Above-ground Trains Update

Above-Ground Trains

We wanted to get some trains onto the above-ground rails this month.

We have some more train content in the works, but for this initial release we're mostly reusing existing assets in order to provide something to try out until that content is ready.

The above-ground Work Cart closely resembles the underground one, but now has coupling points at each end that can connect to other train cars. The bogies (also known as trucks - the wheel assemblies) have also been updated to rotate with the track more realistically.

We've taken some static train wagon models that we had and made them functional. These don't actually do anything special yet, but they spawn along with Work Carts on the new rail sidings and they can be shunted around.

The Work Cart train engines take low grade fuel as usual. Their target speeds at low/medium/high throttle are constant, but their acceleration and pulling ability are affected by gravity and how many couples wagons they're pulling as you'd expect. If your long train can't make it up a hill, it's possible to use multiple Work Carts in a multi-engine coupled setup for more power.

Coupling happens automatically when wagons collide at a low to moderate speed. High speed collisions will not couple, and may take damage instead. Uncoupling is manual - simply interact with the coupling point.

Rail Network Branch Lines

The rail network has received secondary lines that branch off the main line and merge back onto it. This all happens entirely procedurally with no need for predetermined prefabs aside from the rail mesh itself, which results in a very flexible system that can cover a wide range of use cases as we expand the rail network in the future. For now, these branch lines are just where the trains are spawning. We will see how things work out and go from there.

Rail and road foliage improvements

The foliage / bushes spawning next to rails and roads have received some optimizations to eliminate their overhead as you move around the world. They now also spawn in larger clusters with varying coverage, resulting in some dense areas and some open areas, which allowed us to also reduce their total count as a performance improvement without having it affect the visuals too much.

Zipline Improvements

Ziplines seemed to be well used last month, but there were too many cases of ziplines failing to connect, leading to zipline platforms with no connections. I've improved the procedural generation process this month in a few different ways.

Ziplines are now better at routing around obstacles, allowing ziplines to go via 2 separate mid-points before arriving at their destination. I also added zipline arrival points at Sewer Branch, Stables, Lighthouse and Dome.

All of these changes combined have improved the number of ziplines on procedural maps by about 40%.

Death screen Improvements

The death screen has been improved this month with many NPC's getting custom icons and proper translations. We've also improved how we show your death information if you suicide while downed. Previously doing this would result in the death screen showing your death as a suicide, preventing you from seeing the name and weapon of your attacker. This is now fixed and you will see the last attack details even if you suicide while downed.

Client Performance

Client performance was identified as a growing issue last month so we all put some time