The Winter Update is coming to the Beta Branch on February 12!
Dear Players!
Hit the brake for a second, it’s finally time: On February 12, we will release the Winter Update on the Beta Branch of Railroads Online!
Welcome to Aurora Falls!🌌
Look forward to the beautiful new winter map “Aurora Falls”, which forms the heart of this update with its majestic snowy mountains and wide, calming grass plains. Lakes, waterfalls and rivers adorn the vast landscape, in which you might even experience magical polar lights illuminating the night sky.
Did you say Gold?✨
As you can already see in the info graphic above, the new industry in the game is all about shiny gold! Receive gold ore from either the Gold Mine or the Dredge, both of which form the first step in the industry chain. The Stamp Mill is a processing plant which produces gold dust from gold ore and gives out bags of refined gold. The final products, the gold ingots, are cast in the Gold Smelter from the refined gold and can be sold at the Railway Express Agency (yeaaah, we have a station!).
What a nice interior!
For the Railway Express Agency and the Stamp Mill we have not only built an exterior to look at, but a whole interior. These are therefore going to be another two buildings you can check out from the inside!
Let’s not forget about rolling stock!
With the Gold Industry there will also be new rolling stock coming to the game to transport the gold and assist you in all steps of the chain! These include a high-sided gondola, a side dump ore car and a baggage car, coming with different customization options (of course ;) ).
Ready for a game-changing locomotive?🚂
Presenting the new D&RG Class 125! This new engine will not only be the heaviest in the game with more than 125,000 lbs, it will also be the strongest engine, by far surpassing all other locos in terms of tractive effort with over 28,000 lbf!
Do we need to say more?
Additionally, it introduces the new-to-the-game 2-8-2 wheel arrangement and will be customizable with 10 different headlights, 7 smokestacks and 5 unique paints!
The D&RG Class 125 will certainly be the perfect engine to step up your game in terms of motive power! Are you excited yet?
Quality of life improvements
When it comes to the performance of the game, the update will come with the removal of the popcorning effect in multiplayer and some bugfixes to improve the quality of your playing experience.
From this update forward, we will release new updates on the Beta Branch initially, as we have done in the past, in order to prevent any potential major issues on the Main Branch. Until the final release on the Main Branch, our team will work on addressing and resolving any significant bugs that may arise. We would love you supporting us on that by reporting all the bugs you can find!
Thanks a lot for your enthusiasm! See you next week!
Your Railroads Online Team
Welcome 2024: An exciting year for Railroads Online
Hello everyone,
and a belated happy new year! We hope that all of you had a wonderful start to 2024 and are looking forward to everything that is ahead of us, as it currently promises to become a truly exciting year – especially for Railroads Online.
Today, we want to look at what’s next for the game, which updates you can already get very excited about, introduce changes to our update strategy, and outline a few more changes in our priorities.
Let’s dive right in!
Coming soon: The Winter Update
We took our time to establish some wonderful winter festivities for the current season – but in the end, we think it was worth the wait!
In February, we will release The Winter Update, introducing a brand-new map that is based on areas in the state of Alaska with both huge snowy mountains and calming grass plains. While the mountains will create a large and magnificent natural border, the rest of the map will feature a bunch of other unique pieces like lakes, waterfalls and rivers. As if the beauty of the snow weren’t enough already, you can also discover polar lights once the sun sets and the world pitches into darkness, creating an unprecedented backdrop for your next ride.
That’s not all, however: A new industry chain awaits you, and it’s just as shiny as this entire update! The Gold Industry Chain will require the attention of all railroaders. No need to rush things, you’ll have plenty of time to get familiar with the material! Enjoy the gold rush but be careful not to catch the gold fever.
BTW, we’re also shipping cargo in a new set of rolling stock and a brand-new locomotive with The Winter Update which can handle the snowy tracks through the mountains with ease. More details will follow very soon!
What’s next?
If you’re following our official Trello Roadmap (which you totally should!), you might have seen a few of our upcoming updates listed already. These updates will all ship within the next few months and focus on numerous areas where we’ve received a lot of feedback, indicating the need for both general but also quality-of-life improvements. We want to take the opportunity to quickly summarize them in more detail:
The Map Update: In very close cooperation with our co-development team at Black Sheep Studio, we will overhaul the entire way the 2D map works. It will feature an overhauled HUD, greatly improved readability and visibility, comfort tools like a zoom option, and easy-to-understand icons. In addition, there will finally be a mini map so that you won’t have to open the full map every time you just want to know where you currently are, making life as a rail worker so much easier!
The UI Update: This update will be released alongside The Map Update as they just fit so well together. The UI artists at Black Sheep are overhauling the entire UI, from the main menu to singular buttons, creating a completely new experience. The UI will appear less technical and more stylized, therefore improving readability and visibility. We’ll share the first footage as soon as possible!
The Spline Update: The spline system is an ongoing topic that requires additional improvements. We plan to upgrade it, making it easier to create splines and align facilities by enabling them to conveniently snap to spines and rails. Plus, we’ll make the spline system much more understandable: Their placing behavior will be simplified and explained in-game in a more coherent fashion, while also displaying easy-to-grasp error messages and feedback should something not work out. We’re also making re-railing much easier, yay!
We'll reveal even more details about each update the closer we get to them!
Multiplayer Improvements
One of the most frequently mentioned areas in need of improvement is the entire online component, and we’ve heard your feedback about that. Our team and the great people at Black Sheep have put a lot of work into improving it greatly and minimizing pain points as much as possible.
Over the course of all the next updates, starting with The Winter Update, we’ll therefore gradually introduce several multiplayer improvements. Our internal tests are very promising, indicating the elimination of issues like popcorning for example. We also want to generally reduce desync issues and minimize stuttering, but as mentioned, it’s a process that will take some time.
Even more great things are planned!
From new props and buildings, over to new quality-of-life features like an undo button and a greater experience for new players, a lot of other things are planned for this year. We also plan to introduce another new map, new rolling stock, overhauled loading screens, and much, much more. Something that will follow later this year will be the introduction of a Player Rights Management System, allowing for server hosts to have greater control about what other players can do and what they can’t.
That’s not all, however. Our team is working on so many other things in parallel which we can’t reveal quite yet (too early atm!), but the sooner we get there, the more we can finally spill.
Changes to our update release strategy
One last thing: We took your feedback to heart and have decided to change our strategy for releasing updates.
Right now, it appears to be fairly random if we put an update into the beta branch prior to its release or not. Despite extensive testing efforts prior to each and every release, releasing an update to a huge playerbase with different hardware and software environments always comes with risks. Issues could pop up which we couldn’t possibly have anticipated.
Based on all your feedback, we'll make the beta branch now the first destination for every new update. Once an update is released, it will first be available on the public beta branch – and that will start with The Winter Update in February. Once we are sure that the beta build is stable, it will be moved to the default branch.
And that's it for today! Have a good time in the valley and never stop shaping the world of Railroads Online.
Your Railroads Online Team
Steam Winter Sale: Save 30% on Railroads Online!
Celebrate the season! 🎄
Snow covers the ground, hot chocolate has been prepared and our PC shines as bright as a decorated Christmas tree: The Steam Winter Sale is returning, alongside some fantastic deals!
The Steam Winter Sale ends on the 4th of January at 7PM CET.
Save 30% on Railroads Online and enjoy building your tracks now on a discount!
Christmas is near but this hotfix, oh, it's already here! Check out the full patch notes below for details.
We are still working on the fix with the mouse issue. Workaround until it is fixed is to unplug other devices like driving wheel, gear shifter, controller, joystick or something similar.
Patch notes for build: 0.7.0.0.0
Fixed an issue with the cranes not loading cars
Fixed an issue with the skeleton flats not loading
Adjusted the gregg cars to have larger hit boxes
Fixed an issue where Gregg Stake Flat were not accepting raw iron
Fixed an issue where players were not getting a payout at the refinery
Fixed an issue with the wheat farm not using water
Fixed an issue where Ohau Water cars would stack when ordered from the buy menu
Fixed an issue where Montezuma was not at the correct max speeds
Fixed an issue where the logging camp had unintentional hit boxes around the log loading side
Fixed an issue with the coaling towers not accepting coal correctly
Fixed an issue where you could not attach tracks to the coaling tower
Fixed an issue where the driving UI would not shut off the sanders
Fixed some issues with the Wiki
Added difficulty texts
Adjusted Montezuma top speed
Fixed Straw cargo limits
Fixed an issue where players could not start the game and would get fatal errors.
Game is now defaulted to start in DX11 mode
Fixed an issue where players would get a fatal error on the Shay couplers and brakes
Fixed an issue where clients and hosts would clip through certain freight types
Fixed an issue where the helper menu would stay on in the 3rd person driving UI
Fixed an issue where clients would see an empty boiler in the 3rd person driving UI
Fixed an issue where turning heavy snow on would start the blizzard weather setting
Adjusted coal firing
Engines will now have more coal in their tenders resulting in longer run times before refueling tenders/bunkers
“Low” setting still feels the best for a casual play style
Tutorial 5 works properly again
Construction menu - "red" was available in the switches and bridges dropdown but had no function
Fixed an issue where “overall quality” settings in graphic menu did not save
Your Railroads Online Team
Previous Build Branch
Dear Community,
we are sorry to hear that our latest update caused trouble to some of our players and made the game unplayable for them. Although we put a lot of effort into testing the update it seems that the switch to UE 5.3 causes our game to have problems with certain hardware combinations. We are currently working on a solution with high priority.
To give the players who are currently affected by this the chance to continue their game, we created the "previousbuild" branch, which features the last main branch build.
To switch to this branch go to your steam settings, open "Betas" and choose the "previousbuild- Railroads Online previous build branch". Please be aware that new content is not available there.
We will keep you updated about the progress. Thank you for your understanding.
Your Railroads Online Team
The Cattle Update is now available!
Dear Community,
Farmers, grab your straw hats: It is now time to expand our wheat industry. The Cattle Update is now available!
In this update you will find some new and exciting additions to Railroads Online. We will keep this short and sweet so you can get into the patch notes. If you want to have a great overview, we recommend to check out our latest devlog where we go through all new content in much detail:
Say hello to the cattle!
A new industry is here, and it certainly adds another layer of complexity! To make sure you know how it all works, we've prepared a handy little graphic:
Other than that, we fixed a lot of bugs, introduce some new locomotives and cars, provide some cute little decoration, among much more things! Check out the full patch notes below!
One last note, I know you guys were anticipating snow on Pine Valley and parts of Lake Valley. For this year we decided to not add snow. However, you will still get some snow in a future bigger update... stay tuned for that in the coming months!
Patch notes for The Cattle Update
New Content
Upgraded the game to now run on Unreal Engine 5.3
With the addition of 5.3, the variable brake bug has now been resolved.
Brakes now work as intended from 0%-100%
Added water well
This is used to transport water from the well to the wheat farm and cattle farm
Please note that the water from the water well is a new freight type
Added cattle farm
You take grain, water and straw here to produce cows
Added Meat packing plant
Bring coal and cattle here to produce meat product
Can be sold at the freight depot
Added the new industries to new lake valley maps
If playing on an already built map you will have to place the new industries.
Added Ferries and Cliff House Locomotive
2-4-2 coal burning tank engine
Built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1887
Has 4,311 Pounds of tractive effort
Top speed 30mph
Added water tank car
Built by Central Pacific Railroad in 1875
Holds 12 water from the water well
Has 9 color options
NOTE: water cars do not fill with water towers, please use the water well in order to fill the cars.
Water for tenders is a fuel type and water from a water well is a cargo type. Please use accordingly
Added ventilated box car
Built by Virginia & Truckee in 1881
Holds 36 meat
Has 6 colors
Added Oahu Sugar Co Water Tank car
Built by Oahu Sugar Co in 1920
Has 7 colors
Added 2 new paints to the class 48
Added 1 new paint to the Ruby Basin
Added 1 new paint to the Cooke 2-6-0 Coal
Changed the stock car to now hold cattle
Still holds tools
Added New Props
Can be found under decorations
Look for SM_
Updated speeds
Class 70 now goes 23mph
Both Cooke 2-6-0’s go 25mph
Updated Reverser - Added Cut Off Simulation
At 100% reverser you are compromising max speed for max tractive effort
The closer to center you get with the reverser the faster you will go
However when going at max speed with the reverser towards the center you will compromise tractive effort.
In short, full reverser equals max pulling power, anything less than full reverser equals speed.
Bug Fixes
Fixed brake bug
Fixed some translation issues
Let us know if these issues are resolved as we do not speak every language
Post on steam or discord with any issues
Fixed Fps loss when cutting down trees on Pine Valley
Fixed the lima and the class 48 not having cut outs for water
You can now see water level in the saddle tank and the tender
Fixed an issue where locomotives and cars would be derailed when buying them from the store
Fixed an issue where there was a text under the cooke 2-6-0 Coal
Fixed an issue where the Gregg Stake Flat no longer held raw iron
You can now haul raw iron with the stake flats
Fixed an issue with the collisions at the sawmill
Removed an unintentional wall at the oil refinery
Clients no longer see seed pallets when loading grain into box cars
Fixed an issue where some freight would bounce off of the freight depot and land back in the cars
Host draw distance setting now saves values after closing the menu
Also is now saved after closing the game
Fix volume’s resetting after exiting the game
Praise the sun, you no longer go deaf when starting the game
Fixed rocks in desert
They now have collisions, inspect your rails before operations
Quality of life improvements
Tender water level is now shown when looking at the lid of tenders and saddle tanks.
Wiki displays everything properly in imperial units (unit option setting planned)
Reduced the player character size
The smaller player character size allows for the character to not clip through the cabs of the engines
Increased the player character running speed
When running with default button Shift, the character runs faster now
Crouch is now not as low as before
The new crouch lowers the character enough that it is possible to see out the front windows of the engines
Adjusted the firebox hit boxes to account for the changes to crouching
Fixed collisions with the wood trestle bridge
Added a new 3rd person driving UI - Functional placeholder
functional placeholder to settle for a good UI LAYOUT
NOT FINAL DESIGN!, the design will get an extra update
You can turn off the driving UI with the default button Y
Added DirectX11 and DirectX12 modes in the graphics settings
Swapping between the two will require a game restart
Cranes and cow ramp now load 3 freight with each loading cycle
This is applied to all industries to help speed up loading process
Added a gameplay setting for WATER and COAL consumption aka rebalance
Off, no consumption
Low, x1 usage
Medium x2 usage (best option)
Hard, x4 usage (For those who want an extreme setting)
we love to see this game come together, especially with the support of your enthusiastic feedback! As we want to provide you with more content now and in the future, we are very happy to announce that new stuff is coming to this game very soon:
The new update will officially be released on December 11th, 2023!
Mysterious industry business
Considering the development of the game you might already be able to assume what will be launching next week. To provide you with an additional hint, we have included some mysterious screenshots.
Any ideas yet? We are eagerly anticipating reading your wild guesses, because for now this is as far as we will go to maintain the excitement leading up to the release! 😈
Oh, and there might just be a new locomotive coming with a wheel-arrangement that hasn’t been in the game yet… 🙈
We just released another smaller update for the latest hotfix - version number stays the same once again but two additional major issues have been resolved:
Players that had cut respawned trees (in Pine Valley only) after the update on November 13 got the trees back after hotfix on November 16 and were not able to cut them anymore. They can be cut again, sorry for the double work.
Fixed weather always set back to Blizzard when entering a save game
Your Railroads Online Team
Railroads Online – Patch 0.6.0.0.3, version 2
Dear Community,
We just released an additional smaller update for yesterday's hotfix - version number stays the same, but a very annoying bug has been fixed:
Tree synchronization for client and host now works as intended
