Wow! Great stuff has happened!

[buttercup]

Simply put the ae is part of the train.exe application.

[R. Steele]

Hi Gerry,

Sorry, mate, you've got me confused!!
If an installation contains train.exe (as it must for running MSTS!), then each installation has its own Editors! As far as I know, you can't "point" AE anywhere.

Cheers,
Ged

[/COLOR]

What was I thinking! Posting before putting brain in gear! Has that ever happened to anyone else?
I use MSTSManager to change registry when needed, and each OR profile on C drive has a train.exe in the directories. [all the duplicate profiles on F (SSD) are pure ORTS - no train.exe and other files needed to run MSTS]

DOH.jpg

[Stuz]

The recent improvements for eng files in OR have had an unfortunate side effect? Many MSTS models achieved reasonably realistic performance by hacking the "theoretically(?) correct" eng files to pieces until the stock ran like it should. Now those same hacks make these otherwise good models perform badly in OR . I think the US rail sim scene has been protected from some of OR's shortcomings because the vast percentage of traction is Diesel? In Europe we had steam longer, much more electrification and here in the UK one of the most difficult to simulate units of all. The 1st generation Diesel Multiple Units. These were driven by a 4 speed gear box which used a torque converter. The actual power units wouldn't have made the smallest switchers in the states. In MEP Mick Clarke played with these .engs and came up with a really good compromise. If driven like the real thing (throttling back before changing up) they delivered a pretty realistic performance curve. Slow to accelerate they could rattle along at 70+ m.p.h. once they got up there. Now with more realistic eng files in OR these need a rework.

As I keep pointing out ...a work in progress? ...so yes SOME content is still where it's at.

Yes I am trying to run the DMUs in MEP using OpenRails and all the units I have tried coast to a halt. No traction after initial acceleration.
Regards Stu

[lateagain]

Yes I am trying to run the DMUs in MEP using OpenRails and all the units I have tried coast to a halt. No traction after initial acceleration.
Regards Stu

Actually of course the improvement in OR here means that the stock needs development. OR has set a different standard. Arguably a much better standard? ....but a sim is comprised of many parts so it's not finished until all work seamlessly together?

[baldwin]

Yes I am trying to run the DMUs in MEP using OpenRails and all the units I have tried coast to a halt. No traction after initial acceleration.
Regards Stu

The MEP DMUs have been reworked to comply with the theory put forward by Bavli for proper physics in MSTS. Unfortunately OR does not follow MSTS physics rules and therefore, the very low idle speed causes a problem. If this idle speed is altered to a higher figure the DMUs will run, but then also need some tweaking of the gearbox values. There has been a set for the class 108 posted on the UKTS Open rails forum.

[lateagain]

The MEP DMUs have been reworked to comply with the theory put forward by Bavli for proper physics in MSTS. Unfortunately OR does not follow MSTS physics rules and therefore, the very low idle speed causes a problem. If this idle speed is altered to a higher figure the DMUs will run, but then also need some tweaking of the gearbox values. There has been a set for the class 108 posted on the UKTS Open rails forum.

I think you'like find that the MEP DMU physics were entirely Mick Clarke's own work ....as are the OR modifications you refer to.

[baldwin]

Might have been Mick's work but the physics are clearly based on the discussion around the proposal put forward by Bavli. That is where the extremely low idle rpm figure comes from. I have my own set of OR mods on the Class 101 sets, and have not had time to compare with the 108 mods.

[coolhand101]

The MEP DMUs have been reworked to comply with the theory put forward by Bavli for proper physics in MSTS. Unfortunately OR does not follow MSTS physics rules and therefore, the very low idle speed causes a problem. If this idle speed is altered to a higher figure the DMUs will run, but then also need some tweaking of the gearbox values. There has been a set for the class 108 posted on the UKTS Open rails forum.

Yes it was Bavli who wrote the physics for UK DMUs. I myself used his methods for my DMUs before MEP. The updated MEP 108 performs well under OR.

I have use the OR engine parameters to get my DMUs working to almost prototypical performance. Even got permission by the BVE authors to convert their DMU cabs to work in MSTS/OR.

To get EMUs and DMUs physics working prototypical in MSTS, the ENG files were indeed modded to the extreme. I myself encounted this when first running my MSTS EMUs under OR. Nothing worked correctly. What surprise me that even using one ENG file with real life specifications gave 90% prototypical power performance. Now i have 99% performance( you cannot power down with DC camshaft EMUs ).

Is bavli still around these days ?

Thanks

[Stuz]

The MEP DMUs have been reworked to comply with the theory put forward by Bavli for proper physics in MSTS. Unfortunately OR does not follow MSTS physics rules and therefore, the very low idle speed causes a problem. If this idle speed is altered to a higher figure the DMUs will run, but then also need some tweaking of the gearbox values. There has been a set for the class 108 posted on the UKTS Open rails forum.

I altered the idle speed on the 101 to 500 Rpm as suggested over at Elvis Tower but have had no luck. I will check out the 108 on UKTrainsim though. Thanks for that. Regards Stu

[lateagain]

MEP Physics

I altered the idle speed on the 101 to 500 Rpm as suggested over at Elvis Tower but have had no luck. I will check out the 108 on UKTrainsim though. Thanks for that. Regards Stu

Whilst Mick did correspond with and use some of Bavli's fixes the DMU's in MEP were tweaked and tested, retweaked and tested several times by the development team, of which I was part. The DMU's had many problems that required alterations to many aspects, especially the braking. Because MSTS does not comply with the real theory the performance that Mick achieved was tested to be as accurate as possible.

The DMU's used in MEP came from a variety of sources. I know because my part in the project was assembling the stock pack and getting permission to have the models used with the route disc. The project took over 6 years to complete. Mick not only altered the physics on the DMU's but also on most of the other locomotives of ALL types. AS uploaded the originals had physics files from varying sources. This meant that the first Class 101 DMU's we were "donated" had performance that outstripped that of an Intercity HS125!

Every class of locomotive had varying performance between models and this obviously needed fixing. Class 31's for instance had different performance between different models of that Class. The performance was tested NOT by THEORY but by exhaustive beta testing. IMO if you want decent physics for UK loco's the work Mick put in on this for MEP has produced the most realistic and balanced (class against class) that you'll get. BUT remember that's in MSTS

Towards the end of development OR was beginning to show promising development and obviously some of us wanted to see how MEP performed in OR. The DMU's were obviously a disaster. Mick Modified the Class 108 (a late model to the development BTW as none existed when the project started) and got it running pretty well in OR. This is the model uploaded to UKTS..I have to confess that I don't have these so haven't had a chance to test them myself

The reason that no further development for OR has happened is that once released Mick started work on creating a steam version of MEP. Obviously that meant new stock, new signalling and scenery changes.

OR has come a long way and hopefully MEP can get physics tweaks for OR but with such a massive stock pack that's a LOT of work.

Don't forget that apart from Mick's work on the physics there were numerous Activity writers (MEP ships with well over 100 activities) and apart from the work done in creating these the testing of them was exhaustive. Special credit here should go to Michael Wood (ILuka) in this respect who tested and retested every activity and wrote detailed timed reports on each one. Sadly Michael died just after MEP was released.

[baldwin]

I have nothing against the MEP, in fact it is one of my most used routes. I am also aware of the vast amount of work that went into it to make a very good usable route for MSTS. The fact remains however that we are in an Open Rails forum and all the work that went into tuning the DMUs for MSTS is worth diddly squat in OR because they do not work in that environment.

The MEP locomotives need relatively little tweaking to run in OR in common with all other locomotives. Only the DMU manual gearbox versions do not work "out of the box".

[Kafovofa]

Note 1: Incendently MSTS editor an tools runs well under Linux using wine. I have extensively used it to modify a route with no issues at all.

Lindsay

I find this very interesting. The only reason I keep a copy of Windows around is for Pearson software that I use for college courses and train sims. The rest of my time I'm working on linux. It'd be great to escape the fear of Windows viruses when downloading heaps of freeware.