NIMBY Rails News

Late December and the first half of January were devoted to friends and family, but 1.7 has now started development and its first feature is ready to be made public: save sharing. I decided to implement a custom system, with my own hosting, and generate a preview web map of the save, so players will be able to share the save link with anybody, even if they don't have the game, and give them a preview of their save. See the January blog post for some player contributed examples:

https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-january-2023/

Version 1.6 has finished its beta development and it is now the default game version. 1.6 focus was on multiplayer optimization and fixes, and the new multiplayer mode, private simulation, is capable of hosting much larger games than the default shared mode. Additionally track curve weights and track splitting was introduced, which enabled a new set of track editor tools. Here is a list of the major new features in 1.6:

[h3]Multiplayer optimizations[/h3]
A big focus of the 1.6 private development has been to optimize multiplayer for better scalability. Not all goals have been achieved in 1.6, but it should still be more capable than older versions of playing larger saves in MP.

[h3]New multiplayer mode: private simulation[/h3]
In this (optional) new mode every player runs a private simulation of the game, so time, train motions and pax is private to its local game session. All manual editing actions, like creating tracks, buying trains or editing lines are still shared between all clients. This new mode allows for changing the game speed and should scale to larger map builds since connection bandwidth is only used for editor synchronization.

[h3]New multiplayer connection mode: direct connection[/h3]
By default the game uses the Steam Relay Network, a Valve provided CDN optimized for low latency gaming but with bandwidth caps. Hosters can now disable the Relay Network and instead directly host the game session from an UDP port in their PC. This allows the game to use a much larger fraction of your internet connection, allowing to host much bigger maps.

[h3]Track curve weight[/h3]
It is now possible to manually select the halfway point between two tracks, allowing to alter the curvature of tracks without moving their control points. This feature in turns makes split and tape tools possible.

[h3]Track split and tape tools[/h3]
The track editor gains five new tools: split track, track tape, promote tracks into platforms
(demoting platforms into tracks is also available in the track properties panel), building tape and parallel track tape. These tools have a different interaction mode compared to older tools, always working on top of existing tracks.

[h3]Track editor "hold" mode for keybindings[/h3]
This game option changes the way the track editor tool keybindings work. In this mode the track editor is always in selection mode. When pressing a tool keybind the editor switches to the corresponding tool, but only while the key is pressed. On releasing the key the selection mode is enabled again. Experienced players might find this mode a more efficient way to interact with the track editor.

[h3]Track editor optimizations[/h3]
Manipulating track selections involving parallel tracks and/or multiple stations should be noticeably faster in v1.6.

[h3]Path trace options in train window[/h3]
Two new options (accessed from two new buttons in the train window) make it possible to visualize the projected path of a train to its current destination, or to any point in any track.

[h3]Bulk edit options for trains[/h3]
In the train editor it is now possible to select multiple trains by shift-clicking in the train listing. When more than one train is selected the editor shows a panel with options for bulk changing the train order mode, issuing interventions or selling the selected trains.


Check out the 1.6 devblogs for more in depth information:
https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-october-2022/
https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-november-2022/
https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-december-2022/

Public beta development of 1.6 is wrapping up soon so it was time to look back at the new features and changes implemented in December: improvements to track validation, speedup to station rebuild and bulk train editing. December also saw the continuation of the technical work on improving multiplayer, with two new options for game hosters: private sim and direct connections. 1.6 has been a smaller release to compensate for the huge effort of 1.5, but this also means that 1.7 will start development sooner than later, and in this devblog I am announcing its two headline features: save sharing and freeform train compositions.

Have a nice new year 2023!

https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-december-2022/

Version 1.6 is ready to begin public beta testing, and it is available to download in the beta branch. Unlike past major versions, 1.6 is a smaller release with shorter development time. Here are the main new features and changes:

[h3]Multiplayer optimizations[/h3]
A big focus of the 1.6 private development has been to optimize multiplayer for better scalability. Not all goals have been achieved in 1.6, but it should still be more capable than older versions of playing larger saves in MP.

[h3]Track curve weight[/h3]
It is now possible to manually select the halfway point between two tracks, allowing to alter the curvature of tracks without moving their control points. This feature in turns makes split and tape tools possible.

[h3]Track split and tape tools[/h3]
The track editor gains five new tools: split track, track tape, promote tracks into platforms
(demoting platforms into tracks is also available in the track properties panel), building tape and parallel track tape. These tools have a different interaction mode compared to older tools, always working on top of existing tracks.

[h3]Track editor "hold" mode for keybindings[/h3]
This game option changes the way the track editor tool keybindings work. In this mode the track editor is always in selection mode. When pressing a tool keybind the editor switches to the corresponding tool, but only while the key is pressed. On releasing the key the selection mode is enabled again. Experienced players might find this mode a more efficient way to interact with the track editor.

[h3]Track editor optimizations[/h3]
Manipulating track selections involving parallel tracks and/or multiple stations should be noticeably faster in v1.6.

[h3]Path trace options in train window[/h3]
Two new options (accessed from two new buttons in the train window) make it possible to visualize the projected path of a train to its current destination, or to any point in any track.

Check out the October and November devblogs for more in depth information:
https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-october-2022/
https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-november-2022/

(NOTE: the "platform tape" and "station tape" tools have been discarded, replaced with the 1.6 "platform promotion" tool. You can get the exact same results as the "platform tape" tool combining the "track tape" and "platform promotion" tools. The original station tool remains in the game).




I'm now hosting a MediaWiki for the NIMBY Rails player community:

https://wiki.nimbyrails.com/

It's only a few days old and it has been mostly private until now, so it's very empty, but it will grow with time.

With 1.5 having been wrapped up in October, November was fully devoted to private development of v1.6. This version has the single goal of analyzing the current state of multiplayer, and trying to fix it up as much as possible. I did not succeed in applying the full set of fixes I wanted, but nonetheless it should be improved and after the betas give it a pass of bug fixing, it should be the best MP experience so far.

Additionally the tape tools started in October got more polished and two new ones were added. Tape tools will be the only user visible change in 1.6 when it releases, which I hope will be "soon" :). 1.6 will thus be a smaller release compared to the huge 1.5 changes, for a more manageable beta series later on.

https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-november-2022/