A tractor cover
A tractor screenshot
Steam
Genre: Strategy, Indie

A tractor

December 2019 - Extended Downtime
As many will be aware, this game is basically a one-man effort and due to a range of circumstances I'm currently unable to support the game. This will result in the game and servers being unavailable for some time - I expect the basic service to be restored early in the new year.

More broadly, the game is not being actively developed at the moment and unfortunately remains largely abandoned. My sincere apologies to everyone who has invested time in the game and particularly to those who purchased items during early access. The game has always cost more to run than I've ever earned from it, and I will be modifying the steam setup so that purchasable items are removed from sale.

I do hope at some point I will be able to commit time to continuing development of the game and restoring the space travel and world creation elements, and it is my intention in the long-term to provide some form of compensation for those who backed the game in the early stages.

Apologies again for the poor service.
Mit

Development update
Hi,
Just a lil note regarding progress on development of the game over the past few months.

As you may know, I'm the only person writing the game right now and I've recently started a new full-time job. Christmas was also busy this year (Merry christmas and Happy New Year to you all, btw! :] ), with various trips around the country to visit the family, so not much coding has been done recently. Apologies for the lack of updates, therefore.

The world still continues on and the goal of constructing the first spacecraft of the new round is still open, should anyone be dedicated enough to persevere :)

I will be building up some new bits in the next few months, primarily with regard to the next phase of the game, post-development of space travel.

Cheers
Mit

Large ranch production rate bug
Please note that the current production rate of cows at the 'Large Ranch' building is incorrect and will be modified within the next couple of days so that it is more in line with the other livestock farms.

Auto logging and mining
To make the startup process a little less painful, the initial logging and mining sites both allow you to gain resources automatically until your inventory is full - just leave your tractor stationary once you've started the process.

Recent updates have also fixed some intermittent problems with the school buildings and reduced the negative effects of building damage.

Latest fixes and additions
In updates over the past couple of days :

- New 'Help Guide' (button next to your engine and lights)
- Improvements to networth calculations
- Fix for prices set when a building is put for sale after a player dies
- Fix for fishing counts getting reset when resizing screen (etc)
- Fix for 'engine off' display disappearing when tasking
- Stopped auto-eating from consuming fish from inventory

Building decay and death change
By the weekend all buildings (except special government-owned ones) will begin to decay over time, reducing their productivity and eventually disappearing from the world.

Normal decay is very small and it'll take around 160 game-years for a building to completely decay, however the rate will increase significantly (10x) if it is not being used (i.e. Owner does not have the required skill to make the building function) and even more so (100x) if the building has no owner. (i.e When a player dies, any buildings they owned will disappear from the world after 3 or 4 real-time days if they are not purchased by someone else).

You can pay to repair damaged buildings, the cost being proportional to the amount of decay to repair and the original cost of the building.

Separately, there will be a change to the rules concerning death and stocks : When someone dies, all building stores and investment will be removed before the building is put up for sale.



New worlds are tough
And this one is particularly hard going, what with the hunger and the thirst and the lack of anywhere to buy any decent food or drink. Poor uncivilized people are dropping like flies.

For that reason a charitable organisation has provided a small, one-off survival pack which can be claimed from the government offices, and if that doesn't work they may well be organising a live concert event in the near future, featuring U2 and a life-like replica of Sting if you're very unlucky.

New world starts tonight
For those of you joining us on Lovelace, just a reminder that the new world is very much alpha-style 'Early Access'. I've had very little chance to test things (or indeed, to finish writing them :] ) and there's a fair chance that something will go terribly wrong in the first few hours or days. Its not unlikely that something breaks such that the world has to be restarted again not long after.

You'll also probably find life quite slow and difficult at the beginning (you are, after all, rebuilding civilization from scratch, and that's never an easy task), but with any luck not everyone will immediately die of starvation :].

If you find any bugs, exploits or unbalanced production lines (etc etc), please drop a note on the discussion boards and I'll do my best to get it addressed as soon as I can. I will try to make sure any significant adjustments that might affect your business plans are announced in advance and as promptly as possible.

Nutritional value and other changes
A few highlights from recent code updates :


  • (Most notably) - New nutritional value system means that if you consume (eat or drink) the same item repeatedly its nutritional value goes down (down to half its maximum value) - e.g If you drink nothing but Tea all the time, you'll only be getting 50% thirst reduction from the Tea. So basically, its better for you to have a varied diet.
  • 'Disposable RC' item replaced with a separate button
  • Holding shift now steps up in sheckles on various controls that previously didnt support that. (e.g. set sell price)
  • Fix for the 'Leave screen' not showing the benefit of food/drink items that are in inventory
  • Fix for player reverting to vehicle 1 instead of default vehicle if they sell the vehicle they're in
  • Under construction building plots can now be sold
  • Fix for camera speed sometimes snapping up to a faster speed when rotating

Replacement of Resident's Permit
In conjunction with the start of the new world, I will be making some changes to the benefits of in-game purchases.

For now the game will remain free to play and the restrictions for players who have not purchased items will be significantly reduced. Please remember that purchasing store items helps fund the development of the game, which is written and maintained by a single developer with the help of volunteers.


  • The Resident's Permit will be replaced by a seasonal membership. Those of you who have purchased a Resident's Permit therefore receive the membership benefits for the next year.
  • All trailers will be unified into a single item that provides 2x vehicle storage.
  • Basic fishing equipment will be available for game currency (90d at the Fish Market). The purchasable, real-money 'Fishing Equipment' provides the extra benefit of an automated catch system.


The specific benefits of having membership will vary over time, and will be more apparent when we venture into space and to other worlds.

For now, the membership benefits on Lovelace are:

  • Non-members will be able to own/rent 4 production buildings and 2 houses/warehouses, members can have 6 and 10 respectively.
  • Skill learn times for members will be 15% lower than for non-members
  • Members can claim a Membership Startup Bonus pack, providing 5s plus some Bread, Tea, Steaks and Beer.


Those of you who have purchased the trailer, fishing equipment or resident's permit prior to these changes can claim an exclusive decoration item, please contact me by PM to claim this. Finally, also please note that I have updated the game's EULA, which can be viewed here. Please do not continue to play the game if you do not accept the terms of the new EULA.
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