It's been a long journey.

I want to say thank you for supporting us over the years, to each and every one of you who have bought our games (especially those of you who did it multiple times)! You’ve done a wonderful thing, helping us push VR and the train simulator genre forward. There’s so much more we want to do, and this is only the beginning.



We faced countless challenges over the years, partly because we saw it necessary to remain truly independent. This allowed us, however, to make all decisions regarding design, business strategy and publishing ourselves, as developers who are in the trenches. We were able to innovate without friction, react quickly to feedback, adapt to new situations, communicate directly with our players, and lead Derail Valley in the best possible direction.

Overhauled, our recent major update, was the pinnacle of that effort. Released remotely from our homes in the midst of a worldwide lockdown, it ended up more successful than the game’s original launch! After years of struggle, we are finally where we always wanted to be: self-sufficient, tightly bonded with our players, able to grow, and still in full control over our games. This is not only a business milestone, but very much a personal one too.



We’re opening 4 new positions, to grow our team to 10 members (first time reaching the double digits!). We are looking for three highly experienced game developers / programmers, as well as an assisting developer, to join our team. Remote work is possible, depending on many factors. We’re looking for highly talented developers from Serbia primarily, but wherever you are, if you think you’d be a great fit, do get in touch — we will consider all applications. See the link above for details on the positions and how to apply.

Ever since we launched Derail Valley, we’ve kept its price low. The price was based on the rough shape the game was in at launch, to encourage early supporters. We've made massive improvements since, and as announced in the past, soon we will increase the price to represent the current quality and play-time it has to offer. The cost bump is still months away, as first we want to add a proper main menu with a save manager, a sandbox mode (ability to play without career) and many more smaller improvements. Stay tuned for a more detailed announcement about it as we get closer. The new price will only affect new buyers, of course.



Derail Valley will remain in Early Access after the price increase. There’s still so much more that we want (and need) to add! The Unlocks page is only a part of what’s planned, and we want to keep working on Derail Valley for years to come! We see this expansion of our team as essential in getting there timely. After the initial period of onboarding, I hope to see us churning out updates at a faster pace than ever, fortifying our goals of making Derail Valley the best train simulator in the world, as well as one of the best VR games.

Once again, all this wouldn’t be possible without your support, so in the name of the whole team — thank you! I hope this news makes you as excited for the future as we are! In the meantime, we’ve been cooking a new update slated to come out next week. Stay tuned!

-Slobodan

Today's build concludes our work on the terrain revamp. Parts 1 and 2 improved stability and performance, and part 3 is here to introduce the all new terrain graphics. Your scenic screenshots will no longer be ruined by a blurry background, as you can see yourself in the video and screenshots below!



As always the update also introduces a lot more improvements, such as:

• Better lighting
  
• Simplified fee payment process
  
• Official support for HTC Vive Cosmos
  
• World & track updates
  
• Many more small fixes

We recommend opening the images above in a new tab for full resolution.


For the full list of changes in the update, as always we've prepared the full changelog below:


Graphics:

- Revamped graphics rendering of terrains
-- Greatly improved rendering quality of distant terrain textures
-- Remade some terrain textures
- Improved overall lighting
- Improved post processing
-- No longer increases overall game brightness
-- Creates a better looking HDR effect
-- Better illuminates dark spaces
- Fixed tileable asphalt texture appearing blurry

VR:

- Added support for HTC Vive Cosmos headsets and controllers
- Fixed a bug where grab key would move to trigger when operating brake hoses
- Fixed falling off a locomotive when leaning out the window in VR
- Fixed inventory tooltip text jittering when on a moving train

Career & Jobs:

- Revamped the fee tracking system
-- Paying fees for jobs no longer requires discarding or completing them
-- Reaching copay now always clears all the fees
-- Having fees under $5k will no longer prevent the player from taking new jobs
-- The player can’t take new jobs if having 8+ fees (or if hoarding money as before)
-- Updated fee booklet design (simplified texts, layout)
- Increased job deletion distance in all stations (can go further without jobs being reset)
- Added a Career Manager machine to Military Base
- Fixed a rare bug that could result in jobs requiring more space than there is
- Fixed a bug where cargo damage in a shunting job could display a faulty, negative value
- Fixed an ultra rare edge case where fee payment could be higher than copay

Trains:

- Temporarily fixed DE6 often derailing the first car behind
- Forced a DE6 to always spawn at HB roundhouse
- Forced a SH282 to always spawn at IMW turntable

World & Tracks:

- Added green crops
- Straightened many tight turns and sections
- Moved depot in CSW to loosen track curve on approach
- Fixed track kinks at IMW and IME
- Fixed the tight turn between B and C yards in SW
- Improved the tight turn in CM loading track, less jerky
- Fixed residential buildings having no smoothness texture (reflectivity)
- Fixed beige cars in stations being invisible
- Potentially fixed passenger platform being too close to tracks in HB
- Potentially fixed trains clipping depot doorway in OWN
- Potentially fixed GF and CSW storage tracks not being used due to lower clearance tolerance
- Removed some trees from the tracks in stations (HB, MF, CSW…)
- Updated TC2 so that quarry paints rock texture
- Fixed CSW crane being messed up

Misc:

- Fixed aiming at junction signs being imprecise
- Removed loading alerts (can be enabled via debug.LoadingAlertsToggle console command)
- In nonVR tutorial a prompt will teach player how to sit (X key)
- If player leaves the tutorial area with brakes on, a popup will warn them
- Added continual checking of free system memory in the background
-- When amount of free memory is under 1.5 GB and dropping:
-- Writes to log and pops up a “low memory!” alert on screen
- Made locomotive map blips yellow
- Made a few minor schematic map tweaks
- Moved SM service station closer to depot entrance

That's all for this week! See you soon with another update.

-DV Team

Hi everyone!

We’re pleased to announce the winning entries of the Steam Locomotive Skinning contest! The community voting ended yesterday, with the following results:










Due to the rule of a contestant being able to win with only one entry, we didn’t have a third-place winner in the meme category. That said, there are more great entries that deserve to be seen. Here are some honorable mentions of the entries that didn’t win:



At the end, we at Altfuture have also chosen our favorite. The winner of the Best Overall category, even though they didn't win any of the community vote rewards, has clearly put a lot of creativity, effort, skill and detail into their entry, as well as its presentation. It is our favorite:




This skin will be used as inspiration for the new steamer skin that we'll officially create for the game in the future. This will likely come in the Steam Locomotive Improvements update, and will, of course, include creative modifications.

You can download these amazing skins, and many more, thanks to the modders who have generously made them available: https://www.nexusmods.com/derailvalley/mods/

Finally, we'd like to say big thanks to all the participants! You guys made this contest fun and so diverse! The winners will be handed their prizes shortly. We'd also like to invite everyone to join our Discord and congratulate the winners directly, in the #contest-discussion channel! There were even more entries submitted than shown here, so be sure to check them out!

That's all for today. See you soon with more news!

-DV Team

The long-awaited performance improvement is here! As previously announced, build #83 fixes stuttering as well as freezes during gameplay, usually associated with the "loading area" and "spawning trains" onscreen messages.

The stutters should now be completely eliminated or drastically reduced (100 times?), depending on your hardware. This is true even when approaching the Harbor! This improvement involved a big rework of how cars are loaded to the game, as well as a total overhaul of how terrains are loaded and displayed.



The massive terrain revamp has been an ongoing process for several weeks, aimed to solve several critical issues in one go. In the previous build it allowed us to drastically reduce RAM usage, today it fixes the stuttering and in the next build it will help us vastly improve visual quality of distant landscapes. Stay tuned for some pretty sights!

As always, this update brings you many more smaller improvements and bug fixes, all detailed in the changelog below:


Stability:

- Further terrain rework (WIP)
-- Eliminates stuttering when “loading area”
-- Increases terrain texture resolution in distant terrains
-- Fixes end of the world being visible (terrain prolongs outside of the world borders)
-- Reduces system complexity, allows easy world terrain updating
- Reworked car loading
-- Fixes stuttering caused by trains spawning when approaching stations
- Potentially fixed the ignition switches not starting the train for some players
- Fixed fast-travel with handcar crashing the game

VR:

- Fixed a bug sometimes making it impossible to teleport while moving
- Fixed a bug with Comms Radio getting dropped when used since build #82
- Potentially fixed a bug where grip binding could move to trigger after a while
- Fixed a bug causing Vive wands sticky item holding to behave like continuous
- Fixed inventory tooltip jittering if on a moving train

Career:

- Fixed a bug with jobs not spawning properly after fast-travel
- Prevented manual service tip screen from showing on fees smaller than $1k
- Inverted sorting order of fees so the smallest ones show first
- Fixed fast-travel with handcar charging extra for loco transport
- Reworded a few Career Manager lines

Trains:

- Fixed loaded trains having faulty mass in Freight Haul and Unloading jobs
-- They were almost twice lighter than they should be
- Reworked hopper car UV map and texture to be modder friendly
- Made locomotive windows harder to break
- Loosened the ignition rotary switches on DE2 and DE6 locomotives
- Fixed unused locos being able to despawn if part of an active train

Misc:

- Increased sunlight intensity
-- It was accidentally lower than normal since the Overhauled release
- Fixed Hazmat spills/fire being temporarily disabled since #82
- Fixed tank car leak orientations being wrong and their cracks invisible
- Fixed a bug in NonVR where tab+esc would make the handheld item flimsy


That's all for today's update! See you soon with another!

-DV Team

We're doing our first contest - the skinning of the SH282 steam locomotive! The contest will take part in 4 categories (art, idea, meme and overall) and it will include prizes!



Later on we will create an official steam locomotive skin as part of the game, inspired by the winning entry of the Overall category! The winner's name will be listed in a hidden in-game hall of fame list.

The contest starts NOW and will end on Sunday, July 19th, 23:59 UTC. You'll find exact rules and information on how to take part in our Discord community news post:


We're excited to see the skin mods that comes out of this! Good luck to all the contestants!

When we released Overhauled a month ago, we soon identified stability and performance issues as needing our top attention. It took some time to crack them, and now we're starting to see the results.

In today's build we've fixed the abnormal RAM usage. As a result, Derail Valley should no longer suffer from certain crashes, and should require no more than 12 GB of RAM to play. The change is yet to be tested properly, so please let us know how build #82 works for you! The game previously used up to 20 GB of memory, requiring use of virtual memory to fit it all, but with this update that was reduced to the sane ~6 GB.



Apart from stability fixes, the update brings many small improvements too, as you can see in the video and the changelog below. Highlights:

• Fixed abnormal RAM usage (now 12 GB or less required <- yet to confirm)
  
• Fixed (all?) crashes
  
• Interactive shunter doors
  
• Option to use trigger for all train interactions in VR
  
• Many newbie-friendly text/booklet updates

If you experience any new issues with this update, please let us know. Even if we can't always respond, we read all feedback. It helps us a ton to identify and prioritize issues. Thank you!

Next in line will be the performance fixes for the "loading area" and "spawning trains" stuttering. The solutions for both are almost done (massive reworks), and may come already next week!




- Reworked terrain loading
-- Fixes abnormal RAM usage
-- Should no longer cause crashes on PCs with 12 GB of RAM or more
-- Somewhat reduces stuttering when loading new areas (WIP)
-- Can cause vegetation NRE if player goes out of world bounds (WIP)


- Added option that Trigger operates all train controls
-- If enabled then Grip only interacts with items
-- On by default for Index users (based on feedback)
-- Applies to all controllers except Vive wands
- Fixed left-hand item scrolling moving the player (e.g when page flipping)
- Fixed a bug where opening menu while hovering over a wrist orb could break the game
- Fixed a case where Comms Radio won’t work when taken out of the belt
- Fixed a bug where pageflipping could get stuck when not looked at, in VR
- Improved grab precision of Index controller (volume was too big)


- Fixed item view mode (Alt) getting bugged when alt-tabbing
- Fixed some bugs with nonVR inventory when adding items to the last slot


- Reworked shunter to have interactive doors
-- Maintains the same UV layout so the existing skin mods still work
- Minor optimization to diesel locomotive rendering


- Costs from manual servicing now add up to copay too
- Added Stats screen to Career Manager
-- Shows player stats including total copay and time bonus deadline effect
- Removed "manual servicing" hint screen if the fee is bigger than remaining copay
- Reworded “you only need to pay” when having a smaller fee than copay
- Tweaked wording on “job denied” printout
-- Explains that you only need to pay the fees you can afford, not all
- Fixed steam locomotive fee payment not putting out fire (causing ongoing env. fees)
- Fixed a rare case where a locomotive despawning during fee paying could break the game
- Updated DE6 license text to say it’s capable of loads up to 1400t


- Fixed Shop Item Scanner sometimes not spawning where it should
- Fixed loco remote not charging through DE6’s windows
- Updated inventory item representations of most booklets, to make them language-independent


- Added key page to Schematic Map
- Tweaks to Schematic Map (missing switches, etc.)
- Fixed being able to fast travel to a locomotive you don't have a license for


- Remodelled Iron Ore Mine chute area to be wider (prevents DE6 from clipping it in a corner)
-- Reworked tracks around it to fit
- Made IME service station tender-accessible when reached head first
- Replaced an empty/unused shop building with an unenterable scenery shop model
- Moved HB D yard slightly so both a shunter and a flatcar can fit into the merge track
- Fixed oil silos floating
- Fixed terrain going over tracks at a wye west of Harbor


- Fixed user settings not getting saved until the player reopens the menu
- Fixed being able to fast-travel twice before the first one initiates, breaking the game
- NonVR Controls booklet now has a specific icon in inventory


- Changed the "Save and Exit" button text to not say that during the tutorial
- Fixed UI option not updating when choosing some options in tutorial
- Updated DV Guide texts to better explain some things
- Tweaked nonVR “pick up the Comms Radio” prompt wording
- Tweaked steam locomotive manual (+ added “prerequisites” page)


That's all for today's update. We should have more performance improvements already next week. Stay tuned!

-DV Team

It's been two very busy weeks here at Altfuture, since the launch of Overhauled. After the release (which went really well - thank you all!), we've gone back to improving the game in short, regular, small updates.

Except, we forgot what a small update means. In Build #81, you'll see massive changes, all based on the feedback you've all provided. Thank you so much. Along with this post, we've quickly put together a video too, to cover the many changes in the update:




As always, we strongly recommend you to go through the changelog to see what's new, as there are many small improvements that can't be shown in a video. Highlights:

• Fixed numerous VR issues
  
• Lowered the learning curve
  
• Better clarified job information
  
• Many more bug fixes and balancing (see changelog)

In regards to the learning curve changes, the focus was on better introducing the core game mechanics, and one step at a time. Please note that the changes are likely to make more sense to new players than those of you who already learned how to game's mechanics work.




- Fixed “white terrains” bug
-- Potentially fixes some types of crashes on old GPUs
- Fixed NRE in tutorial (VR) if no controllers were turned on
- Fixed a rare OverflowException error
- Potentially fixed cars rarely spawning over existing cars
-- Should also fix the case of cars spawning damaged
- Fixed a case in which a car could get undespawnable along with items inside, until restart


- Fixed bad item orientation/position for WMR, Index, Quest and Oculus SDK users
- Fixed issues with Vive wand controllers
- Fixed VR joystick drift issue
- Fixed it being difficult to teleport between cars in Teleport locomotion
- Fixed page flipping/player rotation not working on the right controller in some cases
- Potentially fixed problems with starting with only the left Index controller on
- Fixed undefined controller types being able to break the game
- Fixed teleporting getting disabled if having an undefined controller
- Potentially fixed NOLO controllers not working
- Made it possible to dial pocket watch with the holding hand in VR


- Redesigned Career Manager dialog texts
-- Puts more focus on what you need to pay to clear all fees
- Reduced starting copay from $5k to $100.
- Added Shunting license
-- Costs $1k, serves to introduce player to the concept of working with occupied tracks
- Added Logistical Haul license
-- Costs $20k, serves to prevent beginners from taking logi jobs in early game
-- Requires having a CCUR1 license, as these shouldn’t be hauled alone
-- Increases time bonus deadline by 5%
- Added Manual Servicing license
-- Costs $20k, serves to prevent beginners from servicing manually while having low copay
-- This prevents players from wasting money on servicing in early game
- Buying licenses DE6 and SH282 now requires having a CCUR2 license
- Trying to buy a dependent license will now write the exact needed license at Career Manager
- Added Freight Haul license, auto-acquired on game start
- Greatly reduced cost of Military 2 license
- Rebalanced copay/time effects and prices of some licenses
- Made “print info” button green, on Career Manager


- Added warning messages to job reports explaining why the task isn’t complete
- Shunting job booklet now specifies how many pick-ups/drop-offs it involves
- Updated job payment calculation
-- Somewhat increased shunting job payment
-- Increased payments involving empty containers
-- Slightly decreased payments involving tank cars
- Increased track clearance so that trains look more like they’ll fit the tracks
-- Should prevent people from thinking there’s no space to fit their train, although there was
-- As a consequence, some trains will be shorter than they used to
- Added a button to Job Validator to respawn all existing job booklets
- Added 1 min tolerance to meeting the bonus time
- Fixed a minor bug that could prevent some jobs from getting generated


- Added service station range platforms
- Added service station train detector
-- Indicates with lights and sound whether a train is in range for servicing
-- Informs player if they need a license
- Moved City SW service station closer to exit, so it’s not blocked by a spawned loco
- Added diesel/oil/sand station at Food Factory


- Fixed coupler chain hook drifting over time sometimes
- Teleporting to the steamer and shunter now puts you straight to the driver position
- Fixed steamer cab teleport gizmo showing up when leaning against the tender
- Made tender invulnerable until excessive damaging is fixed
- Updated steamer UV layout to make skin modding easier
-- Will break existing steamer skin mods
- Fixed being able to teleport onto invisible colliders on the sides of locomotives
- Fixed loco spawner requiring unnecessary 1.5m of clearance
-- Fixes steamer not spawning at IMW
- Made at least one shunter always spawn at the Harbor


- Halved cost of fast travelling without the locomotive
- Removed minimum distance requirement to fast travel (was 200m)
- Added repair station blips to world map
- Added FF diesel station to world map
- Increased size of player home blip on world map
- Removed (obsolete) blips from office world maps
- Updated schematic maps
-- Added shop icon to overviews
-- Added missing service stations to overviews
-- Fixed wrong bearings in City SW
-- Fixed wrong track name in schematic map (HB-G O3 -> 3O)
- Prevented fast-travel with loco when derailed (was causing bugs)
- Fixed a rare fast-travel with loco edge case that could lead to breaking the game
- Fixed IMW office map “you are here” flag pointing at MF


- Beware: Junction save states will reset in this update
- Fixed wrong track names at IMW and CM
- Added a separate parking track at IME, freed the previously blocked service station
- Loosened the bypass turn at City SW
- Loosened the turn at Food Factory north exit
- Loosened turns on the route north of Sawmill


- When the player derails or crashes for the first time, a “what now” message will pop up
- Fixed being able to do actual damage to the locomotive before leaving the tutorial area
- Player is now told to kill throttle when leaving the tutorial area, learning fuel conservation
- Added Train Basics pages about Fuel Conservation and Track Designations
- Improved tutorial loco blocker letting the player into the loco prematurely
- Fixed missing pointer in the “switch change” tutorial step
- Player is reminded to read Train Basics and DV Guide at the end of tutorial
- Reworded “Push” to “Hold” for certain VR joystick tutorial messages
- Added note on how to turn pages to the Controls booklet front cover
- Fixed Train Basics booklet having wrong page numbering


- Fixed held items growing over time, sometimes (RIP shevel)
- Fixed getting stuck in loading screen when save file is corrupt
- Fixed UI text bugs on computers with non-English regional settings
- Fixed inverted collider warning log/console spam during game load
- Updated Unity Burst Compiler to 1.3.0
-- Could fix other potential errors/crashes

That's all for today's update. While #81 covers the bigger part of the issues you all reported so far with the previous build, there's lots more to come! Stay tuned!

-DV Team

We made this post in order to inform you of what we know about the most pressing issues currently with Overhauled. Please let us know in the comments if it helped!


All crashes happen due to a single cause - lack of memory. Please ensure you have at least 16 GB of RAM, the minimum requirement. In either scenario, follow this guide, in this order of priority, to mitigate crashes:

1. Increase virtual memory (our guide: https://imgur.com/a/eOwZRM8)
   
2. Have enough free space where your pagefile is (e.g. C:\ drive)
   
3. Close all unnecessary software (browser, other applications, etc.)
   
4. Reduce shadows distance/quality (400/high at max should suffice)

We will of course look more into how this can be further resolved. Please do let us know if these tips helped.


We are working on this right now with the highest priority. Restarting the game fixes it temporarily.


Probably. See our Community Unlock goals here for more information on our plans/wishes: http://www.derailvalley.com/unlocks/



This is a bug that affects certain controller types. We're on it.


They probably initialized in the wrong orientation (left/right). This is a rare currently unresolved issue where they get swapped by the game's input system. Temporary solution (try a few times if needed:

1. Place what should be the right controller on the right side and left on the left side
   
2. If you turned them off, turn on the right one first, then the left
   
3. Restart the game

This affects only some users. If this is a frequent issue, you can adjust the joystick deadzone:
How to - for SteamVR players - https://imgur.com/a/DbsW88v
How to - for Oculus SDK players - https://imgur.com/a/SG6x0ua

1. Set Render Path to Forward
   
2. Set Antialiasing to 8x
   
3. Disable Post Processing
   
4. In SteamVR increase resolution to over 100% (e.g. 200% if your HW can take it)

How to stop console error spam on Oculus Quest via Link from Oculus Store:

Change Oculus desktop app into beta mode (Settings > Beta > enable Public Test Channel).

Insurance mechanic details:

You are automatically subscribed to insurance in the game. It doesn’t need to be bought or activated. What it does is, it frees you of the responsibility to pay the total sum of your fees, and instead only pay the "copay" amount that is usually significantly smaller. When you pay any fee, the copay bar gets filled. Once full, it will activate the insurance and it will pay for all the rest of your fees.

Let's say you have a fee of $50k, but your copay is $5k. You only need to pay the $5k and then the insurance will activate and clear the rest. With every license you buy the copay grows bigger. Initially it's $5k, but at late game it can grow even to 7-digit figures.

Thanks for all your feedback! See you soon with another update.

-DV Team

We just patched an issue where if you used continuous movement in VR and exited the game while on a train, the game wouldn't load correctly and would seem stuck at 86% loading.

The biggest project we've ever done at Altfuture, the major update for Derail Valley, is here! Your game should automatically update.

If you previously used any mods, do a clean reinstall - uninstall, delete any remaining content in the game's folder and install the game again.



If you're wondering what's new in Overhauled, take a look at our In-Depth video series, diving into the ins and outs of the update. Alternatively you can see the full changelog here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUW4fWUM40o
This update is, of course, free. If you'd like to additionally support our work, please consider purchasing our all new soundtrack! All the revenue from it will go back to Derail Valley development.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1308910/Derail_Valley_Dev_Support_OST/
We also have the new Altfuture Bundle available at a -25% discount - check it out!

Note that Derail Valley is still in Early Access, and things aren't perfect just yet. We're looking forward to your feedback. If any issues arise, we're on it. Please report them to us via Discord, Steam forums or email ( contact@derailvalley.com ).

We'd like to say a - massive thank you! - to our beta testers who've been breaking the game apart since early March. Without you it would've been very difficult to catch all bugs we've fixed in the meantime.

Final reminder - we've said it before, but to restate:
Previous saves will no longer work in Overhauled. All players start clean slate.

That's it for this update! Have fun!

-Altfuture