  We make use of the formalism described in a previous paper [Martins {\it et
al.} Phys. Rev. D90 (2014) 043518] to address general features of wiggly cosmic
string evolution. In particular, we highlight the important role played by
poorly understood energy loss mechanisms and propose a simple ansatz which
tackles this problem in the context of an extended velocity-dependent one-scale
model. We find a general procedure to determine all the scaling solutions
admitted by a specific string model and study their stability, enabling a
detailed comparison with future numerical simulations. A simpler comparison
with previous Goto-Nambu simulations supports earlier evidence that scaling is
easier to achieve in the matter era than in the radiation era. In addition, we
also find that the requirement that a scaling regime be stable seems to notably
constrain the allowed range of energy loss parameters.
