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Derail Valley News

Growing our team to 10 members!

It's been a long journey.

I want to say thank you for supporting us over the years, to each and every one of you who have bought our games (especially those of you who did it multiple times)! You’ve done a wonderful thing, helping us push VR and the train simulator genre forward. There’s so much more we want to do, and this is only the beginning.



We faced countless challenges over the years, partly because we saw it necessary to remain truly independent. This allowed us, however, to make all decisions regarding design, business strategy and publishing ourselves, as developers who are in the trenches. We were able to innovate without friction, react quickly to feedback, adapt to new situations, communicate directly with our players, and lead Derail Valley in the best possible direction.

Overhauled, our recent major update, was the pinnacle of that effort. Released remotely from our homes in the midst of a worldwide lockdown, it ended up more successful than the game’s original launch! After years of struggle, we are finally where we always wanted to be: self-sufficient, tightly bonded with our players, able to grow, and still in full control over our games. This is not only a business milestone, but very much a personal one too.



We’re opening 4 new positions, to grow our team to 10 members (first time reaching the double digits!). We are looking for three highly experienced game developers / programmers, as well as an assisting developer, to join our team. Remote work is possible, depending on many factors. We’re looking for highly talented developers from Serbia primarily, but wherever you are, if you think you’d be a great fit, do get in touch — we will consider all applications. See the link above for details on the positions and how to apply.

Ever since we launched Derail Valley, we’ve kept its price low. The price was based on the rough shape the game was in at launch, to encourage early supporters. We've made massive improvements since, and as announced in the past, soon we will increase the price to represent the current quality and play-time it has to offer. The cost bump is still months away, as first we want to add a proper main menu with a save manager, a sandbox mode (ability to play without career) and many more smaller improvements. Stay tuned for a more detailed announcement about it as we get closer. The new price will only affect new buyers, of course.



Derail Valley will remain in Early Access after the price increase. There’s still so much more that we want (and need) to add! The Unlocks page is only a part of what’s planned, and we want to keep working on Derail Valley for years to come! We see this expansion of our team as essential in getting there timely. After the initial period of onboarding, I hope to see us churning out updates at a faster pace than ever, fortifying our goals of making Derail Valley the best train simulator in the world, as well as one of the best VR games.

Once again, all this wouldn’t be possible without your support, so in the name of the whole team — thank you! I hope this news makes you as excited for the future as we are! In the meantime, we’ve been cooking a new update slated to come out next week. Stay tuned!

-Slobodan

Build #84 - New Terrain Graphics, Cosmos Support & More!

Today's build concludes our work on the terrain revamp. Parts 1 and 2 improved stability and performance, and part 3 is here to introduce the all new terrain graphics. Your scenic screenshots will no longer be ruined by a blurry background, as you can see yourself in the video and screenshots below!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As always the update also introduces a lot more improvements, such as:

  • Better lighting
  • Simplified fee payment process
  • Official support for HTC Vive Cosmos
  • World & track updates
  • Many more small fixes




We recommend opening the images above in a new tab for full resolution.

[h3]Please note - This build will reset jobs/trains/switches, due to changes made to tracks. If you find yourself stranded you can fast-travel to the nearest station and pick another train/job there.[/h3]

For the full list of changes in the update, as always we've prepared the full changelog below:

[h2]Full Changelog:[/h2]

Graphics:

- Revamped graphics rendering of terrains
-- Greatly improved rendering quality of distant terrain textures
-- Remade some terrain textures
- Improved overall lighting
- Improved post processing
-- No longer increases overall game brightness
-- Creates a better looking HDR effect
-- Better illuminates dark spaces
- Fixed tileable asphalt texture appearing blurry

VR:

- Added support for HTC Vive Cosmos headsets and controllers
- Fixed a bug where grab key would move to trigger when operating brake hoses
- Fixed falling off a locomotive when leaning out the window in VR
- Fixed inventory tooltip text jittering when on a moving train

Career & Jobs:

- Revamped the fee tracking system
-- Paying fees for jobs no longer requires discarding or completing them
-- Reaching copay now always clears all the fees
-- Having fees under $5k will no longer prevent the player from taking new jobs
-- The player can’t take new jobs if having 8+ fees (or if hoarding money as before)
-- Updated fee booklet design (simplified texts, layout)
- Increased job deletion distance in all stations (can go further without jobs being reset)
- Added a Career Manager machine to Military Base
- Fixed a rare bug that could result in jobs requiring more space than there is
- Fixed a bug where cargo damage in a shunting job could display a faulty, negative value
- Fixed an ultra rare edge case where fee payment could be higher than copay

Trains:

- Temporarily fixed DE6 often derailing the first car behind
- Forced a DE6 to always spawn at HB roundhouse
- Forced a SH282 to always spawn at IMW turntable

World & Tracks:

- Added green crops
- Straightened many tight turns and sections
- Moved depot in CSW to loosen track curve on approach
- Fixed track kinks at IMW and IME
- Fixed the tight turn between B and C yards in SW
- Improved the tight turn in CM loading track, less jerky
- Fixed residential buildings having no smoothness texture (reflectivity)
- Fixed beige cars in stations being invisible
- Potentially fixed passenger platform being too close to tracks in HB
- Potentially fixed trains clipping depot doorway in OWN
- Potentially fixed GF and CSW storage tracks not being used due to lower clearance tolerance
- Removed some trees from the tracks in stations (HB, MF, CSW…)
- Updated TC2 so that quarry paints rock texture
- Fixed CSW crane being messed up

Misc:

- Fixed aiming at junction signs being imprecise
- Removed loading alerts (can be enabled via debug.LoadingAlertsToggle console command)
- In nonVR tutorial a prompt will teach player how to sit (X key)
- If player leaves the tutorial area with brakes on, a popup will warn them
- Added continual checking of free system memory in the background
-- When amount of free memory is under 1.5 GB and dropping:
-- Writes to log and pops up a “low memory!” alert on screen
- Made locomotive map blips yellow
- Made a few minor schematic map tweaks
- Moved SM service station closer to depot entrance

That's all for this week! See you soon with another update.

-DV Team

Announcing the winners of the Steam Locomotive Skinning Contest!

Hi everyone!

We’re pleased to announce the winning entries of the Steam Locomotive Skinning contest! The community voting ended yesterday, with the following results:

[h3]Best Art:[/h3]



[h3]Best Idea:[/h3]



[h3]Best Meme:[/h3]



Due to the rule of a contestant being able to win with only one entry, we didn’t have a third-place winner in the meme category. That said, there are more great entries that deserve to be seen. Here are some honorable mentions of the entries that didn’t win:



At the end, we at Altfuture have also chosen our favorite. The winner of the Best Overall category, even though they didn't win any of the community vote rewards, has clearly put a lot of creativity, effort, skill and detail into their entry, as well as its presentation. It is our favorite:

[h3]Best Overall:[/h3]



This skin will be used as inspiration for the new steamer skin that we'll officially create for the game in the future. This will likely come in the Steam Locomotive Improvements update, and will, of course, include creative modifications.

You can download these amazing skins, and many more, thanks to the modders who have generously made them available: https://www.nexusmods.com/derailvalley/mods/

Finally, we'd like to say big thanks to all the participants! You guys made this contest fun and so diverse! The winners will be handed their prizes shortly. We'd also like to invite everyone to join our Discord and congratulate the winners directly, in the #contest-discussion channel! There were even more entries submitted than shown here, so be sure to check them out!

That's all for today. See you soon with more news!

-DV Team

Build #83 - No More Stuttering!

The long-awaited performance improvement is here! As previously announced, build #83 fixes stuttering as well as freezes during gameplay, usually associated with the "loading area" and "spawning trains" onscreen messages.

The stutters should now be completely eliminated or drastically reduced (100 times?), depending on your hardware. This is true even when approaching the Harbor! This improvement involved a big rework of how cars are loaded to the game, as well as a total overhaul of how terrains are loaded and displayed.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The massive terrain revamp has been an ongoing process for several weeks, aimed to solve several critical issues in one go. In the previous build it allowed us to drastically reduce RAM usage, today it fixes the stuttering and in the next build it will help us vastly improve visual quality of distant landscapes. Stay tuned for some pretty sights!

As always, this update brings you many more smaller improvements and bug fixes, all detailed in the changelog below:

[h2]Full Changelog:[/h2]

Stability:

- Further terrain rework (WIP)
-- Eliminates stuttering when “loading area”
-- Increases terrain texture resolution in distant terrains
-- Fixes end of the world being visible (terrain prolongs outside of the world borders)
-- Reduces system complexity, allows easy world terrain updating
- Reworked car loading
-- Fixes stuttering caused by trains spawning when approaching stations
- Potentially fixed the ignition switches not starting the train for some players
- Fixed fast-travel with handcar crashing the game

VR:

- Fixed a bug sometimes making it impossible to teleport while moving
- Fixed a bug with Comms Radio getting dropped when used since build #82
- Potentially fixed a bug where grip binding could move to trigger after a while
- Fixed a bug causing Vive wands sticky item holding to behave like continuous
- Fixed inventory tooltip jittering if on a moving train

Career:

- Fixed a bug with jobs not spawning properly after fast-travel
- Prevented manual service tip screen from showing on fees smaller than $1k
- Inverted sorting order of fees so the smallest ones show first
- Fixed fast-travel with handcar charging extra for loco transport
- Reworded a few Career Manager lines

Trains:

- Fixed loaded trains having faulty mass in Freight Haul and Unloading jobs
-- They were almost twice lighter than they should be
- Reworked hopper car UV map and texture to be modder friendly
- Made locomotive windows harder to break
- Loosened the ignition rotary switches on DE2 and DE6 locomotives
- Fixed unused locos being able to despawn if part of an active train

Misc:

- Increased sunlight intensity
-- It was accidentally lower than normal since the Overhauled release
- Fixed Hazmat spills/fire being temporarily disabled since #82
- Fixed tank car leak orientations being wrong and their cracks invisible
- Fixed a bug in NonVR where tab+esc would make the handheld item flimsy


That's all for today's update! See you soon with another!

-DV Team

Contest: Steam Locomotive Skinning Contest!

We're doing our first contest - the skinning of the SH282 steam locomotive! The contest will take part in 4 categories (art, idea, meme and overall) and it will include prizes!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Later on we will create an official steam locomotive skin as part of the game, inspired by the winning entry of the Overall category! The winner's name will be listed in a hidden in-game hall of fame list.

The contest starts NOW and will end on Sunday, July 19th, 23:59 UTC. You'll find exact rules and information on how to take part in our Discord community news post:

[h3]> CONTEST RULES & DETAILS <
[/h3]

We're excited to see the skin mods that comes out of this! Good luck to all the contestants!