Future ideas for Open Rails

[BrandonS261]

Hey everyone,

I know I have not been on the forums for some time but I am still active and have been thinking of a few ideas that could be implemented into Open Rails in the future that could ultimately make Open Rails more realistic and enjoyable to play.

I will start out with Steam Locomotives first as I mainly run them on Open Rails. Steam Locomotives I know is a basket case and still needs a lot of improvements but my ideas may greatly improve not only the appearance but also the physics aspect of it as well.

Here are my thoughts.

1. Different fuels and how different types effect the locomotives performance- Wood, Coal, Oil
2. Better smoke/steam
3. Smoke affected by the fire
4. Smoke affected by the rotation of the wheels
5. Able to blow multiple whistles/air horns on one locomotive- Many steam locomotives that run today have multiple steam whistles and air horns. This could be achieved by hitting the Alt key to scroll through the different whistles/air horn. The Sander Key is just not cutting it any more after playing the game for over 22 years!
6. Able to quill the whistles on a steam locomotive. Steam Whistles have multiple chimes and are able to be played simultaneously depending on how you pull the whistle cord.
7. Changing class lights from green, red, white.
8. Steam and Smoke being effected depending on weather, air quality and the cold.
9. possible wear and tear on the locomotive parts along with possible catastrophic failures.
These could include as followed- blown cylinder heads, hot boxes, flat spots, staybolt failures, low fuel, and other issues that can happen when running a steam locomotive.

Multiplayer with Steam Locomotives and Double Heading

1. Able to control multiple steam locomotives while running two or more on a single train. This could be achieved by hitting the F9 key and then hitting the locomotive you want to control.

This could be used for whistle, bell, cylinder cocks, blow downs, and other odds and ends.

Same could be done for refueling as well. You click on the tender you want to fill in F9 and then Open Rails allows you to fill the tender you clicked on.

2. In Multiplayer having the ability for people to control one locomotive in the consist- This would give it a much more realistic feel and be much more challenging to the ones controlling the locomotives in the consist.

Feel free to add anything else that you may think of or that I may have missed. I do know some of this stuff has been talked about in the past or are already a work in progress but figured I would mention it anyways.

Brandon

[BrandonS261]

Here are some Weather improvements I have thought of.

Weather Improvements

1. Dynamic Weather- This has been implemented in games for years so why should Open Rails be any different?
2. Rising and lowering of Lakes and Rives during flood season/times of year.
3. More realistic looking water
4. Thunder and lightning during heavy storms
5. Accumulating snow the more it snows.
6. Ice on top of water during the winter months in cold climate areas
7. Falling leaves/leaves on the ground during the fall.

Let me know what you guys think of these ideas as well.

Brandon

[BrandonS261]

Diesel Locomotive improvements I have also thought of as followed

Diesels

1. Changing class lights from green, red, white
2. Able to use just one engine on a locomotive with multiple prime movers in it. Example- E, units and DD40X.
3. Common issues that happen while running a diesel like wear and tear on locomotive components.
This could in-tale a blown turbo, blown engine, hot box or other various issues that happen.

Brandon

[marklester01]

While I see you mentioned Lights, I did list a similar Topic about the Number of Lights being allowed on a Single Unit Vs. The Old. But, unless you're a "Stickaler"( so to speak ) to The Physics you can semi represent a "One-unit wonder".

[eric]

The things I want all require a new route editor, so......... they won't happen.

• Non-square forests
• Forests that apply in a grid (for orchards, cornfields)
• Forests that allow for a list of textures to be applied vs. just a single texture
• Forests that can "seed" from a list of shapefiles instead of a cruxiform (for subdivisions, parkinglots, and using actual vegetation shapes

[marklester01]

You mean like The Newer Trainz Series has for say Corn Fields? Where if you click a Corn Texture a certain way, it'll just keep "Clonning" itsself multi times till you get that effect of a Corn field. Can work for Mtns., Forest( though, be careful of both unless one type's represented )Large open areas of the same thing basically.

[BrandonS261]

Here are a few other things I came up with. A few I know have either been brought up or thought of before but have not been worked on yet.

1. Passenger car and locomotive doors and windows all be separate instead of opening and closing all at once.
2. More realistic snow and rain on the windows of the locomotives and passenger cars.
3. Animated mars and strobe lights on locomotives. Meaning instead of the light just going around you have the actual mechanism inside moving as well.
4. The Sphere of light/head light being able to move instead of just being stationary on locomotives that are articulated while going around curves.
5. Having articulated locomotives be a single locomotive instead of two separate parts.
6. Start implementing Positive Train Control into Open Rails for American Railroads
7. Animation of people along the line and in the passenger cars/locomotives. This would be very nice to have while running a steam locomotive/classic diesel on an excursion.
8. Animation of wheels on cars that go bye.
9. Being able to get flat spots and other issues with your freight/passenger cars as you go along.
10.Having working hotbox detectors along with actually having to stop your train if you have one.
11.Steam leakage on Steam Locomotives and steam heating
12.Having communication with other trains along with a dispatcher on your part of the line you are running on. Very helpful on a multiplayer situation.
13.Having a Pilot crew on sections of track you are not familiar with. Mostly done during mainline excursion trips.

[CSRX]

I will say, the PTC part will be an odd one to work out, as there are a lot of railroads that are exempt from requiring PTC. (A lot of short lines and regionals, some use ACSES when it comes to Amtrak on non signaled or even signaled territory. )

[BrandonS261]

Yes my thought was and I should have mentioned it but having PTC be an option as that is where Railroads are going now a days. At least Class one Railroads.

[Komachi]

Hey everyone,

I know I have not been on the forums for some time but I am still active and have been thinking of a few ideas that could be implemented into Open Rails in the future that could ultimately make Open Rails more realistic and enjoyable to play.

I will start out with Steam Locomotives first as I mainly run them on Open Rails. Steam Locomotives I know is a basket case and still needs a lot of improvements but my ideas may greatly improve not only the appearance but also the physics aspect of it as well.

Here are my thoughts.

1. Different fuels and how different types effect the locomotives performance- Wood, Coal, Oil
2. Better smoke/steam
3. Smoke affected by the fire
4. Smoke affected by the rotation of the wheels
5. Able to blow multiple whistles/air horns on one locomotive- Many steam locomotives that run today have multiple steam whistles and air horns. This could be achieved by hitting the Alt key to scroll through the different whistles/air horn. The Sander Key is just not cutting it any more after playing the game for over 22 years!
6. Able to quill the whistles on a steam locomotive. Steam Whistles have multiple chimes and are able to be played simultaneously depending on how you pull the whistle cord.
7. Changing class lights from green, red, white.
8. Steam and Smoke being effected depending on weather, air quality and the cold.
9. possible wear and tear on the locomotive parts along with possible catastrophic failures.
These could include as followed- blown cylinder heads, hot boxes, flat spots, staybolt failures, low fuel, and other issues that can happen when running a steam locomotive.

Multiplayer with Steam Locomotives and Double Heading

1. Able to control multiple steam locomotives while running two or more on a single train. This could be achieved by hitting the F9 key and then hitting the locomotive you want to control.

This could be used for whistle, bell, cylinder cocks, blow downs, and other odds and ends.

Same could be done for refueling as well. You click on the tender you want to fill in F9 and then Open Rails allows you to fill the tender you clicked on.

2. In Multiplayer having the ability for people to control one locomotive in the consist- This would give it a much more realistic feel and be much more challenging to the ones controlling the locomotives in the consist.

Feel free to add anything else that you may think of or that I may have missed. I do know some of this stuff has been talked about in the past or are already a work in progress but figured I would mention it anyways.

Brandon

While I have no idea of the likelihood of any of your ideas(which I think sound great) happening, due to the ORTS stuff being volunteer coding?
I can defintiely say #6 there just won't happen.

Getting a horn/whistle to seamlessly loop is hard enough already, and IMO it would be better to have things done Trainz style where it's done by splitting hte .wav instea dof using Goldwave as antiquated as it is to insert cue points.

But doing that for individual chimes of a whistle, which it may very well be impossible to get the isoalted chimes from? Yeah, no... That, as soemone who does sound design just, ain't gonna happen unless you want synthetic sounding whistles.

You also would need coding for a external source for it, eg a joystick. Couldn't feasibly do so via computert keyboard and mouse really.

A good example of what I mean by 'synthetic', is look at the Q2B siren int he game EmergNYC.
It's earliest implimentation just sounded, wrong. Pure saw wave basically. It's been refined since to sound more Q siren like, but. Still just doesn't sound quite right, and clearly isn't an actual 'Q' and all.
Same issue would be had doing that with ORTS, and the rivet counter types that want that, wouldn't be satisfied with it at all.

[BrandonS261]

Yes I agree with you completly and figured it would not be possible but thought I would throw it in there. For my steam locomitives like the Milwaukee Road 261 I have multiple recordings of the same whistle and cue them accordingly so it sounds like you are quilling the whistle. I also have it so its randomized in the SMS file so it's not always the same recording playing. I also do sound sets for steam locomitives in Open Rails so I know what you are talking about.

[NW 2156]

Brandon,

Under your weather improvements I'd add,

8. Rain on the windshield/windows.

9. Wipers clear windshield of rain.

That's already been done in OpenBVE. So a working coding sample does exist to examine.

There is a Trello Card for the lightning already. CJakeman made it on my behalf from a discussion on ET.

We just need someone to step up and work on implementing those things.

Robert

[BrandonS261]

Brandon,

Under your weather improvements I'd add,

8. Rain on the windshield/windows.

9. Wipers clear windshield of rain.

That's already been done in OpenBVE. So a working coding sample does exist to examine.

There is a Trello Card for the lightning already. CJakeman made it on my behalf from a discussion on ET.

We just need someone to step up and work on implementing those things.

Robert

Thank you Robert.

I remember seeing something in the forums on ET about it but did not know it was already implemented into the game. I sure wish I knew how to do coding so I could help out some with Open Rails as well.

Another thing I just thought of and not sure if this is possible with it being open source but for Open Rails to open up with a main screen with the Open Rails Logo and screen shots of Open Rails with a drop down menu where you can pick the route, activity, locomotive and consist. Kind of like the way MSTS was set up.

Would sure be nice if the game could also auto adjust to a default setting depending on how your PC is set up to handle the game.

The way it is set up currently just seems way too cluttered and some stuff is not needed for all players.

What I mean by this is if we could streamline it just a little bit and maybe put some stuff together.

When you open the Options button you have all of these seperate buttons on top and I think some of them could go together in the following way. The General, Content, Video and Audio together in one box. Data Logger and Evaluation together in another box and maybe put System and Experimental in another box. This way it would not look as cluttered and more streamlined in appearance.

Another thought I had was for people that just wanted to play the game and not worry about all of the experimental stuff or testing features is have a version of Open Rails where you take all of the Testing, Data Collecting and Evaluation stuff out and just have the main game with just the stable version for people to play so we can get more people started with the game who just want to try it out.

That way it would be a lot less confusing and be more inviting for new people to get involved and play the game.

It would also be handy to have a photo of the locomotive that you pick pop up along with the route that you choose to play on.

Just a few ideas I had to make Open Rails look more inviting to others who have not played or are just getting into the game.

Brandon

[Komachi]

Yes I agree with you completly and figured it would not be possible but thought I would throw it in there. For my steam locomitives like the Milwaukee Road 261 I have multiple recordings of the same whistle and cue them accordingly so it sounds like you are quilling the whistle. I also have it so its randomized in the SMS file so it's not always the same recording playing. I also do sound sets for steam locomitives in Open Rails so I know what you are talking about.

That ain't a bad way of doing it!!!

Yeah I mean I'm totally with you with WANTING that, just. I don't see a good way it oculd be done. Technical issues, not a bad idea haha!!!

I really love your idea honestly of the precipitation stuff, though. Also what I wouldn't mind, though I have no the slightest how it could be coded, is for sound echoes and such off of buildings and what not.

And a low-pass filter on passenger view sounds from exterior locomotives, so the horn dons't sound so 'outside' in the inteiror. Illustrated with some edited .wav files passing them through a low pass filter

This is without the filter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx0IIiFK_EU

This is with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfHe4iQhlts

Could also allow a locomotive to have a third .sms file defined FOR such waves that you can specify is only audible in the passenger view

[geepster775]

Look at all these juicy ideas supported by so many people that would totally break MSTS backwards compatibility. My heart is all-a-flutter.