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|                    INTRO                     |
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hello and welcome to Mack & CJane's Steam Loco Customizations! first off: thank you so much downloading this mod, and for being autistic enough to read this readme file! the amount of time we've put into this thing (the mod, but also this readme) is kind of insane, so it means a lot to us that you've decided to check it out! this mod is designed to allow you to letter and number your steam locomotives in all sorts of different ways, hopefully catering to a wide variety of tastes and opinions for what constitutes cool locomotive lettering design (for those who think too much about it, like me).

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|                   WARNING                    |
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this mod requires Lego's Library of Stuff (LoS), specifically v1.4.5 or newer, and Lego's Logos and Deco (L&D), v2.0.2 or newer, both available on nexusmods. it's installed via Unity Mod Mananger (UMM), also available on nexus. no other mods or utilities are requires.

compatibility with other LoS- and L&D-based steam locomotive livery mods is on a "creator's choice" basis. if someone has this mod installed, for example, and downloads a completely different steam locomotive livery mod, it's not guaranteed their mod will "play nice" with this one, so to speak. if you're a mod author and would like to ensure your mod is compatible with ours, reach out to us and we can help you make it so.

compatibility with any steam locomotive mods that use RailLoader and Strange Customs for their edits are likely INCOMPATIBLE with this mod. this is because RL and SC "overwrite" changes made with UMM and LoS during the loading process, and the creator of RL and SC has refused to look into the issue. lucky for us, the number of rolling stock mods using RL and SC is very low, so you shouldn't have to worry.

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|              WHAT THIS MOD DOES              |
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if you looked the example pictures on the nexus page, you prolly already know the basics of what this mod does. however, if you've chosen to read this readme, you get some more specifics. essentially, this mod is a *complete* overhaul of all decals on the base-game steam locomotives and tenders. the inconsistencies (and errors or missing decals, with locos like the D-46) didn't jive with me, so i decided it would be fun (note the past tense) to go through and give every locomotive and tender "standardized" decals. this eventually spiraled into a mod that allows users to customize the look of their steam locomotives to an extent no other mod provides.

you get many different options: three sizes of cab numbers, lettering in the center of the cab, lettering on the upper and lower parts of the cab, optional sandome and dark headlight numbers, three different options for tender lettering (explained below), tender side numbers, lettering on the tenders' bunkers (minus the S-23), and optional capacity decals for the rear of the tenders. the only stuff not toggleable is the headlight and numberplate number decals, cause there's not really any reason you'd want to disable them, DSIMO.

locomotive cabs are easy to explain: small, medium, or large numbers, or text centered where the numbers are (think Cotton Belt or Frisco or early Union Pacific style), with text decals above and below the numbers/centertext as well. because some steam locomotive cabs are, let's say, "vertically challenged" and don't have much space for all this *stuff*, you may not be able to use, say, the largest number size with the upper and lower text boxes. no real way to fix this outside of entirely reworking the entire mod in ways i don't even want to think about, so you'll just have to accept that, as i always say, it is what it is.

tenders are require more *words*. you get three text options, labelled (B), (H), and (V); these stand for "big", "horizontal", and "vertical" respectively. up until v1.3.0 of SLC, tender lettering was one big text box that covered pretty much the entire side of the tender. naturally, this meant if you had a shorter name or were using an acronym, it'd be blown up and look really silly (in my opinion), and you'd need to resort to using text effects to fix this. on top of this, railroader's "lettering"-type decals work very weirdly: the size of the letters is determined by both the width and height of the text box, the awful math behind this being out of the scope of this already-long document. to circumvent this and ensure tender lettering is consistently-sized across all tenders, i've included the "horizontal" type decal for single-line names, and the "vertical"-type decal for multi-line names. the former stretches across the length of the tender, while the latter only stretches across the height of the tender. this way, if (for some reason) tender lettering being completely different sizes on every tender annoys you like it annoys me, you can now fix it! if you've used any version of SLC prior to this one, currently-placed tenders use the "big" option for backwards compatibility.

everything else is is what it says on the tin. sandome numbers are self-explanatory, and available on all engines with domes large enough for them to display properly. the "Dark Hl. Numbers" option replace the usually-off-white numbers on the headlights with much darker ones instead: this is most comparable to how the C55 works without any mods, white backdrop with black numbers, so if you want to replicate that on other engines (and all the tenders that have headlights with numberboards!), you can! bunker lettering is included on all tenders, minus the S-23 because of its shape, should you want it. tender capacity decals are currently hard-set to show both coal and water at once, but this may change in future updates since not every railroad (in fact, a majority of railroads) only showed one or the other, not both.

finally, you get a whopping *128* different tenderswaps to mess with. pretty much everything that looks remotely decent is included, from the simplicity of the C-46 with the F-71 tender, to something a bit more flavorful like the S-51 with the P-48 tender, to the weirdness that is something like the G-25 with the T-21 tender. some get you better fuel capacity, some look nicer to the eyes, and some are just there, admittedly, because they fit and i figured *someone* would use them. whatever your preference, i'm sure you'll find a tenderswap that makes you swoon (unless you're evil and don't like your purchase menu being flooded with 128 copies of existing locomotives and thus decide to delete the tenderswap folder entirely, even though this will break compatibility with MP servers that use them and will need to be re-done every time this mod is updated).

and for those of you who want to go *crazy*, this mod is designed to be used with two other compatible mods: my own Steam Loco Liveries mod, and cjane's Steam Loco Linings & Livery Pack. now, this mod *is* totally independent, as are those mods, but if you want to get the most out of your steam locomotives, you should download those mods too. using all three together will get you fully-customizeable steam locomotives, with colorable boilers, lining, and whitewalls, as well as all the decal options mentioned here. casey and i worked together to make sure all three mods can be installed and work together properly, and the "ultimate" goal here was to give everyone the most options possible for their steam locomotives. go wild!

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|               REPORTING ISSUES               |
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if you find a problem with the mod, post it in the BUGS section of the nexus page, not the POSTS section. bug reports in the POSTS section will be ignored.

if you have questions or comments, contact me on discord in my mod thread in the railroader server: https://discord.com/channels/795878618697433097/1244694238290251817. i'm fairly active (especially on weekends, i am terminally online after all) so any questions or comments should receive a quick response. if not, feel free to DM me!

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|      CLOSING NOTES & THANK YOUS (AGAIN)      |
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as far as future plans go, there is stuff i would like to add, but outside of bugfixes, i'd really like to get back to *playing* the game. i've spent a ton of time, too much time honestly, adjusting decals by literal ten-thousandths of a unit because i am autistic and also insane. there are other people doing really cool stuff as well, so for now i'm content to let others do their thing while i do literally anything else besides open the in-game editor. the 2000+ hours i have in railroader, no shit, are mostly from dicking around there instead of actually playing it. oops!

of course, i have some credits and thank-yous to shout out. of course, thank you to cjane for joining me on this project and for implementing the class and marker lamp toggleability, and for being amazing enough to change parts of her own livery mod so that our mods work together. legotrainman deserves my thanks for making this mod possible, and for always giving me an excuse to find something in his mod that i can absolutely break and force him to fix. cmd062 also deserves my thanks for inspiring this whole thing with their own customization mod, as doed mrcsam of the WNCRR for motivating me to complete this. big thanks to alextheperson for beta-testing v1.3.0 and finding pretty much every bug (afaik) before release. finally, thank you to the Anthracite Foamers Anonymous group for general support, listening to me ramble about stupid bullshit, and helping me make decisions because i am incapable of making them myself, haha. without these jokers, this mod wouldn't exist as it does now.

if you want to support me (mackenzie) and my work, i do have a ko-fi page for donations: https://ko-fi.com/mackenzie_ev. i won't ever require anyone to pay for the mods i create, but i mean it when i say the amount of man-hours i put into this mod goes way beyond what i expected it to when i started, so if you appreciate that and want to toss some dollarydoos my way, i'd really really appreciate it! thank you so much for downloading this mod and (hopefully) enjoying what i've made here.

cjane is a professional railroader and one half of the team behind the Virtual Railroader Academy, where she and Nick Ozorak of The Roundhouse fame play railroader while adhering to and teaching viewers about real railway practices and customs. they also have a discord server you can join, and merchandise you can buy for their railroad, the Ashokan, Mohonk, and Western. if that's something you're interested in, be sure to visit their linktree to find out more: https://linktr.ee/VirtualRailroaderAcademy

thank you one last time for downloading our mod. we hope you have as much fun using it as we did creating it. cheers!

> mackenzie e.v. and cjane <

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|                FULL CHANGELOG                |
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v1.0.0

- Initial Release

v1.0.1

- Fixed incorrect weightOnDrivers and weightEmpty values for the C46 (thanks fuzzy)
- Updated readme to include note on active lettering decals not changing color immediately under Known Issues

v1.0.2

- Fixed a bug where the A23 tender would refuse to load at coal towers and water columns (thanks ptrck425)  
- Fixed incorrect bunker lettering decal size on the T21T

v1.1.0

- Added customizeable decals and lamps to the new C40, P43, P48, and their tenders
- Added *44* more tenderswaps, bringing the grand total to 128 swaps
- Fixed incorrect identifier for the T21-P18T (will require replacement in saves where it exists)

v1.1.1

- Fixed issues with class/marker lamps on the C40, P43, and P43T (thanks minecraftrr007)

v1.1.2

- Fixed incorrect positionTail value on the P43-C40T (thanks robertohun1)
- Fixed missing marker lamps on the C40T (thanks again minecraftrr007)

v1.1.3

- Added P43-P48T tenderswap and removed P43-D46T, keeping the grand total at 128 swaps
- Fixed incorrect positionTail values for some of the v1.1.0 tenderswaps (thanks abread19 and truemac)
- Fixed oversized large cab numbers on the P43

v1.1.4

- Fixed marker lights on the T21T facing the wrong direction (thanks gwr6029)
- Fixed missing rear number decal on the P48T

v1.2.0

- Updated to work properly with Lego's Logo and Deco v2.0.0
- Added dark headlight numbers to all engines and tenders where applicable
- Combined upper and lower cab text into one component group labelled "Extra Cab Text"

v1.3.0

- Adjusts the positions of all cab and tender side decals to accomodate lining in SLL v1.3.0
- Added the option for dark headlight numbers to the C55, which now spawns with regular off-white ones
- Added an option for large "(L)" cab number decals, previous large decals renamed to medium "(M)"
- Added two new options for tender lettering: "(H)" and "(V)", for single-line and multi-line lettering respectively
- Modified tender capacity decals to be toggleable instead of always visible
- Fixed inconsistently-sized large cab number decals on a few locomotives
- Fixed T22T class lamps option using marker lamps instead (thanks greenfoxproductions)
- Updated a few decals' names in the customization window for brevity
- Updated readme to better explain the newer features of v1.3.0
- Removed references to the obsolete UL&TS mod and the "switchover.txt" document

v1.3.1

- Fixed cab number/lettering decals showing through the cab walls on the P18 (thanks comicallysmallshay)
- Fixed incorrect rotation on the T22T class lamps (thanks johndojdm and bluwolf1609)
- Fixed incorrect water capacity listing on the C46T (thanks acfreedom3130)
- Fixed missing cab lettering decal on the T17 (thanks ste90)