Hi everyone,
I know it's almost over, but October 2025 is actually a BIG milestone month for Hydro, as it marks a whole year since I began the Hydro project! (I officially began development back on October 6th, 2024).
To celebrate, I've been working busily on a MAJOR UPDATE for Hydro over the past few weeks and here are the fruits of that labor!
This is the very first MAJOR UPDATE for Hydro since its full version release less than 3 months ago, and this one adds a HEAP quality and feature updates! Let's get into it...
RANDOM TELEGRAPH MESSAGE SEND/RECEIVE FAILURES
As part of this update, the telegraph units are now looking worse-for-wear by default and more prone to randomly failing to either send or receive telegram messages...these failures can now occur even if the Accumulator is charged sufficiently (>50V).
Note that a previous update (v1.19) which introduced telegraph send/receive failures when the Accumulator charge is low (<50V), still applies - and if the Accumulator charge is zero, the telegraphs still fail entirely.
This new change will mean your Telegraphs are no longer 100% reliable and should add some extra dimension to the game play loop! Messages which fail to send (e.g. when you request supplies or send a 'Not Ready' message) can generally be sent after multiple attempts, however any messages which failed to receive will mean you are not notified of the event which has just occurred, however the consequence of that event will still occur (such as a noise complaint penalty) - you just won't have the info on what happened.
Note that missed incoming messages can also mean you can occasionally miss out on receiving the coveted Township Demands and this can affect your income; thankfully there is a way to 'upgrade' your telegraphs to make them more reliable...keep reading to learn more!
Above: an example of an UN-upgraded telegraph unit - prone to more failures with this update!
To get the telegraphs functioning as reliably as possible, apply the brand new telegraph upgrades detailed below...
THREE (3) NEW UPGRADES
The Upgrade Blueprint now scores a brand new page (page 4) and there are 3 brand new upgrades to research.
Refurbished Sending Telegraph Unit - this improves the sending reliability of the Sending Telegraph Unit...note that a sufficient Accumulator charge (above the 'red zone' - or 50V) is still recommended to avoid reliability issues
Refurbished Receiving Telegraph Unit - this improves the receiving reliability of the Receiving Telegraph Unit...note that a sufficient Accumulator charge (above the 'red zone' - or 50V) is still recommended to avoid reliability issues
Upgraded Marker Light Panel Circuits - this improves the light changeover speed of the Marker Light Panel when you flip the levers, so you won't have to wait around as long as previously. The panel will also score a lick of new paint and a new look once upgraded. NOTE: as of this v1.22 major update, the Marker Light Panel also consumes Accumulator charge when the light color changeover process is occurring.
Above: a fully-upgraded Marker Light Panel!
A NEW STORAGE UNIT OUT-BUILDING
A few of you have been asking for this feature, and it's finally here!
This handy 'out-building' allows you to safely store your supplies such as oil cans and battery acid in one location. Note that in the future, I plan on adding a door lock and potentially introducing the chance of random supply theft when the player rests (and potentially higher risk of theft if the player reputation is lower), so it might be a good idea to get in the habit of storing your reserves in this building, in preparation for future updates...
TEN (10) NEW TOWNSHIP DEMANDS
Prior to this update, Hydro has 27 total unique Township Demands.
This update now adds 10 brand new Township Demands! Of these new 10, 4 of them have associated 'good news'/'bad news' newspapers. So you now have 4 additional newspapers you can frame up in the power station!
NEW 'HIGH PRESTIGE' TOWNSHIP DEMANDS
Listed below are the 5 more notable of the new Township Demands - these are all 'high prestige' demands meaning that you can only access them if your Reputation is > 50:
Electric Train Station Commissioning - 70 power units demanded (day shift only)
Flour Mill Running Overtime - 55 power units demanded (day shift only, no linked newspapers)
Overseas Pop Band Playing - 65 power units demanded (night shift only)
Township Night Festival - 55 power units demanded (night shift only)
Automobile Factory Power Demand - 70 power units demanded (both day and night shifts)
NEW 'LOW PRESTIGE' TOWNSHIP DEMANDS
In addition to the above 5 Demands, there are 5 more 'unforeseen' power demands, with more 'accessible' power unit demands (as low as 35 power units), for those times when you're not feeling 'energized' enough to meet those higher-unit demands. The payout amounts on these demands are however fairly low in comparison (as well as rewarding less Research Points), but should still provide a nice bump to your coffers!
Note that each of the new unforeseen demands have differing payouts and are 'low prestige' demands, meaning they are all available even if your Reputation is =< 50.
Finally, shown below are the 4 new newspapers that can be framed as part of this major update (this means you can now frame a total of 13 newspapers in the power station! Previously it was 9):
As part of these new Township Demands, a selection of them have been added to the 'Hydro Stats' tracking, seen below:
SLEEPING QUARTERS FUSE BOX
There is now a new Local Power Fuse - #7 - and this is located in a brand new fuse box mounted on the Sleeping Quarters itself. This fuse comes with its own durability/repair value which will degrade over time, and require repairing at the Fuse Repair Workbench:
FIVE (5) NEW 'CALM RIVER' DAY SHIFT TELEGRAMS
In addition to the existing three telegram messages you can receive during calm river day shifts, there are now five additional messages (each with their own associated reward/penalties) you can randomly receive, taking the total pool of possible messages to 10; the 5 new messages are:
Township Land Tax Charged
Waste Oil Levy
Renewable Energy Subsidy Payment
Vintage Power Station Power Line Maintenance Fee
Telegraph Service Charges
I haven't noted the reward/penalty amounts here, you'll just have to play and find out for yourself :-)
Note: on the subject of these calm river day shift telegram messages, I have also removed any reputation gain/loss that was previously associated with them. These messages are now only associated with either a monetary gain or loss.
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
There are a heap of additional feature and quality updates included with this major update. The more notable of them are:
The Marker Light Panel now drains some Accumulator charge when the Marker Light color scheme changeover is occurring! Each color wheel will trickle drain its own amount of Accumulator charge, so having all three color wheels turning at once, will mean 3x the Accumulator drain (this is inescapable as whenever you need to make a color change to the Marker Lights, you will need to change all of them anyway). So, make sure you factor this in and keep a robust amount of Accumulator charge. If the Accumulator charge hits zero, changing the Marker Light colors will not be possible (and any Marker Lights currently in the process of changing-over their color scheme will cease to do so).
Changed the desk in the power station to have a different texture
Bug fix: previously, if the 'On-screen messages' difficulty setting was set to FALSE, it was not being respected if an incoming boat or calm day telegram message failed to receive (the 'Message send/receive failed!' on-screen message was still displaying (erroneously), when it should have been hidden). This is now fixed.
All window frames in the power station and other wooden items (such as unupgraded telegraph units) have been changed to the 'rotten' wood texture to match the rest of the roof beams being suitably weathered...
Some code enhancements (housekeeping and optimisation)
Re-wording and text improvements to a number of the 'Help' screens accessible from the Main Menu
Increased rain-falling-on-metal sound effect volume for the Sleeping Quarters
When repairing Local Power Fuses, you now get an indication of exactly which # fuse is being repaired, as well as an indication of the repair quality! This will help to better illustrate the repair quality when repairing fuses. You will note that when you initially start repairing a fuse, the current repair level is shown first (a blown fuse = 0% quality) and a few seconds later once the repair is complete, the new repair quality for a given fuse is shown. Repair quality remains (as-always) variable each time you perform a repair, so if you're not too happy with the repair quality of a fuse, you can repair it again.
Note: all fuses in your Pocket Inventory are repaired in-order, so if you're holding multiple fuses in your inventory, they will all be put through the repair process each time you repair a fuse (I plan on potentially introducing a new interface here in future, allowing you to choose which fuses in your inventory that you wish to repair, as well as an option to only 'inspect' (or otherwise display) current fuse repair quality before allowing the option to make a repair).
THANK YOU!
Once again, thanks so much for all your support! Once again your feedback has helped shape this update and I love making Hydro the best it can be for players such as you!
I would have loved to cram even more features to this major update, but I was fast running out of time as I wanted to meet the end of October deadline whilst still ensuring I delivered a quality, bug-free update; as you can appreciate, there was a mammoth amount of planning, development and testing involved in bringing this update to you all in just a few weeks, considering I am a solo developer and can only work on Hydro in my 'free time' outside of my real-world commitments.
There's still more to come on the development road map and you can even have your say in the roadmap too! (check it out here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/3355830/discussions/0/599660183449291892/)
Until next time, happy generating! ⚡