Patch 1.5 Automation / Awards / Studio Perks
Warning this new patch has had major changes to many saved variables, as well as added a bunch of new ones. This may have bad results with old save data. You might be OK to continue an old game, but results regarding new stuff may be weird. It's possible you might crash to desktop with an old save, hopefully that is not the case. Ideally you should start a new game when you are able.
As Always you can find the short form patch notes on the discord: https://discord.gg/WfbXE4cDVA
Unfortunately, some areas I worked on this week were more complex than I would have liked. There are many things I could not get into this week's patch, but they will come in the near future. Now for the longer notes, let's get into it.
Change Log;
- Fixed a variety of spelling / grammar issues. As always, I will continue to improve on some of these small and large language errors. Thank you to everyone in the community who has helped point out a number of issues in this area. I am sure the new stuff I added this week will come with some spelling mistakes as well, so buckle up.
- Changed a few HUD format's to better align. There were some issues with some aspects over writing other aspects making some things hard to read. There are still more formatting improvement's to be made, but these will help.
- Subsidiary training now resets correctly after you train a company. If you went from one company to the next, the bars would not be reset properly causing weird results. This has been fixed.
- You can no longer accept skill changes unless you have made changes. A few people were hitting accept to close the menu and triggering the 1-year cool-down without knowing why. This led to an issue where once you had a skill you could not equip it due to the cool-down. You can no longer accept until some sort of skill has been changed.
- Added a new notification for when subsidiaries finish training / work
- You can now toggle on a request for a popup message with Deep Dives. This will allow you to get immediate results when you perform a deep dive. This will save the need to go back into the deep dive menu to see results when you are only doing a few genres. Late game when you are fully diving, this feels less necessary as you know you can just roll into making a game with that topic since you have everything unlocked.
- Now when you 100% complete a topic research for each genre and target. They are now removed from the list of available topics to be deep dived. This should make using new topics easier in the late game, when you have many fully learned topics.
- Fixed an issue with tech and design overrides. On the secondary bubble that you have a chance to proc based on focus, it was not using the override to pick tech or design correctly, it now is.
- I have added a - to fans lost to make sure it's very clear that it is negative. I know it was red but not everyone is great with colors, so this new - sign elevates that issue.
- Fixed an issue where one monitor was actually set to spawn in a PC case. It made for a really funny picture, but Ya this was resolved. Thank you for finding this one.
Major Changes
- Auto training has been added. You can now select to auto repeat training, and it will do exactly that and will run forever. You can stop auto training by clicking that worker and telling them to stop auto training. They will then finish the current program and then stop and be ready for other work. This should help players train there workers up with less effort.
- Studio Perks added. I have added a studio perk section where you can further spec your studio into the way you think it will grow the best. Each new office now gives 1 perk point, and you start with 1 perk point unlocked. When you begin a new game, you need to go to the perk menu found in the studio upgrades menu, and then give the point to the perk you wish to unlock. Once you hit accept you will be locked into that spec until use a respec. Respecs costs 25k and 50 RP and will double in size with each use. This will allow you to make changes, but not abuse the system as you move between different game aspects.
- Awards Reworked. We now have some new awards. We got rid of Game of the Year and replaced it with small / med / large / aaa goty. This will allow players to have awards within reach at all stages of the game. To go along with this, we have new lower sized Ai companies to compete with for these awards. Thanks to the GDM community for suggesting the names of these companies. I hope you guys' love seeing your names in game. Along with the new awards we also have the awards shelf. This is a small area in each office that will show off your most recent 6 awards. When you click on the awards shelf you will bring up the Award archive menu. From here you can view all your awards earned for hat play through.
I have not yet had time to model the 6 trophies for the awards, as well as I have taken the animation for the non-instant awards away. I will be hot fix adding in the finished awards very soon, and it will not disrupt your save files don't worry. A long with this I have a fully 3D cut scene I am working on for the award ceremony. This should be ready soon as well, and hot fixed into the game when ready.
Conclusion
That wraps up this patch. Honestly, there might be some bugs in this patch. I didn't want to make players wait who have been asking for the patch, and I said the 16th. I don't want to make false promises. Because of this I did however skip some of my own testing, it's possible there are some ugly bugs. I know I can count on you amazing players to help me track down any issues. If you find anything wrong small or large, please bring it to my attention via discord or steam forums. Preferably discord as its faster, but I will keep an eye on the steam page as well for those who don't like discord.
Over the next few days, we will hot fix issues, and work on the final models for trophies / animated awards. Once this patch is considered "stable" we will move on to the next big update. I plan to drop the next update at the start of the month August 1st. This timing will align with the new August season which is necessary. The next update will have brand new milestones (plus achieves to go with them), reworking the milestone orders, adding progression for milestones where it applies Ie total games made. On top of these changes, we will be adding a difficulty settings section to new games. You will be able to tweak your experience, and this difficulty will be used as a multiplier on milestones. This will make the game easier and harder at the same time. Will you go for max milestone multiplier? Or will you say forget leader boards I want to casually learn? Whatever your choice after next patch you can customize your experience as you see fit. I also plan to rework engines / conventions provided there is time.
Enjoy the new patch and please bring any issues to me ASAP, we will hotfix like the wind. Thank you for your continued support on this journey to create an impact on the tycoon genre, while setting a new standard for complexity and logic.