Alternative Wagon Load

[philspace]

Morning all,

Can I ask if there is a simple way to change the load in the default Mineral Wagon, for example, from coal to stone ballast?

Best wishes

Phil

[bigphill2]

Hi Phil
Have you tried a 3D shovel
Phill

[Kariban]

For some reason the default 16t wagon uses the contents of the Black5 tender for a load, so you'd have to edit the geo file to aim it at a new load texture. That is all it takes, though.

Well you could fire your Black5s with ballast if you like

[bdy26]

Might be worth looking at Geoff's wagons and folder structure to see how it's done as they use a variety of loads.

B

[briyeo1950]

Some of the default stock seems wierd as regards where it sources its textures. Everything seems to have something from another asset even if it has its own similar texture in the folder, just take a look where the various wagons get there wheel textures from.
Clone the mineral wagon and set it to use its own load texture.

[Acorncomputer]

Hi

Yes, all of my wagons are self contained and have the load textures included in the main wagon texture for each wagons. For bulk loads like coal and ballast it would be relatively easy to change the load on a re-skinned model by changing the load texture. Fixed loads are a bit more tricky as you need a model of the load to refer to.

For the default wagons that refer to textures elsewhere it seems that you would have to create a new texture of your own and change your re-skinned model blueprint to refer to that.

[philspace]

Hi

For the default wagons that refer to textures elsewhere it seems that you would have to create a new texture of your own and change your re-skinned model blueprint to refer to that.

So, quite simple then,really

Thanks for all the replies, chaps - I think it will be easier to convert my quarry into a coalmine!

Best wishes

Phil

[briyeo1950]

For some reason the default 16t wagon uses the contents of the Black5 tender for a load, so you'd have to edit the geo file to aim it at a new load texture. That is all it takes, though.

Well you could fire your Black5s with ballast if you like

Logs would be nice, make the Black 5 a wood burner

[Acorncomputer]

Hi Phil

The problem with RailWorks is that you can do almost anything you want with it, but most of this has to be done behind the scenes and requires some knowledge of what you are doing. Apart from the popular tools and features aimed at the average user that come with RailWorks, there is no program that the average user can use to make changes to the program, such as changing the loads in wagons. RW Tools does come very close to this but you really do need some working knowledge of how the program works and some knowledge about file structures in Windows.

RS.com do their best to cater for the masses and it seems unlikely now that there will be core changes to significantly assist route builders and other content creators but having said that, they use the same tools as us and the blueprint system works pretty well so I can understand the reluctance to transfer resources to a part of the program that relatively few people use.

The bottom line is that if you want to spend the time to delve deeper into the workings of RailWorks then you can do this and achieve great results. I have just worked out how to get doors on my Lavender Line loco shed to open and close at will during a game. This does not sound like much of an achievement but there is quite a lot involved in doing this and I have now added more to my knowledge about the game which will come in useful later.

You can, of course, just sit back and enjoy the game as it comes, there is no need to make any changes to do this and you can have just as much enjoyment as those that get satisfaction from creating content and getting dirty under the bonnet.

[mikesimpson]

In those cases where the load is a separate model, e.g. Containers, logs, cattle or goats it is much easier as all the loads are in the Interactive folder and are linked from the <CargoBlueprintID> section of the wagon's .bin file,
e.g. <BlueprintID d:type="cDeltaString">RailNetwork\Interactive\livestock_goats.xml</BlueprintID>

So you can change goats for cattle etc from within the .bin file rather than having to edit a .geopcdx file which might/might not be capable of change at all.

Mike