I am currently working on producing .dat files for road goods vehicles in Pak128.Britain (see here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=2109) for details), but I am finding it difficult to find enough information on the payloads, weights and maximum speeds of quite common vehicles. I have managed to produce data files in the pre-war period, relying heavily on a very fortuitous website (http://www3.hants.gov.uk/museum/thornycroft/lorries) about Thornycroft lorries, but the data there end in 1939. I have found some useful information about AEC lorries on Wikipedia, but that is lacking the all-important metrics.
When designing paksets, how does one make up for this missing information? How were these figures procured for the vehicles, for example, in Pak128 and Pak64? I should be very interested for any thoughts on how to do this effectively.
Re 128... I do not know exactly how Napik did it and I haven't had a chance to do this yet. But I ****ume it's first getting the data and then adjusting them to create a plausible timeline. There is a lot to consider - arguably a lot more for locomotives than trucks - so at least some guesswork and tweaking is always applied. That didn't answer your question yet, did it ;)
A definite recipe? Look at available data, plot them, decide what kind of curves these are - expect exponentials, logarithmic, linear as basic elements. Try taking into account history, eg. new inventions and so on. Extrapolate numbers. Modify to make a plausible playing environment. Iterate until players stop complaining.
That era is really far from internet and you may have more success with conventional (dead tree format) sources :D
Just a random find with engine some (scarce) data: http://www.geocities.com/britishtrucks/
VS,
thank you for your input. I have found some useful information (here (http://www.daf.com/EN/About-DAF/Heritage/Pages/Strong-in-engines.aspx#tab2)) about one manufacturer's engines (and power ratings) over time, which is useful. Now I just have to find out about maximum speed, weight, and carrying capacity...
Pak64 are mainly unrealistic numbers made for gaming experience. I desteted going with 6ton truck in zillion amounts ...