Fabricators and more! Happy New Year!

I'm really excited to share some new fun features with you!

Disclaimer: A lot has changed in this version. If you see tracks (particularly Collectors) or props missing from a previous playthrough or things aren't lining up the way they used to, it's likely from the changes mentioned below.

The biggest new feature is the introduction of Fabricators!

These add a new layer of depth to the game. Previously you would just collect resources from deposits using collectors and buy new tracks. But, now some resources must be crafted in Fabricators in order to progress in the game. To use these you provide the input materials by ensuring the proper input and output storage units are attached in any order to the Fabricator.

Due to the addition of Fabricators, several deposits have been removed or replaced with other resources.

Train coloring and switch track logic are now released!

As mentioned in the previous post, You can now change the color of your trains!

While coloring them is fun, you can also use this color to determine whether a train should go in a particular direction of a switch track or not.

I've decided to unlock the entire Grassy Plains scenario for the demo.

Enjoy!

Removed all props

One of the features I was very hesitant to remove for a long time was props. There are many reasons why I wanted to remove them, but the primary reason is that they in no way served the core gameplay, therefore supporting and maintaining them would steal my focus away from developing the core game. I've only disabled them, so I may at some point in the future re-enable them.

Lots of bug fixes!

There have been lots of bug fixes and improvements. One particular bug that was driving me (and probably you) crazy was where the game would hitch slightly every few seconds. Since the game uses C# I thought it was a garbage collection issue. But, I got the garbage collection down to a very small amount, something like 1MB per minute. However, the hitch was still occurring. I finally found the issue which was a mesh that was being rebuilt every few seconds along the path the train goes, for development visualization purposes. I didn't realize turning this off only keeps it from being visible, but doesn't keep it from building the mesh. I now simply delete this object if it isn't being used.

I hope you're having a great new year so far!

- Nathan

Here are the release notes for this version:

Added fabricators

Removed all props from the game.

Fixed a major hitching issue when trains recalculate the next path of track they will go down.

Defaulted the rendering device on Windows to d3d12

Enabled baking shaders into the build so they don't compile at runtime

Energy collected now multiplied after acquiring the golden caboose

Collected energy indicator floats up at the same realtime speed regardless of speed controls.

Updated the message dialog to have a centered label and updated upgrade text.

Fixed the message dialog not showing when the scenario is completed.

Fixed a bug where if stone was collected before iron it wouldn't show up in the profile panel, except after the iron was collected.

The profile screen no longer rebuilds all buttons each time energy changes.

Profile UI now updates energy values delayed by 1 frame to prevent buttons flashing.

Refactored PlayerAttributes, primarily changed Experience to Energy.

Fixed most train crashes. Trains mostly just crash into each other when moving head on and sometimes when