Derail Valley News

Hi everyone,

Today we’re adding one of the first community unlocks, the Shunter Remote Controller! Thank you all for making it possible by spreading word about Derail Valley! There’s many more to come!



Many of you wished to be able to control the shunter remotely, and now you can! The shunter remote controller is an item that can be purchased in shops. It has buttons and joysticks that are all fully interactive in both VR and nonVR. In nonVR additionally it can be used with keyboard, featuring some new controls listed below.



The remote runs on a battery that can be recharged by a solar-panel (it needs sunlight!). It is range limited to about 300m after which it gradually begins losing signal.

The remote can be used to drive two locomotives from the cab of one, until proper Multiple-Unit support is added in the future (which requires us to implement player-owned locomotives and upgrade system first). Needless to say, implementing the remote involved a lot of technical advancements that will be useful with future features.



We are aware of all your problems with items since item storage was added. There have been some bugs or unfinished features that lead to items seemingly or literally disappearing. With this build that should no longer happen and you should always find your items either in your inventory or in the nearest Lost and Found shed.

In addition, dropped items will be easier to spot, as they are now getting highlighted if you empty-click in nonVR, or telegrab in VR.



NonVR version got more train driving keyboard controls, such as horn, coupler, etc. These were necessary in order to make the shunter remote controller operable with keyboard only, but may also help some of you who map joystick peripherals to keyboard controls. Support for keyboard control configuration via .ini file is coming soon.



For VR we’ve added belt points, where you can store items. This makes it easy to, for example, carry a map or a shunter remote in front of you while keeping your hands free.



For those of you who have unlocked the Old Bob’s vehicle, you’ll be able to summon it at any point with a menu button. The menu will soon be slightly redesigned to accompany features like this with smaller button form.



As usual, there are many more changes! Have a look at the full changelog:

Shunting remote:

- Is an item that can be purchased in shops
- Makes it possible to remotely control a shunter
- Features interactive joysticks and buttons (VR and nonVR)
- Can be used with keyboard controls in nonVR (when equipped)
- Features solar-powered battery mechanics
- Features limited wireless range with signal loss
- Includes various technical reworks and improvements to be used in future features

Controls:

- Added keyboard controls for all train commands
- Added belt item points (VR)
- You can place items to belt points for quick access
- Provides hands-free item interaction (useful for shunting remote)
- Fixed nonVR player being dragged by moving train if teleporting off of it
- Fixed camera flickering when teleporting in nonVR

Items:

- Hand-held items are now saved to inventory, rather than falling to world
- If inventory is full they are sent to L&F shed
- Reduced item spawning distance in L&F sheds to 50m
- Updated Player.GiveEssentialItems console command
- Now adds lost items to inventory if there’s space, else to L&F sheds

UI:

- Added menu button to refresh Lost & Found
- Added menu button to summon Old Bob’s vehicle (once unlocked)
- Added tooltips to menu
- Reworded many options
- Added highlighting nearby items (VR: telegrab press, nonVR: LMB click)
- Added build number to main menu

Railway:

- Fixed glitches with clipped shadows occurring on some parts of the railway
- Fixed railway LOD sometimes appearing (e.g. at Machine Factory)

Save-game:

- Fixed job loading errors, potentially causing other bugs

That’s it for now, see you next update!

Hey all,

We've got several controls-related fixes today!



For nonVR players (or those playing using smooth locomotion in VR), your character will no longer drift and suddenly move when they are supposed to be standing still in moving vehicles. You should also no longer be pushed up the tender as easily if leaning in VR.



Using a menu option, you can now teleport back to the last used locomotive. Later on when we add the caboose, it will provide an option to teleport to it as well, making it an essential tool to teleport back and forth between two ends of a train (or map, if strategically located?). This feature is still in experimental phase.



Those of you who wished to invert mouse Y-axis can now do so with the console command debug.InvertMouseY and setting it to either 'true' or 'false'.

We've also fixed an issue from previous build where quitting the game while using smooth locomotion in VR would mess up player position on game load.



Controls:

- Fixed nonVR player drifting when in moving vehicles
- Fixed player being nudged onto tender sometimes in steam locomotive
- Added “teleport to last loco” button to main menu (experimental)
- Added console command to invert mouse Y-axis
\ Debug.InvertMouseY (true/false)
- Fixed smooth locomotion save-state causing faulty game load as of #65

See you soon with another update!

Hi all,



We've completely reworked the way tracks are generated and rendered. They are now generated in real-time, in-game.

This brings many improvements such as significantly smaller build size (60% reduction), much faster build-making process and notable optimizations with all railways further than 350m being drawn with a simpler model, as well as GPU instanced rendering.

In future this change will allow us to further improve performance, dynamically change tracks in real-time and eventually make world mod support, if we reach that goal.



We streamlined many job-related issues with a very simple improvement that involves how players take jobs - by adding Job Overviews.

When you go to a station office, on a desk you'll find Job Overviews. Rather than this paper being the job, it only serves as an overview. Insert it to a job validator to accept it and only then it will print out a full-detailed Job Booklet. You can then validate this booklet afterwards, to print out a Job Report, like before.

This change eliminates numerous sources of confusion among new players, such as not knowing how to take a job, whether Job Report is a main booklet to take, or being unaware of when job timer begins ticking (now it starts when you explicitly accept the job). Job Overview system also prevents cheating (placing cars where they should be before accepting job), and might fix stuttering when nearing stations, due to having less pages to render.



There are a few more notable changes:

• NonVR teleport console command
  
• Selecting Seated VR mode now automatically recenters play area
  
• Further improved WMR controls
  
• Saving locomotion type in VR (e.g. smooth)*
  

*Warning: VR users who play using smooth locomotion - note that due to a bug, loading the game with smooth locomotion setting saved will spawn you under the world in this build. You will need to respawn if this happens. Until we fix this in tomorrow's update, it's best if you don't leave the game with smoothing locomotion turned on, to avoid this problem.



We decided we'll be moving video updates to weekly instead of per build, so that we can be more agile with major updates. You can expect this week's updates to be covered next Saturday. This way weekly video updates will be able to include more stuff in the future, such as development shots, community highlights, etc. They will also provide update information to players who weren't able to follow updates during workdays.



Railway rework:

- Railway is now generated in real-time, as you move around the game world
- Greatly optimized railway meshes outside of 350m radius from the player
- Optimized generation & rendering (Unity Job System; GPU instancing)
- Reduced build size 60% (from 10.6GB to 4.25GB)
- Allows major future improvements (reduced stuttering, in-game changing, better world-editing)

Job system:

- Reworked job taking
\ Stations now spawn Job Overviews
\ Job Overview is a single-page item, describing job essentials
\ Insert Job Overview in Job Validator to accept job
\ Job Validator will then print out an actual Job Booklet
\ Last page/step of Job Booklet says to validate job to complete it
\ Possible stutter improvement when nearing stations, for some players

Controls:

- Locomotion type setting for VR users now gets saved
- Changing VR mode to Seated now automatically recenters play area
- WMR improvements:
\ Fixed the WMR controllers sometimes having unusual interactions with items
- Added pointer spheres to WMR controllers to always know where you are pointing
- Fixed occasional bug with controller being black and unresponsive

Item storage:

- Decreased range for item respawn to L&F shed to 200m

Misc:

- Added teleport console commands (nonVR ONLY):
\ Debug.TeleportToPoint; takes desired x and z world coords (0-16384)
\ Debug.TeleportToPointNormalized; takes normalized x and z world coords (0-1)
- Updated to Unity 2018.2.21f1

That's it for today, see you soon with another update!

Hi guys,

Today we're adding a major save-game improvement that all of you have been waiting for!

https://youtu.be/Fpmy2Ecs5o4


Ever wished you could quit the game while on a job and continue later? Now you can!

Derail Valley now continually autosaves player position, rolling stock and ongoing jobs. When you load the game it will no longer move you to the nearest station, but rather let you continue from where you left off. Note however that fuel and damage states are not being saved yet, which remains to be added in a future update.



- Added console command to reset player position, in case you fell under the terrain
- Various item storage fixes



Save-game:

- Saves player position
- Saves trains and their position
- Saves ongoing jobs and their progress
- Added console command “Debug.DeleteCarsAndJobsSaveData”
\ Flushes all current train and job save-game data in case of a bug

Item system:

- Fixed inventory order getting shuffled when reloading
- Fixed game starting without items for some players
- Fixed certain items sometimes missing for some players (may go to Lost & Found)
- Fixed duplicate wallet appearance (might need to find yours in Lost & Found shed)
- Fixed tutorial items able to render tutorial impossible to complete as of #62
- Fixed shop items not sharing the total available amount of each item
- Added colliders to Lost & Found shed, window tweak

Controls:

- Player position will be auto-fixed if falling under terrain, past the water level
\ Added console command “Player.MoveToLastGoodPosition” for manual recovery
- On Vive enabling option “touch-click” will now use click to turn pages too

Misc:

- Updated various 3rd party plugins (potential bug fixes and performance improvement)

As of the last build, some players experienced all their inventory items gone. With this fix, essential items should now be located at Lost & Found sheds.

Those of you affected - please let us know if it worked!



Item storage:

- For players missing essential items, they will now respawn at lost & found sheds
- Minor graphical tweaks to shed