So I've been playing with the steam locomotives a bit the past week. Primarily been using the 8F for freights. One thing I have noticed is that once my speed starts to exceed 55mph I am constantly getting the wheel slip indicator. This persists even at very small regulator opening, e.g. leaving the regulator at just 20% will create wheel slip. I have found that increasing the cut-off / reverser to 50%+ will help prevent the wheel slip (but at the cost of a lot of boiler pressure so seems to not be a good solution). Anyone have some tips for me on how to prevent the wheel slip at higher speeds? Or is wheel slip just going to happen regardless and I need to just run it at low regulator input? Also, how come the increase to forward reverser on the cut-off is preventing the wheel slip? I'm sure there is something I am not understanding about the reverser/cut-off functionality in this. For my regular speed acceleration I tend to accelerate up to 20mph and pull the reverser back to 25% and then just add regulator input. But everytime it hits 55+mph it's wheel slip all the time. Sometimes persistent, other times it goes in cycles (on for a bit, then off, et.c.). Any help / explanations on this issue would be greatly appreciated. (as you can see in image below even just a few % regulator invokes the wheel slip)
Yes it is a known bug, doesn't seem to affect performance. Whether DTG intend to address it is another matter.
Alright. Then I can just ignore the wheel slip indicator when my train starts really chugging along. I was kinda stressing with trying to counter it with sand (which likely is entirely useless as those speeds anyhow), cut-off and such.
Ironically increasing cut off seems to mitigate it but that then puts your steam consumption unprototypically through the roof. DTG still have a long way to go as regards steam loco physics.
Yeah I didn't get why increasing cut-off would counter it. My understanding of the cut-off is that it allows more steam into the steamchest, which gives more power in the moment which is great when starting and at low speed but would be very not-great when already slipping, and also wastes a lot of steam as it chugs it all out again on the next stroke, while lower cut-off is less steam into the chest just to keep the piston system going. I might be entirely wrong though, but at least that is my rudimentary understanding of the system.
Reducing cut off also reduces the problem. Wind it back to about 10% and the wheel slip stops. Up until you get up to a higher speed anyway. At that point you can't wind the reverser back anymore and still accelerate.
