Sweet Transit News

[h2]New Content[/h2]

It is time to share the hard work we were doing and get some constructive feedback before going to 1.0. I'll be on Discord to see how you're doing, but this new build should be a big step in the right direction. You can start the experimental branch now and enjoy it. If you do not know how, then go to your Steam library, find Sweet Transit and right-click on it to open Properties. In there, just open the Betas section and in Beta Participation choose the Experimental branch. Lastly, in Sweet Transit Settings decrease the autosave interval just in case.

Let's dive into what is new in the experimental. Here is the changelog:

[h3]Additions[/h3]

• Added City Hall.
  
• Added Tradesmen.
  
• Added Rebars Factory.
  
• Added Cement Factory.
  
• Added Crusher for cement factory.
  
• Added Rotary Kiln for cement factory.
  
• Added Cement Mill for cement factory.
  
• Added Tobacco Farm.
  
• Added Corojo Farm.
  
• Added Cigar Lounge.
  
• Added Coffee farm.
  
• Added Opera House.
  
• Added Bank.
  
• Added Church of the Train.
  
• Added Cargo Station.
  
• Added Fertilizer bonus goods.
  
• Added bars mechanic that removes bad desirability and happiness decrease for residences in range.
  
• Added school mechanic that decreases the move-out rate by the factor of 10 for residences in range.
  
• Added church of the train mechanic that does not allow happiness to go below 100% for residences in range.
  
• Added banks settlement attractiveness buff that does not allow for it to go below 0.
  
• Added opera house mechanic that decreases goods consumption and increases tourism by 20% for residences in range.
  
• Added more newspaper story entries.
  
• Added credits after completing all of the newspaper content.
  
• Added combined settlement storage system when drag building. Structures act as one when built.
  
• Added resource icons to some items in the build panel.
  
• Added global stats for goods in the tooltip.
  
• Added potential production and consumption to the goods global stats' tooltip.
  
• Added support for multiple HUD goods lines.
  
• Added distribution center internal couriers.
  
• Added ability to add multiple filters to couriers;
  
• Added ability to take loans from the warehouse and a bank.
  
• Added search function in the build menu.
  
• Added search buttons in the build menu.
  
• Added build mode copy button.
  
• Added right click dropdown on build items to add them to quick selection.
  
• Added landfill tool.
  
• Added ability to upgrade wooden bridges to stone bridges.
  
• Added ability to place signals on rails that are on a road.
  
• Added ability to build multiple rail pieces on a road.
  
• Added ability for bridges and rail bridges to go above certain structures.
  
• Added ability for bridges and rail bridges to go above certain platforms.
  
• Added ability to build on top of underground passage tunnels.
  
• Added connection highlights when building production facility expansion structures that need other structures to function.
  
• Added name requirement signal support for commas to check for multiple names.
  
• Added flip option in the train depot to flip the whole train.
  
• Added train route condition to check how much cargo has been transferred.
  
• Added train route condition to check specific cargo amount in trains instead of only %.
  
• Added train route condition to check specific passenger amounts in trains instead of only %.
  
• Added train route condition to check specific rested passenger amounts in trains instead of only %.
  
• Added train route condition to check how much cargo is at the station.
  
• Added building a train tutorial.
  
• Added ability to duplicate route destinations.
  
• Added wagon transfer speed in the tooltip.
  
• Added station and settlement storage goods graphs to the goods tooltips.
  
• Added city achievement.
  
• Added only city achievement.
  
• Added settlements with inhabitants tracking so that only town or only city achievements could not be cheated.
  
• Added complete the game achievement.
  
• Added fast finish achievement.
  
• Added tiny achievement.
  
• Added rivers support to map generation.
  
• Added wind sound volume control in settings.
  
• Added steamdeck support for shift tools.
  
• Added date formatting support for different languages.
  
• Added wealth stats panel.
  
• Added in-game wiki.
  
• Added workers and travelers route destinations to the tooltip.
  

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Reworked swap workers logic.
  
• Reworked optional destinations.
  
• Reworked how balance is being calculated to make the results more pleasant.
  
• Updated build panel tutorial to mention new additions;
  
• Updated unlocks stamps panels.
  
• Updated localization.
  
• Improved how couriers pick up goods to avoid people carrying low amounts of goods.
  
• Improved how couriers balance picking up goods between destinations from single storage.
  
• Improved how build categories show items when settlement is selected.
  
• Improved how fast residences can provide workers to stations to avoid big station bottlenecks.
  
• Added fertilizer bonus goods to farms instead of books.
  
• Added sand to quarry output.
  
• Added sand to warehouse storage.
  
• Added sand to stone roads and settlement decorations cost.
  
• Made camera center to undo or redo operations.
  
• Made couriers always pick the shortest path instead of a random one.
  
• Made filter visible goods only those that can be produced.
  
• Made build panel guess build items without selection for settlements.
  
• Made unlocks always show the global list of items.
  
• Made unlocked conditions stack first.
  
• Made Train Depot UI scroll to the right when adding wagons;
  
• Made station platforms keep a single variation when a variation key is pressed.
  
• Reduced coal mine unlock requirement from 300 to 250 laborers.
  
• Reduced stone unlock requirement from 600 to 500 laborers.
  
• Reduced cotton unlock requirement from 1200 to 800 laborers.
  
• Reduced wheat unlock requirement from 2500 to 1700 laborers.
  
• Reduced iron unlock requirement from 5000 to 3000 laborers.
  
• Reduced meat unlock requirement from 500 to 200 craftsmen.
  
• Reduced cheese unlock requirement from 1800 to 1600 craftsmen.
  
• Reduced general storage tooltip footprint.
  
• Reduced bonus storage to satisfy production facilities for half a day.
  
• Reduced school books consumption from 60 to 15 per min.
  
• Reduced pump jack workers count from 20 to 10.
  
• Reduced brickwork workers count.
  
• Reduced bookstore workers count from 80 to 40.
  
• Reduced brickwork clay consumption by half.
  
• Reduced diesel and jet train fuel consumption.
  
• Reduced the no-work happiness debuff from -25% to -10%.
  
• Increased bar beer storage from 100 to 300.
  
• Increased brewery beer storage from 100 to 400.
  
• Increased second settlement storage tank capacity from 100 to 200.
  
• Increased DT20 unlock requirement from 1200 to 3000 transported diesel per day.
  
• Increased DT30 unlock requirement from 2400 to 6000 transported diesel per day.
  
• Increased DTJet unlock requirement from 2400 to 6000 transported jet fuel per day.
  
• Increased Tiny map achievement size from 256 to 512 for more fun experience.
  
• Increased stoneworks and craftsmen stoneworks stone production ratio.
  
• Increased default wait time condition from 20 to 40 seconds.
  
• Increased craftsman stoneworks cut stone output from 36 to 48 per min.
  
• Increased second tier goods wagon capacity and transfer speed.
  
• Increased max bridge lengths.
  
• Increased cargo station storage.
  
• Changed stone road unlock requirement to transport 100 cut stone.
  
• Changed st20 unlock requirement to produce 60 cut stone per min.
  
• Changed Jet20 unlock requirement to 3000 transported jet fuel per day.
  
• Changed closing next UI order with escape so that tabs close after build mode and selection.
  
• Changed infinite requirement to produce 240 extra goods per min instead of extra 50%.
  
• Changed the speed of the day from 20 to 24 minutes.
  
• Changed time for workers to get tired and be available for a switch while working to after ~8 hours.
  
• Changed time for workers to lose efficiency while working to after ~12 hours.
  
• Changed the time workers die of overexertion while slaving away to 24 hours.
  
• Included landfill info in the build panel tutorial.
  
• Included cargo route in the routes tutorial.
  
• Moved warehouse icon up.
  
• Rebalanced oil refinery values.
  
• Rebalanced cheese factory values.
  
• Rebalanced paper mill values.
  
• Optimized performance for large colonies.
  

You can view the full changelog in the game. I would also like to talk about some changes in more detail that I did not cover in previous blogposts.


[h3]Layering[/h3]

There are some layering improvements I would like to highlight. Building rails on roads can now be done with signals and multiple rail pieces on a single road tile. Building bridges on top of those rails (without signals) and roads is also possible. Talking about building over things, bridges can now cross farm fields, station platforms, courier shacks and other small and short structures. And finally, passenger and cargo station underground passes can cross anything because they are underground, and I am sorry it took so long.



[h3]Bonuses[/h3]

I kept hearing that building a Bar or a School was never worth it. This made progressing through them more of a chore than something to be waiting for. With the end-game content arriving, this might not be the case, but I wanted to increase satisfaction either way. Here is what I have added:

• - With bars, people will have beer, and the surrounding industry will not bother them so much. Pollution and desirability will be ignored for all residences in the road range.
  
• - School will teach your loyal workers how to be even more loyal, so that when goods are not provided, they will still stand by your side. The move-out rate will drop by 10 times for all residences in the road range.
  
• - Banks will invest in your settlements and will maintain positive attractiveness, no matter what you build.
  
• - Opera House will provide breathtaking performances from which workers will forget about their needs, by 20% or so.
  
• - Church of the Train is the holy structure that will forbid workers from being unhappy, no matter the hurdles.
  

The late game will allow you to play however you please and ignore the mechanics you choose just for your enjoyment. However, with great benefits comes great upkeep.



[h3]BrewBoost Hub[/h3]

One of the new late game additions is the BrewBoost Hub. "A building that provides workers access to coffee at nearby Production Facilities. BrewBoost increases work performance by incentivizing workers to complete their productivity goals in exchange for access to the café." This means that it provides an efficiency bonus to all production facilities in a road range as long as coffee beans are coming. Brewboost works with settlement production facilities as well, and it does not require them to be the same type as a distribution center does.



[h3]Wealth[/h3]

For newer players, wealth is pretty difficult to manage. It was challenging to know why balance was going in one or another direction. For this reason, a wealth panel is created to provide the full view of who contributes to your treasury.



[h3]Loans[/h3]

Next, we have loans that can speed up your early game by quite a lot. Small loans can be taken from your warehouse or much larger ones from the bank. It will be needed with the new endgame content. But be careful with those loan sharks.



[h3]Goods[/h3]

There have been multiple quality-of-life additions regarding understanding how well goods are produced and consumed. One of them is global statistics, which provides a quick way to find out if you are producing enough of something. Settlement storage and stations now track storage over time and it is visible in a graph. With these tools, it will be much easier to pinpoint the exact reason why there are some deficiencies in a production chain. In the future, I am planning to expand more on this.



There are still plenty of smaller features that I will try to finish during the next few weeks. For example, Church of the Train graphics, next to the Wealth Panel, it makes sense to make a goods section to get info on them. Also, smaller UI controls like wiki links in tooltips and so on. As always, leave feedback on Discord or Steam, and it will find its way to my list. Until the next blog post!

[h2]Getting There[/h2]

These days, I am mostly working on graphics and finishing touches for the next update. As always, there are still some things that need work, but it feels like I am getting to a stable and fun version. Early and middle games had some rebalancing to maximize the fun and reduce tedious tasks. When I was playtesting, my main goal was to remove “mental blockers” so that I could focus on what I wanted at a time, like completely unreasonable fuel production or fancy settlements, without worrying about upkeep destroying me every 10 minutes. I already have to battle with logistical decisions I made in the past, so why add more stress? Hopefully, soon you will all see and enjoy those tweaks. Here is a picture of disaster layout decisions made by me.



Please note that the features discussed here are not yet available and will be added in the next update.

[h3]Swap Workers[/h3]

Swap workers is such a simple action, but it always had a lot of baggage behind it. In the early days, Sweet Transit stations could only connect to a single target, like a settlement or a coal mine. That was enough for trains to decide where they needed to pick up workers and where to unload them. The logic at first was simple as well: if in settlement swap means load rested and unload tired, if in production facility station, then swap means load tired and unload rested.

After some time, wait conditions came in, and play testers wanted to tie them to actions. Players that swap workers with a laborers filter and rested at 100% condition means that that train needs to load tired laborers and unload everything else. Before the early access release, distribution centers were added to allow multiple production facilities to connect to the same station, as that was simply not possible or designed. Then players wanted trains to not load more workers than they needed, and for that, I added a system that calculates how many workers are needed everywhere and how many are tired. In short, the system grew to accommodate others and their needs. With every small new feature, the old system needed to have various changes, as it was simply not designed for it.



Then it was time to develop v.0.6, and I looked back at how many problems and new requests this swap workers action had. It was impossible to trade workers between settlements, and only simple, straight paths were possible. Furthermore, stations were limited to simple connections, which required a station for any new industry type, no matter how close they were. There was a issue of goods teleportation that allowed to unload wood at one part of a settlement and load it at the other end. And of course, reviews that complained about the lackluster city builder motivated me to take a second swing at the system, and I scrapped everything relating to swap workers I worked on.

First, I removed station connections and improved the road system so that residents and workplaces could find stations on the roads. Without connections stations needed to have local storage. Then goods somehow had to be transported from a station, which was not possible before. For that, couriers came in, carrying goods on the roads. This completed the transportation cycle and provided full control to the player. Next, stations did not know how many workers they needed to take in, as they are not a single purpose anymore.
My solution was to calculate station-specific statistics on how many people are rested, how many workplaces, how many are tired, how many are coming, and so on. That provided information for trains to guess what to do at that station. If there is a surplus and another station in the path requests workers, then it needs to load. On the other hand, if the train has workers and the station does not have enough, then it can unload. It works similarly to balancing liquid between containers by distributing excess between stations.

Sadly, this solution, while extremely fast to calculate, relied on balancing information and did not fit all solutions. In some cases, it is possible to have a middle station between destinations, in other tricks are needed. Loading or unloading goods without a filter confuses calculations, and trains act unpredictably. And it is difficult to guess why some workers are not boarding. Maybe they are waiting for work within the station's reach, or perhaps the train does not see other stations as a priority. Why would a train see an outpost with 40 missing workers as a priority when a settlement is missing 400, even with 100 currently in the station? I could go on and on, but this version is live, and problems are visible to everyone.



My final solution to this is to make workers think for themselves individually. In the next update, workers will find work themselves and hop on as many trains as required. No more only simple routes, no more multipurpose train confusions, and no more weird behavior. It will work as follows:
- A station will still calculate its local data on workplaces, workers, and so on.
- If there are not enough workers, this station will be marked as in need of workers.
- Stations that can get workers through any means and unloads at that station will get this request. If those stations can fulfill that request at that time, they will do so. Otherwise, these requests get passed along further and further. This request can live at multiple stations and always prioritizes those that can be reached by trains the fastest.
- To fulfill a request, the station adds this request to a local collection and sorts them by priority. Then rested workers can look at the stations they can reach and choose a job. Once that job is selected, it will try to get there with as many train hops as required, prioritizing the shortest path.

Image below with multiple stations and trains works like a charm by delivering workers.



The first version of this system released in v.0.6 was lackluster and not proven. Now I am confident people will enjoy this logistical challenge as all virtual limits will be removed to design whatever you want. I tend to create local rail systems at various outposts or just connect settlement stations so that workers would automatically relocate work where needed for me to not worry about a shortage of settlement workers.



[h3]Rivers[/h3]

I have also added rivers to the map generator. The problem is not really hard, but the solution is unexpected either way. Since Sweet Transit already generates a height map every time a new map is generated, I decided to start by making it rain on the map and let the rain dig into the ground and go downhill. The more rain there is, the deeper and wider the rivers will be, and ultimately much wider at the end where they meet the ocean. It turns out this did not work whatsoever, and in return, I just got ponds everywhere due to how perlin noise works. Maybe I could add more tricks to derail water where I want, but that would only increase the already quite long computation time more.

My train of thought was that I want rivers going from mountains to the ocean, and the current solution has rivers going just downhill without the ultimate goal of the ocean. This leads to unpredictable paths and ponds. Then I thought, why not go from the water to the mountains, the other way around? Perhaps rivers do not flow upwards, but in Sweet Transit, this works like a charm. Then, after some fine-tuning, this is the result.



The higher the river's value, the more interesting the outcome, but I'm not sure if it'd be fun to play here. It is a good thing that, with the newly added landfill, everything is possible.




[h3]Stamps[/h3]

The Stamps UI was neglected for a long time, and as we are approaching v1.0, it was time to give it a bit of love. Change is mostly visual and inspired by, you guessed it, stamps.




[h3]Achievements[/h3]

There are some more achievements added.
- City - Found your first city.
- Only City - Found a city without any other settlements.
- Complete The Game - Have a Bank, Church of the Train, Opera House and BrewBoost Hub built at the same time.
- Fast Finish - Finish the game in 10 hours or faster.
- Tiny - Finish the game using a map of 256x256 tiles or smaller.

Tiny achievement deserves a mention, as I enjoy tackling challenges on smaller maps. In old times before v.0.1, I mostly played on maps 256x256, and it felt very satisfying filling them up until there was almost no space left that lacked purpose. I only hope to nudge some players in the same direction, and someone might find the same joy as I do. It is important not to go overboard with cliffs and water bodies, as that will make gameplay very hard.




[h3]Wiki[/h3]

When playing something new, I like to delve into the Wiki to learn more about the game. For that reason, I created a game wiki that will be localized and can be accessed at any time. I tried to cover all topics and provide information that is not usually known. Now, players should be able to get answers to their questions without closing the game. I'm confident that new entries will be added in the future.




[h3]Goods[/h3]

In the next blog post, I will talk about new production chains and updated logic for some structures that provide fun bonuses that are worth the investment. I hope that that will go live in the coming weeks, along with the experimental branch.




As always, leave feedback on Discord or Steam, and it will find its way to my list. Until the next blog post!

Welcome aboard Sweet Transit,

A huge thank you to passengers who have been with us throughout our Early Access journey, and a warm welcome to the newcomers embarking on this adventure with us for the first time.

Sweet Transit is leaving Early Access this year, arriving at the full-release platform with Update 1.0. The price will subsequently increase to $29.99/€29.99/£24.99, accounting for the vast amount of new content implemented in Early Access since we departed our first stop in 2022

To ensure a gaming experience that matches your tastes, it's important to impress that you’re responsible for building a city, managing its resources and creating complex infrastructure. Sweet Transit is most enjoyed by clientele with a penchant for building bustling networks.

Sweet Transit boasts a huge sandbox of options with procedurally generated worlds to manage and control.

Spanning four major updates, we began with Fundamentals – improving the game's foundation. Forging Forward followed, adding blueprint libraries, steel bridges, bigger stations and more. Our third update, Swift Expedition, focused on UI enhancements and various content. Our most recent update, Rail Meets Road, overhauls how goods are transported and how settlements are run – giving you not just more realism, but greater control, too.

Passengers, the best time to join us on this journey is now! You’ll also enjoy the benefits of a 40% discount ahead of the price increase with 1.0.
The final destination is still on the horizon, and work continues enhancing Sweet Transit, with more content to be revealed! Stay tuned.

We wouldn’t be here without your continued support and feedback throughout Early Access. Thank you for joining us and helping Sweet Transit grow into full release.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1612770/Sweet_Transit/

Arriving at the platform is Hotfix 2 for Rail Meets Road!

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed warehouse road being locked
  
• Fixed time tutorial duplicated text
  
• Fixed a crash when deleting a station
  
• Fixed non enabled warehouse not updating storage when expanding
  
• Fixed a memory leak when sending multi action trains to the train depot
  
• Fixed a crash when exiting renaming panel with steamdeck button B
  
• Fixed some random crashes while the game is running
  

[h3]Changes:[/h3]

• Increased meat production from 30 to 60
  
• Increased brickworks coal storage
  
• Increased internal couriers for production facilities
  
• Added dynamic courier allocation for smelter, brickworks and other factory like production facilities
  

Thank you for your continued feedback and support. :)

[h2]Better Logistics[/h2]

Hopefully, the New Year has started well for everyone! It has been busy on my side as always, but at least I took my first real vacation while working on Sweet Transit. It was good and provided some clarity together with motivation to finally finish the game. There have been many changes throughout early access and the game is unrecognizable from the early versions. Now I will be able to focus on QoL and content as almost all bigger features are already in the game. Due to there being so many new things I will write several blogposts that are more focused.

P.S. If you want to try out old versions you can access them in Steam Betas. For some versions to work delete .dat files in "%AppData%/Sweet Transit".


[h3]New Route Conditions[/h3]

I have added several new route conditions to make sure that players have as much control with trains as needed. Cargo and passengers amount allows testing for exact numbers instead of percentages. The transferred cargo condition calculates how much cargo was loaded or unloaded. Probably the new favorite station cargo amount allows trains to see how many specific goods the station has. I bet some of you know where this is going...




[h3]Optional Destination[/h3]

To make the most of the new conditions optional destinations have been reworked. Now they can reroute the train based on if conditions are met. For the most common example take a coal train. It will load coal and wait until one of the stations has less than 200 coal stored. If there is a station with a coal deficit, then the train will go and unload there. Smarter trains will improve traffic while making everything more satisfying to look at.




[h3]Landfill[/h3]

The next game version will have multiple new production chains and structures that I will share later. But relating to logistics landfilling lakes using sand or digging out rivers is added to allow terraforming enjoyers to bend the world to their will or fix those annoying patches that block your building plans.




[h3]Couriers[/h3]

Couriers have had so many improvements that it is hard to say that they work the same under the hood. For starters multiple filters were added based on the feedback I was reading everywhere. Next a balancing system under the hood makes sure that goods are distributed equally between structures that need them, no more one structure takes everything while others starve. Lastly, conditions on how goods are being taken are changed to maximize single-worker usage. For example, before a courier shack with 50 workers would carry 1-2 items making the whole process very inefficient. Adding more workers would lead to even worse results as nobody would use their potential. Now individuals take as much as they can and if needed wait for some time until they are fully stocked before allowing another worker to take goods. With this no matter how many couriers there are they will always be ready for any kind of workload.




[h3]Couriers Controversy[/h3]

There has been some controversy regarding couriers and micromanagement, especially from long-time players. I am looking into making a more only trains mode with either automated couriers or the standard tycoon connect settlements and production facilities gameplay mode. While I am still unsure how to go about this I just wanted to let you all know that it is not being ignored.


[h3]Bonus Storage[/h3]

Production facility bonus storage is now more limited to half a day's worth amount make sure that structures only take goods as they need instead of hoarding them.




[h3]Distribution Center[/h3]

Distribution centers have internal couriers added to them to minimize the need for courier shacks in outposts. Workers amount can be controlled manually and set to 0 if no couriers are needed.




[h3]Combined Storage[/h3]

There were several issues highlighted with storage in settlements, especially regarding storage tanks. Players are required to have a lot of couriers and separate storage tanks to supply bars or hold internal fuel buffers. To improve this I have implemented combined storages for all settlement storage structures that as the name says combine their storages into a single big one.




[h3]Name Requirement[/h3]

Another smaller related feature is that the comma in name requirement will allow checking for multiple names, no more signals nesting.




[h3]Build and Unlocks[/h3]

Most probably have noticed or written themselves that the UI is "unintuitive". It is hard to address such a general problem, but it seems that most can't put their finger on what is the problem exactly as well. Thanks to discord suggestions and people discussions for now I have added these features to it:
- Added expansion button that enables search bar and sample/copy button to make finding items easier.
- Build items will show settlement expansion structures automatically when the camera is in or near a settlement to minimize "why I can't build residences" confusion.
- Build items will have related goods or another icon next to them to allow for easier visual search.
- Unlocks when settlement in range won't hide global unlocks to communicate that there are two types more clearly.
- Already unlocked items always be on top to not miss what is unlocked.




As always leave feedback in Discord or Steam and it will find a way to my list. At the same time, it is sad to see such low review score. My goal was always the same - to make the game as enjoyable as possible. All problems, suggestions and opinions are being heard and considered, but being a solo developer it is hard to be everywhere. I encourage you to join our discord and discuss everything there so that I can have an easier time making sure that my time is being spent where it is needed the most. Until the next blog post!