Coupler heights?

[sniper297]

Converting a german 294 switcher for US couplers, got something that works, but;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1058&stc=1&d=1201579356

That looks too weird for words. Need to drop the Y value a few metric shillings so it's at the same height as the US cars. Getting punchy wading thru fifty zillion repetitions of the exact same "blueprint provider yada yada yada", code, can't find the XYZ values for the attachment points so I can drop the Y a little.

Off topic, anyone seen any slack action here, or did they leave that out?

[MontanaRailLink]

I've seen very little if no slack action...thats something I noticed right away. Thats overlooking a fairly fundamental element if you ask me...

[jivebunny]

Hmm I don't have my copy of RS to hand so can't check, but I'm pretty sure the coupler height is referenced somewhere in the .bin file for either the locomotive or the coupler. If it's in the coupler's then you will need to make a copy of the original coupler, alter the height data and then reference the new coupler folder in the loco's .bin file.

I'll take a look when I get the chance and see if I can come up with any answers :)

JB

[trackman44]

You need to adjust the coupler pivot y value to something that is the same value as the y value in the any of the US freight or diesel section under the assets/railsimulatorUS folder. Then it should be ok, height wise. Just remember that RS does not support buffer slack values as yet, will probably be in the next patch update, whenever RS team get around to it I guess.

trackman44:)

[sniper297]

If it was in the coupler bin file it would automatically be at the correct height, gotta be in the loco's bin file. Question is where? "FrontCouplingPivot" and "FrontCouplingReceivingPoint", same for back couplers, no XYZ values there, comparing the two container cars which are about the same size don't see where the difference might be. Further down under "ease of derailment" we got "FrontPivotX" and "FrontPivotY", same for back, but the Y value is -0.5000 for European, let's see, for US it's -0.5000. Hmmm, looks like the same number to me. :confused: Well, nobody knows for sure I guess it's time to stock up on fire extinguishers and start trial and erroring it! :eek:

[trackman44]

Its the receiving point that you have to adjust. But according to the docs you need the dev tools pack to adjust this point or compare the us content railvehicles with the european counterpart to figure out what the correct values are. Front or rear coupling points are defined by the X Y value ( X is front or back and Y is height). The Y value is to let the physics processor know where the coupling point is pulling from (half a meter below rail height, thus the value -0.5000). And the "easeofderailment" value lets the physics processor know what the centre of gravity is ( 0.473 relates to CG below rail height also). Kuju decided to put these values for all the stock railvehicles so that non of them would ever derail at high speeds going thru tight curves or slow crossovers. That's why, for the sake of realism, I personaly change these values to half a meter above rail height( y=0.5000) and ease of derailment for locos CG at 1 meter high ( "easeofderailment"=0.7500) and freight and passenger cars to 90cm CG ( "easeofderailment"=0.7250). Hope this helps.

trackman44:)

[sniper297]

Dunno about ease of derailment, I take a 100 meter curve at 50 or so I can come off the rails without trying. :eek: As for the blueprints/assets, to the best of my knowledge the dev tools are worthless for that unless you have the source file. I had the dev tools for the UK version, but started hacking cloned defaults directly in the bin files because the blueprint editor wouldn't open anything but one of them IGX files. Which I don't have for default trainsets.

[cookiemae]

I think that adding the slack element to the game will make the game much more realistic when it comes to couplers and train behavior.
In real life, slack is natural to Railroading. RS would look really good if it could do this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmnN0qeMICE&feature=related

[PaulD]

Dunno about ease of derailment, I take a 100 meter curve at 50 or so I can come off the rails without trying. :eek:

I hacked together an HST that goes about 400 mph and run it on the "York" route (you can run continuously using the yard loops). I've adjusted the derails setting so it sticks to the track up to about 250 mph going through the yards, but above that, it still flies off the track.

Oh, and the docs are wrong, a value of "0" make the train tilt INTO the curve and derail instead of outward (really weird looking). The neutral value is really around ".2" (at least on the HST loco).

[sniper297]

Thanks to BigPeter for the answer, in the pivot datablocks, line 14 for front and rear is the coupler attachment point height. Change the 1.0250 to 0.8763 and it don't run uphill - downhill.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1958&stc=1&d=1204415853

Gonna package and upload this as is, but for future stuff we still need to find a simple way for all the aliasing, blasted thing zips up to 10.8 megabytes. :eek: Probably bits and pieces of the kitchen sink and assorted parts from the vacuum cleaner in there, but it works. :cool: