B98 - Microshunter, DE Revamp, Vehicle Catalog, Better FPS and More Improvements

Hi everyone! We've just released build 98, our latest update bringing you a new vehicle, new features, numerous improvements and bug fixes!

BE2-260 Microshunter

The tiny, quirky new battery-electric shunter takes the spotlight! There's two practical functions to it: it's the first vehicle to utilize the all new electric powertrain simulation, and, once unlocked, it can be requested anywhere with comms radio for a small fee!

Microshunter isn't powerful enough to replace a regular locomotive, but it can still pull some load. That, combined with its size and ability to be requested, give it a unique advantage in many situations. Mind how you treat it though, as you'll need to service it, and even charge its battery occasionally.

DE Simulation Revamp

With this update we've also revamped (or rather finished) the diesel-electric powertrain simulation, now vastly more accurate when it comes to governors, generators, currents, voltages, circuitry, transitions, as well as failures from the all new traction motor overspeeding. DE locomotives have received a complete overhaul in terms of behavior and characteristics, with the highlights being:

DE2 – Increased load rating, improved cooling, heavier engine feel, rebalanced wear and tear DE6 – Completely new sounds, more accurate notch distribution, rebalanced wear and tear DE6 Slug - Now can be utilized from both ends and behaves differently

Vehicle Catalog

If you're curious what all those changes mean to the vehicles' performance, their various characteristics and even spawn locations are now listed in the new Vehicle Catalog handbook. The listing also features a series of scores designed to make easy practical comparisons. Generally, the catalog is intended to help players, whether new or experienced, decide what vehicle is best suited for a role they have in mind, with concise info.

What else is new?

Work Train Improvements

Some work trains, such as Microshunter and Slug, are now able to receive damage. The only way to repair them is manually and, being player-owned, they're not covered by insurance. Handcar and caboose are intentionally kept invincible, however, so you don't need to worry about those.

A neat new feature on the career manager allows you to see health status of the work trains you own. The machine also shows coordinates for all vehicles in the world. Additionally, handcar is now a free vehicle, available to request at all times, which is especially helpful when needing to move around in Realistic difficulty.

Adjustable Player Height on the Fly

You can now seamlessly adjust your height both in nonVR and VR. In nonVR you can do this with X+Mousewheel (adjusting your sitting position), and in VR by holding Triggers on both hands and lifting yourself up or down. Another novelty is the ability to save your favorite "cab" and "follow" camera positions.

Steam post image ^ Open in a new tab, there's a train hiding there

Performance Improvements

We've put a lot of work into numerous CPU and GPU optimizations for this build. While the improvement may not be drastic for everyone, we've seen FPS rise up to 30% in certain conditions and hardware. Optimizations apply to both PC and VR players, and there's some more coming soon.

Revamped HTC Vive (wand) controls

We've completely reworked the Vive controls, also fixing the weird calibration angle introduced in B97. The new controls no longer block you from walking while holding an item in the left hand and are generally more consistent with all the other controller types. The exact mapping is listed in the changelog below.

Improved Tutorials

Vast improvements have been made to the career tutorial, locomotive tutorials and the manual. Whether you're a new player or a veteran, we strongly recommend you to complete the career tutorial again (in a temporary new session, if needed) – as it teaches of a lot of features and best practices that have been recently added to the game.

More

Apart from all this, numerous other improvements and bug fixes were made in this build. Manuals and various texts have also been updated too – and we'd like to say a big thank you to our dear beta testing and translation friends for being tremendously helpful with everything they do!

The work is ongoing on future updates too, such as on the new industries and cargo types coming in B99, but also further beyond.

Changelog:

Stability:

• Made numerous CPU and GPU optimizations, increasing FPS up to 30% in some cases

  • This affects both VR and PC users

  • It depends on user hardware and game situation

• Fixed a few game-breaking bugs involving tutorials

• Fixed hovering over save slots causing jarring hiccups in VR

• Fixed rare case where items or vehicles could fall through ground near tunnel entrances

• Fixed save files sometimes able to appear in wrong sessions

Train Simulation:

• Added BE2-260 Microshunter work train

  • Microshunter is a tiny locomotive with a special purpose

  • It’s an emergency tow vehicle, for when no proper locomotives are at hand

  • It needs to be unlocked before it can be used

  • The key costs $30k, and it’s found in Bob’s Garage (handcar is no longer there)

  • Once unlocked, Microshunter can be summoned via comms radio for $2500

  • It features the all new battery-electric powertrain, with an electric charger socket

  • Beware of Microshunter not being a great choice to do orders with

  • See vehicle catalog for more details

• Revamped DE powertrain simulation

  • DE2 and DE6 now behave significantly closer to real-life counterparts

  • The change shows in notch operation, heat management, sound dynamics

  • TMs can now break apart if overspeeding

  • Simulating series and parallel circuitry, proper transitions

  • Improved governor simulation

  • TM wear now occurs from running at high temperature in addition to raw mileage

  • Rheostatic dynamic brake power now peaks at around 35 km/h

  • Slug can now share power from two locomotives, one at each end

  • Slug now has less of an impact on top speed

• Modified DE6

  • All new engine sound

  • Reduced powertrain wear

  • Updated gauges to fit the new simulation

  • Swapped large DE6 breaker switch for electrics with a smaller one for TM

• Modified DE2

  • Boosted DE2’s power to its former 400t glory

  • Reduced powertrain wear

  • Updated gauges to fit the new simulation

• Modified DM3

  • Fixed DM3 getting frozen if money shifted

  • Added gear shifting pattern plaque next to the gear levers

• Modified DH4

  • Dynamic brake no longer functions when the engine is off (no pump)

• Added a variety of air compressor sounds

• Fixed S282 loco and tender sometimes colliding at spawn, causing damage

• Fixed wipers squeaking when there’s light rain, but windows are still wet

Gameplay

• Added Vehicle Catalog handbook item

  • This item is always available and can be retrieved to inventory

  • It condensely lists stats of all motorized and work vehicles in the game, including:

  • Name, unit count, production years, license info, vehicle type and role(s)

  • Spawn locations and chance, ability to summon and cost

  • Load rating on flat, dry uphill and wet uphill track (conservative)

  • Dimensions, mass full and empty, pricing, wheel and coupler configuration

  • Vehicle power supply, transmission, brake and other features

  • Detailed system of scores and effects of vehicles

• Turned handcar into a free vehicle

  • In career mode you can now spawn it for free right from the start

  • This helps reduce running/teleporting around in the Realistic difficulty preset

• Began implementation of player-owned vehicles feature set

  • Work trains are now player-owned

  • This means insurance doesn’t cover their servicing - careful!

  • You can see owned vehicles listed under the “Owned Vehicles” career manager category

  • You can print them for cost specifics, just like with vehicle fees

  • Microshunter and Slug can get damaged and need servicing to stay functional

  • Handcar and Caboose are intentionally made to not acquire damage or need servicing

  • Player-owned vehicles can only be serviced manually, not adding up to copay

• Added electric chargers

  • Located in towns’ and SM service points, for Microshunter charging

• Fast travel now elapses game time, depending on distance traveled

  • Increased the UI window to show arrival time

• Improved sleeping

  • Extended maximum sleeping duration option from 8 to to 10 hours

  • Modified the sleeping cooldown logic, now being less restrictive

  • Added Sleep Cooldown difficulty setting

  • In the Realistic preset the cooldown is 8h, in Standard 6h and in Comfort none

• Added loose world map coordinates next to vehicle ID on career manager

• Increased fire damage to vehicles x3

• Removed work trains being available in sandbox if they're not unlocked in career

• Added more day duration difficulty settings (3, 4, 6, 8 and 12 hours)

UX

• Added sitting height adjustment in nonVR

  • Hold X and use mousewheel to adjust

• Added ability to save favorite position in a vehicle

  • This is a position you’ll be placed into when dashing to a vehicle’s cab

  • First get into a comfortable position in a vehicle. Then:

  • In nonVR - in mouse mode (Alt) click the new “Save Camera Position” button

  • In VR - in inventory top-right corner, click the new “Save Camera Position” button

  • Favorite positions are saved per particular vehicle type, on the user level

  • Click the "Reset Camera Position" button to reset to default position

• Improvements to mouse mode UI and external camera

  • Made mouse mode UI accessible by temp-holding Alt, instead of only toggle

  • Each camera type now has a separate button in mouse mode UI

  • Photo mode button now features outline when active

  • Same as for 1p view, you can now save/reset camera offset for the follow camera

  • Fixed being unable to shovel coal on S282 via driving UI, since B97

  • Fixed driving UI not showing amount of coal and water in tender properly

  • Fixed driving UI text being cut off

  • Increased size of non-alphabetic fonts in Driving UI, for improved clarity

• Made improvements to manual and its UI

  • Added new articles and updated existing ones

  • Manual headlines now break into multiple lines when they don’t fit

  • Manual now displays text in tooltip area on mouseover, helps when truncated

  • Removed text justification for languages with long words (French, Dutch…)

• Improvements to item interaction in nonVR

  • Prevented being able to grab items through walls and objects

  • Made held items adjust their position proportional to camera FOV

• Improvements to nonVR input

  • Fixed mouse scroll not working on career manager in mouse mode with held item

  • Added a couple settings for inverting scrolling in Settings/Controls

  • Fixed “use” action being hardcoded to LMB (mouse0)

  • Inverted mouse-wheel interaction with loco remote coupler selector knob

• Made turntable booths have a dash anchor, like locomotive cabs do

VR

• Added seamless height adjustment in VR

  • Hold both Triggers and move hands vertically to lift/lower yourself

• Revamped Vive wand controls and feel

  • Fixed controller calibration angle, bad since B97

  • It is now possible to walk while holding an item in left hand

  • Use Item is now done with Trigger, like on all other controllers

  • Item scrolling is now Trigger+Touchpad Left/Right, like on all other controllers

  • To drop an item press Trigger+Grip

• Drastically improved hand shakiness and aiming smoothness feel

• Fixed missing haptic feedback when interacting with levers in OculusVR mode

• Added haptic feedback when aiming at a switch with comms radio

• Fixed objects in peripheral vision popping on Oculus headsets

• Fixed being unable to tele-interact with item-nested controls

• Fixed a bug where item scrolling in VR could get stuck in a certain circumstance

• Fixed being able to drop an item in VR with the hand still attached to it

• Fixed bad interaction with some vehicle buttons/switches in VR

• Improved interaction with fuel hose plug in VR

• Cut number of notches on handcar hand crank to make VR haptic feedback less spammy

• Shortened inventory long-press wait threshold

Graphics

• Fixed sun sometimes shining through mountains when behind player at sundown

• Fixed items in player’s home having bad lighting

• Fixed glitched lighting on passenger car windows

• Fixed rain droplets missing on High graphics setting (merged with Very High)

• Fixed shadows being glitchy on the lowest quality setting

• Fixed a rare visual glitch with pumpjacks being drawn behind background terrain

• Fixed SteamVR loading screen being low-resolution, since B96

Misc

• Fixed being able to “man vehicle” oneself into a locked military base

• Fixed some short sounds not being affected by the doppler effect (e.g. horn pulse)

• Fixed tunnel entrance structures not having collision with player and trains

• Fixed CCUR1 license not saying that it removes rerail discount

• Reduced career manager text size to fit long words in non-English languages

• Fixed VR-intended inventory icons showing up in nonVR inventory, since B97

• Fixed inventory hotbar being offset on ultrawide monitors

• Middle mouse button is now bindable (as mouse2)

• Increased size of weathercast posters

• Added coal service marker to CM on world map

• Fixed missing collision with harbor military base fence

• Made boombox radio signal no longer getting audibly lossy in station offices already

• Fixed pocketwatch ticking sound not being 3D when held in hand

• Made pocketwatch alarm needle movement increment 12 min to align with minute marks

• Numerous improvements to texts and translations

• Many other small improvements

Tutorial

• Reworked locomotive tutorials to be singular runs again, but with only a short drive

• Integrated vehicle catalog, height adjustment, VR remote driving and handcar to career tutorial

• No longer showing post-tutorial steps if session was started with tutorial disabled

• Added all tutorial prompts to the Localization Test scene

• Numerous tutorial improvements, cleanups and bug fixes

Thank you for reading, and we hope you'll enjoy this update!

-Your DV Team