Hey everyone,
tolga here,
I'm here with a maintenance update. This one covers a bunch of fixes from reports that had been waiting on the Nightlife playtest. I decided to push it first and make it a bit bigger, and bring the planned launcher along with it for version switching. That way, players who want to stick with the stable EOTC version during the playtest get a more stable build earlier while we keep working on the playtest, and we won't need to open a second Steam branch. You'll be able to choose which version to play directly from the launcher.
The launcher also comes with save file loading improvements, and I pulled in some QOL improvements and extra fixes that were originally planned to ship with the Nightlife playtest update instead.
Room Move & Clone
This one's been needed for a long time, thanks for your patience!
Besides the room clone feature, there's now also a move option, so you can move a room without needing to buy all the items again. While working on it, we also added settings to both move and clone, something we'd been meaning to add to clone as an improvement anyway. You can choose whether to bring items, wallpaper, and window settings along, plus pick what happens at the destination. Its UI will get improved with the next update.
Most of the other QOL passes are stacked up for the UI & Translations update, but since this fix was urgent and the start of the 1.0 roadmap got delayed this summer, I pulled it into the Nightlife update instead. That ended up taking longer too, so now it's landing here.
Launcher & Save File Loading
Since we're starting this new chapter, I expect there will almost always be a playtest version of the next update available, at least until 2.0. We also needed a central place for bug reports, feedback, and news, so we put together an early version of the launcher. Right now it's mostly version selection plus some links and news, but over time I want it to become a place where you can send feedback and bug reports directly without needing a social hub, and manage saves and achievements directly if you want. Maybe a community art section too, and a place for public questions or for you to submit stories for the townsfolk characters (that feature is still pending as well), that would be fun!
I also worked on the loading system while I was in there. Opening the saved games menu with lots of saves no longer runs through the loading screen we added a while back, it loads instantly. There was also a dependency on save file names and file dates, that's gone now. So getting save files from friends won't mess with the dates or sorting anymore.
Some info about Maintenance & Janitorial balancing
There was some important feedback about maintenance and janitorial balancing, and while digging into bugs using save files from your reports, I saw some genuinely huge armies of maintenance officers and janitors.
I did some balance changes as a first pass:
Bigger maintenance crews are now more efficient instead of just bigger: each officer beyond your first adds a bit of repair capacity per tool run and a small repair speed boost, both capped so a crew can't outscale the room forever (capacity tops out around double the base, speed tops out at 15% faster).
Janitors get the same treatment: each extra janitor on staff carries more trash per trip and makes cleaning supplies last longer (also capped around double the base), plus a small cleaning speed boost, up to 15% faster.
Maintenance Office and Janitorial Room prestige (levels 2 through 5) now also asks for other Maintenance Offices or Janitorial Rooms on different floors, 1 for level 2, 2 for levels 3 and 4, 3 for level 5, on top of the existing stat requirements. Each level's prestige buff is a chance that the inventory items your officers or janitors use won't be consumed from storage (10/15/20/25% by level). So spreading these rooms across your building instead of relying on one giant room actually pays off now.
You can check your current staffing bonus directly on the Tools Cabinet, Janitorial Cabinet, Maintenance Office, or Janitorial Room tooltip.
In the long run, I'm planning to make things like per-employee buffs and elevator speed/capacity, along with the buildable resort space, and employee inventory space or work speed buffs upgradable with resources (Money and Documents). That way, once an employee has a lot of upgrades invested in them, you'll usually want to keep them around.
here's the changelog if the maintenance update that ive got:
Fixed "Save & Exit" sometimes returning to the Main Menu before your save finished writing. Also fixed it hanging if a save or load was already running.
Fixed vending, transportation, and room pricing sometimes loading the wrong casino's tiers when switching casinos in the same session.
Fixed selling or demolishing items incorrectly counting as repairs, which could falsely unlock the "Repair 200 Items" achievement.
Fixed documents-produced stat tracking breaking after 500 documents (10 for the CEO), which could reset the count over time.
Fixed the camera sometimes not stopping when following a human or vehicle above the top floor.
Saves already hit by the bug above (showing a large negative number) now get repaired automatically on load.
Fixed a save-loading crash that could happen when a room contained an item that was no longer allowed there.
Fixed a save-loading crash caused by a saved favorite tobacco item no longer existing. Also hardened the CEO's favorite tobacco, drinks, and snack against the same issue.
Fixed a save-loading crash when a builder had already returned to the worker pool by the time you saved.
Fixed workers (builders, delivery people, waste collectors, police) coming back invisible and frozen after loading a save.
Fixed wall demolishing sometimes merging the wrong room into yours, absorbing its furniture with no check that room types matched.
Fixed rooms of different types silently merging when an interior wall was auto-cleaned up during a demolish.
Fixed wall demolishing sometimes deleting utility connectors on neighboring tiles or the floor below.
Fixed rooms staying flagged "Under Construction" when the last piece built was an interior wall.
Fixed a permanent crash for office workers saved mid-way through using a Copier.
Fixed a possible crash loading a save where a human's in-progress vending drink no longer matched a valid item.
Fixed a recurring error hovering over a human with a null floor reference, which could break tooltips for other humans too.
Fixed a crash opening the research/license lock icon for an item with no matching research entry.
Fixed tooltips sometimes hanging off-screen right after their content changed. Added a horizontal flip near the right edge.
Fixed windows not remembering their last position, and fixed some windows being draggable off-screen (including off the top). Added a "Reset Window Positions" option to Settings.
Fixed street lamp removal only ever removing the same lamp repeatedly, leaving lamps stuck through walls at the start of a new game.
Fixed rain and thunder duration being based on real time instead of in-game time. Rain now lasts consistently regardless of game speed.
Fixed your most recent save sometimes not showing up when you have multiple casinos.
Fixed casino names with an apostrophe, hyphen, or ampersand getting truncated and grouped under the wrong casino.
Save browsing no longer fully loads every save file just to show the list. Opening the save menu should feel snappier with lots of saves.
Fixed restaurant orders getting permanently stuck if the waiter went on break or ended their shift mid order.
Fixed a possible crash showing the casino rating tooltip at maximum rating (5.0 stars).
Fixed a possible crash showing rating or transportation tooltips before customer-appeal data existed for the day.
Fixed a possible freeze assigning a casino game with no game actually selected.
Fixed the game potentially becoming unresponsive after an internal error processing a queued game state change.
Fixed a possible crash demolishing an infrastructure wall at the far left or right edge of the map.
Fixed a save-loading crash when an item's assigned repairer was no longer present in the save.
Fixed a possible crash placing an interior wall at the map edge before any room existed there.
Fixed a room potentially getting corrupted if an interior wall despawn tried to merge a room into itself.
Fixed a save-loading crash caused by a wallpaper, window, or curtain that no longer resolves to valid data.
Fixed a room's lighting not updating right away after a nearby wall was demolished.
Fixed unhired job candidates sometimes getting pulled into the world as active, walking NPCs.
Fixed humans getting stuck showing "Going to the X." if a wall was built or demolished while they were already en route. They now find a new route instead.
Fixed street lamps being permanently deleted instead of coming back once the wall built over them is demolished.
Fixed some items being left floating with no room around them after every wall of a room was demolished at once.
Fixed a crash when a divider wall split an existing hotel room, or a room was cloned on top of one. Affected saves could end up with a hotel room stuck missing from the hotel system, unable to hold items or be demolished.
Added Move Room: pick up an existing room and place it elsewhere, instead of only cloning it. Items travel with it and keep their contents and condition. The old spot keeps its walls and turns back into a Hall. You're only charged for what's newly built at the destination.
Fixed cloning a room onto tiles covering more than one room type leaving the destination split in half.
Fixed room cloning placing a divider wall through an item next door, leaving it stuck inside the wall.
Cloning a room now carries over its wallpaper as well, instead of only its windows and curtains.
Fixed room cloning removing or building over an elevator entrance at the destination. It's now left as is.
Wallpaper now fades in when placed instead of appearing instantly, and waits until the wall underneath is finished.
Fixed the quoted cost of cloning a room counting a new wall for every tile, even ones that already had one. This could wrongly tell you a clone was unaffordable.
Added an options box to room moving and cloning. Pick what comes along (items, wallpaper, windows, curtains) and whether the destination's existing improvements are cleared. For a move, choose whether the old spot becomes a Hall or keeps its type. Size, item count, and price update live.
Moving or cloning a room now outlines both the source and destination, with a line drawn between them.
Anything that can't come along with a move or clone now shows yellow in the preview. That covers basement-bound windows/curtains, anything landing on an elevator entrance, and a curtain with no window.
Fixed a dealer assigned to a table sometimes standing idle indefinitely while the table was open and customers waited.
Fixed work stations (dealer, bartender, barista, receptionist) sometimes staying stuck showing as staffed after the employee moved on, blocking anyone else until restart.
Fixed placement ghosts (items, interior walls, elevator entrances, curtains) briefly showing as placeable right after switching floors, even when overlapping something.
Fixed room cloning/moving sometimes leaving an item under the new interior wall, or overlapping a neighbor, instead of clearing it.
Fixed wide items (like storage shelves) specifically still getting left under the new wall after a clone or move.
Fixed room cloning/moving deleting items placed flush against that same room's own wall, like a File Shelf or Sink.
Fixed cloning/moving a room next to an already-placed room sometimes deleting an item from that neighbor.
Fixed room cloning/moving skipping wallpaper entirely on elevator-entrance tiles. Windows and curtains are still correctly blocked there.
Fixed item collision sometimes not being active if you weren't looking directly at it, which could let it be built or placed over as if it weren't there.
Fixed a room sometimes showing a blank name after being split off from an existing casino-owned room during a clone or move.
Rebalanced smoker chance: employees and the CEO are now both 15%, customers are down to 20% (It'll be selectable during CEO creation, like the background traits etc, planning to add more CEO creation RP/setting elements alongside it.)
Maintenance officers now repair items a bit faster and get more repairs done per tool run when you have more officers on staff, so bigger maintenance crews aren't slowed down as much by cabinet trips.
Janitors get the same treatment: more janitors on staff means each one carries more trash, their cleaning supplies last longer, and they clean a bit faster.
Maintenance Office and Janitorial Room prestige now also requires other Maintenance Offices/Janitorial Rooms on different floors at higher levels, so spreading them across your building actually pays off instead of relying on just one.
Hovering the Tools Cabinet, Janitorial Cabinet, Maintenance Office, or Janitorial Room now shows your current staffing bonus right in the tooltip.
See you on the next update. It'll go live on the main branch too, like I mentioned, with a few more fixes for the stable EOTC version, though not as many as this one. More importantly, the Nightlife playtest version will be unlocked on the launcher.
Thank you for the patience and support.
Wishing everyone a happy week! ːcrt_Luckː