As multiplayer moves closer and closer to a full release, here's another feature which I've made as part of multiplayer that is already ready for release now!
During multiplayer beta testing, it quickly became obvious that players needed a way to put basic labels on freight wagons to show things like cargo and where they are being transported to. Since I've always wanted to add a basic "waybill" system to the game, this was a great opportunity to finally do this before multiplayer gets released.
"Waybills" are a very common tool used in real model railways, it's basically just a piece of paper where people write the origin, destination and cargo of a freight wagon (along with it's roadnumber and other details, and anything else of interest).
These pieces of paper are stored in shelves next to industry sidings and rail yards on the model railway to represent the freight wagons currently parked there. When you drive a train from one yard to another, you would move the waybill along with it and display it in the new spot.
Think of them as a custom digital piece of paper to display information on a freight wagon!
(Image credit to: Ted Pamperin - February 2012 issue of Model Railroader)
How to use waybills
To enable a waybill on a freight wagon, simply point at it and press "K" (this key toggles whether waybills are visible, and is re-bindable in the controls menu).
And to edit a waybill, open the wagon options menu (point at a wagon and press "O") then choose the "Waybill" menu:
You can also open this menu by pressing the cog icon in the top right corner of the waybill.
From here you can set a bunch of options, like:
Setting the text displays (origin, destination and cargo)
Changing the text display size
Changing how the roadname and roadnumber are displayed
Set the waybill color, and provide an alternative color which can be switched to when you swap the origin and destination
Copy/Paste all waybill data between wagons
Please keep in mind that these waybills are just visual. Think of them as a piece of paper you can write your own information on. They do not actually represent what is loaded on to the freight wagon.
This means you can use them for whatever you like, it doesn't need to follow the "origin/destination/cargo" format.
Like for example you might just want to put a chemical warning or information label:
Swapping origin/destination
There are a couple of buttons on the waybill to make operations a bit easier.
You can press the "Swap destination" button to toggle the origin and destination test labels, as well as switch between the color and alternative color.
And you can press the "Toggle cargo" button to swap between the cargo display showing the custom name you've set, or just "empty"
For example, when a freight wagon arrives at its destination, you can press the "swap destination" button, then the "Toggle cargo" button, and it will now display as being empty (unloaded) and heading back to it's original destination.
You can also press the two buttons in the top-right corner to copy and paste waybill data between wagons.
And you can paint the waybill color directly:
Other options
You can edit some other options in the "Pause menu -> Gameplay -> Waybills" menu:
You can use the "Show/Hide all waybills" buttons to force enable/disable waybills on every wagon/loco on the save file.
You can also use the "Waybills visible state" option to toggle how they are displayed just visually. This will only visually affect whether they waybills are visible or not and will not change the save file. This is useful if you want to temporarily hide them all to take screenshots, but you still want to keep them visible afterwards.
You can also press F9 to cycle through these visibility options.
Also you can change whether they waybills are displayed as blocks on top of each wagon, or floating UI windows that always face the player:
Multiplayer progress
The multiplayer beta is expanding a lot! Everything is getting really close to the full release. I wrote a lot of info about the current state of multiplayer in the previous news post, and I've recently made a new devlog video over on Patreon which goes into a bit more detail about the specific features and how they work (like train driving, player chat, circuitry, etc). You can find that video here:
Devlog - Multiplayer features preview
And thank you to all my Patreon supporters!
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