Tracks - The Train Set Game News

Hello,

We've just made live a new patch for Tracks! Take a read of the patch notes below for details.

[h4]Changes[/h4]

• Passengers have had a revamp with new animations, sounds and improved pathing to platforms
  
• Passengers can now be placed directly on a platform to wait for the train
  
• Passengers now board the carriage closest to them on a platform
  
• Platforms can now be deleted regardless of whether passengers are walking to it
  
• Improved responsiveness of the Toybox & Scenery menus
  
• "Fullscreen" in the graphics menu is now real fullscreen and not 'Borderless Window'
  
  • Please let me know if this is annoying
• Reduced game start up time and memory usage
  
• Reduced file load time and memory usage
  
• Model and texture optimisations

[h4]Bug fixes[/h4]

• Fixed various issues with certain achievements
  
• Fixed sounds for the boosters/brakes
  
• Fixed a crash and other issues with Tower Cranes
  
• Fixed the Tractor facing the opposite direction to other vehicles
  
• Fixed the Toybox sometimes creating a Small House when you opened/closed it
  
• Fixed the Toybox not closing after clicking a category without picking a decoration
  
• Fixed looking directly downwards reversing your movement direction in some environments
  
• Fixed the mouse cursor not always staying in the place you left it
  
• Fixed some issues with placing a Track Piece from the Toybox
  
• Fixed the train whistle not always getting painted correctly
  
• Fixed the train whistle changing colour when saving even if it wasn't edited
  
• Fixed passengers getting stuck if their Platform was deleted when they were waiting on it
  
• Fixed passengers in the main Tram not being aligned correctly
  
• Fixed Passenger mode not always creating the correct amount of passengers
  
• Fixed various types of passenger not having their colour option saved/loaded
  
• Fixed the track build indicator being duplicated in Passenger Mode
  
• Fixed the train sometimes becoming invisible in Passenger Mode
  
• Fixed passengers being deleteable in Passenger Mode

Hi all,

I'm excited to announce Tracks: Winter Wonderland!
That's right, an actual physical wooden train, who knew such a thing was possible.


The Winter Wonderland bundle comes with:

• A Christmas themed wooden train and carriage with magnetic connectors (compatible with major wooden tracks pieces) and three passengers
  
• A digital code for Tracks: Toybox Edition for Nintendo Switch
  
• The exclusive Winter Wonderland DLC to add this train & carriage to the game

Together it costs just £24.99 making it a great gift for Christmas or any other time of year.


The bundle is available through Amazon, Smyths Toys (UK, Ireland, France) and several other places, hopefully one near you. It will become available in the United States hopefully some time next year.

Additional retailers in the UK: [expand]
Argos
Very
Games Collection
Rarewaves
Game
Booghe Toys [/expand]
Retailers in Europe: [expand] Various retailers through Playman Distribution – Czech Republic
Coolshop – Denmark
Elkjøp and Co-op – Norway
Various retailers through Just For Games Distribution – France
Shinestar Distribution – Spain
EB Italy - Gamestop – Italy [/expand]
Hope you enjoy it! Usual game updates will resume soon. Thank you!

6th September 2024:

• Fixed decorations being unpickable in the toybox if no DLC was installed
  
• Fixed level crossings being placed at the point you’re looking instead of at the track intersection
  
• Fixed the circus not allowing trains inside
  
• Fixed a crash from using the Recently Used row in the toybox with a controller
  
• Fixed Jump to category in the toybox in Grid mode
  
• Fixed Jump to category in the toybox not working correctly when the search bar was in use
  
• Fixed terrain blocks affecting the scale of decorations which were restored with undo
  
• Improved autosave behaviour
  
• Fixed variants being deleteable multiple times while they were being deleted
  
• Fixed some decorations having the wrong colour values saved if they were restored with undo
  
• Fixed bushes having an arrow when highlighted

10th September 2024:

• Fixed autosave not working correctly when the Save/Load menu has never been opened before
  
• Fixed Overwrite file creating a duplicate entry in the list
  
• Fixed autosave not correctly choosing to overwrite another autosave based on the same file
  
• Fixed the autosave timer not always starting

1st October 2024:

• Fixed being unable to go through tunnels backwards with carriages
  
• Fixed the 1969 achievement
  
• Fixed track pieces built directly from a decoration (e.g. tunnels, turntable) not being saved
  
• Fixed various issues with passengers
  
• Fixed automatic Railroad crossings being built too low
  
• Fixed some variant intersections not being saved correctly

Hi all,

For this update I decided to focus all of my time on code, doing things I've needed to do for *years* so no new decorations today, but hopefully you'll enjoy this update all the same for the many new features and improvements that have been made!

• Autosave & Quicksave
  Your building progress can now be automatically saved as you play. Autosaves don't overwrite your manually created saves, instead there are three rotating slots dedicated to it. You can choose how frequently it happens in the options menu, or disable it if you prefer.
  Additionally, you can now press a key (F5 by default) to trigger a save.
  
  
  
  
• Large world optimisation
  Several low level aspects of the game's code have been upgraded to improve the experience for players building gigantic worlds with a large number of decorations:
  (Comparison numbers from the world below (by TGC_Cris) with 82,000 decorations on my PC)
  
  
  • Greatly improved loading times for large saves ( 28 seconds -> 5 seconds )
  • Saving large files is much faster ( 9 seconds -> 0.4 seconds )
  • RAM usage has been slashed ( 3.5GB -> 1.1GB )
  • Eliminated hitches that happened when decorations were removed in a large world
  
  
  
• Toybox improvements
  
  
  LayoutThere are now two options for how decorations are laid out:
  "Rows" is what you're used to, one category per row with decorations stretching left to right.
  "Grid" removes sideways scrolling and makes all the decorations in one category visible at once. You can scroll up and down to move to other categories.
  
  Category tabsThere's now an optional window on the left of the toybox with buttons to jump to each category, usable with either layout.
  
  Label toggleIf you prefer to find decorations by looking for the icon rather than text, you can now hide the name completely to increase the size of the picture.
  
  Rewritten controller navigationMoving between options with a controller should now be more consistent and smoother
  
  
  
• Passenger orientation
  Passengers can now be rotated to face a particular direction.
  The old random direction is still the default, though now you can see which way they'll be facing before you place them. Just press R to rotate them like any object and the random rotation will stop.
  
  
• Breaks & Boosters
  There is a new counter-part decoration to the Booster called "Breaks" which rapidly slow down the train as it passes.
  Please note the way boosters work behind the scenes has been changed. I tried to match the old behaviour as best as I could but if you notice any issues, things which are no longer possible but used to be, please let me know!
  
  
• Other improvements
  
  
  • Added Brazilian Portuguese as a language option
    
  • Highlighting is much more accurate for a range of decorations; I'm slowly making my way through them all, if there are any you find particularly difficult to work with let me know
    
  • Added a crosshair on screen to help when doing things far from the camera, and increased the maximum interaction distance
    
  • Added some missing songs to the soundtrack DLC
    
  • Improved versatility of repainting wooden slat decorations
    
  • Separate Small/Medium/Tall Painted House options replace the Random House decoration
    
  • Fixed the Merry-Go-Round not playing music
    
  • Fixed Wooden Trains with 100% condition still having a bit of paint chipping
    
  • Fixed an issue where a corrupt file would make the Toybox appear blank
    
  • New file loading screen and various other improvements to the UI
    
  • Added Constant Grid as a rebindable key in the Controls menu
    
  • Passengers who can't be deleted (e.g. because they're walking / on a train) no longer get highlighted when hovered
    
  • Fixed the Merry-Go-Round not playing music
    
  • Grooms now have an assortment of ties and can be recoloured
    
  • Fixed some collision issues around the presents in Bedroom (Night)
    
  • Fixed an active Fireworks (Toggle) continuing to play a sound after it has been removed
    
  • Fixed a small erroneous square on the Motel
    

Hi all,

A new beta is now available for anyone who would like an early look at the next update and is willing to try a potentially buggy version.

Accessing a beta on Steam:

• Right click on Tracks in your Steam games list and click Properties
  
• Go to the Betas tab on the left and choose the public_beta option from the dropdown menu (you don't need to enter a code)
  
• Steam should start downloading an update, and Tracks should have a [public_beta] tag in the games list

If you find any issues please report them on the forums or discord.
You can see a full list of changes below:

[expand]
For this update I decided to focus all of my time on code, doing things I've needed to do for *years* so no new decorations today, but hopefully you'll enjoy this update all the same for the many new features and improvements that have been made!

• Autosave & Quicksave
  Your building progress can now be automatically saved as you play. Autosaves don't overwrite your manually created saves, instead there are three rotating slots dedicated to it. You can choose how frequently it happens in the options menu, or disable it if you prefer.
  Additionally, you can now press a key (F5 by default) to trigger a save.
  
  
  
  
• Large world optimisation
  Several low level aspects of the game's code have been upgraded to improve the experience for players building gigantic worlds with a large number of decorations:
  (Comparison numbers from the world below (by TGC_Cris) with 82,000 decorations on my PC)
  
  
  • Greatly improved loading times for large saves ( 28 seconds -> 5 seconds )
  • Saving large files is much faster ( 9 seconds -> 0.4 seconds )
  • RAM usage has been slashed ( 3.5GB -> 1.1GB )
  • Eliminated hitches that happened when decorations were removed in a large world
  
  
  
• Toybox improvements
  
  
  LayoutThere are now two options for how decorations are laid out:
  "Rows" is what you're used to, one category per row with decorations stretching left to right.
  "Grid" removes sideways scrolling and makes all the decorations in one category visible at once. You can scroll up and down to move to other categories.
  
  Category tabsThere's now an optional window on the left of the toybox with buttons to jump to each category, usable with either layout.
  
  Label toggleIf you prefer to find decorations by looking for the icon rather than text, you can now hide the name completely to increase the size of the picture.
  
  Rewritten controller navigationMoving between options with a controller should now be more consistent and smoother
  
  
  
• Passenger orientation
  Passengers can now be rotated to face a particular direction.
  The old random direction is still the default, though now you can see which way they'll be facing before you place them. Just press R to rotate them like any object and the random rotation will stop.
  
  
• Breaks & Boosters
  There is a new counter-part decoration to the Booster called "Breaks" which rapidly slow down the train as it passes.
  Please note the way boosters work behind the scenes has been changed. I tried to match the old behaviour as best as I could but if you notice any issues, things which are no longer possible but used to be, please let me know!
  
  
• Other improvements
  • Highlighting is much more accurate for a range of decorations; I'm slowly making my way through them all, if there are any you find particularly difficult to work with let me know
    
  • Added a crosshair on screen to help when doing things far from the camera, and increased the maximum interaction distance
    
  • Separate Small/Medium/Tall Painted House options replace the Random House decoration
    
  • Fixed Wooden Trains with 100% condition still having a bit of paint chipping
    
  • Fixed an issue where a corrupt file would make the Toybox appear blank
    
  • New file loading screen and various other improvements to the UI
    
  • Added Constant Grid as a rebindable key in the Controls menu
    
  • Passengers who can't be deleted (e.g. because they're walking / on a train) no longer get highlighted when hovered
    
  • Grooms now have an assortment of ties and can be recoloured
    
  • Fixed an active Fireworks (Toggle) continuing to play a sound after it has been removed
    
  • Fixed a small erroneous square on the Motel
    

[/expand]
Thank you!