Gameplay patch 6 (Diesel brake tender)

Gameplay patch 6 adds diesel brake tenders to the Mountain Pass freight runs in the Shift Experiment timetable, modelled by Radical Mesh.

British Railways used diesel brake tenders to improve the braking capabilities of goods trains with unbraked wagons. They are essentially unmanned brake vans controlled from the locomotive. The low profile allows them to be coupled on either side of the locomotive without obstructing view.

The darker shade of green is more accurate than the lighter one currently used on the Class 37 model. The 37 will be repainted with a matching colour eventually.

This patch also has a number of other changes:

All editors

• Fixed progress reporting to show all phases when updating asset packs
• Changed asset packing to produce slightly better looking textures in some cases
• Improved material properties view in the side panel: Restored default normal scale to 1 since normals should now work properly. Made other properties read-only when a builtin material name is selected since they won't have any effect

Train editor

• Removed "Models" tab from the side panel and added "Open integrated modelling tool" under the [...] button instead
• Replaced highlighting with outlining when hovering with mouse over objects

Route editor

• Fixed 3D-terrain sync delay after converting a grid to terrain nodes
• Fixed two possible crashes when doing DEM and node removal operations
• Changed non-contributing terrain node removal to not touch nodes connected to pinned edges
• Added progress reporting to non-contributing terrain node removal, DEM importing and grid-to-terrain conversion
• Optimised grid-to-terrain conversion
• Optimised terrain node removal
• Made it possible to select multiple terrain nodes by holding down the option key (left shift by default) and editing their properties from the side panel at the same time
• Added a mode for selecting multiple terrain nodes by painting with a circular brush. Right-click on a terrain node to access this mode. Hold down LMB to select nodes and edit their properties from the side panel. Holding down the option key (left shift) deselects. Holding down the option key while using the mouse scroll wheel adjusts the size of the circle.
• Optimised terrain node/edge rendering in the 2D view
• Fixed chain subdivision options to set parents for new nodes (matching those of the adjacent nodes)
• Added chain joining option if two chain have their start and end nodes at the same place
• Allowed camera to go under ground

Miscellaneous

• Fixed a possible crash mid game
• Fixed couplings breaking on some workshop routes like Stardust Valey
• Fixed free train roaming camera mode to rotate and follow the train properly
• Optimised some parts of scenery loading
• Limited headbob back/forth effect to trains of max 6 cars because it may look bad on longer ones
• Attempted to fix some trees and bushes being too close to track in the Westfords route
• Disabled "gear changed with power on" penalty when using simple controls
• Fixed a memory leak when using custom models
• Fixed missing shadows for some bridges
• Reverted cab controls back to using outlining when the mouse pointer is over them
• Added energy usage score to evaluation (in addition to the percentage)
• Various optimisations

What's next?

Another patch coming soon