Rail Route News

We’re filled with love and in a celebratory mood as we’re headed into the weekend. The game is still available at a discount so tell all your loved ones to join the warm embrace of the dispatcher community.

We also have a community contest going on, featuring a special Valentrains map! Join us on our Discord server and check it out: https://discord.gg/railroute

See you out there train lovers!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1124180/view/3671032690264134186

This week we want to celebrate all you dispatchers out there by sharing some Valentine’s love. To start with we’re releasing another update with tender loving bug fixes, and Rail Route is also on sale at a discount for all the aspiring dispatchers out there that haven’t jumped on the train yet.

Menu and game scene combination
As a fairly large change internally, we have combined the menu and game scenes resulting in improved loading times and an overall improved user experience. Upon loading the game for the first time, your last played game or edited map will be loaded in the background. Allowing you to quickly resume where you left off.This change is also part of our transition to the new user interface style and better controller support as we are slowly updating all UI elements.In addition this changes makes it easier for us to improve loading times ever further in the future when switching between editing a map and playing the map as we would not have to load the level twice, once for each mode.



Naming new saves
As a quality of life improvement we added the ability to give your save a name before you make a save. Previously you had to save the game, open the load game menu and then edit the name of your new save. And all this is now also done in our new UI style.



Featured maps
As talked about in last week's News post, we added a featured maps section to the main menu.You can find this next to the News section. Here we will feature a map from the workshop that we or the community loves and want to highlight. You can play the map the same way the contest currently works.



New loading screen
Upon opening the game you will notice that we have a new loading screen! This loading screen looks a lot better than the simple black background with a simple loading icon that was there before.The new look fits a lot better with the game, look at that train go!



Open in workshop button
It may not be a big addition but it's nice. On maps that you downloaded from the Steam Workshop, you will now see a “Workshop” button. This will open the map on the Steam Workshop.



Bug fixes
As always we created, found and fixed a lot of bugs with this update. Everything from completely broken saves to buttons not showing when they should.

RELEASE

NEW: Featured map shown on current game page
NEW: Open in Workshop buttons displayed on Current Game and map detail pages when relevant
NEW: Previous save loads immediately after game starts, menu is displayed as overlay over it. Works as pause menu as well.
NEW: Skipping cutscenes action added
NEW: Conguent map added for Valentine's day celebration

UPDATE: Localizations (cs: achievements, research, tutorials; de: ui; hu: achievements; fr: ui; nl: all; no: ui; pl: all)
UPDATE: New loading screen upon game start
UPDATE: nl is now considered translated while jp and de in progress (fell below 90 % threshold)
UPDATE: Removed Reset All button from Options
UPDATE: Updated graph to new UI style and added Rush Hour progress graph to current game page

PERF: Start-up speedup - do not populate Upgrades UI in non-endless levels

FIX: Active contest could hide map item
FIX: Closing panel button for some panels in editor did not work
FIX: Closing modal when another is open unpaused time when it should not
FIX: Controller support could break after moving analog sticks
FIX: Detail pages for contest and featured map did not show correct screenshot
FIX: Flying score elements where invisible on Rush Hour wave completion
FIX: Keybind to reset ui scale did not apply to the scale of the main menu
FIX: Keybound buttons were triggered even when button was hidden
FIX: Loading failed when a referenced station no more existed
FIX: Losing wave 3 in prague rush map took player back to prague and finished the story
FIX: Map string field was not interactable
FIX: Menu scale was too small
FIX: Navigation did not work on some modals in the menu
FIX: Penalization log was not cleared when a map was edited so it was stored in savedMap.bytes and doubled on each editing
FIX: Perpetual route toggle could be set even when that upgrade was not unlocked
FIX: Removing all saves from active level while game over screen was shown still showed restart from last save button
FIX: Rush Hour tutorial being played on each map even if skipped
FIX: Save loading failed for saves containing overriden routes from some signals.
FIX: Second of music was played when starting game
FIX: Story didnt continue when save modal was opened and time keybinds didnt work after load
FIX: Story save before Prague Rush story could not be found when another level was loaded before
FIX: The background blur was removed when the delete map dialogue was hidden while the menu was still shown
FIX: Time keybinds did not work upon continuing save after first game load
FIX: Timetable panel was empty when returning to editor after a trial train
FIX: Various UI elements had incorrect sorting orders resulting in incorrectly hidden or shown elements
FIX: Walls buttons were missing in the editor

Hello Dispatchers!

We're back with our fifth RailLog - this time, focussing on some more quality of life changes for Rail Route. Hope you enjoy!

[h2]Menu and game scene combination
[/h2]
As a fairly large change internally, we have combined the menu and game scenes resulting in improved loading times and an overall improved user experience. Upon loading the game for the first time, your last played game or edited map will be loaded in the background. Allowing you to quickly resume where you left off.

This change is also part of our transition to the new user interface style and better controller support as we are slowly updating all UI elements.

In addition this changes makes it easier for us to improve loading times ever further in the future when switching between editing a map and playing the map as we would not have to load the level twice, once for each mode.



[h2]Naming new saves
[/h2]
As a quality of life improvement we added the ability to give your save a name before you make a save. Previously you had to save the game, open the load game menu and then edit the name of your new save. And all this is now also in done in our new UI style.



[h2]Featured maps
[/h2]
While this new addition is not done yet, it should be soon. We will be adding a featured map item next to the news item on the current game menu. Here we will pick a community created map from the Steam Workshop and feature it in the game. We love all the beautiful, and sometimes crazy hard, maps our community creates and wanted to share these with all of you. Simply click on the map and play it like you would any other!



[h2]Bug fixes
[/h2]
We might not even have to mention this but as with any update we fixed a lot of bugs that were found internally or with the help of our awesome community!

Happy dispatching!
-Aidan

Follow us:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Homepage

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1124180/Rail_Route
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1896900/Rail_Route_The_Story_of_Jozic/

Hello Dispatcher!

Excitement continues to build as we progress on our train dispatching PC game. In this blog post, we'll give you a sneak peek into some of the new features and updates we've been working on, so sit back and get ready to hop on board for an unforgettable ride.





We're making significant changes to make track building in our game more fun and easier to do! No more laying out each piece of track by hand. With our new automatic track layout, players can simply select their start and end points and let the game do the rest. The game will even consider things like terrain and other tracks to give you the most realistic and efficient track possible.

[h2]Reusing Old Tracks is a Breeze[/h2]



We're also making it simple to reuse parts of other tracks when connecting two points. No more laying down new track every time - just pick and place the pieces you need.

[h2]Easy Rotation of Beginning and End of Track[/h2]



If you need to rotate either the beginning or end of a track? No problem! We've made that easy too. By using our new actions keys - Q, E, Z, C (or d-pad) and mouse wheel (RT or LT on the controller) you can access additional actions. In this case, you can select track beginning with Q or the track end with E and then rotate it with mouse wheel.

[h2]Visual Help When You Need it[/h2]



We've also added some visual aids to make track building even more effortless. You'll see helpful cues as you lay out each piece of track, so you'll always know where to place the next one. And your tracks will always be perfectly aligned!

[h2]Next? Context Actions and Sensors[/h2]

This week, we're finishing up the improved track building. Next up, we're working on "context actions" for other elements in the game. For example, when you're building a signal, you'll be able to rotate it (action key Q or E), change its type (action key Z or C), or even pick it (if you hovering already built one) up with your primary action (left mouse button or X key on the controller) and move it to a different spot. This will allow you to move your sensors, signals (or all other elements) to make more minor adjustments to your network without breaking any of your sensors' configurations. Or without the need to reconfigure the sensors again. I'll show you bits of the progress on this next week.



And speaking of sensors, we're fixing them so their placement won't split the tracks anymore. So go ahead and place those sensors without worrying about invalidating your configurations and not speaking of the small pieces of tracks if built close to a signal. These are a pain to click in automatic routing. Sensors will lay on the tracks instead of splitting them.



We are preparing a minor update to be on Unstable version this week which features a different loading mechanism of the game. The new menu has been integrated into the game, speeding your transitions between maps, editor, saves, and everything you can find in the menu. Be sure to join the beta testing.

We could improve that even further, especially the Editor part so the game don't need to load the map if you want to test it or run a trial. But we're leaving that for now and maybe will iterate over this in the future.



We're wrapping up some major improvements to our game's behind-the-scenes systems. This work will make it easier for us to add new content in the future. We're fixing technical issues and improving our designs from when the game was first started.



Stay tuned for next week when we'll share more about new buildings and updated system upgrades. it will be about Block Signal, Accept, Reverse and Replay Sensors and Salesman's Post.

Happy dispatching!
-Angel

Follow us:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Homepage

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1124180/Rail_Route
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1896900/Rail_Route_The_Story_of_Jozic/