Version 1.8 is now the default game version! After a smooth beta period 1.8 is now ready for the wider playerbase. Its main focus touches the very core of the game: train AI. In 1.8 the track pathfinder powering train AI has been improved with new capabilities, and large parts of said AI have been rewritten to take advantage of it. But as usual other smaller features are also implemented in this new major version.
Track + point pathfind
The track and train pathfinder now supports precise starting points and goals, rather than whole pairs of tracks as in previous versions. This in turn means line timing now matches the intuitive real world concepts of arrival, departure and leg, and keeping track of things like braking time or "reach middle of platform" are not needed anymore. This new capability also powers a new, much improved braking system.
Push-pull
One of the consequences of track + point pathfinding is trains being able to "flip in place" when they need to reverse direction, rather than going all the way to a track dead end to do so. Additionally, when flipping, trains are now capable of doing so in a push-pull way: if the train composition is enabled for push pull (with the push-pull flag, or by having a head and tail car tagged as control or locomotive), its cars won't change orientation on direction changes.
Improved braking
Previous versions didn't really implement braking. Instead a check was done in the train AI if the train had crossed into the center of the pair of tracks designated as a goal, and a speed limitation as forced just at the point, with no regard for realism.
But in 1.8 trains approaching a line stop now start braking at the correct braking distance given their current speed, independently of how many track segments are required to cross over to arrive to the destination. And not just for stops: every static (so, not signals or other train rear ends) speed change in the train path is equally anticipated and braked for in advance. Trains won't start accelerating again until the entire length of the train is past the slower track segment.
The braking acceleration can now be controlled by mods. The default braking rate (1 m/s/s) is a bit fast compared to most non-subway trains in the real world, but I think it's better to keep it a bit fast so it's closer to old behaviors. Modders can of course change it for their mods. Players can also set a maximum braking and acceleration value at the line level.
Unified append and branch track tool
Branching (and, new in 1.8, merging) tracks is now a mode of the track append tool. The track append tool will now seamlessly support both appending tracks and creating new branches, if clicking on top of existing tracks. And when "holding" a track while appending to it, it will also propose to merge it as a branch if hovering on top of existing tracks. This behavior can be toggled with the old keybind and/or branch button in the UI.
Shared games browser
The shared games feature has proven popular, with more than 400 shared games! In 1.8 you can also browse these games in a listing, with sorting criteria for various parameters:
Red signal info in train window
When trains are stuck at a red signal, it's sometimes hard to understand why. In 1.8 when you open the train window and the train is waiting at a red signal, the train path beyond the signal will be displayed, stopping at the point where it found an obstacle, and a text label will be displayed at that point identifying the train or track reservation that failed the signal check.
Full details
The devblog posts for March and April contain detailed explanations for these and other changes in 1.8:
Version 1.8 is now ready for testing in the beta branch! This release took shorter than usual, but its main focus touches the very core of the game: train AI. In 1.8 the track pathfinder powering train AI has been improved with new capabilities, and large parts of said AI have been rewritten to take advantage of it. But as usual other smaller features are also implemented in this new major version.
Track + point pathfind
The track and train pathfinder now supports precise starting points and goals, rather than whole pairs of tracks as in previous versions. This in turn means line timing now matches the intuitive real world concepts of arrival, departure and leg, and keeping track of things like braking time or "reach middle of platform" are not needed anymore. This new capability also power a new, much improved braking system.
Improved braking
Previous versions didn't really implement braking. Instead a check was done in the train AI if the train had crossed into the center of the pair of tracks designated as a goal, and a speed limitation as forced just at the point, with no regard for realism.
But in 1.8 trains approaching a line stop now start braking at the correct braking distance given their current speed, independently of how many track segments are required to cross over to arrive to the destination. And not just for stops: every static (so, not signals or other train rear ends) speed change in the train path is equally anticipated and braked for in advance.
The braking acceleration can now be controlled by mods. The default braking rate (1 m/s/s) is a bit fast compared to most non-subway trains in the real world, but I think it's better to keep it a bit fast so it's closer to old behaviors. Modders can of course change it for their mods.
Unified append and branch track tool
Branching (and, new in 1.8, merging) tracks is now a mode of the track append tool. The track append tool will now seamlessly support both appending tracks and creating new branches, if clicking on top of existing tracks. And when "holding" a track while appending to it, it will also propose to merge it as a branch if hovering on top of existing tracks. This behavior can be toggled with the old keybind and/or branch button in the UI.
Shared games browser
The shared games feature has proven popular, with more than 400 shared games! In 1.8 you can also browse these games in a listing, with sorting criteria for various parameters:
Full details
The devblog posts for March and April contain detailed explanations for these and other changes in 1.8:
After the 1.7 beta started in early March, it progressed rapidly to its final release on the default branch, 1.7.15. The game gained a variety of features during the 1.7 beta, like fixed departure times, an in-game shared games browser overlaid on the world map, shared game likes, and a couple mod cleanup tools.
After 1.7 was done work started immediately on 1.8. The main feature of 1.8 is a rework of train pathfinding, to solve long standing issues with how exactly train paths origin and destinations are represented by the game. If this effort is successful, it will lead to important improvements like making line timing more in line with real life. This work is ongoing as 1.8 is under private development, but in other areas a couple of new features have been implemented: an unified track append and branch tool and a shared games browser with a sortable listing. Read more in the March devblog:
The beta for version 1.7 has finished and it is now the default game version. Most of the following notes are the same as for the original beta, but it includes some changes which happened after it, and some clarifications.
Custom train editor
The basic view of the train editor now gains a new panel to inspect each individual car of a train. The usual options seen in other UI editors of the game are present here: multiple selection, clipboard copy/paste (including between trains), reordering of selected cars, etc.
In the right side a new panel appears, the “car shop”, although using it does not spend any money. Here all the car models in the game are shown in a listing. Once you select a car model it is possible to append it to the currently edited train, or to replace the current selection of cars with the new car.
The editor allows the player to make any change they desire, but none of these changes are actually applied to the train. In order to do so the player must explicitly apply the changes with a dedicated option, which makes them pay for the price of the changes (or get refunded if the new composition is cheaper than the original one.) If the new composition is invalid, the option to apply the changes is disabled. The new train purchase mode of this system is very similar, with the usual train bill acting as the apply option.
Car coupling
As part of the new freeform trains, individual train car models can declare which coupling system they support on each side. The train editor restricts which train compositions can be created so these settings are preserved. After beta feedback this system has been made optional with a toggle in the Company panel.
Game sharing
Saved games can now be shared on a world map. You just load your save as usual, center the map on the point and zoom for your pin and preview image, and use the new My shared games dialog to upload your game.
To see other players shared games select the new browser option in the main menu. You can zoom and pan like you would do in-game. Clicking any map icon will directly load the game, and then gives you the option to like it.
Shared games can also be accessed with a web browser in https://share.nimbyrails.com/ if you don't want to load the game, or to show your save to people who don't own the game. This web site collects all the shared saves by players, and offers two main features: a dedicated page for the save, with a preview of the tracks and buildings, and the download link for the save (1.7 can load saved games directly from the Downloads folder of your PC). And the site home page, which shows a world map with a icon for every shared game, similar to the in-game world browser.
Multiplayer also benefits from this feature: the initial save download required for all joining players is now performed via a hidden, temporary shared game. This new method is many times faster than the old one for large saves.
Fixed departure times
1.7 addresses some line timing issues. The most visible change is the fact line departure times now take into account the time it took the train to brake into the station. In 1.6 and earlier departure was just the stop time after the time the train entered the station (actually the moment it crosses the middle of the platform). This is a first step in making line time concepts better match their real world definitions, which will continue in 1.8. Hover the mouse cursor over line times for a detailed breakdown of what every number means and how they add up.
Thanks to this change departure timing is now more robust, so fixed departure times (at the line level) are now possible. This new feature allows the player to input a fixed departure time for one or more line stops, eliminating the guessing and maths required to achieve them with leg and stop timing. Fixed departure times are always relative 0:00:00 in the line timing, so if you want to use this feature for rounded-looking train run times, or for clockface scheduling, make sure your orders are set to a line event which itself is also a nice round number also participating in the scheme (like the first arrival at stop 1, which is always 0:00:00, or to a fixed departure stop, for example).
Mod cleanup
As mods are updated or abandoned, saved games can accumulate broken train modes which are not maintained or used anymore. It is now possible to cleanup abandoned mods which no longer have a valid Steamworks presence, and to cleanup individual objects like train models which became "orphan" after mod changes.
Version 1.7 is now in the beta branch
Version 1.7 is now ready for testing in the beta branch! 1.7 implements a custom train editor, enabling players to compose their own train sets from individual cars. Also a new game sharing feature has been implemented, which will further mature while the game is in beta.
Custom train editor
The basic view of the train editor now gains a new panel to inspect each individual car of a train. The usual options seen in other UI editors of the game are present here: multiple selection, clipboard copy/paste (including between trains), reordering of selected cars, etc.
In the right side a new panel appears, the “car shop”, although using it does not spend any money. Here all the car models in the game are shown in a listing. Once you select a car model it is possible to append it to the currently edited train, or to replace the current selection of cars with the new car.
The editor allows the player to make any change they desire, but none of these changes are actually applied to the train. In order to do so the player must explicitly apply the changes with a dedicated option, which makes them pay for the price of the changes (or get refunded if the new composition is cheaper than the original one.) If the new composition is invalid, the option to apply the changes is disabled. The new train purchase mode of this system is very similar, with the usual train bill acting as the apply option.
[h1Game sharing
The game sharing system is built around a new web site hosted in share.nimbyrails.com. This web site collects all the shared saves by players, and offers two main features: a dedicated page for the save, with a preview of the tracks and buildings, and the download link for the save (1.7 can load saved games directly from the Downloads folder of your PC). And the site home page, which shows a world map with a icon for every shared game.
This system is a bit bare bones at the moment. The main missing feature is in-game browsing of shared saves. This will come later in the 1.7 beta, and with more features than the current web site.
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Check out the January and the new February devblogs for more details:
Late December and the first half of January were devoted to friends and family, but 1.7 has now started development and its first feature is ready to be made public: save sharing. I decided to implement a custom system, with my own hosting, and generate a preview web map of the save, so players will be able to share the save link with anybody, even if they don't have the game, and give them a preview of their save. See the January blog post for some player contributed examples:
Version 1.6 has finished its beta development and it is now the default game version. 1.6 focus was on multiplayer optimization and fixes, and the new multiplayer mode, private simulation, is capable of hosting much larger games than the default shared mode. Additionally track curve weights and track splitting was introduced, which enabled a new set of track editor tools. Here is a list of the major new features in 1.6:
Multiplayer optimizations
A big focus of the 1.6 private development has been to optimize multiplayer for better scalability. Not all goals have been achieved in 1.6, but it should still be more capable than older versions of playing larger saves in MP.
New multiplayer mode: private simulation
In this (optional) new mode every player runs a private simulation of the game, so time, train motions and pax is private to its local game session. All manual editing actions, like creating tracks, buying trains or editing lines are still shared between all clients. This new mode allows for changing the game speed and should scale to larger map builds since connection bandwidth is only used for editor synchronization.
New multiplayer connection mode: direct connection
By default the game uses the Steam Relay Network, a Valve provided CDN optimized for low latency gaming but with bandwidth caps. Hosters can now disable the Relay Network and instead directly host the game session from an UDP port in their PC. This allows the game to use a much larger fraction of your internet connection, allowing to host much bigger maps.
Track curve weight
It is now possible to manually select the halfway point between two tracks, allowing to alter the curvature of tracks without moving their control points. This feature in turns makes split and tape tools possible.
Track split and tape tools
The track editor gains five new tools: split track, track tape, promote tracks into platforms (demoting platforms into tracks is also available in the track properties panel), building tape and parallel track tape. These tools have a different interaction mode compared to older tools, always working on top of existing tracks.
Track editor "hold" mode for keybindings
This game option changes the way the track editor tool keybindings work. In this mode the track editor is always in selection mode. When pressing a tool keybind the editor switches to the corresponding tool, but only while the key is pressed. On releasing the key the selection mode is enabled again. Experienced players might find this mode a more efficient way to interact with the track editor.
Track editor optimizations
Manipulating track selections involving parallel tracks and/or multiple stations should be noticeably faster in v1.6.
Path trace options in train window
Two new options (accessed from two new buttons in the train window) make it possible to visualize the projected path of a train to its current destination, or to any point in any track.
Bulk edit options for trains
In the train editor it is now possible to select multiple trains by shift-clicking in the train listing. When more than one train is selected the editor shows a panel with options for bulk changing the train order mode, issuing interventions or selling the selected trains.
Check out the 1.6 devblogs for more in depth information: https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-october-2022/ https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-november-2022/ https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-december-2022/
Devblog for December 2022
Public beta development of 1.6 is wrapping up soon so it was time to look back at the new features and changes implemented in December: improvements to track validation, speedup to station rebuild and bulk train editing. December also saw the continuation of the technical work on improving multiplayer, with two new options for game hosters: private sim and direct connections. 1.6 has been a smaller release to compensate for the huge effort of 1.5, but this also means that 1.7 will start development sooner than later, and in this devblog I am announcing its two headline features: save sharing and freeform train compositions.
Version 1.6 is now in beta | Launching the official wiki
Version 1.6 beta
Version 1.6 is ready to begin public beta testing, and it is available to download in the beta branch. Unlike past major versions, 1.6 is a smaller release with shorter development time. Here are the main new features and changes:
Multiplayer optimizations
A big focus of the 1.6 private development has been to optimize multiplayer for better scalability. Not all goals have been achieved in 1.6, but it should still be more capable than older versions of playing larger saves in MP.
Track curve weight
It is now possible to manually select the halfway point between two tracks, allowing to alter the curvature of tracks without moving their control points. This feature in turns makes split and tape tools possible.
Track split and tape tools
The track editor gains five new tools: split track, track tape, promote tracks into platforms (demoting platforms into tracks is also available in the track properties panel), building tape and parallel track tape. These tools have a different interaction mode compared to older tools, always working on top of existing tracks.
Track editor "hold" mode for keybindings
This game option changes the way the track editor tool keybindings work. In this mode the track editor is always in selection mode. When pressing a tool keybind the editor switches to the corresponding tool, but only while the key is pressed. On releasing the key the selection mode is enabled again. Experienced players might find this mode a more efficient way to interact with the track editor.
Track editor optimizations
Manipulating track selections involving parallel tracks and/or multiple stations should be noticeably faster in v1.6.
Path trace options in train window
Two new options (accessed from two new buttons in the train window) make it possible to visualize the projected path of a train to its current destination, or to any point in any track.
Check out the October and November devblogs for more in depth information: https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-october-2022/ https://carloscarrasco.com/nimby-rails-november-2022/
(NOTE: the "platform tape" and "station tape" tools have been discarded, replaced with the 1.6 "platform promotion" tool. You can get the exact same results as the "platform tape" tool combining the "track tape" and "platform promotion" tools. The original station tool remains in the game).
Official NIMBY Rails Wiki
I'm now hosting a MediaWiki for the NIMBY Rails player community:
https://wiki.nimbyrails.com/
It's only a few days old and it has been mostly private until now, so it's very empty, but it will grow with time.
Devblog for November 2022
With 1.5 having been wrapped up in October, November was fully devoted to private development of v1.6. This version has the single goal of analyzing the current state of multiplayer, and trying to fix it up as much as possible. I did not succeed in applying the full set of fixes I wanted, but nonetheless it should be improved and after the betas give it a pass of bug fixing, it should be the best MP experience so far.
Additionally the tape tools started in October got more polished and two new ones were added. Tape tools will be the only user visible change in 1.6 when it releases, which I hope will be "soon" :). 1.6 will thus be a smaller release compared to the huge 1.5 changes, for a more manageable beta series later on.
