Adding Realism with Sounds (Or Lack Thereof) and More

[NorthernElectric]

Last night after pacing a local train for 13 miles at 10mph something dawned on me; this train has two locomotives, and while both online, one was isolated. It wasn't putting out any power or throttling up with the engineer did from the first unit. The combination was an ex-SP GP40-2 and an UP GP60 with four empty cars. While pacing this train an idea hit me: can this effect (two powered locomotives with one being isolated and idling during a trip) be modeled in train sim? That is my question to you.


While I have very little knowledge about .sms files and how the sound files interact with those .sms files, it would seem that leaving all the air streams would make sense. What I want to know is what would this mean within the .sms and .eng file of the locomotive to be isolated? Would the power be "capped" or lowered? Would the locomotive only need one "motor" or "engine" stream? What does all of this mean? How can this all be applied to the sim?


I am looking to learn how this effect could work, or if its even at all possible. Any point or nudge in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. I have more questions - once I formulate them into something intelligible - I'll post them on here. Thank you.

[Armchair_Engo]

Making a dead engine is not very hard. Route Riter can do it for you.

Making an engine idle only, while in train, is slightly more effort.
Copy and rename an existing .eng file (rename inside the .eng file as well).
The Power() and MaxForce() parameters in the .eng file should be set to a very low number.
I guess it would be appropriate to set the smoke to a low level.
The engine .sms would have a lot ripped out of it, just enough to contain a stream or two for the engine idle and maybe some axle rumble.

[BNSFfan]

RR can make a dead engine, to get an engine to just idle sound wise make an SMS that only has one stream and the frequency curve is constant such as this:
Stream (
Priority ( 6 )
Volume ( 1.0 )
Triggers ( 1
Skip( **** Engine-Sound **** )
Initial_Trigger ( StartLoop ( 1 File ( "x_710G3B_idle.wav" -1 ) SelectionMethod ( SequentialSelection ) ) )
)
FrequencyCurve(
Variable2Controlled
CurvePoints ( 9
0.00 44100
0.125 44100
0.25 44100
0.375 44100
0.50 44100
0.625 44100
0.75 44100
0.875 44100
1.00 44100
)
Granularity ( 0.001 )
)
VolumeCurve(
Variable2Controlled
CurvePoints ( 9
0.00 1.0
0.125 1.0
0.25 1.0
0.375 1.0
0.50 1.0
0.625 1.0
0.75 1.0
0.875 1.0
1.00 1.0
)
Granularity ( 0.001 )
)
)

[Noisemaker]

Wouldn't there be some doppler effect passing a idle engine? Or is that negated by the engine in motion passing it?

[BNSFfan]

There would naturally be a doppler effect.

[Noisemaker]

Interesting. So keeping the engine relatively static in tone and volume like you've described, MSTS will still enact a doppler and/or fade in and out of volume as it's being passed. Is that something internal with MSTS, or is that taken into account based on the players engine volume and tone curves? I'm confused in how your specs can sound the same as passing a AI train sitting idle 'in the hole' so to speak.