Hey everyone, we're back with a new update! We're starting to get some more feedback on our Test and Candidate Branches so just wanted to do another quick thank you to everyone who is trying out those branches! We've got a couple of big updates for you in this update, so let's get to it.
Research
This update brings research to the game! You can now research upgrades to workers, teachers, and other stuff to improve your school. Certain zones, objects, and staff will also be locked until they are researched. More research items and tracks will be added in the future, so if you have any suggestions, make sure to comment here and in the discussion boards.
Sandbox mode will also have research, but the research will be done instantly instead of having to wait.
Old save files will still work, but some items may be locked and need to be researched before they can be used again.
Selectable Student Uniforms
Selectable student uniforms (including casual wear!) are now added to the game and can be selected in the school settings panel. Unfortunately you will have to start a new school in order to take advantage of this. As with Research, please let us know if you have any special uniform requests, and we'll do our best to add these in the future.
New School settings
You can now adjust littering and (object) durability settings in the custom school screen. Difficulty settings have also been added so you can easily select if you want an easy normal, or hard difficulty.
Routing Range
There was always a lot of confusion as to why staff on routes would sometimes wander off. They were actually being led astray by litter and dirt that was just within their range! To make this clearer, we've added a visibility range for both routed janitors and workers so that it's more clear when and why they are wandering off route. Routing range is only visible when the routing menu is open.
New Blueprint Objects
For the planners out there, we've added a couple new blueprint objcts for you to play with, like the floor, bushes, and trees, as well as updated the wall object to give it a little more depth.
Reports Updates
The new toilet report shows how often toilets are used and how much they cost in upkeep. The sanitation report now shows correct amount of dirt.
This build also includes numerous balancing and bug fixes, which will be detailed in the final update.
Bug Fixes and Improvements:
- Fixed bug where day 1 is skipped when starting a school year at 8:00pm
- Fixed multiple broken object indicator in one object bug
- Remember and restore the last time scale when opening modal panels
- Fixed bug where multiple workers would repair a broken object
- Added average daily use in toilet report
- Fixed bug where cancelling a dismantle or destroy gives money
- Added plus sign when selling and minus sign when repairing objects
- Fixed cooks not going to another stove when its target stove is broken
- Students will now bus dishes more instead of leaving them on the table.
- Close context panels when camera moves
- Fixed orientation of characters when sitting
- Fixed bug where loading is stuck in some save files
- Cook looks for another kitchen sink if the one in its assigned kitchen is not reachable
- Janitors now prioritize taking trash bags to garbage truck over their needs and other cleaning
- Remove dirt, pee, and litter whenever an object with physical blocker is built over it
- Implemented better behaviour for routed Janitors
- Close object and staff context panel when camera moves or zooms
- Fixed non routed Janitor cleaning the same tile.
- Counselor and Principal will now tend to students more
- Make pee more visible
- Fixed error when removing Delivery zone
Known Issues
Closing or quitting the game bring up the "...has stop working" warning on Windows. This happens when applying mods as well. This is a known issue and we are trying to sort this out. Don't worry, your mods will work.
We advise you to go to Task Manager and end the academia.exe process if this happens to you.
Mac users are reporting having an issue running mods. We are communicating with Steam on this issue, because everything is working on our end, but there seems to be something wrong when subscribing to mods from Steam.
Some visual issues with the routing range.