Hello Tycoons,
Here comes Computer Tycoon 0.9.5.0v! The last update was uploaded in April and I’m really sorry for not being able to be faster than this, yet again I changed fundamental systems, thank you very much for your patience!
Remember that I have a discord channel where you can talk with me and the community about the game on a daily basis!
Discord: https://discord.gg/VbUQNTd
RoadMap: http://www.computertycoon.com/ROADMAP/Roadmap.html
In my last News post, I’ve already explained what were the problems with the previous version of the game and how I’d like to solve it. If you’d like to be reminded, here it is again:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/686680/announcements/detail/2733073722798942664
It is a long topic, so I’d like to not talk about this again, instead, I will just talk about the current version. I think it is a much better game now than before, even though still, there is a lot of work to be done.
YOUR EARLIER SAVED GAMES ARE NOT COMPATIBLE (and hidden), SORRY!
New Logistic System
From now on you are not paying an upfront cost to sell in a given market. The whole logistic system is purely based on Logistic Points instead. Also, instead of Markets having a fixed LP price, it is you who decides how many LP points will you allocate to a market. With a single LP, you can already start selling. Then you are distributing your products by Resellers and for them, you are paying a percent of your income after every sold unit. This percent is the “Reseller Cut” that you can decrease by allocating more LPs to the market.
All the markets have a Sales Tax, too. When you decide where you’d like to sell, you have to consider these. The Sales Tax can be decreased in Capitalist Markets by making long time investments by building Factories or Research Centers there.
From now on you don’t have to sell in a Market just to be able to build a Site. These were separated.
New Map Modes
Many have asked for a Historical Map and a Simplified Map. I think it is obvious what it means. The first is more authentic and the second has only around 50 regions as Markets (like “Central Europe” or “Easter Africa” etc.) The Vanilla (Random) map also has a bit fewer markets, tho.
On the Historical Map, the Markets become Communist and/or Capitalist when it has happened in real life, on the others it is randomized. In “Closed Communist” Markets you cannot do anything. In “Open Communist” Markets you can sell your products, but you cannot build a Site, and in Capitalist markets, you can do anything and you can get Tax Discounts if you invest in it. When a market changes Type, let’s say it becomes from Capitalist to Closed Communist… then you lose your Site!
New Marketing System
The problem with the last Market System in the game was that many didn’t understand how it works, and on the other hand you were able to win without it. Likely these two were connected, why was it like that…
You cannot avoid the new Marketing System.
A computer on the market always needs marketing, so you constantly have to pay for it. You cannot turn it off. You have to decide about the campaign’s details (like the main target group, the channels, and preferences) before releasing the computer. The only thing you can change after that is its size.
Marketing Departments are decreasing your products’ marketing costs... but will you know how to set up your campaigns?
The Snowball Effect and the Computer Clone Glitch
These two were the biggest issues of the game until now. Of course, in general, there is no problem with being able to make more money when you have more money, the snowball effect was way too strong, mostly because of how you were able to expand your Market. If you had a bit of advantage, you could buy markets which others couldn’t, which granted an even bigger advantage and so on. The new Logistic System has solved this alone.
The “Computer Clone Glitch” as I named it, was the phenomenon that if you’ve released two nearly identical computers in a market with mostly similar other Computers on it, you were able to greatly increase your sales - simply by having more Computers. What made it worse is that creating a new Computer “Blueprint” was nearly free (hardware parts were the real cost), so why wouldn’t you abuse this possibility?
The new Marketing system is therefore product-based. So the more products you have, the more marketing you have to do. Also, if your products are not different enough to get many different users, they won’t really increase their buyers, but you will pay for double marketing. If these two computers are also of the same Design (for example both are Home Computers), then you will have to pay an extra marketing fee, a marketing overhead fee.
Simply cloning a computer and releasing it without changes is also impossible, and entering the Testing phase costs a significant cost.
In short… no more “hey let’s just spam similar computers”!
Other new Features
There are a lot. You have asked for more information about ROI, a more dynamic representation of sales, more information about Cash Flow and so on, more information about your Computers reception, and so on. I’ve tried to add something to solve all of these.
From now on you can set the budget for the Marketing Department and the Logistic Department, too. Also, you can sell your Site. Other than these, you can get a Bank Loan that you can extend/increase once (until you haven’t paid it back). For the difficulty game mode, it is unavoidable to use Loans according to my experience. This helps you to manage bad financial situations, though it won’t always save you!
UI improvements
Yes, we have improvements here, too! Even though still, I have many things on my to-do list, I tried to handle the most urgent things. For example, now you clearly see on the Research Map that what are the key technologies to unlock new Computer Designs, the Computer Designer and other screens are merged and tabbed, just as the Statistics Screens, etc. You will see it!
There are smaller but similarly important adjustments, too. As an example, many believed that “product pricing doesn’t make any sense”, because in the Computer List under the price tag you saw only the “Base Price”, not the “Discounted Regional Prices”. So people thought that worse computers are sold for more and other weird things because they didn’t know the actual prices (especially after skipping the Tutorial). Now there is a window that appears when you hover over the price column, showing the discounted prices, too. It is helpful for those too, who understood the column anyways.
Performance Improvements
The game was never faster. In the future, I will include a setting to decrease the map’s details, because it still could be faster, but overall, everything is much faster now. I’ve spent considerable time tracking and optimizing things.
Of course, many bugs and smaller things were fixed/improved. Of course, still, I have to work more and more... I know guys! :) On the other hand, I've finished around 100 earlier and many new todo elements from my list, so I won't even try to translate them for you from Hungarian to English... it is easier if you see it for yourself in the game!
So… HAVE FUN! :)
THANK YOU for all the feedback I’ve got, it means a LOT! Please if you like the game, don’t forget to leave a review, too! It might help a bit with visibility in the store.
Your friend,
Andris aka Progorion
http://www.computertycoon.com/ROADMAP/Roadmap.html
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Pictures of The Still Unreleased features of the ROADMAP:
7 Managers from the coming 101:
