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Simutrans 124 ReleasedMay 5, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsThe long awaited Simutrans 124 is finally here! This version comes with a lot of changes, although the most visible ones are the improved support for anti-aliasing of fonts and some reworked windows. Under the hood, many less visible changes were made to allow this to be the first stable Android release - which means you will be able to play online now on Android too! Note for macOS players on Steam: Due to the new directory structure, paksets installed through Steam may not show at all. You can use the in-game installer to workaround this. Highlights of this version Improved anti-aliasing of fonts, now using TrueType fonts by default. Reworked main menu and option windows. Reworked list windows, they are now checkered lists easier to read. The minimap now changes if you are in underground mode. The new directory structure allows the players to install paksets if they don't have admin rights. Fixed loading of heightmaps. Paksets updated on Steam pak64 124.0 pak128 2.9 pak192.comic 0.71 pak64.german 124.0.0.2 pak128.german 2.2 Paksets updated outside Steam pak64.nippon 0.62 Full changelog Here's the full list of changes since the last version. Added pak64.german 0.124.0.0.1 uses 40x40 buttons and therefore the theme is necessary and should not be missing labelupdate for all windows were it makes sense Checkered list windows obj_xxx_details in translation will display some more details on an obj, especially vehciles traffic lights remove themselves if only a curve or a single tile is below them fontconfig for linux font selection Aliasing fonts Rework of banner and options windows. Added button to play tutorial and load last save to banner rotate house tool will also switch railroad switches (eyecandy only) new parameter in simuconf.tab cityroad_speeds for a timeline (year,new_speed) of speed limits of way with pavement rotate also rotates the order of vehicles on a tile to avoid overlapping Sell all convois in a depot with Ctrl + Sell button Signals can be replaced by overbuilding them using left-click missing script ai text menubar can be dragged to each corner Display artist credits for music function find backend specific default TTF font dr_get_system_font() Theme colour parameter for highlighted objects (gui_color_object_highlight) scroll to selected font in load-font window theme parameter gui_color_image_transparency to set transparency color for icons (Yona-TYT) update vehicle history frame with search string .pak files are now also searched for in subdirectories of pakset tooltip warnign when try to cross way without suitable crossing or curves on runways Loading time display in depot, convoi info and vehicle timeline MSI installer for SDL2 MSVC builds single toolbar mode (top and centered) primarily for Android and tablets Try to detect base_dir when installed on linux new tool (and button in signal dialog) for removing signals only map view can be changed with any general tool by dragging the pointer above a threshold Changed High resol...Pak192.Comic V0.7Feb 2, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsThe Pak192.Comic recently released version 0.7 of this comic themed pakset. If you are playing Simutrans on Steam and you installed the Pak192.Comic DLC, you will get the update automatically. Otherwise, please see "Where and what to download" section. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/11600077/234e26618e65f075d5d109be9b3e1bf09e9a2f96.png Changelog Gameplay changes turned "avoid over overcrowding" off by default again , and . now work for controlling time in the game ( and ) now work for sliced view up/down road speeds from 50 to 55 and from 70 to 80 pricing that considers the actual build year of the vehicle, instead of the introduction year Pubs now comsume rum as well there is a track/track submenu now increased the productivity of the wiredrawer higher fix costs for ships changed to intro years of 120 and 160 kph track tutorial works with the tutorial button now playing from 1930 onwoards should feel way more complete now compared to previous versions New objects Industry European sugar production with beets (farm, fields, refinery) biofuel plant Additional coal power plant that better fits early years Infrastructure river stop for goods letter box stop for road docks for pax older post office track with different kinds of gravel beds 1850 station hall steel girder bridge for narrowgauge HUGE HUGE station hall for people that need to prove they have the biggest network narrowgauge tunnel for 50km/h 80kph railway bridge streetlights as (free) wayobj fake city road in cobblestone look Lot of new SBB Type N and L Signals Buildings citybuilding "Danivision" citybuilding "Keycaps Skyscraper" citybuilding "Taipei 101" monument "Disco Sphere" curiosity "StarGate" curiosity "Guardhouse" inverse Corner for St. Pölten station building alternate version of all Pölten elements several new citybuildings across all climates Vehicles more ships for channels gigaliner converter for semitrucks HHA DT6 Baden IVh a couple of Baden express coaches old Baden compartment coaches lots of old freigth cars and hoppers Baden VIc old AC S-Bahn Hamburg DRG D21b / C21 Abteiwagen DRG "Donnerbüchse" DR Rekowagen DRG E01 KPeV EG502 KPeV EG511 KPeV ES1 Getreideschiff old postal tram prussian G12 ET 88 ET 41 Things that walk around various new generic pedestrians try to spot some easteregg-pedestrians too ducks, swans, sharks and a whale a fox Improved objects the narrowgauge to road crossings some sounds for some trains (not too many yet sadly) swapped the first and second player colour for green coaches various glitch fixes palyer colour for the Alsterdampfers player colour for V200 SBB EW I the old track plattforms updated DRG coaches loading image for beets for many vehicles crossing track narrowgauge now fits the whole tile SBB PTT player colour for bavarian D VIII ET 11 Addons In plus to the "core" Pakset, there are multiple changes to the addons provided within the repository: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/11600077/2746806b818fad427d76911eb4228dc46db42c30.png New version of the game: The all DA...Simutrans Extra #3: UI improvements, new paksets, new online server and more!Oct 22, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsWelcome to Simutrans Extra! I have been pretty quiet so far this year as I needed a break after the Anniversary events of last year, but a lot of things have been happening in the Simutrans world meanwhile. It's time to review them! But first, let's talk about the elephant in the room. When there will be a new Simutrans release? We couldn't make a Simutrans release last year, the reason behind this being the war in Ukraine. Another negative effect of the war is that Ukrainian developer Pelya was drafted for the military. Pelya is not directly related to the Simutrans project, but he maintained a set of scripts that enabled games like Simutrans and OpenTTD (between others) to be compiled on Android. Unfortunately, the build for Android stopped working and to fix it one would have needed to fix Pelya's scripts. But no one in the team knew how to do so, so the release was delayed until we could release for all supported platforms at once. Seeing that the war was not going to end anytime soon, I stepped in some months ago to do something about this. I developed a new build system for Simutrans on Android completely from scratch. It took quite a lot of work, but the end result is a far simpler build and, more importantly, one I know how to fix in case it stops working! Wars are bad. But you know what's good? UI improvements! A few of them are currently under development, so you can expect a new release when we are done with them. Let's see which they are! Font anti-aliasing is coming to Simutrans! Thanks to the work made by developers Hajo and Dwachs, font anti-alising is nearly ready for Simutrans. While you can currently set any TrueType font in Simutrans 123, they look quite a bit ugly without anti-aliasing. Introducing anti-aliasing will finally make these fonts look good at any size (although the UI still needs to be redesigned to adjust to font sizes, specially very large ones). We will also take this opportunity to move away from bdf fonts and change Simutrans' default font, probably to Noto Sans font. https://i.imgur.com/1DKuRyT.png A screenshot showing how Simutrans looks with Noto Sans and anti-aliasing. Main menu What was initially going to be an addition of a "Play Tutorial" button in the initial banner has evolved into a redesign for the entire banner, adding a few more options and now working as a "main menu" to which you come back when you want to start a game. https://i.imgur.com/FSvqeuW.png The new main menu. Final version may change. Consequently, the options windows and other windows will be simplified and adapted to the new flow. https://i.imgur.com/lxM0Jol.png The options windows. Final version may change. Improved Station labels and markers When legendary Hajo came back earlier this year, he focused on improving various part of the UI (which Simutrans is indeed in need of improving). One of his most exciting ideas was a new appareance for station labels and markers which could be defined by themes. https://i.imgur.com/E87IFjL.png...Announcing the winners of the Simutrans 25th Anniversary Video ContestJan 23, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsVotations are closed and the first winner is... "Furniture Industry Route", by meruhen205. With the diverse routes shown and the attention to details (including the music!), it is no wonder why it is the most voted video - a total of 14 votes. Congratulations! In the second position we have "Akiwa Tsuneyama Main Line Local Service from Nakahara to Yamano" (have you read it to the end?) with 8 votes by danivenk, another greatly produced video. Good job! The third place is reserved to "Airport Hotel Shuttle Bus", by DThunder (he can't stay away from the podium!), a simple yet elegant video that reached 7 votes. Nice done! Here is the rest of the winners: 4 - "Autumnal Journey" by cousjath (6 votes) 5 - "Barington F line Light Rail Northbound Trip" by Jausdepot (3 votes) 6 - "The New Express Line" by Fightdrug (2 votes) 7 - "North American Style Commuter Train Journey" by DThunder (1 vote) Congratulations to all! I will contact you all one by one so you can pick your prizes in order. That may take some weeks, be patient! The first winner will also be featured in the Simutrans Steam Store page. That's all for now! Did you like this first video contest? We may celebrate another one in the future, if there is demand. For now, next year contest will be another screenshot contest. Until then - Happy Simutransing!Vote now on the Simutrans 25th Anniversary Video Contest!Jan 16, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsThanks to everyone who submitted a video! Vote now to select the winner of the first ever Simutrans Video Contest! Playlist of participants is available on the Simutrans YouTube channel You can cast your votes on this survey in the Simutrans WIki. You can cast up to two votes. Every participant will take a prize, so please don't vote for yourself!Simutrans 25th Anniversary #10: The Music of SimutransDec 11, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsOn this unscheduled last post of the Simutrans 25th Anniversary, we will honour one of the (usually overlooked) characteristics of Simutrans: its music. Simutrans is unique in more than one way. One of these uniqueness is that, considering it is an open-source game, it has an incredibly rich set of music. With over 50 songs over various genres contributed by various artists over the years, Simutrans has one of the greatest collection of music of any open-source game. To celebrate this, we have uploaded the music of Simutrans for the first time ever in non-MIDI format; so you can play it directly in your browser! You can now listen to the music of Simutrans at this YouTube playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzRXNerdR1xM1qAkIQANJeDmWgyJc6KBa Which is your favourite track of Simutrans? I do have a personal favourite. You may be thinking it is "Above the Sky" as it is the track used in the trailer. Wrong! It's actually "Techno-movement". Kudos to RykSeb for composing such an awesome track! Note that most tracks (from before Simutrans went open-source) are not properly credited. Unfortunately, that information have been lost to time. If you know who composed the original tracks, please let us know so we can credit the artist! Remember that we have a currently ongoing Video Contest (ending in one month) with plenty of prizes for everyone! You can use any of this music to make it better 🚄 https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,22031.0.html https://i.imgur.com/wP0YX4m.png Simutrans 25th Anniversary Video ContestNov 1, 2022 - Community Announcementshttps://i.imgur.com/csaTmPT.png Welcome, everyone! The first Simutrans Video Contest is about to begin! This is the first time ever we celebrate a video contest, and it is not the only surprise! This year you can also win actual prizes just by participating! Let everyone win! Participation 1 - There are no categories. This means you can choose whatever pakset you want, and also whatever Simutrans version you want (yes, including Extended and OTRP). 2 - You can submit as up to two videos. This also means you can win up to two prizes! 3 - You need to include title for every video. Videos without title will not be eligible! 4 - You have until Januay 15st (inclusive) to submit your video! Theme and guidelines 1 - The theme this year is... Routes! Show us your best routes, for example by following a convoi or different convois. Be creative! 2 - To keep videos clean, hide city/station names and waiting bars. Also, avoid showing non-Simutrans elements such as the title bar. 3 - There are no limits to video size and resolution, but recommended resolution is 1920x1080 as this is the most common resolution. 4 - Video duration limit is 10 minutes, but consider a duration of around 5 minutes. 5 - Use Simutrans music when possible. If you wish to use other music, please check that the license allows for its usage freely. Remember that you can submit videos that do not fit the theme or guidelines just for the sake of showing others your work, but theme and guidelines will be used to select the winners! Prizes 1 - For the first winner ONLY: The video will be displayed on the Simutrans Steam store page, alongside the new trailer. If the version used is not Simutrans Standard the next winner will be considered. 2 - For EVERY participant: You can choose a game* from the following list (choosing will be made in order, starting from the first winner): Surviving Mars + Green Planet + Project Laika + Colony Design Set + Marsvision Song Contest + Space Race + Deluxe Edition Upgrade Pack DEATHLOOP Just Cause 4: Complete Edition Ghostrunner Killsquad Railway Empire Little Big Workshop Epic Chef Not tonight Dinosaur Fossil Hunter Gas Station Simulator Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER Embr A Plague Tale: Innocence Emily is Away Simutrans 25th Anniversary #8: An interview with himeshi, OTRP creatorOct 15, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsWelcome to the last of interviews of the Simutrans Anniversary before the final event! Our special guest today has the honour of being the only other successful developer who has made a Simutrans fork: Simutrans OTRP. Let's explore the boundaries of Simutrans with the help of his creator, Himeshi! ______________________________________ First of all, introduce yourself. Who are you? Where do you live? What did you study? Where are you working or have worked on the past? I am Himeshi. Himeshi is a handle which I use in the Japanese community. THLeaderH is my handle on the International Simutrans Forum and other international simutrans communities. I have lived in Tokyo for my whole life except for its very beginning. I am a software engineer at a Japanese IT company, which provides a chat app for smartphones. My job is developing the company's chat app for iOS with Swift programming language, and the chat app is widely used in Japan and some east Asian countries. I am in the second year of my career since I graduated from the school in March of last year. I studied computer science and electrical engineering in the University of Tokyo, and its graduate school. I have a master's degree, but do not have a doctor's degree. I enjoyed studying in the university, but was not so good at research. I studied electrical tactile display during my master's period, but it ended with submitting only a few papers to small conferences without paper review, and did not participate in any on-site academic meeting since the COVID era started during my master course. When not programming in your daily job or in Simutrans, what do you like to do? Aside from development, I love playing Simutrans. I usually play my local map with OTRP, and sometimes play a network game with my friends in the Japanese Simutrans community. Chatting and voice calling on Discord is my daily habit. There are a bunch of discord servers which are derived from the Japanese Simutrans community, and I am in multiple of them. The relationship is a kind of friendship, rather than the simutrans community members, and we talk about so many kinds of topics there. Although the frequency has decreased recently due to COVID, I often go to the home party in the house of one of the core community members. I don't remember how many times I went there. At least, so many times since a few years ago. We spend a precious time there with beers and Japanese Sake. The house owner (We call him "Kumi-cho") could not drink alcohol at first, but recently, he started enjoying the Sake we brought with us. And recently I bought a new Toyota car with a manual gearbox, so I frequently go driving in my holidays. The driving is often with my family and the friends in the Simutrans community. Indeed, the Japanese Simutrans community seems very united, and it is without doubt the largest and most active community. Which is surprising, since traditionally the largest community has been the German one (being the early developers ...Simutrans 25th Anniversary #7: The Simutrans trailerSep 30, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsThe new trailer for Simutrans is here! Watch it now! Schedule of the Simutrans 25th Anniversary Posts We are getting close to the end of the events of the 25th Anniversary. But before the final event, we will be having a last interview with a very special guest. In two weeks, it will be time for Simutrans OTRP developer, "himeshi", to answer some questions! 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 - The Simutrans Museum 2022-08-15 - An interview with Markus Pristovsek, the Adoptive Father 2022-08-30 - For everything else, there's Simutrans 2022-09-15 - An interview with James Petts, the Ex Father 2022-09-30 - New Simutrans trailer 2022-10-15 - An interview with himeshi/THLeader, Simutrans OTRP developer From 2022-10-30 to 2022-12-31 - ?? Simutrans 25th Anniversary #6: James Petts, the Ex-FatherSep 15, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsOne of the greatest honours an open-source project can have is to generate enough interest so that other people consider making their own versions of it. Simutrans, being a successful open source project, is no exception, and the greatest of those versions is Simutrans Extended (formerly Simutrans Experimental). Today, we will take a closer look at this fantastic fork with the help of his creator, James Petts. _____________________________________________ First of all, introduce yourself. Who are you? Where do you live? What did you study? Where are you working or have worked on the past? I am James Petts, and I live in London. My education and professional life are in the law. How does a man of law end up doing software development in his spare time? As with many open source developers, I started work on what eventually became the Extended fork of Simutrans because I wanted to see features in the game that were not present. I remember playing Simutrans in around 2007, shortly after the British railway vehicles had first become available as an addon for Pak128. I enjoyed it, but found that there were certain things that were not quite right for what I wanted. I remember making some feature requests on the forum, but the developers were not interested in implementing them, so I thought that I could implement them myself. This was in around 2008. They were initially written as patches for Simutrans, intended to be part of the main codebase, but they were not integrated, so I eventually just made my own fork. I think that I had a different idea as to what made a good game than the developers of of the original Simutrans; but also, I imagine that, as I was only just learning C++, the coding quality of my patches at the time was not what it should have been. Once I had started adding features, I realised that there were more and more that were desirable, and I ended up spending more time developing the game than actually playing it; and the more complex features that were added, the more bugs that needed to be fixed and the more pakset work needed to implement the features. Has Simutrans been your only experience with open source software development, or have you ever contributed to any other open source project? Simutrans has indeed been my only experience with open source software. I have briefly contemplated contributing to other things, but I only have the one lifetime to live, and open source development is extremely time consuming. And what do you devote your life to when not working and doing Simutrans development? When not working or developing Simutrans, I enjoy photography, baking and railway modelling. The latter has entailed me having a sizeable shed built in my garden for several model railway layouts, and I am also a member of the Model Railway Club in London. As may be anticipated, there is some overlap between Simutrans and railway modelling. https://i.imgur.com/4LE1E1o.png James' model railway. How did you know Simutrans? What was you...Simutrans 25th Anniversary #5: For everything else, there is SimutransAug 30, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsEnjoy this remake of a Simutrans advert video made 14 years ago by (the now inactive Devotee) vilvoh. The Simutrans Community does not only welcome coders and artists. People who spread its love for Simutrans are also important, specially when they put as much effort and love in that as vilvoh did. Let this video serve as a reminder of all of you who enjoy making and sharing Simutrans content (be it now or in the past): Thank you! Without you too, Simutrans would not be what it is today. Would you like to see (or make) more Simutrans-related media content? Well, you are in luck, because we have more surprises coming in this regard! Next time, however, we will come back with another interview. Join us in two weeks as we will explore the boundaries of Simutrans with an exclusive interview with James Petts, lead developer of Simutrans Extended. Schedule of the Simutrans 25th Anniversary Posts 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 - The Simutrans Museum 2022-08-15 - An interview with Markus Pristovsek, the Adoptive Father 2022-08-30 - For everything else, there's Simutrans 2022-09-15 - An interview with James Petts, the Ex-Father. 2022-09-30 - ?? 2022-10-15 - ?? From 2022-10-30 to 2022-12-31 - ?? Pak192.Comic 0.6 ReleasedAug 24, 2022 - Community Announcementshttps://i.imgur.com/1WoH7py.png After five years in the works, Pak192.Comic finally released version 0.6! Compared to the old 0.5 version, there are many changes. Be sure to check them in the Announcement in the forums.Simutrans 25th Anniversary #4: Markus Pristovsek, the Adoptive Father.Aug 15, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsAfter Hajo left Simutrans, a man took care of continuing development - and has continued to do so for over 17 years (more than double the time Hajo was involved with Simutrans!). Without him, we would not be here today celebrating 25th years of development. It is now the turn of developer Markus Pristovsek (known as prissi) to answer some questions! You will find that many questions are similar to those from Hajo's interview, so you have the oportunity to compare the points of view of the two most influential Simutrans developers. Let's begin the interview! _______________________________________________________________ First of all, introduce yourself. Who are you? Where do you live? What did you study? Where are you working or have worked on the past? I am Markus Pristovsek, which is a pretty unique name. So if you found this on the internet, chances are high it is connected to me. I am a Dedicated Professor Nagoya University in Japan. (Dedicated Professor means that I do not have to teach. But I teach anyway a little, because I like it.) Since I have recently got my tenure that will likely stay so. Yeah, my first stable job at 52 years ... Science is a little like the old medieval crafts: You have to travel a lot until you find place you can settle. In my case it involved studying physics at the TU Berlin in Germany, and from 1995 or so I worked on crystal growth of semiconductors like GaAs and GaN (see the Nobel prize of 2014 to my director). After my PhD I stood in Japan (2000-2003), Berlin again to 2009, University of Cambridge 2012-2016, and from 2017 Nagoya. I wrote job applications for almost 50 positions but was invited only four times, which is pretty normal in my field. From 2010 or so I put something like Simutrans coding coordinator into my CV under other activities, mostly to have more to show. However, at my second to last interview in 2016, one of the committee members was from the IT department. He was very eager to to know more about it (actually he had looked up on Simutrans a lot!) and 1/4 or the interview derailed to Simutrans and "herding" open source projects. He seemed quite impressed on it and I could have probably got a position for teaching IT and Open Source if the interview would not have been about Teaching Photonics at an Applied University. Did you learn programming as part of your physics background or did you learn it by yourself? I wrote my first program in 1983 when stuck in an Austrian pension during a very rainy hiking holiday. My parents set out anyway, and I wrote a Pascal "database" for keeping track of my sailing competition results on six A4 sheets of scribble paper, based on the book "Pascal Programming for the CDC6000" from the mid 1970ies from my home library. Shortly after I also implemented a line drawing algorithm on a friend C64 in USDC Pascal were one could see the line emerging pixel by pixel... That routine I reused in Simutrans. My first Computer came in 1986. By chance it was an Atari ST, wh...Simutrans 25th Anniversary #3: The Simutrans MuseumAug 2, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsIn the last post of this series we talked with Hajo about the first years of Simutrans. However, many of the players reading this today have never played a Simutrans version from Hajo's era. If you ever wanted to take a taste of one of the earlier Simutrans releases, today is your lucky day! The first demo version https://i.imgur.com/SaUyD0z.png A screenshot of Simutrans demo version 0.50, with text in German. The first of the versions we have made available is not the actual first release, but it is pretty close. This beta version was released on 02/05/1999, while the history.txt starts just two months before (06/03/1999). As the "demo" name suggest, this version has practically no content, and crashes frequently, since it was just a version to show up the Simutrans engine working and a little more. Because of this and the need to use a DOSBOX, we recommend you to skip this version and try the next one if you want to truly play an early Simutrans. The first playable version https://i.imgur.com/mOnAyyl.png A screenshot of Simutrans beta version 0.78.7 with the minimap and some toolbars and windows opened. Thanks to the donation of user Khaki we got our hands on one of the firsts playable versions of Simutrans, beta version 0.78.7 (released on 14/06/01, two years after the previous demo). As you can see in the image, this version has already some basic working tools (rail, road, ship and terrain tools). The minimap is also present, with a familiar view. You can play this version natively on Windows or with WINE under Linux, although you might find some game-breaking bugs (particularly one with pop-up windows). The Museum and other versions In the SourceForge Museum you can find the versions mentioned in this post and other versions from Hajo's era (beta versions 0.80, 0.84.01, 0.84.04.1 and 0.84.10) which were recovered thanks to Markus Pristovsek. Do you have any other previous version of Simutrans not listed there? Please share it with us! And of course, you can still download (and compile) any version of Simutrans since it became open-source on SourceForge. Schedule of the Simutrans 25th Anniversary Posts Talking about Markus Pristovsek, join us two weeks from now as we will interview the lead developer for the 25th Simutrans anniversary! 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 - The Simutrans Museum 2022-08-15 - An interview with Markus Pristovsek, the Adoptive Father 2022-08-30 - ?? 2022-09-15 - ?? 2022-09-30 - ?? 2022-10-15 - ?? From 2022-10-30 to 2022-12-31 - ?? Simutrans 25th Anniversary #2: Hansjörg Malthaner, the Founding Father.Jul 15, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsSimutrans was started 25 years ago, not by a game development company, not even by a team, but by a single man who dreamed to build the best ever transportation simulator: Hansjörg Malthaner, known by the Simutrans Community as "Hajo". But who is this "Hajo"? How did he develop Simutrans in its early days? What has he been doing since he left the project, and what does he think about Simutrans today? We have reached Hansjörg Malthaner himself for an exclusive anniversary interview to reply to these and more questions. Let's begin the interview! ________________________________________________________________ First of all, introduce yourself. Who are you? Where do you live? What did you study? Where are you working or have worked on the past? I live in Stuttgart, Germany. A place that often is called boring and provincial, but actually the living quality here is quite good. To German standards it counts as a larger town with a population of more than half a million people. Most of my professional career I've worked as programmer, mainly using Java. Later the focus changed to quality assurance and automatization of build processes, testing and deployment. Meanwhile research has also become an aspect, to find and compile information which enables other people to do their work efficiently. In summary, still all typical software development just with emphasis on different aspects of the development process. With such a curriculum, it is of no surprise that programming is also a big hobby of yours. But do you have any more hobbies? There never was a scarcity of hobbies, just scarcity of time. Electronics was something that I was very interested in during my teenage years, and which recently was refreshed by experiments with microcontrollers, like the Arduino. Gardening was something that I picked from my parents. Not sure if hobby is the right term, it's more just part of my life all the time. As child I used to paint, and art has become a growing focus, while programming became less of a hobby and just a profession. Traditional art, pencil and watercolour, but also 3D art with help of the computer. Also experiments in sculpting and with arrangements of dried plant parts and rocks, but I even have written a few story fragments, that got some positive recognition. Cooking has also taken a bigger role in my life lately, and I consider that a very nice hobby, particularly in conjunction with gardening and the options to grow some vegetables of my own. At times I build furniture or refurbish old furniture. There is really a lot of different things that I'm interested in. Music, both in composing or performing is likely seeing the least attention, but that didn't stop me from building a pipes instrument which is played similar to a xylophone. Overall I think the shift away from programming released a lot of energy that went into very interesting and often also very satisfactory activities. Talking about your art hobby, in the previous interview (more than 1...Simutrans 25th Anniversary #1: A look back at our shared history.Jun 30, 2022 - Community Announcementshttps://i.imgur.com/3wuiQqv.jpg 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! https://i.imgur.com/xdldbFf.jpg 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! https://i.imgur.com/OuaQnvO.png 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. https://i.imgur.com/xi6ScbB.png 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 ...Simutrans on Social MediaJun 24, 2022 - Community Announcementshttps://i.imgur.com/e2lk45m.png 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: (NEW!) Twitter: https://twitter.com/SimutransTeam (NEW!) Mastodon: https://mastodon.technology/@simutrans Blog: http://blog.simutrans.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/simutrans Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/simutrans Discord: https://discord.gg/KuaVWycD9E Fan presence Other active communities or accounts managed by fans of Simutrans: Discord: Simutrans Interact Meeting Facebook: Simutrans.BLOG/ Telegram: See here Do you manage a Simutrans related account or community not listed here? Get in touch with us and we'll add you to this list! And don't forget that the best place to talk about Simutrans is the The International Simutrans Forum. Happy Simutransing!Simutrans Extra #2: Simutrans for Android, Extended Pier System, and more!Jun 15, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsWelcome 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 https://i.imgur.com/7fDtAem.png 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 directory 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 ...Simutrans 123.0.1 releasedJan 30, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsSimutrans 123.0.1 has been released. This is a small bugfix release to address some of the bugs of the 123 release, but there are also some interesting quality-of-life changes (such as the the option to scale the screen manually). This release brings the Steam version back in sync with the non-Steam version, so you should be able to play network games again with non-Steam players. I've also added to the Steam release an additional soundfont (MusesCore General, named as "default.sf3") with the intention to replace PCLite.sf2 in the future, as it is lighter and sounds generally better. Both of them are included for now, so you can try switching between them. Linux users: I'm trying a new deployment procedure to reduce the number of required libraries bundled. This may prevent the game from being launched in some distributions, so please let me know if that is the case. Highlights of this version All resizeable windows get minimize button in title-bar Infinite mouse scrolling can be activated manually in the display settings Option to adjust screen scaling manually (either via display settings or '-screen_scale' command line option) Illegal schedule entries are highlighted and a button to clear them up will appear. Paksets updated on Steam Pak64.german 123.0.0.2 Pak128.german 2.1 Pak128 2.8.2 (this is the default pakset on Steam) Paksets updated outside Steam You can install these with integrated pakset installer. pak48.excentrique 0.19 rc3 pak.Nippon 0.5 Pak64.japan 123.0 Full changelog Here's the full list of changes since the last version. Added Option to adjust screen scaling manually (either via display settings or '-screen_scale' command line option) not connected to any player network as additional option selected convoi in minimap now magenta. Also network display properly updated when activating or closing windows Illegal schedule entries are highlited and a button to clear them up will appear. Infinite mouse scrolling can be activated manually in the display settings; but it will fail with certain touch devices mark obsolete vehicls in vehicle-details tab minimize buttons to convoi, halt and line window button to remove double entries in schedules Changed Infinite mouse scrolling can be activated manually in the display settings; but it will fail with certain touch devices~ FluidSynth looks also for SF3 soundfonts All resizable windows get minimize button in titlebar one more row in schedule dialog for a little nicer display lang files are loaded if their name is *XX.tab or XX*.tab. The first is preferred to avoid confusion by name like ja-taken.tab Fixed show overlay number on vehicle of convoy in depot station display crashes on old paksets when certain windows unicode fonts are selected time and minimum loading were not correctlin shown for schedule entries empty schedules should be allowed... pakset installer closes simutrans again after exiting the second time, but only if no paksets are found sscanf_schedule ensures valid schedule co...Announcing the Simutrans Steam Screenshot Contest #2 winnersJan 24, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsVotes have been submitted and winners are very clear. Congratulations to the winners! FIRST WINNER The first position goes to... Aéroport De Jean Luc Picard, by DThunder518. Congratulations for your revenge, you finally win a contest! https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_7b174ddbaa51980c64b052bc500d5fac4c2c32c0.jpg?t=1643053325 SECOND WINNER In second place, we have another image by DThunder. Schmetterlingsstadt gets the silver medal. What's this, is DThunder518 going to claim all the podium? https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_f2008ff2536ef9c47183bb2ec507353155a758a5.jpg?t=1643053325 THIRD WINNER The well-earned third place is for... Leartin! Tropical Screen managed to reach the podium deny DThunder518 yet another victory. Congratulations! https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_b1a2efdc0d5a2b6b7b59ebe55b219afe0dc79b59.jpg?t=1643053325 WINNERS 4-10 In order of votes. 4 - Transit Center, by DThunder518 https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_95c5df53903da9ac42edad7c04397ee530fb0eaf.jpg?t=1643053325 5 - HSL ICE Passing Berngau Station, by danivenk https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_c6d948f487d1a45ebe0abeb29f7fd09503174e75.jpg?t=1643053325 6 - Lübbecke, by Flemmbrav https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_63b676b79867a87b000e3ad9181ac0e874d02562.jpg?t=1643053325 7 - Dos Puentos, by DThunder518 (I think you mean "Dos Puentes"?) https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_bb929d4c74cc49814c65c685d5418e2e9ab76a28.1920x1080.jpg?t=1643053325 8 - To The Moon!, by Flemmbrav. https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_04d1f19cdcc8ee6a17a1ddde561710ab81bb09b3.1920x1080.jpg?t=1643053325 9 - Bösel Hauptbahnhof In The DMZ, by danivenk. https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_e24461ffb4d9d27609cf76ee0669bfaef6a31464.1920x1080.jpg?t=1643053325 10 - Fuchshofen Grenzbahnhof Where 2 Nations Meet In The DMZ, by danivenk. https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/ss_c24f7229182140a1fc8e02ab5d03330432be05a2.1920x1080.jpg?t=1643053325 Conclusion I'm personally very happy with the results (specially since my favourite screenshot won) and with the participations. The screenshots look pretty good and more than enough were submitted to populate the Pak192.Comic store page, where you can already see them, replacing the old screenshots. https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/434632/header.jpg?t=1643053325 Library Header using the second winner. Congratulations to the winners, and good luck next time to the ones who didn't make it there! Join us next time at the end of this year in a special edition of this contest to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Simutrans. Until them, happy Simutransing!

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