OpenLoco v26.09 is out! We have a huge number of new Open Graphics objects this month as part of our North American Expansion work. On the game side of things, we have added drag dimension tooltips and improved our Linux support, as well as a host of other fixes and improvements.
Please find the download on our website, or read the changelog on GitHub.
Open Graphics
The main aim of the Open Graphics sub-project is to provide a complete set of replacement objects for the original game. There are areas of the game, though, that are seen as lacking content. Where appropriate, we will add new objects to fill the gaps. This month sees the introduction of the first of these with the North American Expansion.
@Shusaura85 added Train Station 3.
@Spacek531 added Acela powercar and Acela coach.
@Phosphorus551 went above and beyond with 32 new objects for the North American Expansion:
- CL-8 ‘Marathon’
- CL-60 ‘Oxen’
- Ridley electric multiple unit
- ‘Pennliner’ diesel railcar
- EPL-7 ‘Longship’
- HSL-8 ‘Achilles’
- 1920’s mail car
- 1920’s passenger car
- 1980’s passenger car
- 1960’s passenger car
- Mikado 2-8-2
- MS-2 ‘Polaris’
- Rowan electric railcar
- MRA-7 electric multiple unit
- ST-7 ‘Steven’
- Level crossing sound 7
- Early train horn 9
- Early train horn 8
- LFT powercar
- LFT passenger car
- APM ‘Turbo’ powercar
- APM ‘Turdo’ passenger car
- Express boxcar
- CL-44 ‘Revolution’
- CL-40 ‘Provenance’
- DFL-40 ‘Banshee’
- EE-5 ‘Boxer’
- TFL-1 ‘Tandem’
- EE-1 ‘Sabre’
- Northern 4-8-4
- ECI ‘Renaissance’ intercity bus
- Beckmann Model-1922 omnibus
But that wasn’t enough for them; they also added the 12 vanilla replacements:
- Model 36R bus
- CM ‘Baroque’ intercity bus
- TDH5301 bus
- Overhead catenary wire for trains
- American train horn sound
- American region object
- Overhead catenary wire for trams
- SMC ‘Accordion’ articulated bus
- XTA ‘Road Train’ articulated bus
- Icarus ISD omnibus
- Wickham Model-C omnibus
- ECI ‘Cobra’ articulated bus
But wait, there’s even more! They also updated the following vehicles:
- OG_CE68 sprite count warning fix
- OG_PCARUS2 sprite and model rework
- OG_ALOCENT sprite and model rework, uses new sounds
- OG_DASH7 sprite and model rework, uses new sounds
- OG_SD70MAC sprite and model rework, uses new sounds
- OG_E8 sprite and model rework
Drag dimension tooltips
I was watching a @MasterHellish video recently, and he mentioned how annoying it is to work out lengths of stations and tracks when building. So to address that, we now show the dimensions of a dragged tool in a tooltip. It’s a small change, but hopefully it makes it much easier now to plan out your perfect station. It isn’t completely perfect though, and you will notice that the dimensions show up for some tools where it doesn’t make much sense (e.g. the town placement tool). Expect some improvements to this in the future.
Are there any other limitations in modification tools that you feel need addressed? Let us know on Discord.
Improved Linux support
I’m not much of a Linux user, and frankly think how programs are installed on Linux is odd. But as we do have some Linux users, we have to follow those conventions.
This month we reworked how the data directory is located on Linux: it now looks for it in /usr/share/openloco
as well as ../share/openloco (relative to the binary).
New contributor @ben-leone added code to try find the vanilla game directory on Linux based on common GOG/Steam install locations.
There is also an AppImage build available for Linux users. This uses a new build setup
that utilises Zig to build OpenLoco with a much older version of glibc. Hopefully, this will mean
that we have okay support for most Linux distros. Thanks @ben-leone and @ZehMatt for work on this.
Toolbar rework
@AaronVanGeffen has been working on reworking the top and bottom toolbars. The main aim is to simplify the code and prepare for changing the layout of the toolbars. In the future this will allow users with widescreens to have buttons in more logical positions.
Fixes and refactoring
@duncanspumpkin fixed a bug from our last release that prevented signal placement and removal on curved track in some cases. Oops!
@LeeSpork fixed issues with scenario challenge time limits and a journey time exploit.
@LeftOfZen named a bunch of unknown variables.
@Spacek531 named and refactored some vehicle related code.
New contributor @MinerSheep tidied up the software drawing engine which also fixed a crash-on-close bug.
@shusaura85 fixed a bug that prevented vehicles from using roads that are enabled via the object selection window.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few other refactors, but hopefully I’ve covered the main ones.
For a complete list of fixes refer to the changelog on GitHub.