North American V-Scale: Soo Line GP-7 Pack 1 available

[burgerbern]

just been trying lots of different things to find out what is causing my probs and i once after reinstalling every thing from the payware down load afresh got it to 100% but only once the second try ended with a crash at 75% and could not get it to go past that again, i tried something different and the only way i have found to get to 75% throttle and beyond is to alias the set to another GP9 sound set, when that was done it gets to 100% every time, i have had one of my friends who also purchased the set mail me who is having exactly the same prob as me his OR log is near identical to mine posted further up the thread.

i have been running with ORTS processes F5 page up and absolutely nothing is straining at the top end, plenty of memory graphics not overstressed the only thing near 100% was the loader which generally is always at that lever whatever route and consist is being run

will keep beavering away at it over the coming days to see if i can find out why its not working on my machine, but i have been fighting it for over 5 hours today and i have had it, i am all in

[R. Steele]

For me they appear to be performing as expected. Took a consist on the test track, with 100t test hoppers and these are the results, building to speed after 10mins and throttle currently at 100%

bandicam 2018-08-16 10-14-43-097.jpg at balancing speed >>> bandicam 2018-08-16 10-15-26-362.jpg

...and regarding the tractive effort..

That's probably the bug in the tractive effort curves talking

In this case I wouldn't expect to see the bug in the max tractive curves appear, since they are not being used by these engine files.
Essentially they are a mix of the MSTS eng file parameters (that OR uses) and native OR physics, - ORTSDieselEngines block and others, no ORTS tractive curves are included. Erick appears to have sorted everything out...
After looking at his work, I started rethinking the Diesel Torque tab, working on that.
The only other thing would be our differing interpretation of the "Maximal Power" line in the OR eng block and the power settings in the Diesel Power tab, nothing too major. Interesting work, I like em.

...the weird sound problem and not achieving max throttle...
I think the sound problem is OR choking on something specific to Bernards setup. Puzzling, no help from me, I'm a complete dunce when it comes to sound. I can bearly hear myself think.

[ebnertra000]

I was away from home at the time, but I thought it had TE curves...maybe not

[burgerbern]

...the weird sound problem and not achieving max throttle...
I think the sound problem is OR choking on something specific to Bernards setup. Puzzling, no help from me, I'm a complete dunce when it comes to sound. I can bearly hear myself think.

for now i have given up on the sound, its literally is the only engine set in my entire system which has this problem, but its also the only one on my system with include files (not that i think that is the prob, because as far as i am aware all the include files are doing what they are suppossed to), its also the only engine set with 3D cabs but again those are working perfectly, and they also work faultlessly up to and including 63% power setting, its just the 75% 87.5% and 100% i cannot reach and for all i know the last 2 may be fine but as it crashes at 75% i cannot try them, as everybody else i know bar one has them working fine then its obviously something on my machine (it looks like 2 sounds are trying to use the same bit of memory), but after 10 hours today trying every trick i have learnt over the last 10 years i have thrown in the towel and cheated, what i did in the end was to copy the 4 A200 horn sounds and put them in the SLI 22K sound folder, then copy the horn section from the NAV cab and eng files and copy them over the SLI 567 horn files sound sections rename those to identify them as having the A200 horns in them and aliased the engines to those. as soon as i did that no more problems, they can go all the way to notch 8 and everything works.

its not the ideal solution as i think the NAV sounds are nice, but it allows me to move on, and one day i will revisit them with a clear head and have another go

[R. Steele]

I was away from home at the time, but I thought it had TE curves...maybe not

Reading that, you got me wondering, if I missed something...so I rechecked everything, nav common and engine files, nope, couldn't find any of the ORTS curves. So I think OR is using this include file for the tractive force data NAVS_GP7_62_15.inc, that's why the loco HUD shows in the 90% range using Advanced Adhesion - no OR curve sets involved.

I have been working/learning more about the ORTSMaXTractive curves, and with a little help, I've found this formula and constructed a good spreadsheet to make a credible max tractive table, which is a significant improvement over what I had previously made.

T=2650*(nP/V)
where T=tractive effort, n=efficiency in converting power output to tractive force, P=HP, and V=speed in km/h (constant 2650)

Even with all that, it still appears there is a loss that occurs when using the Advanced Adhesion model with the Tractive Curve tables, I really don't know it that is supposed to emulate real performance or if it is a bug.
Anyway, that's all off topic, so enough of that.

If anyone is interested in the source for the formula above >>> http://128.173.204.63/courses/cee360...resistance.pdf
pages 10&11

[Erick_Cantu]

its not the ideal solution as i think the NAV sounds are nice, but it allows me to move on, and one day i will revisit them with a clear head and have another go

Let me know when you decide to do this, in case I can offer any assistance.

There are a couple of things that I should mention. There are no TE curves because I figured that there was no way I was going to make a better educated guess than OR, so I left it for the simulator to do. Also, these units will not work properly with Conbuilder. I have never used Conbuilder, but my best guess is that it does not parse include files, and also expects to see parameters that are not used in OR. Because these parameters are unnecessary, and these locomotives are not compatible with MSTS, they have been pruned from the physics files. It would be wise to regard Conbuilder as an MSTS-only application, especially as native OR locomotives without MSTS physics become more common. I recommend Goku's consist editor.

[R. Steele]

... There are no TE curves because I figured that there was no way I was going to make a better educated guess than OR, so I left it for the simulator to do. ...

Erick, completely agree about OR more than capable of producing TE curves.
But, look at it this way, you made a move to another level by learning, testing, and working hard to produce the NAVS GP7s. It's a jump to another level, that of a native OR engine, and a move to a modular system of organizing the file components. Operating at that level also produces benefits in performance, simulator experience, and the ability to move closer to a realistic experience, not to mention the organizational benefits.

While OR is capable of producing TE curves quite well, it does so "generically**" -- they are not tailored for a specific locomotive.

As you know ( more than me ) Continuous TE is always rated at a specific speed.
Also the locomotives efficiency at converting power output to tractive force, which is different for every locomotive, has to be taken into account.

Producing any form of TE curves ( MaxTractive or Tractive curves) provides OR with a higher level of data tailored for the specific locomotive. Starting speed of the curve function, speed range of the curve set, and the power-to-tractive-effort efficiency can all be taken into account...hopefully producing a more realistic experience.

In my experience with you, I would say you are more than capable of making a better educated guess than OR. What I would bet, is that you would rather spend your time and effort doing exactly what you are now doing. Laying the groundwork for OR type locomotives, or at the very least your present interpretation of such a beast. ( we are all learning, here --- and as OR grows and changes, we learn new things)

So here's a new ORTSMaxTractiveForceCurve for the GP7.
The formula used to produce this curve ( and all the others I'm working on) is from this Virginia Tech paper (pages 10&11)

http://128.173.204.63/courses/cee3604/cee3604_pub/rail_resistance.pdf

The specifications are from Derek Morton and yourself...if you possess any other exact specs, or you want to change something, please just let me know and I'll make another one for you.
TE Starting -- 61650lbs TE Continuous -- 43875 @ 10.63mph Efficiency Coefficient -- 84% Traction Horsepower -- 1500
GP7_MTFC.zip

**Note on generically - I'm making an assumption here. There was probably a decision made as to a general efficiency coefficient to use, and other such general assumptions made to produce a reasonable curve that performs well for most users.

[sergiucroitoru]

Really good job, Eric.
And It's probably most realistic OR locomotive I have ever seen.
After some hours of research I think I have found a workaround for crash (it crashes on 75% throttle and injey-4 external view). To avoid that issue I use sounds from another locomotive.
If you don't mind I would have one question:
after I have tested a number of locos with 3d Cab I found all of them have same issue: the cab light (on pressing L key) doesn't work (at night time). Is it currently an Open Rails limitation or creators just ignored this feature?
Best regards and sorry for my English.

[csantucci]

Burgerbern, I see that you aren't using a very recent version of OR and that what occurred is that the watchdog was triggered (too long execution time for sound processing). I suspect that the OR watchdog is too restrictive in terms of sound processing (I got a case similar to yours in my country), so I developed just yesterday a release of OR MG where the watchdog is disabled, while still generating the warning messages. If you want to have a try, you can download it here http://www.interazioni-educative.it/...ar_MG_NoWD.zip .

[burgerbern]

Burgerbern, I see that you aren't using a very recent version of OR .

hi when i posted that log it was current (the post was 16th August 2018) i update to the latest testing version every week, as soon as i get a chance i will try the file you posted, thanks

[csantucci]

hi when i posted that log it was current (the post was 16th August 2018) i update to the latest testing version every week, as soon as i get a chance i will try the file you posted, thanks

Sorry, I didn't notice the date. I'm looking forward to seeing what you get with the WD-less OR MG release.

[burgerbern]

Sorry, I didn't notice the date. I'm looking forward to seeing what you get with the WD-less OR MG release.

Hi Ran the engines in the MG version you provided, it still crashed the sim a moment after moving the throttle to 75% just at the point as the throttle up sounds came in, the OR log showed no probs at all, but i then run in testing version X4334 which provided a log exactly the same as the one uploaded in august, as i mentioned then its the only sound set that does this and changing to a non NAVS set cures the prob and the engine runs as normal.

as i said before i moved it to a different set of sounds so i could move on rather than get bogged down in the prob

thanks for the try though