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Experimental: sailing ships are too powerless

Started by neroden, April 22, 2010, 04:05:28 AM

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neroden

In experimental, they have a maximum speed of 0 when full, with their rated power.

Not so good.  I guess all the sailing ships need to be powered up (or have their carrying capacities reduced, or some combination of the two).

This is similar to the problem with the steam cars I mentioned earlier.  A full load should be haulable at some speed (equal to or greater than the 4 km/h minimum).

It's probably worth just popping open a depot on a "timeline off" game and running through all the vehicles to make sure they can all run at better than 0 km/h loaded.  I could make a list of all the problem ones if James Petts would like.

jamespetts

Neroden,

such a list would indeed be useful. The problem is that there is no information available on the kilowatt-power of a sailing ship, so all the figures are guesses. If you (or anyone else) has any ideas as to how to get around the problem - do let me know!
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jonasbb

You could try this:
Search for the heaviest load that a ship can have
Think the ship is full loaded
and add the value of goods weight to the ship weight.
Then calculate how much power you need to get the ship to full speed (or some smaller value if the ship should not reach the top speed)

At last you could add some more power if you think the ship needs to much time to accelerate.

neroden

OK, these problems turned out to be systemic.    (Jonasbb's proposal is a good one.)  "Underpowered" means that when full it runs at significantly below its rated top speed.  "Slightly underpowered" means it runs at a little bit below its rated top speed (1-8 km/h).  "0 km/h" means what you think it means.

Problem ships, running at 0 km/h:
Norfolk Wherry (all cargos)
Steam Barge (all cargos)
Humber Keel (all cargos)
Thames Sailing Barge (all cargos)
Brig (all cargos)
Clipper (all cargos)
East Indiaman (all cargos)
Blackwall Frigate (all cargos)
Windjammer (all cargos)

This is practically everything, except for the horse-drawn barges, the fishing ships, and the Schooner.  Those are all OK.
Do note: how many horses do you expect a horse-drawn barge to need?  Currently a typical one requires six.  (Which is fine by me.)

Problem road vehicles:
Again, practically everything.  

Al of the following run at 0km/h:

Light traction engine (1 Eagle Trailer, any sort)
Heavy traction engine (1 Eagle Trailer, any sort)
Thornycroft Q engine (1 bulk fluids trailer... others are OK)
Scammell Mechanical horse (1 of most kinds of trailers... but livestock is OK)
Scammell Highwayman (1 bulk fluids trailer, didn't check others)
Scammell Handyman (1 bulk fluids trailer, didn't check others)
Scammell Crusader (1 bulk goods trailer, didn't check others)
... (Townsman is tolerable)....
Leyland T45 Roadtrain (1 bulk goods trailer, didn't check others)
Leyland DAF 85 Artic (1 bulk fluids trailer, didn't check others)

....OK, I am *not* going through and listing everything.  *ALL* the "tractor-trailer" type cars are underpowered, and most are 0km/h.

The Scammell Townsman is reduced to 60 km/h with a piece goods trailer (max speed 80 km/h unloaded).

The bulk fluids appear to be the heaviest trailers so if power levels work for them they will work for anything.
Second heaviest is bulk goods, for those which don't have bulk fluid trailers.
For those without bulk fluid or bulk goods trailers, piece goods appear to be heaviest.

So these should all be recalibrated based on reaching an appropriate top speed while pulling the "heaviest expected" wagon.  (I'm not sure whether this should be *the* top speed or whether it should be allowed to go faster when running empty.)  the case of the traction engines, they're actually supposed to be able to pull up to three wagons, so they should be calibrated for that .

Most buses are OK.  Problem buses:
Petrol-electric omnibus and S-Type max out at 0 km/h.
AFC Reliance, Guy Special, Wright Streetcar, Mercedes Citaro G are significantly underpowered.
The following are slightly underpowered:
AEC Routemaster (long coach) (the green 1965 one), Daimler Fleetline, and Leyland Atlantean.

Mail vehicles:
All the tractor-trailers except the DAF XF Artic are seriously underpowered (though they will still move).  Most of the others reach speeds a little less than their top speeds when full, no more than 7 km/h below.  They should probably all be boosted a little.  Even the man on the bicycle can't reach his top speed when loaded (15 km/h rather than 16 km/h), but that's OK.

I haven't gone through all the one-piece goods road vehicles, but here's a start:
Bulk fluids:
DAF CF Rigid is severely underpowered;
Leyland DAF 85 Rigid is severely underpowered;
Leyland T45 Constructor is 0 km/h;
Scammell Routeman is 0 km/h;
Thornycroft QC Rigid is slightly underpowered;
Yorkshire Steam Tank is 0 km/h.

Based on my estimate about relative weights of different cargos in the game, I suggest calibrating with the bulk fluids vehicles where they exist.  I can go through the ones which don't have bulk fluid variants later....  Of course, it's worth checking that the vehicles have the right capacities first.  If they are supposed to have lower capacities, that will solve many problems.

Trams are pretty much all good.  The Blackpool Coronation and the Sheffield Roberts are ever-so-slightly underpowered but by only 1 km/h.

I didn't go through rail vehicles at *all* because they're much trickier to figure out (how many coaches *should* a given engine be able to haul?).  Maybe later.

I think it's worth getting the power/speed levels balanced to what we want before we even start looking at pricing.

.... And it's worth gettting the capacity levels right before we do the power/speed levels -- so tell me if there are vehicles whose capacities are still highly questionable, as capacity levels should be set first.

jamespetts

Neroden,

thank you for that detailed work - much appreciated! A number of general points. Firstly - the capacities are all more or less accurate, but the powers are largely guesses in many cases: it is very hard to research how many horsepower that a particular lorry from 1935 had, let alone a traction engine from 1880. Secondly, the physics is different in Standard to Experimental, so these may work in Standard but not in Experimental. The intention is that, with Experimental, the vehicles should perform accurately when supplied with real-world data.

Thirdly, a vehicle should not necessarily be able to go at its full top speed with a full load: it is often the case that a vehicle of a given design powerful enough to pull a load of X at Y kph will be able to go y + z kph when empty. Unfortunately, there is also no readily available source of information for road vehicles in that respect, either (I don't know about ships, since it wasn't me who researched them, but I suspect that the same is true of them).
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neroden

Mmm, I should also note that if the *weight of the goods* changes, that will change *everything*, so that should be gotten right even before anything else.

jamespetts

Hmm - I didn't research the weights of the goods (The Hood did that, I think), but I think that they are more or less right.
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ӔO

most modern lorries and buses should do the maximum speed limit (about 100km/h) with a full load no problem. They might drop down to 80~90km/h going up a hill and of course, it might take more time to reach the posted speed limit, but it's pretty rare that they will be underpowered when moving on flat land.
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neroden

Quote from: AEO on April 24, 2010, 08:28:42 PM
most modern lorries and buses should do the maximum speed limit (about 100km/h) with a full load no problem. They might drop down to 80~90km/h going up a hill and of course, it might take more time to reach the posted speed limit, but it's pretty rare that they will be underpowered when moving on flat land.

That's good then, the numbers displayed in the depot (which I was quoting) are for flat land.

Of course we're talking about a lot of not-at-all-modern lorries, so....

jamespetts

One small side note: historically, the AEC Q2 'bus should be a little under-powered.
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Martinwh1

As far as the power of UK Motor Vehicles is concerned, brake horse power information is in the yearly "Motor Specifications and Prices" published by Stone & Cox. I have 1959 and 1960 editions which include commercial vehicles back to 1945 but, unfortunately, the later editions I have (from 1974 on) only cover motorcycles and cars. Let me know if you want any information for the 1945 - 1960 period. I did a quick check in ABE Books and there is a tatty 1939 edition for sale at a bookshop in Brighton for £20 but I don't know how far back that would go.
Martin   

ӔO

how much decrease in power is there from bhp to the drive wheels on lorries and buses?
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jamespetts

Martin,

thank you very much for your help. Information would be much valued indeed. I think that we have reasonably accurate horsepower for road vehicles from the 1970s onwards, but if you could look at the horsepower and torque ("tractive effort") values for the vehicles in your time-frame to check whether they are accurate, I should be most grateful.
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Martinwh1

I don't have any torque figures for commercials but I have established the following engine power figures in kw (current simutrans figures in brackets):
Scammell Scarab 6 ton 33.5 (37)
Highwayman 120 (62)
Handyman 95 (54)
Crusader 227 (71)
Routeman 84 (45)
Thorneycroft Amazon 75 (61)
Leyland Comet 75 (120)
Austin 7 Van 7.8 (6)
Morris 8 22 (18)
Morris Minor 26 (28)
Morris J4 331 (30)
Morris LD 41 (36)
AEC Regal IV 93 (85)
AEC Routemaster 86 (93)
Leyland Leopard 93 (130)
Leyland Atlantean 93 (85)
Guy Arab 83 (62)
Daimler Fleetline 95 (100)

Hope this is of some use.

Martin

jamespetts

Martin,

excellent research! Very much appreciated. I have put it in the Experimental version of all the files, and I'm sure that The Hood will do likewise with the Standards. One question: are you sure that the Morris J4 is 334 not 34?
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jamespetts

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