Freight loading official guide

The guide explains how to use the freight loading system, and how to create your own mods that make use of this system.

Introduction

Currently, the freight loading system allows you to place any prop in the game on to a wagon that supports freight loading. Each wagon has an "inventory" which can store up to 8 objects.
The objects in the wagons inventory will be displayed on the model, like wooden boxes, shipping containers, logs and any other prop in the game.

Some props display differently, like logs which will pile up in a stack, or shipping containers which will stack on top of each other. Most props will simply be displayed in a row side-by-side.

At the moment freight loads are just visual, and don't interact with any industries in any way. There are future updates coming which will allow certain buildings to automatically load and unload freight from wagons. E.g. a coal chute which loads coal, or a log pond which unloads logs.

The freight loading system is still work-in-progress, and new features are being added in future updates. This guide will also be updated to cover all parts of the freight loading system as they are added.

Loading props on to freight wagons

There are several flatcar wagons in the game which support freight loading.
If a wagon supports loading, it will have an extra popup hover option for "load" (press L).
When playing in VR, you can open the loading menu from inside the wagon options menu.



When you open the loading menu, you will see 8 item slots.
You can put any props you like in these slots and they will be displayed on the freight wagon:



Some special props, like logs, metal pipes, containers, etc, will display differently when loaded:



If a prop which has a unique loading style is added to the wagons inventory, then all other props will be hidden from view.
E.g. if you put a log on a flatcar, it will only display the log and will hide any other objects you have added to the inventory.

Any extra items included in the inventory are still loaded onto the wagon and saved, they are just not visually displayed.

You can also load trains on to flatcars:

Changing how props are displayed

By default, props will be displayed on a flatcar in a row and evenly spaced out.
But you can customize this further if you want.

When you have the freight load menu open, click on "display options" to open a new menu with some customization options:



From here you can customize a few things:

• Keep empty gaps - The 8 slots in the wagons inventory correspond to 8 display points on the freight wagon, and you can make the arrangement of props in the inventory directly display on the wagon (e.g. if there is an empty slot, that spot will be kept empty on the wagon). If this option is disabled then slots will be filled up in order, without leaving any gaps:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Auto spacing - If the freight wagon supports auto-spacing (some mods will not, unless they are set up to support it), then you can choose to either space out all of the 8 inventory display points evenly along the length of the wagon, or automatically change the distance between display points to match the number of props loaded. E.g. if you only have 3 props loaded, each prop will be spaced evenly apart and fill the whole length of the wagon:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Scale adjust - Changes the size of all props displayed (0.5 = half size, 2 = double size).
  
• Rotation adjust - Spins all props by the chosen rotation (90 = 90 degrees rotation, 180 = flip).
  
• Height offset - Use to raise/lower all props by a chosen amount. This is useful for when props are clipping into the wagon surface.
  
• Forward offset - Use to move all props forwards/backwards by a small offset.

Modding: Setting up train mods for loading

The freight loading system is fully available to use with mods!
This means you can set up your own train mods to display freight loads, and you can make prop mods which can be used as freight load objects.

Here is how to setup your train mod so it can display freight loads.

Firstly, edit a train mod and go to the menu "edit train mod -> effects -> freight loads" and you will see these options:



By default, your train mod will not count as "loadable" and will not allow people to access its inventory or load props.

To make your wagon loadable you can either enable the "Use automatic spacing" option and setup some basic position data so that the game knows where to display loaded props, or you can add your own custom display points using the "Categories" list.

Setting up automatic spacing

The simplest way to make your wagon loadable is to use this option. All you need to do is set the position of the "front" and "back" of your wagon, and loaded props will automatically be displayed in between these two points.

Use the 3D transform gizmo to move the front & back points to both ends of the flat surface that you want props to be displayed on (e.g. the two ends of a flatcar):



If you use the automatic spacing option then all props of all types will use these display points, but if you want certain props to display differently then you can use the more advanced "display categories" system.

Using custom display categories

If you want to have different display behavior for different kinds of loads, then you can use "display categories". This is prefect for when you want something (like logs or shipping containers) to be positioned in a specific way.

As an example, here is a train mod for a freight wagon designed to carry cars.
There is already a display category for cars, but let's say we want to make it possible for this wagon to display shipping containers as well, and have them positioned in a unique way.

Firstly, make a new category for the shipping containers. Click "add new" on the category list and give it a custom name:



Click on the newly created category to edit it, and change the "display category" option to "container". The next section of this guide explains what these different category tags mean, but to put it simply this category will apply only to the large shipping container props (used in double-stack freight wagons). So if you place a container prop into the inventory of this wagon, it will display using these new display points instead of the original vehicle ones.



Next, create some custom display points. Click "add new" on the display point list. For this example we only need 4 display points (to fit 2 containers on each deck of the wagon).



Before we customize these display points, load the wagon with a container prop so that we can see the display position while we are editing it.
Open the freight load menu for the mod preview model, and place one of the large shipping container props in the wagons inventory:



You'll notice that it is displayed incorrectly, don't worry about this as the next step is to customize the display position.

Click on the first display point from the list to edit it, and you will see this menu:



From this menu you can set the display point position, as well as change the default scale.
For this example we'll make the scale a bit smaller (0.8) so that the containers fit inside the wagon.

Click "edit position" and you'll be able to move the transform gizmo around on the freight wagon to change the display position. You'll see the container prop move to the new position whenever you enter/exit the transform edit mode, or manually change the values on the menu:



Click "done" to go back to the list of display points. Before editing the rest, open the wagons freight load inventory again and add 3 more containers (4 total, 1 for each slot).



Now edit each display point so that each container has a nice spot on the wagon. Keep in mind you can use the "copy/paste" buttons on the transform edit menu to make this process quicker:



And that's all you need!
This modded wagon can now display both cars and containers in two different ways, using two different display categories:

Modding: Using prop mods as loads

Any prop in the game can be used as a freight load, even prop mods!

By default, all prop mods will just be treated as a normal object and use the standard display points on a freight wagon, but you can also choose to add custom "freight load display tags" to make it use a different display method.

E.g. there are a few props in the game (like logs and metal pipes) that use the display tag "three stack" since they want to be displayed as a stack instead of a normal prop.
Prop mods can use these tags too, so if you make your own object that is a similar shape and size as the in-game logs or pipes, then you can also make it use this display tag so it is displayed on freight wagons in the same way.

You can also create custom display tags, which can be used alongside the train modding system to create unique display categories.
E.g. you might want to tag a prop mod of a steel coil as "steel coil" and then make a freight wagon that has unique display data for anything that uses the "steel coil" tag.

You can set custom tags for prop mods in the "edit prop mod -> general options -> freight loads" menu:



The official tags are:

• all - applies to all props & trains. The default tag used if no custom tags are added (if the list is empty).
  
• train - use this option if you want your prop to use the train display point. Trains will automatically have this tag, but you can make a prop mod be treated like a train if you want.
  
• three stack - this tag is used by a few official props in the game (logs and metal pipes) and flatcars will display these in a stack of three. You can use this tag if your prop mod is the same rough size/shape and wants to use the "stack of three" display method.
  
• container - tag used by the large double-stack shipping container design. Flatcars will stack these on top of each other.
  
• container small - just like the "container" tag, these are stacked on top of each other, but each layer can fit two containers instead of one, since these containers are half the width of the larger ones.
  
• vehicle - tag used by the prop & driveable versions of cars.
  
• barrel - tag used for a few barrel props (metal and wood).

You can find some example 3D models in the "Rolling Line/Modding/Templates/Freight load examples" folder.
These models are great for matching the size and scale of the in-game freight load props.
E.g. you can use the "container small" 3D model as a reference if you want to make your own prop mod that fits in the "container small" display slot for freight wagons.

[Max Monlux]

Where is First Display Point, I Don't Ever See It!

[Spooky Month Boi]

could prolly do that with this update anyway

[spacemarine2022]

when you release the update, I would love for loadable hoppers to be a thing.