uFactory v0.5 "The Campaign Update" is now available in Steam Beta.
To join the beta, right click uFactory in your Steam library and choose "Properties". Then, choose the "nextversion_publicbeta - v0.5.0 Public Beta" option. No private code is required. Steam should then update the game to the beta version through its normal update process. Once complete, you can launch the beta!
WARNING: This is an early beta of an Early Access game. We're not going to warn you that it might be broken. We can tell you with certainty that it is absolutely broken. So, if that's not your thing, then please keep waiting for a more stable version to release.
WARNING 2: Save files are incompatible between previous versions of uFactory and 0.5. Please back them up if you want to save them. Otherwise uFactory will update your save manufacturing company profile to the latest version and ignore your standalone factory save files.
What's in the update?
Funny you should ask:
Planetary Campaigns
Generate your own random planet and try to build a logistics empire on it. Design your factories (yes, plural), source your raw materials, and sell your products to the highest bidder. But don't forget to take into account rent, tax, and delivery fees. Can you outsell your AI competition and become a global manufacturing mogul?
Time-Tracking Rebuild
The entire time-tracking update system for factories has been rebuilt. Factory machines are no longer reliant on animations to perform their duties, and every machine works on a rhythmic beat to ensure they sync up as much as possible. This system also causes the simulation updates per second to drop considerably, allowing for a performance boost that allows for faster time lapse simulations.
In addition, machines will now (almost) universally be able to take in an "on-deck" object to work on. This, combined with the rhythmic time system, allows for significantly better throughput with existing factory designs as all the machines sync up.
Flow Rebuild
The entire flow system (for transporting liquids/gasses through pipes/vents) has been re-done. Originally, it used a segment-based system, but it never did quite work right, and complex adjacent pipe connectors prevented segments from forming, which caused more problems.
So, all that's been thrown out in favor of a tile-based simulation. This has the added benefit of making it very obvious where the pressure is in your pipe system, as you can literally watch the pipe fill up and the liquid flow to its destination. With the number of new machines that process oil, getting the liquid pipes right was essential.
Manual Rebuild
The old notebook manual was a bit of a mess, and growing to be a bigger mess with each successive update as uFactory grew. Since it was becoming unsustainable, it has been replaced with a nice, clean, efficient tablet that fits in better with the established style of the uFactory UI. Most of the content pages are data-driven and procedurally built instead of having to be built out individually by hand, allowing us to expose more information without fear of the work it would cause to have to update them after changes down the line.
But more than that, the tablet menu is just better. From the search bar on the homepage, to the bookmarking feature, to the saved states and generally more cohesive styles, we think you'll agree.
New Content
To make the campaign mode viable, we had to make sure every product made in uFactory could be traced all the way back to the raw materials provided by the earth. So, this includes dozens of new manufacturing processes, including Oil Refining, Glass Blowing, Acid Distillation, Industrial Papermaking, and many, many more. Get building!
What's not in the update?
The tutorials and standalone scenarios.
They need to be rebalanced, so they're not available in the beta. If you'd like to play them, you'll need to opt out of the beta.
Planned Content
The rest of these are not in this update, but will come in future updates:
- Boats, Trains, Planes, and Helicopters. They're coming.
- Corporate Intrigue
- Disasters and Setbacks
- Grants and Loans
- Property Bidding
- Electricity Management & Production
- Machine Mod Chips
- World/AI Customization Options for Campaigns
- So much more...
Unplanned Content
There is currently no plan to build a Battle Royale mode into uFactory.
What's next?
Next, you start playing and report every bug you can find on our Bug Reports Forum. We'll squash those best as we can while implementing the most-requested quality-of-life upgrades. Once we have the campaign in a decent state, we'll polish up the tutorials and standalone scenarios and release 0.5 properly and start working on the next batch of content.