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Archive for June, 2022

Simutrans 25th Anniversary #1: A look back at our shared history. The Simutrans Timeline.


Hajo’s first Simutrans sketch. At the top-right, a date can be read: 30-06-1997. Today, 25 years ago.

Simutrans started 25 years ago. Not yet as bits and bytes, but in the mind of a man: Hansjörg Malthaner (known by the Simutrans community as “Hajo”). Today, Simutrans is still alive, not only as bits and bytes in the thousands of computers (and now smartphones) that run Simutrans, but also in the hearts of many talented programmers, excellent artists, amazing modders and dedicated players.

To everyone of you: Thank you! Simutrans has gone very far, and it will go even further, thanks to everyone who believes in the Simutrans project.

Let’s take some time to congratulate ourselves and celebrate this milestone!

But first things first…

A little bit of history

Hajo started Simutrans alone in mid-1997. It was not until early 1999 that the first public beta was released. Simutrans started gaining some interest, and the first contributors, as the precursor of our current forum was created in the early 2000’s to accommodate a growing community.

Hajo kept developing Simutrans until he retired from development because of personal reasons in 2005. Since then, Markus Pristovsek “prissi” takes care of Simutrans, but not alone. In 2007, Simutrans became open source. This move ensured the long term survival of Simutrans and attracted many contributors.

Simutrans stayed on good track after that and would eventually come to other platforms such as Linux distributions, Steam, or more recently, Android.

Meanwhile, as Simutrans matured, other projects were born from it with the intention to innovate even further like jamespetts’ Simutrans Extended or himeshi’s OTRP.

But enough of reading about history. Reading about history is boring. So why don’t you instead see it?

The Simutrans Interactive Timeline

For the first event of this anniversary, here is an exciting idea: Let’s build a Simutrans Timeline of events. Surely a project as old as Simutrans has a lot of history to tell! So let’s tell it, graphically.

The very good news is that we already have built the foundations of this timeline, and it is interactive!

See it right now at simutrans.github.io. You can look more closely an also filter by event type. Here is a closer look at the last two years.

I have added the events that came to my mind, but there are many things missing, and I don’t know everything about Simutrans. Help us get a complete view of Simutrans history by adding missing events to the repository at GitHub. Missing releases, the date a contributor joined, or important events such as the forum migration. Every help is welcome!

The Simutrans 25th Anniversary

That’s not all we have prepared for this anniversary, but that’s all for today. In the upcoming weeks, you will see more posts to celebrate the anniversary. Join us in two weeks from now for an exclusive interview with the Man Who Started It All: Hansjörg Malthaner (Hajo).

If you want to know about the rest of the events: I am not telling you yet!

  • 2022-06-30 – A look back at our shared history. The Simutrans Timeline.
  • 2022-07-15 – An interview with Hansjörg Malthaner, the Founding Father.
  • 2022-07-30 – ???
  • 2022-08-15 – ???
  • 2022-08-30 – ???
  • 2022-09-15 – ???
  • 2022-09-30 – ???
  • 2022-10-15 – ???
  • From 2022-10-30 to 2022-12-31 – ???

Happy Simutransing!

Tags:

Simutrans on Social Media


Screenshot shared by ahakuoku on the Simutrans Discord

Building amazing transport networks is a lot of fun, and after building the railway of your dreams you surely would want to share it with others! For this purpose, and also delivering to you Simutrans news and other content, Simutrans is present on many Social Media platforms.

Official presence

You can follow or join the following communities, managed by Simutrans contributors:

Simutrans Extra #2: Simutrans for Android, Introducing the Extended Pier System and the New Directory Structure.

Welcome to another Simutrans Extra! For the ones that join us for the first time, Simutrans Extra is a series of articles bringing you the latest news of the Simutrans world, in a bulletin format. You can read previous editions in the Simutrans Steam News section.

We have been very quiet this year so far, but there are nonetheless exciting things to share! We’ll also be celebrating the 25 years of Simutrans during the second part of this year, so stay tuned: special publications coming soon!

But now, let’s review what has been happening these months in the Simutrans world, starting with the biggest plate: the Android port.

Simutrans for Android

Since the past year and thanks to the initial efforts made by krosk, we have a working Android build of Simutrans. This was one of the major goals for Simutrans, and it is finally here!

Publishing the game to the Play Store was a long effort (which prissi took personally), due to Google’s review process. And it is mainly the reason why this Simutrans Extra number took so long to publish – I was waiting for that process to end.

Although the build an publishing is already done, that does not mean that there’s nothing left to do: Simutrans has not been designed to be played on mobile, and a lot of work needs to be done to adapt the current interface to mobile characteristics.

You can download and play Simutrans from the Google Play Store:
=> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simutrans
Or directly from the GitHub releases page:
=> https://github.com/simutrans/simutrans/releases/tag/Nightly

For the Google Play Store, you can play the current nightly by joining the beta program. If you encounter any problems or have any suggestions feel free to post them on the Simutrans International Forum.

New directory structure

Traditionally, Simutrans has had two main directories:

  • Base directory – Simutrans installation and paksets go here.
  • User directory – Savegames, configuration and other user-specific stuff go here.

However, with the new pakset installer it was clear that this separation was not enough; we have added a third directory:

  • Paksets install directory – Simutrans paksets installed by the installer will go there.

Why? Well, when Simutrans is installed in the system, the user usually does not have sufficient permissions to allow paksets installation. Also, operating systems (like MacOS) have been pushing for self-contained programs, which was not compatible with pakset installation in the previous directory structure, and involved some hacks to even make it work in the first place.

From now on, paksets will be installed in a separate directory (inside %appdata% on Windows and the user directoyr on Unix-like systems. Note: Name still to be decided). Worry not, because this will not affect traditional Simutrans installations (including Steam) – Simutrans will still be able to read your paksets from the base directory!

Pak128 maintained again

This year started with a bad new: pak128 (default pakset on Steam) was marked as unmaintained, after 5 years without updates. After the announcement was done, however, Simutrans user garro (Gianmarco Garrisi) expressed interest in maintaining it again, and prissi also made some necessary maintenance.

However, this effort is losing momentum. So if you want to collaborate, check “pak128 revive: How to contribute” post in the International Simutrans Forum:
=> https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,21329.0.html

Elevated Way Support System for Simutrans Extended

We have not yet talked about Simutrans Extended in Simutrans Extra, and I owe you a proper presentation. But for current Simutrans Extended players, this is a new worth mentioning.

A new system for elevated way supports (formerly know as “Pier System”) has been incorporated recently into Simutrans Extended (Simutrans’ main fork). The Elevated Way Support System, developed for months by PJMack, is (in the word of its author):

“A new system for elevated ways that allows not only half-height elevated ways, but elevated ways on uneven terrain. Such method involves an new object type pier and new ground type pier-deck where the ground is placed on top of a pier. The system also allows the pakset designer to place restrictions on the ribi of ways both on the pier-deck and under it, as well as place restrictions on what types of piers can be built on others what other types and what types of piers can be placed on the same tile as another.”

You may find helpful this video-tutorial made by MG about this system

How can YOU contribute to Simutrans

Simutrans is an open source project. That means that anyone – including you – can improve it! Did you ever want to contribute to Simutrans but you have no skill for coding? Worry not, you can contribute to Simutrans in a variety of ways:

Translating

Simutrans is constantly updating and adding texts so we are always in need for translators:

Painting

Simutrans is always looking for artists! If you want to paint graphics for Simutrans, check:

Coding

Reporting bugs and submitting suggestions