Hi, after one of the last updates, the 101 Expert got nearly undrivable for me. It has terrible wheel spin/ slip. The thing struggles to get on speed when it goes up a hill, especially with a long train. It gets even worse with AFB on. For example: 1% hill up, I can't accelerate, even at 120 km/h. I always have wheel slip, even with under 50% power. The track is dry, no rain. Did I miss something? Regards
VanDooooom How many coaches? And which route? I have no issues but yeah this loco is known for wheelspin. You have to drive with some caution. Its realistic. TSW isnt with most Trains.
Hello, I had this when I drove one of the new services on Kassel-Würzburg. How many coaches? Good question, I'm not sure at the moment. About 7 or 8. I remember the old 101 had terrible wheel spin on an old timetable on Kassel-Würzburg years ago. I thought, this is because of the game physics. Now after the update of the Expert 101 after she got the "Superschlupf" Screen, she also slips heavily. I must be at around Level 48 with her, so I know, how she has done before. But if this is how she acts in real life, I have to practice again. I just wanted to know, if I am doing something wrong with her.
just remember, this isn't a real locomotive and probably not even close to the real thing, despite it claiming to be Expert level rendition. TSW is built upon this Simugraph and heavily depends on scripting. Simugraph probably has its own deficiencies, and custom scripting can only add so much to it. Also, this is a the equivalent of a 'glass cockpit' locomotive, even in the prototype almost everything is computer controlled and dependent on software algorithms DTG has no access to and can only simulate. Things like adhesive conditions depending on temperature, precipitation, rail profile and hardness, wheel profile and hardness, ribbon wear on both, micro slip and creep can never be captured in a simulation.
Yesterday I rode in the rain with this locomotive. I had the power set so that the wheels would slip as little as possible. That was about 20kN of thrust. I also helped myself by sanding the wheels, sanding the wheels only outside the switches . I started to add power only when I exceeded 120km/h. It took a long time to reach a speed of 200km/h.
The adhesion simulation was totally reworked with the recent physics patch, and all of it was based on tests and recordings of the real locomotive. It is definitely prototypical. For example, in one recording I have the locomotive barely achieves 10 kN per traction motor (not statically since the WSP constantly reduces tractive effort on each traction motor to try to find the optimum slip percentage). The adhesion depends on precipitation. Light rain/drizzle or when it has just started to rain is when you will experience the worst adhesion, as it keeps raining the adhesion becomes better. Temperature is also a factor (frost for example or snow dust can yield really poor adhesion) and leaf fall (try to play in autumn for example). Heavy fog is another situation where the adhesion can drop significantly. Lastly, with the update I also reworked the sanding simulation. Sanding now should be more effective (prototypically) and the sand effect doesn't instantly vanish when you stop sanding but instead we simulate that the sand effect decreases with revolutions of the wheel (if you sand while stopped you can come back after 10 minutes and still have more adhesion when you depart). EDIT: Lastly, one important thing to note for the BR 101 Expert is that with the update it no longer uses the core adhesion simulation, so things like rain is now dynamic (not just a static "is it raining" flag but as mentioned above it matters if the rain just started or if it has been raining at a steady state for 10 minutes etc). On newer routes tracks have properties like whether they can be covered by rain, or if they are occluded by a tunnel or roof (this is used by the core adhesion simulation). This property is unfortunately not present on Kassel-Würzburg. I am experimenting with some methods that, if successful, would work on all routes but that will be something that probably will first feature on the next Expert locomotive and then backported to the BR 101 Expert.
What is written above is completely true. On that route, the train often travels long stretches far below the maximum speed. It's not the goal for the driver to reach the maximum speed. In the game, there are many who push the throttle to maximum and let the train do everything by itself. There's also the well-known myth that many think the AFB is cruise control, but it’s definitely not. It’s more of a tool to assist the driver rather than an autopilot. The driver must always brake manually and actively manage the train. What I do wonder about is whether tunnel recognition works properly... Wheel slip occurs just as much inside the tunnel as outside, which doesn’t make sense. There’s also a bug where rain is registered inside the tunnel, and if you turn off the wipers while in the tunnel, you get penalized for not having them on even though you’re in a tunnel. Anyway, what cwf.green writes is true this entire setup is just not present in the game, and DTG has never chosen to improve it. I can do things with a train in the game that are completely unrealistic.
I'm speaking for the core system now, rather than the BR 101 Expert. For trains to behave correctly w.r.t adhesion inside tunnels the track have to have a certain variable set to true (IsWeatherAffected), this is partially down to when the route was made (I don't think this property existed before TSW3 but I could be wrong) and also down to the route itself since the author has to set it up. On KWG this was never set up. I'm speculating now but it would make sense that the wiper penalty is using the same flag (so it just checks if you had wipers on for IsWeatherAffected tracks, since this flag would indicate if you are in a tunnel, under a roof, inside a building etc). You may notice however that rain doesn't fall on the wind shield inside tunnels on KWG (or any route afk) and even snow doesn't fall under bridges as early as Sand Patch Grade. This property is totally different than the track weather flag.
cwf.green No, I already suspected as much, which is why I mentioned it together it seemed to be the case. Could you ask DTG if they would be willing to take a look at this?
In the prototype, tunnels have a different micro climate. Older tunnels often have high humidity or even condensation in everything solid, leading to high corrosion of rails for instance. Apart from DTG not fixing visible 'rain' in tunnels, their simulation probably doesn't go so far as to simulate 'wet rail' inside tunnels.
Ok that explains something! When it depends on temperature also, then it explains, why I have more wheel spinning in my own scenarios. Cause of the cold temperature there. Even in summer, it's cold there. Or is there a hidden button, where I can make it warmer?
cwf.green With regards to physics patch and how it changed the adhesion behaviour, I IMHO would say that the patch made it more unrealistic. Since driving the new expert timetable on KWG I've experienced multiple instances where the wheel slip went bonkers. For example as soon as the first raindrop is visible on the cab window the traction is near zero instantaneously, even though the rail heads and wheels had pretty much no chanse to get wet yet. This seems pretty unrealistic. Also on a couple runs in clear weather the adhesion simulation sometimes randomly decides whether or not there is traction on a minute to minute basis (although I didn't look at the temperature, so maybe it is that). Additionally I think eventhough as you showed in some instances adhesion can get so poorly as to only allow up to about 15 kN/FM, to me for all circumstances where adhesion was not the dry rail summer value, I could only achieve at best ~20 kN/FM. Which seems too low because there are also videos where the 101 was able to push an IC with ~30 kN/FM while it rains and only at ~35 kn/FM does wheel slip start to occur. This was approximately the case before the update with the expert 101, but now isn't reproducible. Also sand doesn't really help in these situations and only gives about +2~3 kn/FM which makes the sander practically useless. This doesn't seem prototypical as sand (depending on the circumstances) can increase adhesion by a factor of up to 2. Would there by any chance be the possibility to include a setting whether or not to use the old adhesion model and make it toggleable in the EBuLa?
