers are not shown on the HUD, but still need to be opened manually so I do this in the start up parameter

After all these and a few others the loco now drives more or less like an operator fired loco.

We found the same problem on Balla hub which has two long grades.

On these long grades the AI fireman regularly opens the injectors and looses a lot of steam which is impossible to make up.
Gradually you lose more pressure until it's blow up time.

The simple answer is to increase the boiler output by up to a half to compensate altho it will then be overpowered on the flat.

The line to edit is........

MaxBoilerOutput ( xxxxxlb/h )

Hi

Firstly, you need to open the dampers fully to generate enough heat for max. steam generation. Often they are on a default setting of 15% - this is no good - set them to 100%.

Next, you should only set the cut-off at 75% for starting. You then start to wind it back gradually, say 5% at a time as you work up speed. You cannot run at speed with full cut-off on the models used on MSTS. If you are struggling to get up to speed with a big cut-off, wind it back and see what happens.

You can generate extra steam by opening the firebox doors 100% AND putting the blower on FULL.

Note that I have found that some of the MSTS models never generate enough steam. There must be something awry in the eng. files in these cases.

On the bigger express engines, you ought to be able to run at high speed on most routes with the cut-off no more than 20%. Obviously this will need to be higher going uphill. Some go well on as little as 8 or 10% once speed is reached.

Regards ray2750

There must be something awry in the eng. files in these cases.

I think you are right. I find I have to alter eng files for virtually every steam activity i write. Either the loco has used the scotsman eng file, and over steams so much that the steam pressure never moves at all no matter how hard you work the loco, or it cant make anything like close enough steam to make high speed running even at 15% cutoff. Likewise coal and water consumption is rubbish. I once drove a loco from Liverpool to Euston on Thames mersey, with 10 on and at speeds of 100mph, and only used 15% of my coal and a couple of hundred gallons of water.

I always alter coal burning rates, cylinder effectivity, max boiler output and a few other things besides. Im sure the result still is nothing like the real thing, but at least it looks better with reasonable coal and water consumption and decent steam production, but not excessive. You can still run out of steam if you handle the loco roughly, but careful driving makes it possiblt to steam well

Hi LAD491

You're right about the coal consumption - I've had the same expreience. The steam engines hardly ever seem to use any coal!

Water consumption seems more realistic in most cases, however.

How do you go about making changes and what values do you use?

Regards ray2750

JonathonAG wrote:Hi guys,

I've posted in the beginners section as that's how I feel, having just reinstalled MSTS after a long break. Now in the past two years, I have worked closely with real life steam locomotives, got to learn the ins and outs, and coming back to MSTS, I have noticed the AI Fireman is absolutely rubbish. He just can't seem to keep up with the pace.
For example, on the default Settle and Carlisle route....if I open the Regulator fully and have the reverser at 75% with the BATS Black 5 No. 45110 going over Ais Gill summit Southbound with load 7, the PSI drops by 3 per second...and I find myself struggling at 146psi within 30 seconds. Now in real life, even taking in to consideration that we were double heading with No. 45231, we on 45407 only had a drop by 1 or 2psi, and that was fully open, 75% cut off with load 10.

Now this just doesn't happen with the Black 5, this happens with all my steam locomotives in MSTS. Is there any sort of patch to improve the fireman universally at all, or am I going to have to struggle over Ais Gill at 20mph?

Edit: WOuld just like to say, I don't be silly and drive the whole route with the regulator fully open with 75% cut-off, I just did it as a comparison run to the 40th Anniversairy of 1T57 so drive as close to what happenned on the footplate that day as possible.

Hi

If it was the BATS Black 5 45110, they have a thing about losing steam if the Train Brake(TB) is out of the running position. if you put the TB into the running position (which i do) the loco can be nailed on 225psi most of the time - with the exeption of injectors etc.

Callum

How do you go about making changes and what values do you use?

Sorry I havent replied to this before Ray - I sort of got sidetracked

I use trial and error mostly to get the right effect, driving sections of an activity over and over again, often dozens of times until it looks and behaves how i want. With coal consumption i usually double or triple the basic coal consumption figure. I usually increase the amount of coal per shovel also - i think the default is 1 unit whereas i normally set it to 10 or a value between 10 and 25. MaxBoilerOutput as Ian has said above, I either increase or reduce to get the right rate of steam production im looking for - which may not necessarily be the most realistic one, but i like pressure to fluctate but also have enough to allow high speed running. I usually change Cylinder Effectivity as well, after Rick on the Physics forum told me i could influence water consumption and performance. I usually set that somewhere between 1.2 and 1.7 although much higher values are needed for really realistic water usage - i think he suggested 6 or 7 which i found to make the loco undrivable

So basically I just fiddle with things until it starts to behave as I want. I keep a copy of the originals so if I screw things up, as I often do, i can just delete the changed one and put the old one back and start over