This intermediate update introduced color scheme support for vehicles, new Custom Rules to tailor your gameplay experience, and a few improvements and enhancements for both players and modders. If you want to delve into the details, you can check out the full changelog, or embark on a journey with us through this post for an engaging introduction.
Color schemes for vehicles
We're introducing a subtle, yet handy new feature in Voxel Tycoon: color schemes for vehicles. This addition allows for a touch more personalization in your fleet.
From now on, vehicles in Voxel Tycoon can flaunt more than just a single color scheme. When you're about to purchase a vehicle which has alternative color schemes, a new picker will pop up on the vehicle card.
This allows you to select your preferred color scheme right before purchase, adding an extra layer of personalization and differentiation to your fleet. This added touch of customization is yet another step towards making your transportation empire truly unique.
We acknowledge that many mods in the past featured different color schemes for a single vehicle, but they were constrained to present them as separate vehicles. Now, those color schemes can be merged, simplifying the modding process and providing a better overall experience for players.
To further enhance the customization of your fleet, we've added company-specific color schemes for passenger buses and wagons. This allows you to unify your fleet with your company colors, contributing to a more cohesive visual identity for your transportation empire.
These new color schemes are designed to enhance your gameplay experience, providing more customization options and adding more flavor to your fleet. We can't wait to see the vibrant and diverse fleets you will create!
Oh, and our passenger rail cars will now light up beautifully at night!
New Mail Rail Cars
To augment the transportation of mail, we've added brand new Tier 1 and Tier 2 mail rail cars.
Please note that box cars are no longer suitable for mail.
Introducing Custom Rules
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to play with resource deposits that never deplete? We know you have, given that the Infinite Resources mod (which we created simply as a modding example) has become the most subscribed mod of all time.
Many players have also expressed interest in a Creative Mode. While we wanted to cater to these requests, it was essential for us to maintain the core essence of the original game. To strike this balance, we are introducing Custom Rules. This new feature provides a streamlined, in-game integrated method for personalizing your gaming experience.
With Custom Rules, you can enable specific experiences to play the game your way. At present, the Custom Rules include game-changing options such as Infinite Resources, Unlimited Money, and Everlasting Demands. These modes let you bypass some of the typical constraints of the game, allowing for a unique, personalized gameplay experience. Settings like Allow turn around, All research completed, and Start with semaphores added to the roster of Custom Rules as well.
Enabled rules will be shown on the Win/Lose screen, so you'll always know what parameters were in play. We've also added a Custom Rules badge to the save slot cards, allowing you to view the rules active for each game, ensuring full transparency and control over your gaming experience.
Furthermore, mods now have the ability to introduce their own Custom Rules as well. This enables mod creators to further enhance and customize the gameplay experience for their users. You can find an example of how to add your own Custom Rules in a mod here.
0.88.1-0.88.4 minor features recap
Recognizing that not everyone sifts through every detail in our changelogs, we wanted to recap some of the most interesting changes we've rolled out in past minor updates. Each of these changes plays a part in our continued efforts to ensure an enjoyable and hassle-free gaming experience for all our players. We appreciate your feedback and are committed to making Voxel Tycoon the best it can be.
More Room for Creativity
We've expanded the character limit for names across the game. Now, you can have longer names for everything that can be renamed, including your company, cities, vehicles, stations, depots, labs, route names, and even save names. This gives you more room to express your creativity and individuality in your gaming world.
Non-QWERTY keyboard layouts
In a bid to make Voxel Tycoon more accessible, we've enhanced support for non-QWERTY keyboard layouts. This improvement ensures that the game's user interface will now correctly display the hotkeys corresponding to your keyboard layout, such as A instead of Q on AZERTY.
We've also added the option to choose from pre-defined QWERTY and AZERTY layouts in the controls settings.
Accessibility
In our commitment to enhancing game accessibility, we introduced a feature in the 0.88.2 update that allows you to reduce the contrast in build mode. This feature aims to ensure a comfortable visual experience for all players.
Additionally, we've made it so tooltips no longer disappear when taking a screenshot with Print Screen.
We've also added a Copy many vehicles at once with SHIFT hint to the tooltip for the Copy Vehicle button. We recognize there are many hidden places where the SHIFT key can be used, so we are aiming to expose those functions more clearly through our UI.
Better error handling
In order to provide a smoother experience when dealing with script mod errors, we've replaced the generic Failed to load .dll message box with a more detailed error window. This window offers useful actions such as 'Disable and Reload', and 'Go to Workshop'. When encountering a failed patching, the error message is now much clearer and specifies the problematic patch. We've also enhanced how the game handles missing assets cases, now reporting asset Uri over numerical id.
Improved performance on Mac M1/M2
Lastly, update 0.88.3 brought about improvements specifically for players on M1/M2 machines where we've introduced a potential fix for memory leaks, hangs, and crashes. The issues seem to have been completely resolved for now.
Looking Forward
We understand that our pace of development may appear slow to some, but rest assured, this is our deliberate approach to ensure we uphold our vision and maintain the high quality that Voxel Tycoon demands. All of the announced features, including Rails and Roads Rework, Contracts, and vehicle obsolescence, are indeed in active development. We prefer to take our time to polish and perfect these features rather than rushing them.
We want to keep you informed and involved every step of the way. That's why we continually update our roadmap, which provides a clear outline of what to expect in the future of Voxel Tycoon.
We highly value your thoughts and feedback on these new updates, and we would love to hear about your experiences as you dive into them. Please join us in our Discord community where you can share your ideas, ask questions, discuss strategies, and connect with fellow gamers. It's the perfect place to learn more about Voxel Tycoon and contribute to our vibrant community.
Your feedback and support are invaluable to us. You are an integral part of our development process, and your patience and understanding are what enable us to craft Voxel Tycoon into the game we all envision.
So, stay tuned for more updates and improvements. And as always, thank you for being with us on this exciting adventure. See you next time 💜