NIMBY Rails News

The big new feature is train mods schema v2. It enables train mods to provide any composition the mod author wishes, instead of the old rigid MU structure. This is being deployed immediately to the default branch to avoid the situation of mods that require a beta version.

- Train mods schema v2 implemented. Train mods can now provide a richer set of data to the game, and more importantly, they are not limited anymore to a rigid head-car(s)-tail structure. Instead they can provide any number of custom compositions, repeating any number of cars in any order. All v1 mods remain compatible.
- New train purchase interface to pick premade train combinations and their variable car numbers
- Add IME text input support
- Allow leg time estimator to have a min speed of 1 km/h
- Remove track id from track info
- Restore some level of train path cache, with a single frame duration, to help with depot pathfinding slowdowns
- Do not default to any speed value in the leg calculator
- Fix: reviewed again string input for non-latin scripts and fixed some bugs with Unicode handling
- Fix: new pax in stations should display the origin station name

- Add button to toggle click to zoom in the lines and train listing
- Future proof mod loading so unknown schema mods do not crash or glitch
- Warn the user when trying to use a mod with unknown schema sections
- Add whole-line clipping to discard line drawing in map view
- Fix: the out-of-screen clipping for line drawing was not working properly
- Fix: crash when options panel cannot find a matching translation mod for the currently set game language
- Late trains also have an ETA penalty
- When a pax arrives to its next stop, reapply the ETA estimation from the POV of station immediately
- Make the new pax AI permanent, bumping the save version of the game
- Add "group by next stop" to train pax listing
- Interventions should also reset the stop and station state of the train
- Add a checkbox to mod uploader to not set the description or icon when updating a mod
- Mods panel is now a top level panel with its own toolbar icon
- Remove the train filter for lines and models and replace it with a grouping feature
- "In depot" filter for train listing
- Redesign pax listings to give more space to station name when using a grouping option
- Store exact game version in saved games header
- Add saved game file information to the saved games picker
- Add proper error warnings when dealing with different versions of saved game files
- Allow to rename rather than overwrite old version save files
- Fix: deleted stations sometimes caused ghost pax to remain hidden inside forever
- Pax now have a little memory! When they board a train, they also decide which is their next stop, and stick to it.
- Train stops now have a cost in the pax pathfinder, making lines that take more stops more time-costly
- The previous ETA costing now properly considers paths that bounce back at the station and discards them when it makes sense
- Late trains from the POV of the ETA are costed with the same amount of their late time
- The previous changes have a measurable CPU impact in large builds
- Give more space to mod uploaded for easier editing of description and update notes
- Attempted to fix the truncation of the mod description when editing mod updates in the mod uploader, but it turns out Steamworks sends the description already truncated
- New map option: disable line stop icons
- Fix: building the data structure used to avoid 1D collision had a degenerate case which leaked memory and slowed down the game in particular circumstances
- Dynamic tractive power formula was way overestimating its output. Make it more realistic but still a bit faster than real life
- Fix: stations with no region should still have some level of demand above 0
- The leg time estimator now has rough acceleration approximation for some fixed accelerations, or can optionally use a train assigned to the line to simulate its acceleration ramp
- Optimize track validator by not validating against map geometry built tracks whose sibling tracks are already built
- More rendering optimizations for the zoomed out views
- Fix: 1D hit test was looking too far ahead in some cases, resulting in deadlocks (one of the possible deadlock cases)
- Fix: set min stop time does not work if the current stop time in the stop is "pass" and it is not a waypoint
- Distinct icons for pass and stop waypoints, and also for station pass stops, on both line editor and lines on the map
- Add "continue game" main menu button
- Add interval suggestion in the calculator
- Simplify right toolbar to add room for more (future) buttons
- New map options panel with options to hide some map objects; also move map overlay buttons to this panel
- Move line timing setters and calculator to its own panel
- Reduce MP sync bandwidth by 3x, by increasing the sync phases. trains now take up to 3s to be sync to clients, but the sync window was already behind by more than that, so it didn't make much sense to keep the original 1s phase. all other phases are also increased in proportion
- Dynamic tractive effort. it will be reverted if too much stuff breaks.
- Fix: perfectly lined up N-S or W-E station platforms sometimes had 0 sized bounding boxes, causing coverage errors
- Two letter platform names when more than 26 platforms in a station
- Keep station auto name on unchecking the auto name feature if the custom name is empty, and auto focus the text input
- Display some text instead of a tiny box for empty station nameplates
- Tentatively disable one of the track hit tests which was giving trouble in very simple 1D hit cases
- Enable some debug graphics for hit test. For a few beta builds extra debug information will be shown next to trains in some circumstances
- Make scrollable listings better clip their content labels to make scrollbars more usable (not the real fix, but better than the previous state)
- Speed up train icon drawing
- Use a less pointy arrow for trains
- Speed up line drawing by using a simpler kind of line
- Relocate bottom listing tools so delete button is not under the scrollbar
- Fix color picker widget showing no color on first reset
- Disable train avoidance in train pathfinder if the to-avoid track is the destination or its linked tracks
- Accounting panels should be a scroll area in low resolution screens
- Fix: pax must pay km fares when the train passes by a waypoint
- Stop file modification times from jumping around in file picker
- Add train count in line stops header

- Make sure trains in branches always use 2D hit testing and fix the order of evaluation
- Do not enable train inflow from station until train has fully flowed out
- Only show stop pax counter(s) if they are greater than 0
- Tentative fix for rare crasher related to starting simultaneously many trains at the same time
- Sort lines drop down in train scheduler

- Remake texture handling for trains to use multiple texture arrays as required. This should fix the errors of missing train textures some users had when enabling many train mods.
- Pax with refund risk due to fare should display "refund risk" instead of sax label
- Format line prices with 2 default decimals
- Show depot icon in depot slots in train scheduler
- Fix: depot picker for multi train scheduler didn't work correctly
- Fix: total sum of leg times and leg distances in stops panel was missing a leg
- Fix for nearby station catch areas not updating on station deletion
- Tentative fix for tracks and stations stuck in validation mode
- In-game enabling of mods for existing saves (in SP). For MP games, first load the saved game in SP mode and enable the mods you want to, then save the game.
- "Enable all mods" buttons for new games and in-game mods list (in SP)
- "Subscribe to all missing mods" button for in-game mods list
- Copy paste buttons for color picker. You can also paste RGB hex codes from external programs
- Larger sync window for MP, and larger window margins set up to stay in the center of the window, to reduce chances to trigger the catch up / hold up
- Pax accounting for interventions
- Do not hide the front of the train under its icon arrow at any zoom level
- Fix: correct handling of non-ASCII characters in saved file names
- Fix: map animations not rendering the last frame when in low FPS situation
- Fix: occasionally off by 1m display of waiting times
- Add extra error handling to game startup
- Completely rewrote the streaming sim code for multiplayer. The game client is now capable of both waiting for the server and skipping ahead, including being able to frameskip and to hold off the simulation for any length of time.
- Make initial track validation run parallel with the game sim, greatly improving the initial load experience
- Fix a condition where some blueprints could not be constructed in multiplayer
- More fixes for reducing errors in MP join: the sim state stream buffering in the client now has proper windowing and allows up to a 10s desync
- Compensation accounting for lines: before compensating a 3h wait pax, ask it which line it was waiting for, and file it into said line accounting
- Line listing sorting: alphabetically, fares, balance,boarded, refunds, compensations. Also display some inline stat related to the sorting mode
- Fix interval stop time when more than one train manages to stop in the same platform.
- Disable signals, they are unfixable without path signals. Instead rely on 2D hit testing with priority rules based on speed. Proper signals will come in a future major version.
- Tentative fix for some clients unable to connect to complex and fast games. Clients are now not sent the sim stream until they are done importing the game, and then they fast forward to the server sim frame at max speed.
- Make viaducts 50% cheaper, since they are too close to the price of tunnels without their advantages
- Properly localize track kind names
- Fix very rare crasher related to pathfinding
- Tentative fix for rare crasher on text input
- Max speed mode in SP: set sim speed to 10000x, hide the UI, and let the game throttle down to what the CPU is capable of
- Decrease compensation fine by 4x
- Increase expected fares by 4x
- Rename "min wait" to "min stop time"
- Extra stop time applied when station is too full will now always reserve up to 3 minutes, independently of the min stop time set by players. the 2x limit of the min stop applies after that point. in practice this means that for trains that don't involve thousands of pax (in capacity or in the stations they visit), you can set the min. stop time to a low number (10s is the new game default) and the game will automatically take as much time as needed, up to 3m, or until the train is both full and fully processed.
- add text warning to end of stop scroll message when the stop time is too short to process all the pax in the station/train, or when the train is at max pax, fully processed, and there
are still pax in the station pending processing
- Add line mini tool to bulk set the min stop time of a line
- Rename "fare" in pax listing to "paid" and a "paid so far" in a tooltip
- Improve accounting text and ordering of items to make it more clear when something is a compensation or a refund, or both
- Multiplayer protocol version number is now automatic and depends on the game version

- Delete-only track controls in track editor need an icon that hints at being selectable
- Accounting UTC warning should display UTC time
- Fix: train sales are not reflected in accounting
- Hotfix: improvements to time expectations should not touch price expectations given the state of the overall cash balance
- Change expected pax travel time, specially for shorter distances. At shorter distances a logaritmic ramp has the most influence, them from around 30km a linear ramp starts having the most influence. The overall effect is more forgiving pax at shorter distances and not so much at longer distances.
- Redesign stop listing to make it clear where leg times apply
- Simple train sales, returning 75% of price
- Increase scroll delta when using mouse wheel
- Allow 20x and 30x speeds in MP. Switch back to lower speeds if you have sync problems
- Move to trash button in file picker
- Open in Explorer button in file picker
- Do not autoselect a line when creating a new slot
- Warn about UTC 0 based accounting
- Fix train list line filter not working in MP
- Fix map zoom and pan animations when vsync is off
- Fix using train intervention in MP occasionally causing desyncs
- Hotfix: remove the fixed 10m pathfind cost for going into a transfer station
- Time sax is now simply based on elapsed time vs expected time
- Sax tooltips now show the expected time, fare by the pax for a Neutral rating
- When a pax is already on a train, and has to decide if continuing on the train or transferring into station for another line, add a fixed 10m to the cost of the transfer option
- Fix crashers and slowdowns by massively optimizing the line drawing code
- Avoid UI collapse when sim cannot run at the desired speed by throttling down simulation speed (only in single player)
- Fix crasher when deleting a track that links two platform stations of the same station
- Increase max autosave slots to 100
- Wetlands are now drier
- Always set fresh empty orders for new trains unless it is a clone
- Refunds, compensations and running cost must be always be paid, even at under 0 balance
- Nerf overpass price
- Right mouse button must be always assigned to the map, never to the UI
- Train scheduler should warn that orders only update on trains while the sim is running.
- Remove branch time in line time estimator. It is always 0.
- Fixed an error with invalid 0 sized station platforms creating a worldwide station that includes every other station in the map, sometimes leading to crashes, always leading to hilarity.
- Fixed a rare crash when importing stations that lack a proper track connection.
- Fixed pax sax formula to actually measure distance to destination.
- Fixed pax sax formula to not have unrealistic expectations, even after the previous fix.