Blackwater Exchange — Management Update

The Management Update is now live.

This is the largest update to Blackwater Exchange so far, focused on giving the game more long-term progression, more reasons to make different decisions from day to day, and substantially more to manage beyond the basement counter.

Business Management

The Basement is now your first managed location, with the Management screen expanding as your operation grows.

You can eventually purchase and operate four unique businesses:

* Second-Hand Store
* Electronics Repair Shop
* Antique & Jewelry Shop
* Warehouse

Each business has its own finances, reputation, inventory, operating policies, upgrades, incidents, and daily performance.

Storefronts are not guaranteed passive income. Poor staffing, bad policies, incidents, operating costs, and poor purchasing decisions can all turn a location into a loss.

Employees

Purchased businesses can hire up to three employees.

Employees have individual:

* Appraisal
* Negotiation
* Reliability
* Discretion
* Traits
* Wages
* Experience

Employees can be assigned as Managers, Buyer/Appraisers, or General Staff and improve as they work.

Inventory Transfers

Inventory can now be transferred between the Basement and your other businesses.

Transfers take time, reserve storage at their destination, and may carry costs or risks.

If a destination becomes unavailable while an item is being moved, the shipment can become Held in Transit, allowing you to return it, reroute it, or pay to hold it until space becomes available.

Transaction History

A new Transaction Ledger records the history of your deals.

You can review:

* Purchase price
* Sale price
* Profit or loss
* Original estimated value
* Confidence and findings at purchase
* Risk
* Customer/source
* Buyer
* Days held
* Final result

Importantly, the ledger preserves what you actually knew when you purchased the item rather than rewriting history after new information is discovered.

Special Orders

Contacts and customers can now request specific items through Special Orders.

Orders can require particular:

* Categories
* Conditions
* Risk levels
* Quantities
* Values

Multi-item orders allow you to submit several eligible items together, with their estimated values combined toward the order requirement.

Order value targets now vary instead of repeatedly converging on the same late-game number.

Continuous Objectives

Once unlocked, you will always have three active objectives to work toward.

Objectives can involve trading, inspections, contacts, inventory, risk management, and eventually your other businesses.

Completing one immediately generates another, and one objective can be rerolled each workday.

Rewards can include cash, Heat reduction, contact progress, temporary market bonuses, inspection bonuses, negotiation advantages, and more.

Daily Market Conditions

The city can now enter temporary market conditions that alter how a workday plays.

Examples include:

* Electronics shortages
* Police sweeps
* Collector conventions
* Counterfeit waves
* Quiet streets
* Desperate buyers
* Hot goods flooding the market

These modify the existing market rather than replacing it.

Basement Strategies

Before opening each day, you can choose how aggressively you want to operate:

* Business as Usual
* Lay Low
* Push Business
* Hunt Bargains
* Backroom Business

Each strategy has advantages and drawbacks affecting traffic, opportunities, Heat, risky merchandise, and counterfeit exposure.

Transaction Complications

Normal customer interactions can now occasionally develop additional complications.

Sellers may:

* Offer bundled items
* Change their asking price
* Object to further inspection
* Connect to previous events or customers
* Offer information instead of lowering their price
* Request an item be held or returned later
* Trigger immediate interest from another contact
* Increase Heat risk during prolonged negotiation

Events

Gameplay events now occur much more naturally during the workday rather than being concentrated almost entirely at closing.

Events can affect current decisions, create temporary modifiers, begin longer chains, alter contacts or businesses, create objectives, or force management decisions.

Storefront and employee incidents have also been added and clearly identify which business is affected.

The Creditor remains an end-of-day event.

Progression

Progression has been expanded considerably.

Later upgrades now make greater use of:

* Prerequisites
* Career milestones
* Business ownership
* Network progress

This is intended to stop the upgrade catalogue from being exhausted extremely early while keeping useful early upgrades accessible.

The Management and Opportunities screens also make upcoming requirements and active progression much easier to see.

Management Interface

The new Management interface includes:

* Overview
* Properties
* Employees
* Operations
* Transfers
* Reports

The Basement appears here even before purchasing your first storefront, giving you access to useful information and progression tracking from early in a career.

Basement upgrades can also be purchased directly through Management using the same requirements and installation rules as the existing Upgrade Catalog.

Tutorials & UI Improvements

New tutorial popups have been added for the Management systems, Objectives, and Special Orders.

Management notifications now:

* Queue instead of replacing each other
* Remain visible longer
* Wrap long messages correctly
* Stay above the Management and Opportunities buttons
* Wait until you leave the Management screen when necessary

The Management attention counter and its visible actionable entries now also use the same underlying source, preventing mismatched counts.

Performance & Fixes

This update also includes a large number of fixes and improvements made during testing, including:

* Improved performance when managing multiple businesses and employees
* Fixed missing or incorrect Management notifications
* Fixed transfer and repair notification issues
* Fixed Management buttons disappearing after raids
* Fixed Objective and Opportunity errors
* Fixed Special Order selection and value handling
* Fixed Management tutorial layering
* Fixed several Management UI overlaps
* Fixed Held in Transit handling
* Fixed several save/load and migration issues
* Improved tab and panel theming throughout the new interfaces
* Improved long notification readability

The career remains endless. There is still no mandatory ending — the goal is to continue expanding, optimizing, surviving, and building the strongest underground business network you can.