Today we are announcing another long-awaited feature. Many of you have requested it - and now it's part of SubwaySim Hamburg. We're talking about no other feature than the DT5's destination display!
Similarly to the information displays on the platform, we have now redeveloped the train destination displays from scratch, among many other things in the game. This means that we now use fonts which are perfectly true to the original. Finally, the DT5 matrix does look exactly as you know it from reality.
As with the information displays on the platform, the train's destination is also displayed in as much width as possible on the screen. For the platform info displays, this means that the character spacing is adjusted in order to utilise the entire display width.
For the DT5 it's not as easy as that! Here, we don't just have different character spacings but a total of 5 different fonts with various widths, heights and font thicknesses. Of course, the line label itself also has its very own font, resulting in 6 fonts with around 380 characters in total. Each of them has been traced by hand. Take a closer look: The widest font version is used for "Barmbek" as in the picture at the top. In contrast, the font for "Bitte nicht einsteigen" ("Do not enter", see second image) is much narrower. And the destination "Wandsbek-Gartenstadt", which we will show you another time, uses the narrowest of all fonts.
By the way: You can also use the DT5's Driver Machine Interface (DMI) on the right-hand cab screen to enter any station as destination. You can choose any of Hamburg's stations - no matter whether from the U3 or from another underground line. There's also a list of around 10 special destinations such as "Probefahrt" ("Test drive"), "Fahrschule" ("Driving school"), "Jazztrain" or "www.hochbahn.de". Oh, and one more thing: The train destination display now actually has an effect on passengers! While you can continue travelling on the "Jazztrain" with passengers hopping on and off, they will not board a driving school train.
It won't take too long until you'll be able to try all of these features in the upcoming SubwaySim MEGA update.
Everything you need to know about the MEGA Update!
Soon we will be releasing a MEGA update that will include fundamental changes to the game, with approximately 70% of all gameplay-related code being rebuilt from scratch. We've rewritten all the game's core systems from the ground to provide you with the best possible experience.
We are still progressing quite well regarding the MEGA update's development and we hope to be able to launch a public beta phase rather soon. Stay tuned - we'll keep you updated!