Hello everyone!
It’s time again to make some improvements to the game and to give you new content to play with:
The March Update is out now in the Beta Branch!
This update mainly focuses on the new D&RG Class 47, the new Driving UI, more content additions and quality of life improvements! Let’s get into the details!
A new grade of track laying with theodolites! 🔭
Are you struggling with plotting your routes from time to time? With the new theodolites, this part of the game becomes much more intuitive! Laying the perfect track can be quite challenging as we are always working with different gradients of the ground. Theodolites are a surveying tool which helps you with plotting routes by displaying the grades between one theodolite to another. Different colors indicate the height of the gradient, while you are in the construction mode. The tools start at 0% of a gradient with green and change their color to yellow and then red at a grade higher than 5%. Arrows additionally indicate the grade and direction between the theodolites. To remove them, you can always demolish the theodolites with the demolish tool!
Let’s go flying with the new Flight Option! 🥏
In order to get a better view of things, we have added a Flight Option! This feature allows you to get a more practical option to manage rerail situations and navigate yourself when working on tracks and routes! From now on, you have the ability to rerail your locos and cars from anywhere to everywhere, even on bridges! The free fly mode is activated, as soon as you activate rerailing or track laying. With the Spline Update, we plan to implement even more improvements to track laying!
Replacing the placeholder with the new Driving UI!
In order to create a better fit for the style of the game and to give you a more visually pleasing experience while driving your favorite locomotives, we are finally replacing the placeholder with a new 3rd person Driving UI! Although we see a great improvement in the visuals of this UI, there still might be some changes in future updates. Of course, your feedback also plays an important role in that!
Time to speed things up with the new D&RG Class 47!
The high speed Denver & Rio Grande Class 47 locomotive with its 4-6-0 wheel arrangement was originally built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1883 for passenger traffic on the narrow gauge. As the successor of the Class 45.5 locomotives, the Class 47s were created with larger boilers, cabs and tenders, resolving in a tractive effort of 9,628 lbs to rectify the issues of the Class 45.5 of insufficient streaming capabilities.
In subsequent developments, the Class 47 locomotives were reclassified in 1924 as T-12s, gaining additional weight and tractive effort. The last T-12s were still in use until the mid of the 20th century! The T-12 168 can still be found today in operation in Antonito , Colorado, while the T-12 169 sits on display next to the city hall of Alamosa, C olorado!
With that, we are excited to introduce the Class 47 to the game, perfect for transporting any freight quickly from one place to another! The ten-wheeler also comes with many different customizations with the ability to choose between 9 smokestack options, 8 different headlights and 4 different paint schemes!
The Pine Valley Engine House!
We are finally here to present our first four stall roundhouse: The Pine Valley Engine House! As this has been often requested, we added a roundhouse with four slots for locomotives, equipped with lights that turn on automatically at night! With each slot, there is an inspection pit, where you can take a look under your locomotive! When entering the service pit your locomotive will automatically be replenished with fuel and water. With this bigger sized roundhouse, we have also built a larger turntable to even fit our currently largest locomotive, the D&RG Class 125!
A perfect couple! 💘
Check out the new Automated Coupling feature, which makes the handling of cars and engines much easier! Cars and locos will now couple together automatically when they are being pushed together, leaving the player only needing to open and close the knuckles . This feature is optional and can be turned off in the menu for everyone who prefers manual handling!
Additionally, we have adjusted the system, so that cars and engines will now spawn closer to the player, either on empty track or on the ground. Especially on bigger maps, this adjustment makes everything a bit clearer and easier to work with!
Snow on the tracks? No problem! ❄️
Over the last few months, we have created a massive new snow plow! Originally, it was built by Cooke Locomotive Works in 1890. It is equipped with a rotating blade powered by a steam engine. Scooping snow has never been more powerful in Railroads Online than with the new RGS #2 Rotary Snow Plow! Although it’s huge in size, it is not self-propelled and requires an engine to move.
Additionally, it comes with 4 different paint schemes, 8 different headlights and 2 smokestack options to choose from for your personal customization!
One password for multiplayer!
Up until now, for one multiplayer session you needed to use 2 passwords to secure your server. A bit confusing, we know! That is why we have adjusted the system to only require one password from now on, since that is a lot easier and time saving for everyone and avoids further confusion!
Watch the DevVlog for more insights!
For even more details, historical backgrounds, explanations and further visual insights, you’re welcome to watch the DevVlog from two days ago!
Check out the complete changelog:
With this update, we are adding many different Quality of Life improvements to provide a better playing experience for all of you. Some of these changes are optional and can be changed in the gameplay menu, these options are explained below. Please note that some features are work in progress and will very likely change again in the future. Let's have a look at the changelog for this update:
New content:
- Added D&RGW class 47
- Our first 4-6-0 aka a “Ten wheeler”
- Has 9,628 lbs of tractive effort
- Has 4 paint options
- Added RGS #2 Rotary Snow Plow
- Built by Cooke Locomotive works in 1890
- RGS had two rotary plows #1 & #2
- Added a 4 stall roundhouse
- Can be found under facilities tab
- Doors automatically open when a loco is around
- Roundhouse has lights at night
- If an engine is low on any sort of fuel weather it be water/coal/wood/water upon entering the roundhouse the engines will be restocked with fuel.
- Added a larger gallose turntable
- Can turn the class 125
- Looks great on the roundhouse
Quality of Life:
- Added Knuckle coupling
- Added an option in the gameplay settings for automatic coupling
- This will add a generic knuckle to everything in the game.
- If turned off the game will default to all link and pin, there is no option to mix and match at this time, this is still a work in progress feature and may become more refined when we get closer to 1.0.
- Right now this was meant for an ease of use option for our players. More things related to knuckles will come later.
- You can push cars into each other and they will couple together automatically
- Right click to open knuckles
- Added sounds for coupling and uncoupling knuckles
- Added an new object called the Theodolite
- A surveying tool to help in plotting out your routes
- For example: place one down on a flat surface, then another at the top of a hill, the Theodolite will show you the grade from point a to point b. This also works downgrade.
- Can be deleted with the props delete tool
- Added a fly mode to rerailing
- This replaces the telegraph teleport exploit.
- Not a toggle option, fly is on all the time when rerailing
- Added fly mode to track building
- Not a toggleable option fly is always on
- Helps with plotting routes and an ease of use for players
- Hid the helper UI that sits in the upper right corner of the screen
- Removed the double password system
- Single Password is secure
- Removed due too much confusion within the community
- Passwords can now be more secure with symbols
- Added amount of sand to the sander lids
- This works like water, shows how much sand you have without going into 3rd person driving UI
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed an issue with industries/props/buildings having inaccurate angles
- Fixed an issue where track laying does not save angels and or curve radius
- Fixed an issue where gold ore from the gold mine would spawn and bounce out of cars
- Fixed an issue where water hoses did not show up at the farming chains when water cars are near the basin
- Fixed an issue when building tracks would show micro decimal changes on the UI
- Fixed an issue where players could not connect to the coal tower
- Fixed an issue where dropping coal at a coal tower would not register to fill the tower
- Fixed an issue where industries would consume inputs to create one item, this applies to everything including the wood depot
- Fixed an issue where sound of Lima whistle was too loud
- Fixed an issue at where Tutorial 1 could not be finished
- Fixed an issue where the sand wasn’t filling correctly
- Fixed an issue where you didn’t see the percentage of e.g. a brake counting up while operating it
- Fixed an issue where the class 125 whistle was too quiet
- Fixed an issue where clients could not see the rear light being lit up on the class 125
- Fixed an issue where the delete tool would not delete certain cars/tenders/locos
- Fixed an issue when having the “P” Menu open while unloading did not update in real time
- Fixed and issue where on Aurora Falls big branches did not have collisions and could not be cut down
- Fixed boiler water temperature
- Previously the water temp was limited at 100°C in the boiler, which is technically incorrect. With the update the water temperature follows the saturated steam curve when pressure builds up. The temperature values are now also shown correctly in °F
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1696810/Railroads_Online/