Career Scenarios

[jimmyshand]

I recently completed my first career scenario and drove what I would class as realistically, I kept to speed limits, timed my braking well, made all stops more or less on time but at the end I was ranked 3rd from bottom in the world!! I made sure I accelerated within ammeter limits but this it seems is where the loophole in the career system lies, unrealistic acceleration. Railworks does allow you to go from 0 to 100% power instantly and without consequence, this I conclude is the only way that geeks around the world are chalking up such high scores!!

This somewhat defeats the object of a 'career' scenario. I can't imagine a drivers career would last too long in real life if he spent all day breaking locomotives by overworking the engine and applying 100% power from a standing start!

I wonder if there is any way that penalty points on the score can also be linked to the ammeter? (much the same as overspeeding docks you points) this would prevent people 'cheating' to get maximum points and make the whole thing much more realistic.

I am sure that in real life there are trips and breakers that cut in to protect the engine and generator etc if a driver was to apply 100% power too soon? Or am I wrong, is it actually possible and realistic to apply 100% power very quickly from a standing start in your average loco?

I notice that on many locos the ammeter is colour-zoned. This implies to me that you should keep the load within the green zone, is this correct? what would happen in real-life if you were to thrash an engine beyond the green/yellow? What would be considered a maximum load you could apply before doing damage or engaging a trip/breaker?

[jimmyshand]

In fact I've just seemed to recall a distant memory from way back where there was a scenario involving you climbing a very steep hill at the start in a class 37. It was on the York-Newcastle I think? anyway I seem to remember that unless you built up enough speed before the hill you would not make it to the top because of wheel-slip and power cutouts?

Does RW actually simulate power tripping out if the amps get too high? I'm sure that if the train is extremely heavy then there is some simulation of power/wheel-slip but I'm not completely sure because most normal scenarios featuring say a loco and an average rake of coaches will allow you to apply 100% power without any problem, which doesn't seem right.

[phat2003uk]

I've yet to see any loco in RailWorks support engine cut-out if the amps get too high.

[bigvern]

I have never had an overload trip (as I think it's known) on any traction unit in RS/RW.

Play the old text based games like Simudrive or even titles such as Train Driver 3 or some of the electrics in Zusi 2 and you will trip the power and need to reset the circuit breaker. In TD3 if you did it too often, the loco would lose reliability and eventually fail. The conclusion has to be that RW physics still border on the "arcade" side of things.

As regards career mode, agree with Jimmy - huge flop. Not implemented correctly in the first place, all your runs should also go to a standalone career record not just a Steam "Whose is bigger?" contest. Of course with the Christmas announcement of the standalone "experience" packs involving career mode we can see where this is heading for, the train game market with physics and driving technique to go with it, not the serious enthusiast.

[jp4712]

That scenario was one of mine 'hopper test'. It was challenging from a wheelslip point of view but sadly, not from a traction current perspective. I agree Jim, my main bugbear with AI is the 1 - 100% throttle acceleration that would try the motors in real life.

I don't agree that career scenarios are a huge flop, I enjoy them even if my scores aren't the highest. If they attract new customers who buy stuff that keeps the franchise developing, that suits me just fine.

Paul

[Merlin75]

Would you want to travel on a real train being driven in the style you have to drive in thease scenarios ? I know I would not and I can't see the mangers of many TOCs being too thrilled with the number of complaints they would get from passengers being thrown about and the engines being wrecked due to being thrashed. I think it was a intresting idea RS.com had but it just has just become a racing game on rails. And your not the only one that drives that way Jimmy I do aswell hence I end up near the bottom of the rankings.

[holzroller]

There is more than one answer to this, on modern diesels with alternators like the HST, which has an alternator, or the 158 which in theory has anti-slip you can open up fully straight away, rail conditions allowing. Older diesels like the 37, 47 etc with dc generators you have to open up gradually or they will overload. Driving technique varies over the years, in my day we quite often accellerated at full throttle when conditions allowed, especially when running late, or trying to get a path on the single line. There was a time in the 90's, when breifly, timings up here were tighter than they had ever been, and you had to run hard consistently to keep time, now it is much more about economy, so really driving technique should vary according to era. But I think it is unlikely this will ever be truly implemented. As mentioned in another posting when I was first trained in 158's we were taught full throttle, and allow the anti slip to take care of the rest, step 3 brake and allow the anti slip to deal with any problems. The only difference between step3 and emergency braking was that anti slip cut out in emergency. This was ok in the summer, but suicidal in winter. Try driving like that in a career scenario and I'm sure that you would fail big time. An interesting fact also is that a 47 can start a heavier load than it can actually pull, as with too heavy a load the generator will burn out . Seem to remember a driver at Reading telling me that you could open up the 50's straight from the on postion as well, but no personal experience of them.

[paulz6]

To get a score of 1352 on "Oxford Bound", I had to do a number of bad things.
Releasing the majority of air out of the air brakes pipes while the passengers were still loading to ensure I could get a fast getaway. I suppose you go further by releasing them completely and pre-empting the doors closing.
Thrashing away at 100% throttle from stand still. The FGW166 seems to have horrendously slow rpm changes these days though.
Reading the distance to stop, counting a few seconds before slamming on the brakes while not clipping the emergency setting.
Running at approach signals with no ability to stop as I knew they would clear for me.
For a while I was top of the leaderboard, although I knew it was beatable. But what do you have to do to get a score of 1803 ? Somebody must have found a significant loophole to top the chart by a clear 397 points.
Gimmick enjoyed. Don't want to wear the T-shirt anymore.

[msmith4000]

I'm sure RS have said that the career system is work in progress so maybe they will improve it, however if they do that then surely that would invalidate all the results that have been recorded so far?

I agree with BigVern, a " standalone career record" for all scenario's would have been much more useful so you could go online and check your CV so to speak.

Surely it cant be too hard for developers to program a loco to trip out and turn its engine off? But then none actually do this so may be it is not possible . . .

[FoggyMorning]

To get a score of 1352 on "Oxford Bound", I had to do a number of bad things.
Releasing the majority of air out of the air brakes pipes while the passengers were still loading to ensure I could get a fast getaway. I suppose you go further by releasing them completely and pre-empting the doors closing.
Thrashing away at 100% throttle from stand still. The FGW166 seems to have horrendously slow rpm changes these days though.
Reading the distance to stop, counting a few seconds before slamming on the brakes while not clipping the emergency setting.
Running at approach signals with no ability to stop as I knew they would clear for me.
For a while I was top of the leaderboard, although I knew it was beatable. But what do you have to do to get a score of 1803 ? Somebody must have found a significant loophole to top the chart by a clear 397 points.
Gimmick enjoyed. Don't want to wear the T-shirt anymore.

This is interesting.
Assuming a station stop is on the level (ie not on a significant gradient) I completely release the brakes as soon as I come to a halt, career scenario or no. Likewise, when accelerating I open up the throttle based on the speed limit. For instance, leaving Didcot on the fast lines I immediately open up to 100%, leaving Paddington with its 10mph limit I'm more circumspect.
If anything I think the career scenarios encourage more realistic braking, since if you are too heavy on the brakes you are penalised for sending the G-force meter out of it's safety limits or applying the emergency settings, so you have to brake earlier and more gradually than would normally be the case.

I guess it goes to show that we all enjoy the game in different ways and have different driving styles. Who can say which is right and which is wrong?

[transadelaide]

The freeware Class 86 does have a safety system cutting power if the power goes into the red for more than a couple of seconds. There exist fully self-contained downloads liveries for a variety of liveries and reskins for a few more. Hopefully the upcoming RS.com Class 86 will feature at the least all of the functionality of the freeware one combined with superior modelling.

Give one of them a go, others can be found by clicking on "more from this uploader" or "more of this class" - some are selected as RS files in the library while others are as RW files. These are tougher locos to drive than the average ones in RW (there are "simple" versions using default controls), but once you've figured it out and made a few mistakes it is fun!

Class 86/2 InterCity [4165490 bytes] - class86_2c_v1z.zip File ID: 22612 Date: 22 Nov 2009 - 4086 Downloads

Freightliner Class 86's [3267521 bytes] - Fliner 86s.rar File ID: 24165 Date: 07 Jun 2010 - 1510 Downloads

[paulz6]

The freeware Class 86 does have a safety system cutting power if the power goes into the red for more than a couple of seconds. There exist fully self-contained downloads liveries for a variety of liveries and reskins for a few more. Hopefully the upcoming RS.com Class 86 will feature at the least all of the functionality of the freeware one combined with superior modelling.

I love David Brindley's creations. The drivers vigilance device is something I would like to see in all commercial locos (where fitted). Freeware often does it better!