Expect Delays releases July 24, and it does not travel alone.

Hey dispatchers,

The DLC arrives together with the free update 3.0 for everyone. Most of the new systems belong to Expect Delays, but the update carries a few perks for every dispatcher, DLC or not. Here is the tour.

Waypoints

Sometimes a train picks a path you did not want. Two lines run between the same stations, and the express takes the slow one. Waypoints fix that. A waypoint is a small marker you place on plain track. Add it to a contract in the schedule editor, and every service must pass through it, without stopping. No dwell, no timetable entry, no lost travel time. Just your trains, on exactly the line you chose. Each waypoint gets its own name and color, so a busy map stays readable. It is a new Tier 2 system upgrade in the base game, free for everyone.

Custom contract period

Until now, every repeating contract repeated once per hour. Take it or leave it. In 3.0 you set the period yourself: from 10 minutes up to 4 hours, in 10 minute steps. A commuter line every 20 minutes, a heavy freight every 3 hours. Your timetable, your rhythm. Also a Tier 2 upgrade in the base game.

Expect Delays: the story so far

We have been showing the DLC piece by piece over the last months. The short version, if you missed a stop:

• Condition. Every track, switch and signal wears down with use. Things get slower long before they break, and nothing ever traps your trains. Full story: Things Fall Apart (Slowly).
• The service loco. The yellow train that fixes it all: maintenance sweeps, repairs, rescues of broken-down trains. It lives in the maintenance depot, the new building where you buy and stable your locos. Full story: Meet the Service Loco.
• The incidents. Breakdowns, storms, power outages, late arrivals. Each one toggleable, each one recoverable. Full story: What Actually Goes Wrong.

And three more systems we never properly showed. Let’s fix that now.

Operating hours

Your railway is not equally busy all day, and now your contracts know it. Define named time windows, up to eight per game: “Morning rush 06:00-09:00”, “Night freight 22:00-05:00”. Assign a window to a contract, and it runs services only inside it. Together with custom periods this is real timetable control: a commuter line every 15 minutes, but only in the morning, and the same platforms free for freight at night.

Service loco automation

The depot can maintain your network without you. With the Service Automation upgrade, the depot learns service routes. You draw a route once in the route editor: click destination after destination, signal by signal, add a reverse move where the loco should change direction, save. From then on it is a single Dispatch click. A free loco rolls out of the depot, drives the route on its own through your auto signals, repairs everything it passes, and comes back home. You can even put a route on a schedule and let the depot run the morning sweep while you run the morning rush. Manual signals stay yours. The loco waits there for your word, like any other train.

Construction takes time

New tracks do not appear out of thin air anymore. With Expect Delays, building is work: a bright line grows along the track under construction, and the element enters service when the crew is done. Track takes about 2 in-game minutes per square, a signal 10 to 20 minutes, a new building around 30. Bulldozing takes time too. Expanding in the middle of rush hour is now a plan, not a click. You build ahead of the demand, not behind it. And if you prefer the old instant building, one checkbox in the settings turns the whole thing off.

See you on the 24th

That is the picture: update 3.0 for everyone, Expect Delays for those who want the pressure. Wishlist Expect Delays if you have not yet.

The Bitrich team