After a month of non-stop work, I have emerged with an update once more. This time adding new save system, large maps, vehicle modernization and condition and a couple of new industries, vehicles, and fixes.
SERIALIZED SAVE SYSTEM and LARGE MAPS
Brand new serialized saving system, which I didn’t want to do initially, but it was the only way to make large maps usable. This should make saving and loading a bit faster, drastically reduce save file size (forested 768 map file is still under 50MB, which I am very happy about), and be a bit more reliable on large maps.
This allowed me to finally enable large 512x512 and even 768x768 maps, with the only limiting factor right now being the map generation time.
I have also added new map climate selection window and first new map environment – Mediterranian climate. The differences right now are mostly just visual (with a new pine forest type), but the plan is to have each environment with some unique industries and different set of vehicles.
VEHICLE MODELS, MODERNIZATION and CONDITION
Added vehicle models and modernization option.
Vehicle models give me a way to add new vehicles without clogging the purchase window with a bunch of vehicles that look almost exactly the same.
If vehicle gets a new model, you will only be able to purchase this new model from now on, but older vehicles with new model option can be rebuilt/modernized to this new model with only a small cost. Vehicle can be modernized either from the depot window or from directly from the vehicle window for a small fee.
For example, locomotives GP7, 8 and 9 are visually almost identical, with only small stat differences, but the vehicle was in service for a very long time, so it makes sense to have an option to modernize older, especially starter, vehicles.
Vehicles now have Reliability score, Lifespan and can break down.
Chance for a vehicle to break down is a combination of reliability, lifespan and vehicles current condition, although current condition does not change right now. Until I figure out how I want to handle maintenance.
Editable railway station platforms.
As the first part of trying to make stations layout completely editable, players can now edit railway station platform layout. It's currently limited to only couple of station types for testing and can be accessed from the main station window with EDIT LAYOUT button.
This will add an option to change stations visual style (if thats something you’re interested in), save current layout and give me an option to easily add different station types in the future. Right now there is a few different options for liquid-bulk stations and a grain loading station for dry-bulk.
A lot of this stuff is still setting up the framework for what I hope the full release can be.
NEW CARGO, INDUSTRY and VEHICLES
Added new cargo – Packaging
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to add this, but I decided to test it out and see how it works. Packaging now replaces raw materials, like plastics or paper in a few industries where it makes sense for packaging to be used. Right now it's Food Processing Plant, Chemical Factory, Brewery/Cider Mill, Goods Factory and higher levels of Poultry Farm.
- Packaging is produced by new industry – Packaging plant and needs Paper, Plastics, Glass OR Aluminum (1 or more components) and is transported by box cars.
- Added Ceramics plant. Ceramics plant needs clay and makes Cargo and Construction materials.
- Added Industrial Bakery, which was missing from the industry chain. Bakery needs Flour (on higher levels also Sugar and Milk) and makes Food. Model is currently just a re-skinned food processing plant.
- Set up Car Factory, Car Dealership, and truck car trailers with cargo. This was in the game before, but wasn’t properly set up, so industries producing and consuming cars will now spawn on the map.
- Changed industry spawning system, so industries are less likely to spawn duplicates. City-related industries, like hospital or car dealership will be forced to always spawn on the map if they are a part of an industry chain.
- Added new starting locomotive GP7.
- Added new mainline electric locomotives WAG-9 and WAP-7.
- Added ER2 trainset.
OTHER ADDITIONS
- Added a topographic map layer in the layers menu for easier terrain editing and navigating through forests.
- New water shader and reflections.
- Added new tooltip for industries with more than 1 optional cargo component (most of them require 1 or more components, construction yard requires 2 or more components)
- Increased vehicle simulation speed.
- Increased train capacity and loading capacity.
- Decreased ship capacity and added smaller, Panamax sized ships.
- Added road/rail maintenance cost.
- Added camera pitch and zoom keybinds.
- Added landscape edit height limits.
- Snap to Road/Rail changed to Alt button, instead of automatic.
- Commodity window changed to only show commodities on current map.
- Available vehicles window now shows cargo.
FIXES
- Fixed several issues with re-pathtracing and changing path after vehicle was active.
- Fixed few issues with road vehicles getting stuck in station and moving road vehicle to depot while it's parking, but not fully in station (probably related to the same issue)
- Fixed road waypoints loading on spline road segments.
- Fixed road stop stations.
- New road station parking priority that takes into account how many vehicles are waiting in a queue and whether vehicle is currently leaving station.
- Fixed a number of issues with depot UI vehicle reordering.
- Fixed ship income.
- Fixed income distribution for multimodal transport.
- Fixed rail track tangent scaling issue for smaller tracks, causing some movement inaccuracies. Related to railway signal problems.
- Fixed movement issue for train elements longer than 1 tile, also related to signal problems.
- Fixed performance issue with placing an object in a forest.
- Fixed crash related to spawning a nature layer during map generation.
- Fixed large road station parking problems.
- Fixed problem with save/load vehicle while parking in a full station.
- Fixed parking in truck stop with more than 1 stop.
- Hopefully finally fixed commodity price-related bugs.
- Fixed Autosave.
- Fixed Retention Wall save/load.
- Fixed multi-unit locomotive setup.
- Fixed train stuck unloading with multi-unit passenger locomotives.
- Fixed rail track tangent scaling issue with rail bridges, causing some inaccurate movement.
- Fixed traffic lights.
- Fixed station radius changing after game load.
As always, you can check out the game on Steam and I will see you in the future with the next update.
