Difficulty Levels

This update contains the following changes:

• Added some difficulty presets under "Start Game"
• Added dedicated random seed button in Custom Game menu
• Trial game map size reduced from 128 to 96
• Reduced Semiconductor Factory production speed from 15 to 10
• Reduced Random Industries cost from 12 to 10
• Fixed a bug where trains were sometimes able to phase through a single tree or farm field immediately after a station platform
• Fixed a bug where trains were not able to proceed to the end of a station platform built on the edge of the map when starting less than 1 tile from the edge
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to get a train to stop and load/unload partially inside the train core by upgrading tracks under the train as it was entering the core
• Fixed a bug where mouse tool icons were not visible while paused with "Allow actions while paused" enabled
• Fixed a bug where power from tidal generators was misclassified as geothermal in the power monitor
• Fixed typo in the running cost tooltip
• Added command line flag for requesting a specific audio backend
• Further progress on future translation support

In previous versions, pressing "Start Game" would send you directly into an easy mode. You can now access this mode by pressing "Start Game" > "Easy Mode". This mode is good for beginners wanting to learn the game.

"Normal Mode" uses the same settings as Challenge Mode, except that the Timekeeping Mode is set to "Allow actions while paused".

The new "Hard Mode" has increased difficulty for every setting except Timekeeping Mode, and activates both "Workers' Pride" and "Export Targets". This mode is meant to be played with intensive use of the pause function, and requires good knowledge of the game's systems.

"Trial Mode" uses the short game settings from the Demo. (The Demo is not currently available on Steam.)

You can load these presets in the Custom Game menu if you would like to change the rules.

The new command line flag takes the following form: caBackend=<BackendName> where <BackendName> is one of the following: PulseAudio, ALSA, WASAPI, WaveOut, CoreAudio, JACK, Dummy There is no need to use this flag for normal use. Requesting a backend not available on your system is not effective.