Everyone onboard, Train Sim has been updated once again. This time I added a new Southern England inspired route. Old Churches, Ruined Castles, Windmills, Victorian Architecture, we have got them all. Now available for Android, iOS & Windows Store coming soon.
Train Sim 3.4.5 for Android is now live. This new update features a new Chicago “L” CTA 5000 subway train with a realistic 3D driver cabin as well as a passenger 3D interior.
Also in this update are much requested
longer trains. I managed to increase each train by at least 1 additional coach 
(without killing performance) and in some cases by 2-4 to match the exact historical configuration. Opposite Trains also received a length increase. Also in this update the Dash 9 Interior cabin has been significantly improved, eliminating one of the weaker 3D cabins in Train Sim. I am currently working on releasing this update for iOS and Windows Store/Phone.
It has been a while since I updated Train Sim so I wanted to write a post about what I have been working on. The main theme for the next update will be longer trains. This means I will try to increase the number of cars for as many trains as possible.
The reason the trains were originally kept short was to make sure Train Sim performs well on slower devices. The idea behind this tactic is that if the train is shorter the number of cars the GPU/CPU had to draw and move each frame would be reduced.
However longer trains is the feature that is the most requested by users (other then indian trains) so I decided to address this issue. I am hoping that over the last year the number of slow/low memory devices have declined and the newer phones on the market will be able to handle these longer trains. In order to make sure this is true I will probably only update the most popular trains, such as the Pendolino, Amtrak, TGV etc. However if this update proves correct I will also increase car numbers for other trains as well.
Stay tuned for more news.
New Versions for Everyone!
For the first time in a long time, the newest versions my major games are available for iOS, Android & Windows Store in the same time. I usually focus on updating Android first and then spend the time to port the new updates to iOS & Windows (because iOS and Windows is much harder to do). In reality this means that the iOS & Windows Store versions of Train Sim, Flight Sim, Car Crashers & Kids Car Racers are often 2 versions behind the Android counterparts.
However because the last few versions of my games had some fairly significant updates I spent the time necessary to update these games for all the platforms.
Here are the highlights of the recent changes:
What’s Next?
I have a finished Airbus A380 Model finished for Flight Sim, my next focus will be to update Flight Sim with its 11th free airplane.
As promised in my Post in February, I have been focusing on delivering 3D cabs for all Trains in Train Sim. With the addition of a 3D cabin for the Flying Scotsman my goal is complete and all 40 trains in Train Sim now have a 3D Cabin.
Now to be fair not all the 3D cabins have the same standard. The weakest of the lot are the Dash 9, LNER Mallard and the NY Hudson. I will be focusing on improving these in the near future. There are also a few Passenger Cars that do not have a 3D Interior that will have to be fixed.
However for now I am happy to report that there are no more 2D Train Cabins in Train Sim and that all future trains will also have 3D Cabins.
Train Sim 3.4.3 was release for Android. This is a rather large update that added a new Subway Train and an amazing 3D Cab for the Challenger Locomotive. This means that The Flying Scotsman is the last train to feature a 2D Cabin and I hope to have that fixed in the next release. In this release I also made it possible for all opposite trains to stop at stations, making their behaviour slightly more realistic.
Here is the list of new features in Train Sim version 3.4.3:
-3D Cab for Challenger Train
-Track Switching to the Desert andMountain Scenes
-Metrovagonmash 81-760 Subway Train
-More Historically Accurate Flying Scotsman Tender
-Opposite Trains now stop on stations
This weekend I will try to get Train Sim iOS version updated as well, which means it could go live within 7-10 days.
The next update of Train Sim will feature a new 2-6-0 Mogul type steam locomotive. This will bring the number of playable Locomotives to 40. This is a significant milestone for Train Sim and a bit of a technical achievement as all these trains fit in a 50MB download just under the limit imposed by Google Play. On top of the highly detailed 3D Train Models and their 3D cabins the game also contains 23 Car models, 8 scenes and over 100 environment models and textures that make the scenes look real. At this point there are no other mobile train simulators that can even approach the number of Trains available in Train Sim.
Why is this important? At some point in the future I will have to make a decision about going over the 50MB download size and splitting the download into 2 parts. This means Google Play users will first have to get a smaller 20-30MB download and then get prompted for the additional download portion that will contain the remainder of the game. This is not a great user experience and I am hoping to avoid this. I hope that at some point in the near future Google will expand their single download maximum size to 100MB solving this issue. However if that does not happen and I want to add more trains and scenes I will have to move to an “additional download” model.
For now Train Sim still fits under 50MB so enjoy the new version Coming Soon to Android (iOS and Windows platforms to follow)
Recently I was showing off Flight Sim on my LG Nexus Phone when I noticed that the map was not rendering correctly. I am not sure why this happened but it started happening after the 5.1.1 Android Update. So I decided to recompile Flight Sim with the newest version of Unity and the Android SDK to make sure it does not have any issues with the newest version of the Android operating system. From my personal tests it seemed to fix the issues. There will be a larger update to Flight Sim hopefully within the next month as I am waiting for completion of a new airplane.
Also I am happy to report that Train Sim for Android was also updated to version 3.4.0. This is a minor update that fixes a potential crash with track switching and also a new 3D Regio Panter Cabin. This leaves just a few more train cabins to convert to 3D. After that I can focus on improving the Airport Scene and adding more Trains.
Train Sim Android 3.3.7 Released
-Added 3D Cabs for SD7 & TGM3
-Sky now gets cloudy during Rain
-Improved Night Mode
-Improved User Interface
This is part of the ongoing updates to improve all 28 trains in Train Sim so they have the same level of quality and 3D interiors. I am also going to try to implement Track Switching as I think I finally figured out how to do it.
Updates to Amazon, iOS and Windows platforms will follow.
Train Sim has just reached the milestone of 10 Million Downloads on Google Play in just 27 months. I would like to say thank you to all the fans who have downloaded Train Sim and a special thanks to everyone who has been helping me make Train Sim even better over the last 2 years by sending me your bug reports and suggestions. To Celebrate more Trains and Updates coming soon!