Hi everyone,

Today we’re adding one of the first community unlocks, the Shunter Remote Controller! Thank you all for making it possible by spreading word about Derail Valley! There’s many more to come!


Many of you wished to be able to control the shunter remotely, and now you can! The shunter remote controller is an item that can be purchased in shops. It has buttons and joysticks that are all fully interactive in both VR and nonVR. In nonVR additionally it can be used with keyboard, featuring some new controls listed below.



The remote runs on a battery that can be recharged by a solar-panel (it needs sunlight!). It is range limited to about 300m after which it gradually begins losing signal.

The remote can be used to drive two locomotives from the cab of one, until proper Multiple-Unit support is added in the future (which requires us to implement player-owned locomotives and upgrade system first). Needless to say, implementing the remote involved a lot of technical advancements that will be useful with future features.


We are aware of all your problems with items since item storage was added. There have been some bugs or unfinished features that lead to items seemingly or literally disappearing. With this build that should no longer happen and you should always find your items either in your inventory or in the nearest Lost and Found shed.

In addition, dropped items will be easier to spot, as they are now getting highlighted if you empty-click in nonVR, or telegrab in VR.


NonVR version got more train driving keyboard controls, such as horn, coupler, etc. These were necessary in order to make the shunter remote controller operable with keyboard only, but may also help some of you who map joystick peripherals to keyboard controls. Support for keyboard control configuration via .ini file is coming soon.



For VR we’ve added belt points, where you can store items. This makes it easy to, for example, carry a map or a shunter remote in front of you while keeping your hands free.


For those of you who have unlocked the Old Bob’s vehicle, you’ll be able to summon it at any point with a menu button. The menu will soon be slightly redesigned to accompany features like this with smaller button form.


As usual, there are many more changes! Have a look at the full changelog:

Shunting remote:

- Is an item that can be purchased in shops
- Makes it possible to remotely control a shunter
- Features interactive joysticks and buttons (VR and nonVR)
- Can be used with keyboard controls in nonVR (when equipped)
- Features solar-powered battery mechanics
- Features limited wireless range with signal loss
- Includes various technical reworks and improvements to be used in future features

Controls:

- Added keyboard controls for all train commands
- Added belt item points (VR)
- You can place items to belt points for quick access
- Provides hands-free item interaction (useful for shunting remote)
- Fixed nonVR player being dragged by moving train if teleporting off of it
- Fixed camera flickering when teleporting in nonVR

Items:

- Hand-held items are now saved to inventory, rather than falling to world
- If inventory is full they are sent to L&F shed
- Reduced item spawning distance in L&F sheds to 50m
- Updated Player.GiveEssentialItems console command
- Now adds lost items to inventory if there’s space, else to L&F sheds

UI:

- Added menu button to refresh Lost & Found
- Added menu button to summon Old Bob’s vehicle (once unlocked)
- Added tooltips to menu
- Reworded many options
- Added highlighting nearby items (VR: telegrab press, nonVR: LMB click)
- Added build number to main menu

Railway:

- Fixed glitches with clipped shadows occurring on some parts of the railway
- Fixed railway LOD sometimes appearing (e.g. at Machine Factory)

Save-game:

- Fixed job loading errors, potentially causing other bugs

That’s it for now, see you next update!

Hey all,

We've got several controls-related fixes today!


For nonVR players (or those playing using smooth locomotion in VR), your character will no longer drift and suddenly move when they are supposed to be standing still in moving vehicles. You should also no longer be pushed up the tender as easily if leaning in VR.


Using a menu option, you can now teleport back to the last used locomotive. Later on when we add the caboose, it will provide an option to teleport to it as well, making it an essential tool to teleport back and forth between two ends of a train (or map, if strategically located?). This feature is still in experimental phase.


Those of you who wished to invert mouse Y-axis can now do so with the console command debug.InvertMouseY and setting it to either 'true' or 'false'.

We've also fixed an issue from previous build where quitting the game while using smooth locomotion in VR would mess up player position on game load.


Controls:

- Fixed nonVR player drifting when in moving vehicles
- Fixed player being nudged onto tender sometimes in steam locomotive
- Added “teleport to last loco” button to main menu (experimental)
- Added console command to invert mouse Y-axis
\ Debug.InvertMouseY (true/false)
- Fixed smooth locomotion save-state causing faulty game load as of #65

See you soon with another update!

Hi all,


We've completely reworked the way tracks are generated and rendered. They are now generated in real-time, in-game.

This brings many improvements such as significantly smaller build size (60% reduction), much faster build-making process and notable optimizations with all railways further than 350m being drawn with a simpler model, as well as GPU instanced rendering.

In future this change will allow us to further improve performance, dynamically change tracks in real-time and eventually make world mod support, if we reach that goal.


We streamlined many job-related issues with a very simple improvement that involves how players take jobs - by adding Job Overviews.

When you go to a station office, on a desk you'll find Job Overviews. Rather than this paper being the job, it only serves as an overview. Insert it to a job validator to accept it and only then it will print out a full-detailed Job Booklet. You can then validate this booklet afterwards, to print out a Job Report, like before.

This change eliminates numerous sources of confusion among new players, such as not knowing how to take a job, whether Job Report is a main booklet to take, or being unaware of when job timer begins ticking (now it starts when you explicitly accept the job). Job Overview system also prevents cheating (placing cars where they should be before accepting job), and might fix stuttering when nearing stations, due to having less pages to render.


There are a few more notable changes:

• NonVR teleport console command
  
• Selecting Seated VR mode now automatically recenters play area
  
• Further improved WMR controls
  
• Saving locomotion type in VR (e.g. smooth)*

*Warning: VR users who play using smooth locomotion - note that due to a bug, loading the game with smooth locomotion setting saved will spawn you under the world in this build. You will need to respawn if this happens. Until we fix this in tomorrow's update, it's best if you don't leave the game with smoothing locomotion turned on, to avoid this problem.


We decided we'll be moving video updates to weekly instead of per build, so that we can be more agile with major updates. You can expect this week's updates to be covered next Saturday. This way weekly video updates will be able to include more stuff in the future, such as development shots, community highlights, etc. They will also provide update information to players who weren't able to follow updates during workdays.


Railway rework:

- Railway is now generated in real-time, as you move around the game world
- Greatly optimized railway meshes outside of 350m radius from the player
- Optimized generation & rendering (Unity Job System; GPU instancing)
- Reduced build size 60% (from 10.6GB to 4.25GB)
- Allows major future improvements (reduced stuttering, in-game changing, better world-editing)

Job system:

- Reworked job taking
\ Stations now spawn Job Overviews
\ Job Overview is a single-page item, describing job essentials
\ Insert Job Overview in Job Validator to accept job
\ Job Validator will then print out an actual Job Booklet
\ Last page/step of Job Booklet says to validate job to complete it
\ Possible stutter improvement when nearing stations, for some players

Controls:

- Locomotion type setting for VR users now gets saved
- Changing VR mode to Seated now automatically recenters play area
- WMR improvements:
\ Fixed the WMR controllers sometimes having unusual interactions with items
- Added pointer spheres to WMR controllers to always know where you are pointing
- Fixed occasional bug with controller being black and unresponsive

Item storage:

- Decreased range for item respawn to L&F shed to 200m

Misc:

- Added teleport console commands (nonVR ONLY):
\ Debug.TeleportToPoint; takes desired x and z world coords (0-16384)
\ Debug.TeleportToPointNormalized; takes normalized x and z world coords (0-1)
- Updated to Unity 2018.2.21f1

That's it for today, see you soon with another update!

Hi guys,

Today we're adding a major save-game improvement that all of you have been waiting for!

https://youtu.be/Fpmy2Ecs5o4

Ever wished you could quit the game while on a job and continue later? Now you can!

Derail Valley now continually autosaves player position, rolling stock and ongoing jobs. When you load the game it will no longer move you to the nearest station, but rather let you continue from where you left off. Note however that fuel and damage states are not being saved yet, which remains to be added in a future update.


- Added console command to reset player position, in case you fell under the terrain
- Various item storage fixes


Save-game:

- Saves player position
- Saves trains and their position
- Saves ongoing jobs and their progress
- Added console command “Debug.DeleteCarsAndJobsSaveData”
\ Flushes all current train and job save-game data in case of a bug

Item system:

- Fixed inventory order getting shuffled when reloading
- Fixed game starting without items for some players
- Fixed certain items sometimes missing for some players (may go to Lost & Found)
- Fixed duplicate wallet appearance (might need to find yours in Lost & Found shed)
- Fixed tutorial items able to render tutorial impossible to complete as of #62
- Fixed shop items not sharing the total available amount of each item
- Added colliders to Lost & Found shed, window tweak

Controls:

- Player position will be auto-fixed if falling under terrain, past the water level
\ Added console command “Player.MoveToLastGoodPosition” for manual recovery
- On Vive enabling option “touch-click” will now use click to turn pages too

Misc:

- Updated various 3rd party plugins (potential bug fixes and performance improvement)

As of the last build, some players experienced all their inventory items gone. With this fix, essential items should now be located at Lost & Found sheds.

Those of you affected - please let us know if it worked!


Item storage:

- For players missing essential items, they will now respawn at lost & found sheds
- Minor graphical tweaks to shed

Hi everyone,

You've all experienced your inventory becoming full but being unable to get rid of items. This is no longer a problem!

https://youtu.be/1Ve-WmBc-QY

Items you throw away will no longer come back to your inventory, but rather stay where you left them! If you go too far from items you own however, they'll become "lost". You are able to retrieve lost items at your own convenience in new "lost & found" sheds, found in every station.

If you leave items in a train cab, they'll stay there. If, however, you go too far from the locomotive and it despawns, your items will be transferred to a lost & found shed.

Apart from job booklets (support coming soon), all player-owned items are now saved at the locations you left them. Mind that this will be improved along with savegame improvements coming soon.


Our new community manager Ivan is doing a fantastic job creating new videos to accompany our updates! You'll be seeing those with every new update.


Item storage system:

- Added Lost & Found sheds
\ Located at every station
\ Lost player-owned items will respawn in these sheds
\ To be considered lost, item needs to be 600m+ away from the player
\ Items will no longer respawn in player inventory
- Rail vehicles are now storage locations too
\ Items left in locomotives and cars will remain there
\ If a locomotive/car is deleted, items will be moved to Lost & Found
- Player-owned items are now saved at their real location, if not lost or in inventory
- Job Booklets and Job Reports are not yet being saved (coming soon)

Jobs:

- Fixed occasional bug with missing jobs in empty stations
- Fixed Food Factory schematic map saying S04 instead of I04

Hey all,

It's only been about a week since we posted that we're expanding the team for three new positions. In the meantime the positions have been filled, with the members already in the team and working today!

Altfuture is now an 8-member team, with the addition of:

- Community manager
- Programmer
- Junior assistant

You might like to know that we've actually met the first two in our Discord community
- Ivan and Nohus! Welcome guys!

This expansion will help us develop the game notably faster and reach even more players. Thank you everyone for making this possible!

See you very soon with another update!


Community unlock points are growing at an insane rate! We've passed the Caboose goal today! Estimate of adding it to the game - early May. See community unlocks for more info.

Hey all,

Many of you experienced that when you come back to a long-paused game, it would smash the windows and cause maximum damage to your locomotive. That should now be fixed in this second attempt.

For those of you who have been experiencing crashes when quitting the game, or other kinds of crashes, this build might potentially fix those problems. We are not sure about it, so please let us know if you're still experiencing them (this doesn't count crashes caused by insufficient memory!).

If you're a Vive user, you no longer need to swipe to turn around. A new option in the Misc menu will allow you to click the touchpad to rotate or flip pages.


Build #61 - February 27, 2019:

Bug fixes:

- Fixed unpausing still shaking/damaging trains

Controls:

- Added option to click touchpad to turn, on Vive

Misc:

- Potentially fixed quit crash and some other crashes (updated burst compiler, untested)

Hi everyone!

It’s one month since Derail Valley was released. As such we felt the timing is right to have a quick recap of what was done on the game so far, and what our plans are for the future.

We’ve released 13 updates since launch, which is one update per 2.5 days! Here are the major improvements we’ve made so far:



Most of critical launch problems have been resolved by now, leaving a handful of urgent issues we’re working on right now, such as full savegame and item storage.

Over time we’ve been scouting all your bug reports and feedback. Each and every report gets added to our internal issue tracker, which is restructured daily in order to optimize the bug fixing process as much as possible. Current state:




Some of you know that we’ve been funded by Serbian Innovation Fund for the past year. The funding, which was a tremendous help to the project, ended in January and we are now solely dependent on the game’s revenue to continue.

That said, the sales have been going great so far, exceeding our launch expectations!

We've returned our investment, and gained solid development time ahead of us. Considering that we haven’t spent a dime on marketing to date (funding restrictions), this is a great result and we’d like to say massive thanks to all of you for continually helping us spread the word about Derail Valley!


The five of us are working as much as we can, and we obviously can't keep up with all that needs to be done. We decided to take things a step further and invest to grow Derail Valley faster and reach more people:

• Ivan, our long time closed beta tester will soon start coordinating community events and making video updates, briefly showcasing every new build.
  
• Starting today, we are on a lookout for an experienced game developer (programmer) to join our team, preferably in Belgrade, Serbia.
  
• We are also on a lookout for a junior assistant with exceptional communication skills and passion for games, in Belgrade.

First of all, make sure you are aware of our public roadmap. We’re updating it regularly!

Now, if you ever wondered what we’d like to do after that - we’ve heavily updated our community unlocks page to reflect our vision for the possible next couple of years.

Given the launch allowed us to expand the team, we’ve slightly adjusted the “economy” of community unlocks in your favor, reducing requirements for the diesel locomotive down to 25K. Already at 30k, we will start working on initial version of mod support for locomotives, that so many of you were asking for! Many more goals were added too, such as co-op multiplayer:

New Community Unlocks.



To make these goals possible in the future we would need to expand our team once again. In no way can we guarantee that we will ever reach these goals (hence they are community goals), but with your help we might as well give it a go. There’s still a LOT of people unaware of Derail Valley.

When we launched the community unlocks campaign, just two months ago, we were at 4.3k points. We are now at 16.3k, so let’s see where this will lead us! Since then three goals were passed and we are working on the rewards. We expect to have Hazmat Jobs and Shunter Remote ready in a few weeks (ETAs have been adjusted accordingly)!


It’s early to fully announce this, but we want to begin preparing all the potential buyers - as bugs get sorted out over time (i.e. once there are no more priority 1 issues), we will increase the price of Derail Valley. Of course, price increase will be announced in more detail when the time comes.

Thank you everyone and see you tomorrow with another game update!

Hey all,


Since launch bridges and tunnel walls could be passed through, which was especially inconvenient when it led to falling under the world. This is now fixed and bridge tops and tunnels are now solid objects.


There have been some bumpy tracks and tunnels, that have been adjusted. As part of this the infamous Steel Mill grade was somewhat nerfed. We've also further reduced amount of trees and rocks on tracks.


Ever since build #56 Derail Valley allowed default Oculus adaptive resolution to be set over 1.0. For players running Oculus SDK version, unaware of its original setting, this created an impression that performance of the game dropped, whereas it was in fact doing higher supersampling. The default value is now back to 1, and if you want to force a higher value you can do so using a console command Oculus.RenderScale.


We've slightly updated our roadmap, and are currently working on savegame, item storage, hazmat jobs and more bug fixes: http://www.derailvalley.com/roadmap/


World:

- Added bridge and tunnel colliders
- Fixed a faulty tunnel entrance on lake helix causing collision
- Fixed tunnel sticking out of terrain near Forest South, causing collision
- Further removed trees and rocks from track
- Somewhat reduced severity of grade south of Steel Mill
- Fixed lake helix track bumps
- Fixed Iron Ore Mine East track being named L05 instead of L08

Misc:

- Updated nonVR controls booklet page
- Added nonVR controls page to game files

Platform:

- Reverted max Oculus adaptive resolution default value from 2 to 1
\ Was causing performance drop to people unaware of its original setting (as of #56)
\ To force another value use console command Oculus.RenderScale