Wishlist Now
First of all, Expansion Pack 2's Steam page is now online and you can wishlist it now! I was told it was the best practice to set it up as soon as possible but I was always lazy with paperwork. But anyway, here's the link https://store.steampowered.com/app/1807800/Industry_Idle__Expansion_Pack_2/
You've probably noticed that two pieces of important information are missing: price and launch date.
I am still working on the final pricing - the goal is to have enough income to cover the running cost of the game: i.e. the global trade/chat/leaderboard server. And your wishlist will help derive a more accurate estimation.
Although the pricing is left to be determined, what I can say for sure is that there will be a launch discount and a "complete the set" bundle. These two discounts should stack as far as I understand.
Building Recipe System
A lot of work has been done on adding core mechanisms for farming and food expansion. A new addition since my last report is the recipe system: a building can have multiple recipes. Some of them require the building to reach a certain level to unlock.
To unlock a building in Research Lab, you only need to unlock the basic recipe (the first one) - this would allow easy diversifications of productions. However, the adjacent bonus, in this case, requires not only the same type of building but also the same recipe as well.
This system has been backported to the base game - in fact, the new Battery Recycler (Patch 0.15.1) makes use of this mechanism as well.
Food Processing and Trade
Certain food items cannot be traded locally or with players - like chicken and beef. However, after being processed and turned into processed food (frozen chicken and canned beef), they can be bought or sold in the player market. Since most higher-level recipes do not take processed food directly, you can "restore" them in the food processing plant as well.
Regional Crops
Just like in the real world, not all crops are available on all maps - there are regional variations on different maps. All the existing maps will get some crops as well (you still need expansion pack 2 to actually grow them)
It has been carefully balanced that you should be able to unlock most of the food technologies with basic crops, if not all. The additional crops provide alternative ways to design your supply chain.
Finalizing Perth and Kansas City
I have finalized the content (e.g. unique bonuses) for the two new cities in expansion pack 2: Perth and Kansas City. Previously I have been focused on the core mechanisms and the content is only a placeholder. Now I have taken time to design and balance those content. You can see the details on the Steam page for Expansion Pack 2 as well. If you want a recap of the unique mechanism, you can read the previous progress report
Dropping "Competitive City"
If you have read my initial plan for expansion pack 2, you probably realize that I have mostly followed the plan, even though there is much more content than initially planned. One content that will be dropped though, is the competitive city. I have spent quite some time on its design but unfortunately, I cannot seem to get it right, mainly because:
- To make the map fair for competitive mode, I have to disable a lot of features, like player trading and Swiss upgrade, which makes the map less fun
- Even with those features disabled, the map is not 100% fair - stock rating and market updates (pricing) are fundamental game mechanisms that cannot be disabled and will result in variations
- The potential Swiss money gained from the map will be much less compared to other maps, which doesn't provide incentives for people to do competitive runs
I have tried several designs in an attempt to make this concept work but in the end, I've reached the conclusion that this mode doesn't really make much sense - so it's better to cut the loss and spend the development effort on something else.
New Map: São Paulo Rio de Janeiro
São Paulo Rio de Janeiro is the latest map focusing on the farming expansion. It has a unique fuel: biofuel as a byproduct of animal farms. It's also a hex map, which is good news for adjacent lovers. Not only that, a unique building - Cristo Redentor (I know Cristo Redentor is in Rio but it's too late to change the name) - will consume culture and provide an adjacent bonus to any building! If you were unhappy that your buildings on the edge of the cluster don't get a full adjacent bonus, this map is definitely for you!
Update: After getting feedback from the community, I feel I should make an effort to respect the geographical accuracy. So I am changing this city to Rio de Janeiro, where the Cristo Redentor is actually located.
Tower Defense Mode
The last planned content for Expansion Pack 2 is the tower defense mode. I've made pretty good progress and finalized the game design. As a reminder, this mode is optional is only available on specific maps.
Implementation has started already and will most likely take some time - tower defense is a very big addition to the gameplay and the effort needed is almost like a new game.
I have received suggestions that tower defense could be its own expansion - I think it makes sense. But I also want to make expansion pack 2 worth the price. In addition, setting up a new expansion pack requires paperwork, which is something I don't like - so I opt for bigger and fewer expansions. Also expansion pack 2 will cover at least 3 months of premium content update after its release, just like expansion pack 1.
Here's how tower defense works (at least for now):
- On maps that have tower defense enabled, you will get a certain number of (4-6) "wormholes", which spawns enemies.
- The enemies will find the shortest path between the wormhole and the headquarter.
- You can build more buildings to alter the path (buildings will block the path) but you cannot completely block the headquarter - i.e. there should be at least a possible path
- You can construct defense buildings. They do two things: 1) they pull resources (i.e. military ones) and convert them into "damage" based on the resource's market price; 2) they deliver damages to the enemies within the range
- There's only one "type" of defense building, but each building has multiple modules and you can fully customize its features via loading and upgrading different modules. You can also move defense buildings.
- You control when you are ready for the next wave. Once a wave is started, you cannot build or move buildings (the path cannot change).
- If you successfully survive a wave, you will get cash rewards based on the damage delivered (with a multiplier, of course). If you failed, you can always retry but the damage delivered will be gone (you won't get that money back)
As you can see, the tower defense is closely tied to the economy. After all, to win a war, you need a good economy as support. Winning a war offers another path to expand your economy. That's how it works in the real world, that's how it works in the game.
That's all I have for now. Hopefully the next progress report will be the last one for Expansion Pack 2 before its release. Until then, the factory must grow!