Flashing Ditch Lights for Burlington Northern SD70MAC

[ZachBell4400]

Of course we all have wants and needs, but this is a must-have for BN SD70MAC's when they were used on the Orin Line, circa early 1990s. I know somebody who did a config for the BNSF 9490 (ex-BN 9490 with flashing ditch lights) and have a general idea how it can be configured so that when the horn button (spacebar) is activated in OR, the ditch lights flash for a specific amount of time.

[Unoriginal]

I don't believe that any BN SD70MACs are available anywhere, outside of some old train artisan ones in the library. Could be used for BNSF reskins of danny beck's SD70MAC though.

I think some SP locomotives also got flashing ditchlights around the same time. I only know the AC44s had them but there's a chance other units had them too.

[Strawberry Yogurt]

This is possible now in Open Rails on the Unstable build, as of last week. It has not been possible to do this until now. Update to the Unstable Build if you want this feature.

In the engine's .eng file, you can add some new conditions in the lighting section

Horn ( 0 ) as a light condition does nothing, this is the default setting if there is no Horn condition
Horn ( 1 ) will disable the light when the horn is honked, which is what you want to do for the 'not flashing' ditch light state
Horn ( 2 ) will enable the light when the horn is honked, and this is the condition you should set for the flashing lights

Light   (
        comment( Right ditch light )
        Conditions      (
                Headlight ( 3 )
                Unit ( 2 )
                Horn ( 1 )
        )
        States  (       1
                State   (
                        LightColour ( FFFFFFFF )
                        Radius ( r )
                        Position ( x y z )
                )
        )
)
Light   (
        comment( Right ditch light Flashing )
        Conditions      (
                Headlight ( 3 )
                Unit ( 2 )
                Horn ( 2 )
        )
        States  (       2
                State   (
                        LightColour ( FFFFFFFF )
                        Radius ( r )
                        Transition ( 1 )
                        Duration ( 0.5 )
                        Position ( x y z )
                )
                State   (
                        LightColour ( FFFFFFFF )
                        Radius ( r )
                        Transition ( 1 )
                        Duration ( 0.5 )
                        Position ( x y z )
                )
        ))​

Then put

ORTSHornLightsTimer ( 30 )

in the bottom with the rest of the .eng variables, this sets the timer for the flashing to stop. I think early flashing ditch lights only flashed for 10 or 15 seconds. Now for most railroads it is 30 seconds.

If you need additional help with this, let me know. It's an awesome feature that I'm excited to see now. This will NOT currently work on the Stable build of Open Rails though.

You can also make the light sphere oscillate from side to side with the horn in a similar fashion, I can share some light code for that if its helpful. Really increases immersion in the cab at night.

[DuctTapeGuru]

For those of us who don't really understand .eng files, perhaps an example showing exactly where in the eng file the rest of the .eng variables are.

Thankyou