Factory Town
Patch .122 released
<*>Added toggle to Omnitemple to automatically collect delivery bonuses & trigger new request
<*>Selected Fishery UI is now more clear about production speed bonuses vs. baseline speed from nearby water count
<*>When placing Fishery, instructions to place near Water are shown in the bottom informational panel
<*>Buildings that automatically intake nearby water also have a descriptive icon and tooltip in selection panel
<*>Gourmet Foods now unlocks at base level 4 instead of base level 6, and doesn't require Polished Stone
<*>Specialty Goods now unlocks at base level 6 instead of base level 7
<*>Mana Pipe blue coin cost lowered from 4 to 2
<*>Steam Pipe crafting time lowered from 10 seconds to 6 seconds
<*>Mana Crystal crafting time lowered from 10 seconds to 8 seconds
<*>Fixed bug: Infinite Market Consumption not having intended effect
<*>Fixed bug: Markets not always evenly distributing to linked houses
<*>Fixed bug: Chute directionals might be ignored if spawning from building onto an intersection
<*>Fixed bug: Market happiness values might overflow display with values over 1000
<*>Fixed bug: Goods items weren't always showing up in menu panels in their correct hierarchy order
<*>Fixed bug: Build menu searching would sometimes ignore leading character
<*>Fixed bug: Chute endpoints perpendicular to existing buildings would not be considered valid dropoffs
<*>Fixed bug: 'Deliver All' behavior targeting chutes wouldn't test to confirm chute endpoint validity
<*>Fixed bug: Upgrading a House might not trigger consumption of newly requested items from linked Markets
Major Happiness and Market rebalance!
This update is an overhaul of how Markets and Happiness works, based on lots of player feedback that I've gathered over the past few months. I think this system will be much more fun & challenging, while also being simpler to understand!
The big picture is: You still deliver goods to Markets. But these Markets automatically deliver to connected Houses, which now have 50 (!) Goods categories that they can simultaneously consume. Each category that is actively supplied generates happiness.
You can double-click on any Market or House to see the current goods satisfaction status.
A key feature is that the item consumption cooldown is much faster than Happiness decay. This means items can be consumed pretty rapidly (for a high throughput ceiling) without making it impossible to keep all your houses happy with high-end goods. It also means mid-tier endpoint items (like Shoes, Wood Axes) aren't made obsolete, nor can the system be maxxed out with just a few high-coin-producing goods.
Also, to make it possible to achieve this massive variety of deliveries, the limit on Markets has been removed. Also, Houses can link to as many nearby Markets as you want - as long as they're within the same road network.
It may need some additional balancing but so far the feedback has been really positive on this new change! Hope you all like it, and please let me know what you think.
Full patch notes are here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/860890/discussions/3/1627412171710336407/
Thanks for playing! And as always, if you like these updates, then Steam reviews are very much appreciated :D
New update: Fishery building!
- New Building: Fishery. Produces fish from Red Coins. Speed is based on number of connected water tiles (up to 100).
- Delete Block tools can now have increased cursor tool size
- Pasture, Farm, and Lumber Mill now absorb water based on nearby connected water tiles (25 tiles = 100% water intake speed)
- Resource Removal tool has different coin removal costs for different resources. Crops = 2, Trees = 10, Stones & Minerals = 25
- Improved terrain preview highlights of terrain modification tools
- Added tooltips to Elemental Boosters
- If a building produces an item that is also used as an input, the item will preferentially fill the Input slot instead of the Output slot
- Rail carts can pick up items from 'excess storage' slots in buildings (e.g. leftover inputs when active recipe changes)
- Building inventory appears when hovering over using Move tool
- Grabber now unlocks with Basic Logic research (to coincide with unlocking Conveyor Belt)
- Move tool added to bottom toolbar
- Area-of-Effect displays will appear when moving a building, not just creating one (and will appear for more building types)
- Performance improvements when lots of building alerts were visible
- Various performance improvements when modifying inventories
- Balance: Mines produce 2 stone per production cycle
- Balance: Wells now produce 4 water/sec instead of 2 water/sec
- Balance: Increased Packager inventory capacity
- Fixed bug: Boats could travel over dry land if there was any water in the tile
- Fixed bug: Farms could link to underwater positions
- Fixed bug: Delete Resource tool with large radius would only work if there was a deletable item in the center
- Fixed bug: Recipes requiring 1 fuel did not show the count required, making it difficult to know if building was missing that ingredient
- Fixed bug: Could place buildings in positions that overlap unpurchased terrain
- Fixed bug: Inventory sensors would trigger even when set to inactive state
- Fixed bug: Inventory & Agent Sensors would not detect on the exit node of a building
- Fixed bug: Logistic structures with filters would incorrectly restrict building output when placed on default output node
- Fixed bug: Rare loading failure if conveyor belt path was inadvertently assigned Up or Down direction
Pipes Update now live!!
It's been over a month since the last update, because I was stuffing so much into this one patch! Here's the TLDR:
- Omnipipes! These are a very expensive but powerful end-game transportation option that lets you move any item through a pipe. They can also be researched to have infinite speed upgrades.
- You can now build pipes in 3D space! (including Omnipipes.) So you can attach pipes directly to buildings,and build them vertically! The 3D pipes can join up with the underground 2D layer at any point on the terrain using Connectors.
- Pipes can now cross over each other in the 2D layer
- Many improvements to the Packager so it works better when handling multiple items
- Buildings will now round-robin output between all available output paths
- Lots more high-priority bug fixes & improvements
PLEASE NOTE
One important change is the 2D connectors now connect through the terrain. Previously they connected 'from above' (very mysteriously). So if you have a lot of elevated buildings with mana connectors, you will have to re-wire those using 3D pipes - for example, by placing a Mana Connector on the terrain, then dragging a pipe from the connector to your building.
Here's the full patch notes:
CHANGES TO PIPES:
- Added Omnipipes - high-end path structure that can transport any item above or below ground
- Added OmniConnectors - used to input and output items from buidlings into Omnipipes
- Added Omnipipe unlock research, and Omnipipe speed infinite research
- Omnipipes, Mana Pipes, and Steam Pipes can be built above-ground in 3D space
- The 2D pipe layer now ONLY connects to buildings at terrain layer, not to the highest building
- OmniConnectors and ManaConnectors can connect to each other between the 2D layer and positions on terrain
- Dragging a pipe from a building to another building will now automatically add correct connectors
- Mana Transmitters and Mana Receivers now work with plain Mana Connectors
- Pipes on 2D layers can now cross over without intersecting. To create an intersection, end the path drag on the other pipe.
MISC IMPROVEMENTS:
- Item slots show as grids if 4 or more of that slot type
- Buildings will cycle outputs between all available paths (including grabbers, belts, chutes, and omnipipes)
- Alternate structure toggle added to switch between pillars & arches (default key: TAB)
- Transmitted Mana and Elemental crystals now have a new icon to differentiate from terrestrial crystals
- Packager forces item uniqueness in slots so it doesn't get full of item A and be unable to process item B
- Packager unpacked item capacity increased to 4 slots of 8 items each
- Packager will alternate items to pack
- Packager assigns Input and Output attributes to its inventory (based on active recipe) for more consistent behavior
- Auto-path tool will use the last existing support structure when automatically adding new support structures to path
- Directional paths (belts, omnipipes) can deposit into a building's default output node
- Removed particle FX on mana pipe items
- Agent Triggers and Inventory Sensors can be enabled or disabled
- Logic Signal gates can now be opened / closed from menu
- Bottom toolbar shows selection state for active menus / tools
- Can directly access & edit Number Blocks value
- Added icons to represent Agent Trigger Type (Enter or Exit)
- Improved visibility of many Computational blocks, especially on 2D layer
BUG FIXES:
- Fixed being unable to delete connectors if not on a pipe
- Fixed bug where computational blocks on the Mana Grid layer would only work if the Mana layer was active
- Inventory sensors will correctly identify filtered items in packages
- Fixed packager allowing input items to be grabbed as output when they weren't being actively processed
- Fixed belt items getting stuck if belt direction was reversed
- Fixed some cases where slot uniqueness was overridden
- Fixed schools spending an extra set of resources when research completed
- Fixed Grabber trying to output invalid items onto Chutes
- Fixed overhead path blocking not being calculated for terrain-level paths
- Fixed path planner tool sometimes displaying wrong build count
- Selecting a new item slot, while the item filter panel is open, will correctly update UI
- Deleting rails no longer deletes minecarts
- Fixed bug that was resetting historical star counts
- Fixed fruit/filter/knowledge slot filters on storage slots converting matching physical items into the filter type
- Fixed infinite research processing without sufficient stars
BALANCE CHANGES:
- Necklace cost of 4 polished stones reduced to 2 polished stones
- Removed Infinite Belt Speed research (so that Omnipipes have late-game priority)
- Packager no longer allows selecting multilpe recipes
- Increased capacity for Fuel slots from 20 to 40
- Grabbers won't pull items onto chutes if there is no chute inlet facing the building
- Removed non-functional 'Add Water' tool from Creative mode
- Omnitemple height is now 4 grid units like other buildings
Next up I'll be adding the long-awaited Fishery building! Then I'll start working on some Steam Workshop goodies.
As always thanks for playing and let me know what you think!
Coming soon - OmniPipes!
It's been a while since the last update, I wanted to make sure people knew what's in the works!
For a long time I've been planning a special endgame path structure called the "Omnipipe", and I've finally had a chance to add it in. Think of it like a super conveyor belt, or a pneumatic tube, that can carry any item in any direction - including vertically! The example above shows stones being lifted up a steep cliff.
They can also be laid on a 2D underground grid and connect to buildings on the surface, so potentially you'll be able to place your production buildings very close together and still connect them all.
They're extremely convenient, but of course they require lots of research to unlock and are expensive to build - costing several Omnistones apiece. But the hope is that they are so valuable you'll have a good reason to max out your Omnistone production!
In addition, *all* pipes, including Mana and Steam, will also be buildable on the main 3D terrain. (The 2D grid view will still be there as always, except it will be treated as underground pipes instead of ambiguously overhead).
It's taken a lot of work to get this ready, but it's almost done. You can preview the changes on the beta branch (just maybe don't use the only copy of your favorite 50-hour map to test on, just in case there are still breaking bugs)
Hope to have this ready by the end of the week. Will post another announcement then!
Update! End game building 'OmniTemple' and Infinite Research
For a long time, the game has needed a more meaningful endgame. The first big step towards that is complete!
There's a new giant building called the OmniTemple. It is massive (5x5) and not only costs a lot to build, but you also have to bring a huge amount of resources to the construction site in order to complete it.
Once it is complete, it will randomly request Offerings of various specific high-end goods - and lots of them. Producing and delivering all these goods will require reconfiguring and optimizing your production chains.
But the rewards for doing this are significant - you earn Star Coins that are only produced at the Omnitemple, and these Star Coins are used for a wide variety of new Infinitely Repeatable research. Providing benefits such as:
- Increased overall town production speed
- Higher House Maximum
- Greater Crop Yields
- Faster Temple, Shrine and Recharger speeds
- Faster Conveyor Belt and Mana Pipe transmission speeds
- Greater bonus from buildings' OmniStone upgrades
And remember, these research recipes are repeatable, infinitely (provided you can supply the ever-increasing cost). So you can improve your town to ridiculous speeds!
There's also a number of bugfixes & quality-of-life improvements.
- Added final soundtrack song
- Removed population requirement from Packagers
- Removed happiness bonus from Packagers, Temples, and Shrines (as they are unstaffed)
- Fixed bug where floating paths could be created by drag-deleting underlying scaffolds
- Reduced Temple crystal crafting time from 10s to 6s
- The 'Copy Cursor' tool will select the appropriate farming action when used on a natural resource (in non-creative mode)
- Added clearer range indicator for buildings that have an Area-Of-Effect
- Input and Output inventory slots can be inspected, so items can be trashed if necessary
- Added highlight effects to Inventory Slot Detail panel buttons
- Fixed farms not applying water or fertilizer if they were the only active recipes
- Research to build Elemental Temples is hidden until available, to prevent confusion when no natural Temples found yet
- Elemental enchanted books can now be used to provide Writing Materials to School at 50 apiece
- School Writing Materials capacity increased from 100 to 200
- Workers now move as fast on Roads as they do on Foot Paths
- Angled terrain is no longer highlighted when placing buildings, to make it easier to find flat ground
- When recipe can't produce because is missing currency, the correct currency icon appears
- The +4 bonus to population that the base provides is removed once it reaches level 10, so that population maximums are a more round number
Enjoy! Up next on my list are OmniPipes and Fisheries.