several minor issues (not really bugs)

[sdog]

late 19 century traction engines are underpowered. They move at 4km/h even with 1 wagon and no load.

Since clyde steamers can not use canals, there is no passenger service on all but the largest waterways possible.

No waterway going post boats are available, perhaps assigning one of the piece good barges as mail would help a lot.

I'm lacking dedicated mail railroad wagons in the 1880s to 1900. In urban rail networks a longer load time than passenger trains causes heavy bunching of the other trains. Right now i'm using a group of 10 bag MSLR 4 wheel brake carriages.

Tram stable horses can not be used in groups of more than one pair, only the lightest tram carriage can be used therefor.

[jamespetts]

Sdog,

thank you very much for spotting these issues. I have doubled the power of the traction engines now for the next version, which hopefully should suffice. I have also allowed tram horses to connect to other tram horses. As to the boats, this is not specific to Pak128.Britain-Ex, as the boats in the standard Pak128.Britain are still work in progress: the set is incomplete.

As to the mail vehicles - do you not have access to the MR, MSLR and GNR 4-wheel mail coaches, available from the 1870s to the 1920s?

[sdog]

James, sometimes i report issues also relevant or inherited from standard, since i tested it in experimental. I'm also aware that the pak set is work in progress, when i post something. It is just so far advanced that only some details reduce playability, and i want to spell them out.

The difficulty with those mail coaches, which are available, is their loading time, exceeding the passenger coaches loading time by far. It doesn't matter for long distance, but intra-city i have to use commuter trains without mail coaches. (Metropolitan). They have load times of 3500. The full capacity mail coaches load at 6000+ however. Using those on urban rails causes massive bunching of the commuter trains.

At first i could work around this by using 4 MSLR 4 wheel break carriages pulled by a terrier , with a load time of 10. It can load only 4x10 bags however, by far not enough later on. I built third platforms on my bidirectional stations, but this isn't perfect either. Also unnecessarily complicated, in particular with the new reverse route functionality.

My suggestion would be introducing parcel box wagons based on the 8t box wagon first, and 12t box wagons later on. Slow speed, like their freight counterparts, but low load times, equal to the predominant commuter carriages.


In my current test game i can see a bit more about economic balance. I had a hardly profitable company with very strong fluctuations in income due to (suspected) passanger travel time time-outs. But on the same tracks with introduction of GWR Clerestory sets and GWR Bulldog engines it turned immediately into a cash cow. Before 1905 0 to 400k Operating profit. 1907 2M profit.

I think a slight increase of 1890s carriages comfort should help. (Perhaps additional 1st class carriages?) Perhaps GWR Bulldogs should also become a bit more expensive.

Midland Spinners are too weak to compete with old LBSCR Gladstones in 1896.

LSWR M7 are also too good, to use any other engine of her class.

Is the GWR Saint Class supposed to be a step backwards from the GWR Bulldog? Heavier, more expensive, weaker, slower.

LBSCR in 1870 and LSWR Compartments in 1900 don't have fitting mail coaches; intended, todo, historical?

[jamespetts]

SDog,

thank you very much for your further feedback - it is much appreciated. The power of all steam traction needs reviewing (which is a very difficult task, as power figures, as opposed to tractive effort figures, are not available for steam locomotives, so careful calculations have to be made based on extrapolations from limited real-life performance data), and the entire set of costs need a thorough review. However, that is a truly gargantuan task. I was hoping to get some real-life relative cost figures for all manner of things, but my source has not been forthcoming for over six months now, and I rather suspect that he is too busy to do that any time soon, so it may be that I have to find alternative sources of that information.

Your test game reports are very interesting; might I ask - what trains were you using before the GWR Bulldogs and clerestory coaches? Do you have a save from that earlier period? The Saint is certainly not supposed to be a step back from the Bulldog - the weight and tractive effort are taken from real life figures, but the power, maximum speed and cost will be guesses. The Saint would certainly be more powerful and very likely faster, too.

As to the mail carriages: I have some doubt that mail was carried on intensive commuter trains. As far as I understand things, it does indeed take a lot longer to load mail carriages than it takes for passengers to load and unload themselves. A commuter train with a door in every compartment can have a station dwell time of as little as 15 seconds: it is very hard to imagine mail being loaded and unloaded with the same speed. The position with mail carriages is intended to reflect reality. If I have got that wrong, however, and there really were very fast loading/unloading mail trains that operated on suburban passenger networks, then do let me know, and I shall have to look into adjusting things.

[sdog]

My savegames need the version to be set to 9.0 in simversion.h, so i was partially waiting for 9.0 to be released, and partially for cold weather to fix things up and write a summary. I have the whole timeline of savegames, about 60 right now, and will either realease all, or some at milestones.

Before the Bulldogs i've been using LNWR Jumbos with MR 6 wheel carriages. And Jones Goods on some local trains. Before Jumbos, i used LBSCR Gladstones. I extensively used LBSCR Terriers on all local routes, they are dirt cheap. I'm phasing them out in 1900 and replace them with M7s. The main branch is 450 km long.

However i didn't connect it completely until Bulldogs were available. Jumbos caused extreme fluctuation with huge losses due to refunds. So i built the last 150 km only after the new engines arrived.

I know you're planing to re-balance the steam engines, so i want to give you some game economics feedback before. It is rather stable at the moment, i think it needs tweaking only.

[ӔO]

I'll second the amazing flexibility and cheapness of terriers. Best power/cost/speed ratio for the early steam era. It puts all other freight engines with similar speed out of a job.


The least profitable of the earlier trains are the LNWR Jumbo, GNR Stirling single and Midland 156.

[sdog]

The Bulldogs are way to profitable for their time, as i can see in my current game. I'll increase their maintenance quite a good bit and slightly reduce their power. Just enough to give a bit of incentive to upgrade to Saint class engines for testing.