Derail Valley update for 10 April 2019

Hi everyone,

We have several notable fixes today!

Removed vegetation from tracks:

All of it. Trees, as well as rocks, will no longer appear on tracks. Moreover, we’ve been able to gain quite a visual improvement too. With the new approach the gravel texture previously painted next to tracks to remove vegetation is no longer necessary. This brought a lot more track-side texture variety, and allowed us to bring vegetation closer to the tracks, making all environments feel more authentic.

In the future, once aged tracks are implemented, this will also allow us to make abandoned tracks somewhat more overgrown than others.

Fixed vegetation blinking:

One of the most obvious issues with the game was that, when transitioning to a new area vegetation would blink for a few frames. This made hangs a lot more noticeable than they really are. As of this build vegetation will no longer blink.

Non-physical shovel (VR):

We know that shovel in VR is often wonky. Until it’s reworked, there’s now a temporary setting in Misc submenu, that lets you interact with coal in a way that doesn’t involve physics. This means that lags or losing tracking will no longer launch your coal into orbit.

Braking cars no longer buckle:

Despite simulating train brake you’ve all experienced cars buckling and sometimes causing derailments in turns when braking. All the cars shared the same braking power, however their mass differed. Being heavier, some cars would push against the light ones as they had a harder time stopping.

Now, car brakes are automatically adjusted for car and cargo mass, ensuring that the entire train brakes with mostly the same force.

More bug fixes:

Many of you wrote to us about bugs with jobs stuck in inventory and loader levers not working. Both of those issues are now fixed.

Full changelog:

World:

• Removed vegetation and rocks from tracks
  \ Removed need for gravel texture next to tracks (more natural track-side)
  \ Allowed bringing vegetation closer to tracks
• Fixed vegetation flickering at terrain loading
• Fixed terrain bump at lake loop

Jobs:

• Fixed non interactable levers on load/refill machine (introduced recently)
• Fixed being unable to take out job booklets from inventory (introduced recently)

Steam locomotive:

• Added non-physical shovel option for VR, making coal stick to the shovel
  \ Can be found in settings, under the Misc submenu
  \ Can be switched on and off during gameplay

Cars:

• Brake strength now automatically adjusts for car mass (no more buckling)