Atomic Systems

karma99 wrote:On the suggestion of a 3rd party releasing the first kettle - I suspect that won't happen and here's why.. unless it uses the underlying physics of a diesel (ugh!) then anyone making a steamer will need to wait for DTG to add the steam simulation module to TSW.

Considering how some people replaced all of RW's steam simulation by their scripting to get proper wheel slip and some more, I would not say 'ugh' too loudly.

I hope that they organise the physical simulation modular enough to make a clear cut where the tractive effort comes out and everything inside is subject to the engine creator's creativity. Similar to what is done in RW, but without jumping through extra hoops.

Of course, this is all speculation while we have not seen a glimpse of any development pack, or documentation.

Considering it all as a long term development is a very good idea, indeed.

AndiS wrote:

karma99 wrote:On the suggestion of a 3rd party releasing the first kettle - I suspect that won't happen and here's why.. unless it uses the underlying physics of a diesel (ugh!) then anyone making a steamer will need to wait for DTG to add the steam simulation module to TSW.

Considering how some people replaced all of RW's steam simulation by their scripting to get proper wheel slip and some more, I would not say 'ugh' too loudly.

I hope that they organise the physical simulation modular enough to make a clear cut where the tractive effort comes out and everything inside is subject to the engine creator's creativity. Similar to what is done in RW, but without jumping through extra hoops.

Let's get rid of the Electric/Diesel/Steam subcategories. There's so many seperate systems out there, that this cookie cutter approach to physics is needlessly restricting to creativity and realism. Having full control over tractive effort would certainly be best. You, the developer, come up with a physical model using 100 year old books, that spits out a tractive effort value, sets the animations (in case of wheelslip/skid), and thats it. DTG's job would be to make sure that the resources a locomotive uses (diesel, oil, water, coal) are standardised so that a loco made by Alice works together with a tender made by Bob - and can get refueled at a coal depot modelled by Charlie. The only real downside is in terms of the development cylce - it will take longer but I'm confident that some of us are willing to share basic simulations.

Obviously, this would be more difficult when systems are spread over multiple vehicles, such as continuous braking systems, MU, and the lot. Thats where we need clearly defined standards and I hope DTG will take the lead there.

Of course, this is all speculation while we have not seen a glimpse of any development pack, or documentation.

Academic speculation or wishful thinking. Your call .

karma99 wrote:On the suggestion of a 3rd party releasing the first kettle - I suspect that won't happen and here's why..

I have to say your logic sounds quite reasonable.

Obviously the other prerequisite will be how the editor(s)/SDK work. On Wednesday night's stream Matt mentioned that just giving people the tools DTG uses would mean giving access to their source code. Naturally that isn't going to happen and this is why I wondered if the editor(s) will be more like a SDK. The scenario editor might be a tailored SDK tool for instance.

TrabantDeLuxe wrote:Let's get rid of the Electric/Diesel/Steam subcategories. There's so many seperate systems out there, that this cookie cutter approach to physics is needlessly restricting to creativity and realism. Having full control over tractive effort would certainly be best. You, the developer, come up with a physical model using 100 year old books, that spits out a tractive effort value, sets the animations (in case of wheelslip/skid), and thats it. DTG's job would be to make sure that the resources a locomotive uses (diesel, oil, water, coal) are standardised so that a loco made by Alice works together with a tender made by Bob - and can get refueled at a coal depot modelled by Charlie. The only real downside is in terms of the development cylce - it will take longer but I'm confident that some of us are willing to share basic simulations.

Obviously, this would be more difficult when systems are spread over multiple vehicles, such as continuous braking systems, MU, and the lot. Thats where we need clearly defined standards and I hope DTG will take the lead there.

I partially agree... however that means every creator needs to have the time and knowledge to build their own system - I would estimate that this would put off 95% of people of ever making anything. As it is lots of people who can 3D model give up with TS as they don't understand how to get anything into the game using the blueprint system. Others do get that far and putting some numbers in gives them a moving loco - if they had to have a degree in physics/engineering to even make it move the add-on market would be VERY limited.
The way to do it is allow the default behaviour to be replaced by making it modular. DTG can provide the "standard" modules for Diesel, Electric and Steam where punching in some values will give a close rendition of the engines performance. For someone like yourself, if you want to write an entire module from scratch that calculates every microscopic part of every aspect of the "power plant" then you can do that.
The singular output from that module could just be tractive effort and braking force if that's all it needs, but there need to be some default modules for the 3 basic types of power to make it accessible.

SamYeager270 wrote:I have to say your logic sounds quite reasonable.

Obviously the other prerequisite will be how the editor(s)/SDK work. On Wednesday night's stream Matt mentioned that just giving people the tools DTG uses would mean giving access to their source code. Naturally that isn't going to happen and this is why I wondered if the editor(s) will be more like a SDK. The scenario editor might be a tailored SDK tool for instance.

Yes, some kind of SDK would make a lot of sense. Knowing Matt, I'm sure it'll be built with developers in mind

The way to go (says my crystal ball) is this: Someone, DTG or third party, creates a set of noodles in Simugraph that represents the MSTS/RW concept of a steamer. The input parameters (constants) to this graph could be labelled just like the blueprint parameters, so everyone understanding blueprints could enter the data into the Simugraph noodles and get a working steamer.

From there, individuals will proceed to refine various parts and publish the results or not.

Creating a proof of concept using UE physics would be a waste of time because DTG did not develop Simugraph without a reason. So there must be some limitation in the UE thing that shows when you apply it to a train simulation. And who wants to duplicate their nasty experience?

So patience is the best option and when we get the tools and the required information, a certain group of minds will explode (says my crystal ball).

karma99 wrote:

TrabantDeLuxe wrote:Let's get rid of the Electric/Diesel/Steam subcategories. There's so many seperate systems out there, that this cookie cutter approach to physics is needlessly restricting to creativity and realism. Having full control over tractive effort would certainly be best. You, the developer, come up with a physical model using 100 year old books, that spits out a tractive effort value, sets the animations (in case of wheelslip/skid), and thats it. DTG's job would be to make sure that the resources a locomotive uses (diesel, oil, water, coal) are standardised so that a loco made by Alice works together with a tender made by Bob - and can get refueled at a coal depot modelled by Charlie. The only real downside is in terms of the development cylce - it will take longer but I'm confident that some of us are willing to share basic simulations.

Obviously, this would be more difficult when systems are spread over multiple vehicles, such as continuous braking systems, MU, and the lot. Thats where we need clearly defined standards and I hope DTG will take the lead there.

I partially agree... however that means every creator needs to have the time and knowledge to build their own system - I would estimate that this would put off 95% of people of ever making anything. As it is lots of people who can 3D model give up with TS as they don't understand how to get anything into the game using the blueprint system. Others do get that far and putting some numbers in gives them a moving loco - if they had to have a degree in physics/engineering to even make it move the add-on market would be VERY limited.
The way to do it is allow the default behaviour to be replaced by making it modular. DTG can provide the "standard" modules for Diesel, Electric and Steam where punching in some values will give a close rendition of the engines performance. For someone like yourself, if you want to write an entire module from scratch that calculates every microscopic part of every aspect of the "power plant" then you can do that.
The singular output from that module could just be tractive effort and braking force if that's all it needs, but there need to be some default modules for the 3 basic types of power to make it accessible.

Agree on those points. Having pre-made simulation noodles in the SDK would be a good thing. As long as those looking to do something else (i.e. not being satisfied by these default simulations, or gas turbines perhaps.. ) aren't forced to hack their way into implementation. Flexibility is key to cover the wide range of systems out there, even when just discussing steamers.

Interesting discussion here...

I have a sneaking suspicion that either the next, presumably German, route will feature Electrics and possibly steam. If the next route doesn't feature steam, I'm fairly confident the next DLC will.

All the best,

sem21C190

Hi all,

Yes, steam certainly will be an interesting one. If you think back to railworks and the black 5 and 7f that came with it. It was almost like driving a diesel but with a cut off reverser. Now we see locomotives done by meshtools, victory works and other 3rd parties that are highly realistic, with superb detail. One can only imagine then, the possibilities that await in TSW.

My speculative guess is that the next DLC will be a German electric route (which I personally have no interest in, but others sure do) after which I would think we will come to a steam route.

The question is will they do a modern mainline, say the WCML? This would then allow stock like Tornado and Flying Scotsman. Or would they do something completely different and go for a period LMS route? Maybe the settle and Carlile in the 1930's. This would allow for a Princess royal and Princess Coronation classes, which I think would be big crowd pleasers.

Nevertheless, the future will be interesting and a lot of work will have to go into the steamers to make them realistic. I think you have all pretty much hit the nail on the head though when it comes to how much of a crowd pleaser steam locos are.

Best wishes, S.

Dovetail have already been seen recording sounds and strapping audio feeds to trains along the Northeast Corridor in America. Not concrete evidence that this will be their next route, but I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing another Electric route before we start seeing Steam.

Source:

http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewt ... 68&t=18858
https://twitter.com/AmtrakMatt

CapitolLimited wrote:Dovetail have already been seen recording sounds and strapping audio feeds to trains along the Northeast Corridor in America. Not concrete evidence that this will be their next route, but I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing another Electric route before we start seeing Steam.

Source:

http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewt ... 68&t=18858
https://twitter.com/AmtrakMatt

Another electric route? TSW doesn't currently have an electric route (without the proper trains or route to Heathrow Airport anyway).

deltic009 wrote: Another electric route? TSW doesn't currently have an electric route (without the proper trains or route to Heathrow Airport anyway).

This is the assumption that DTG will release an updated version of Great Western with EMUs (as mentioned by their employees) before the Amtrak route releases.

karma99 wrote: The way to do it is allow the default behaviour to be replaced by making it modular. DTG can provide the "standard" modules for Diesel, Electric and Steam where punching in some values will give a close rendition of the engines performance.

That sounds like it's a good idea but pretty soon, people will then want to be able to "at the very least" distinguish between AC and DC electrics (not the overhead catenary system, but types of electric motors), diesel hydraulics vs diesel electrics, diesel electrics with DC motors vs diesel electrics with AC motors. Steam engines with or without overheating, compounds, etc.

All variations on the basics with rather different traction characteristics that you'd like to see modelled, that would ideally be available as templates - and if you can't make a realistic distinction between DH and DE engines, pretty soon you'll be swamped in complaints again!

So once you start providing such "templates", where does it stop?

--Tim

Easy. It stops nowhere. And it starts simple. Now I know nothing about diesels but sure you will need two variants for hydraulic and electric diesels.

For steam, you start at saturated steam, single expansion, two cylinders and add modules for superheater, compounds, and all the other stuff. Of course, the first version of such a module again will only be a dummy, as there are many superheaters etc..

On the one hand, sophistication never really stops, on the other hand, the difference caused by some improvement will become smaller and smaller. At the same time, fatigue will overcome the developers. So progress is slow down after the bigger parts in the picture are filled in and that could look like a end of efforts to the end user. But then someone will come up with a turbine or something like that. So there is always a can of worms left to open if you are hungry.

Apart from the obvious creation and simulation, what is the market demand for nostalgia?

I for one will gladly buy BR Blue WR Diesel hydraulic locomotives and will collect some iconic steam locomotives for sure to run on a backdated Paddington - Reading route even.

With so many excellent British steam locomotives available in Railworks and with the many heritage railways still running the originals for 100000's of yearly visitors, I am sure there is a market for UK steam locomotives. Hopefully, the source models can be exported to TSW, their textures updated, etc. to provide the DLC we want.

21C164, (Great Username by the way...)

I agree wholeheartedly!

All the best,

Sir Eustace Missenden 21C190 (Never carried a 21C1 Number, but it's more distinctive than 34090!)