Asking on the forums because I can't find any resources/documentation regarding substitution on American routes in TSW2. In particular: Do any locos or rolling stock sub into Sand Patch Grade or Peninsula Corridor? From the recent UP routes?
Some locomotives do, it's mostly locomotives from newer routes (like Sherman Hill and Clinchfield) subbing in to Sand Patch Grade, but not the other way around. As for freight cars, I believe only SPG subs into Oakville Subdivision and that's all. Apparently it's something with the game not handling freight load and it's weight when subbing in freight cars, so they simply turned it off for most routes.
So does the SD70ACe sub into CSX AC4400 services/consists in Sand Patch? Same goes for the UP SD40-2. Are they playable?
The Clinchfield substition on Sand Patch makes no sense to me. I wonder if it will be fixed/removed when the CSX-liveried SD-40 is released with the expansion pack?
Not at my PC right now, but I can tell you that driving the SD 70ACe on Sand Patch is a great experience! The updated physics makes handling the grades much more realistic.
As a modder working on making better freight consists I have a fair bit of experience with this. Oakville has what I call "wide open substitution." Any modern US freight car will sub in on the manifests. This means Peninsula Corridor, Cane Creek, Sherman Hill and Sand Patch Grade all can have their cars sub into Oakville. This is the only route that allows that. The catch is that all those cars are unloaded. I'm working on a way to make it so loads for cars of a specific type (like all autoracks) can still keep their loads even when subbing with a scheme from another DLC. In TSW1, Sand Patch, Oakville, and NEC had open substitution with each other. And the twin bay hopper from Peninsula Corridor could sometimes sub in on any of those three but not the other way around. Notice I did not include Clinchfield. Those cars have tags that permanently bind them to that route only. So they can't be made to sub in to other routes without modding.
Sorry to revive this long old thread, but I'm looking into the same thing and your explanation as to why some of the subsitute switches in the formations files are turned on and some are not. Has this ever been addressed, to your knowledge, or repaired? Seems kind of ridiculous that you can't subsitute in a simple repaint without messing up the physics.....Could you point me to a tutorial on how to save the formations files in a new plugin so I can attempt to turn the substitute fields on for the formations?