... is what I said over 5 years ago. Now the day has finally come for my train mod to go live on the workshop!

This project is very important for me, not only because of how much work went into it but also where it led me and who I met along the way. So allow me to say a few words about how the mod came to be and why the development time has gone completely off the rails:
Roughly 10 years ago I purchased DayZ for me and one of my best friends and we started playing the early access build of it. One of the things we were missing the most was vehicles. Already back then I saw the train tracks and the models and told him "Wouldn't it be nice if we could at least have a simple train to drive along the coast so we can meet faster?". Ever since that day this idea stuck with me and after the first enfusion-powered version of DayZ released I was HYPED! I knew I could finally try to do it and so I did ...
I spent a few weeks on a prototype that was entirely mission-scripted... yes back then it was not even a mod. My goal was just to have some moving train that you could enter and which would allow some basic driving along the tracks. For the longest time, I refused to turn it into a real mod because I always wanted this to be playable just via mission scripts. But seeing how with a mod I could animate the wheels and add some sounds too I decided to turn it into a little prototype mod. Not so long after I decided to share that I was working on it since I thought I was pretty much done. However, I did not expect the large interest that followed after posting this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Aw4-lmONqM

I wanted to work on it for another few weeks and ship it, but I felt like I wanted to make those who were looking forward to it happy and provide more than I had at the time - a big mistake. A cycle started that continues to this day: I work on the mod -> I gain experience in programming and the specific subject of train simulations -> I am more confident about what I can do and my goal for what a 1.0 release should look like is raised. Then I try to reach it but when I come close it's "ah just this one more thing". With more and more time passing and my "soonTM" starting to become less relevant and more of a meme I had little to no reason to suddenly make a cut and release. Still today I am not 100% happy with the build. I like a lot about it, but there are things I wish I had done better and bugs I need to fix - but as my track record shows if I say "just these more fixes" the mod will never get out.

Having joined Bohemia Interactive as a programmer pushed the mod development forward drastically - since when I went to Prague and met the DayZ devs I could not show up empty-handed. So I brought both an earlier beta build to show off and an actual model replica of the in-game locomotive ČD 742 with me: https://i.imgur.com/ZdWTHWQ.jpeg, https://i.imgur.com/DzgRY6F.jpeg.

These were also tokens of gratitude since they supported me massively in my development and as you can tell by the credits on the main page ... some features that are the coolest would not have been possible without their help!

Now with the 10th anniversary weekend, I knew it's now or never. As you might have seen, the mod actually went live in the evening yesterday, but I wanted to touch up just a few more things (the habit is hard to get rid of). I do think however I made some nice little changes in the last 2 days that help you to enjoy the mod more.

But ... why is it a "beta" ... well I already hinted that there are some things I need to fix. I think the mod is mostly playable - I have put all serious known issues onto a list on the Discord I linked on the workshop item. Those should not be too game-breaking (here I go jinxing it). But because there has been no extensive private test period I do not want everybody to think the mod can be safely thrown onto servers with 0 issues. That is what the 1.0 update will be - and that is what I am working towards now. That being said It will not take another 5 years until that ;) Besides bug fixes, I have some more content planned that I want to work on, given the mod is well received. I had my fun playing around with it alone for the longest time - now I want to make sure you get to try it too and to make your experience fun.

I am looking for people who like trains as much as I do and who are willing to try out the mod and provide me feedback. No amount of testing on my side and overthinking things can beat a crowd of people trying to rip apart my mod. Please do so, I will gladly take all the bug reports because then I can fix them up and soon we all have a nice stable mod that can be used on many servers to provide people with a new and interesting gameplay aspect.

Also if you are interested in helping me translate the mod into your language (or you found some errors in existing translations) please get in touch.

Thank you all very much for the many messages over the years to ask about my mod, it showed me that people still cared about it. I am very happy to be able to reply to many of them with a link to this post now. Also thank you to those who kept reading until here - have a wonderful day!

Quickstart instructions:
1. Subscribe to the mod
2. Launch DayZ using the official launcher
3. Load the mod in the mods tab
4. Go to Parameters -> All Parameters -> Advanced -> Mission and browse to your game install dir and use one of my little demo mission that come with the mod. e.g.
Enjoy the mod!
- Paul