Hello Railroaders!
On Monday, March 3rd, we are finally bringing our work on the Experimental branch to everybody! Those of you who have not opted into the Experimental branch will finally experience Auto Engineer Waypoint Mode, Timetables (if you so choose), new engines, and more!
We will remove the experimental-2024.6 branch at this time. If you wish to delay updating to 2024.6, you can switch to the 2024.5.x branch which is currently available, but note that we plan to remove the 2024.5.x branch on Monday, March 17th.
Thank you to the many of you who played the experimental branch and shared your feedback with us. You've been a huge help in improving Railroader. If you're already on the experimental branch you don't need to change anything before Monday: when we remove it you will be moved to the main release. We plan to create a new experimental branch at some point in the future.
For those of you who haven't been on the experimental branch, here are some of the highlights of what to expect in 2024.6 when it releases:
Auto Engineer Waypoint Mode
The most game-changing feature in 2024.6 is Auto Engineer Waypoint Mode. Waypoint Mode lets you give your Auto Engineer (AE) a point on the track, and it will route itself to that location, lining switches along the way! You can perform a run-around in just a few clicks, or send a train out of the yard and straight to a customer track, miles away.
While Waypoint mode is very powerful, there are some limitations:
- AEs can not negotiate meets with other trains; you still need to act as dispatcher, either by setting incremental waypoints or using CTC.
- Along the same lines, AEs may "fight" over switches if they have conflicting routes.
If you haven't used it yet, we think you'll find Waypoint Mode makes a huge difference in your ability to scale your operations, which is why we've invested so much in this feature over the past few months.
Other Auto Engineer Changes
Another new feature for Auto Engineers is Notices, a new UI element that lets the AE notify you when something is wrong, or when it has completed its instructions. Notices appear in the upper right corner of your screen and help make you aware of when an AE reaches its waypoint, a fusee, or can't move because of a handbrake, switch against it (Road/Yard mode), and so forth.
In 2024.6 we've moved all AE control to the HUD (lower left) -- the Auto Engineer Orders tab has been removed from the locomotive inspector. We know the Orders tab is preferred by some players, but with adding a new AE mode we had reached a point where maintaining two different UIs for the same thing was not practical. We'll be looking at ways to make it easier to control an AE engine without selecting it for a future release.
We've also made numerous other refinements and enhancements to the Auto Engineers, including making hard couples less likely, reducing some of the "padding" distances to make it easier to get right up to the end of track, and treating intermediate signals as Stop and Proceed. The default minimum passenger stop duration has been changed to one minute, and can now be set as low as 30 seconds in Settings. Additionally, MU now works better with steam MU'd to diesel and vice-versa.
Timetables
Timetables are a new, advanced, and optional feature in 2024.6. By creating a timetable in the in-game editor you can bring a sense of structure to your railroad, as well as enjoy higher passenger profitability, as passengers will gather for the scheduled trains. Auto Engineer passenger trains also follow the timetable, holding at passenger stations until the timetable departure time.
Timetable train symbols are assigned to train crews. Timetable trains are directional (westbound or eastbound) and can even run onto the Alarka Branch. Note, however, that because trains are directional and Alarka is railroad west of Alarka Jct, it is not currently possible to create a timetable train from, say, Andrews to Alarka. Instead, you will need to create a separate timetable train so that the eastbound from Andrews can change symbols to a westbound at Alarka Jct. Keep in mind that it's also possible to avoid this issue by transferring passengers to another train entirely at Alarka Jct.
For more on timetables, see the Timetables section in the Guide (F1), or our video overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_TrE44jLo4
Equipment
This release includes numerous equipment updates. There's new power, and a new tank car:
- P-48 modeled after the Southern Ps-4 class, and revised the P-43 to model a USRA Heavy Pacific
- C-40 Mastodon, modeled after the Norfolk & Western M Class
- SD7 diesel locomotive
- Union Tank Car tank car
As well as aggregate load models, and numerous model refinements, including: C-46, F-71, T-22, SW1, C-40, C-55, S-23. GP9, and SW1.
Scenery
This release also sees a lot of new construction along the railroad: there's a new station at Dillsboro. Ela Farm Supply. Alarka Copper Co., Locust Pin Co., Nantahala Power & Light, Union Lumber Co., and several fuel dealers now have structures. We think these add a lot to the environment and are looking forward to adding more in future releases!
We've also added new crossing pads and concrete road bridges!
Track & Operations
There's a new wye at Sylva - now you can turn your trains at the eastern end – as well as a new customer, Sylva Building Supply. Both were inspired by historic Sylva track arrangements.
There's also a new customer at the western end of the railroad, Tatham Grain & Seed Co. at Andrews. This has necessitated moving the Andrews signal milestone staging area closer to Andrews passenger station - you will need to move any cars formerly spotted for this milestone.
More operationally, we've made some enhancements to passengers: passengers taking transfers now pay full fare upon reaching their destination (previously they would only pay fare for the last leg of their journey). Also, passengers will now only wait four hours from the time they board their first train - after four hours they will disappear.
We've removed the time multiplier feature. This was a fun feature but as we have made enhancements (the aforementioned passenger time limit and timetables in particular) it became clear that the time multiplier -- which made everything but trains "move" faster -- would become a source of confusion. We have, however, added a new Time window -- click on the clock in the top right corner or hit F3. With the time window you can easily "wait" to allow time to pass and get the customer to release that last car!
Simulation
There are a number of simulation changes in 2024.6:
- Locomotive and tender brake cylinder pressure for a train brake application now matches the 2.5X factor of standard cars. Additionally, locomotive brake cylinders hold pressure applied via train brake until the train brake is released or the independent is bailed off.
- Fixed a longstanding issue where, when an engine that had been bailed off was loaded from a save, the brake line would incorrectly be restored to 0 PSI.
- Fixed a case where a car on a grade would not start rolling after releasing the handbrake.
- Updated notch-to-power mapping to more closely match EMD documentation. Diesels now produce 100% more power at notch 1.
UI
We've also continued to invest in improving Railroader's UI:
- Revamped right click circular menu design.
- Fixed an issue where clicks on objects might not register correctly in low frame rate situations. If you still encounter these issues in 2024.6, please try enabling Vsync or Limit to 60fps. Let us know if the issue persists!
- Windows now remember their position and size between game sessions.
- Overhead ("2") camera now restores its orientation after moving to stay above ground, such as when following a train through a tunnel.
- Refined the Switch List window, fixing layout issues and moving the buttons into gear dropdown menu.
- Teleporting to the mouse pointer now results in first person camera pointing in expected direction.
- Car Inspector Operations tab Status field now shows expected waybill payment, including timely bonus and damage fine. Tooltip has a full breakdown.
- HUD controls for diesel engines now snap and show notch values. In-cab control throttle tooltip now shows notches.
- Added Shift-Click on anglecock to toggle between open and close, or jump to nearest if in the middle.
Multiplayer
There are several multiplayer enhancements. New settings give you more control over your crews: "Trainmaster Manages Crew Assignments" and "Restrict Equipment Control to Train Crew". We've also fixed joining a game from Steam invite when Railroader is not already running, and made a key enhancement to better handle joining very large games.
Additional Improvements
A few other noteworthy changes:
- A new decal culling system helps with frame rates on busy railroads.
- Fixed a memory leak relating to audio clips used on engines.
- We've bumped up the "High" video quality level to improve texture quality (forced anisotropic) as well as shadow cascades.
- Made the first person camera move more smoothly when riding on a car.
- Rail ends are now rendered.
Thank you for reading to the end! Keep in mind that these are just the highlights. For a complete list of changes, please see the in-game release notes, which can also be found in a text file if you click "Browse local files" in Steam.
We're excited to finally release this work to the main branch -- it's been quite a journey, and again a big thank you to the players who have played on the experimental branch and provided their feedback and bug reports!
What's next for Railroader? We're not quite ready to say what's next for features, but we're going to continue populating the map with buildings, as well as making model refinements. Our Roadmap is up to date and we've got some great stuff planned for future updates. Until then!