Atomic Systems

RichDawson wrote:
I know what you mean Tim but I've managed to reproduce the sound and record it...only problem is the file is 4GB in size! I'm going to try to convert it to a more bite size format (currently .avi) or record it using my phone.

Chris suggested abovce to use a program called Miro to compress the files into smaller format.

I didn't have any time since yesterday morning to try and reproduce the problem again.

Cheers,

--Tim

tnleeuw01 wrote:Chris suggested abovce to use a program called Miro to compress the files into smaller format.

I didn't have any time since yesterday morning to try and reproduce the problem again.

Cheers,

--Tim

Cheers Tim, I downloaded Miro and converted it that way. The sound issue is just how you described earlier. What I found is that it only occurs below a regulator setting of 40% (F5) at about 35 MPH or so....above 40% the sound clears completely.

Hi Richard,

Like I said, I first noticed the issue when I was going around 70MPH.
After that, it occurred at any speed and even at standstill, until I quit the scenario.

Of course it might well be that it was first triggered around 35MPH but that I just didn't notice it yet because I opened the regulator before I could notice it, then first actually noticed it when shutting the regulator whole reaching 70.

Hard to say, really!

When this issue is triggered for you, does speed still matter? Or once triggered, it starts to happen at any speed?

I will see if I can also still find a way to actually reproduce the problem. Is there anything in particular which you are aware of doing which starts the pneumatic drill? Is reverser setting anyhow relevant?


--Tim

Thank you to Rich for confirming that we were talking about the same bug, which is hopefully the same bug that Tim has experienced!

The problem was due to my logic when I scripted the ActivFireman. I programmed it to reduce the steam valves if the injector is blowing back and to increase the steam valves if the injector isn't picking up. This seemed perfectly sound at the time of writing it, except I hadn't taken into account that it takes 0.4 seconds for the injector to actually start injecting water once you have reached the sweet spot, so the ActivFireman would reduce the steam valve because of blowback, and then when the blowback stopped, it would see that the injector hasn't picked up and instead of waiting a moment it would increase the steam valve until it blew back again, teetering on the threshold between maximum sweet-spot and blow back.

Further to this, small core regulator % causes the loco to generate a lot more steam that it uses, even at speed, so the boiler pressure (which drives the power of the injector steam valves) would be high to the point of causing the safety valves to pop, exasperating the problem and effectively trapping the ActivFireman into an eternal state of chaos between blow back and no blow back. Shutting the regulator would eventually stabilize the AI, whilst opening the reg wide open would mean the exhaust injector switches over to use exhaust steam from the cylinders, hence stopping the horrendous noise.

I have rewritten this part of the ActivFireman code and it will now need to be thoroughly tested to make sure that the ActivFireman is operating the injectors correctly and will no longer get trapped. I don't know when the next update will be ready because this will need the testers and myself to spend quite some time with it and make sure it's ok, but my own initial checks of the new logic were promising, with no more pneumatic drills to be heard.

Thanks for your assistance and patience,
Chris

I haven't been able to reproduce it still, but it sounds like the fireman needs to decide to start adding water to the boiler just as you are lowering the regulator? Or?

I sure hope it's the same issue as I have observed, just peeved a bit that I haven't been able to find a way to reproduce it anymore. Which is good of course! Since it means that it really is relatively rare.

Anyway, a couple more observations, rather late so no big deal, but here comes:

1. The Vans scenario on the S&D has no AI at all it seems! Rather boooooring!!
2. The weathered green version has a door covering the barding lamp, yet the lamp shines right through! The clean green version has a hole where the other version has a door.
(Didn't yet look at the black versions)

3. When searching for a scenario by typing 'JT' or '5MT' in the search box of TS2016, only 2 of all scenarios can be found. Likewise, searching for "Exeter" in the search box doesn't find the scenario for the 5MT on the Bristol to Exeter route.
This is probably very much a TS2016 thing and I'm not sure how much this can be helped?

For the Brit, I'll start playing around with it much sooner after it's released so I can find such issues not after the 2nd patch has already been released!!


Cheers,

--Tim

Any idea when the next update pack will be released to fix a good bit of the issues? No rush, of course, but I've simply abstained from using the 5MT until the problem with the lubricator I mentioned before (the cranking noise continues when prepping the engine in the "Warm" state even after letting up on the keys) can be seen to, for a lot of my scenarios I've made use the "Warm" engine to simulate a full day's work for the engine crew, which includes getting it ready to go in the morning and disposing of it (cleaning the fire and ashpan out and so on) after a shift.

I'm sure all the bugs will get worked out eventually, looking forward to the Brit when it comes out all the same.

Cheers,
Brendan O.

Hi EngineerBJ,

I'm afraid that if you have an issue with this engine that is not yet covered by the "pneumatic drill hammer noise" discussed above, you need to urgently file a support request detailing exactly what the problem is and how to reproduce it, or otherwise you might be too late!

Otherwise that "pneumatic drill" issue might well be the very last fix released for this engine. JT were hoping that the previous fixpack, just before Christmas, would be the last one already.

Like you I had put the engine aside initially waiting for fixes to come out and then enjoy it in it's best state. However next time I will not do that anymore - because otherwise, there's a chance that you'll run into issues that are game-breaking for you, but not encountered by others, and too late in the product cycle to make yet another fix...

Best,

--Tim

PS: I'm still thankful to you for the 6MT Clan driving guide which you published!

Well, to be honest, I couldn't find much fault with the service pack that came before this current one, everything worked and I was happy with the engine (indeed, I wish it was archived so I could go back to that one, silly fool that I am I went and deleted it when I downloaded the latest pack). I think the 5MT was just released a little too early and this latest batch of advanced features is complicating an already mind-boggling complex simulation, essentially a patch on patch on a patch, which partly explains this latest crop of bugs. It's so complex that even with a thorough test cycle you're not going to be able to run it through all the eventualities that we as the end users put the simulation through, hence why we keep finding things that are a bit wonky. At least the lads at JustTrains are working with us to help put it right, so good on 'em.

You're welcome for the 6MT Guide, by the by, I'm still frankly surprised it's been as popular as it has been.

Cheers,
Brendan O.
.

JT have just released a new 1.03 patch for the Standard 5MT. Downloading as I type.

That's great news! To be honest it went from being my favourite to one I've left in the shed, and like engineerbj I wish I'd kept my older installer file!

But to be fair, JT are showing great customer service by giving us another patch, and hopefully lessons have been learnt from the development of these engines. I'm still amazed at how much JT's developers have managed to take these locos with the scripting and effects.

Hats off to them, and thanks JT for sticking to what must have become a nightmare.

Ken

I bought this in the last week, and I'm very impressed. I've certainly found it a lot easier to get to grips with the 5MT than with the Clan (and I may now go back to the Clan to see whether I have learned some useful lessons that I can apply). However, I am experiencing boiler filling problems: I run in advanced mode with the TS auto-fireman turned off, and with the JT ActivFireman turned on. The fireman copes admirably with my no doubt clumsy driving style, but on the longer runs I find that the boiler levels will drop quickly after a long period of remaining well topped-up. The water levels in the tender are dropping at about 1 gallon per second, but the boiler level will drop to <20% (and further when braking or on an incline). Eventually the boiler runs dry and that's that for the scenario. This has happened to me twice - on the scenario from Bristol to Exeter (about 5 miles short of Exeter) and on the scenario from Dundee to Edinburgh (as I'm approaching the Forth bridge), though I can't be sure of the exact point where the problem began.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I may be doing wrong?


Thanks,
Chris

Page 49 of the manual tells you how to fill the boiler.

Trev123 wrote:Page 49 of the manual tells you how to fill the boiler.

He says that he has the JT ActivFireman turned on. The fireman should take care of keeping the boiler filled up properly.

--Tim

commonplec wrote:I bought this in the last week, and I'm very impressed. I've certainly found it a lot easier to get to grips with the 5MT than with the Clan (and I may now go back to the Clan to see whether I have learned some useful lessons that I can apply). However, I am experiencing boiler filling problems: I run in advanced mode with the TS auto-fireman turned off, and with the JT ActivFireman turned on. The fireman copes admirably with my no doubt clumsy driving style, but on the longer runs I find that the boiler levels will drop quickly after a long period of remaining well topped-up. The water levels in the tender are dropping at about 1 gallon per second, but the boiler level will drop to <20% (and further when braking or on an incline). Eventually the boiler runs dry and that's that for the scenario. This has happened to me twice - on the scenario from Bristol to Exeter (about 5 miles short of Exeter) and on the scenario from Dundee to Edinburgh (as I'm approaching the Forth bridge), though I can't be sure of the exact point where the problem began.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I may be doing wrong?


Thanks,
Chris

Hi Chris.
I've come across this also. And I think it stems from the recent update (couple of weeks ago) to get rid of the annoying "hammer drill" effect when the live injectors came on.
I got the 5MT before the update and everything worked OK apart from the noise. Now it doesn't.

Like you I run the advanced with ActivFireman on (TS auto fireman off) and get similar results. On the Western mainlines run to Exeter (Green 5MT) the boiler level drops to around 50% before it starts to fill and then it only fills slowly never getting above about 65%. It seems as though the exhaust ejector is only partially opening and the live injector never opens at all.That's not too bad on level track but on hills it's no good at all.
Like the 2 runs on the S&D Route (Black 5MTs), the boiler runs out of water (even though the HUD is showing around 80%) after a few miles because neither of the injectors seem to work.

When I've worked out exactly what I'm going to say to explain it, I'm sending a ticket in to JT. Will try with ActivFireman off first though and see what happens.

John.

Thanks all.

jp92214 wrote: Hi Chris.
I've come across this also. And I think it stems from the recent update (couple of weeks ago) to get rid of the annoying "hammer drill" effect when the live injectors came on.
I got the 5MT before the update and everything worked OK apart from the noise. Now it doesn't.

That could be; I didn't have the 5MT before the update to confirm, unfortunately.

jp92214 wrote: Like you I run the advanced with ActivFireman on (TS auto fireman off) and get similar results. On the Western mainlines run to Exeter (Green 5MT) the boiler level drops to around 50% before it starts to fill and then it only fills slowly never getting above about 65%. It seems as though the exhaust ejector is only partially opening and the live injector never opens at all.That's not too bad on level track but on hills it's no good at all.
Like the 2 runs on the S&D Route (Black 5MTs), the boiler runs out of water (even though the HUD is showing around 80%) after a few miles because neither of the injectors seem to work.

When I've worked out exactly what I'm going to say to explain it, I'm sending a ticket in to JT. Will try with ActivFireman off first though and see what happens.

John.

And that is very much what I have experienced. I have established that the boiler is fillling, just very slowly (I ran until I saw the levels drop below 25% and then stopped). But it seems fine for the first 45 minutes or so; after that it's almost as if one of the injectors breaks or the boiler starts to leak.