Hey Everyone!
It's been a while since I've posted an update, so I wanted to share my current thoughts on the state of the game, what I'm currently working on, what my next steps are, and how those play into the upcoming initial release.
TL;DR: In case you're just here for a quick answer, I'm working on adding a pretty large system to the "simulation" underlying the game in order to pave the way for the last major additions to the game that I think are crucial for the first release. It's taking a bit longer than I expected, in part due to the fact that I am making sure this change supports some of the other upcoming changes, and partly because it's also become a part of my validation of some performance changes as well.
If you'd like a bit more detail and clarity, I'll explain with the rest of this post ;) It's a long one though!
Current State of Musgro Farm
I think the best place to start is with my thoughts on the current state of the Demo & Alpha.
I believe the Demo itself gives a pretty solid "early game" which outlines the intention of the game and the core mechanics. I think it does a good job showing that you'll be growing crops, and that those need to be "processed" and combined in order to produce more complex items. It also shows that shipping them around with trucks can work, but won't be the most efficient approach to the game. It demonstrates that connections with adjacent neighbors will be important, and that finding efficient layouts will be helpful in building an efficient farm. It also demonstrates by the end that recipes are going to get a bit more complicated.
I believe the Alpha then demonstrates what the "mid game" starts to look like. You unlock more Districts / "grid tiles" and start to see some of the challenges associated with multiple Districts. It also demonstrates some more complicated recipes. Right now it really only has a few "mid/late game recipes", but I think those recipes exemplify the next layer of challenges - It's infeasible to fit the later recipes into one District and you'll have to find efficient ways to manage goods between different Districts using Logistics + Routes. Some of the later goods also have other byproducts, take up a lot of space, or other challenges which add in some different layout challenges.
This leaves a few core missing pieces that I think are pretty critical to the initial release feeling good, playing well, and demonstrating the "full vision" of the game... And I don't want to release the game until these pieces are addressed:
There are still only a few mid/late game recipes.
There's still no real "late game" systems or new challenges. The last additions are "more districts" and "Logistics Routes", which I consider to be the "mid game", but the game has always aimed to have another "tier" of complexity for late-game.
The game shifts in "playstyle" a little bit as you progress, which at points requires varying amounts of rebuilding. Currently this can often become just deleting your old District builds to make room for something new, with little gains having been achieved beyond gained Fields/Buildings/General XP. And then you're essentially "starting over" at ground zero within that District. This feels really bad.
The "scaling" feels a bit off as you can "outgrow" some of your older layouts which end up hitting limitations on what they can actually manage to ship/sell. I've intended that you'll keep Ranking those original layouts up as you continue building, but currently as you do so the District Center and it's Trucks don't scale and will then eventually "lock" you out of achieving any benefit.
1 is just a content problem which just requires me to add more buildings and recipes, but 2, 3 & 4 are a bit more "systemic" mechanical problems. I have had plans to address these, but many of those plans depend on a system which hadn't been built yet, which is what I'm currently working on. This system essentially is what will "bridge" the mid-game multi-district playstyle into how I plan for the late-game to play out. When you first unlock it, it will help alleviate some of those mid-game pain points, but it will also be central to the future mechanics that are the core of the late-game.
So what is this thing?
District Specific Upgrades
Within the mid-game, you'll be able to unlock District Ranks. These Ranks are specific to each District. As Plots run within the District, they can contribute XP towards their District's Rank. When a District achieves a new Rank, it will be awarded a point to spend on District-specific Upgrades. These Upgrades are a sort of "mini tech tree" for each District which award unique bonuses to that District.
My intention with the District Tech Tree is to provide more Upgrades than you'll have points for within in any one District, while also providing diverse enough "situational" Upgrades such that there's no "one size fits all, optimal build". The idea is that you'll end up with different Districts that are "specialized" in different things, and will therefore pick the Upgrades most beneficial to their specialization.
This also intends to be a sort of "permanent progression system" within each District - Even if you end up having to tear down the whole District to make room for something new, the Ranks achieved within that District will remain, allowing you to hit the ground running with your next setup.
In order to demonstrate this, I'll reveal a couple of the first simple Upgrade options. Though do note that the final values of these may change during balance passes etc.
Truck Cargo Capacity
There are a couple Truck Cargo Capacity upgrades available. As noted in #4 above, Trucks can become an extremely rigid bottleneck as Plots rank up since Trucks themselves do not have a Rank Up mechanic. These Upgrades allow you to spend a few points to alleviate that bottleneck.
Plot production rates increase exponentially as 2^Rank. These Truck upgrades will add exponential Rank scaling such that after spending a few points, they will match with 2^Rank scaling of their own. One of these Upgrades affects Collection, Sale, and Logistics Trucks within the District, while the other Upgrade affects the Input and Waste Trucks.
If you're building a District that needs to sell a ton of its production, the Collection & Sale Truck upgrade will be crucial. If you're building a District that produces goods which will be fully consumed by another District which sends their Logistics Trucks to pick them up, there's no reason to upgrade this District's Collection/Sale/Logistics Trucks.
If you're building a District for a Recipe where you have a layout that works purely with connections between Plots, there's no reason to upgrade the Input Trucks. If you need to accommodate a Recipe that needs Input Trucks, then the Input Truck Upgrade will be beneficial, though sometimes you may be able to get away with only spending a point or two.
Shared Experience
Another available District Upgrade increases the amount of Rank XP generated for Plots and Districts, assisting them in "catching up" to each other.
With this Upgrade:
Plots whose Ranks are behind the District's Rank will generate significantly more Plot Rank XP in order to help them catch up to the District. This can be extremely helpful when rebuilding a District (problem #3 above). When rebuilding, the District will retain its Rank from the previous build, but new Plots will be starting at A, so this Upgrade shorten how long it takes to catch back up to where you were.
Plots whose Ranks are ahead of the District's Rank will generate additional District Rank XP to help the District catch up. This is a less common scenario, but will be helpful in some specific situations later in the game.
Improvements to Game Flow
I outlined 4 major pain points in the current Alpha game flow, and mentioned this system was paving the way to solving those problems, as well as helping with some future plans. I want to take a second to outline how this works, which parts I think this system solves, what I think remains with each one:
4: Scaling Problems
District mechanisms like Trucks/Sale currently get "outscaled" since Plots scale with Rank and Trucks had no mechanism to do so. This system directly adds a mechanism for Trucks to scale with the District Rank, which allows them to keep pace with the Plots.
Keen players will notice that Sale Trucks still get bottlenecked since the more Districts you unlock, the further they must be from the Sale point off the map. I have a solution aimed directly at this, but it has required some of this "District Specific" groundwork to be built first. This solution will likely be shipped with the first "District Upgrades" build but the specifics are a bit outside the scope of this post.
I expect that in that update, this one will be mostly solved. There may be one more piece coming further down the road post-release, but I think this one will be in a pretty good spot on release.
3: Rebuilding Pains
In the current builds, once you unlock new Crops and Recipes, they end up being more "valuable" than your existing ones. Since you're limited in space, you are incentivized to then wipe out your existing builds and start over, which feels like a large waste of time and resources.
With these changes, when you rebuild, you'll likely have at least a few Ranks in the District you're rebuilding. This will mean that you'll at least retain some amount of permanent progress. Some of the Upgrades available will also allow you to catch back up more quickly.
In some cases you may have very different intentions for the District, in which case, there is the ability to "refund" your Upgrades and choose new ones, though this will likely come at some cost so it's not something to be doing constantly - I think some amount of commitment/investment is still important.
That being said, I don't think this is "enough" to address these rebuilding pains. There are a couple other changes I have planned here.
I do think a big part of this will be aided by the full release having significantly more land available than even the Alpha. I do expect land to be somewhat limiting, but the Alpha right now is significantly more constricted for a couple of reasons - namely around with helping me validate some balancing and a couple things with performance. When you have more land available in the real game, it'll be a little easier to just "expand" instead of having to "replace" some of your existing build.
And secondly, I have another significant "catch up"/"fast build" mechanic planned by the initial release, but it's going to be a part of a slightly different system that relies on these District Rank changes. After these District Rank changes, this "catch up" system will likely be the only other major remaining system before the game is ready.
2: Late Game Systems & Challenges
The current "end" of the Alpha lands just around what I consider to be the "mid game" of Musgro Farm, and I think it's critical to at least include the beginning of the late game.
I don't quite want to fully reveal my hand on what this entails, and it is a bit involved and warrants a post of its own, but I will say that I intend for the late game to be a bit "higher level" than what currently exists, and for it to be centered around "specializing" Districts into some different "roles".
I think the Alpha does do a little bit of foreshadowing on this front: In the Alpha, the recipes are extremely complex and don't fit into one District. To build those recipes, you end up with some Districts that are specifically growing crops and doing some processing, but have their outputs consumed by another District which is consuming those crops and turning them into the next step, which is then being consumed by some "final" District which is just aggregating, combining, and selling products.
This lends itself to "Producer Districts", "Consumer + Processor Districts", and "Consumer + Sale Districts". Each of these are slightly different roles and specialties. You could see how these would each have different priorities for which District Upgrades they would prefer.
The late game will iterate on this idea, focusing more on specializing specific Districts into different roles, and planning some high level "Inter-District Layouts".
From the technical side, this requires the "District Specific Bonuses" system I've been building here. A large part of the reason why this has been so involved is that this system needs to not only support the "District Upgrades" tech tree, but also multiple other mechanisms for this late game evolution.
That being said, this is just how I expect the late game to play/flow. There are some more "challenges" and "goals" I would like to add to give the game a bit more "direction" towards specific targets and achievements. I think this coming update will help usher in the late game, changing a bit of how it is played, but I still think it deserves a few more goals to chase.
Supporting Future Plans
From a technical perspective, this is very different than the way other upgrades have worked - The existing Tech Trees allow global upgrades that apply to everything you build, and Plot & Vehicle upgrades apply to specific Plots or Vehicles. These District Upgrades have required building a "District Bonuses" mechanism, which is a large system of its own, but allows me to vary both stats and behavior on a District-by-District basis.
Some of my plans for the future center around some more unique and exciting changes that affect individual Districts, which I'll reveal in a future update ;) But this system functions as the underpinnings to support those features.
Performance Updates
This one is going to be a bit of a tangent, but I think it's worth mentioning before wrapping up and talking about what I'm planning moving forward....
One of the main goals of the Alpha has been to identify performance issues and bottlenecks. I have always intended for extremely large farms to be supported, but I've had to figure out where the limits stand.
The three main bottlenecks on my mind have always been Graphics, the Production Simulation, and the Trucks. It's a bit of a "tug of war" between each, as improving one just means another one becomes the next bottleneck.
I've constantly been watching each one to see which one is becoming the biggest bottleneck at each stage. I had expected Trucks to be next on the list, but the Production Simulation has recently reared its head when some players built some crazy-large groups of connected plots. Since the last update, I've also done some testing with increasing draw/fog/camera distance and the Graphics side still seems to keep up.
As such, I've made some really large improvements, mostly around the Production Sim. These changes could fill a post of their own, but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, so I'll be a bit brief:
I've essentially moved the "move produced items around between connected Plots" logic down to native code with a much more performant memory layout, which has improved performance of that system by 4x. While doing so, I also migrated the Truck Pathfinding in a similar way for some easy 2x gains since that was the next culprit in line.
This is a more "risky" change though, since native code bugs are much harder to track and can lead to hard game crashes instead of "handled crashes" where the game can keep running and even report what went wrong. As such, I've wanted to be significantly more careful before releasing these changes, which has meant that they likely will be released along with with this District Upgrades update instead of being their own release.
That being said, I expect that with these changes and testing, it should be feasible to increase the draw distance / camera distance / push the "fog" further out, so that you can see more of your farm at once without too much work or too un-performant. So that likely will be coming at some point in the future.
Next Updates and Release Steps
All of that being said, what does the future look like?
Next Update
The next Alpha update will be coming once this round of "District Upgrades" is in a good spot. It will include the performance updates, more Districts to unlock, the District Ranks, and the "bridge to late game" that I mentioned above via some additional mechanics focusing on "District Specialization". These kind of all go hand in hand, and will be quite a significant update.
Most of this is "built", but it needs a few more final changes, some assets to go along with it, testing, and likely some balancing, so it's still too far out for me to have a solid idea of exactly when that will be.
Goals Before Release
Once that's done, there are a couple more checkboxes before I'd be ready for an initial Early Access release. As I mentioned at the end of my last update I have a ton more things I want to add, and while there are parts I am willing to defer to a 1.0 release, it's very important to me that the initial Early Access release still feels like a full and polished experience. As such, here are the things that currently remain:
First, I have one more chunky system I'd like to get in place. It's supported by this District System I've been talking about, so it shouldn't require nearly as much time. It will play an important role in both giving some late game goals (#2 above) for completionists, while also aiding in the "rebuilding a District" problem (#3 above) and playing a role in some of the late game "specialization". As such, I think this is a pretty critical piece to include in any release.
Secondly, I haven't addressed "missing pieces #1" from above - The game is still missing mid/late game Recipes. I think it's important to include a decent amount so the game has diversity on release. Currently, the Sweet Potato Soup recipe in the Alpha is around the level of complexity I aim for a late game recipe, but it currently stands alone.
The "mid game" is also lacking any real recipes, as the complexity jumps from things like Simple Vegetable Soup straight to some pretty difficult recipes. I'd like to add some more recipes in there to ease the progression so it's not as overwhelming.
I think it's fair to push some recipes off until a "1.0 Release", especially any "extreme late game" highly complex ones. It's also the type of content that makes sense to add on as the EA period progresses. But they're easier to add than entirely new systems, so they don't take quite as long, and I think adding some mid-game recipes and a few more late game ones is bare minimum for EA.
Third, there are a few "quality of life" type things I think are pretty necessary for initial Early Access. Some menus are extremely hard to dig through and a "Search" interface would aid a lot of fumbling. Hotkeys should be re-bindable. Copy/Paste should be "upgraded" to at least a simple "Blueprint" implementation to help with rebuilding and expanding, even if a full-featured Blueprint implementation is to come later. Draw/Fog distance is currently pretty low and it makes it hard to view your farm from a high level. None of these are terribly hard, but they greatly aid in usability, so I see them each as very important for EA.
After that are some things that I would like to include, but I suspect will be things that more likely will land as content updates during EA. Things like more fleshed out end game goals, a major overhaul to the unfinished Business Tree, another Tech Tree that I had half-built but has continually been de-prioritized in favor of other things, etc.
That being said, I'm always open to feedback, and the Alpha is still ongoing. As I release these things, some things may become more or less important, but I do think I'm honing in on the last few steps here.
As always, thank you for all your support. I'm really excited to get this next update out, really excited to talk about this next tier of gameplay I'm teasing, and really excited that EA is feeling closer and closer!