Hello:
For locomotives, what does the gear ratio mean?
For example, let's compare the Empire F7A to the H-Trans BR212. The F7A has 1120 kW of power, the BR212 only 990 kW. Yet the F7A's gear ratio is 1.00 while the BR212's is 1.50 (I think, I don't have any running anymore).
You'd think the F7A would be more powerful because it has, well, more power! ;) But in practice the BR212 accelerates faster given the same load. Is this due to the higher gear ratio?
What is the point of more power then? Can a more powerful engine haul a heavier load at a higher speed, while one with less power but a higher gear ratio will accelerate quicker?
Simutrans 110.0 pak64 on Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit.
Gear is simply a multiplier for power. So effective power = power x gear.
In your example:
1120 x 1.00 = 1120
990 x 1.50 = 1485
And the idea behind is: you can recreate real life vehicles with their real life power values, and then simply adjust the gear factor to get the desired in-game behaviour.
Thanks, that makes sense!