Specialization
Hello again, everyone!
For me in game development there is always a cycle of joy, regret, being overwhelmed and back to joy again. And this cycle is much stronger with people playing the game. It always starts with me finishing the last features and starting to playtest Sweet Transit just to see how much it improved. Then the next step is to allow other people to play which always brings me to regret some solutions I did. This is normal as I do not have much off time which makes me overlook many aspects. Fresh eyes are always a good solution. And once enough information is gathered I start to be overwhelmed by all these new features and fixes I will have to do. However, I know that if I evaluate all of the feedback and solve everything to the best of my ability Sweet Transit will become much better as it did many times before. And now I am going back to the joy step just enjoying the game from all these improvements that were only possible when people care and want to improve the game by leaving feedback. This will be the last post focusing on new features for Update 1 which means finally I will be able to work and share new content with graphics. I can't say when we will release it, but that information should come in the near future.
I also wanted to address some questions from comments in the past:
- Will steel production be released this year - Yes.
- Will these changes to the game require additional translation - Yes, there will be new additions.
- When does this become live and will it affect current saves? - You will always be able to load older Sweet Transit saves.
- And will we get some station upgrades like medium station or large station? - 1.0 will have 4 different stations in total.
Train Depot
Train Depot had a fair share of overhauls. The biggest of which is the UI. You will be able to drag wagons between trains, duplicate, sell, flip inside the depot itself. This was a bit more difficult to do than expected. Also, depots will have their own names allowing to rename them. And lastly, trains will have to physically move inside once pressed "Send to Train Depot".
Specialization
A new mechanic that should allow more interesting colonies. Specialization increases work efficiency allowing the same number of workers to perform more in less time. For distribution centers it adds an extra 5% bonus for each same type of production facility connected to it. For example, having two sawmills will result in a 10% bonus increasing wood production from 60 to 66 per min. Having big farms will be very beneficial.
Villages and towns can also specialize in a single type of goods with the same bonus system. Having most structures that produce Cut Stone will make the village specialize in it. This adds a reason for interesting settlements such as having a small fishing village or a town around mountains producing stone.
Modifiers
A new game will have some modifiers to spice up your experience. For now, there are Sandbox, Easy and Standard presets with multiple sliders in between.
Upgrading
There will be new structures that you can upgrade in a town that I will share later on. But I wanted to talk about this now because laborer residences will not have any requirements for upgrading them except the cost ones. On top of that Craftsmen Residences will be selectable from the Build List. This change felt very natural as forcing residence upgrading conflicted with the game design. Upgrading steps to town are unchanged.
Multi Action Destinations
For those who like to have multi-purpose trains this should be some good news. Trains will be able to perform multiple actions per destination. The setup required is basically the same as it is now which is having multiple same destinations in a row. The difference is that trains will perform all of these actions at the same time while evaluating combined conditions. Wagons will choose the most suited action to perform based on their cargo, passengers, filters and other actions. It should just work.
Wait for Time
Timetables were requested here and there so I added a wait for a specific time condition. With this you will be able to specify exact times that the train can leave the station and based on other conditions it will choose the right one.
Desirability
Finally, I have worked on the pollution layer which I call desirability. It only affects people's happiness as it makes certain residences undesirable to be lived on. Any industry can potentially pollute. Planting trees and decorations will control which areas are being affected.
Until the next week!