Hello Tycoons,
First of all, please remember, that you can join my Discord channel to stay in a day to day touch with me and our community if you don't like the Steam forums. Here is a link to join:
https://discord.gg/g4cdj7U
But some of you have noted that you'd like to get some news about the development here on the Steam store page, too - and I totally understand it, so I made this post for you!
At the very moment, I'm working on the AI and customer simulation in the game. It is a very interesting part to work on, especially now, that the new version of the game has user groups (such as office workers or gamers), the player can sell PC hardware as well, not only computers and in general, the whole thing is under reconstruction.
The downside of this kind of work is that I cannot really share progress pictures with you, because it is mostly coding.
While being able to sell hardware doesn't seem to be a big deal, it is the opposite: it is a lot of work to implement it and it changes many things. As an example still, I haven't decided if it means that I should put hardware sell data on the country detail view such as I do with computer sales. Or maybe I should handle computers with hardware together in that diagram? But computers are more expensive, and on that diagram, you should focus on the strength of your opponents, or shouldn't you focus on that?
In customer simulation, how should this affect sale numbers? Should hardware sales decrease computer sales? Or should PC sales increase hardware sells? If yes, I should take care of their compatibility?
As a general rule, the more complex something is, the hardest it is to understand and implement well - so how should I simplify this?
When you sell multiple computers in a country with other players and the sale numbers are dependent on the parameters of the computer, the budget, and priorities of the user groups, the population and economy level of the country, (and country preferences of course), your marketing efforts, your prestige, the design type, the price tag, the price level AND NOW the sold hardware in the country, your products' manufacturing priority (and your maximum PP)... it doesn't always easy to know why a computer sells or doesn't sell -> but this is a core element Computer Tycoon what somebody can either hate or enjoy. I will try to show more data to think about, even tho... again: "As a general rule, the more complex something is, the hardest it is to understand and implement well - so how should I simplify this?"
The earlier "recommended price" system is already gone. Now you won't get such a number. Instead, you will have to check the prices of your competition or play with the price of your product (what should be higher than the average production costs which are also shown as the new "magic number").
People from different wealth level (wealth of the country) have different budgets for the different kind of products. How/why would you follow a magic number if decreasing or increasing the price could result in more profits depending on your very own situation? What if selling the same computer for more people for a lower price isn't better than selling fewer for a much higher price? How about making a weaker computer or the very best? It all depends on the details, but you'd better know your plan before starting a business, instead of waiting for a magic number to show up in the middle of it!
But here are some pictures of some screens what have changed in the meanwhile. I know that this is what you are really interested in. :)
My goal is still having a beta until October 12th.
I truly think that the beta will be like a totally new game, basically "Computer Tycoon 2".
If you have any questions, please use the forums or discord, because I'm more than happy to answer them!
Check out the game's roadmap here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/686680/announcements/detail/1673520100901557536
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More development pictures which were already shown in earlier news posts:
