Yo, Loco Guys! Me Again!

Hee-hee, thought I'd liven up your lives with a visit, haven't harrassed you guys for a while. Anybody take a look at the new cement car from the 1.2 patch yet, the US2FREIGHTCEMENT car? Got a problem with it, it's breaking couplers and "snapping" across to the other track, kinda like cracking the whip when going thru a trailing point switch that's set against it. Almost like it can't wait to get thru the switch and wants to get over onto the other track NOW! I looked at the wag file, didn't see anything obvious.http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/13495.htmlI guess what I should do is hunt up the documentation on who sold it to microsoft, 3DTrainArtisanStuffNorthAmerican works or something, all I remember is MS/KUJU didn't make it themselves.

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YO, LOCO GUYS! ME AGAIN! [View All], sniper297, 11:34 PM, Oct-25-02, (0) RE: YO, LOCO GUYS! ME AGAIN!, chucksc, Oct-26-02, 02:05 AM, (1) RE: YO, LOCO GUYS! ME AGAIN!, sniper297, Oct-26-02, 02:28 PM, (2) RE: YO, LOCO GUYS! ME AGAIN!, chucksc, Oct-26-02, 02:35 PM, (3) RE: YO, LOCO GUYS! ME AGAIN!, sniper297, Oct-26-02, 10:23 PM, (4) RE: YO, LOCO GUYS! ME AGAIN!, darkfyre, Oct-26-02, 10:28 PM, (5) RE: YO, LOCO GUYS! ME AGAIN!, leesome1226, Oct-27-02, 01:04 PM, (6) RE: YO, LOCO GUYS! ME AGAIN!, sniper297, Oct-27-02, 02:33 PM, (7) RE: YO, LOCO GUYS! ME AGAIN!, plainsman, Oct-27-02, 02:55 PM, (8)

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nOT uS eITHER sNIPE!
i tHUNk iT wErE tA.....Chuck Schneider
Chief Cook and Bottle Washer
North American Locomotive Works

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Yeah, I think you're right, Chuck. If it don't violate any non-disclosure agreements, it would be nice if somebody from TA would come in and explain the whole thing. I know Microsoft ain't gonna, about the time they released that buggy DOS 4.0, they took a vow of silence and haven't communicated any actual information to their customers since. I'm pretty sure somebody from MS/KUJU hacked at least some of the files themselves, I can't imagine anyone from Train Artisan giving the SD40-2 a max brake force of 700kN! Hee-hee, running down a 4% grade at 60, apply 10% train brake and it bangs to a dead stop on the next crosstie!Avoiding embarrassment on something like this is like trying to get milk from a male ostrich, and I figured the best way was to give all you loco designers a heads-up so one of you could look at it and fix it. I could probably figure it out myself eventually, but it would be REALLY embarrassing if a patch was posted by an insane route developer instead of an actual loco guy.Further experiments, broke the train up and stuck the 10 cement hoppers at the back. Those of you who haven't followed the previous discussion on this, manual switches work differently in explore route and when there is an actual path thru them. If you approach a trailing point switch from the curve when you're off the path and switching (BR. "Shunting") manually IN AN ACTIVITY, the switch remains set against you, but you can drive forward thru it as if it was spring loaded. Each car gives a little "snap" as it passes the points, and wags it's tail over to the opposite track. Not quite as bad as the reversed loco having the trucks out of alignment, the effect is actually barely noticeable.
Since both switches are still straight, stopping and backing halfway thru would split the switch, but you can pull the whole train thru with no problems.
Here comes the string of 10 cement hoppers, the first one is in the position just before a normal car would snap the back end of the car over to the other track.
And instead the entire string snaps over. In this example there are no normal cars coupled behind the cement cars, so no broken couplers.
Dazzled by the awed response to the first magic trick, the leading cement hopper decides to give an encore performance at the second switch.Anyway, gotta be something in the bounding box length or coupler values somewhere in the cement hopper wag file, so I'll leave you guys to it and get back to what I know. Or at least what I THINK I know!

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Well if you would come out in the daylight occasionally! LOL! You would realize that TA has already stated for the record that all they did were the visuals and that MS/Kuju did the physics and sounds thank you very much... How's that for plausable deny-ability (sic)? IIRC Chris Lee of TA stuck his head up in embarassment at least once and said he was going to fix it! (heh! that ought to get his goat) then disappeared again. Guess that means 6 more weeks of autumn????Chuck Schneider
Chief Cook and Bottle Washer
North American Locomotive Works

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"Come out in the daylight" he says, that's a good one. How did you know I spent the last several weeks lost in the PO&N coalmine? I ran into Jimmy Hoffa and Jim Steven down there, but they didn't know the way out either, had to find it on my own. I'm putting directional signs in there for V6!
Well, that's good, now we can tease ol' Leesome until he fixes it. I don't blame them for the disclaimer, the MS/KUJU people come from some other galaxy where the physics are different than here.Glad there's nothing wrong with the SDs, I'm taking a break from route editing (@&*%#! thing gives me gray hair sometimes) and doing some skinning.

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-26-02 AT 10:31 PM (EDT)

I noticed something like this myself..I was taking two new SD40-2's with 15 of the the new cars along the NEC, northbound from D.C., passed a switch several miles down the line; and the cars were 'snapping' through the switch even though it wasn't activated, disconnecting from one another and piling in to each other...Why it happened remains a mystery, I was in notch 3 and doing a rock solid 59.8 mph (I understand that's around the acceptable limit for high-speed freight along the Amtrak corridor) in a 125mph zone; had been for miles and miles without any fluctuation in velocity or amps, until that switch..See 'Exhibit A', the attachment..


...Runnin' on Soda...

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Jim,Sometimes I wonder what goes on(and what doesn't) in that wild and crazy mind of yours Drop me a note, maybe I can help you out.Leesome1226@yahoo.comChris Lee
Train Artisan

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I'll help you out, which way did you come in?
Most route developers claim the route editor drove them crazy, couldn't prove it by me. I was certifiable before I got MSTS, and I suspect that's the case with most, anyone even halfway sane gave up on the buggy thing within the first couple weeks. I just take a break now & again and do something different like skinning so it don't drive me sane!
OK, one email comin' atchya, brace yourself.

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-27-02 AT 02:56 PM (EDT)

Hi Sniper,
If you simply take the V4.1 physics files, you can get everything set by making 2 simple copy and paste overwrites.
Start by copying from line
Mass ( 177.0t )
to
BrakeCylinderPressureForMaxBrakeBrakeForce( 66 )
There is a bunch of stuff between, just copy it all, and paste it over the same lines in the original .eng file. You just want to make sure you copy and paste the same lines.
Step two, copy from
MaxPower ( 2240kW )
to
DoesHornTriggerBell ( 1 )
Again there is a lot in between, just copy it all, and paste exactly over the same lines of the original file. Save the file and you are done. The instructions tell you to make a backup copy inside a subdirectory folder, and you can just delete the results and replace with that file if you have problems.
That is quite easy.
BTW I think the cement hopper may be causing problems because it is more heavy than other cars with similar parameters. I always edit my stock before I put it into the sim, so I don't have the original, but mine works fine now.
Bob

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