April Update
Hello all! Tristan here - the team has been working diligently on our next Mainline Dev Vlog and we have a Flag Stop nearly done which we'll be sharing with y'all soon. I wanted to let you all know that we're slightly behind schedule due to a couple team member outages for medical reasons earlier this month and continuing through next week. Mark has also embarked on a much deserved [non-train] vacation and he will be gone for the next few weeks. All in all we're down in manpower for April but the rest of the team is using this time to shore up our back end and plan out some highly anticipated features we'll get to start sharing with you all this summer. I'll try and monitor this post and respond to any questions you all have, thank you again for your continued support and we'll be sharing more soon!
-- Studio 346
Comments (49)
So when will the game be out for download soon or a year from now ?
When it's done lol
Question that may/may not be answered by the Devs: Although this is unlikely to happen, but I was wondering if we might get a RIP Building for our in-game Narrow Guage Railroads (RIP not referring to "Rest in Peace," but, instead, "Restoration in Place/Progress."), similar to that in Ely, Nevada, that the Nevada Northern has on its' grounds? Probably not common on Narrow Gauge Railroads I imagine, but it would be interesting to have RIP Buildings for our Railroads in-game.
If i were to learn blender better to make a model or two, is there somewhere i can send it to get reviewed? I do understand that this game takes only the best of the best models though, and it seems to be paying off well.
are you guys ever going to show off track placing?
They will when it's ready. But they have said it's among probably the very last things that they will show so we are awhile away from seeing any of it.
A non-train vacation??? I didn’t know that such a thing was possible! Get some rest and enjoy your vacay. ❤️
It’s nice to see industries shaping up, but hopefully we can see some track laying and multiplayer (with track laying). Thanks for the latest updates and I do hope that we can see some track laying progress soon, and hopefully a multiplayer update soon showing off track laying progress and multiplayer gameplay / progress.
Those are both confirmed to be among the very last things to be shown off before they launch the game. As such, we likely won't see those until at least next year sadly.
Will Locomotives like Mallets, Galloping Geese and porters be featured? Also is DLC Planned for the game after release? Also will cacti be in game?
Articulateds in general have been pseudo-confirmed, Geese and Porters are likely but not guaranteed, especially for being present on-release and Cacti have been shown on the Inyo map. :)
The sun was in my eyes! I can't believe I didn't notice the big skeletons earlier. The Russel car you previously showed off is neat, but these look great with the shay, very West Side, very cool.
Nice. Can we expect a playable demo as part of the June 2026 Steam NextFest? It would be awesome if we could. Cheers
From what the team have said I think I can confidently predict there will be no public demo in 2026, I'd also guess that there will possibly be no demo at all. From what they've said, they'll release when the game is largely feature complete. Developing a demo branch would take effort away from developing the main game. Although the devlogs show what appears to be a largely complete experience, there's many features and systems that I get the impression the devs still feel need to be implemented, refined, reimplemented, etc. before either the game or a demo would present the kind of experience they are aiming to release, rather than a tech demo where things might change before release. Additionally it might be the right commercial decision for Studio 346 not to distribute a demo, at least not until the game has been out for a while. CoS will still be a kind of specialised game, I'd expect almost all the Patreon members to buy the full release anyway, however, if they release a demo to players who prefer the Train Sim World type games (i.e. drive a train from A to B, select another train, route, etc.) might play the demo for several hours and in the end not buy the full game. Whereas if they buy the full game as it's the next new thing, play for a several hours before deciding it's not their preferred type of game, the devs will still benefit from developing the game they have played and experienced the content. The commercial benefit of a demo might be to release one a year or so after the main game for those who where undecided about buying the game to try, and see if they turn into customers.
Good work on the implementation of the industry systems. A question on industry UI. In the Industries Part 2 devlog, when unloading the logs at the end, the order of the cars listed on the industry UI did not match the order of the cars in the consist (it appeared to be 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 1st). I'm guessing that the cars were listed in the order they were detected as being in the unloading zone, but because Mark overshot the loading zone the first car left the zone so was removed from the list, and then was the last car detected entering the zone when the whole train was finally spotted in the zone. All fine and logical and perfectly acceptable. However, as a quality of life feature/refinement, might you consider having the cars listed on the UI in the same order of they appear on the track (which would usually be the same as the order they arrive on the track, but not in this and other edge cases)? Perhaps the UI and the "Alt" view could have the ends of the track/zone marked "N, S, E, or W" (whichever direction they are closest to), or red or blue, A or B etc., so the player can visualise where each car is on the track. This might help in situations (including but not limited to) where there is only enough output to fill some of the cars, or enough space in the industry to unload some of the cars. That way the player can load or unload the cars nearest the end the track is accessed from first, so those cars become available first without having to move other cars out of the way and back to the zone to access the required cars. Of course the player can already do this with the system shown, but it might be easier for the player to relate the cars on the UI to the cars on the track, and tell which ones they want to select without having to check back and forth, if the order of the cars on the UI is consistent with, and relatable to, the order and location on the track. Hopefully adding a check for the distance from the end of the zone to the detection of cars in the zone, and listing them in that order, wouldn't be too difficult or require too much computing resources to monitor, especially if the calculations are only done on the local computer when the player switches to the loading or unloading tab on the UI. As said implementation shown is fine as is and a player could work with it, it just might appear more polished if the order followed a more intuitively useful pattern, and was more relatable.
I guess my question is how has multiplayer been shaping up? Has development of other things such as industries / track laying / the trains themselves and the overall sim side been taking up more priority than multiplayer? I can absolutely understand if that's been back-burner'd and simmering quietly while other aspects are polished since the moment a game has network functionality, the difficulty can go straight through the roof. Also I'm looking forward to seeing more locomotives, hoping to see small itty bitty 0-4-0 steam switchers and maybe that mysterious mallet that got hinted at in the Mason Bogie video.
If you didn’t see it, they answered your question a few threads down. Multiplayer indeed has been on back burner, but they also said they have done some limited in-house testing riding around on flatcars and stuff, so it’s good to know there has at least been a proof of concept for multiplayer.
i know its a stupid question but when is it coming out to be playtested
When it's done. As far as I'm aware, they don't want to do playtests and early access to avoid issues that other games have faced. As an analogy I'll ask you, would you be happy being served undercooked food at a restaurant?
Will reading 2102 6 chime be in the game it is my favorite whistle
They announced this game at a point of a tech demo / early alpha state. There wasn't much in it. A few people developing a big project in there spare time. I think mid 2027 we get more details about the release. Or if all features are more or less in place. Two big features we know isn't shown yet and I don't know what big features they have more in mind
What is the current speed record? Or more accurately what is the highest speed that the current physics engine can handle? I’m curious if we will be able to push something to 45mph maybe even 60?
The K-28’s had records of them going upwards of 50 on passenger runs in the late steam era. So I’d imagine the fastest you’re going to get anything steam to go in this game is around 50mph. That being said they have had tests you can see in the February 2025 dev-vlog where equipment went up to 90mph as they were testing stuff in that video.
A non train vacation??? I didn’t know that such a thing was possible!
First of all, health first. Hope everyone is doing well so far and recovering well. What I would be interested in besides multiplayer or track laying... What options do we have in terms of signs and markings along the route? How far are they customizable? How can we measure the distances, for example mile posts? How can we measure and mark speed limit? Trial and error? These are all small things off the track, but they are important. I've been asking myself that all the time and I haven't seen it in a vlog or flag stop except block signals.
One feature I’m really excited about is the wood firing mechanism. Is the tech for that built off of the coal firing UI?
I guess it will be the exact same, but you will put more in and have a different texture.
The shay returns! Yah baby! My heart goes out to the team members going through a rough time with their health. Don't worry about us having the game and focus on getting better. We're all behind you 😄🙂🚂
Not all curves are created equal. Equally, not all engines are created equal in dealing with tighter ones. Will there be an in-game method of communicating to the player the tightest curve a piece of rolling stock can navigate before derailing?
That's definitely something we're going to have to deal with one way or the other. Our philosophy for things where we can share more info with the player is to share as much as we can. I imagine we'll see indications in the locomotive statistics about it's minimum allowed curve and then in the track surveying mode you'd also get that same information.
Something I'm interested to know is any updates on things like multiplayer. I do not expect any details, just wondering if it's going well or any challenges you've been facing with backend stuff.
We've done some in house MP tests riding around on flatcars and the like, but nothing substantial as the core technical talent right now is focused on designing our gameplay systems. One large technical hurdle is having manageable amounts of data sent across the wire, so we're always trying to optimize for that even though MP isn't part of our current daily testing.
Breaks are a necessary part of working on long term projects and I am happy that yall are taking a break. I also love that the update was sent out saying you guys were on break so we know to not be on the edge of our seats for anything new. We will always be here to support.
Yes, seconding this!
Always excited for the next update. Hope all is well. Y'all are awesome.
We will be here supporting the team until the release of the game. Until then, take as much time as you need, don't rush anything, and nerd out to the max! We're all looking forward to what the team has been cooking, a few more weeks of waiting won't discourage us!
breaks are good take them when needed
Appreciate keeping us in the loop Tristan. I hope Hy- I mean Mark enjoys his time off. As far as questions, will the UI show what buttons to push for things like W/A for the throttle and A/D for the Johnson? I’m very forgetful when it comes to using keys for certain stuff in games.
You and me both! It's something that needs to be created and added as much for us internally as you all eventually haha. Much more UI work to be done as we continue to refine our flavor of user interface. But I'm confident that the final iteration will include some helpful hints for things like this.
For those who are having medical issues. Are hearts in best wishes are with you get better soon. And thank you so much for the update.
Keep up the good work guys. Take care of yourselves and work at a sustainable pace.
Wishing all the team members a good recovery, Mark a nice [non-train] vacation and the rest of the team some fun sessions coming up with plans for new features
I may, or may have not fed 41 a taco 😶🌫️
Thanks for the update! I appreciate that you guys are taking care of yourselves as much as (if not hopefully more than) the work. Stay happy and healthy!
I wonder what the "highly anticipated" features are. Since we got a look at industries maybe passenger traffic is up next? Whatever it is I'm sure it'll be good!
More Shaynanigans? 🍋🟩🍋🟩🍋🟩
no question here. keep up the great work guys
Sounds good! Thanks for the update!
Heck yeah you guys are awesome keep up the good work and we are all waiting for pre orders