Question About Differential

[Goodyear]

I've never really been a huge car/heavy equipment guy, so I'm not too sure on how the differential locking works. I get that it locks two wheels together as though they're on a single shaft, I'm just wondering about its utilization. Am I correct in thinking I use locked differential when I'm hauling things and start losing torque, like up a steep incline?

[codehorizon_mod_Egoon]

yes you are correct in how to use it. dont use it on the road (asphalt) thats all ;)

(in this game its a fairly simple way of doing diff lock)

[Goodyear]

Maybe it's just because I'm Canadian, but calling it 4x4 sounds like it'd be a lot more intuitive, to me, lol.

[Merck]

Vehicles don't necessarily have all wheel drive (4x4), but can still have a differential. Actually a 4x4 has two differentials - one in the rear axle & one in the front axle.

The differential in a vehicle is located in what is sometimes called the "pumpkin", or that center section of the front or rear axle that intersects with the drive shaft.

The main purpose of the differential is to allow each half of the axle (each tire) to spin at different speeds, while supplying an equal amount of force to each wheel in that axle. The need for the wheels to rotate at different speeds is especially apparent when turning corners. When cornering the inner wheel travels a shorter distance than the outer wheel.

When you "lock" a differential, you are 'forcing' both wheels to rotate at the exact same speed. This then applies equal power to both wheels, but does not allow the wheels to rotate at different speeds for cornering.

The advantages of locking the differential is that power is applied to both wheels, which reduces power loss thru slippage. But the negatives are that you can get excessive wear on the wheels as you corner, since the inner wheel is turning at a different rate than the outer wheel - & thus causing "slippage" wear. This really is not too much of a factor at lower speeds such as when applying the locked differential (also, since primarily used for 'off-road' situations, the ground material itself compensates for some of the slippage - ie.. loose dirt or gravel).

But if you were to use the locked differential at highway speeds &/or on paved surfaces, then there is excessive wear on the tires due to the difference in rotational forces on the tires. This can greatly speed up the wearing out of tires by running with the differential locked. Note: this may be why some players are having to replace tires much more often.

[Goodyear]

So what's it mean for the tracked vehicles, then? I noticed I couldn't turn at all with locked differential which makes sense, but at the same time it crawled up slopes at 0.2 km/h. Is it there to help lock it in place while you're already moving at 5 to 10 kliks?

[Metallos]

Tracked vehicles don't have a differential, each track has is own (hydraulic, so no gears like in the game!) motor (or brake). For driving straight, both tracks have the same speed, to drive a corner one track is slower than the other. And for turning on spot the tracks are driven in opposite directions.

And (as I said) there is a big fault in the game, the vehicles with tracks don't have a transmission with changing gears (1, 2 ...), they have a fixed ratio. And the gears are wrond simulated, they shift up too early and down much too late, due to that the vehicles have problems driving up a hill.

[Merck]

There is a pretty good explanation of Differentials in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_(mechanical_device). About half way down the page is an early automobile video explaning the basic operation of differentials.

[Goodyear]

Originally posted by Metallos:

And (as I said) there is a big fault in the game

I found that out when I opened the hood of my pickup and it went flying straight up like a rocket, launching my trailer and all my spare stuff I keep inthe bed all over the place, tearing the hood right off the truck, and parking it at the next parcel over. Dozer keeps getting stuck on the tiniest mound of dirt too, and every 40 hours of gameplay resets my "time played" on Steam to 0, but that last one I think is a Valve issue.

[Bad Pilot]

When I worked at a car dealership we had a customer come in complaining about poor handling and that the rear tyres on their new 4X4 were showing excessive wear and that the tyres would squeal whenever they went around a corner. Turns out they had been driving for three months with the diff lock on. Seems no one noticed the big red illuminated 'Diff Lock On'' in the middle of the meter cluster. Fortunately this was in summer, in the wet season the car would have been prone to breaking traction and spinning out on the corners with the diff locked.

[Goodyear]

That sounds incredibly realistic and common. Between things like that, people putting gasoline into diesel engines, and all the ruined transmissions I've seen from people who never properly learned to shift gears on their manual, I can honestly see why the newer the car, the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ its performance and more robotic it is.

Anyone I know that works in an industry where there's a lot of heavy equipment present is fine with knowing their vehicles inside and out, but your average consumer these days doesn't realize their vehicle is capable of more than simply travelling from A to B. Most emphasis is put on the bells and whistles like a camera for reversing, blindspot detection sensors, and things like that, so Joe the accountant won't even notice that red light on his dashboard, let alone understand what Diff Lock On even means.

I'm apparently smart enough to put my mechanical knowledge to practical use, correctly assuming what the differential lock system is for, but even I'm dumb enough to have driven with my parking brake on when I started driving, aha ha.

[Bad Pilot]

Yeh, we all have idiot moments, glad some of mine didn't kill me. I will admit though that after 50+ years I do now read the manual. As to the customer, when the Diff Lock light was pointed out to them they did admit that sometimes it had been flashing.

[Goodyear]

I can't afford the dump truck yet, or at least don't want to. So far all my nuggets are going towards buying a parcel so I stop paying lease fees, and essentially making it so I'm making nothing but profit, lol. I also want a dozer before any other machinery. With my small excavator, a dozer, and a few hours of gameplay, I'll have the most productive strip mine possible. The only benefit to growing up in the worlds most advanced mining city, in a family of miners, is you pick up a few tricks on how to efficiently overmine an area, exhaust every spec of paydirt. I'm going to turn my parcel into the next Happy Valley.

[Goodyear]

Oh yeh, I don't drive the scoop without differential lock on, there's no reason not to use it, lol.

[Bad Pilot]

Having over 100 buckets on the claim will have a an effect on FPS. I was doing 150 bucket runs and was so glad to get rid of them after making enough to buy the Old Arnold claim. Also the game did not like having two Wave Tables running, could use two but had to be careful not to look at them to keep the FPS up (looking at them dropped FPS to 20-25 with the 150 buckets around. Not so bad without the buckets but still a noticeable drop).

Not complaining though, keeping track of and rendering 150+ individual buckets and where they are, what’s in them, standing up or fallen over plus bucket shadows is going to tax most systems as evidenced on YouTube Gold Rush game videos with high volume bucket runs.

[Goodyear]

FPS only drops when I turn my lights on, but that's probably because I have waaay too many so close together. I'm not worried about the costs of things, the game is literally about digging for gold, lol. I'll use the nuggets option, because that's realistic for the game I want to play, but having everything subsidized to only cost a dollar sounds like Stalin sent me out claim and work the Mir Mine, lol.

My grandpa lives out in BC, and the two of us purchased a claim out there. I like hand-panning and all that good old school ♥♥♥♥, and was a fan of the show too, no matter how over dramatic it was. I'd honestly rather sit around and take my time with it and earn the money, because managing an entire washplant by myself is going to cost me more money than it'll earn me. I estimate an efficient tier 6 plant costs around a good 7 or 8 million to fully set up and ensure can run for a full bucket of dirt to put in your washtable.

Magnetite being in the game is great, both or some extra cash and being used to upgrade the smith, but I'd like to see other minerals commonly present in surface mining that I could sell for extra cash. I mean, at least let me sell the processed dirt as gravel to the State of Alaska.

[Bad Pilot]

Originally posted by larrymccurdy:

Originally posted by andev12:

Having over 100 buckets on the claim will have a an effect on FPS. I was doing 150 bucket runs and was so glad to get rid of them after making enough to buy the Old Arnold claim. Also the game did not like having two Wave Tables running, could use two but had to be careful not to look at them to keep the FPS up (looking at them dropped FPS to 20-25 with the 150 buckets around. Not so bad without the buckets but still a noticeable drop).

Not complaining though, keeping track of and rendering 150+ individual buckets and where they are, what’s in them, standing up or fallen over plus bucket shadows is going to tax most systems as evidenced on YouTube Gold Rush game videos with high volume bucket runs.

I only did 5 buckets at a time when i first started i didnt have any problems but that was in 2017

The reason for the 150 bucket runs is that on the second run enough money has been made to buy the property on the day of smelting before the owner can take out their 30 percent cut. At the end of that day the 30 percent will still be removed by the owner but as you are now the owner the 30 percent remains yours.