Sweet Transit News

Rail building

I believe it is time for a second entry. Rail building is a good topic to continue with after talking about trains. Sweet Transit will have many challenges concerning trains and traffic. Having a good rail system is also not an easy task. The last thing a player wants is to worry about how to build and how much time that will take. That is why the rail building system needs to make life easier.


Building

The first tool upon your arsenal will be the good old mouse drag. Arrows will help to get your starting point and endpoint right by snapping to the existing rails.



Drag build is done through A++ pathfinding. That means that everything will be taken care for you. It works perfectly for shorter segments as shown below.



By default start and end arrows are automatically based on the direction from the start to the end. But holding a Ctrl key will allow you to make more precise build decisions.




Removing

Remove mode works a little bit differently. You still get the mouse drag tool. However pathfinding is done on rails. Removing big chunks of rails will be as easy as this.



Ctrl key is also supported. But in a remove mode it selects rail segments. Perfect for when you need to delete precisely without a precise selection.




This covers how you can control your rail system. Write a comment if you want to hear about something specific!

Hey guys!

I was thinking about this idea of introducing Sweet Transit bit by bit until release. Early access release is only in Autumn 2021. So it makes sense to explore what will be possible. From now on every two weeks I will write about a specific topic concerning game mechanics or development. Let's start with one of the more important subjects!




Whenever anything needs to be transferred trains will be needed. Do you need some cotton for your clothes shops in the city? Maybe you need to get all of that precious wood from the sawmill? Or potato farmworkers are tired and they need to get back to their village? You get the point! So what kind of trains can be made?



All of the trains are built in the train depot. One of the most common variations is the one-way train. Add one or a few locomotives to the front. Put some wagons at the back. That is it. They are the best and cleanest solution, but they require more space and infrastructure. What happens when you need to reverse out of the station?



I introduce to you the two-way trains. In Sweet Transit trains cannot magically flip. If you need your train to go in reverse then make sure to add some power at the back!



There are no rules on how to distribute and what kind of wagons there needs to be. Trains like these are usually just side cases in a normal playthrough. Unless it is a tiny map and there is no space for anything else.



As you can see wagons can be assembled in any way to meet your needs. Only train length is limited by the train depot length. Your design can be influenced by the rails you built or signals you prepared. However, those are topics for another time.

https://youtu.be/v9f5xlkyuqg

This should shed some light on the rolling stock situation. Write a comment if you want to hear about something specific!