MSTS Bin and steam locomotives

[Bill Hobbs]

I downloaded the latest version of MSTS Bin about two weeks ago and was running a single steam loco under it last night when I encountered a couple of problems:
(1) steam usage reported was incorrect, not picking up the steam required to run the injectors;
(2) after stopping the train and attempting to restart with the cylinder cocks open, the fusible plugs blew, both in the original and saved versions of the activity. Water level was more than adequate at the point of stopping.
I uninstalled and reran the tests with no problems, though I do not recommend keeping anything "saved" with MSTS Bin for use after uninstalling.

[OTTODAD]

Hi Bill !

There are a number of problems with some Steam locos, especially when run in activities and switched to from a Player loco to a Loose Consist one.

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?t=61382&sid=17b35329eae648c4a5d3e98231826c30

George is aware of this !

O t t o

[muskokaandtahoe]

Otto, you express yourself in a way that suggests you know George, or at least have the means to communicate with him... is that correct? If so, can you pass on a special request: The third page of the f5 screen displays a whole lot of very interesting information and IMO it would be a godsend to anybody setting up the .eng file for a steam locomotive to get that data dumped into a text file in the same way the -perlog data file is created.

Can George add a software switch and code to do that? I would think so. Output a timestamp and all the data on each line. Just imagine how useful it would be to pull that data into a spreadsheet and graph 10 or 15 minutes of performance data! It would allow a level of analysis far, far beyond what can be done right now.

[b]Dave Nelson
SLW Route Design: The Cal-P, 1950.[b]
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/Dancing_Genma.gif
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/4ad3d633.jpg

[OTTODAD]

Yes Dave, I have been in close direct contact with George from the start of MSTSBin, as well as on his web site, realizing that he could do with all the help he can get from guys like me who mess more with MSTS than most and also have the time to test various aspects of MSTSBin thoroughly, especially the couplers, also finding bogies not turning into curves properly driving from rear cabs and more, reading the forums to find other problems reported to be relaid to him ! :-)

I dare say that as the data displayed by these lines has now been extracted by George, it should not be impossible to print a running log with say a Ctrl-P print on-off toggle, quoting running time and pre-selected by him parameters ?

I could to that with FRAPS, recording a MSTS session video for diagnostic playback, also showing what the engineer did to his loco to cause these HUD read-outs. But mind, you would need a lot of free disk space for saving it to ! ;-)

But he still has a lot to take care of which affects operating aspects of MSTSBin 1.6.1 and may have to put this as well as extending visibility of objects beyond 2000 feet and trailing points in FREESTYLE activities not opening their blades for approaching trains on the back-burner for the time being.

O t t o

[Bill Hobbs]

I'm glad I still have MSTS Bin installed on one of my machines. I didn't realize the availability of enhanced HUD displays and so I certainly want to take a close look at what is available. Perhaps that will help me understand how TrainSim is actually doing some of the calculations.

[CWA13000]

"I downloaded the latest version of MSTS Bin about two weeks
>ago and was running a single steam loco under it last night
>when I encountered a couple of problems:
>(1) steam usage reported was incorrect, not picking up the
>steam required to run the injectors;
>(2) after stopping the train and attempting to restart with
>the cylinder cocks open, the fusible plugs blew, both in the
>original and saved versions of the activity. Water level was
>more than adequate at the point of stopping."


I absolutely agree with your point #2. It is happening to my engines and at the very instant that the boiler level drops from say 1.28 to a -13, the boiler pressure drops from 208 to 40 and then the plugs blow out.


Wild Willy the Wacko

[CWA13000]

"trailing points in FREESTYLE activities not opening their blades for
>approaching trains on the back-burner for the time being.
>
>O t t o"



Greetings, Otto, please excuse my malfunctioning brain. I still can't get this switch terminology streight. Do you mean by the above statement that George was going to try and fix the problem of not being able to throw a manual switch from both sides of it?


Thanks

Wild Willy the Wacko

[CWA13000]

"Hi Bill !
>
>There are a number of problems with some Steam locos,
>especially when run in activities and switched to from a
>Player loco to a Loose Consist one.
>
>http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?t=61382&sid=17b35329eae648c4a5d3e98231826c30
>
>George is aware of this !
>
>O t t o"


Hi, Otto, in the linked thread on page 1 above your last picture you comment:

"Repeated the test in EXPLORE ROUTE Mode, but the quantity of coal and water shows more now and again there was no water nor coal decrease. Also the second part of the F5 HUD shows more details ! "


I have only tried to use the automatic fireman once because I was going to watch the HUD and see what he was doing ( kind of like " on the job training" ). To my extreme chagrin, the HUD printed a short list that did not include some of the important info I was interested in. I'm going to stick my neck out and say that since that last picture shows a long list on the HUD that the automatic fireman is turned off. Is that what you ment when you said he was not " ticked "?

When you say " there was no water nor coal decrease. " do you mean of the boiler or of the tender. I see according to the HUD that you are not shoveling and both your injectors are turned off and the boiler level is dangerously low at .43!

I have found that every time I return to a cab, that both injectors are turned off and their rate is lowered to min though I had them operating when I previously left the cab. This could explain some of the comments by some that they are steadily loosing water level in the boiler and I am seriously believing a previous poster who thought that switching cabs was turning off the automatic fireman that they had been using.

I had originally played with two loose helpers in Snipers helper shed but changed my activity to start with a three engine player consist in Shey Coal Mine and so far I don't see a difference in operation.


Wild Willy the Wacko

[muskokaandtahoe]

>I dare say that as the data displayed by these lines has now been extracted by George, it should not be impossible to print a running
> log with say a Ctrl-P print on-off toggle, quoting running time and pre-selected by him parameters ?

> I could to that with FRAPS, recording a MSTS session video for diagnostic playback, also showing what the engineer did to his loco
> to cause these HUD read-outs. But mind, you would need a lot of free disk space for saving it to !

No, no, no. That's an absurd solution. I'm asking for a text file where the data is dumped on every cycle, just as is is today when you use -perflog. The difference from perflog is only the kind of data being dumped.

If you are not familiar with -perflog Otto, you should try it once or twice and examine the frame rate data therein. Very easily put into a line chart after you pull it into excel. Then imagine what your chart would look like if you used speed, boiler pressure, smoke output, grade, and power as data lines instead. You'd have a ready made analysis tool for understanding exactly what is going on with your steam locomotve.

Look at these two charts I created from -perflog data. The first is FPS compared to a count of visible static objects. The horizontal axis is time, the axis on the left is the count of static objects and over on the right is FPS. You can see how the count of static objects increased dramatically but is not well related to the FPS.


http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/up1/112726.jpg

The second chart here has pulled out the count of static objects and plugged in terrain polys. The left axis is polys/100 (so the scale puts the lines close together). This time the relationship is very solid. Lots of terrain polys are more important to FPS than are the number of objects.

I want to do the same sort of thing with steam locomotive data.


http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/up1/112727.jpg


[b]Dave Nelson
SLW Route Design: The Cal-P, 1950.[b]
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/Dancing_Genma.gif
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/4ad3d633.jpg

[OTTODAD]

Yes, Dave, I can see what you are after !

But as this would be of interest to just a few who can import a file into EXCEL, which they can then use to create a graph from, I doubt whether George would put it high on his list of priorities, but let him decide, having e-mailed your suggestion to him a while ago !

O t t o

[OTTODAD]

Hi Bill !

I am no expert on driving steam locos and the differences in water and coal levels I looked at were in the F9 display after clicking on the driving locos. The difference in the number of lines in their HUDs refers to them being used in either an activity or EXPLORE ROUTE Mode, the "Automatic Fireman" Off = it's Option box not ticked and On = box ticked !

Just as an experiment, replace the MSTSBin 1.6.1 Train.exe with the Version 1.2/1.4 one, having made a copy of the former first and then test drive a steamer, you knowing more about it than me.

But that would of course lose all the other advantages MSTSBin 1.6.1 provides until you restore it's Train.exe again !

O t t o

[Bill Hobbs]

I had a chance to examine the extended HUD this evening. Wow! I wish I had had access to this material earlier. I will definitely keep it on my "testing" machine, but leave it off my development machine for the time being. I need to know how things will work in both environments.

[muskokaandtahoe]

Yeah, it's his time so he makes the call. Only fair, right? I would think it might help him debug a few things too. On our side the data would be invaluable for fine tuning the performance of a steamer.

[b]Dave Nelson
SLW Route Design: The Cal-P, 1950.[b]
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/Dancing_Genma.gif
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/4ad3d633.jpg

[CWA13000]

Hi, Otto;

"I am no expert on driving steam locos and the differences in
water and coal levels I looked at were in the F9
display after clicking on the driving locos."




I know what an F9 display is and F9 is not what displays the HUD.



" The difference in the number of lines in their HUDs refers to them being used in either an activity or EXPLORE ROUTE Mode,"


I think you need to recheck this. If you are the conduit to George for info on bugs then we need to get the right info to him. I checked this out on my machine and when you press F5 two times and get a two part HUD the second part has extra lines when:

"the "Automatic Fireman" Off = it's Option box not ticked"

because one needs the info on those lines to fire the boiler properly.

The extra lines are not present when:


The automatic fireman is on "and On = box ticked!".

I asume that KUJU thought we would not want to know the extra info since we are not firing ourselves.


It works this way in activities and in Explore. As I mentioned previously, in that picture, the water level was very low .43 and the automatic fireman will not let it get that low if he can help it and the long list indicated that the option box for the fireman was not ticked. Or possibly a bug has layed him off.


I know that I have issues with the engines being picked up at the helper sheds ( loose consists ). I'm going back to do some extensive testing with the hacked activity where I made a 3 engine player consist and I'll test that with automatic fireman ticked and unticked. I sure want to play this game with BIN and steam.



Peace and Love

Wild Willy the Wacko

[261Steam]

Yes When I use any steam locomotive when ever I push the C button for Cylender Cocks it frezes on me and shuts down train simulator!! IT is realy a pain in the butt!! Is there any way I could fix that??

Thanks 261steam

[Richard]

Make sure the bell is not ringing when you open or close the cylinder cocks. This lockup only seems to occur when the bell is turned on.

[drjoe]

Bill,

For some reason, I hadn't read this thread before, but I read it tonight, and it seems to me that the problem lies in whatever George did to enable cab switching. Locomotives are at their "startup" state when switching to their cabs. If you start in locomotive A, and say set the train brake "higher" or "lower" than where it is when the program loads, then switch to locomotive B, the brakes will be set at whatever level locomotive has when it is loaded. If you then switch back to A, the train brakes will be at the original level for A, not the setting you made before switching to B. Because the locomotives behave this way, some recommendations are made in setting up locomotives and activities: 1) before switching from a locomotive to a cab, one needs to be sure to release the indy brake. 2) it is recommended not to have a locomotive in motion at the start of an activity ( sure to have problems switching cabs later on ). 3) it is best if locomotives have only the train brake set when they are loaded, not the indy brake, so that they always "agree" with #1.

I believe that MSTS also plays a part in this, because the indy brakes only work on the player locomotive, not in the helpers. I was hoping this was going to be fixed when the "reverse" dynamics were fixed. I wish that when switching cabs, whatever "state" the units were in at the time of switching cabs would be maintained, rather than using the "starting" state of the cabs. I don't know if this is possible, but it is what I would prefer. I think that similar effects in steamers is what might be causing what you are seeing, or at least a "conflict" between the starting "state" and what you are at the time of the save.

[Bill Hobbs]

Joe,
The date on my original posting was last year. There have been several improvements in the sim since, but there is one case where I think my August workaround is still necessary: the cylinder cocks and bell problem.
http://forums.flightsim.com/ts/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=32&topic_id=2796&mesg_id=2796&page=3

I haven't been doing much with MSTS recently spending what little sim time I have with KRS and using MSTS HUD numbers for comparisons. I do have the latest BIN installed, though.