Welcome to Simutrans Extra! Some months has passed since the previous one (If you missed it, you can read it here) and it's now time to sum up what has been happening under the hood. There are some exciting news!

The first new is that community member Yona has released a new version of the Scenario Tutorial (v1.6.01)available for pak64 and pak128. This version, which I've been involved myself with correction and translation of texts, aims to be the final version included in the next stable release (if no major bugs are found). Let's take a look at the list of changes:

• The version and pakset name check is implemented.
  
• Many improvements in translations and text files.
  
• Tunnel issues fixed.
  
• Some numerical values are changed to variables in the texts.
  
• Many fixes and improvements.
  
• Some code cleaning.

For compability reasons, the new version here on Steam is only available on the [nightly] beta branch. If you find any problems, please report them on:

=> Pak128 Scenario Tutorial Thread (International Forums)
=> Scenario Tutorial pak64 (International Forums)

The Schedule windows is getting a rework, and scheduled departures are finally arriving to Simutrans! Let's take a closer look to the current implementation that Lead Developer prissi did.



You can now select between Minimum Load and an extra waiting time or Fixed Monthly Departures with N departures equally divided alongside the month, starting on a given day. Doesn't it look exciting?

Take in mind that this could change until the final version that you will see on Simutrans 123.

=> Leave feedback on this thread.

Another interesting change is that you will be able to change the position of the toolbar from the Display Settings to the left, the right, and bottom, further allowing the player to customize their Simutrans experience.



All of those changes will be coming on Simutrans 123. They are also available now for testing on the [nightly] beta branch, so you can test them right now. But be careful, since compatibility of saves between versions is not guaranteed!

End of "Development Diaries" kind of news. Let's jump onto another things!

While Simutrans is a free game developed by people like me in their free time, unfortunately maintaining and running the servers that host Simutrans infrastructure is not free. Our benevolent dictator Isaac Eiland-Hall has been kindly providing his own resources to the community in this regard, but occasionally he opens donations to help cover server running costs.
If you have some spare money to spend and you would like to help Simutrans, you can donate some money for the server costs

=> More info about donations.

That said, if you can't contribute, don't worry! The server will keep running as long as Isaac is alive and well :-)

Yesterday the code of Simutrans reached 10 000 "revisions" (aka "contributions" as called by SVN), a nice, round number that doesn't mean anything by itself. But for a "small" project like Simutrans, this number is impressive. Nearly 1 000 contributions of those 10 000 (10%) were made in the last year, which gives a nice picture of a project well alive.
First revision was made on August 2006, for version 84.20, 15 years ago, when the game was handed to the Simutrans Team. Of course, the game is older than that, but there are no logs of the changes made before that date, as it was closed source back then.

If you are curious, revision 10 000 was made by developer ceeac, and it was a boring fix. Here is it:

=> Revision 10000: "FIX: Random seed sometimes saved differently on client and headless server"


That's all for this Simutrans Extra. I've been myself busy porting the current Build System to CMake and some other minor changes not worth mentioning (like putting the Options button on the initial banner). I should probably work next on the new Workshop Uploader, as I'd like to have it finished before the end of the year, but I can't promise anything. I hope you are enjoying your holidays and playing Simutrans!

Happy simutransing!

Today I have to bring you bad news for the first time. Simutrans OTRP (a popular Simutrans fork from the japanese community) will stop being developed by THLeaderH, the original author of this project and the main developer, since he has ended their studies and will start working full-time.


Let's pause a moment an explain a bit what Simutrans OTRP is, since this is the first time is it mentioned on Steam. Simutrans OTRP is a modified version of Simutrans with additional features compared to the standard version.

• You can now build one-way, two-lane roads. Vehicles can overtake each other on these roads. As a result, you can construct 4-lane highways.
  
• "Citycars do not enter" and "avoid becoming cityroad" options are available for roads.
  
• When using the building construction and land raise/lower tools, it is possible to click and drag to to apply the tool over a specified area. This greatly simplifies large-scale development.
  
• Advanced scheduling options allow for precise control of your convoys and lines.

=> You can learn more about Simutrans OTRP on the project repository.


The OTRP fork will probably stop receiving updates, unless someone else pick up the project. But don't worry, current Simutrans OTRP version (v29_5) is based on Simutrans Standard Nightly, so it will take some time until Simutrans OTRP is truly outdated compared with Simutrans Standard, and in any case, you will always be able to play it if only with older paksets. You have plenty of time to enjoy it!


I'm a big fan of bringing other Simutrans forks here on Steam, so they are more accesible to players and hopefully thrive. Indeed, that was point 7 of the Roadmap I made when I became the new Steam maintainer.

=> Simutrans on Steam Roadmap

I already did that (silently) for Simutrans Extended (I promise I will talk about it another day), but doing the same for Simutrans OTRP required additional work. Following the announcement of the termination of the development, this seems a good time to finish it. Simutrans OTRP is now available from Steam (just go to betas and select the "otrp" branch).

Additionally to the usual Steam benefits (workshop, cloud save, etc) the Simutrans OTRP version on Steam does not include telemetry, unlike the official OTRP which collected some information and sent it to a japanese server. This was necessary for EU users to be able to play the game.

IMPORTANT: I have not obtained permission (yet) to redistribute the ribi-arrow pak required for Simutrans OTRP, so you still need to download it manually and put it on your pakset folders.

=> Ribi-arrow pak download on Google Drive

This is the reason I was taking so long to bring OTRP to Steam, since I wanted to offer an out-of-the-box experience. Please refer to the install instructions for more info.

=> Simutrans OTRP Install Instructions

No manual installation needed anymore, paksets include necessary Ribi-arrow files and the key ":" is configured. The "otrp" beta branch will not receive any more updates, allowing you to switch it to any moment and play otrp with the latest compatible paksets.


Let's wish THLeaderH good luck on his new life and let's say goodbye to Simutrans OTRP with some gaming!

=> Original announcement on the forum


P.D.: Please do NOT report bugs for Simutrans OTRP here on Steam (and any beta branch at all). I will delete any bug that is not about game not launching. Other kind of bugs (such gameplay bugs) will only be considered for Simutrans Standard.

There's a lot of things happening on the Simutrans Community that are not Steam-related news or updates, and I know that most of you don't bother to check the forums, so let's inaugurate a section called "Simutrans Extra" with the latest news from the community delivered to you monthly (or whenever is something interesting to tell).


Let's start this first Simutrans Extra with something great. Have you ever wanted to make a Simutrans add-on? Do you have a building that you have always wanted to see in-game but you don't know how that works? Well, the pak192.comic developer "Leartin" is now writing a step-by-step detailed tutorial about the process of creating Simutrans objects.

=> [Tutorial] You got a graphic - now what?

If you end up creating something worth, don't forget to share it with the community! You can even ask pakset creators to include your objects, or share them independently as add-ons, for example by submitting them to the Simutrans Steam Workshop.


From some time ago, music playback on Linux and MacOS has been broken. To address this, I've developed myself a new music back-end that will address the music problem on both systems, and also add some advances features like MIDI soundfont selection! Here's a short video showing it capabilities:



This new music back-end will be available on the next Steam stable release for Linux & MacOS. Windows release will probably keep using the same old backend, as it works out-of-the-box without the need of including a soundfont. Nightly releases won't include this either.


Every year the wiki celebrates a survey to gather information about Simutrans players. This information is really helpful for developers, and while I can gather some information from Steam, it's not as useful as this wiki survey, so please go there and fill the survey if you want.

=> 2021 : Simutrans Players


DThunder (you know, the user who never get the first position in the screenshot contest), have started a new server called "128 World" for pak128 players

=> Discussion on the forum


That-other-game which is Similar to Simutrans is (finally) coming to Steam. Hopefully, people will stop wrongly posting content of that-other-game in our Steam Hub. Anyway, we wish that-other-game developers luck here on Steam!

=> Steam Announcement of that-other-game


That's all for this Simutrans Extra #0. Happy simutransing!

The votation has come to and end, and it is now time to announce the winners!


PAK64

1 - First (and only) winner is "City of Malaga" by Yau.


PAK64.nippon

1 - First winner is Kasukabe Station by danivenk


2 - Second winner is Kanegasaki Station, also by danivenk


3 - Third winner is Kinashi Island, surprisingly by danivenk


Other winners (4-6) can be seen on the pakset steam workshop page
- Yoshida Station
- Yoshida Station - Underground
- Kasukabe Station - Underground

PAK128

1 - The first winner of PAK128 is... ¡"New Harbour" by ayylmayooo (Absolutely Nobody on Steam)! Congratulations!


2 - The second winner is "Zeebrugge" by Lieven. It seems like the jury like ports :P


3 - And the third winner is "Road spaghettis 2", by Lieven. Can you see the beauty in all this disorder?


Other winners of pak128 (4-10) can be seen on Simutrans Main Store Page (alongside the first winners of each category):
- City of Brussels 1
- City of Brussels 2
- City of Brussels 3
- Countryside of France
- Mining complex
- Shigetomi JCT
- Wakita Station

PAK128.Britain

1 - The first winner of PAK128 is "Lakebourne transport hub", from Vladki. Simple yet convincing. Congratulations!


2 - The second winner is "Ledbury Main Station" by DThunder518. A great railway system.


3 - And the third winner is "Withernsea Junction". Another great railway system by DThunder518.


Other winners (4-8) can be seen on PAK128.Britain Steam Store Page:
- Burnham Mail Facility
- Port Jervis
- Reigate Airport
- Wickwar Airport
- Wootton-Basset Airport

PAK128.CS

Unfortunately, PAK128.CS is not yet available via Steam (but it will in the future). I'll leave here the original image links.

1 - The first winner of PAK128.CS is "Near the main station" by Zeruon. So colourful, good job!

2 - The second winner is "Brno" by DThunder518

3 - An the third winner is "Dublovieky Crossing", by DThunder518 too.

Other winners (4-5) are:
- Nechalov Interchange
- Oil Refinery

PAK128.German

1 - The first winner of PAK128.German is... "Oktoberfest needs more beer!" by iGi. I wonder why you choose this.


2 - The second winner is "Alpine City Brentham" by DThunder518 (poor DThunder518 never gets the first position).


3 - And the third position goes to... "Flughafen Torwick", also by DThunder518.


Other winners (4-10) can be seen on the PAK128.German Steam Store Page, and those are:
- freight distribution station
- Flughafen Oak Bay
- Regionalflughafen Oldham
- Renton Hauptbahnhof & Renton Westbahnhof (good thing I don't need to pronounce this)
- Renwick Center
- Garmisch 2
- Ruhrgebiet 3

PAK128.Japan

1 - First (and only) winner of PAK128.japan is "Mountainous Area" by ahakuoku. Congratulations?




I want to give my sincere thanks to every participant - even if you didn't win, you helped Simutrans by submitting your best screenshots so that other (potential) players can apprecite how great Simutrans can be in the hands of experienced players like you. You have also helped to improve the store pages, not only we have new (and better!) screenshots, I remember you that:

- First winner of each category will be displayed on the main Simutrans page (so that players know that other paksets exists by looking at screenshots).
- Second winner of each category will be used as the header for the pakset DLC. This is now the header for PAK128.Britain or PAK128.Japan, as examples, which will be visible also on your library and on store searchs:

- Third winner will be used as the background of the store page.

For the second winner of PAK128, as changing Simutrans main header is not a good idea (it is very distintive as it is), I thought it was a good idea to use "Zeebrugge" for the "Library Capsule". I really like the result, and now we have a better image for Simutrans on our library main page.


I'm very happy with all the participations we have received this contest, and I look forward to celebrate another contest this year. The only sad thing is that no one participated in the PAK192.Comic category, which is really lacking good screenshots. For now, I have to focus on other things, but that will probably be the theme for the next contest. Until them, happy Simutransing!

Hello Simutrans Community! Thanks to everyone who have submitted screenshots for this first Simutrans Steam Screenshot Contest. Submissions are now closed, and we have over 50 participations from 7 different paksets. It is now time to select the winners! Let's procceed to cast the votes.

You can all vote now on the Official Simutrans Wiki survey created for this contest. Remember you can only cast one vote for every pakset.
IMPORTANT: Remember that each checkbox corresponds to the image above and not to the image below. Pick the right one ;-)

=> Link to the wiki survey here

You have until January 10th to vote.

I will let you below a complete list of participations, so you can see the screenshots at their original quality. I can't include all the images on this post (since some of them are from outside Steam), so you will have to open the link to see the screenshot.


"New Harbour" by ayylmayooo (Absolutely Nobody on Steam)

Pak128
1 - Lieven, City of Brussels 1
2 - Lieven, City of Brussels 2
3 - Lieven, City of Brussels 3
4 - Lieven, Countryside of France
5 - Lieven, Railway Spaghettis 1
6 - Lieven, Railway Spaghettis 2
7 - Lieven, Road spaghettis 1
8 - Lieven, Road spaghettis 2
9 - Lieven, Zeebrugge
10 - Lieven, Mining complex
11 - ayylmayooo, "New Harbour"
12 - danivenk, Shigetomi JCT
13 - danivenk, Hiroki-Sesekushi Suspension Bridge
14 - danivenk, Kaimon Station
15 - danivenk, Usuki Station
16 - danivenk, Wakita Station
17 - danivenk, Ishino Station area
18 - danivenk, Highway Exit Kurotaki
19 - danivenk, Takaono Station
20 - danivenk, Shigetomi Station
21 - danivenk, Miyama Station
22 - danivenk, South-East Tokiwa

Pak64.nippon
23 - danivenk, Yoshida Station
24 - danivenk, Yoshida Station - Underground
25 - danivenk, Kanegasaki Station
26 - danivenk, Kinashi Island
27 - danivenk, Kasukabe Station
28 - danivenk, Kasukabe Station - Underground

Pak128.Britain
29 - Vladki, "Lakebourne transport hub"
30 - DThunder518, Burnham Mail Facility
31 - DThunder518, Ledbury Main Station
32 - DThunder518, Port Jervis
33 - DThunder518, Reigate Airport
34 - DThunder518, Wickwar Airport
35 - DThunder518, Withernsea Junction
36 - DThunder518, Wootton-Basset Airport

Pak128.German
37 - makie, "Garmisch" [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_1_1.png]1[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_1_2.png]2[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_1_3.png]3[/url]]
38 - makie, "München" [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_2_1.png]1[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_2_2.png]2[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_2_3.png]3[/url]]
39 - makie, "Berlin" [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_5_1.png]1[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_5_2.png]2[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_5_3.png]3[/url]]
40 - makie, "Soest" [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_7_1.png]1[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_7_2.png]2[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_7_3.png]3[/url]]
41 - makie, "Ruhrgebiet" [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_9_1.png]1[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_9_2.png]2[/url]] [[url=https://makie.de/Screenshot_9_3.png]3[/url]]
42 - iGi, "Oktoberfest needs more beer!"
43 - iGi, "freight distribution station"
44 - DThunder518, Alpine City Brentham
45 - DThunder518, Heppby
46 - DThunder518, Flughafen Oak Bay
47 - DThunder518, Regionalflughafen Oldham
48 - DThunder518, Renton Hauptbahnhof & Renton Westbahnhof
49 - DThunder518, Renwick Center
50 - DThunder518, Flughafen Torwick

Pak128.Japan
XX - ahakuoku, Mountainous Area

Pak.64
XX - Yau, City of Malaga

Pak.128.cs
51 - Zeruon, Near the main station
52 - DThunder518, Brno
53 - DThunder518, Dublovieky Crossing
54 - DThunder518, Nechalov Interchange
55 - DThunder518, Oil Refinery

Surprise! PAK128.German developers have a christmas gift for us all. The new pak128.German version 2.1 (beta) is out this christmas. This is a minor version with mainly bugfixes and some changes:

• Some bugs have been corrected. For reporting, thanks to Huperspace on Steam.
  
• English translations improved. Thanks to Duke and Ampersand.
  
• A train now needs a driver at the head. So either in a locomotive or in a control car.
  
• That's why there are now some new control cars. Pushed freight trains are no longer possible.
  
• New: E69, Kö 1 and new silverwagons also with new control car
  
• New: ford for muddy paths, railway barriers now have a German sound.
  
• Changed: some of the ships now have significantly higher freight volumes.
  
• With a current nighlty, level crossings over high-speed tracks or highways can no longer be built.
  
• Deleted: The Tatra T6 A22 tram car is double, is automatically converted to Tatra T6 A6.

The beta is available for Release 122.0 (default), but because of the fords and the level crossings, a current nightly is recommended.

Hello, everyone! I, Roboron, have the great pleasure of opening the first Simutrans Steam Screenshot Contest (or, as I like to call it, "SSSC"). This is also the first contest the Simutrans Community has started in over 4 years, so we are very excited! And we have a good reason. The prize for the winners is... to be displayed on the Steam Store Page!

Participation is opened now. You can submit your screenshots to the "Screenshots" section of the community Hub. You need to include a title and the pakset used. You can submit as many screenshots as you want, until December 21st.

Note: I have updated the game to preventing F12 from displaying the help windows. That treacherous window won't spoil your screenshots anymore!

1 - There's a category for every pakset (including workshop paksets and the yet unavailable pak128.cs).
2 - You can submit as many screenshots as you want.
3 - You only need to submit your screenshots to the "Screenshots" section of the community Hub.
4 - You need to include title and category (pakset) for every screenshot. Screenshots without title or category will not be eligible.
5 - You have until December 21st to submit your screenshots!

1 - The theme is... Transport structures! (Unoriginal, you say?). Let's show new players what is possible to build with Simutrans. A great train station? Perfect! An amazing road network! Sweet! An underground complex? Wow! A country road with nothing more than grass? Not so impressive...
2 - To keep screenshots clean, try to disable city/station names and avoid showing title bars, overcrowded menus, etc.
3 - While I won't impose any limits to screenshot size, recommended size is 1920x1080 as this is the most common resolution.

1 - For the first winner of each category: The screenshot will be displayed on the main Simutrans Store Page, alongside the winners of all categories.
2 - For the second winner of each category: The screenshot will be used as the header for the pakset DLC.
3 - For the third winner of each category: The screenshot will be used as the background of the pakset store page.
4 - For winners 1-10 of each category: The screenshot will be displayed on the pakset store page (or workshop) page.

Voting will be done on a wiki survey (I will post a new announcement when the time comes). Everyone (participants and non-participants) can vote, but you can only vote one time per category.
If two or more screenshots have the same votes, our benevolent dictator will benevolently select a winner, taking into account theme and guidelines.

Apart from Steam, you can participate through the following platforms (don't forget to include title and category):

• Reddit: Submitting your screenshots to /r/simutrans/
  
• Twitter: Using the hastag #SimutransSteamScreenshot
  
• The good old forum: Posting your screenshots on this thread

After exposing my thoughts on paksets on the Simutrans on Steam Roadmap, I went back to dicuss changes with the Simutrans Community. My initial idea of bring every pakset independently with his own store page was not as well received as I thought. Then, I opened a survey with different options, and the result of the survey was clear. A majority of members preferred to bring only current, maintained paksets to the store, and let out old, unmaintained paksets. This was not in contradiction with my main idea of totally avoid bundling paksets, so I agreed.

Over the last week I have been silently doing changes to the store page of the paksets, and today changes are live. This means that your current paksets DLC have been replaced by the new ones. Let's see the list of changes:

* The "Comic Paksets" bundle has been replaced by "Pak192.Comic"
https://store.steampowered.com/app/434632/Simutrans__Pak192Comic/

* The "German Paksets" bundle is now "Pak128.German" (it was already only providing pak128.german)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/434633/Simutrans__Pak128German/

* The "Japan Based Paksets" bundle has been replaced by "Pak128.Japan"
https://store.steampowered.com/app/435960/Simutrans__Pak128Japan/?snr=1_5_9__405

* The "Miscellaneus Paksets" bundle has been replaces by "Pak64.German" (unofficial version)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/435963/Simutrans__Pak64German/?snr=1_5_9__405

* Pak128.Britain and Pak64 are the same
* Unfortunately, I couldn't get rid of "Workshop Tools" DLC. While I have already published a separate tool called "Simutrans SDK" (you can find it in your library), the workshop uploader utility does not work if it is executed from another appid. This change will require to reimplement the workshop uploader, and I need more time for that. In the future, "Workshop Tools" is intended to be replaced by "Pak128.CS" DLC (currently in development).


Don't panic! Old paksets which were bundled previously together are now available standalone via Workshop https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=434520&requiredtags[]=pakset

If you wee playing one of those paksets, you will need to install it from the workshop to keep playing. Your savegames will not be lost.


I have to remember that the focus was to improve the store pages (and now also offer better default paksets). I have been updating store pages with new descriptions, translations to Spanish, metadata, etc... But something is still required: New screenshots! In the following days, I will announce a new screenshot contest where everyone can participate... and win! The prize will be to be displayed on the Steam Store Page. More details coming soon. Keep an eye on the announcements!

Roboron did it again! After receiving some feedback from MacOS users (and developers), I solved the remaining problems that prevented the MacOS version of the game from running (on Steam or not). Now, MacOS players can play Simutrans... again!

I want you to know that this was not a very easy thing to do, and unfortunately, it is also not a perfect solution. Since Simutrans' developers resources are limited, we can only target newer versions of MacOS. I let you with the details:

• Simutrans has been compiled and tested on MacOS Big Sur (11.0) - and this is the only version that will be supported, initially.
  
• MacOS Catalina may be also compatible! If it is not, please let us now, we can also provide a Catalina compatible version without much effort, and we should support Catalina for now.
  
• Other MacOS versions (Mojave and older) will not be supported. However, if someone on those versions wants to provide a compatible build for Steam players, please read the pinned post on the development forums.
  
• MacOS Simutrans version is not currently a stable version. This means that you won't be able to play online with Steam users (but you will be able to... play!)
  
• Initial tests show that Simutrans crashes if music is enabled (although it can be just my VM). Just in case, I have forced the "-nomidi" option for everyone, but you can enable music from in-game settings. We will solve this later.

That's all. Changes are now live. Since I have only tested the release on my development enviroment, I am not sure if everything will "just work" for everyone. I will be listening to your feedback here or on the Steam forums.

With this we reached the #1 milestone of Steam Roadmap.Welcome back, MacOs users!

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/379653803848237059/765358199481958420/Screenshot_20201013_013549.png
New Steam Library Banner, courtesy of danivenk (Simutrans Discord User)

WARNING: This post contains suggestions that could come to Steam depending on the feedback from the Simutrans Community. In no way those changes are confirmed, but can come to Steam at some point in the future.

Simutrans is now updated to the last stable version. But my work as a new manintainer doesn't end here: there's a lot of things I can do to improve the way we ship Simutrans on Steam. It's time to look at the status of Simutrans on Steam, and to make plans for the future. I have a lot of ideas to improve Simutrans on the Steam platform, and I want to be transparent about it, discuss changes with the community, and gather feedback from you.

This will be a pretty big thread, so I am making a index right there. If you are new to Simutrans, you probably won't understand some of the things being discussed, but that's ok, I'm expecting feedback from experienced users mainly.
____________________________________________________

1. The Mac version
2. The Steam Preloader
3. The Steam Launch Options
4. The Steam Paksets
5. The Steam Store Page
6. Improving Standard defaults
7. Bringing non-Standard Simutrans to Steam
8. Summary of suggested changes
____________________________________________________
Numbers show, that even with the Mac version currently broken, players are still trying to play. Number of Mac players are only slighty under the number of Linux players (which can actually play). We can say, that the Mac problem is currently a high priority problem, at least regarding the Steam version (we are getting some negative reviews because of this). Unfortunately, I don't own a Mac nor I have the knowledge to fix the Mac version. If someone wants to help Mac players, I have moved all the Mac bug reports to the Bug/Crashes Steam subforum https://steamcommunity.com/app/434520/discussions/search/?q=Mac&gidforum=357288572135186516&include_deleted=1

On top of the Mac usual problems, Steam informed me that Apple now request all applications to be "reviewed" by Apple itself, and I currently don't know how to do that process (and I really would want to focus on other priorities). Oh, and one more thing: the Simutrans preloader doesn't have support for Mac! Steam funcionalities on Mac are non-existent! Let's talk more about this and why we can't currently ship a Mac preloader.
____________________________________________________

The preloader as it currently is.

The Steam preloader is a museum piece. Source code has been lost, and I can't make modifications to it. We can only admire it, and respect that legacy of the past. Or we can get rid of it.

Currently, the Steam preloader works as intended (except localization, at least for me the preloader doesn't load es-ES language files), so it's not a priority high on the list. But it's a matter of time, that we have to act to do something about it. The problem with the preloader is that:
A) It contains all the code related to Steam. So now it's the only way to get Steam funcionalities working AND since it can't be modified, we can't add new funcionalities (Achievements?).
B) It adds yet one more step for launching the game (like if we don't have enough with current steps...). Let's take a look at what benefits brings the preloader:

1. Fullscreen -> Very useful, but you can do that already from your system (at least on linux), from the simuconf.tab (not very user friendly tho), and it could be better implemented as an in-game option.
2. Sound & Music -> Not necessary. Both can be muted from inside the game.
3. Sandbox Mode -> Probably the only thing that justifies the existence of the preloader as a start menu right now.
4. Debug -> Not really valuable for Steam players.

So, I ask myself if the Sandbox Mode is enough justification to maintain a launcher... But since we can't simply get rid of it without losing Steam funcionalities, we have two options:
1. Rewrite it from scratch when time comes, ideally with more useful options than before to justify their existence.
2. Add Steam related code to Simutrans (probably forking the sourcecode), and remove the preloader.

I prefer option 2, but I opened this thread to gather feedback, so it's your time to comment. And now that we are talking about what happens when launching the game...
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Steam Launch Options

Here we have, yet another startup step. I want to get rid of this screen, and I will explain why no one of this options makes sense to me (except, only a little, Steam Workshop Uploader).

1. Launch Simutrans (this should be the only default).
2. Launch as server -> Users can already load a savegame as a server from inside the game. Also, Steam DOES allow for command-line parameters to be specified at launch, and experienced users (like those who wants to set up a server) should be aware of that.
3. Safe Mode -> The only reason to select this option is to start Simutrans without the preloader, and thus, without Steam funcionality. If you want to play Simutrans without Steam funcionality... you cand do so with the non-Steam version. This option doesn't make sense to me, from a Steam player perspective.
4. Steam Workshop Uploader -> Now this is the interesting part. I have never seen a game implementing the "Workshop uploader" (currently named as SDK) as a launch option. This is not bad at all, but this usually comes shipped as a separate "Tool" or just implemented inside the game (I don't like this approach for Simutrans) - so I would prefer to ship the Workshop Uploader utility separately from the game. And maybe rename it to Simutrans SDK, just for consistency. I have yet to see how to do this.

One important thing is that the Workshop Uploader is currently Windows-only. This a big problem, like the preloader, because source code is also not available, so we lack support for Linux & Mac. But it also means that I can get rid of those innecesary launch options on Linux, and so I did. Preloader is now what you get when you click Play. But let's talk about more interesting topics now.
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https://i.imgur.com/1AcoXXI.png
Description says: "A range of miscellaneous Paksets.". Can you guess what it contains?

Decisions were made in the past, to bundle some paksets together in the same DLC. I don't agree with those decisions, and I think paksets developers also disagree. This is confusing for new players, is extra work for me when updating paksets, and, in the end, paksets don't get treated like they deserve. If no one is against it, I'll de-bundle the paksets and make a DLC for every pakset, as it should be.

Now let's take a broad look at the Simutrans paksets, and their status, on Steam:

* pak32.comic - Bundled in "Comic Paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/434632/Comic_Paksets/
* pak48.excentrique - Bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435963/Simutrans__Miscellaneous_Paksets/
* pak64 - Available standalone https://store.steampowered.com/app/434520/Simutrans/
* pak64.classic - Not available
* pak64.contrast - Bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435963/Simutrans__Miscellaneous_Paksets/
* pak64.german - Not available
* pak64.ho-scale - Bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435963/Simutrans__Miscellaneous_Paksets/
* pak64.japan - Bundled in "Japan based Packsets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435960/Simutrans__Japan_based_Packsets/
* pak64.nippon - Bundled in "Japan based Packsets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435960/Simutrans__Japan_based_Packsets/
* pak64.scifi - Bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435963/Simutrans__Miscellaneous_Paksets/
* pak96.comic - Bundled in "Comic Paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/434632/Comic_Paksets/
* pak96.HD - Bundled in "Comic Paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/434632/Comic_Paksets/
* pak128 - Default pakset
* pak128.britain - Available standalone https://store.steampowered.com/app/434631/Simutrans__Pak128Britain/?snr=1_5_9__405
* pak128.cs - Not available
* pak128.german - Available standalone https://store.steampowered.com/app/434633/Simutrans__German_Paksets/
* pak128.japan - Bundled in "Japan based Packsets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/435960/Simutrans__Japan_based_Packsets/
* pak192.comic - Bundled in "Comic Paksets" https://store.steampowered.com/app/434632/Comic_Paksets/

Curiously, there was a store page for Pak64.HO-Scale, but it is not published. Everything is here, but instead, Pak64.HO-Scale is bundled in "Miscellaneous paksets".

To sum up, we have three paksets not available yet, and only three paksets unbundled. Previously to being maintainer I didn't even know pak64.scifi was being bundled with "Miscellaneous paksets", since it is also available on the Worskhop. This is a mess I need to solve, and also bring unavailable paksets to Steam. But doing a store page for every pakset is a lot of work, so I have had an idea...
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https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/765354844411527199/765355467547344916/Screenshot_20201013_003012.png
Previous Library Header. You can see the new one at the top of this post

While the Steam Store page for the main game is good enough, it can be improved, specially with screenshots. Screenshots are a bit dated, there's only a few of them, and can be a bit overwhelming for new players (too many info displayed on the screen). Screenshots are also showing only the default pakset, when I think they should show a range of diverse paksets, so the player inmediatly knows that Simutrans have different graphics sets available.

A good way to improve the page would be also to translate it to other languages - specially german and japanese since they are the main players (see statistics). If someone want to help with translation of the pages, please contact me.

But the worst of all are pakset pages. They lack a proper description (What is this pakset? What does include the DLC? Who are the creators?), and usually only show screenshots of on of the paksets if they come bundled. The Miscellaneous Paksets Store Page is specially bad. Like, the worst you can get presenting a game...

What's the plan? If we split the bundles, we will have yet more pages to fill with screenshots. So, this a situation that makes a good excuse to celebrate a new Screenshot Showcase. Winners of the Screenshot Showcase would be displayed in Steam Store Pages. What do you think abuout it?
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A troll review

Users on Steam are constantly complaining about Simutrans (note: we still have 3x more positive reviews than negative reviews). They mainly complain about:

1. Simutrans being difficult. This is one of the most recurrent complains. Players find too difficult to play the game, or find a lack of resources where they can learn how to play the game. Shipping a tutorial with the game is a high priority right now.
2. UI being ugly / not adapted to current display standards. Some of those problems have been already addressed by the Simutrans team recently (font, theme size, etc...), but there's still some complains about the UI. Today a user complained about the new modern theme, and I expect more complains about the UI in the future. Those little details are what make the difference for a lot of players.

While I like the new look, light colored lines in charts are hard to see. Perhaps returning the background color of those charts t grey might help

3. Graphics being dated. We can't do much there. We could ship a better-looking pakset with Simutrans by default to give a better first-impression, like pak128.german or pak192.comic (Ideally we would have a much modern pakset like pak256, but we don't). But that would deteriorate problem #1... Maybe pak192.comic developers or others would like to provide a dumbed-down version of their pakset?
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The "beta branches" funcionality of Steam we could use to ship non-Standard Simutrans versions

A thing I really would like to do is to provide Simutrans versions that are not the Standard ones, to make them more accesible for players. For example, one of the downsides of Simutrans Extended, is that you need to update it everyday. This could be easily achieved deploying Simutrans Extended in a beta branch, so Steam will take care of the update for you, and you could also play your already available paksets of Simutrans on Steam with it.

However, including Extended into Steam also adds more complexity for players. Extended needs its own set of paksets to make use of extended funcionality. A way to simplify then would be to replace the pak128.britan with pak128.britan-ex when you are in the Extended beta branch. This is very easy to do. But, what happens with other paksets not available on Steam now? pak256 would need its own store page - or be packaged within Extended, but I don't like this approach because switching beta branches would bring hundreds of MB to download for the user. For the first option, adding a DLC that Standard players can't play does not seem like a good idea, it can lead to confusion.

Another way to bring Simutrans Extended to Steam would be to ship it alongside Standard, then using Steam Launch options to select between Standard or Extended when you click play. This has the advantage of eliminating the need for beta branches and switching between them, but it also means we can't get rid of the Steam Launch options (although this time it would have a much better justification to exist). It would also expose more the non-Standard version of Simutrans to new players, so it can be a good option to consider.

Other versions of Simutrans should be easier to deploy (OTRP and Nightly, which Misha has already requested). In the end I want you to help me decide how to do it: beta branches, or steam launch options?
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1. Fix Mac version (easier said than done, I know).
2. Get rid of the preloader (eventually) and implement steam funcionality into Simutrans itself - or rewrite the preloader (duplicate options, support for Mac is lacking).
3. Get rid of Steam Launch Options (depending on #7) and ship the Wokshop Uploader as a separate, installable tool.
4. Reorganize Steam Paksets: A Store Page for every pakset, and bring unavailable paksets to Steam.
5. Improve store pages with descriptions, translations, and new screenshots (for what a Screenshot Showcase may be useful)
6. Ship Simutrans with a tutorial. Maybe reconsider default pakset.
7. Deciding between shipping non-Standard version alongside the game or as a beta branch.