Aali wrote:This patch is no fun with long trains of powered wagons.
The term 'powered wagons' is kind of ambiguous here. Do you mean wagons using the powered wagon callback, such as the 2CC xMU cars in the 2cc set? These are not counted as engines, so it should not be a problem. Or are you talking about trains in which each carriage is an engine, e.g. 10 Manley-Morels in one train. In this case they are indeed all engines and thus they will all break down, so I assume this is what you mean.
The subject of multiengine trains in the context of this patch is a tricky one. Please consider the following points:
- The impact of breakdowns is significantly lower than it used to be.
- Multiengine trains are already compensated somewhat, because emergency stops only apply to the front engine.
- Multiengine trains are able to compensate a power loss far more easily.
- Breakdown chance is affected by load. This benefits trains with a power surplus, which multiengine trains often have.
- Multiengine trains stopping more often is somewhat considered to be a feature. The aforementioned advantages are designed to balance this.
However, it seems this balance tips in the wrong direction, especially when chaining xMUs. I have been thinking about this problem for a while now, but I haven't been able to come up with an answer that really satisfies me. Options include the following:
- divide the breakdown chance by the number of engines. Advantage: solves the problem completely. Disadvantage: makes the whole multiengine feature basically obsolete.
- Adjust the breakdown types, so non-front engines only suffer from power reductions. Advantage: keeps multiengine support in place. Disadvantage: hackish and seems unnatural. Why does only the front engine suffer from mechanical failures?
- divide the breakdown chance by a certain factor, such as sqrt(number of engines). Advantage: may be a nice balance for gameplay. Disadvantage: How can one explain that adding an engine to the consist causes less breakdowns for the other engines?
As you see, this is not an easy problem to tackle, but it is certainly on my todo list. If anyone as a good suggestion, please let me know.