Departments!

Hello!

It’s been a long time coming, and we’re more than excited, actually ecstatic, to finally release The Departments Update! The update is quite big, with many new features and many fixes and improvements. But let’s not stand on ceremony, let’s check out the changelog!

CHANGELOG:

New additions:

• Departments!
  • Separate your staff and rooms in to specialized departments!
  • You decide what procedures your departments execute.
  • Find the most efficient ways of handling every procedure.
  • View statistics over your departments’ performance.
  • Add managers to your departments to give different bonuses to your staff.
  • Specialize scopes for you departments, so your patients are directed to the correct one.
  • Remember to choose a Head Doctor or Administrator in your departments! Choosing a Head Doctor will give bonuses to that department depending on that doctor's discipline skill. More info on Administrators down below.
• Shifts!
  • Create shifts to make sure you have the correct staff at the right times.
  • Make sure your staff do not overwork themselves, overtime is expensive!
  • Day & Night cycles have been added, so it’s important to have shifts that cover all hours.
• New Skills! (Bear in mind that these skills will be used in upcoming patches to the game and do not play a major part in this particular update)
  • Gastroenterologist
  • Nephrologist
  • Neurologist
  • Cardiologist
  • Dermatologist
  • Endocrinologist
  • Immunologist
• New staff: Administrator!
  • The administrators have different skills which have different effects to them:
    • Law: TBD.
    • Management: Increases staff limit to departments when assigned as a manager.
    • Economics: TBD.
    • Human Resources: Reduces salary for all staff members in departments when assigned as a manager.
  • Administration Management Jobs:
    • Contract management: Automatically dispatch available staff to contracts.
    • More to be announced.
• New objects:
  • Photocopier. (For administration)
  • Corner desk. (For administration)
  • Dustbin.
  • Water dispenser.
  • Whiteboard. (For administration)
  • Sofa.
• Planner!
  • Players can now plan out their hospitals! This tool will be improved upon as further updates are released.
  • Players will find the tool as a tab in the “Construction Window”.
• Added the ability to take loans.
• Added more information to the output.log
• Added fail-safe checks to the save & load routine.
• Added a Doctor's Handbook entry for Departments.
• Added a Doctor's Handbook entry for the skill Gastroenterologist.
• Added decimals to large numbers.
• Added floating text for medical proficiency.
• Added an “All” option to procedure policies.
• Added multiple interface sounds.
• Added new procedures.

Changes:

• Revamped the save games system:
  • Each savegame now has it's own section containing autosaves for that specific savegame.
• You can now see reputation gains and losses in the Notification Console.
• The staff recruitment screen has had some changes. Players can now specialize what type of staff they need, and search for that specific staff. This process costs a little bit of money. Applications will also come in at random, which will be stated in the Notification Console.
• Increased the scroll speed of the staff window.
• Decreased the income of MRI scans.
• Decreased the penalty of failed MRI scans.
• Extended the zoom distance.
• Reduced overall character skill levels.
• Reduced procedure difficulty.
• Made the notification icon above the Notification Console more visable.
• Made audio volume scale properly with the sliders.
• Balanced employee salaries.
• Screens placed in wards will positively affect patients.
• Removed the “Emergency Operating Theater” as it's no longer needed with Departments coming into the game.
• Increased the size of the Staff windows.
• Improvements to the tutorial.
• Improvements to the camera.
• Improved window focus and moving mechanics.
• Improved shadows.
• Improved the staff window tooltip.
• Improved several fonts.
• Major improvements to performance.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed an issue with duplicated currency labels on floating texts.
• Fixed an issue which caused unlimited patients to spawn.
• Fixed an issue which caused text in missions to overflow the window.
• Fixed an issue which caused certain objects to get locked for use.
• Fixed a bug which caused missions to trigger multiple times.
• Fixed a bug which caused mails to spam.
• Fixed a bug which caused volume to change on starting the game.
• Fixed a bug with the ward option.
• Fixed an issue with the Ambulance parking slots.
• Fixed some tooltips.
• Fixed a bug with the milestone system.
• Fixed multiple UI issues.
• Multiple fixes to wards.
• Fixed a memory leak.
• Various small fixes.

Again, we must thank everyone for the support during these quiet times. We read everything and we take all critique seriously. It's been humbling being able to finish this update with so many of you helping out and testing it on the Experimental Branch. Thank you so much.

Like we stated in the earlier dev blog, more updates will arriving here on out. Expect smaller updates that build upon what is already in the game, helping improve all the available aspects that are currently in the game. We'd love to hear any feedback you have when playing Hospitalize so that we can work hard to fix and improve what the players feel is lacking.

As before, due to changes in the save & load system, existing savegames will take a hit and players will have to start new games for this update to work. We're sorry for the inconvenience.

And as always, send us bug reports, start discussions here on the forum and tell us exactly what could be done better and what we can do to improve whatever you feel is lacking. It always helps tremendously much.

Thank you!!!
- Illeris Team