Hopefully, the New Year has started well for everyone! It has been busy on my side as always, but at least I took my first real vacation while working on Sweet Transit. It was good and provided some clarity together with motivation to finally finish the game. There have been many changes throughout early access and the game is unrecognizable from the early versions. Now I will be able to focus on QoL and content as almost all bigger features are already in the game. Due to there being so many new things I will write several blogposts that are more focused.
P.S. If you want to try out old versions you can access them in Steam Betas. For some versions to work delete .dat files in "%AppData%/Sweet Transit".
New Route Conditions
I have added several new route conditions to make sure that players have as much control with trains as needed. Cargo and passengers amount allows testing for exact numbers instead of percentages. The transferred cargo condition calculates how much cargo was loaded or unloaded. Probably the new favorite station cargo amount allows trains to see how many specific goods the station has. I bet some of you know where this is going...
Optional Destination
To make the most of the new conditions optional destinations have been reworked. Now they can reroute the train based on if conditions are met. For the most common example take a coal train. It will load coal and wait until one of the stations has less than 200 coal stored. If there is a station with a coal deficit, then the train will go and unload there. Smarter trains will improve traffic while making everything more satisfying to look at.
Landfill
The next game version will have multiple new production chains and structures that I will share later. But relating to logistics landfilling lakes using sand or digging out rivers is added to allow terraforming enjoyers to bend the world to their will or fix those annoying patches that block your building plans.
Couriers
Couriers have had so many improvements that it is hard to say that they work the same under the hood. For starters multiple filters were added based on the feedback I was reading everywhere. Next a balancing system under the hood makes sure that goods are distributed equally between structures that need them, no more one structure takes everything while others starve. Lastly, conditions on how goods are being taken are changed to maximize single-worker usage. For example, before a courier shack with 50 workers would carry 1-2 items making the whole process very inefficient. Adding more workers would lead to even worse results as nobody would use their potential. Now individuals take as much as they can and if needed wait for some time until they are fully stocked before allowing another worker to take goods. With this no matter how many couriers there are they will always be ready for any kind of workload.
Couriers Controversy
There has been some controversy regarding couriers and micromanagement, especially from long-time players. I am looking into making a more only trains mode with either automated couriers or the standard tycoon connect settlements and production facilities gameplay mode. While I am still unsure how to go about this I just wanted to let you all know that it is not being ignored.
Bonus Storage
Production facility bonus storage is now more limited to half a day's worth amount make sure that structures only take goods as they need instead of hoarding them.
Distribution Center
Distribution centers have internal couriers added to them to minimize the need for courier shacks in outposts. Workers amount can be controlled manually and set to 0 if no couriers are needed.
Combined Storage
There were several issues highlighted with storage in settlements, especially regarding storage tanks. Players are required to have a lot of couriers and separate storage tanks to supply bars or hold internal fuel buffers. To improve this I have implemented combined storages for all settlement storage structures that as the name says combine their storages into a single big one.
Name Requirement
Another smaller related feature is that the comma in name requirement will allow checking for multiple names, no more signals nesting.
Build and Unlocks
Most probably have noticed or written themselves that the UI is "unintuitive". It is hard to address such a general problem, but it seems that most can't put their finger on what is the problem exactly as well. Thanks to discord suggestions and people discussions for now I have added these features to it: - Added expansion button that enables search bar and sample/copy button to make finding items easier. - Build items will show settlement expansion structures automatically when the camera is in or near a settlement to minimize "why I can't build residences" confusion. - Build items will have related goods or another icon next to them to allow for easier visual search. - Unlocks when settlement in range won't hide global unlocks to communicate that there are two types more clearly. - Already unlocked items always be on top to not miss what is unlocked.
As always leave feedback in Discord or Steam and it will find a way to my list. At the same time, it is sad to see such low review score. My goal was always the same - to make the game as enjoyable as possible. All problems, suggestions and opinions are being heard and considered, but being a solo developer it is hard to be everywhere. I encourage you to join our discord and discuss everything there so that I can have an easier time making sure that my time is being spent where it is needed the most. Until the next blog post!
Rail Meets Road | Hotfix 1
Hello train enthusiasts,
We've pushed a hotfix for the recently introduced Rail Meets Road update!
Fixed a crash when loading some old saves (Pre-Update 4 saves)
It's still recommended to players that they start new saves with Update 4 due to the large number of changes made with U4.
Fixed upgrading courier UI not being updated.
Fixed crashes that occurred when loading saves within tutorials with specific prompts.
Thank you for your feedback, as always!
Rail Meets Road Update has arrived!
Sweet Transit's fourth major update, Rail Meets Road, has arrived at the live platform!
This update overhauls how goods are transported and how settlements are run giving you not just more realism, but greater control too.
Check out the trailer
Steam Deck Compatibility
Sweet Transit is fully verified on Steam Deck! Take your workers and your trains with you, wherever you go! Maybe when you're on a train yourself? Just like a simulation.
Roads
Let's start with Roads! Roads now will be global same as with rails. They will be required by all structures such as stations to be used by workers and have goods transferred. If you wish you can connect everything with roads even if that is not the most efficient way to go.
Work
With global roads, workers will only go to local workplaces in range. In v.0.5 workers could go to any workplace connected to a settlement no matter the distance. Now workplaces connected to any part of the settlement get workers automatically from any residence in that settlement. You can have multiple settlements sharing workers, industries around residences and mix everything up as you desire. Furthermore, workers will start to get tired if working in settlement workplaces and will require replacing. If workplaces are out of range then stations will be needed to transport them. This will allow settlement to have "tram" systems to balance workforce.
Stations
I am sad to say, but stations will be able to connect to any number of workplaces in the road range. This hits the most people who love stations connecting to a single thing. This change is required to allow workers' management in settlement. If there is a sawmill, coal mine and water tower in range then the station will allow trains to swap workers with those workplaces. Stations can be seen as a workplace finder.
Workers
Workers got more intelligent too. Now swap workers action will balance the workforce between multiple stations. You can populate and mix workers from all settlements everywhere on the map. Once they are tired they will hop through trains until they can get back home no matter how long the trip will take.
Travelers
Travelers got this brain addition as well, once they know where they want to go they can take as many trains as needed to their destination. Stations that are not connected to anything can act as hubs for workers or travelers. Furthermore, travelers' system is reworked completely to allow much more predictable income and travelers generation.
General Storage
Stations will no longer teleport goods from trains to connected structures. Because stations will have their own general storage that will be able to take any type of good. Capacity will depend on station type and size. This allows to have stations that mimic classification/shunting yards with trains unloading and loading from it. General storage will self-balance, but you will be able to specify how many different types of goods to reserve space for.
Local Goods
The next big change is that goods will be localized to structures now. This means that instead of settlement in general houses goods, but structures themselves. Goods will have to be transferred by workers from one structure to another. Sawmill to station, fishing dock to storage to market and so on. This brings logistics to a whole new level with even more interesting settlement designs.
Courier
For goods transferring you will need couriers that will transfer goods from one storage to another. Storage is anything that contains goods. Courier also provide more control in what to transfer and how much to take. They will be required for the Warehouse or settlements.
Residences
Residences will take goods from storage in range instead of the settlement goods storage that does not exist anymore. By default, market will be preferred due to its superior range, but taking goods directly from potato farms or fishing docks is possible.
Warehouse
Warehouse build block range will be removed allowing settlements near it. This will change the start of the game quite a bit to accommodate new mechanics because now even the warehouse will require workers. Players will either transfer goods from stations with couriers or have production facilities transfer goods to the Warehouse through roads. Also, you will be able to build multiple warehouses now with separate storages, but only one Warehouse can be active at a time. This is mainly for easier relocation or having backup storage in case everything goes wrong.
Trading
Warehouses will allow the exchange of goods for money. This functionality can be found in the tooltip and is only available once you are producing goods that you wish to trade.
Rails
Rails can be built on roads as well with some limitations. You can have trains that are going through the settlement and handling goods in the middle of it. This will probably be a must for bigger settlements that need a lot of goods transferred inside them. I definitely use this system a lot to transfer fish from the docks deeper into the village. However, this blocks people's movement when the train is passing, which is not good for goods that are transferred by road.
Train Stop
With the ability to build rails on roads compactly inside settlements a new compact station needed to be created named "Train Stop". While this station does not store a lot of goods it is perfect to transfer workers inside settlements or to other stations.
TT10 and TT20
New smaller trains are also included in v.0.6 that go hand in hand with train stops. They are basically more compact DMU10 siblings.
Honorable Mentions
There are other minor features that I have been working on. For example, now you can remove mountains for a reasonably high price and carve new paths in mountainous regions. A copy-paste tool to copy instructions for carriers using Shift mouse clicks as other games do. Improved tooltips for workers to also show where they are from. Routes UI path visualization taking into account requirement signals. And multiple other smaller UI and balance improvements with bug fixes.
This will be the biggest gameplay change build with features that I wanted to add for a long time. Join the experimental branch and provide feedback to help Sweet Transit become more enjoyable! Big changes usually mean some big problems, but I believe we can fix anything if we know what needs fixing!
Thank you, and enjoy!
About Sweet Transit #23 | Experimental v.0.6
Experimental v.0.6
A long time has passed since the last blog post, but fear not, I have been working on new features all this time. My goal with this blog post is to introduce most of what is new and invite you all to try these features out in the experimental branch. v.0.6 is still in development and there are probably quite some bugs that need to be fixed, but just to be safe turn on autosave and make it every 5 minutes to not lose any meaningful progress.
To enable the experimental branch go to Sweet Transit Properties -> Betas and select experimental in Beta Participation.
Before we dig in I just wanted to mention: - All old saves will be unplayable for the most part. You can load and fix them, but with all of these new features it will not be easy or fast to do. - There are old tutorials, but they are outdated and only partly working. This will be the main feature I will be working on. - The Paris preset is outdated. - Please join the discord server to share your progress, solutions and frustrations. This will help tremendously in polishing v.0.6 before pushing it live. - Enable advisor in settings at least for the start of the game.
Roads
Let's start with Roads! Roads now will be global same as with rails. They will be required by all structures such as stations to be used by workers and have goods transferred. If you wish you can connect everything with roads even if that is not the most efficient way to go.
Work
With global roads, workers will only go to local workplaces in range. In v.0.5 workers could go to any workplace connected to a settlement no matter the distance. Now workplaces connected to any part of the settlement get workers automatically from any residence in that settlement. You can have multiple settlements sharing workers, industries around residences and mix everything up as you desire. Furthermore, workers will start to get tired if working in settlement workplaces and will require replacing. If workplaces are out of range then stations will be needed to transport them. This will allow settlement to have "tram" systems to balance workforce.
Stations
I am sad to say, but stations will be able to connect to any number of workplaces in the road range. This hits the most people who love stations connecting to a single thing. This change is required to allow workers' management in settlement. If there is a sawmill, coal mine and water tower in range then the station will allow trains to swap workers with those workplaces. Stations can be seen as a workplace finder.
Workers
Workers got more intelligent too. Now swap workers action will balance the workforce between multiple stations. You can populate and mix workers from all settlements everywhere on the map. Once they are tired they will hop through trains until they can get back home no matter how long the trip will take.
Travelers
Travelers got this brain addition as well, once they know where they want to go they can take as many trains as needed to their destination. Stations that are not connected to anything can act as hubs for workers or travelers. Furthermore, travelers' system is reworked completely to allow much more predictable income and travelers generation.
General Storage
Stations will no longer teleport goods from trains to connected structures. Because stations will have their own general storage that will be able to take any type of good. Capacity will depend on station type and size. This allows to have stations that mimic classification/shunting yards with trains unloading and loading from it. General storage will self-balance, but you will be able to specify how many different types of goods to reserve space for.
Local Goods
The next big change is that goods will be localized to structures now. This means that instead of settlement in general houses goods, but structures themselves. Goods will have to be transferred by workers from one structure to another. Sawmill to station, fishing dock to storage to market and so on. This brings logistics to a whole new level with even more interesting settlement designs.
Courier
For goods transferring you will need couriers that will transfer goods from one storage to another. Storage is anything that contains goods. Courier also provide more control in what to transfer and how much to take. They will be required for the Warehouse or settlements.
Residences
Residences will take goods from storage in range instead of the settlement goods storage that does not exist anymore. By default, market will be preferred due to its superior range, but taking goods directly from potato farms or fishing docks is possible.
Warehouse
Warehouse build block range will be removed allowing settlements near it. This will change the start of the game quite a bit to accommodate new mechanics because now even the warehouse will require workers. Players will either transfer goods from stations with couriers or have production facilities transfer goods to the Warehouse through roads. Also, you will be able to build multiple warehouses now with separate storages, but only one Warehouse can be active at a time. This is mainly for easier relocation or having backup storage in case everything goes wrong.
Trading
Warehouses will allow the exchange of goods for money. This functionality can be found in the tooltip and is only available once you are producing goods that you wish to trade.
Rails
Rails can be built on roads as well with some limitations. You can have trains that are going through the settlement and handling goods in the middle of it. This will probably be a must for bigger settlements that need a lot of goods transferred inside them. I definitely use this system a lot to transfer fish from the docks deeper into the village. However, this blocks people's movement when the train is passing, which is not good for goods that are transferred by road.
Train Stop
With the ability to build rails on roads compactly inside settlements a new compact station needed to be created named "Train Stop". While this station does not store a lot of goods it is perfect to transfer workers inside settlements or to other stations.
TT10 and TT20
New smaller trains are also included in v.0.6 that go hand in hand with train stops. They are basically more compact DMU10 siblings.
Honorable Mentions
There are other minor features that I have been working on. For example, now you can remove mountains for a reasonably high price and carve new paths in mountainous regions. A copy-paste tool to copy instructions for carriers using Shift mouse clicks as other games do. Improved tooltips for workers to also show where they are from. Routes UI path visualization taking into account requirement signals. And multiple other smaller UI and balance improvements with bug fixes.
This will be the biggest gameplay change build with features that I wanted to add for a long time. Join the experimental branch and provide feedback to help Sweet Transit become more enjoyable! Big changes usually mean some big problems, but I believe we can fix anything if we know what needs fixing.
New Public Experimental Branch coming soon!
Would you like to get early access to new features and additions in Sweet Transit, before they’re released in full updates?
And help to provide us with useful feedback that can shape the future of the game?
Then get ready to join the new Public Experimental Branch!
Coming soon, the Public Experimental Branch will be an opt-in Beta that will give you access to new additions and changes whilst they're still in active development. You'll be able to play around with the changes and let us know what you think, helping to shape how we implement them into the main game!
So what do you have to do now? Not much! Just keep an eye out on the Sweet Transit Steam announcements, Discord or social media channels for more info and instructions on how to sign-up! We'll have more for you very very soon!
Sweet Transit | Hotfix 18
Attention passengers!
We're happy to deliver another hotfix to you today, as we continue to build upon the new features added in Update 3: Swift Expedition!
Here's what's included in this patch:
Bugfixes
Fixed fps drop when having huge rail systems with only chain signals
Fixed routes not finding the missing station after changing station name to the missing one
Fixed route copying not updating condition lines
Fixed rail bridges costing less after redoing bridge sell
Fixed multi type passenger trains not loading correct amount of people
Fixed selecting blueprint mode from quick selection list opens intersection
Fixed entering remove mode from blueprints mode shows station build mode
Fixed a crash when switching from global progression to a settlement one
Fixed progression not opening on the first try
Fixed build UI being hidden after collapsing blueprints tabs
Additions
Added float away errors with invalid cost for adding train presets, adding wagons and cloning wagons
Added option to collapse all tabs by pressing on the opened tab again
Changes
Disabled save prompt when loading a save with the same name as the current world
Fresh off the heels of our third update, we have another hotfix arriving at the station!
Here are the details of this small patch:
Changes
Decreased minimal allowed zoom level to 0.9
Made train depot add button allow player to quit add mode instead of being disabled
We are also aware of a potential crash that can happen after building rails, all type of signals, a Small Station and it's expansions, with no train connected to them, and then leaving the game to idle for around 10 minutes. This is an extremely rare crash, but we will fix it in a future hotfix.
Welcome to the patch notes for Sweet Transit Update 3: Swift Expedition, which is available now!
It took a lot of time and effort to get this update ready, but it's finally here! Talks and initial work around UI changes started more than half a year ago. It was quite time consuming getting to where we are now with the UI, and there is still much work to do in that area, but we're in a much better place than before. Increased contrast, placement and a coherent style should help make it easier to read for those with colour blindness and generally make the UI easier to navigate. The new design uses less screen space which helps with smaller screens too. Hopefully, the user interface is now going in the right direction regarding usability and accessibility!
There are many more additions in this update apart from UI though! Here are a few features to note:
Increased locomotives count from 5 to 11
The decoration system is reworked to be more natural in how it works
Residences will gradually increase their upkeep and goods need based on inhabitants
Trains will load only the needed amount of people in settlements
Map generation is improved to remove small "ponds", islands and holes in mountains to make expansion more pleasant
Requirement signals visual update with additional chain requirement signal
Automatic route naming with an option to randomise settlement names
Infinite end goal generation for people who enjoy going past 100 train colonies
Unfortunately, the tutorial overhaul did not come with this update as planned, but pop-up windows should be less intrusive with less space used now. We do not want to provide a rushed solution to tutorials, but you can expect it with a future update as there are many improvements planned before Sweet Transit leaves Early Access.
I hope you enjoy the new additions and I look forward to hearing all of your feedback!
Check out the trailer:
Additions:
Added SDF10 locomotive
Added DMU10 locomotive
Added DT30 locomotive
Added DT30 passenger wagon
Added Jet10 locomotive
Added Jet10 passenger wagon
Added Jet20 locomotive
Added DTJet locomotive
Added requirement chain signal
Added zoom to cursor toggle option
Added edge scrolling toggle option
Added quick selection items
Added total upkeep tool tip for settlements and other selections
Added random name generation for settlements
Added option to disable bonus goods consumption from settlements
Added last and best saves for scenarios
Added deposits preview in new game map generation
Added Jet train achievement
Added town hedge decorations
Added palm decorations
Added town statue decorations
Added attractiveness bonus to residences near nature such as water, mountains, trees
Added Distillation column to produce Jet Fuel
Added Jet fuel storage structure
Added automatic park arrangement variations after a certain size
Added old saves attractiveness bonus to make them playable
Added auto route naming based on destinations
Added infinite goals after progression is finished
Added option to disable settlement commercial structures
Added guided lines in build mode
Added history in UI to remember scroll positions and opened tabs
Added multiple fuel locomotive requirement for DTJet
Added Craftsmen Water Tower
Changes:
Complete UI overhaul
New requirement signals visuals
Made town hall buildable from the build list
Made residences upkeep and goods consumption based on inhabitants
Made build hotkey copy selected object together with variation and direction
Made trains stop one tile closer if station platforms end with a signal
Made trains stop at the end of the station platforms rail instead of the middle
Made trains load only the needed amount of workers in settlements
Made terrain generation fill "puddles" with land
Made terrain generation fill small patches of land with water;
Made wait for specific time condition trains leave only on required minute
Made toggle remove mode hotkey open remove mode if not in build mode
Made world names UI get transparent in build mode once the cursor is close
Made fonts dynamically adjust the resolution to avoid non-readable or blurry text
Increased destinations stamps generation based on global train utilisation
Increased max stamps cost limit from 100k to 1000k
