Hey there, travelers!
With the recent premiere of our newest trailer for the upcoming Early Access release, we’ve been thrilled to see so many of you step through the gates of Hotel Galactic - playing the demo and leaving us heaps of insightful feedback. Over the past week, we’ve been rolling out a bunch of small (and not-so-small) patches to fine-tune core gameplay mechanics. Let’s unpack some of that!
But, oh, before we get into it… If you haven’t seen the new goodies yet, now’s a great time to check out the trailer. The fine-feathered individual is none other than Greta Mountis, someone you’ll get to know better in the game's story mode. And hey, in case it slipped your mind - July 24th is when we officially open the doors to Hotel Galactic in Early Access!
Now, the changes! One of our main areas of focus in the run-up to launch has been the worker AI. We have overhauled the priority system, rebalanced the whole thing, and added a handy feature that lets you drag your worker to a task - they’ll pick it up if it’s available, giving you a bit more direct control.
And as of today, we’ve added the ability to override a worker on a task they haven’t yet made any progress on. So if you spot someone hiking all the way to the other side of the island to cut down a tree, while you’ve got your eye on someone better for the job, simply drag them to the task to override the game’s pick.
But what if there was more? Ha, got you covered on that! We have also added the ability to toggle a special priority boost on individual tasks. So if you have ten things lined up for your staff, you can nudge the ones you want to be picked up faster. The big priority matrix for global priorities, the boosts for local fine-tuning, and finally the overrides and direct orders - all for those who like to keep their hands on every knob, dial, and lever.
One quieter change we snuck in: the Enable/Disable Autostore toggle now correctly applies to all items of a given type. Plus we’ve simplified it a bit here, getting rid of other less used options. So if berries are being a pain, just switch off their autostoring and you’re good to go. Speaking of berries…
One (of many) reasons to stay all giddy for Early Access: backpacks! Yes, hauling one item at a time is annoying - we get it. But in the actual game, you’ll gain access to various equipment items for your workers, with backpacks being a key upgrade to speed up all those back-and-forth runs.
As you can see, there’s plenty more to come. Thank you again for your support and we hope to see you next month at launch. And don't forget to wishlist the game and join our community as we take this journey together!
Thank you,
Ancient Forge