Details of steam loco steam effects

[emrhd01]

Totally agree with what you say plewsy2105, but hey wouldn't be nice to see an AI loco come to halt alongside you and have the Safety Valves 'lift', that is certainly something I'd like to see in RW.

Also it was something I remember happening a lot in the mid 60's, when the fireman was not as keen to 'manage' the fire as in the 'early' days and had too much fire on when they came to a stop.

But you are right, bad firing to have the valves lifting.

[scefhwil]

Well, thanks for all the comments.

About the saftey valves. In the Player case the valves will lift in time with the safety valve hiss sound that RW already makes. (There are already two hiss sounds, one for each of the two valves going off at the pressure values set in the main engine.bin setup file). Not being a steam loco driver, just a lineside/platform observer, I just though that the best (most effective) way of controlling saftey valve effects for Driven AI was to script it to happen a short while after coming to a halt, with a random chance of it happening. If there is a more realistic way of timing it then I'll be quite happy to change/add it, just describe the events in terms of AI movement though. (AI trains have no actual driver or firemen, nor actual boiler pressures, they just move).

Stuart

[emrhd01]

I just though that the best (most effective) way of controlling saftey valve effects for Driven AI was to script it to happen a short while after coming to a halt, with a random chance of it happening. If there is a more realistic way of timing it then I'll be quite happy to change/add it, just describe the events in terms of AI movement though. (AI trains have no actual driver or firemen, nor actual boiler pressures, they just move).

Hi Stuart,

I'd say the way you have set it up is just right and I for one would be more than happy with it.

[groundhog]

This is awesome! Hopefully we'll get something like this for all locos (incuding stock) at some point.

[mjoliver1]

Great! I'm delighted, but wonder why RSC has left this to the community to sort out? That they didn't include steam effects on the Jubilee while they were clearly available is lamentable. I even managed to cure the smoke issue in Sly's freeware RS Iron Duke and, by cutting and pasting parts of the default Black Five engine.xml file into the Duke's (plus some further editing, thanks to RW_Tools), added cylinder, whistle, cab and rear emitter steam effects; albeit somewhat rudimentary, but it looks much more authentic in RW. If I can do it, I would hope that RSC might fix the Jubilee and improve the steam effects on all default stock in the next patch.
In the meantime, it's good to know you are digging so deeply into this Stuart , and that the results so far appear to be excellent. Thank you for your efforts.

Mike

[markpullinger]

Hi, To be fair to Railworks, Stuart did a heck of a lot of tweeking under the hood of MSTS as well - but in the sound department!

[AndiS]

I can say only one thing.

You are a "Genius".

Me too!

As far as safety valves are concerned, I would not blow them at all for AI. In real life, it shows very bad driving style when they go off. Only in MSTS and KRS/RW you run into this situation more often, because some of the means to reduce pressure are not implemented in the game.

Edit: Don't ask me who ate the "Me too!" initially, it was the main message anyway.

[rhysicus1989]

this is a bit off topic, but ideally in a days running you should lift the valves at least once, usually before leaving the shed to make sure that they are working properly.

also speaking from experience, you can always help but lift the valves, a good example is when firing on the PBR, I throw 3 shovels in both corners and 3 under the firebox door around 5-8 minutes before leaving FS, and by the time you start chuffing, the fire is burning nicely and making steam. several times there has been some reason to stop the train as its leaving, or the engine cant grip the rails or something, so even with the dampers shut, fire doors open theres nothing you can do to stop the valves lifting except knock a hole in your fire which completly wastes the coal youve put on it! lol

anywho thats off topic but thought somebody might be interested.

look forward to seeing some new steam effects in RW! They are long overdue!

[scefhwil]

As far as safety valves are concerned, I would not blow them at all for AI. In real life, it shows very bad driving style when they go off.

As I said before, I'm no driver, just an observer, of UK preserved mainline steam and hertiage lines, plus archive videos, and seeing an open safety valve in my experience certainly isn't rare. You only have to look at the video in the first post of this thread to see an open saftey valve, it's not uncommon, at least here in the UK.

One aspect of my scripts I've not mentioned is that they need some global values setting on a per loco basis, ie the three saftey valve on/off pressures, as reading the values set in the engine.bin file doesn't seem possible, and the SafetyValve1 and SafetyValve2 variables used by the sound system don't seem to be exposed to lua script system. Would be quite easy therefore to add a degree of randomness constant that can be set to effect the likelihood of AI valves blowing. Then you can all be catered for!

Stuart

[QLDriver]

Great work on the effects - I must admit I'm a bit... frustrated by the injectors in RW. I've got a fair bit of experience with real world injectors, and it seems like in RW we're missing quite a few of the cues that you'd use in the real world.

To use an injector I would:
1. Open the water valve, and assuming it's a non-lifting injector, expect to see water drain out of the drain.
2. Turn on the steam until you hear the injector start to pick up - you could turn it on all the way, but you get a feel for how far to turn it on with experience with the injector. At this point, water will probably still be coming out of the drain, and the injector clack might be banging up and down.
3. Adjust the water valve until the injector starts "whistling" - it's a distinctive sound! At this point, there should be nothing coming out of the drain, as the mixture of steam and water is correct, and the injector is working efficiently. If you turn the water down too low, the steam will blow out of the injector drain, and turning the water back up won't fix the problem - you have to shut off the steam and start again.
4. When the water level is high enough, turn the steam off, then the water off - a trickle of water will come out of the drain at this point, before stopping.

I haven't found a good explanation of how the injectors work in RailWorks - if it's simply a matter of turning on the water and the steam, that's fine, but from looking at some of the blueprints for steam locos it appears that the water/steam mixture is simulated, so how are you to adjust it without the cues?

[scefhwil]

QLDriver, that's a really helpful explaination of the visual and audible effects associated with the actual procedure. I can think of some improvements I can make in the effects department now. I've not mentioned it, but I am also having to tweak sounds as well. When you suggest the need for cues do you mean the sound/visuals that you have already described or do you mean something else?

Stuart

[emrhd01]

one thing i will say is that all steam crews try to prevent the safety valves from lifting when they come to a halt because when the safety valves are lifting you are wasting water coal and the firemans hard work there for all crews try to stop them from lifting when on a run the safety valves are one thing i belive that if made to work correctly would make a big difference to railworks. on one engine i work on the first safety valve lifts at 165psi and the second one at 170psi.

plewsy2105

Totally agree with what you say plewsy2105, but hey wouldn't be nice to see an AI loco come to halt alongside you and have the Safety Valves 'lift', that is certainly something I'd like to see in RW.

Also it was something I remember happening a lot in the mid 60's, when the fireman was not as keen to 'manage' the fire as in the 'early' days and had too much fire on when they came to a stop.

But you are right, bad firing to have the valves lifting.

I can say only one thing.

You are a "Genius".

As far as safety valves are concerned, I would not blow them at all for AI. In real life, it shows very bad driving style when they go off. Only in MSTS and KRS/RW you run into this situation more often, because some of the means to reduce pressure are not implemented in the game.

I have to agree Andi you are quite right, just as plewsy2105 commented earlier (see above), but I still stand by my comment that the AI would look great in the Sim if the safety valves did 'lift' (randomly) as they came to a stand (as stated above), even if actually unauthentic.

Stuart, I have just realised who you actually are and thanks for the Sound packages that you generously shared with the MSTS Community.

If your RW contributions are equal to that of MSTS, we are all in for a massive treat.

[Rfairlie]

I haven't found a good explanation of how the injectors work in RailWorks - if it's simply a matter of turning on the water and the steam, that's fine, but from looking at some of the blueprints for steam locos it appears that the water/steam mixture is simulated, so how are you to adjust it without the cues?

Noticed that you can trim the injectors to put more or less water in the boiler just like real life also if you trim the water back too far the injector stops working. So it is simulated somewhere even if it's not in the effects.

As for blowing off i know from my experince on the Festiniog this is very much frowned upon espeically with a small boiler as you will lose a lot of water. On the FR you run the loco with the pressure right on the redline feeding water continously and not blowing off.

Tim

[QLDriver]

QLDriver, that's a really helpful explaination of the visual and audible effects associated with the actual procedure. I can think of some improvements I can make in the effects department now. I've not mentioned it, but I am also having to tweak sounds as well. When you suggest the need for cues do you mean the sound/visuals that you have already described or do you mean something else?

Stuart

Stuart - sounds good (no pun intended!).

Hmmm, the sounds to use are a bit tricky to describe. If water is absolutely pouring out of the overflow, then I think you'd probably just hear the water hitting the ground, like a hose. If you've got it so it's starting to pick up, but still water is coming out, you'd hear the water hitting the ground plus a nasty sort of grating sound (the best way I can explain it is almost like when you have air in the pipes in your house). When the injector is picking up properly, you'd expect a sort of whistling-humming sound. That's a really difficult sound to explain and I can't think of how to describe it adequately. Perhaps someone else can?

The sound if the steam is blowing through without water is just like a smaller version of the safety valve.

[Neptune50006]

This all sounds very good, but will it all be for nothing if it's all reset back to default at the next update?