Rolling Line News

Continuing on from the "lumber mill props" added last update, this next update adds some more props and features themed around a western town! This includes new buildings, props, and a new wooden tunnel style.

As you might have seen mentioned previously, all these updates are working towards a big map set in the Sierra mountains and the California logging industry in the early 1940s. This map is going to be Rolling Line's first ever expansion (almost 6 years after the games release). More details will be coming in the future about this expansion, but for now here's some new props added to the game while i've been in the process of making the town of Tuolumne, California!

[h2]Old western buildings [/h2]

Firstly, a modular hotel building:



A set of classic street-side shops:



And a church:



Also a bunch of props, including shop-front signs, wood planks, hitching posts, etc:



[h2]New wooden tunnel style[/h2]

This tunnel can be added from the popup track-style menu, or using the new painters in the "track tools" drawer. You can make a single-track tunnel or a double-track tunnel (by adding walls to each side on the two lanes of track). There are also snappable tunnel portals for single and double track tunnels:



[h2]More mill props[/h2]

A few new props added to the "buildings -> mill" drawer, these include a new modular water tower as well as a wooden "sand chute" building:



Other minor fixes/features also include:

• Added snapping to all double-track tunnel portals
  
• Added placement ghost arrow to all tunnel portals
  
• Improved collision on several wooden debris pile props
  
• Moved several props around to clean up drawers, there is no longer the bizarre "props -> warf" drawer, these props have been moved to "vehicles -> boats" and "buildings -> Western"
  
• Added a couple of new church window props
  

[h2]Sierra logging layout preview! [/h2]

While this is still massively work-in progress, here are a few sneak previews of parts of the map that I have been working on! There will be much more info released about this map in the future.

This update adds a ton of lumber mill themed props, like new modular buildings, moving log chain, smoke stacks, log piles, and more!

You can find all of these new props in the "buildings -> Mill (1 & 2)" drawers:



[h2]Log chain[/h2]

One of the new moving parts of a lumber mill, the log chain! This is used to pull logs from the log pond into the inside of the mill. There are a few different sizes and style variants.



[h2]Green chain[/h2]

The other new moving part for a lumber mill is the green chain, this is a conveyor which takes the freshly cut planks out of the mill so they can be sorted into sizes.



[h2]Log piles[/h2]

Lots of new log props! Including individual logs and big log stacks:



Also various drying stacks of planks:



[h2]Smoke stacks[/h2]

A new set of modular smoke stack props, as well as some roof details:



[h2]Sawdust burner[/h2]



[h2]Reeds[/h2]



[h2]Modular rail sheds/mill buildings[/h2]

The largest part of this update is a set of new modular buildings! These can be used for rail sheds (witch openable doors) or any building made with planks:



[h2]Flat tables (water)[/h2]

A very simple feature that's incredibly useful, there is now a full set of tables that have no sides, so they are just a flat surface. These are excellent for making water effects:



[h2]Other features[/h2]

Some props (like the log chain and openable doors) now have an arrow visible when placing them on the ground, to help make it clear which way they are facing:



There are also a few bug fixes:

• level crossings no longer trigger from cars when they are set to "automatic" mode
  
• the "packaged mods" and "packaged assets" options are now visible when uploading a main menu map scene to the Steam Workshop (these were missing before)
  
• Fixed bugs with turntables being included in grouped track. A turntable can no longer be the first item in a group (it can still be included in a group, it just cant be the first piece of track selected)
  

You're probably wondering why the sudden lumber mill theme?
That's because it's part of the next major map release I'm working on, the "Sierra Logging" expansion!
This map is set in California during the historic logging boom in the Sierra mountains. Specifically the towns of Tuolumne, Jamestown, and the West Side Lumber Company!
There will be lots more info released about this map in the future, but it will involve a ton of new props being added into the game (just like these ones).
I'll be releasing props like these in updates as they are made, instead of waiting till the whole map is finished, since this will be a big project.

These props especially were all made to re-create the Tuolumne mill:

One of the main icons of railways: roundhouses!
Despite turntables being added to the game already, they have always been missing a proper system for creating roundhouse buildings. You can always make them with props, but this is a tedious and difficult process, so this update finally adds a solution!

You can now dynamically add roundhouse buildings to turntables, and their shape and size will automatically be scaled to fit the shape of the turntable. You can customize the style of the roundhouse (like door types, roof types, colors, size, etc) and even add multiple different types of roundhouse buildings to a single turntable.

[h2]Adding a roundhouse to a turntable[/h2]

When pointing at a turntable, use the right-hand popup option to open the menu for editing the turntable options. From here you can access a new menu for editing roundhouses:



You will then see an empty list. You can add multiple different roundhouse buildings to this list, which is useful for when you need more than one size/color of building attached to a single turntable. Click "add new" to create a new roundhouse building.



Editing a roundhouse building will give you a bunch of options, like the style, shape, colors, etc:



The start/end index options are used to control how many exits of the turntable are covered by the roundhouse building. For example, in this screenshot the roundhouse runs from exit 8 to 14:



You can also customize things like the height/length of the roundhouse building, and change the "offset" (the distance which the building is placed in relation to the edge of the turntable):





There are lots of different model styles for the doors, walls and roof (and of course the doors can all be opened!)



There is also now a new drawer (track -> roundhouses) which contains some example turntables with roundhouses already attached.



This update also includes a couple of other small things:

• Fixed a bug relating to the collision on turntables not behaving correctly when some track styles were used.
  
• Added a setting to enable/disable the "train rotation smoothing" effect. This effect makes your view smoothed when driving a train around corners. This setting is in the "pause menu -> gameplay" menu.
  

Now that the holiday season is done, I'm finally fully back to work on Rolling Line!
To kick things off for the year, here is a simple update that i've been wanting to add to the game for a while: the ability to set your own main menus in-game and share them on the Steam Workshop.

You can select as many different menu scenes as you want, and essentially make a shuffle list of different menus for the game to use each time it loads. These menus are literally just normal save files, which means they can contain everything from moving trains to mods and even custom audio!

By default, the game now also has a ton of built-in menus using the official maps already in the game (and even a few bonus ones).

[h2]Choosing menus[/h2]

You can select which main menu scenes to use in the "Pause menu -> gameplay -> main menu options -> select menus" menu.
This list will include all default built-in menus, any menus you've downloaded off the Steam Workshop, and any menus that you have made yourself.



[h2]Making your own custom menus[/h2]

A "main menu scene" is treated just like any other mod (like a train or prop), so you can create your own ones in the Modding Manager from the pause menu:



Set the category to "Main menu scenes", and then click "add new":



From here, you can choose the location where the player spawns and even set the size of the player, so you can make the player larger than they are usually in miniature mode.



When you click "set spawn point" you can walk around the map and see a preview of what the main menu will look like. Simply click the mouse to set the spawn point:



There is also an option to automatically delete all props beyond a chosen distance. This is useful for if you want to make a menu scene using a large map, but dont want to have to load the entire map each time.



[h2]Sharing on the Steam Workshop[/h2]

You can also upload your custom menu scenes to the workshop!
In the modding manager, simply click on your menu scene and choose "upload" from the popup list:



You can then find other people's main menu scene uploads in the "main menu scene" tag category on the Steam Workshop:



[h2]Other menu features[/h2]

This update also adds the option to change how the game loads on start-up. You can find this setting in the "Pause menu -> gameplay -> main menu options" menu:



When the game starts, you can either load the main menu, automatically resume your last save file, or even load an empty new game map.

[h2]Other fixes[/h2]

Along with the menu features, this update also includes a few fixes:

• Fixed the snow mesh for the Challenger so that it matches the model properly
  
• Fixed bug where loading a save file would sometimes include a fog effect on the loading screen
  
• Blocked the ability to quickSave and quickLoad on the main menu
  
• Fixed a broken mesh for one of the roof prop pieces
  

This update is just a quick one to kick things off for the year, but now that I'm fully back to work, the much more serious updates can continue.
I've got tons of big plans for this year, so keep an eye out!

In the meantime, I hope you all have fun with these custom menus!

It's time for Christmas! This update adds a bunch of new features (like more advanced signal options), lots of bug fixes, and of course brings back the Christmas coat of paint for the game.

And that also means all of Rolling Line's previous Christmasy features get to resurface!
Some of the previous year's themed updates added things like:

[h2]Snow cover effects for trains:[/h2]





[h2]The Canadian "Christmas train":[/h2]





[h2]Rotary plow:[/h2]



[h2]Snow plows and snowy tracks:[/h2]





[h2]Snow globes:[/h2]



[h2]Christmas props:[/h2]







Unfortunately this year I have been very busy over the last month (travelling overseas!) so there won't be a new Christmas themed update this year, but this update does include a bunch of fixes & features, including some highly requested improvements to Signals!

[h2]New signal features[/h2]

You now have several new options for setting up signals!
You can place custom "bounds boxes" which allow for signals to be triggered by trains that are not on the track directly ahead. This means you can make working diamond crossings where trains will stop to allow for other trains to cross:





You can also now set a different "source track" point for AI trains to detect the signal. This means you can have the signal checking for trains on one track, and have trains respond to it on another track. This is very useful for making sidings, where trains need to wait for the main line to be clear before moving:



In the above example, the signal on the siding is actually checking if the main line is clear, not the track directly ahead of the siding. But the "source track" that the AI train is waiting at is still on the siding.

Meanwhile, the main line signal is just checking the track directly ahead.

This means that when the main line is clear, the train waiting on the main line will get a green signal first, then the siding signal will only turn green once the line ahead is fully clear.



You can access all these new options on the signal edit pop-up menu:



[h2]New control bindings[/h2]

This update adds a few new control bindings, firstly, you can now create a custom binding to toggle AI-auto-switch on the current driving train. This is useful for when you are controlling modded trains which have no buttons inside the cab:



There is also now a new binding to toggle "pause time".
Previously, there was an option to use the pause button to instead pause time (rather than opening the menu) or you could also choose to make the pause button create a spray.

Since this option was quite confusing (people would often accidentally change their pause button to do different things and not understand what had happened) I decided to just remove this setting for PC and instead give the option to bind controls for each of these options individually.

So this means there are now dedicated bindings for "go to pause menu", "pause time" and "place spray" in the controls menu:



[h2]System to detect bugged controller input [/h2]

There is now a system in place to detect broken joypad input.
tons of people have run into issues where some unintended joypad input has caused the screen to spin and makes it very difficult to disable the joypad afterwards. Usually this is caused by something like a flight-stick being plugged in and unused, or a broken controller.

So basically the game now keeps track of input (only during the main menu stage) to check if identical repeated input is happening, e.g. if a joystick is stuck fully to the left/right and spinning the screen.
If input is frozen on an identical value for more than 4 seconds, it will show this popup:



[h2]Halloween menu map[/h2]

A bit of an unrelated feature, you can now play the halloween main menu scene as a map included in the "New game -> Mini maps" list:



[h2]Other fixes[/h2]

This update also includes:

• Fixed bug where pressing ESC while editing a text box while inside a 2D menu would cause the text box to get stuck on the screen.
  
• Fixed bug where held bounds-boxes would be disabled when changing items in your inventory.
  
• Fixed errors caused by having an empty save file included in your local saves list.
  
• Fixed issue where signals taken from the drawer would default to having zero as their red range.
  
• Fixed bug where the signal popup menu was not removed when the signal prop is deleted.
  
• Fixed specific crash from loading broken mod files.
  
• Cleaned up the post-processing options in the pause menu and split them into multiple menus.
  
• Fixed bug where the tooltip text for save file lists were not visible in 2D menus.
  
• Fixed issue with fog affecting loading screens in some niche situations.
  
• Fixed bug where pressing ESC during thumbnail capture would cause problems.
  
• There is now an on-screen help message about enabling/disabling track side-snapping (just like the message that shows up when track snapping is disabled).
  
• Fixed bug preventing one of the Weka Pass map easter eggs from working correctly.
  

[h2]Southeast Asia trip![/h2]

I've just spent the last month overseas on a trip to Southeast Asia! (Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand).
It's the first time I've been overseas since visiting Brazil (4 years ago) which lead to the Paranapiacaba map.
This was an incredible experience, and included some places which would make from some really amazing Rolling Line maps, including places like the ancient temples of Angkor Wat, Thai-Burma "death railway", urban railways in Ho Chi Minh City, and several train trips through rural Thailand. I really hope to make something surrounding these locations in-game, but there will be more news on that in the future.

Here are some highlight photos:



Since I was away overseas for so long, and I'm also quite busy of Christmas, updates will be a bit sparse until after January when I can get back to work properly.
But don't worry, i have HUGE plans for 2024!
After 2023 having some quite experimental updates (like circuitry) I'm going back to the game's roots, focusing on trains, operations, freight and maps. But there will be more information on that in the future.

But to give you a hint... it might involve logging with Shay's in the Sierra mountains ːsteamthumbsupː

In the meantime, have a lovely Christmas and keep an eye out for future updates in 2024!