We know that dispatching the same trains again and again in a loop improves your memory. After a while you exactly know where this train is heading without even clicking on it. We also know that this improving of your memory causes a boredom. That’s where an automation can shine! Four of five dispatchers approve.

The automation will be a critical part of the game. We want the player  to gradually expand from the starting stations towards the other edges of the game plan. But this move is not possible when she has to dispatch same trains over and over. She may need to return after some time to further improve the operations but not to do the basics things again and again.

Contract Automation

The first kind of automation is the contract automation. When you research it, you can set-up the actions for trains in the contract that responds to events like “train arrived to station” or “train stopped at station”. In words, you can define: “Build this route from this station to this station” when trains from this contract “stops at this” station. The semaphores and switches are set automatically when the event occurs.

With this addition to the game we want the contracts to run indefinitely. First 10 trains are mandatory (you can cancel the contract only for fee) and then you can cancel the contract anytime. If you do the automation correctly, you don’t have to focus on this particular trains. Money will flow in automatically 🤑.

Other Automation

By now you can also enable auto-accept trains at the stations so you don’t have to look at the timetable in every station. The train will enter its defined platform as soon as it’s available. We also plan to implement other automation events e.g. automated semaphores will notify you that a given train has passed. These events will ensure you can fully automate your traffic so you can have a nice and long nap in your work as a train dispatcher!

With all these changes we have also reworked the research screen and make it more like a tree rather than a list. More research items will follow!

Research screen

Next Demo – “Automation Update”?

We would like to release the next demo by the end of the year. Stay tuned for the future update. In the mean time, you can tell us what automation options you would like to see in the game. Maybe we have forgotten something.