Greetings, fellow "human" gas station owners!
Welcome to the very first edition of The Goopletter: your exclusive news transmission by Alien HQ (known on Earth as the Devs at Cybernetic Walrus)!
Beaming in from deep space right into your home, it informs you about the latest developments, stories, and community contributions during Early Access.
Here's what to expect in this inaugural news transmission:
Preview of the Summer Update
First glance at the prototype of F.A.R.T. (a cute restocking helper)
Sneak peek at Giuseppe di Hampter e Testico and the new battery system
Breakdown of customer NPC behavior
Collection of community artwork and screenshots of plant palooza gas stations that have caused us to question reality itself
The transmission is now fully decoded. Try not to get too much goop on it while reading!
Summer Update Preview
Let's start this transmission by saying thank you for playing! We appreciate you putting so many hours into running your gas station and researching humans in the most invasive ways. Your feedback has successfully traversed space-time, is much appreciated, and helps us make the game even more fun for everyone.
Based on your input, Alien HQ is hard at work assembling the next big update:
We heard your concerns about restocking and the alien aspect needing to be fleshed out. Additionally, some of you were wondering about summer decorations. Consequently, we are going to address all of these things through... carefully engineered chaos.
One of the update's highlights is the abduction of customers. Can you hack their brains to make them step onto the totally non-alarming transport platform?
Plus, the Summer Update will add the first phase of an overarching goal to the game: Alien HQ needs you to build a sturdy and state-of-the-art -- REDACTED -- so we can -- REDACTED -- our first -- REDACTED --!
Trust levels in Shlorp and his crew are barely meeting the minimum threshold, so please help them out!
There is a lot more top secret stuff in the making...
Some of which you can already discover below!
Work In Progress — F.A.R.T., Giuseppe & Battery System
Alien HQ Disclaimer: The following content is still being developed, tested, and occasionally poked with sticks. Everything shown here is a work in progress and may change before it is approved for deployment to Earth.
F.A.R.T.
To reach peak efficiency, Alien HQ already provided you with three unlockable upgrades. They automate tasks by making robots and humans do the dirty work for you:
The Automatic Surface Scrubber
The self-service gas pump
The self-scan register
However, your follow-up reports soon revealed a new problem: restocking has become the most tedious task in the entire universe.
To prevent blistered one-toe feet and sweaty paper masks, our scientists are now working on bringing you the Fully Automated Restocking Technician (code name F.A.R.T.)!
The Fully Automated Restocking Technician might be your most eager helper yet!
Equipped with a proprietary anti-human-suspicion disguise, this robot will help you keep business flowing. Of course, you will need to unlock it first!
Here is what the Fully Automated Restocking Technician can do for you:
It picks your orders from the delivery truck and places them in storage shelves.
It gets goods from the storage and helps restock your store.
It refills gas pumps.
It throws away empty boxes.
It puts boxes still filled with products on racks.
In other words: it does the heavy lifting so you can focus on researching strange Earth phenomena while accidentally causing havoc.
Below is a short video of F.A.R.T. in action. Unfortunately, the pixels of the footage did not survive atmospheric entry.
F.A.R.T. helps you restock your gas station.
Preliminary F.A.R.T. testing indicates a 96.33 % increase in productivity and only a 3.67 % increase in unexplained beeping.
Giuseppe & Battery System
Another work in progress is Giuseppe di Hampter e Testico. As an old classmate of Shlorp’s dad and veteran in the field of alien invasions, he is going to support the Ulon Kulon Crew... with hesitation.
Is he close to retirement and tired of rookie operations that usually go sideways? Yes. Does he still owe Shlorp’s dad a favor for saving his life on a secret mission? Also yes!
After an upgrade, Giuseppe transforms into a more powerful form.
As you can see, Giuseppe is still materializing, but we can already reveal so much from his top-secret file: after an upgrade he transforms from a grumpy old man into a workaholic that will operate at levels considered illegal in several galaxies.
And how will Giuseppe help you exactly?
By producing energy for the Recharger Tool (name is a work in progress too)! This will be needed for the new energy system powering your automation upgrades. Bribe Giuseppe with Research Points to let him run in his hamster wheel and power the Recharger Tool.
With his fixed Goopster in place, Giuseppe is ready to charge your... Recharger!
We swear, Giuseppe is fine with this. Further questions about workplace regulations are not being accepted at this time.
Once the Recharger Tool is at 100%, carry it to one of your automation upgrades to bring it back to life. It will then work until its power is depleted.
A new battery system will power your four automation upgrades.
You can find more info about the next updates in the Development Roadmap.
Feature Q&A — Customer NPC Behavior
Let’s dissect the systems and mechanics that keep the cosmic gears turning, and your cash register ringing. This month's analysis centers on customer NPC behavior and how we at Alien HQ will upgrade it to make running your gas station more predictable.
Question: How do customers currently decide on purchases?
Answer: Each item has a market price which you can check in the purchase screen. It also has a hidden value called profit tier (the details of which are classified by the invasion department). Together, only these two factors are used to calculate a probability for each item being selected. The final choice is then made randomly based on those odds, meaning the most likely item isn't guaranteed to be picked.
Or in simpler terms: the price you sell an item for currently has no effect on its purchase rates, which can lead to some items going unsold for a while due to bad luck. This is something we have always wanted to improve and will finally implement with the next update!
Question: How will the purchase decision system be improved?
Answer: With the next update, we will upgrade this system in a lot of ways. For instance, customers will have budgets and will base their purchase decision on profitability. This means that lower-priced items (in other words, items with prices close to or lower than the market price) will attract more buyers. We have attempted to explain this preference using quantum modeling and advanced mathematics but eventually settled on: "Humans like cheap things."
Additionally, expanding your product range will always lead to higher sales numbers, making the investment worth it.
Plus, customers will choose a more varied selection of items to prevent them from buying the same things the whole time and items going unsold for too long.
Community Corner — Fan Art & Plant Palooza
The Roadside Research Community is the most fun and talented accumulation of lifeforms on this side of the Milky Way.
The proof?
Scroll down!
Fan Art
Your creativity levels are off the charts! We love what you come up with and are pleased to share the joy of looking at these amazing pieces of art before they make our brains melt in awe.
Look at this chill day at work for the Ulon Kulon Crew! Kudos to {)ForestBD_oh(}. 
Check out this doodle of a very cute yet unsuspicious operator! Thanks to Lunarian1646!
Plant Palooza
A lot of you have discovered that humans feel more comfortable and something called “homy” in the presence of house plants. While we are still investigating this (with the biggest question being what counts as house plant what as a salad), we can already tell that your gas stations look stellar!
Here is a best- of:
More plants than produce at HangryBrittney's gas station!
So much green, you can hardly see your very human cashier Wallachia.
Chad got creative with his pot plant placement.
Who wouldn't love to get probed shop at Darth_Kitty666's store?
Craving a cold drink with a pinch of chlorophyll? SAVAG3H0N3Y has got you covered!
Only a green garage is a good garage, according to Masterkief.
The most oxygenated self-scan area in the area by DrMobius!
Hope your pollen allergies don't get triggered when visiting Stormy's gas station!
Five created this ideal picnic place aka dog stairs deck!
You can never have too many plants on the ceiling according to Huithepaus.
Thanks so much for your dedication and everything you create! Our scans confirm: all is truly out of this world!
If you have something to share too, feel free to post it on Steam or in the screenshots and fan art channel on our official Discord. We'd love to see it!
This is the end of the transmission.
You can expect the next Goopletter soon with more behind- the- scenes news, reveals, and exclusive info!
Until then, live long and probe!
Cosmic greetings from the Mothership,
The Cybernetic Walrus Team