Railroader News

[p]Railroader has coupled up to Rail Route, the railroad design and dispatching strategy game, for a railroading bundle![/p]
[p]Take command behind the signal board in Rail Route, where you’ll design, expand, and automate your own rail network - then jump into the cab in Railroader to haul freight, run passenger services, and feel the power of classic American locomotives in the golden age of rail.[/p]

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/60052/Running_the_Railroad/

[p]Move trains across the grade with this incredible double-header today![/p]

This release contains no game changes from 2025.1.0a, but we have updated to Unity 2022.3.62f2 in response to a Unity security vulnerability. According to Unity there is no evidence of any exploitation of the vulnerability nor has there been any impact on users or customers.

Meanwhile, work continues on the MoW update!

[p]Hello Railroaders![/p][p]Progress continues on our Maintenance of Way (MoW) update! In our last update we shared a number of items, including that we are reworking track construction milestones to work with the MoW system: MoW trains will build the track and need to be supplied with ties, track, and ballast. Lots and lots of ballast.[/p][p]Today we'll look at what we've been up to as we continue to work toward releasing MoW on an experimental branch![/p][p][/p][h2]Dynamic Load Models[/h2][p]Load models are an area that we've been needing to improve upon, and MoW has helped bring that to the forefront during our testing. One of the challenges with load models has been that our system required each car to be configured for each type of load model, which meant that if we were to add tie models to our gondolas, we'd need to do that for each gondola. New track load model? Update the gondolas. Adding a ties load model? Update the gondolas. This quickly becomes rather tedious, particularly if we need to make changes later, and it's also not modding-friendly in that it requires modifying the cars to add new load models, creating conflicts. We needed a better system.[/p][p]The solution we've built enables us to define a "load volume" within rolling stock. The load volume describes the available space for the load within that car. Railroader can then find an appropriate load model at runtime and put it in place. This makes it possible to provide varying models for the same loads, without needing to configure each car for each possible load model.[/p][p]Here are some of the MoW load models:[/p][p][/p][p]Not all loads can simply sit in a gondola though. Break bulk loads like dimensional lumber are often sent by flat car, with stakes securing the load. If the load isn't specific to the car, how can we include stakes? After all, the stakes are specific to the car, placed in the pockets along the side.[/p][p]To address this we've created a way to toggle detail models on cars depending on certain properties of the car, including whether the load model calls for stakes.[/p][p] [/p][p][/p][p]There are certainly much simpler ways to build these things that would have been faster to build, but we think they're worth the investment now to make Railroader more flexible in the future. [/p][p]On the topic of loads – now that we have better volume information, Railroader now takes density into consideration when determining how many pounds of a load are in a car. No more 50T boxcars of dimensional lumber – it isn't desert ironwood![/p][p][/p][h2]More MoW Equipment[/h2][p]We've created a new MoW car for your forthcoming maintenance needs. Like all good MoW equipment it's repurposed – this one from a box car. We really like how it turned out.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Gondolas are now purchasable, and a very basic MoW train is part of new Company mode games.[/p][p][/p][p]Speaking of new equipment, we're adding an ore car for the Alarka Copper Co. mines![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]More Data[/h2][p]Perhaps you've noticed above: we've revamped our rolling stock to include more prototypical car data, as well as the reporting mark and number![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]More Ballast[/h2][p]In our last post we mentioned what a ridiculous number of cars of ballast it would take to build 13 miles of railroad (1,429, in real life). We heard from a number of you who were very much up for the challenge, so we've added in a setting for construction realism. We're also including a lower realism setting.[/p][p][/p][p]We're aiming to find a good location for an on-line ballast producer, or perhaps other MoW loads. This would make for a fun alternative to running all of those cars through the interchange.

[/p][p][/p][p]On a related note, we've made a key enhancement to how construction works. Previously, the MoW "crew" would use the cars as storage, working from it as they go. Now, they gradually unload the car while construction continues. This frees up your cars more quickly to get them filled back up again.[/p][p][/p][h2]Toward Experimental[/h2][p]This has been a challenging update cycle – a lot is changing, and we are still working on significant adjustments. Nevertheless, we are confident that these changes are necessary and important for the future of Railroader.[/p][p]Thank you for reading! We know that many of you are eager to take the new MoW features for a spin. We're working hard on it and plan to put it up on an experimental branch as soon as it's ready! [/p][p]
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[p]Hello Railroaders![/p][p]Today we are happy to share our progress on the Maintenance of Way (MoW) update we've been hard at work on. We knew this was going to be a big update, and as we have playtested and iterated on MoW that has certainly proven true. It's also driven us to revisit some aspects of Railroader's milestone progression and the map itself.[/p][p]We think it's important to note that none of this has happened in a vacuum, so to speak. Since we announced that we were working on MoW we've received tons of great ideas and feedback. Thank you! This is one of those features that makes it challenging to balance wide open vision with what we can make real, and will mesh with the rest of the game.[/p][p]In our last update on MoW we shared that you'll use ballast, ties, and rail to maintain your tracks. One thing we didn't share at that time was our thinking on how the core MoW mechanic of the work train would be a very cool way to do construction milestones. Instead of spotting a few batches of cars next to the missing track, what if you had to purchase and supply loads to the work train as it made its way down the line? This is the direction we're taking for the MoW update, and we're very excited about the richness and challenge it adds to Railroader.[/p][p]
[/p][p][/p][h3]The Price of Ballast: A Historical Reference Point[/h3][p]What loads are needed to rebuild the Ela bridge? Or build from Bryson Bridge to Alarka Junction? We dug into our sources, textbooks and historical records including the Tennessee Valley Authority and Southern Railway's own historical numbers for rebuilding the line to come up with the "at the time" resources. Based on those numbers we estimated the loads to build the 13 miles of railroad between Bryson and Fontana Lake and came up with:[/p]

• [p]22 cars of rails[/p]
• [p]139 cars of ties[/p]
• [p]1,429 cars of ballast[/p]
• [p]Total load cost: $335,039[/p]

[p]Well. As exciting as it was to imagine moving 1,590 cars to and from the interchange, we decided that for the vast majority of players this was not anywhere in the realm of realistic or practical. By scaling those numbers we've arrived at car counts and costs that are both practical and substantial:[/p]

• [p]10 cars of rails[/p]
• [p]20 cars of ties[/p]
• [p]200 cars of ballast[/p]
• [p]Total load cost: $15,080[/p]

[p](Note that for simplicity I've omitted costs and loads to construct the bridges in these example milestones.)[/p][p]Keep in mind that we are still very much in the development/playtesting phase and these numbers are almost guaranteed to change before we release the MoW update, but we wanted to give you an idea of what we're thinking about. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.[/p][p][/p][h3]Rethinking Milestones and The Map[/h3][p]Rethinking the milestones in terms of construction materials has also caused us to rethink the boundaries of those milestones, and even the reward for accomplishing a milestone, which is generally satisfaction of reaching a goal and access to more customers. We understand that for many players the western end of the map, with its lower customer density and heavy grades, may be too much to tackle. To address this we are making the following adjustments:[/p]

• [p]Changing the Bryson Bridge to Fontana milestone to run only as far as Alarka Junction, and adding a second milestone from Alarka Junction (past the spur to Robinson Gap) to Almond. The Nantahala milestone will begin after Almond.[/p]
• [p]Dramatically reworking Nantahala Talc & Limestone at Hewitt to provide more traffic.[/p]
• [p]Adding an interchange and small freight house at Almond. (This is a big one. We have wanted to do something like this for a long time now.)[/p]
• [p]Others?[/p]

[p]Our goal in making these changes is to provide more options for your railroad, as well as to make expansion more rewarding.[/p][p][/p][p]Below: expanded Nantahala Talc & Limestone with placeholder scenery buildings.
[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Speed Restriction Signage and Other Challenges[/h3][p]We've also been busy with some of the more challenging details of MoW. For example, dynamically displaying signs to reflect speed restrictions due to poor track conditions.[/p][p][/p][p]
[/p][p]In some circumstances displaying signs that make sense and don't overwhelm the player poses a real challenge![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]In addition we are planning on looking at supporting MoW load storage, reevaluating starting equipment, and so forth. Like we said: it's a big feature, but we think the wait will be worth it![/p][p][/p][h3]Scenery and Equipment Models... and the Turntable[/h3][p]As with previous updates we've been continuing to work on equipment model updates, as well as new scenery structures, including a revamped turntable bridge.[/p][p]Speaking of the turntable: we have added a control window to allow "remote control", as well as a new overlay interface which allows you to drag the bridge to the desired position, which it will automatically turn to. Hat tip to the Century of Steam team for inspiring us to improve the turntable interaction![/p][p][/p][p]Drag and drop turntable rotation:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Using the window to manually control the turntable, shown at 3X speed:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]New Map Terrain Data Format[/h3][p]Although we don't officially support modding, we wanted to provide a heads-up that this update will change the map terrain data format to one that uses the RIFF format and improves terrain data load times. We expect this to simplify creating/manipulating the terrain data in mods, as we know some of you are keen to do. We'll share more details about the format once this update is available on an experimental branch.[/p][p][/p][h3]Wrap-Up[/h3][p]That's all we have to share for now. Naturally we've got a number of smaller enhancements and bug fixes queued up, and perhaps a surprise or two. We don't yet know when this update will be available on an experimental branch, but rest assured that we want you to have it as soon as possible.[/p][p]Thank you for reading and for supporting Railroader!
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This is a hot fix release that includes the following:

• Tutorial bug/typo fixes.
  
• Fix for broken Crews panel in the Company window.