Hi all,
The updates for the Empire Water Works Demo have been coming in thick and fast lately, and here's yet another to improve your pumping station experience!
This update takes the Demo build to 20260624A. Confirm this from the main menu.
Here's all the details!
Optimization: One of the bigger improvements with this update is the performance improvement related to the trees and foliage outside the pumping station. Previously, when walking towards the player's vehicle, you may have noticed the frame rates drop and the GPU usage increase. This has been optimized a bit better now. I will continue to test and optimize in this regard however.
Bug fix: when placing an order for coal, the labelling in the dialog incorrectly stated qty max of "5" but it was in fact possible to order 7 sacks of coal. Also, when decreasing the qty from 7 downwards, it would 'skip' 6 and go straight to 5. Both fixed (it's still possible to order 7 coal sacks in one order)
Cosmetic: the physical 3d model for the coal pile has been greatly improved and now looks more realistically 'flat', rather than a rounded 'mound' of coal:
QoL: The main bearings will now start 'smoking' at the correct temperature to signal when they are running 'HOT' and thus beginning to slow the steam engine down (you can view the estimated power loss in the Ledger when this occurs) - previously they would have to run hot for some time before they start exhibiting the smoke effects. NOTE: in Early Access and beyond I will be re-working the back-end temperatures for the main bearings and exposing these values to the player similar to how the cylinder jackets are currently exposed to the player.
Cosmetic: the pumping station has now been taken-over by some additional foliage! I'll let the pics do the talking here (and don't worry, these are optimized for performance!):
Balance: removed the 'Aggressive Rep Loss' setting from the preset options when starting a new game. This has been returned to a standalone setting that the player can toggle on/off as they please (default=OFF).
Balance: ALL contracts now reward a MINIMUM of 2 rep points and a maximum of 4 rep points (some were only rewarding a min of 1 and a max of 3) - this is all part of my balance changes to try and keep the rep in-check especially as the player gets to the latter days of the Demo.
Balance: some tweaks to one of the Municipal contracts, so that the lesser gallon contract does not persist for so long (only 3 day deadline max now, rather than 4 day max previously).
Balance: under the Game Options dialog, the slider for maximum Municipal reservoir demand can now go as high as "30" demand (previously 20), so that you can increase the maximum base demand of this reservoir further, if you want a more challenging experience (Default value unchanged at 12).
Cosmetic: renamed the 'Stressed' preset when starting a new game, to 'Lively' (trying to keep positive here!).
Cosmetic: main menu background scene has been updated to match the current state of the pumping station
As always, thanks for your ongoing support. Please continue providing any feedback on the Demo in this thread, and I will catch you all next time.
Enjoy!