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With this update you can now fully customize how large the track, trains, props and player character are in the world. So it will finally be possible to accurately model real-world model railway scales in the game, like HO, G, N, Z, etc.
You can make tiny N scale layouts all the way to huge G scale garden railways:
Firstly, if you just want to make maps and aren't concerned about real-world measurements, then you don't have to change anything! You can keep making maps and driving trains at the default scale and everything will look exactly the same as before. But if you want to switch to a real world model railway scale that uses accurate measurements, then you can now do this with the new scale feature.
This system lets you customize two values, the "scale" and the "gauge".
The scale controls how large the map is in relation to the real world. So if the scale is 1/100 (one hundredth of the size of real life) then a 5m high building will be 0.05m high on your map (5cm tall).
For example, the most popular model railway scale "HO scale" is 1/87, which means that objects on an HO scale model railway are 87x smaller than real life.
Meanwhile the gauge is the distance measured between the rails on track. For HO scale this would be 16.5mm, and for the much larger G scale this would be 45mm.
Trains are automatically scaled to match the scale value, and their individual wheel blocks are scaled (only the width) to match the track gauge value. This means you can easily make narrow gauge track with a more narrow wheel gauge, while keeping the scale the same.
(Here's an example made by Camoguy showing a tiny Z scale railway!)
The game lets you customize both of these values, or choose from a range of real-world model railway scales (like HO, HOn3, N, Z, etc).
You can pick from a preset list or set your own custom values directly:
The "World scale' sets how large the player is in miniature mode, so if you are placing down N scale track and set the world scale to N as well, then you will be able to fit inside the cab and drive the trains. But if you set the world scale to HO, then your player will be larger and will not fit inside the trains.
For example, you can make yourself really tiny or really big on any map!
Being able to change the player scale also means you can create interesting effects like ride-on live steam! (where the player is deliberately much larger than the actual trains, and can sit on top of them to drive them). Or you can just make yourself really tiny of big just for fun on any map!
For more info, here is a full guide on how the new scaling features work:
All previous and future mods can still keep using the default scale with no problems what so ever. But I've added the option to set the "default scale" for a train mod to any of the real-world scales available.
What this means is that you can make your mods using real-world measurements instead of needing to guess based on the strange default scaling in the game. Your mod will be correctly scaled automatically to all other track scales.
For example, you can set your train mod to use HO as the default scale, which means that your 3D model files should all be 1/87 of the size of the real-world train you are making. Just as if you were making a 3D model of an HO scale model train for a 3D print.
You can set the base scale for train mods, prop mods and even track style mods.
What would a scaling update be without a way to measure things? This update also adds some ruler props to make understanding distances easier. You can find these in the "Room -> advanced" drawer:
There are two different kinds of rulers:
These rulers (in both meters and feet/inches) represent the real world size of the room, as if it were a real model railway. This value does not change with different scales, since a 2m wide table is still 2m regardless of whether the track used on it is N scale or HO scale. These ruler props snap together, so you can measure longer distances by connecting multiple rulers together:
These rulers instead represent the distance on your map in world scale, e.g. if a locomotive is 3m tall on an N scale layout, then spawning a ruler and placing it on your map will match that height. But if you changed the world scale to G scale (much larger) and placed down a new ruler prop then the ruler would be larger to represent the same 3m height but in G scale:
Any new maps uploaded to the Steam Workshop that use a custom scale (anything other than default "RL" scale) will have a tag automatically added for that scale.
E.g. if you set your map's world scale to N scale, then your map will have the "N scale" tag when you upload it to the workshop.
You might have noticed that the version number has changed from v5. \ to 6. This is because I usually increase the overall version number every year or two around large updates that fundamentally change the game. Since scaling makes such big changes to core aspects of the code, it felt like a good time to finally switch over from 5x to 6x.
Just like with other times where the game has significantly changed, you can now access an earlier version of the game using the "Game versions and betas" list in Steam.
Rolling Line is also on sale for the Steam Train Fest event! You can grab it for -20% off for the next week:
This update also includes:
You can now edit the dynamic track generator values (like radius, length, etc) directly using keyboard input by pressing the new "..." buttons next to each value.
The modding manager now displays a real piece of intractable track when previewing a train mod. This means that you can see what the train looks like in motion, and on different gauges of track.
Fixed a long time bug where larger track meshes (like tunnels and roads) would sometimes get cut seams in their mesh where the mesh would not line up perfectly. This has now been fixed.
Fixed bug where some buttons in the bulk move tool menu would cause the game to get stuck in the 2D interface when viewing in 2D.
Fixed bug where using undo-redo on props placed with the biome brush would not work correctly.
Fixed issue where some props with larger hitboxes would block the selection of other props if they were not enabled for editing (this was most noticeable on trees).
Fixed an incorrect collision mesh on one of the station buildings.
Adjusted the terrain sculpting brush minimum radius for better use at smaller sized tables.
Fixed mesh clipping bugs with using the terrain sculpting brush on small tables.
Reduced the minimum distance that gap-fill (flexy track) can be used (and extended the maximum).
Fixed bug where using automation triggers to decouple wagons outside of render distance would not work. Couplers can now be interacted with at any view distance.
Improved the terrain sculpting tool line select angle in VR.
Fixed bug where the game could get stuck on "Checking for VR" while launching if SteamVR was encountering issues while auto launching.
Disabled the prompt for using transform edit mode when using a joypad.
Fixed bug where the selector line would be stuck as visible when switching held item (for train controllers).
Fixed rendering issue where the background of the hover UI buttons would have a black border in miniature mode.
This update is something I've been dreaming of adding to the game for years! Having real model railway scales has made such a big difference to the feel of the game in more ways that I even anticipated. Plus It finally allows Rolling Line to be properly used as model railway planning software.
Have fun!
Thank you to Skull4786 for this great screenshot example of making real world model train track plans in game!
Current Patreons:
SeTP1, Hypothesiz, Slayde Forbes, WingoDingo, LunaFromSpaaace, EmperorSal, KANedTiger, EngineerSmith, Ilike Tra1nZ, DOLLIN, Taerom, Chloe Surett, Garst, Gustavo Sanchez, Gazzac100, Matthew Johnson, Teapop311, TrainTiny, Ábris Pataki, Thomas Merolla, Ben Burch, Detroit_, Don Willis, Jack Fruh, Lynk_Wyland, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Outertoaster, KathalLasagna, Richard Prior, Michelle chan, Joblogh, Railraider, The_President, Matt, Trainiac 21, ItzAerozic, Microcosmologist, CAMOGUY54321, Jayton Hawkins, Jonathan Ginsburg, TheAmazingRyry, Rowan Mackenzie, Skilker, Helga Nordgren, HuskyDynamics, SmokeStream
Past Patreons:
Codebag Playz, Ethan Lamont, Rivet, Simon, Joey Drysdale, JohnR, Leto Gloas, Lutz, Carter Shew, Trackmeister, NESecretWeapon, Blake Prevett, Clae, The Cat Train
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
Coming up within the next few weeks is the much anticipated scales & gauges update! I'm announcing this now because the update is well into testing but still has a lot of work to do, and I want people to be aware of how this new scaling system will work and what to expect.
The main feature of this update is that you can now fully customize how large the track, trains, props and player character are in the world. So it will finally be possible to accurately model real-world model railway scales in the game! Like HO, G, N, Z, etc.
You can make tiny N scale layouts all the way to huge G scale garden railways!
This system lets you customize two values, the "scale" and the "gauge".
The scale controls how large the map is in relation to the real world. So if the scale is 1/100 (one hundredth of the size of real life) then a 5m high building will be 0.05m high on your map (5cm tall).
For example, the most popular model railway scale "HO scale" is 1/87, which means that objects on an HO scale model railway are 87x smaller than real life.
Meanwhile the gauge is the distance measured between the rails on track. For HO scale this would be 16.5mm, and for the much larger G scale this would be 45mm.
Trains are automatically scaled to match the scale value, and their individual wheel blocks are scaled (only the width) to match the track gauge value. This means you can easily make narrow gauge track with a more narrow wheel gauge, while keeping the scale the same.
The game lets you customize both of these values, or choose from a range of real-world model railway scales (like HO, HOn3, N, Z, etc).
You can pick from a preset list or set your own custom values directly:
The "World scale' sets how large the player is in miniature mode, so if you are placing down N scale track and set the world scale to N as well, then you will be able to fit inside the cab and drive the trains. But if you set the world scale to HO, then your player will be larger and will not fit inside the trains.
Being able to change the player scale also means you can create interesting effects like ride-on live steam! (where the player is deliberately much larger than the actual trains, and can sit on top of them to drive them). Or you can just make yourself really tiny of big just for fun on any map!
Rolling Line has infamously messy scaling, this is because back when I first started making this game it was pretty much entirely a VR game and I scaled the trains and track to look best for VR. This was done entirely to eye, and was not based on any real world model railway scale.
Obviously this was a big mistake... because fixing a messed up scale is not something that is easy to do.
In order to keep compatibility will all previous mods and maps, the game still uses a default "RL" (Rolling Line) scale. This means that if you are not interested in using accurate real-world scales, you can completely ignore this update and continue making maps in the same way as before, you don't need to worry about scale at all!
But for those who want to use real-world measurements, you can start making your maps in one of the real-world scales.
For anyone curious, the default scale used in Rolling Line is actually pretty similar to "S" scale, but the exact measurements are a track gauge of 19.9mm, and a scale of 1/64 (roughly).
All previous and future mods can still keep using the default scale with no problems what so ever. But I've added the option to set the "default scale" for a train mod to any of the real-world scales available.
What this means is that you can make your mods using real-world measurements instead of needing to guess based on the strange default scaling in the game. Your mod will be correctly scaled automatically to all other track scales.
For example, you can set your train mod to use HO as the default scale, which means that your 3D model files should all be 1/87 of the size of the real-world train you are making. Just as if you were making a 3D model of an HO scale model train for a 3D print.
Here is what the AC4400CW and DX locomotives look like when setup with accurate size measurements, and how the look compared to their in-game official models:
As you can see, the AC4400CW is pretty much spot-on, but the DX is actually much larger in-game than its real-world size. This is because the DX is a New Zealand locomotive that runs on much narrower cape gauge track and is noticeably smaller than American trains which are much larger.
You can see this noticeable size difference in Brazil where both American and smaller cape gauge locomotives operate alongside each other:
For Rolling Line I chose to keep the size of all the official trains relatively similar just so that things looked better, since having such noticeably smaller locomotives alongside each other almost looks like a mistake!
This update is an important one, so I want to make sure everything is accurate before I make it fully public. Especially since after people start making maps using these new scales it will be really hard to change things again in the future!
Also please keep in mind that you will not be able to "scale" previous maps to fit a new scale, if a previous map was made in a set scale (like default "RL" scale) then it is stuck that way, at least for now. I am planning to make a system to change just the track on the map to a new gauge (e.g. replacing RL scale with S scale, which are both very similar, or HO to HOn3 to make it narrow gauge) but this will only affect the track and will not actually increase/decrease the size of the map or move any props around.
There will be lots more info coming when the full update comes out, which I'm aiming to do around July 20th (later this month). I'll also be making a Steam guide which explains the specifics of scaling in more detail.
Keep and eye out for more news in the coming weeks!
Current Patreons:
Slayde Forbes, WingoDingo, LunaFromSpaaace, EmperorSal, KANedTiger, EngineerSmith, Ilike Tra1nZ, DOLLIN, Taerom, Chloe Surett, Garst, Gustavo Sanchez, Gazzac100, Matthew Johnson, Teapop311, TrainTiny, Ábris Pataki, Thomas Merolla, Ben Burch, Detroit_, Don Willis, Jack Fruh, Lynk_Wyland, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Outertoaster, KathalLasagna, Richard Prior, Michelle chan, Joblogh, Railraider, The_President, Matt, Trainiac 21, ItzAerozic, Microcosmologist, CAMOGUY54321, Jayton Hawkins, Jonathan Ginsburg, TheAmazingRyry, Rowan Mackenzie, Skilker, Helga Nordgren, HuskyDynamics, SmokeStream
Past Patreons:
Codebag Playz, Ethan Lamont, Rivet, Simon, Joey Drysdale, JohnR, Leto Gloas, Lutz, Carter Shew, Trackmeister, NESecretWeapon, Blake Prevett, Clae
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
Every now and then it's great to do a "spring cleaning" kind of update, that includes lots of quality-of-life improvements and fixes a ton of small jobs I've had on my to-do list for ages. This update includes a lot of changes, so I'll go through them one-by-one:
This is great quality-of-life improvement I've been meaning to add for ages! You can now open the custom color edit menu on any paintable object. So when you are editing a color in the multi-paint popup, track style menu, modding menus, settings, etc you can now press Shift + left click to open the color edit menu instead of spawning a copy of the color in your hand.
From inside that menu you can adjust the color (hue, saturation, value, etc):
You can also now set whether the material is transparent by changing the alpha value ("A") and this means you can also adjust how transparent it is, rather than it just being an on/off setting:
You can also toggle whether the material emits light:
Note: You can customize these keyboard bindings in the "Controls" menu. Also you can skip directly to the paint edit window by pointing at a prop and pressing Shift + E
To make things work easier with this new system, all props (even ones with just 1 paint slot) now have the option of opening the multi-paint window.
You can now use the transform edit mode (press F) to move, rotate and scale props that you have placed in a custom drawer! This means you can fully customize how a drawer looks instead of being restricted to just the grid:
Custom drawers also now have an options menu, where you can set whether props auto-scale to fit the grid size or whether they keep their default size when placed in the drawer.
When you copy a track style (by pointing at it and pressing Enter) and paint another piece of track with it, you might have noticed that it will override turnout levers and remove them.
This is because the turnout lever is part of the track style data, but I've made a small improvement which means that the turnout lever is no longer affected unless the track style you are copy-pasting specifically contains a different kind of turnout lever style.
This also applies to when you hold shift + left mouse to paint a large section of track. The turnouts will no longer loose their levers when doing this:
You've likely noticed a bug where steam particles can sometimes "ping" off in strange directions when the game lags, or sometimes steam particles seem to ignore the movement of the train they attached to entirely.
This has completely been fixed!
This update also features something a bit more technical. I've gone through the arduous process of converting tons of props in the game into the much more modern format that mods use. This means I can remove lots of legacy code form the game which was only needed for the older prop system.
From a programming perspective, this is an excellent piece of spring cleaning and I'm very happy to get it done. But from the players perspective you shouldn't notice any changes at all!
If anyone does notice any issues with props (like missing snapping data, strange paint colors, or props loading incorrectly in old saves) made sure to let me know ASAP because this may have been caused by incorrect data during this prop conversion process.
(fun fact, there are 1800+ props in the game)
This update also includes:
If you press the movement keys (W, A, S, D) while the game is in joypad control mode (using a plugged in controller) it will automatically switch back to keyboard and mouse controls. This is to avoid people accidentally playing in joypad control mode while they are actually using the keyboard.
The track style edit UI now supports viewing in 2D.
Fixed bug where collision on terrain mods wasn't always using the correct model rotation.
The small station shelter prop (used on the Paranapiacaba map) now has collision for its roof.
The game now automatically cleans up old track style data when loading a save. It will check if a piece of track (or road) has any styles that no longer exist, and if so will remove that data from the save file.
The terrain extend arrows have had their collision box size reduced.
Fixed the flag & poster props not having a visible material on the back side.
Painting over a table with a hand-held painter (which paints the entire table and looses old data) now can be undone-redone using Ctrl-Z correctly.
Fixed bug where duplicating a mod would still keep the same group information. Any new copy of a mod will by default not be included in any groups.
The mod groups browser window now has a "back" button to return to the group list.
And that's everything for this update! It's not a very exciting one, but these smaller quality-of-life changes really make a big difference on how the game feels to play (especially for hardcore map makers who will save countless hours from something as simple as being able to edit colors directly!).
Current Patreons:
KANedTiger, EngineerSmith, Ilike Tra1nZ, DOLLIN, Taerom, Chloe Surett, Garst, Gustavo Sanchez, Gazzac100, Matthew Johnson, Teapop311, TrainTiny, Ábris Pataki, Thomas Merolla, Ben Burch, Detroit_, Don Willis, Jack Fruh, Lynk_Wyland, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Outertoaster, KathalLasagna, Richard Prior, Michelle chan, Joblogh, Railraider, The_President, Matt, Trainiac 21, ItzAerozic, Microcosmologist, CAMOGUY54321, Jayton Hawkins, Jonathan Ginsburg, TheAmazingRyry, Rowan Mackenzie, Skilker, Helga Nordgren, HuskyDynamics, SmokeStream
Past Patreons:
Codebag Playz, Ethan Lamont, Rivet, Simon, Joey Drysdale, JohnR, Leto Gloas, Lutz, Carter Shew, Trackmeister, NESecretWeapon, Blake Prevett, Clae
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
Congrats to everyone who took part in the Mountains and Rivers map jam event! There were 85 entries and it was really hard to narrow down my favorites to just a few.
As with all these map making events, I always play through every single entry and then pick some to give shout-outs to at the end.
So without further ado, here are my favorite entries (in no specific order):
I always love these map making events, It's a great chance to have a go at making something if you need some extra inspiration. I highly recommend having a look at the Steam Workshop yourself and giving the event entries a try.
When choosing tags/categories on the Steam Workshop you can view the entries from this event as well as all the previous map making events too!
This is just a news post and doesn't include any game feature updates, but keep an eye out because I've been working on a whole bunch of quality-of-life features that I'm about to release in the next update very soon!
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy playing these great new community-made maps!
As mentioned in the previous news posts, I'm currently working on a new official map set on the West Coast of New Zealand!
For this update I'm going to release a preview chunk of the map which features a some rather unique terrain... fully explorable underground cave systems! (more on that later in this news post).
Since building these caves also meant adding some new props (like stalactites and other cave decorations) I'm releasing these as their own small update now.
You can find these new props in the "Terrain -> Caves" drawer:
This update includes a small chunk of the West Coast map which you can play right now as a preview! You can play this map from the main menu alongside the other official maps:
This preview segment of the map features the Buller Gorge, Charleston, a couple of mountains and the Nile river. Obviously this is just a small part of the full map! (which is still heavily work-in-progress)
The reason I'm releasing this segment as it's own map early is because it features something very special that I want to show off for this update... underground cave systems!
As some of you might already know from the photos I sometimes post on the Discord server, I'm a caver in real life! I always had a fascination with caves, but over the last year I've been getting involved with the actual sport of caving and exploring some of New Zealand's amazing caves. So making a map based on the West Coast of NZ was an excellent opportunity to bring one of my other hobbies into the game, and making these digital re-creations of caves has been a hell of a lot of fun.
This segment of map features two main caves:
This is a very famous large cave system on the West Coast, It features heaps of entrances (5 of them depicted in-game) including the very pretty main entrance opening which is a big river mouth you can easily find from above. Some of the other entrances are much more hidden!
In real life this cave is much larger and more complex, but to fit it into Rolling Line I've shrunk it down and only included some of the more interesting features it has, like the "Dragons Teeth" stalactite formations, the huge lower levels and the rather strange three-prong entrance called the "Triclopse entrances".
Just like the real thing, it's pretty easy to get lost in this cave. Exploring with a torch in miniature mode (especially in VR) can be a really awesome experience!
This is a much longer and thinner cave, with only three entrances, including a very pretty "tomo" (vertical shaft) entrance which people abseil down in real life. The rest of the cave is a tight streamway, which is MUCH tighter in real life compared to what it looks like in-game. Since Rolling Line isn't really designed for navigating small spaces I decided to widen the passage a bit to make it easier to move through. Finding these entrances on the map can be pretty tricky since they are all quite small, so I won't give any spoilers as to where they are on the map!
I made these cave systems using 3D models in the terrain modding system, combined with the in-game terrain sculpting system for the surface.
Basically I would sculpt the surface terrain, then cut holes for all the entrances. Then I use the terrain modding "Export scenery" option in the "Modding -> Terrain" drawer. This will export a 3D model of your in-game map scenery.
Then inside some 3D modelling software (like Blender) I import the in-game terrain and then create new 3D models for the actual cave systems and line them up with the holes in the surface terrain.
After that, those cave models are imported into the game as a terrain mod, and then I use props like rocks and trees to fill in the gaps and make the entrances look seamless!
I highly recommend going into miniature mode in-game and walking around on foot to explore these caves! Try and find entrances in the bush, and explore the underground with a torch in your hand. Remember you can find some hand-held torches in the "Room -> Usables" drawer:
Some of you who have played my earlier games (before Rolling Line) might be finding this all very familiar! That's because I previously made a game called "Echo Grotto" which was a VR-only caving sim.
Things like the hand-held torch and the new stalactite props are all originally from Echo Grotto, and have been imported into Rolling Line as usable props.
So if you enjoy exploring these caves in Rolling Line, then I recommend giving Echo Grotto a try too!
This map making event is still going and finishes on June 7th! I've already been playing through the entries upload so far and there's some really cool stuff, you can view all items submitted on the Steam Workshop:
View entries on the Steam Workshop here
But anyway, that's everything for this update! It's a bit of a strange one, and has absolutely nothing to do with trains, but every now and then I love to work on something that includes some of my other real-life hobbies. I'm very aware that the audience overlap of "model train fans" and "cavers" is basically just me, but if anyone else here is a caver then let me know in the comments!
Current Patreons:
Ilike Tra1nZ, DOLLIN, Taerom, Chloe Surett, Garst, Gustavo Sanchez, Gazzac100, Matthew Johnson, Teapop311, TrainTiny, Ábris Pataki, Thomas Merolla, Ben Burch, Detroit_, Don Willis, Jack Fruh, Lynk_Wyland, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Outertoaster, KathalLasagna, Richard Prior, Michelle chan, Joblogh, Railraider, The_President, Matt, Trainiac 21, ItzAerozic, Microcosmologist, CAMOGUY54321, Jayton Hawkins, Jonathan Ginsburg, TheAmazingRyry, Rowan Mackenzie, Skilker, Helga Nordgren, HuskyDynamics, Clae, SmokeStream, EngineerSmith
Past Patreons:
Codebag Playz, Ethan Lamont, Rivet, Simon, Joey Drysdale, JohnR, Leto Gloas, Lutz, Carter Shew, Trackmeister, NESecretWeapon, Blake Prevett
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
It's about time for another community map making event! This time It's themed around the brand new terrain system update.
While the name is the "Mountains and rivers" jam, this can include all kinds of terrain, like deserts, valleys, oceans, beaches, canyons, etc. The only theme requirement is that you make use of the new dynamic in-game terrain sculpting tools.
To submit you map, simply tick the "Mountains & rivers entry" toggle when uploading to the Steam Workshop:
Here is a more detailed list of the rules and requirements:
You map must use the in-game dynamic terrain sculpting system. You can use other terrain options (like flat tables and 3D model modded terrain) as well, but this must be in addition to the in-game sculpting system. The main focus must be on the in-game terrain system.
You can submit as many entries as you like.
You can submit a map you've already worked on in the past (e.g. adding new scenery to an old map project, or continuing work on a map that uses the new terrain system that you were already making before this event started).
Mods of all kinds are perfectly fine to use.
You can work with multiple people.
This event ends on June 7th.
You can view map submissions in the "Competitions -> Mountains And Rivers" tag on the Steam Workshop:
I also previously posted a developer commentary video about the new terrain system on my Patreon. As with all my devlog videos, I upload them to YouTube as well after a few weeks, so you can watch this video now YouTube here:
As well as announcing this map jam event, this update also includes a few fixes & features:
You can now change the color used for tunnel regions. By default they will use the sun color, but you can instead use a custom color to create effects like pitch darkness (black) or underwater (blue) as well as lots of other creative ideas:
The terrain painting tool color select has been improved to include a few new features, like it can now select colors directly from a poster. This is amazingly useful when using a reference image for your map:
Remember you can also press Enter when pointing at any editable object to spawn a copy of its color in your hand. You can use this feature to copy the color of a prop, copy a color from a poster (where you are pointing) or copy the color used on a segment of terrain:
Using the arrows to extend terrain in a direction now has improved smoothing. E.g. extending an underwater segment will correctly maintain the water level:
Edges of the table now also correctly display when you use the vertex move tool to shift a vertex around. The walls of the table will now correctly connect to the new position of the vertex:
Additional minor fixes:
The terrain color select tool now allows you to still use the Q and E buttons while it is set to "select color" which makes it easier to navigate item drawers while choosing colors.
Fixed material issue on level crossings (they would appear unlit when the lights were turned off).
And that's everything for this update!
I hope you all have fun for this map making event. Remember I always personally play every single one of the entries for these map events, so no entries ever get ignored.
Whether you're an experienced map maker, or brand new to the game, I highly recommend giving this event a go and making an entry!
Current Patreons:
Ilike Tra1nZ, DOLLIN, Taerom, Chloe Surett, Garst, Gustavo Sanchez, Gazzac100, Matthew Johnson, Teapop311, TrainTiny, Ábris Pataki, Thomas Merolla, Ben Burch, Detroit_, Don Willis, Jack Fruh, Lynk_Wyland, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Outertoaster, KathalLasagna, Richard Prior, Michelle chan, Joblogh, Railraider, The_President, Matt, Trainiac 21, ItzAerozic, Microcosmologist, CAMOGUY54321, Jayton Hawkins, Jonathan Ginsburg, TheAmazingRyry, Rowan Mackenzie, Skilker, Blake Prevett, Helga Nordgren, HuskyDynamics, Clae, SmokeStream
Past Patreons:
Codebag Playz, Ethan Lamont, Rivet, Simon, Joey Drysdale, JohnR, Leto Gloas, Lutz, Carter Shew, Trackmeister, NESecretWeapon
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
Time really flies... Rolling Line is celebrating its 8th birthday today! That means 8 years since it's release back in 2018.
As you might already know, I'm just one solo developer. I've been working on this game as a full time job for about 9 years and it's well and truly my pride and joy. It is both my income and my own creative outlet, and I wouldn't dream of having things any other way.
I've released a total of 205 updates to the game since its launch date back in 2018, and I would love to dig a bit deeper into the games development history in this news post.
But first, here's some stats about the trains & maps added to the game over the years, as well as all the community made content on the Steam Workshop!
There are 23 official trains + 39 official freight & passenger wagons
And on the Steam Workshop:
10,115 community made liveries + 7,203 community made modded trains & mod liveries (1,912 train mods + 2,896 mod liveries + 698 legacy QuickMods + 1,697 legacy liveries)
There are 20 official maps ("main" maps + "small" maps):
And on the Steam Workshop:
There are 7,917 community made maps:
As of right now, there are 31,653 total items on the Steam Workshop!
While I won't list every single one of the 205 total updates Rolling Line has gotten over the years, here are some of the more influential milestones the game has gone through over the years!
You can have a look at the full list here if you are curious:
There was a short time where the only way to share maps with each other was to send .txt files manually! During this time there was a "community maps" list on the main menu of the game where you could play a small list of player-made maps that I had manually included in the official release of the game.
The 'dark ages' of Rolling Line were back when there were only a few specific pre-set pieces of track to use. No custom curves, no flexytrack. It's hard to imagine now (with full dynamic track generation of any curve/length) but back in 2018 adding flexytrack was pretty much the greatest thing in the world.
Before this point ALL custom maps were made on a few select pre-made table rooms. You could not place your own tables down. After this update, a new infinitely scalable room was added along with a placeable table piece prop. Suddenly maps could be any shape and size!
The first ever new official map was added! The Santa Fe map was very small, but added a whole new color pallet of props and a brand new train (F7). It was also the first location to feature in the game outside of New Zealand.
A custom color picker was finally added, so you could now use any color you like for painting props. Before this the game had a set selection of colors. To celebrate this a map event called the "Color comp" was hosted lots of vibrant and colorful maps were made with this new level of freedom.
As mentioned earlier, at this stage in the game all track was made from pre-set pieces. You could not create custom curves/lengths. Gradient track also didn't exist in the smooth way that it does now. This update (split into 3 parts) completely replaced the track system and allowed for completely customizable track shapes.
On this day the Paranapiacaba map (set in Brazil) is released. This map is by far the most detailed and complex official map I had made for the game at this point and really pushed forward what the game was capable of. Things like overhead wires, custom track styles, jungle scenery and several locomotives were all added to make this map possible.
Prop modding is finally possible. Players can now import their own 3D models into the game to make new props and share them on the Steam Workshop. This is also the debut of the new in-game modding system (the "Modding Manager" in the main menu). Lots of other modding improvements followed, like audio and animation importing.
This marks a major stage in the games development. For this update a ton of behind-the-scenes stuff happened because the "Main layout" (now called "top of the south") was finally re-built using the new in-game tools. Prior to this, the map was actually made using an ancient and completely different system to the rest of the game. It was basically a static scene made in the game engine (Unity) instead of an editable save file made in-game. This update proved that everything seen on the Top of the south was now finally accessible for anyone playing the game to make themselves!
The train modding system we all use today was finally released in this update. Prior to this, all modded trains were made using the old "QuickMod" system. The quickmod system was entirely outside of the game and involved editing .txt files and placing 3D models manually into a folder. The new modding system is an extension of the prop modding system and can all be done in-game!
Roads are finally added! Though they are a standard part of the game now, roads actually only showed up in the game over 4 years after release. This update included intersections and relied heavily on the "track grouping" feature added earlier, since roads are essentially just track with a different coat of paint.
Spread over two updates, the current inventory system UI and player movement (e.g. gravity and jumping) were added. Before this players were restricted to only 4 item slots, with no icons to even show what they were holding! And when walking around in miniature you simply flew around without collision. These updates were a major step towards the game being made mode user-friendly.
This update added electronics features into the game like wires, lights, buttons, logic gates, etc. To this day this is still my personal favorite addition to the game I've ever done. Having physically intractable electronic circuit building in a model train game is a dream come true.
While not an official update, this was a major milestone in the games history. The famous G&D map was released on the Steam Workshop and became arguably the most impressive map in Rolling Line ever made.
The beginnings of the freight loading system were added into the game. You could now "load" a freight wagon with props (like logs or containers). This system would continue to be expanded in the future, with things like modding tools and coal & ore loading.
After almost a year and a half of work, the Sierra Logging map is released. This map is still my own personal crowning achievement of map making in Rolling Line. It was a huge step forward in terms of trackwork design, industrial operations design and even general scenery detail for an official map. To this day it is still the best map I've made.
They day finally came, something people had been requesting for over 7 years. Multiplayer was added! Multiplayer had almost been a joke in the community since it was requested so often and the answer was always "maybe one day". Well it finally did happen and it was arguably the largest and most important update Rolling Line has ever had.
After completing the massive Sierra Logging map project, I wanted to work on something more personal and closer to home. Rolling Lines roots have always been in New Zealand, and It's about time I got to have a go at making a new official map set in NZ with all of the modern tools and features the game now has (like terrain sculpting). Ever since I first started developing this game I've always had ideas for a West Coast map, featuring massive mountains along the rugged coast of the South Island. And with great joy I can finally announce that this is exactly what I'm working on next!
This map is already well into development, and I can share a few previews of what it looks like so far.
It's set on the South Island's West Coast, which is heavily focused on the coal industry. The most common railfanning sights are long coal trains running along the coastline between farm paddocks, massive mountains and the sea.
The area this map covers is specifically between the Stockton Plateau and Greymouth, including areas like the Denniston Plateau, Inangahua, Buller Gorge, Paparoa National Park, Charlston, Fox River, Stillwater and Greymouth.
Since this map is set back in NZ, and features some of my absolute favorite natural landscapes in the world, you can probably guess this map is going to include a lot of scenery!
So this map isn't just railway lines, it also has fully exploreable caves (famous to the Charlston and Fox River area of the West Coast) and lots of mountain scenery, including backcountry huts, tracks, rivers and mountains!
In fact if I have time I also plan to include one of the stunning South-Westland glaciers!
But that's all I'll share for now!
Expect plenty more news about this West Coast map in the future. It's an absolute joy to be working on classic New Zealand scenery again and this map is going to be a big showcase of the kind of scenery detail a modern Rolling Line map can handle!
You can now spawn a "table data painter" from inside the options menu when editing a piece of terrain. You can use this to copy-paste settings between tables, like water height, color, wall settings, etc.
Terrain is now included in the 3D model export options in the "Terrain" modding menu. This means you can create 3D terrain in-game and then export it into a 3D model to be used in any 3D modelling software you want (like Blender).
Fixed various bugs with terrain (like rendering issues in VR) and the terrain tools (like adding context help for the controls).
Whether you are one of the people who's been playing this game for the full 8 years and want to feel nostalgic, or if you've joined more recently and want to see how things were back then, there's actually a way to play the 1.0 day one release version of the game!
You can switch to a beta branch on steam called "Rolling_line_1x" to play the 1.0 version whenever you want. To do this, right click on the game in your library and select "Properties" then "Game versions & betas":
Your normal map save files can't be loaded on this 1.0 version and any maps you make using this "classic" version of Rolling Line are stored in a separate folder.
When you switch back to the normal main beta branch you will be able to access your normal save files again, so using this 1.0 version does not remove any of your custom files.
It can be quite funny playing this old version and seeing just how insanely bare-bones the game was on release. The first thing you'll probably notice is that there are only 17 shelf drawers TOTAL worth of props, trains and track:
It's felt simultaneously like a very short and very long 8 years. It's quite interesting to put all those updates into perspective and think about how much this game has grown.
It's not actually that far off until the 10 year anniversary... maybe I'll cook up something really exciting for that one!
If you're someone who bought this game years and years ago for $20 and feels like helping support me to keep making these free maps & updates until the end of time, then please consider joining the Patreon!
Remember you can always just make a one-off payment and then cancel your membership afterwards if you prefer that style of donation rather than the monthly format.
Current Patreons:
DOLLIN, Skilker, Gazzac100, Taerom, Trainiac 21, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, TheAmazingRyry, HuskyDynamics, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna
Past Patreons:
Joey Drysdale, Ethan Lamont, NESecretWeapon, JohnR, Lutz, Leto Gloas, Rivet, Trackmeister, Codebag Playz, Garst, Simon, Carter Shew
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
This update is a big one!
While multiplayer was the biggest update for the game overall, this one is the biggest improvement to map making since Rolling Line's release. You can now make proper 3D smooth terrain in-game, entirely using in-game tools.
In the past the way I made the official maps was to use external 3D software (in this case, Blender) to make a 3D model to use for terrain. I would then import this terrain into the game using the terrain modding tools.
The other main way of making terrain was to use in-game props. Starting from flat tables, you can stack up hills and rocks to make some quite impressive 3D terrain, but this process is quite slow and limiting.
But all of that changes now! You can sculpt your own terrain in-game and create proper 3D terrain just like the official maps with all the features (like rivers and oceans) you would see in maps like the Sierra Logging and Top Of The South.
With these new tools you can:
Adjust the height of terrain with a sculpting brush
Flatten/smooth terrain
Cut holes in the terrain (for tunnel entrances and caves)
Set a water level for effects like lakes, oceans and rivers
Paint colors on to the terrain
You can find a full guide on how to use these new features here:
This new terrain system works just like the old tables already in the game. You can grab a table from the drawer and place it on the ground, but you will now notice some arrows around the table. You can click these arrows to extend the table in that direction!
You can use the new terrain sculpting tool (box cutter) to adjust the height of the ground, cut holes, and even make fine-tuned adjustments to each individual vertex (3D point) on the terrain.
Terrain sculpting:
Cutting holes for tunnels:
Moving vertices:
The other main part of this terrain system is an air brush tool for painting colors on to terrain:
You can use any color you want, and there's no limit to the number of colors you can use on a single piece of terrain.
Using the air brush tool you can select colors from the drawers, or directly from a piece of terrain:
On a completely different note, this update also adds an excellent quality of life feature where you can now toggle turnouts using the hand-held locomotive controller.
So you no longer need to put the controller away to interact with turnout levers, just simply point at them, select them, and then press Q or E to switch the lever:
And that's everything for this update!
I'm so happy with how this new terrain system turned out, and it's going to completely change how everyone makes maps in the game. I've already been having a lot of fun myself using it to make various scenery test demos to see what the system is capable of:
Also if you want to try out an example on the Steam Workshop then have a look at this lovely map by DOLLIN:
My goal with this update was to make an in-game system that does everything that I would usually do in external 3D software to make terrain for official maps, but re-create it all in-game. That means that this system is built from scratch to be perfectly designed for Rolling Line.
The end result is quite a unique style of terrain editor which really suits the art style of the game and hopefully fits into the game really well.
If you want to hear more about my development process and how the terrain system works, I made a big devlog video over on my Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-terrain-154283018
Current Patreons:
DOLLIN, Skilker, Gazzac100, Taerom, Trainiac 21, Codebag Playz, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, TheAmazingRyry, HuskyDynamics, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna
Previous Patreons:
Joey Drysdale, Ethan Lamont, NESecretWeapon, JohnR, Lutz, Leto Gloas, Rivet, Trackmeister
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
For people that have been playing Rolling Line since the early days (almost 8 years ago!) an undo/redo feature will be like a dream come true.
It's something that's been on my "nice to have" features to-do list, along with a hundred other things, and it feels great to finally add this incredibly highly requested feature into the game. Now that it's there, it will be one of those features that you'll forget that it ever wasn't there!
To undo an action, simply press Ctrl-Z, and to redo, Ctrl-Y (both of these are re-bindable in the controls menu)
The actions which can be undone are:
deleting props/track
placing props/track
picking up/dropping props/track
moving props/track (transform edit mode)
painting colors onto an object
painting detail types on to track
You can also change the number of undo/redo steps which are saved using the setting "pause menu -> PC options -> Undo/redo steps".
Gone are the days of accidentally pressing R and nuking the terrain prop that a chunk of your map is built on top of!
Just press Ctrl-Z and it's back!
There's been a long-time issue in the game where small train mods don't fit on tracks well. They often derail sooner than you would expect since the wheels were "technically" leaving the track, even though visually they still look like they are correctly on the track. This is especially obvious for small turntables.
This has been completely fixed now!
Even tiny train mods work perfectly on small turntables and can be driven right to the edge of track without derailing:
Something you may have noticed if you work with circuitry and automation is that things often don't work as expected when circuitry is outside of view distance on large map.
For example, large maps on the workshop that use circuitry will often request that you load the map with infinite view distance to make sure everything works.
This is because of a major limitation with the map loading system, where objects can only interact with each other when they are loaded in.
But this update completely changes this and adds a new layer for objects that can interact with each other to always stay active and loaded in regardless of view distance!
Now when a large map is loaded any intractable props (like loaders/unloaders, signals, buttons, circuitry, sensors, etc) are loaded in immediately and are kept active at all times (but they are still hidden from view as if they are outside of the view distance).
This same fix also solves a big problem in multiplayer where certain objects (like loaders/unloaders & turntables) didn't work correctly when the server host player was outside of view distance. This is now completely fixed!
Since the new undo/redo controls use the "Ctrl-Z / Ctrl-Y" keys, having Ctrl also bound to slow movement toggle was not a good option.
So the movement speed system has changed slightly:
Holding left control will slow you down (only when held)
Pressing right control will toggle between set movement speeds, like left control use to do.
Holding left shift will speed you up (same as before)
Pressing right shift will toggle a faster speed mode on/off.
This means there are no longer settings for changing between hold/toggle for the control and shift keys. You can just changing the bindings in the controls menu instead.
Fixed bug where certain track styles would cause track to break on very old maps when editing.
Fixed bug where signals placed on very old maps would have broken ID's when adding your own trigger bounds boxes.
Fixed lots of material bugs (introduced from some changes made in recent updates that affected shaders). Things like glowing objects not appearing correctly at night.
Fixed bug where new workshop uploads were not actually using the "Rolling Line/Modding/Temp workshop upload" folder as they should.
Fixed a collision box issue for legacy QuickMods.
Fixed particle colors on coal unloader.
Fixed bug where loaders/unloaders would still load wagons when held in your hand.
Adjusted the controls so that pressing right click (pickup) will NOT pickup the prop in front of you if you already have an item in your hand. It will instead just drop the held item and you will need to press right click again to pickup another object.
Fixed major bug causing turntables to not function correctly in multiplayer when outside of view distance.
The profanity filter in multiplayer has been adjusted so it's not as intense. You can also now disable it if you choose to (this will only affect you, and other player will still see censored messages).
And that's everything for this update! I would have actually had this update out much sooner, but I've been crazy busy moving house recently. Though things are slowing down now and I should be back to a more structured work schedule.
I've got exciting plans for future updates this year, and there's heaps more to come!
But in the meantime, I hope everyone enjoys this new excellent quality-of-life feature as well as some pretty major fixes to long-running problems that got included in this update.
Skilker, Carter Shew, Gazzac100, Taerom, Trainiac 21, Codebag Playz, Joey Drysdale, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, HuskyDynamics, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Ethan Lamont, NESecretWeapon, Douglas Niven, Lutz, Rivet, Trackmeister
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
To kick off 2026 I was looking for a new feature that was gameplay themed and gave people something new to do on their maps (and for multiplayer operations!).
The freight loading system is still quite "work in progress" and one of my top to-do list items for a future update was to finally add support for more interesting freight loads.
So you can now "fill" open freight wagons (like gondolas) with loads like coal, gravel and iron ore:
These work in exactly the same way as the log loaders already in the game!
Simply place the loader prop on a piece of track, then park an empty freight wagon under it and it will load automatically:
This update adds a new loader prop which you can use to load certain freight wagons with any material you want. Since materials like coal, ore, gravel, etc all pretty much look the same, all you need to do is change the color!
E.g. if you paint the coal pile prop white, then your can treat it like salt, or light yellow for sulfur:
The new "custom display models" of these coal loading wagons can also be created in the modding system!
Essentially you can now make a train mod display a custom 3D model when a chosen type of prop is loaded on to it (e.g. if a pile of ore is loaded, show this model. If a log is loaded, show this model).
You can also make the custom model change its position & scale based on how "full" the wagon is. Meaning that if the wagon has 1/8 coal props loaded, it will appear only slightly full, but if it has 8/8 coal props loaded, it will be full right up to the top!
Using the modding tools, you can fully customize all of these values!
Since you can now effectively make any model move/scale in any way you want, there's a lot of potential here for more creative ideas.
You can find a full guide with instructions on how to use freight loading features on your mods here:
This update also includes a bunch of smaller things:
Fixed the "Disable SteamVR" and "Re-enable SteamVR" launch options. These now work as intended and should prevent SteamVR from automatically launching again
"player X has joined/left" messages now appear in multiplayer chat when players join/leave
The map transfer process in multiplayer now automatically cancels if the player who is receiving the map disconnects during the transfer
The host can now quicksave their map file even while in multiplayer (which means you can effectively work on editing a map while other players are joining you, but they will not see the updated changes)
You can now open the server browser while already inside a multiplayer game. This is useful for viewing what your public server listing looks like after creating a server, and seeing what other servers are open. You can open the server browser from the chat menu
Cleaned up the server log file, it no longer includes some info that is not very helpful for server management
Fixed bug where roundhouse doors could not be clicked on when "Use items in miniature" setting is disabled
Fixed bug where the error log file would not log correctly after starting a server
Fixed bug where 2D menus would not behave correctly when a custom main menu location is used
Fixed a minor bug where waybills would "flash" enabled for one frame even when waybills are not visible
Fixed bug where certain maps would freeze when unloading packaged mod trains (when leaving the map)
Fixed bug where the multiplayer menu would not scale correctly when displaying it on a custom placed menu with a unique scale
The Christmas main menu is now back to normal
I'm incredibly excited for 2026, and I've got big plans for the game. My main focus is going to be on improving the core stability of the game, with things like optimization, bug fixing and future-proofing. I'm also going to be putting a lot of time towards improving the controls and the overall user experience. Rolling line has grown SO MUCH over it's 8 years of updates, and it's really in need of some cleaning up and smoothing out, especially for new users.
And of course new multiplayer features! Multiplayer has already massively changed how lots of people play the game, and has made me really see things in a new way. I'm very excited to add new features and customization to multiplayer.
But in the meantime, I hope everyone enjoys these new freight loading features!
Carter Shew, Gazzac100, Taerom, Trainiac 21, Codebag Playz, Joey Drysdale, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, JohnR, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Ethan Lamont, NESecretWeapon, Douglas Niven, Lutz, Rivet, HuskyDynamics, Trackmeister
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
It's time for Christmas! This update wraps up the Multiplayer Map Jam and includes a bunch of shout-outs of my own personal favorite maps from the event.
It's also a good time to enjoy a bunch of snowy themed maps and make use of the various winter themed features in the game! Previous year's Christmas updates added things like:
Dynamic snow cover on trains and wagons (if you set the weather to snowy!)
The Canadian Christmas train
Rotary snow plow
Attachable snow plows you can add to any train
Snow globe prop
Christmas decoration props
Christmas presents
Over the years there have been tons of snowy maps and Christmas themed maps uploaded to the Steam Workshop, so here's a few of my favorite examples:
Congratulations to everyone who took part in this map making event! There's a ton of amazing maps and It's been great to see public servers being hosted where people are enjoying these maps.
As with all map making events, I always play every single entry personally and at the end of the event I post some of my favorites!
So here's a few maps I really wanted to shout-out:
This massive map is so impressive! It has tons of height variation with walkways and elevated tables, combined with excellent trackwork, scenery detailing and overall design:
An incredible map! It's got a beautiful range of scenery along a huge main line, one of my absolute favorites of the whole jam:
Really impressive map with tons of steep cliffs, bridges and verticality! It even has a switch control room hidden under the tables:
Beautifully detailed map with heaps of little scenes and areas of interest, as well as lots of operations potential tightly packed together:
An excellent little map with a surprising amount of depth to it's operations, with a daily schedule and lots of custom freight loaded wagon mods:
Amazingly detailed and polished map, with especially designed switchboards and electronics:
A massive map with a super long main line and heaps of yards, industries and sidings. This would make for some excellent ops with huge freight trains:
A beautifully vibrant and unique map with lovely scenery:
And a couple of shout-outs to huge map projects that got big updates:
And these two maps that did really interesting things with the "Multiplayer" theme by making unique gameplay designs!
Of course there are SO many more maps to play than just these, and I really encourage you to go over to the Steam Workshop and have a look at all the entries yourself:
Thanks again everyone for taking part in the Multiplayer Map Jam, and have a lovely Christmas!
Due to lots of requests to extend the end date of the Multiplayer Map Jam, I've decided to extend the event by an extra week with a new finish date of December 22nd!
And along with the new end date, the final weekend of December 20th-21st is now going to be a dedicated multiplayer map sharing festival! This means that over the weekend is an especially perfect time to host a public server running your own map for other people to play!
If you are hosting a server, you can post about it in the multiplayer server forum to advertise it to other people and share extra information about what map your server is running or any special rules and requirements for players to join your map.
Even if your map is not finished yet for submitting to the map jam, hosting a public server is a great way to test it out with real people and see how people interact with your map.
For more detailed information about the Multiplayer Map Jam event you can read this news post.
But that's not all, this update adds several new features to the game!
This update adds a new "spectator mode" feature, where players can be locked from interacting with the map (e.g. driving trains, toggling turnouts, opening doors, etc).
This is perfect for if you want to host a public operations session with a group of friends but still allow random people to join in and watch (without having to worry about them messing things up!).
When setting up a server you can toggle a new setting in the hosting options which will cause any people joining to automatically be set a spectators:
Once a player has joined, you can then choose to remove their spectator status and let them control trains as normal. Only the server host can toggle whether a player is a spectator or not:
The other big part of this update is a complete re-design of how the game handles multiplayer server security. When I originally programmed the multiplayer systems I made the assumption that "who would bother to use hacks in a model train game?" ...but turns out I was absolutely wrong.
Looks like there are definitely some people out there who are modifying code in the game directly to mess with multiplayer servers, so this update does a big re-work of how multiplayer functionality is handled so that it's more resistant to hacking.
For example, it is now impossible for anyone to bypass server passwords by manipulating how the game sends data over the network. The server has complete control of how information sent from players is handled, and restrictions like server bans and passwords can't possibly be bypassed even with hacks.
While it's certainly annoying to have to work around hackers, it's actually a very good thing since it forces me to make more bullet-proof networking code. Hopefully this update really helps!
Another nice feature this update adds is the addition of server log files. Just like the error log files which you can find in the game's folder, you can now find dedicated log files which show events happening on a multiplayer server.
Only the host has this log file, and it lists things like:
Names of players joining and leaving
All chat messages
All player actions (like pressing buttons in train cabs, changing the speed, toggling turnouts, etc)
Warnings about players potentially trying to bypass security features
You can find these new server log files in the folder:
C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\Rolling Line\\Server_logs\\
Every time you host a new server a new log file is created with the time and date.
These are just simple text files and you can read all the info collection from that server hosting session:
Since it's almost Christmas, the usual winter/Christmas themed menus are back!
You can also find a bunch of special props and trains in the "Miscellaneous -> Christmas" drawer:
This update also fixes a few other minor bugs:
Fixed bug where waybills would still be visible when wagons were inside hidden regions
Slightly raised the height of waybills so that it doesn't get blocked by loaded double stack wagons
Extended the view distance for waybills
Waybills auto refresh when editing the roadnumber information for a wagon
Waybill settings are now included in the quick-search menu (pressing ~)
Fixed bug where pressing the gesture shortcut keys would cause camera issues when a 2D menu was active
Fixed bug where the gesture menu would not be usable when in miniature and the "allow interaction in miniature" setting was disabled
Teleport controls are now disabled wile a gesture is playing
Fixed bug where the "engine on/off" button would not show the correct state in some situations
Fixed the voice muted toggle setting not being set correctly when re-opening the player list menu
And that's everything for now!
I hope everyone is having fun with the Multiplayer Map Jam, and remember there's already a bunch of entries you can play right now! You can find them on the Steam Workshop:
Carter Shew, Gazzac100, Taerom, Trainiac 21, Codebag Playz, Joey Drysdale, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, JohnR, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Ethan Lamont, Rivet, HuskyDynamics, Trackmeister, Lutz
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
I hope everyone's enjoying the multiplayer map jam event! There's already some great entries there.
I'm doing a quick survey to see what people think of multiplayer so far, what kinds of bugs they are experiencing, and what kind of updates they want to see focused on in the future.
Please fill out this form if you have the time, it's extremely helpful!
With multiplayer officially released, it's time to really make the most of it!
When you experience a map with multiple people it really changes how you view it, and lots of different design ideas suddenly become more important. So a map designed from the beginning to be played in multiplayer is quite different from one that isn't.
So the goal of this map jam is simply to make maps themed around being played in multiplayer!
This map making event runs from now until December 15th! (26 days)
There are no restrictions on theme. It just needs to be in the spirit of being played in multiplayer
You can work with other people, or solo
You can make as many entries as you like
You can upgrade old maps to design them for multiplayer. It doesn't need to be a brand new save file
You can use as many mods (trains/props/terrain/etc) as you like
You can host your maps in multiplayer servers at any time, including during the event, in fact I encourage you to test your work-in-progress maps out in multiplayer!
When uploading a map/mod to the Steam Workshop in-game, check the "Multiplayer map jam entry" toggle, that's all you need to do! (This is in the "Pause menu -> Workshop -> Upload current map" menu)
You can also view all entries on the Steam Workshop by choosing the "Multiplayer map jam" tag under the "Competitions" category:
"Operations" are amazing in multiplayer! This means players taking on roles and driving trains around the map in an organized way, like communicating with each other about when a train is leaving one station and arriving at the next
Maps designed to be played in miniature scale, like adventure maps
Using circuitry and automation tools to make maps interactive
Puzzles/mini games, something like a maze for players to complete in miniature scale
Underground subway tunnels where players need to read signals to know if trains are coming down the tunnel ahead of them
Stormy weather/natural disaster themed maps, where players can role-play a disaster response situation
Shunting puzzles
Platforming maps, with jumping and climbing challenges to be played in miniature
Abandoned mine exploring/urban exploring with torches in miniature scale
Freight train hopping (hiding on freight wagons, staying out of sight of other players)
Or something completely different!
Playing a map with other people adds a whole new world of design possibilities, and I'm quite excited to see what people will be able to come up with!
As with a lot of these map making events, I've made my own example map too! After seeing how other players were running such amazing operation sessions in multiplayer, I've had my own go at making a map designed for simple operations.
It's a minimalist version of the "top of the south" route from the official map (you'll recognize some features like the Picton ferry terminal and Kaikoura station). But I've included some of the other towns along the way to make for a more interesting operations setup.
This map is designed to have a "yard master" at each location. This person gives clearance to trains arriving and departing, and keeps track of turnouts to make sure trains pass through correctly.
Along with the yard masters, there are several other roles you can take on, like driving various trains (passenger trains and freight trains heading between destinations) and even some shunting jobs, like moving freight wagons and cars on to the ferry.
When you join the map you will see some instructions on how to play, and even some pre-designed roles you can choose for yourself (they are ranked by difficulty). This map is designed for around 6-10 people to play at once, but you can keep adding more trains to involve more people.
There are also varying levels of complexity, depending on how detailed you want the operations to be.
There's even some circuitry involved if you want to make things even more organized!
At each station you can press buttons to communicate between different destinations to let them know a train is waiting, They can then communicate back to you and give you the green light to proceed:
This map is deliberately very minimalist in terms of scenery, so it can easily be run on low-end PCs and laptops. It can also transfer over the network very quickly for people joining the server.
You can find this map here on the workshop, and anyone is welcome to run an operations session with it! If you want you can try hosting it on a public server and see what happens, but a better way would be to run it with a small group of friends and give the operations a go in a smaller setting where you can all communicate with each other with voice chat.
As well as the map jam event, this update also includes some fixes and features. Since the last update I've released a few patches which included:
servers now have a custom max player count, which you will see in the server browser
the host can now control whether players are able to change the time/weather/skybox on a server, or if only the host can
the host can set a max speed for trains, so even if joining players have faster mods/speed settings, the speed can't go above the server max
blocked the "remove all trains" buttons from being used when the edit tool is force enabled, except for the server host
You are now prompted when starting a server as to whether your want it to be private or public (which will automatically setup some basic server settings).
Server hosts can set whether people joining are required to have the map already downloaded or not
Add a horn spam filter (so you can't honk the horn non stop) this is an optional setting when creating a server
Fixed bug where some official built-in maps would require save data transfer over the network when they shouldn't
Fixed a bug where loading screens could get stuck when loading missing mods
Fixed the context help text position being wrong alongside multiplayer chat
Added a setting for the server host to force block ALL use of the edit tool, regardless of the person joining and their own settings. But of course you can still disable this, and allow the edit tool on a per-server basis.
Fixes the audio layering bug, the audio should no longer cut out on busy servers
Fixes the "engine can't stop when train is moving" message being visible to everyone on the server
Fixes the magazine reading UI from getting stuck if using while joining a server or entering the chat menu
Fixed some shimmering effect on the message box popup in miniature mode
The floor now no longer moves higher when in multiplayer (this was originally a fix to make the players not look like they are floating, since the actual floor location is lower than zero. But several maps rely on the original incorrect floor position, so ill keep it the way it was)
Waybills are now hidden in miniature mode
Extended the view distance for waybills
Taerom, Trainiac 21, Codebag Playz, Joey Drysdale, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, NESecretWeapon, JohnR, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Rivet, HuskyDynamics, Trackmeister, Lutz
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
The release of multiplayer has been amazing! I'm loving seeing all the stuff that people are up to (like this screenshot above by Trainmann!), it really is a dream come true to finally see Rolling Line multiplayer in action.
One of the top requested features right away was some form of public server browser, so people can easily make their multiplayer sessions joinable by anyone. So I made this an immediate priority! (alongside various bug fixes and such).
The core feature of this update is the new server browser!
When you host a multiplayer server you now have the option of adding it to the public server list. To do this simply open the "Hosting options" when creating a new server:
Then enable the "Show on public server browser" toggle. From here you can set the server name, and also supply an optional download link for any Steam Workshop content your map requires.
For example, say you wanted to host the Bog Pit Railroad map, you could include the link to the Steam Workshop collection for all of it's required mods (plus the map itself included):
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2119554155
So when your game appears on the server browser, players will see a "Workshop" download button. When they click this button it will redirect them to the Steam Workshop download page for your collection!
Make sure to click the "Refresh workshop downloads" button after the workshop items have finished downloading. This will load them into the game.
Using the server browser to find a public server is easy! Just open the "Pause menu -> Multiplayer -> Server browser" menu:
And then you can view a list of all publicly listed servers being hosted by people! You can click the "join" button to enter the server. If there's a key icon on the join button then that means the server requires a password.
This update also includes a bunch of stuff that I've been working on since releasing multiplayer:
Fixed bug where lead locomotives pulling long trains would start to merge into each other
Fixed various server joining structure bugs to prevent being stuck "waiting in queue"
Fixed bug with modded track styles which was causing issues in maps (scenery failing to load)
Blocked various props from being used as wagon loads (things like drawers, switchboards, etc. Props that would cause errors when loaded)
Fixed incorrectly scaling collision hitbox on turntables
There is now a difference between the "Game version number" and "Server version number" which means that different game versions can still join servers as long as the server version stays the same. I will only change the server version number when changes are made to multiplayer code that would make older versions break.
Fixed bug where the item slots for loaders/unloaders would break when switching between 2D and 3D menus
Switchboard turnout levers are now interactable in miniature mode
In-game multiplayer chat now has a profanity filter. This filter is also used for server names and map names when adding them to the public server browser.
There is now a "hide player models in large scale" setting where you can disable large scale player models entirely, or just hide them when you yourself are in miniature.
And that's everything!
The multiplayer launch has been amazing, and surprisingly stable. Remember if you run into any bugs please let me know in the Multiplayer bug reporting thread here on Steam:
I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of servers start popping up on the server browser! Especially over the weekend, which is when most people jump on to multiplayer.
Enjoy!
As I've mentioned in previous update posts, I've recently started a Patreon! This Patreon page allows you to donate directly towards me developing the game. I want to always keep update like this complete free, and if multiplayer is something you really enjoy then please consider showing your support through a Patreon donation!
I've also recently made a new devlog video which goes into a bit more detail about the specific features of multiplayer and how they work (like train driving, player chat, circuitry, etc). You can find that video here, along with lots of other devlog videos:
Devlog - Multiplayer features preview
Taerom, Trainiac 21, Codebag Playz, Joey Drysdale, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, NESecretWeapon, JohnR, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Rivet, HuskyDynamics, Trackmeister, Lutz
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
The day has finally come! Rolling Line now has multiplayer. It's been the most highly requested feature since day one, and I've always dreamed of adding it. Working on multiplayer was always going to be a massive undertaking, but I'm so glad with how it's turned out!
Multiplayer has been in private beta testing for a while now, and I'm hoping that all the major bugs have been spotted. But launching any kind of multiplayer feature always has unforeseen problems, so please make sure to report any bugs you find! (I've added a new "Multiplayer bug reporting" thread here in the Steam community discussions).
Rolling Line multiplayer is a sandbox for driving trains and messing around on maps with other players. You can do realistic operations or just have silly fun.
The main limitation is that map editing is not possible in multiplayer!
I've spoken about this before, but I decided to make the decision that doing multiplayer map editing was going to be FAR too big of a job to take on all in one go, so my plan was to focus on train driving only to start off with. In the future though, I do plan to have a go at multiplayer map editing, since building a layout together with your friends would be a truly amazing experience.
There is also currently no server browser, as the game is very much designed around small groups of friends rather than large public servers. I do have plans to potentially add a public server browser in the future though, and add more moderation tools for running larger servers.
But what you can do right now includes:
Driving trains (in the cab and in large scale with controllers).
Controlling signals, turnouts, turntables, etc.
All other intractable map elements, like doors, levers, light switches, etc.
Circuitry and automation.
Spawning in and driving modded trains.
Voice chat and text chat.
Customizable player character and gesture animations.
Server control options like muting, kicking and banning players.
It's easy as! If you want to host a map, simply load the save file you want to play on and then go to the pause menu and choose "Pause menu -> Multiplayer -> Host a server". This is all done through Steam, so you can easily invite people from your friends list to join your game, or share a join code to anyone you want!
To join a game, you can either receive a Steam invite from someone directly (and just simply click "Join game" on the invite) or you can join them using the "join code" from their server.
Here's a full guide to answer all your questions!
The main new key bindings to remember are:
Press T to open the text chat/player list/options menu
Press G to open the gesture animations menu
Hold V for push-to-talk voice chat
Press Z to ping a location for other players to see
All of these are re-bindable in the controls menu of course.
You can also customize your character in the "Pause menu -> Multiplayer -> Customize character" menu:
Everything! You can play any maps you like, whether they are on the Steam Workshop or in your own local save files. Prop mods and track mods will also work perfectly fine as long as all joining players also have those mods downloaded.
It is also highly recommended that you share your map on the Steam Workshop and get all joining players to download it. This will make the joining process much faster since players won't need to download the map file directly from you!
If your map contains train mods then all players joining your server also should have those mods downloaded (otherwise they will only see a placeholder train model). Making a "collection" on the Steam Workshop is the best way to do this, then ask all joining players to first download the map's mod collection:
This initial release of multiplayer is just the beginning! I have lots of plans for future features coming to multiplayer. Some of these are:
Expanding the character customization (more clothing, more detailed color customization, etc).
Character model modding support (3D models and custom gesture animations).
Server roles (things like locking players to miniature only, only allowing some players to drive trains, etc). And other features to make operations more interesting.
VR specific animations (like hand tracking).
And of course, hopefully one day adding multiplayer map editing!
I decided to focus on the core basic features of multiplayer first and get this all polished and functional for release. Then after making all of this public, I can focus more directly on expanding features (like character customization) and release these features in future updates.
And that's everything for now!
Developing multiplayer has been a dream of mine for a long time, and seeing it actually become a reality has been a really enjoyable process. It's been a ton of work, and this is only just the beginning. There's still so much more to be done to make multiplayer as good as it can be! So keep an eye out for more.
I hope you all have fun experiencing Rolling Line maps with other people for the first time!
Also here's some new promotional screenshots:
As I've mentioned in previous update posts, I've recently started a Patreon! This Patreon page allows you to donate directly towards me developing the game. I want to always keep update like this complete free, and if multiplayer is something you really enjoy then please consider showing your support through a Patreon donation!
I've also recently made a new devlog video which goes into a bit more detail about the specific features of multiplayer and how they work (like train driving, player chat, circuitry, etc). You can find that video here, along with lots of other devlog videos:
Devlog - Multiplayer features preview
Trainiac 21, Codebag Playz, Joey Drysdale, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, NESecretWeapon, JohnR, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Rivet, HuskyDynamics, Trackmeister, Lutz
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
As multiplayer moves closer and closer to a full release, here's another feature which I've made as part of multiplayer that is already ready for release now!
During multiplayer beta testing, it quickly became obvious that players needed a way to put basic labels on freight wagons to show things like cargo and where they are being transported to. Since I've always wanted to add a basic "waybill" system to the game, this was a great opportunity to finally do this before multiplayer gets released.
"Waybills" are a very common tool used in real model railways, it's basically just a piece of paper where people write the origin, destination and cargo of a freight wagon (along with it's roadnumber and other details, and anything else of interest).
These pieces of paper are stored in shelves next to industry sidings and rail yards on the model railway to represent the freight wagons currently parked there. When you drive a train from one yard to another, you would move the waybill along with it and display it in the new spot.
Think of them as a custom digital piece of paper to display information on a freight wagon!
(Image credit to: Ted Pamperin - February 2012 issue of Model Railroader)
To enable a waybill on a freight wagon, simply point at it and press "K" (this key toggles whether waybills are visible, and is re-bindable in the controls menu).
And to edit a waybill, open the wagon options menu (point at a wagon and press "O") then choose the "Waybill" menu:
You can also open this menu by pressing the cog icon in the top right corner of the waybill.
From here you can set a bunch of options, like:
Setting the text displays (origin, destination and cargo)
Changing the text display size
Changing how the roadname and roadnumber are displayed
Set the waybill color, and provide an alternative color which can be switched to when you swap the origin and destination
Copy/Paste all waybill data between wagons
Please keep in mind that these waybills are just visual. Think of them as a piece of paper you can write your own information on. They do not actually represent what is loaded on to the freight wagon.
This means you can use them for whatever you like, it doesn't need to follow the "origin/destination/cargo" format.
Like for example you might just want to put a chemical warning or information label:
There are a couple of buttons on the waybill to make operations a bit easier.
You can press the "Swap destination" button to toggle the origin and destination test labels, as well as switch between the color and alternative color.
And you can press the "Toggle cargo" button to swap between the cargo display showing the custom name you've set, or just "empty"
For example, when a freight wagon arrives at its destination, you can press the "swap destination" button, then the "Toggle cargo" button, and it will now display as being empty (unloaded) and heading back to it's original destination.
You can also press the two buttons in the top-right corner to copy and paste waybill data between wagons.
And you can paint the waybill color directly:
You can edit some other options in the "Pause menu -> Gameplay -> Waybills" menu:
You can use the "Show/Hide all waybills" buttons to force enable/disable waybills on every wagon/loco on the save file.
You can also use the "Waybills visible state" option to toggle how they are displayed just visually. This will only visually affect whether they waybills are visible or not and will not change the save file. This is useful if you want to temporarily hide them all to take screenshots, but you still want to keep them visible afterwards.
You can also press F9 to cycle through these visibility options.
Also you can change whether they waybills are displayed as blocks on top of each wagon, or floating UI windows that always face the player:
The multiplayer beta is expanding a lot! Everything is getting really close to the full release. I wrote a lot of info about the current state of multiplayer in the previous news post, and I've recently made a new devlog video over on Patreon which goes into a bit more detail about the specific features and how they work (like train driving, player chat, circuitry, etc). You can find that video here:
Devlog - Multiplayer features preview
Trainiac 21, Codebag Playz, Joey Drysdale, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, NESecretWeapon, JohnR, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Rivet, HuskyDynamics, Trackmeister, Lutz
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
Hello everyone! Updates have slowed down recently and you can probably guess why, I'm heavily at work with multiplayer!
There is currently a private beta for multiplayer with over 50+ people in it, and I'm even getting ready to release a public beta. There will be heaps more news about this in the coming weeks. The multiplayer private beta has been going great, and I'm so excited to get this ready for a full release!
If you're curious about the current state of multiplayer, I've recently made a new devlog video over on Patreon which goes into a bit more detail about the specific features and how they work (like train driving, player chat, circuitry, etc). You can find that video here:
Devlog - Multiplayer features preview
But here's a few examples of the kind of chaos going on in the private multiplayer beta:
While 99% of my time is being spent on multiplayer, there are a few smaller features that I've needed to add along the way as part of the process. One of those is 2D main menus. Basically since multiplayer requires the 2D menu mode for a lot of its features (like text chat, player list, gesture menu, etc) I've been improving 2D menu support across the board so it can hopefully be the default and 3D menus can be limited to a few specific situations.
Remember you can always toggle between 2D and 3D menus, but 2D is now the default.
But now the main menu also has 2D menu support! Meaning that instead of spinning the camera around in first-person mode to click on things, you instead use your mouse like a normal PC game.
3D main menus:
2D main menus:
By default if you are playing on PC you will see these new 2D main menus! You can return to the old 3D menus if you want, there is a setting for this in the "Pause menu -> gameplay -> main menu options" menu.
There is also a full guide here which explains how to make your own custom 2D menu scenes and customize things like panning animations!
Remember you can also share your own custom menu scenes on the Steam Workshop and download other players menus!
This update also brings back all the classic Halloween features, like temporary Halloween themed menus:
And other things like the pumpkins and Halloween themed props which you can find in the "Misc" drawer category:
The Halloween main menus are just temporary and will go back to normal in about a week, but you can turn them off manually and bring back the normal main menus using this setting in the "Pause menu -> gameplay -> main menu options" menu.
Since there is a ton of work going on with multiplayer, this update also includes a bunch of fixes and changes which I've made over the last month while working on multiplayer, these are:
Fixed bug with track loading incorrectly when held in your hand hand on large maps
Fixed bug where the height change feature (using the scroll wheel) would get stuck on loading a map
Moved engine start/stop to the wagon popup menu (you can still use a shortcut key, but it is un-bound by default) So pressing G no longer toggles the engine
Improved resolution scaling for large displays like 1440p and above
Added missing mod placeholder model (which you can enable/disable in the "misc -> loading" menu)
fixes various issues relating to pressing escape when keyboard input is open
fixed a ton of stuff relating to audio, like the pickup "click" effects have been cleaned up a lot and no longer overlap.
click sounds are disabled when spawning into maps or entering and exiting the menu
added click sounds to various other UI elements (like drawers)
the setting search menu now shows instructions for pressing ~ to open/close the menu
The setting search menu can no longer be opened when photo mode is open
Fixed bug where duplicating a menu scene mod would not copy the menu save file
And that's everything for this update!
Things are really heating up with multiplayer and It won't be too long before a full public beta, so keep an eye out for news on that. These are exciting times for Rolling Line!
Joey Drysdale, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, NESecretWeapon, JohnR, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Rivet, HuskyDynamics, Trackmeister, Lutz
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
For anyone who doesn't already know, I'm a kiwi! (a proud resident of Aotearoa New Zealand).
Back when I first released Rolling Line it was pretty much entirely NZ trains and locations, with the one exception of the Big Boy locomotive. The rest of the original locomotive roster of the DX, DSJ and Flyer are all trains from NZ. And of course the game's one and only map, the Top of the South (or the "main layout" as it used to be called) is set in New Zealand's south island!
My entire vision of Rolling Line from the start of its development came from the simple childhood experience of trainspotting at the Kaikoura railway station while staying at the holiday park next to the tracks. This scene of the holiday park and railway station was the very first piece of scenery I ever made for the game:
But that was just the start! After I initially released the game with its single "Main layout" map, so many more maps and trains have been added since then. And while I've focused on a few overseas locations (like Brazil & America) the vast majority of new maps have been set right here back in NZ.
Funny thing is, despite all these NZ maps being added to the game, I still haven't even done some of my favorite rail locations in the country (like the South Island's west coast coal mines, and the incredible Arthurs Pass crossing the southern alps). There's certainly more to do!
So this event centered around games made in NZ seemed like the perfect time to celebrate the amazing railways of NZ and Rolling Line's strong link to this modest little country at the bottom of the world!
While I continue to work on multiplayer behind the scenes, there's still a bunch of features that I'm planning to add before multiplayer is done!
One of those was a very highly requested feature: the option to control speed by exact amounts (instead of the speed steps currently in the game). You can now switch to an optional "smooth speed control" mode where you can set the exact speed value you want! Simply hold and release the speed up/down buttons to change the speed gradually, instead of clicking them to change the speed step:
You can toggle between the two control modes inside the cab, or you can change the settings for whether the control mode is "step" or "smooth" by default. These settings can be found in the "Pause menu -> Gameplay -> Train speed control options" menu. There are also different settings for both then in-train cab controls and the hand-held controllers.
You can also now adjust how fast trains will slow down and speed up using the "Train acceleration rate" and "Train deceleration rate" settings.
These settings only affect when smooth acceleration is enabled, which by default is when you are in miniature mode.
This means that when you are in large scale trains will speed up and slow down in a faster snappy movement (like a real model railway) but when you are in miniature mode, they will accelerate and brake much slower, like a real world locomotive.
A big behind-the-scenes part of this update is that I've completely changed the Steamworks framework that Rolling Line uses! (this means all of the features relating to connecting to Steam). This is mostly invisible to players, but it means a lot under the hood.
The main difference you will notice is that the workshop uploading and updating process has changed a bit. The uploading process now has a completely different system for error reporting and will show you much more detailed error messages when your item fails to upload (hopefully putting an end to the dreaded "Generic failure" upload message!).
The files for your current upload are now temporarily stored in a new folder:
...\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\Rolling Line\\Modding\\workshop upload temp
So if you want to use a custom thumbnail you can modify the files in this folder before clicking upload.
Previously you needed to find the upload folder in appadata, so it's much easier now having it in the main Rolling Line directory
The workshop item update process now works quite differently, instead of needing to have a local copy of all the workshop items you had uploaded in the past, you can now access every single item your account has ever uploaded! Having the original mod files on your PC is no longer required.
When you choose the option to update a workshop item you will see a list of all your previously uploaded items (you need to be connected to Steam for these to load!). Simply choose the item you want to update and the rest of the process is the same as it was before.
Another bonus of this system is that the title and description that you have set on Steam will be used, so if you have edited your description manually through Steam then this new description will be kept when updating.
Something else that this new Steamworks integration includes is the Steam "rich presence" feature, which means Rolling Line can set a custom status to display to your friends while you are playing.
Currently, these statuses are:
Making mods
Building maps
Driving trains
And once multiplayer is released:
Hosting multiplayer
Playing multiplayer
This feature is really just a bonus for fun, and if you would prefer for it not to be displayed you can turn it off using the setting in "Pause menu -> Misc -> Enable Steam public status"
Fixed bug where opening the custom tag setting menu for a workshop item upload would not appear correctly when using the 2D menus.
Text box menu settings (e.g. the description for workshop items) now clip their text display correctly so the text wont overflow.
The "max speed" setting for mods now scales in a much more logical way. Instead of being exponential, it is now linear.
Fixed shadow casting on the Weka Pass map's road models.
Fixed bug where toggling fullscreen when using 2D menus would lock the cursor.
While I'm still working on other features (like this update) most of my time is going towards developing multiplayer! Progress is going great, and the main features I've been working on recently are things relating to Steam.
You can now easily host a game and invite your friends to join you, all entirely within Steam!
Of course you can still host and join servers using a traditional IP & port connection, which means a connection to Steam is not required to play multiplayer. And you can easily host a LAN game on your local network.
I've also been working heaps on multiplayer synchronization for controls and gameplay features, like controlling pantographs/lights/loading/unloading/cab controls/etc.
It's all working really well!
Multiplayer development is well underway, and it might not even be that long before I start running private beta testing. These are really exciting times for Rolling Line, and I can't wait for multiplayer to be complete!
Ábris Pataki, Ben Burch, Blake Prevett, CAMOGUY54321, Detroit_, Douglas Niven, Don Willis, Garst, Gustavo Sanchez, Helga Nordgren, HuskyDynamics, ItzAerozic, Jack Fruh, Jayton Hawkins, Joblogh, JohnR, Jonathan Ginsburg, KathalLasagna, Leto Gloas, Lutz, Lynk_Wyland, Matt, Matthew Johnson, Michelle chan, Microcosmologist, Nathan Perez, NESecretWeapon, Outertoaster, Railraider, Richard Prior, Rivet, Rowan Mackenzie, SmokeStream, TheAmazingRyry, Thomas Merolla, Trackmeister, TrainMann, TrainTiny
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
As the last update post announced, multiplayer is officially in development!
But that doesn't mean that all updates stop for months until that's done, I do still have lots of features I want to work on before releasing multiplayer, and it's good to have some variety while I spend the majority of my time working on multiplayer programming.
So here's a very fun feature that I've wanted to add for ages:
Basically, if a wagon is on a sloped track and is not connected to any locomotives it will freely roll downhill and then slowly come to a stop on flat ground. Locomotives act as 'anchors' and will stop any connected wagons from rolling downhill. You can also now control brakes on individual freight wagons. If a wagons brakes are enabled then it will stop it from rolling downhill and will also block any other connected wagons from rolling too.
You can point at a wagon and press B to toggle brakes, or change the setting in the wagon options popup menu.
You can also adjust how quickly rolling wagons speed up and slow down, or even disable gravity entirely. To help with compatibility with older maps, any wagons that are already on slopes when loading an older save will not be affected by gravity until you interact with them.
These new gravity features can be used alongside AI trigger signs (like decoupling) to make automated hump yards!
There is also now a new setting added for AI trigger signs which controls whether they affect locomotives or wagons:
Since I've been working on a lot of technical stuff recently, I wanted to do a very quick and easy feature just for fun. So you can now create pixel art automatically using the 'spray' feature.
Simply replace the "spray.png" image in the folder:
C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\Rolling Line\\Modding\\spray.png
As long as the image is less than 100x100 pixels you can paint it directly into the game as pixel art:
(And yes I've been playing a lot of Deltarune recently)
You can switch between the normal spray function (which is just an image texture) and the new pixel art feature using these settings in the "pause menu -> misc" menu:
The pixel art is made out of normal in-game cube props and each cube is painted to the correct color for the image. You can use the bulk move tool to shift the new props around your map too:
The loading screen text & logo now scales with screen size, and you can further adjust the scale factor using the UI scale setting in the "PC options -> interface" menu.
Progress on multiplayer has been going great! I've been posting lots of news on the official Discord server and lots of features are in the works. Especially things like animations and interaction. You can play different "emotes" from a list of animations, and when modding is added you will be able to include your own animations alongside a custom 3D player model!
Also the basics of character customization are already in progress!
Very exciting stuff! I'll keep posting progress alongside these normal updates.
...And as things move along I'll eventually even be doing beta testing!
I've also made a new video discussing the behind-the-scenes debug info about how the wagon movement system works, and how the new gravity feature fits into this. You can watch that video now here on the Rolling Line patreon:
Wagon movement physics - devlog
Matt, Ábris Pataki, NESecretWeapon, JohnR, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Lutz, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Rivet, HuskyDynamics, Trackmeister
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
You probably never thought this day would come, but Rolling Line is officially going to be getting multiplayer! I've been working on developing multiplayer in the background and I'm finally at the stage of being able to show it off.
A full release of multiplayer is still a long time away though, so don't get too excited just yet, but so far progress is going great and I'm really happy with how it's currently looking!
Everything in this news post is VERY work-in-progress and will likely look very different before it's released. Especially the character models and interactions.
Here are the main key points about what I'm planning for Rolling Line's multiplayer:
This means one person will "host" a map on their computer, and they can send a code to other people to let them join. I can't confirm yet whether there will be a public lobby system, I need to do more research and test things out before confirming this.
You can host any save file you like, and if it requires mods then all joining players will need to also have those mods downloaded to be able to see them.
I will be working on adding map editing in a future update, but for now it will just be train operations (everything except placing props & track). The reason I'm doing it this way is because map editing is going to be a massive, massive job. It would be a much better option to focus on the basics of multiplayer and get this ready for people to play sooner, rather then trying to do everything at once.
So I can't make any promises as to how map editing will work, or when it will happen. There will be more news on that once the core features of multiplayer are done.
You will be able to customize your player model with things like basic clothing and colors, as well as choosing from some default model presets. And of course player models will be fully moddable using a similar system to prop modding, so you will be able to import 3D models to use as your player avatar.
I haven't yet decided how to manage player model animations, but the most likely system will be that your player model will have pre-set "gestures" like pointing and waving. But if you have a modded player character model then you will also be able to import custom animations!
VR players will hopefully have some form of hand tracking, but I haven't researched anything about how to do this yet.
Pretty much a requirement for any good multiplayer game, this will of course include voice chat and text chat. I would also love to add some sort of hand-held radio system, but I can't confirm details on how this will work yet.
And much more!
I won't make too many promises since multiplayer is still VERY early in development and I'll be confirming things as I go. At the moment I am just focusing on the core framework and getting things to a fully playable state, so all the finer details will come later.
Speaking of which, here's the first ever captured photo of Rolling Line running in multiplayer!
The reason I'm announcing this now is because I've finally gotten the core functionality of multiplayer working and I'm starting to get a good idea of what's possible (and what's not). I'm still testing out various networking connection options, so a lot is still not set in stone. Most of what you're seeing is placeholder and VERY work-in progress.
The character models are just temporary, in fact these are from Spicy Tamale's prop mod:
Things like animations, and displaying what players are holding in their hands is not in the game yet, but here are some examples of what the current state of multiplayer is like:
All of the train interaction from singleplayer also work in multiplayer, so you can pickup and place trains, push trains, etc. And other players can see you doing this:
You can ride on trains, and see other players both on & off trains! You can have multiple people riding on a single wagon, so people can be inside the cab while others stand on the outside:
And you can be in both miniature and large scale, and see other players doing the same thing!
And of course you can play on any map you like! When a player joins a server they will download the map data directly from the server. (Though I have not yet confirmed how I'm going to manage mods, whether it will require everyone to be using the Steam Workshop, or whether mod files can be downloaded directly when joining a server).
Anyway, in conclusion, I'm really excited to finally be announcing this, and there will be lots more news coming as I make more progress.
Multiplayer has always been such a far off dream, so seeing it actually in action is quite surreal.
But this is going to take a TON of work! The progress I have so far is just the basics, there's a huge amount of work between this and a finished and fully-featured multiplayer update.
My estimate would be several months at least, but we shall see. And I'm still going to be releasing some smaller gameplay related updates before then.
Exciting times!
Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Lutz, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, Leto Gloas, TheAmazingRyry, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna, Rivet, HuskyDynamics, Trackmeister
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
It might not be very glamorous or exciting, but optimization is a REALLY important part of game development and it's great to spend some time making improvements every now and then.
This update is entirely focused on optimization, specifically around RAM (memory) usage and speeding up the map loading process!
These changes especially improve loading large maps with a lot of track, and when testing some famously large maps (like Beaumont, Nevada Arizona & Utah, Continental United Sates V2, Thunder Mountain Line) the improvements have been amazing:
Nevada Arizona & Utah:
RAM usage: 3.4gb -> 1.6gb of (52% reduction) Load time: 15 seconds -> 10 seconds (33% reduction)
Beaumont:
RAM usage: 7.3gb -> 3.4gb (53% reduction) Load time: 57 seconds -> 41 seconds (28% reduction)
Continental United Sates V2:
RAM usage: 4.2gb -> 2.5gb (40% reduction) Load time: 41 seconds -> 20 seconds (51% reduction)
Thunder Mountain Line:
RAM usage: 5.3gb -> 3.4gb (35% reduction) Load time: 45 seconds -> 31 seconds (31% reduction)
These optimizations come from two main places:
Changes to how track is loaded. Only the bare minimum track data is loaded when opening a map (just waypoint position data for the trains to use) and no visual meshes or textures are loaded. Instead the visuals for track are dynamically loaded as you move around the map in the same way props are. Basically track can now exist in either a "partially loaded" or "fully loaded" state.
Changes to how mesh data is stored and managed. I've done a huge deep-dive on where mesh data is being duplicated and improperly handled, and I found several great optimizations where mesh data could be reduced. This kind of "unnecessary mesh duplication" bloat builds up in the background and can be hard to spot, so tracking this down and improving it makes a big difference on large maps.
Aside from these two main points, I've also made a ton of smaller improvements here-and-there which affect how the game loads meshes, textures and handles RAM.
Here is a full list of all the changes in this update:
Improved RAM management for loading screen custom images
Loading screen images can now have any aspect ratio and will correctly scale to fit any sized screen
Fixed flickering/flashing when loading in distant chunks while moving around the map
Improved map startup loading in several ways
Fixed bug where people using the old inventory selection system would experience issues when saving the game from the menu
The item held in your hand is now correctly re-equipped when exiting a 2D menu
Added new loading screen step for "reading save data file" when loading very large save text files
Over on the Patreon I've also made a devlog video going into detail about how all of these optimization features work under-the-hood, and talking about how Rolling Line loads maps:
You can join the Patreon and view the video here!
GaugeGang: SmokeStream
Rolling Line enjoyers: Helga Nordgren
Model railroaders: Lutz, Jayton Hawkins, TheAmazingRyry, CAMOGUY54321, Jonathan Ginsburg
Railfans: TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Leto Gloas, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Lynk_Wyland, KathalLasagna
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
This update makes a really nice quality-of-life change that I've been meaning to add for ages. The game now has screenshots for loading screens (instead of just the grey background) and of course you can add your own too!
Each of the main official maps has their own set of loading screen images, and you can even set your own custom images for your own maps, and include them when uploading to the Steam workshop.
To use a custom set of loading screen images for a single save file, all you need to do is make a folder called "custom load screens" and put your custom images in there!
You can add your own general custom loading screen images to the folder: ...Rolling line / modding / custom load screens
You can put any .jpg or .png images you want in there!
There's also several settings to customize how loading screens are displayed:
Load screen refresh - change how frequently images are changed.
Show mod count warning - enable/disable a warning message which shows when you have a large number of mods installed.
Allow infinite view map preload - this setting is off by default, which means that if you have your view distance set to "infinite" the game will not load the entire map in one go (since this is likely to crash or freeze the game on very large maps). It will only load the area around you and then load the rest once the loading screen ends.
Loading screen images - change whether the built-in official loading screens are included in the shuffle list. You can choose to instead use images in the "custom load screens" folder only.
And a few other smaller features & fixes:
The quicksave screen now has a different visual style, it just blurs the game instead of using a full-screen loading screen.
The RAM usage message on the loading screen now changes colors (yellow, orange, red) to show when you are running out of RAM.
The "Batching props" stage of the loading screen has now been split into segments, showing progress of each chunk loaded.
VSync is now force disabled when launching in VR (since this can cause problems when enabled).
It's amazing how much of a difference it makes to have pretty screenshots to look at during a loading screen makes, I should have added this ages ago! This is just another step closer to the game being more polished and approachable to people, which is my goal at the moment (just like the previous tutorial update). And there's lots more to come.
Have fun! And I'm keen to see what kind of bizarre custom loading screens people are going to use!
GaugeGang: SmokeStream
Rolling Line enjoyers: Helga Nordgren
Model railroaders: Lutz, Jayton Hawkins, TheAmazingRyry, CAMOGUY54321, Jonathan Ginsburg
Railfans: Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Leto Gloas, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Lynk_Wyland, KathalLasagna
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!
Now that the huge Sierra Logging project is complete I can shift my focus on to new things! And one of Rolling Line's biggest weak points is the new player experience. This game has quite a complicated learning curve since the controls and mechanics are a bit different to what people would expect. I'm planing to dedicate some proper time to improving the new player experience and making the controls easier to understand.
And the best way to kick that off is to finally add some new tutorials!
Previously the in-game tutorials were quite lacking, leaving out lots of important basic game mechanics. So these new ones help fix that by adding step-by-step instructions for things like trackwork, scenery and even some of the more niche mechanics like pantographs and snow plows.
You can play these tutorials from the main menu, or from the pause menu:
For more complex mechanics, like skyboxes, automation and modding, I've already made tons of guides here on Steam:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/jach5270/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides&appid=754150
In other news, the release of the Sierra Logging map has been amazing! I'm so glad that people are enjoying the map so much. I love seeing everyone's screenshots and comments, especially people finding easter eggs and admiring the little details around the map. The Sierra Logging map took a staggering amount of effort and time, and I'm really happy with how it all worked out. It's definitely the map I'm the most proud of from all the official map releases.
I recently posted a proper trailer video for the map:
And a developer commentary where I explore the map and talk about the design inspirations and building methods that went into making it:
The above commentary was released early for everyone subscribed to the Patreon, and I'm going to be making more videos like this in the future!
I'll share them early on Patreon, but they will eventually make their way to Youtube at a later date, since I don't want to lock anything behind a paywall.
If you would like to support the game and help me keep making free updates forever, then please consider joining the Patreon, even $5 is awesome and really helps!
This update also includes some other fixes & features:
Fixed bug where portable drawers were not spawning correctly in VR
Various settings have been moved into the "pause menu -> editing" menu, all settings relating to prop placement and snapping can be found here
There is now a new drawer dedicated to all snow themed props and trains
The drawer style edit menu now disappears correctly when the drawer is removed
The "default up/down context action for prop placing" now affects both VR and PC. This means on PC you can now change the default behavior of whether the scroll wheel changes scale or height offset when placing props
You can now use the 'expand list' button on the various save file list on the main menu
Gap-fill track now no longer requires track snapping to be enabled to work
The 'tutorial complete' message now shows up in VR too
The 'color hexcode copied to clipboard' message is now hidden in VR
VR now has 'fast scaling' enabled by default
Fixed bug where player held items were visible during the load screen
Added labels to the tables & walls drawers to separate the large & small tables
And that's everything!
I've got big plans coming up, mainly revolving around making the game more polished and easier to understand overall. Along with other gameplay themed features like continuing work on expanding the loading & unloading features!
Lots of cool things on the way, so keep and eye out.
GaugeGang: Trackmeister, SmokeStream
Rolling Line enjoyers: Helga Nordgren
Model railroaders: Lutz, Jayton Hawkins, TheAmazingRyry, CAMOGUY54321, Jonathan Ginsburg
Railfans: Don Willis, Leto Gloas, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Garst, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Lynk_Wyland, KathalLasagna
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Rolling Line, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Rolling Line statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.