Derail Valley News

Hi all,

We've squeezed in more bug fixes and a few NonVR features this week, while working on the big hazmat update.



Press Left Alt and you can aim and interact with particular joysticks and buttons of items in hand. Many of you asked to be able to use the locomotive remote with your mouse, and now you can!

Mouse-look now also lets you view items while zoomed in (RMB), such as your map or your watch.



Pressing keyboard numbers 0-9 now automatically unequips your current item and equips another, like in most FPS games.



- Fixed missing track joint sounds
- Use mouse wheel to turn booklet pages (rebindable to keyboard)



Controls:

- Added mouse-look feature to NonVR
\ Press ‘Left Alt’ to toggle on/off
\ Useful for operating items in hands using mouse, such as the loco remote
- Keys 0-9 now automatically equip items from the requested slots
- Booklet pages are now turned with the scroll wheel in NonVR
- Made scroll wheel controls bindable to keyboard (for those without the wheel)
- Updated item hover highlighting to highlight more sensible parts of items
- Fixed lighter lid being controllable with the scroll wheel when not held

Sounds:

- Fixed track joints not playing sound when crossed over by wheels
- Fixed pocket watch sounds sometimes being spatially incorrect

UI:

- Reworded “respawn” to “restart” in UI texts
- Updated job booklets to better format cargo names

Hi everyone,

While we’re heavily working on the upcoming big hazmat update, we'll try to release a few more bug fixing patches in the meantime, such as today's one:



We fixed an error that may have been the cause for VR bugs such as being unable to take items out of belt-points or items falling through ground. We also fixed the orientation of some items in VR being broken when held. Players in NonVR can now see the teleport gizmo once again.



- Increased shunter remote range and battery drainage
- In NonVR lighter lid now opens using the scroll wheel

This change comes with more items being moved to use the scroll wheel soon, as item selection will be reworked to function with keys 0-9.



Bug fixes:

- Fixed an error potentially causing all belt and item -related problems in VR
- Fixed teleport gizmo not showing in NonVR
- Fixed pocket watch clock hands sometimes clipping into the watch body in NonVR
- Fixed some items having wrong orientation when picked up in VR
- Fixed some items having wrong orientation in belt in VR

Locomotive remote:

- Increased locomotive remote range
- Updated locomotive remote battery usage

Items:

- Lighter lid now opens and closes using the scroll wheel in NonVR
- Lighter is no longer guaranteed to light up on first try in NonVR

Hi everyone, we have some exciting changes today!



We reworked the way Derail Valley is being loaded, preventing issues such as falling through terrain at game start. It now shows a loading screen with progress percentage, completing all loading before you actually start playing. VR players: note that the loading screen will only appear on the monitor, not in the headset.





You can now buy a watch in shops, letting you measure time, using either its stopwatch or timer functionality. This is useful when chasing your job time bonus! When used as a timer, the watch will ring when it counts down to zero, even if it’s in the inventory.

In VR the watch is placed a bit inconveniently high in the store, but note that in due time we will rework the shop layout.





- Parked trains no longer slide on slopes
- Potentially made game playable on undefined controllers (e.g. Pimax with Vive)

Our focus is now on hazmat jobs and related improvements!



Build #72 - April 19, 2019:

System:

- Reworked game loading
\ Now shows loading progress (screen only)
\ Fixes player falling through terrain when starting game
\ Smoother experience after game loads in

Items:

- Added pocket watch
\ Can be bought in shops
\ VR controls: Button - start/pause, Knob - set time
\ NonVR controls: LMB - start/pause, Scroll - set time
\ To use as stopwatch, start at zero time
\ To use as timer, start at set time
\ Alarm goes off when timer runs out
\ Works while in inventory too
\ Gets its status saved during play
- Save-game can now track item-specific states

Trains:

- Trains no longer slide when parked on a grade
- Increased coupler strength 50%

Controls:

- Potentially fixed undefined device controllers not working (e.g. Pimax with Vive wands)
- Fixed walk/run speeds in nonVR being increased in a recent build

Misc:

- Added pages about derailing and item storage to DV Guide
- Fixed crash when using teleport console commands while being on a vehicle
- Halved job validator cooldown

Hey all! Quick update this time.

As some you noticed, as of update #70 sometimes you'd not be able to go through tunnels. This build should fix that. Have fun!



World:

- Attempted fix for not being able to go through tunnels

Hi everyone,

We have several notable fixes today!





All of it. Trees, as well as rocks, will no longer appear on tracks. Moreover, we’ve been able to gain quite a visual improvement too. With the new approach the gravel texture previously painted next to tracks to remove vegetation is no longer necessary. This brought a lot more track-side texture variety, and allowed us to bring vegetation closer to the tracks, making all environments feel more authentic.



In the future, once aged tracks are implemented, this will also allow us to make abandoned tracks somewhat more overgrown than others.



One of the most obvious issues with the game was that, when transitioning to a new area vegetation would blink for a few frames. This made hangs a lot more noticeable than they really are. As of this build vegetation will no longer blink.



We know that shovel in VR is often wonky. Until it’s reworked, there’s now a temporary setting in Misc submenu, that lets you interact with coal in a way that doesn’t involve physics. This means that lags or losing tracking will no longer launch your coal into orbit.



Despite simulating train brake you’ve all experienced cars buckling and sometimes causing derailments in turns when braking. All the cars shared the same braking power, however their mass differed. Being heavier, some cars would push against the light ones as they had a harder time stopping.

Now, car brakes are automatically adjusted for car and cargo mass, ensuring that the entire train brakes with mostly the same force.



Many of you wrote to us about bugs with jobs stuck in inventory and loader levers not working. Both of those issues are now fixed.



World:

- Removed vegetation and rocks from tracks
\ Removed need for gravel texture next to tracks (more natural track-side)
\ Allowed bringing vegetation closer to tracks
- Fixed vegetation flickering at terrain loading
- Fixed terrain bump at lake loop

Jobs:

- Fixed non interactable levers on load/refill machine (introduced recently)
- Fixed being unable to take out job booklets from inventory (introduced recently)

Steam locomotive:

- Added non-physical shovel option for VR, making coal stick to the shovel
\ Can be found in settings, under the Misc submenu
\ Can be switched on and off during gameplay

Cars:

- Brake strength now automatically adjusts for car mass (no more buckling)