Hi all!
This update features a lot of big improvements. New sky options, weather, better performance, a new save/load system and lots of fixes.
Backdrops
Instead of having a blank void overhead, there are now several sky textures to choose between ranging from distant clouds to a vivid sunset. Backdrops also change the lighting in your world for quick fitting results, though if you want to do something different you can tweak it with the Sky Colour option, which now lets you change the colour of the sky and lighting separately.
Weather
The Snow button in the Scenery menu has been replaced with a new Weather option to cycle through Sunny, Snow, Light Rain or Heavy Rain effects. The new Rain options give everything a slick and shiny look with the choice between a gentle drizzle or a downpour.
Improved fog
The fog density slider has been upgraded to give better control, especially at lower values. If you made changes to fog density in a save file you may need to adjust it for the new system.
Save system upgrade
Complex save files will now be much smaller and load a lot faster.
For a real world comparison, one file I use for testing (~50,000 decorations) was 19mb and took 50 seconds to load, now it is 0.3mb and loads in 7 seconds. Old saves will still work just fine for now, but I recommend updating any saves you care about to the new system by loading them and then saving them again. The new system also includes an animated progress screen and will save your current position so you start right back where you left off.
Sensitivity
The Options menu now lets you adjust look sensitivity, this will affect both the mouse and gamepads.
Improvements:
- Vehicle light settings are now saved/loaded
- Idle passengers can now be highlighted and removed like decorations
- Improved passenger behaviour when walking to platforms and stations
- Made passengers bigger to improve their size compared to decorations
- Physics decorations now have a base to make them easier to remove after they are hit
- Improved how the Clear Track button works
- More decorations are now paintable
- Improved readability on various menus
- Improved tooltips on various menus
- Improved train/build transitions
- Improved the train menu's chase camera
- Alternate mode now toggles off after placing 1 piece
- Improved gamepad menu navigation
- Gamepads can now access the alternate train cameras (Y on Xbox controllers)
Performance:
- Tweaked the lowest graphics options to increase performance gains
- Greatly improved CPU performance for worlds with many trains
- Optimised the Toy box and fixed a hitch when opening/closing it on low end machines
- Optimised train headlights
- Improved performance on Modern Apartment (Night)
- Reduced install size
- Added new and tweaked existing LoD models on several decorations to improve performance
Fixes:
- Additional trains no longer start with 0% paint strength when you first customise them
- Fixed issues with saving/loading train customisation
- Fixed train wheels becoming rotated off axis
- Fixed the Barber shop having the wrong thumbnail
- Fixed fog density not updating the first time you open the Scenery menu after loading a file
- Fixed falling snow not being visible from all trains
- Fixed Track Supports extending infinitely down if placed beyond the world's floor
- Fixed certain Track Supports not being removed properly
- Fixed certain recently highlighted objects being removed when trying to clear your current piece
- Fixed track sockets not appearing properly on crossings
- Removed some developer tools left in by accident
- Long save game names now wrap instead of overflowing off the edge
- Fixed an object recolouring bug when using a gamepad