Patch: Multiengine Normalization

[bobingabout]

actually, isn't this b reakdown logic simular to how electric rail engines work when multi-headed with a diesel.

IIRC, when a train with a diesel and 1 electric leaves electric rails, then the HP of the electric is subtracted. this works either way round, eg, an electric front and diesel helper, or a diesel front and electric helper.

IMO, this should be true with breakdowns too, if the front engine breaks down, the helper engine should still keep it going.

[DaleStan]

However, the helper engines cannot currently break down. This also needs to be fixed.

[bobingabout]

did you read the first post? this patch does that.

[DaleStan]

I probably did not, actually. It was posted when I was long-term AFK.

[kaan]

V2 updated to r12628 in first post.

[MJS]

Nice! Is this patch not theoretically ready for trunk?

[kaan]

Nice! Is this patch not theoretically ready for trunk?

I'm afraid not

Edit: Come to think of it, two lines from this patch got into trunk about a year ago

[MJS]

You mean "if (YouAreHappyAndYouKnowIt) {
ClapYourHands();" or two different ones? In what sense is it not ready for trunk? (Or was my double negative phrasing causing the smiley?)

[kaan]

You mean "if (YouAreHappyAndYouKnowIt) {
ClapYourHands();" or two different ones? In what sense is it not ready for trunk? (Or was my double negative phrasing causing the smiley?)

The secondary engine ageing was included in trunk.

The rest of the patch is still not very mature. I will need to fix the non moving black smoke and make a patch option and lots more.
Since this patch haven't seen any real playtesting I expect a few bugs to turn up as well.

[Bjarni]

Since this patch haven't seen any real playtesting I expect a few bugs to turn up as well.

I think you should concentrate on the known issues first. It would make more sense to tell people to test it when there are no known issues left

[kaan]

Since this patch haven't seen any real playtesting I expect a few bugs to turn up as well.

I think you should concentrate on the known issues first. It would make more sense to tell people to test it when there are no known issues left

Your right as usual

Since this is really your job, could you do me a favor and figure out how to get the smoke on wheels?
I have looked at the engine smoke for clues but that was fruitless as they actually stand still after creation.
Then I looked at plane shadows and found out that they are put on the plane as a wagon and the position updated on the run.
Fine i thought, I can do that. But then I began thinking (uh-ooh). Planes don't usually have wagons in flight and thats why it doesn't disturb anything else to use that for the shadow. Trains on the other hand has plenty of wagons and adding one (or more) with a funny offset would open a whole world of problems all around the codebase. If that wasn't enough I'm not sure that it is possible to have an animated wagon like that overlapping the engine.
So I give up unless someone has a solution.

Alternatly we could change the breakdown smoke to something like the steam smoke, only black and lots of it.

[Bjarni]

Since this is really your job, could you do me a favor and figure out how to get the smoke on wheels?

You can't copy the idea from planes, that's for sure. However do you really want black smoke on a driving train? I say that's a "stop right away" sign as it indicates a broken bearing or similar damage that will only get worse if you ignore it.

The question is more like: how should a disabled engine be displayed? What do we really want to display and then we figure out what to do.

[kaan]

Since this is really your job, could you do me a favor and figure out how to get the smoke on wheels?

You can't copy the idea from planes, that's for sure. However do you really want black smoke on a driving train? I say that's a "stop right away" sign as it indicates a broken bearing or similar damage that will only get worse if you ignore it.

The question is more like: how should a disabled engine be displayed? What do we really want to display and then we figure out what to do.

Good point.
The current behavior is that there isn't much difference. For the engines that display those things the steam/smoke/sparks stop when broken down.
I don't have any good ideas on how to expand on that.

[AndersI]

Couldn't the faulty engines be drawn gray and black like crashed trains. There must be code somewhere creating those B&W sprites...

[Toni Babelony]

Couldn't the faulty engines be drawn gray and black like crashed trains. There must be code somewhere creating those B&W sprites...

That would be really ugly, buut quite fair.

I was thinking about an extra smoke emission from the back of the engine to mark a damaged unit, but that would probably be as hard to code as the black smoke as stated above.

Another solution would be adding some kind of flag on the front of the particular engine, although I also like Bjarni's idea of the 'stop right away' sign. Maybe it would be better to have a 'send for service' sign.

[Bjarni]

Another solution would be adding some kind of flag on the front of the particular engine, although I also like Bjarni's idea of the 'stop right away' sign. Maybe it would be better to have a 'send for service' sign.

Actually I meant that you are supposed to stop right away if the train emits black smoke. The only reasons for black smoke that I can think of is broken bearings, horrible diesel engine combustion or fire. You really don't want to drive with any of those.

I don't like the idea of using the crashed sprites as not only would it look odd but it would also make the crashed sprites less severe or something. I mean it's a sign of trains crashing into each other. We don't want to drive with trains like that either. However I can't think of anything better. I guess the problem is that there really is no visual difference in real life so there is nothing to copy. Imagine an EMU that stops using the electric engines on the bogies... you could watch it drive past or be in it without being able to tell that it's off because you can't see it.

[kaan]

Another solution would be adding some kind of flag on the front of the particular engine, although I also like Bjarni's idea of the 'stop right away' sign. Maybe it would be better to have a 'send for service' sign.

Actually I meant that you are supposed to stop right away if the train emits black smoke. The only reasons for black smoke that I can think of is broken bearings, horrible diesel engine combustion or fire. You really don't want to drive with any of those.

I don't like the idea of using the crashed sprites as not only would it look odd but it would also make the crashed sprites less severe or something. I mean it's a sign of trains crashing into each other. We don't want to drive with trains like that either. However I can't think of anything better. I guess the problem is that there really is no visual difference in real life so there is nothing to copy. Imagine an EMU that stops using the electric engines on the bogies... you could watch it drive past or be in it without being able to tell that it's off because you can't see it.

Then I would suggest we keep it the way it is and cover up our lazyness behind the need for realism

Or almost the way it is anyway. When secondary engines get the power to stop the entire train then they should emit black smoke as well.

I would like to start getting suggestions for formula that dertermines breakdown (partial or full stop).
I even thought about makeing the breakdown overhaul a seperate patch, but lets see how complicated it gets first.

I'll head over to the balanced economics thread to see if they have some suggestions on this

[athanasios]

To my opinion a message that the engine is broken down would suffice.

[kaan]

To my opinion a message that the engine is broken down would suffice.

Hmmm, that could be done, but I'm not sure how practical that would be with 1000+ trains.

[leno4]

Thanks, will be added.