CoS December Devlog - Customization Pt. 2
Hello Patrons! This month we're showing off a seriously exciting bit of kit - and that is our new menu setup and customizations for all rollingstock. It gets pretty involved, and you'll really be able to personalize your railroad the way you want to... we hope you all enjoy!
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k47
Question for Q&A: How large is the Ponderosa Map? 4km x 4km? 8km x 8km? 16km x 16km? 32km x 32km? 64km x 64km?
Shout out to Wings & Strings, he makes incredible designs!
Question: will we be able to mount air horns to engines? I know it may sound silly. But, when railroads would modernize in the transition era, some steam locos got 'em. Probably never happened on the narrow gauge, but it would be a fun little feature!
Months feel like years waiting for these videos
Very true! ❤️❤️❤️
Questions: What file types are supported for the decals and can you use a gif or some other animated image as a decal?
Will it be possible to add our own custom decals upon release
For the first few seconds, I forgot I was watching computer game footage. Kudos! Well done
In regards to locomotives and equipment, I know there's not going to be a tech tree but will we have a comprehensive list of equipment that will be available in game?
When the game releases, will you be able to walk around in the cab like derail valley? Also, will VR support exist?
Idea: make a florrence and cripple creek boxcar rarely spawn on prespawned train consists
i know you said we could have ai fireman but can we have ai drivers to run routes while we build track?
Question for Q&A I'm personally on PC but do you think you guys will release the game on consoles like the Xbox SX or PS5? Later down the line
For all those options: having the ability to filter the whole set of choices by decade (or similar) would really help in picking a company theme, and maybe evolving it over time.
I’m wondering, with plowing snow and just snow fall in general will it add little patches of snow on the locomotives? Or will they stay their normally livery?
I'd love to see the snow get moved from the track, and moved to somewhere else. Whether it's on top of the locomotive, or just pushed into banks on the sides of the tracks, or onto station platforms, etc.... Pretty amazing first step of seeing the ROW covered in snow, and then plowed off of it. And I'm quite sure that volumetric snow management is WAY far down the list of priorities. Although that would also point to volumetric earth movement, which could allow for landslides and avalanches and all sorts of things to consider when laying out a route!
Q&A question: Will customizations of any kind physical or not, cost you?
This whole video is amazing and demonstrates some insane talent, but question, at the end where Mark went to put the plow back on, it wouldn't because of the headlight. For some these conflicts may not be obvious, will there be a error note somewhere on the UI to tell us what the conflict would be?
We'll be working on that. :)
- The "data" part of the livery, i.e. capacity and such, is staying white no matter the text settings; presumably it's just baked into the texture. Would it maybe make sense to have it adapt to the text settings? Or is this regulated to always be white anyways? - With all the other non authentic QOL options like optional firing, optional wear&tear and so on; could you please also consider having an option to have weights, capacities, speeds etc. in SI/metric units for us non-US users? It's just way more intuitive for us not used to your unit system. Not authentic, yes, but real QOL. - The custom decals sound good, I hope this also encompasses completely custom textures/liveries? Does sound like that later on in the video, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm not readint too much into it. - Did you consider having the multiplayer protocol automatically transfer the custom decals etc.? I'm aware this would necessitate a bit more IT security to prevent transfer of malicious code, but I'll assume you have to address that anyways the moment you connect users directly with each other. It would make it really comfortable! Though it should be optional on two levels; "transfer my decals in use to other session members" and "receive custom decals from other session members". The first one because some might not want to share (e.g. WIP, license/rights issue or simply not wanting), the latter one for bandwith reasons. - I really love Wings'n'Strings' art nouveau work on the last car. Beautiful!
Hello my friend! The "Data" bits of the liveries were set per car beforehand, and are set up in other materials... we're going to look into it. Custom Textures/Liveries - we're discussing this. We obviously come from a desire for history, but sometimes the unusual, uncommon, or absurd can just be fun - I'm hoping we get there. Time will tell, more discussions to be had on that front. :) SI units - *Absolutely*. Jake, a fellow dev and myself have argued... over and over, about units. I programmed the steam chest sim in PSI because... that's what made easy, straight ahead sense to me. We want the game to be accessible, and at the end of the day, almost all of the backend is SI anyways... We've got you. :) Auto transfers - That's probably beyond our scope, unfortunately. We'll see though. Prost! Mark/Hyce
I grew up traveling to lake Tahoe and I would always dream there would be a game that would let me build my railroad through that area. I am so excited for this game, keep up the good work guys!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which you have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of Railroad loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Engineers and brothers on other Tracks, you will bring about the destruction of the Gaming Standards for Computer machines, the elimination of standard game quality over the oppressed peoples of Computer Railroad Simulations. You will set a Bar So High No Other will endeavor to match and the World will Forever Remember You. DishDoggie Gaming
You have my sword!
Looking amazing guys. I'm already laying plans to use the G&D Diamond logo from the Gorre & Daphetid railroad that has inspired and driven my love of all things train for many a year. Excitedly waiting.
Ponderosas, eh? You mean like the pondos found nearly everywhere west of the front range? In the South Park? Yep. Clear Creek? Yep. Montana? Yep. Northern Arizona? Yep. All around Big Horn? Yep. Tierra Armarilla? Yep. Now that's a solid investment for future maps. Doug Fir will get the PNW and much of the high rockies (noting the sheer difference in size between the Doug fir in the areas). It's looking real fine, Studio 346 team! Keep it up!
I laughed my but off when you said they were arguing about the the type of pine cones that should be modeled XD But it's nice too see the small detail being added and...the chaotic but fun future for this game's customizations when this gets released XD
That's a lot of customization. Wondering how the game will handle all this as well as if there's a way to buld a custom livery that you'll be able to apply to all your cars, rather than having to go back through each car to set. Like Custom 1 may be a global setting for color/fonts/style of car.
Yup! That's what the presets tab is about. We didn't get a chance to get it 100% set up for the video, so we had to do without, but the intention is to absolutely have a way for you to set what you like and be able to load it.
Looks awesome, but to be honest I do not know anything about what US railroading should look like. Do we get a customization maual/guide or whatever to help doing things that make sense historically?
All of our paint, lettering, and detailing options for each engine and piece of rolling stock are based on historical precedents, period paint records from Baldwin and other catalogs, and other primary sources. Our hope is that these will provide a solid palette for players to choose from so that whichever options they go with, even if they combine options that didn't exist in that specific combination, there is a historical precedent for all of its components and it will add up to something that looks right. We will also provide presets of prototype equipment that players can select immediately with even less guesswork. Hopefully that will make things easier!
The level of ATD is really lovely. I’m really appreciating the homage West Coast and Sierras vibes here as well. (Perhaps we’ll even see some digger pine/gray pine in the future too.)
I’m really curious of how the logos are gonna work. Since each logo was wildly different how are people gonna be able to do the logos? Like how hard will it be to make everything sumpter valley?
From what I gathered listening to the video, the decal folder would allow players to make a logo in a design software (think like Adobe Illustrator) then import it as a file type to the game? So it's not that there is an in-game logo generator, but an easy way to save the files from an external software to a folder in game for use. Also with the Sumpter Valley, did it ever have a logo? I only know it for having plain text lettering, but that might be a limit with what is currently preserved and not how it was always there.
The whole "custom logos" thing got me wondering about a nearby railroad to me - the Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railway. I managed to find a logo for it, but then I realized it was abbreviated to PSR... oh boy...
I am loving all the customization options. Though one question I do have about customization is how will this be handled in career mode? Surly you won't be able to switch between every option on the fly. Will there be specific places like car or locomotive shops that you have to send a locomotive to to change that stuff, and will some options be locked to specific era? Also standardization, having a nice uniform fleet is nice and all, but realistically, that would take a lot of work to pull off especially as times change and the styles and technology do with it. My question here is, how will career mode try to fight me in having a clone army of identical locomotives and rolling stock? Me personally I would like that, I would like to have the game fight me on that and in the process end up with a set of locomotives and rolling stock that all have their little (or big) differences and their own stories to tell, but if a player wants a clone army they can have their shops, or maybe even the manufactures be really picky about following their railroad's standards, though I would imagine that would end up being quite expensive both in terms of time and money.
Incredible 😍😍
TIMESTAMPS - 0:00 intro - 1:30 new customization menu - 2:40 decals (wip, pixel offsets for now) - 3:57 liveries and lettering on locos - 6:24 color picker and visual properties - 7:40 gameplay-changing customizations are under Mechanical, and visual-only are under Decorative - 8:43 loco and tender customizations are separate - 9:15 text customization. with separate drop shadow customization. can modify multiple locations at once - 11:42 rolling stock customization. flat cars have various options for their body and equipment - 13:45 coupler options. 2 link-and-pin, 1 knuckle. Knuckles also have safety appliances (ladders, etc) - 15:18 variable car wear. maintenance is optional. - 17:38 paint options for rolling stock. all options listed are available on "everything". - 18:53 "Ceci n'est pas une caboose." combine car and customizations. includes interior customizations - 23:30 customization presets. presets are sharable, in multiplayer you need to share the images to be viewable - 30:00 the map is a Ponderosa map. tree foaming. will ship with the game. PERSONAL THOUGHTS - nice snowplow action - nice boat - those "Style XX" options really need names - I can really see that Unreal Engine temporal-AA - 6:42 "--Or we could get silly. --You can do whatever you want" they say, as it's shown you can't customize base colors, etc on locos... If I can't get a greenscreen-green loco with hot-pink lining, that's not "whatever you want". - 28:20 I hope we get to have locomotive liveries as customizable as that "vibrant metallic blue" Lunoco tanker. What's weird is that the danger diamond is also metallic blue... QUESTIONS - So *all* the text on the boxcars on the preset showcase are images? Or are they text? - When you say "ship the game", is that early access, or is that fully-featured and fully-formed on release like Athena springing from Zeus's forehead?
this is going to be so much fun ! a new standard for sure is set.
This customization is seriously Baldurs Gate 3 levels. This feeks like any MMORPG where you’ll spend HOURS in customizing, before you play the game. Outstanding!!
Beautiful stuff but I really want to see a beautiful post 1900s loco :)
Absolutely Amazing!!!
Another jaw dropping video. I am actually learning more about narrowguage. How are you guys keeping a balance between detail and playability? Also are using UE5 to build the game/sim?
I really enjoy how the way around dealing with legal branding issues is “we’ll give them the tools to make whatever they want, if they do end up making the actual engines and rolling stock of IRL roads then that’s on them not us!”
This customization is impressive, but it makes me think we'll need some way to save pre sets. If I want a uniform fleet with the style I painstakingly picked out once, going back through all the options every time I buy a new car could get annoying.
You'll note that we have a preset tab of the UI - didn't quite have the time to get it done for this video unfortunately.
what a ton of fun this is going to be! Thank you for including the options to be silly or historically accurate (I had to stop the video at 23:34 because I was laughing too hard to pay attention). Little details I love: the menus that look exactly like they were done on an old typewriter, with all the period-appropriate periods (!!!), also the snow accumulated irregularly here and there on the Ponderosa pines - someone tell Wings they're amazing. Happy new year to all the Studio346 crew and thank you!!
"Chilkoot Pass", yes we do like our legally distinct railways here. Also, does the existing of an E&P with a "Ponderosa" map imply the existience of an "Emerald" map too? Is it Seattle?
It feels like your game will set a new standart in this genre. Keep up the good work!
every dev log just makes me more excited for game
New menu looks fantastic! I'm blown away by how much control it gives you over the customisation, though I shouldn't be surprised after the first dev vlog. I'm guessing this is probably on the list for UX improvements once everything is working properly on the back end, but will there be an option to apply styles to both locomotive and tender at the same time or a "copy to/from" instead of having to select the same options seperately for both? Also you mentioned going to the car shops to change the configuration of the flat car (with some sort of cos?) Will locomotives be the same sort of thing with going to a roundhouse/workshop?
Looking forward to seeing how track building works!
Happy New Year but I would also like to once again ask snowblower spinny fan of death variety? I'm just messing with you. If it's in there, it's in there. Seriously happy New Year! Y'all are great! Can't wait to see what you come out with
Pinecones are a very serious topic Mark. If a pinecone falls in a forest, does it still make a sound? I dunno, but I do know that there will be a bunch of nerds to debate what kind of pinecone it is.
Question, does UE5 have a more robust decal system then UE4, cause I always wondered why that other train game never used decals for text and save on performance .
God this game is gorgeous.
Love how this is comming together! Keep up the good work 👏
Very cool! Happy New Year Hyce / Mark & Studio 346! ❤️
happy new year lads, 2024's going to be a great year ;)
Its 2024 already for me
Still awesome to see this
Happy new year all! Looking forward to seeing this progress through the year!
So this is what we get instead of office hours? I’ll take it!
Wooohoo