We hope you all have started 2022 in the best possible way and that there are many nice things you can be looking forward to this year! One of which: Good Company will leave Early Access in a few months! We still have a few milestones to tackle, but we are getting more and more excited about that...
But today it's time for yet another Good To Know, and it's a special one. Instead of giving you an overview on what has happened during the development of the past weeks or months, we would like to take you further back in time for a start...
I had a dream
Fun Fact: the initial idea for Good Company was actually born in the head of Dominik, Co-Founder of Chasing Carrots, one night in August 2017. He told the team about it while we were having some beers after a long gamescom day in Cologne: "An employees-focused business simulation evolving about automation, where your character is active in the game world and delegates tasks as the game progresses! What do you think?" We thought that it was great and started working on early prototypes shortly after.
Screenshot from an early visualization video we created for Good Company
Kill your darlings
Game development is full of trial and error, especially in the first few months. "Hey, how about this: ....?" "Wow, nice, let's do this!" [enter a variable timeframe here] later: "Well, would anyone object if we change this?" "Well, now that you say it...".
Change is important, and our team eventually identified, what worked and what didn't. Having a trusted community brings another dynamic to that process, of course, but that's something for later. Let's now have a look at a couple of parts of Good Company that we decided to abandon for various reasons...
Filofaxes like this were quite popular in the 1970s, where Good Company is roughly set. We were quite fond of the idea of using it as a key interface to list and manage items. At first. Though the more we dove into our vision for the game, the clearer it became that having an inventory blocking the view and being rather inflexible to handle, wouldn't be a promising approach.
Also true to the spirit of Good Company's setting were old school computers. Ours here, powered by RobOS v1.2, was intended as a work environment for managing organization, finances, and other daily tasks of a company boss. Aside from that, its physical buttons all served a purpose. A real treat, but it had to go at some point. Partly due to the fact that we didn't want players to be separated too much from the rest of what's going on in the game. RIP, RobOS!
Employees shouldn't only be working, right? They need their space to rest and relax. How awesome would it be to give them such a place, like, a comfy kitchen! But with ongoing development, Good Company got to focus more and more on automation and working processes, so we decided to cut lunch breaks. Luckily, employees haven't complained so far.
Ah, old Shelley! The player character's grandmother (and one-time inventor herself) was supposed to take a central role in the early versions of the tutorial in Good Company. And for our gamescom showcase build in 2018 she actually did. When another kind of cast got developed to support the campaign mode, we felt it was time for Shelley to retire, and she herself was not too unhappy about this chance.
Not exactly an in-game asset, but worth a mention, too. We wanted to push the world building early on, since that also served for representing Good Company itself on social media, for instance. What could a 70s/80s world look like, where robots were about to slowly become a common element of society? Well, just read "The Good Stuff", where we expanded this notion in a short newspaper series. It was lots of fun but took too much effort to keep up regularly for our small team, as the game itself grew.
Now that's a special one, our intro trailer for Carrot Affairs, our (bi)weekly development stream on Twitch! Before Early Access (as well as a short time in) we did this to show curious members of our community what we have been working on for Good Company. A changing mix of Carrots played the game, talked about content, or even let viewers watch while we were creating new stuff for the game. Alas, this is another format we had to take an undefined break from, the more complex Good Company's development got. But here's the good news: you can still watch a few archived episodes here!
We hope you've enjoyed this little trip down the memory lane! But of course we don't want to leave without giving you at least a few hints about what we are working on now.
New Year's Resolution
While we can't share an exact release date for Good Company's goldmaster yet, there are some interesting things we are working on until feature freeze. Let's have a look (WIP, btw)!
Loans
Profit is an essential factor in becoming a successful entrepreneur, obviously. But there's the saying 'You have to spend money to make money!', and sometimes you have invested so thoroughly that, well, your finances are touching the reds. Luckily, just like in the real world, banks are there for you. They help you out with a loan which you pay back, eventually. With interest, of course. In Good Company, you will be able to do the same. One difference though: no discussion with your banks, no arguing, no bribes. You need a loan, you get one. Invest it wisely, pay it back, and everything's going to be ok.
Business Expansion
In Good Company, we want to give you many tools to build an awesome machinery of production. One obvious challenge is to tweak its efficiency on many levels. Company Goals, Employee Skills, Policies, Business Development - all these can have positive impacts and, with Business Expansion, you will have a late-game-focused feature at your disposal. This new board contains various 'projects' that you can unlock for certain costs. In return, your company gains global buffs that can stack. So you can gradually ramp up parameters like Production Speed, Crafting Luck, and Analysis Efficiency on a global level - if you can afford the costs.
In-game Manual
There's a lot to learn in Good Company and we have made sure the tutorial that accompanies the Campaign provides an entertaining approach. However, there are many, many details to consider and some players prefer to stick to Freeplay Mode. That's why we are overhauling the In-game Manual. It will contain the whole spectrum of useful information, searchable, understandable, and ready whenever you need it!
Multiplayer
If you made it this far down the post, you might have gotten sweaty hands... "What about the Multiplayer Mode?!?!" We haven't forgotten about that feature, of course. In fact, we've been working on it for quite a while. The foundation has been laid out, which is an enormous thing in itself. The architecture and having it communicate over the platforms Good Company is available on, each with its specific requirements. But we are getting there! First tests have shown good results, a set of important UI elements have been put into place. Needless to say, this big feature will take quite some time, including balancing and testing. We want to ensure that the Multiplayer Mode is as fun and stable as possible. Rest assured, we'll keep you updated on that topic.
Phew. Quite a lot to take in, right? Thank you for bearing with us so far. Not only reading this post but for your outstanding support, super-friendly exchange, and highly valuable feedback throughout Good Company's Early Access. We will do our best to push the game over the finishing line as soon as possible and as polished as possible.
If you want to get in touch, about questions, input, anything, don't hesitate! Hop over to our central hub or share your inquiry right below this post!
Take care and be safe! Your Chasing Carrots
Good Company - Patch 0.12.1
Greetings Tinkerers & Managers,
Since the release of Good Company 0.12 "Competitors & Assignments", we have received helpful reports about a few important issues. With the details you have provided, we investigated the circumstances and found fixes that will roll out with today's patch 0.12.1!
If you keep encountering the issues mentioned below, please get in touch here in the comments or write to support@chasing-carrots.com.
Thank you!
Chasing Carrots
---
Patch Notes 0.12.1
Fixed a bug regarding unresolvable logistics connections, that resulted in performance issues (lags) for some players
Fixed a problem with loading huge save game files, triggering an error message and preventing the game from starting properly
Fixed another cause of wrongly applying the 'No Path To Exit' penalty on employee happiness
Fixed Freeplay session unable to start if Assignments were disabled in the configuration
Fixed wrong goal descriptions in Campaign level 9
Fixed wrong buff icons for story-related buffs in Campaign level 9
Good Company - Update v0.12 "Competitors & Assignments"
Hello Designers, Engineers, and Entrepreneurs!
Right in time before the joyful (and playful) holiday season starts, we are happy to announce that Good Company v0.12 is available! Our big update introduces two new gameplay elements that have been requested by our community for a while now: "Competitors and Assignments!"
Both freeplay features are completely optional, but we are confident they can elevate your playing experience. Why? Well, Competitors and Assignments not only add more challenge to Good Company, on several levels, they also aim to improve the liveliness of the game. Let us know what you think!
Those of you who enjoy playing the campaign will be happy to know that we have added Level 9, "The Machinery". This level focuses on the use of automation, namely machines as well as Mergers and Splitters, wrapped in a wholesome story about producing toys for charity!
We are very curious about your feedback for new content in Good Company, which also includes some Quality of Life improvements, updated balancing and, of course, bug fixes. We have prepared all the details below in the update notes. As always, don't hesitate to get in touch about any questions or issues.
As you might know, after each major update for Good Company, there are some important things for players to consider, e.g. regarding save games. Please read this post for details.
We hope you enjoy playing Good Company v0.12 and we wish you a safe and happy time in the last weeks of 2021!
All the best, Your Chasing Carrots
--
Update notes v0.12
Campaign
We have added Level 9 "The Machinery" to the campaign in Good Company! Join your companions Linda Beck and Bob Lazor in a remote facility, where they need to set up a mainly automated production for toys to support a Children's Charity. Under your leadership, of course!
Level 9 introduces machines, as well as splitter and merger segments for conveyors
Set up a production that incorporates automated manufacture and logistics
Learn to work with only a limited amount of employees
Competitors
Good Company v0.12 introduces Competitors for an extra layer of engagement and fun! A mix of familiar and new characters make the Freeplay mode way more dynamic if you choose so. They not only compete with you for market influence but also in other areas. Keep an eye on your rivaling companies, stay ahead of them or surpass them eventually by carefully developing your business:
Use the Freeplay settings to decide if and how Competitors should participate:
Each competitor has their individual background, strengths and weaknesses
Pick up to three out of nine available competitors
Select parameters for how challenging competitors should act
During your Freeplay session, Competitors have options similar to players. They can:
enter a market with a new product
improve their products
remove a product from a market
increase production of a product
progress market phases (at difficulty setting ‘barks’ and above)
unlock new markets (at difficulty setting ‘bites’ and above)
Competitors will comment on their actions and on yours, to make the experience feel more personal
Your and your competitors' performance gets evaluated in the following categories in the new Company Rankings panel:
Production - production steps completed per year
Finances - value of the company assets (net worth excluding tech)
Innovation - value of the unlocked progress (tech, business development, etc.)
Happiness - happiness score of each company
Prestige - success points generated per year
After each in-game year, the most performant company gets announced
Assignments
Another new feature coming with Good Company v0.12 is Company Assignments. Just like Competitors, they are completely optional, but depending on your preferences, they can improve your play experience:
Use the Freeplay settings to disable or increase the frequency of Assignments
Assignments will be issued by a set of preset clients
Competitors will participate in Assignments
An Assignment tasks you to manufacture products or modules within a given time
The requirements for each product type vary and scale with the market
Place special pallets to deliver the goods to, as requested by an Assignment
An Assignment can request one of the following item types in various tiers:
Products
Modules
You can check Assignment details by clicking on the phone icon in the upper-right corner
The first company to fulfill an Assignment gets rewarded a certain amount of money, Success Points or Research Data, depending on the Assignment's difficulty
If you and the Competitors are unable to fulfill the complete delivery in time, the Assignment fails
Other
Changed Freeplay milestones to quarterly products sold instead net of worth
Activated Christmas decorations
Added dynamic ToDo-Lists for certain campaign levels for better overviews/lists
Updated in-game manual with Machines and Conveyor Splitters/Mergers
UI for toggling normal pacing, fast forward, and pausing the game has been improved
Balancing
Product demand is no longer affected by demand settings, base demands are fixed
Product demand base was generally increased
Every activated competitor increases the demand on each market, depending on the competitor difficulty
Module-based demand has been increased (+50%)
Market difficulty has been lowered
reduced amount of minimum features
feature maxima have been increased
Market pacing now also depends on competitor amount
each competitor adds to the required products sold
the general effect of this setting has been lowered
QoL
Minimap for better orientation:
Use the new button in the upper left corner to toggle the minimap
Keyboard mapping can be changed in the options menu
Bugfixes
Characters don’t glide anymore after hiring
Level 4: some hard locks have been solved where UI was not accessible after loading a game
Buildable price reductions were reset on load in Free Plays
Courier skills were not properly updated when employee was unassigned/assigned as courier
Fixed "Blocked Exits" happiness debuff incorrectly being active
Good Company - Update v0.12 *Beta Test*
Greetings, Entrepreneurs!
We are excited to invite you to our Beta Test for Good Company v0.12!
The next update will be introducing two gameplay elements that have been requested by our community for a while now. We bring you Competitors and Assignments, for optional play depth and challenge!
Also, those of you who like the campaign will be pleased to know that we have added Level 9, "The Machinery". This level focuses on the use of automation, namely machines and all sorts of conveyor segments, such as mergers and splitters.
You can read more about what awaits you in the Beta Notes below. We hope many of you are eager to participate, the support of our community has always been of great help and very appreciated!
Please note: localization for languages other than English won't be available for this beta version. Have fun playing Good Company v0.12 beta, we are looking forward to your feedback!
All the best, Your Chasing Carrots
--
Beta Notes v0.12
Campaign
We have added Level 9 "The Machinery" to the campaign in Good Company! Join your companions Linda Beck and Bob Lazor in a remote facility, where they need to set up a mainly automated production for toys to support a Children's Charity. Under your leadership, of course!
Level 9 introduces machines, as well as splitter and merger segments for conveyors
Set up a production that incorporates automated manufacture and logistics
Learn to work with only a limited amount of employees
Competitors
Good Company v0.12 introduces Competitors for an extra layer of engagement and fun! A mix of familiar and new characters make the Freeplay mode way more dynamic if you choose so. They not only compete with you for market influence but also in other areas. Keep an eye on your rivaling companies, stay ahead of them or surpass them eventually by carefully developing your business:
Use the Freeplay settings to decide if and how Competitors should participate:
Each competitor has their individual background, strengths and weaknesses
Pick up to three out of nine available competitors
Select parameters for how challenging competitors should act
During your Freeplay session, Competitors have options similar to players. They can:
enter a market with a new product
improve their products
remove a product from a market
increase production of a product
progress market phases (at difficulty setting ‘barks’ and above)
unlock new markets (at difficulty setting ‘bites’ and above)
Competitors will comment on their actions and on yours, to make the experience feel more personal
Your and your competitors' performance gets evaluated in the following categories in the new Company Rankings panel:
Production - production steps completed per year
Finances - value of the company assets (net worth excluding tech)
Innovation - value of the unlocked progress (tech, business development, etc.)
Happiness - happiness score of each company
Prestige - success points generated per year
After each in-game year, the most performant company gets announced
Assignments
Another new feature coming with Good Company v0.12 is Company Assignments. Just like Competitors, they are completely optional, but depending on your preferences, they can improve your play experience:
Use the Freeplay settings to disable or increase the frequency of Assignments
Assignments will be issued by a set of preset clients
Competitors will participate in Assignments
An Assignment tasks you to manufacture products or modules within a given time
The requirements for each product type vary and scale with the market
Place special pallets to deliver the goods to, as requested by an Assignment
An Assignment can request one of the following item types in various tiers:
Products
Modules
You can check Assignment details by clicking on the phone icon in the upper-right corner
The first company to fulfill an Assignment gets rewarded a certain amount of money, Success Points or Research Data, depending on the Assignment's difficulty
If you and the Competitors are unable to fulfill the complete delivery in time, the Assignment fails
Other
Changed Freeplay milestones to quarterly products sold instead net of worth
Activated Christmas decorations
Added dynamic ToDo-Lists for certain campaign levels for better overviews/lists
Balancing
Product demand is no longer affected by demand settings, base demands are fixed
Product demand base was generally increased
Every activated competitor increases the demand on each market, depending on the competitor difficulty
Module-based demand has been increased (+50%)
Market difficulty has been lowered
reduced amount of minimum features
feature maxima have been increased
Market pacing now also depends on competitor amount
each competitor adds to the required products sold
the general effect of this setting has been lowered
QoL
Minimap for better orientation:
Use the new button in the upper left corner to toggle the minimap
Keyboard mapping can be changed in the options menu
Bugfixes
Characters don’t glide anymore after hiring
Level 4: some hard locks have been solved where UI was not accessible after loading a game
Buildable price reductions were reset on load in Free Plays
Courier skills were not properly updated when employee was unassigned/assigned as courier
Good To Know #6
Greetings Tinkerers & Tycoons!
We hope you all have had a great summer! Since our new big update, Good Company v0.11 is out, it's a good time for another recap - and outlook!
Before we dive into the details, we would like to thank our community for playing Good Company and sharing your thoughts, be it praise or criticism. Any form of constructive feedback helps us a great deal to see things from different perspectives and to improve the game. We hear you and appreciate your ongoing support!
Recap
Good Company v0.10
While every big Good Company update includes new content, better balancing, and Quality of Life improvements, it's our primary goal to constantly elevate your gameplay experience with substantial changes and additions.
Over the past few months, we have introduced lots of new stuff. One major and frequently requested element was 'employee depth'. With Employee Skills and Happiness, Good Company v0.10 brought you a fresh aspect of personality for your staff, and even more important: detailed and interesting means to fine-tune your company processes!
To support these changes, we have added employee outfits for better identification and implemented a powerful Employee Overview. This panel contains many details about the status of your workers and helps you organize them more easily.
For more information about Good Company v0.10, please check out the changelog.
Good Company v0.11
As Good Company is taking shape in Early Access, we constantly adapt its various areas to changes, so they all work together in the best possible way.
That's why Good Company v0.11 introduced a rework of some Campaign levels and Challenges to incorporate features added with the previous update. Amongst other things, of course! We also added a new campaign level to expand the light-hearted narrative that's spread throughout the campaign.
An ongoing priority for us is to improve Logistics, so the latest update also contained important changes about how Conveyor Belts and other automatic transportation units function. The entire system now works more reliably and efficiently, including Automatic Logistics. As a powerful addition to the automatic transportation system, Good Company v0.11 introduced the long-awaited Splitters & Mergers, which allow for a lot more flexibility in planning your production lines.
Please find more details about these and other improvements in the Good Company v0.11 changelog.
Outlook
Good Company v0.12
So, what can you be looking forward to with the next big update? Well, one thing that was bugging us (and some of you) is the fact that there is much emphasis on product design and production processes, while the markets on the other hand feel a bit dull.
We want to change that by introducing Competitors, with each one having their individual background for an additional narrative touch. Competitors will also play an important role on the market because they try to dominate market shares and could even influence market parameters, if players don't actively work against them. To put more emphasis on this new layer of challenge, we want to add company rankings, where you and your competitors are measured in categories such as production, finances, or innovation, on a quarterly or annual basis.
We are really excited about this feature and we think your Good Company experience can benefit greatly from it!
Another concept we are currently evaluating for 0.12 is Contracts. This feature will function more like a side event or optional bonus tasks, popping up from time to time. We don't plan to put too much weight on contracts, but we are confident this addition will spice up the gameplay, nevertheless!
As usual, accompanying bigger features like the two mentioned above, Good Company v0.12 will also bring you more improvements and bug fixes. As soon as the next Public Test gets within reach, we are happy to share more details.
Multiplayer
Also worth mentioning is the highly anticipated Multiplayer Mode for Good Company! We have already started working on this feature a while ago (with one Carrot coder exclusively focusing on this feature) and the first tests not only proved that the basics work, but that they are already lots of fun to play!
We have a solid foundation, but there's still tons of things to do for the multiplayer mode, such as specific features, balancing, and server communication. We will keep you updated.
All right, that's it for now. Thank you for reading. And please don't hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions or other topics you would like to share!
All the best, Your Chasing Carrots
Good Company - Patch v0.11.1
Greetings, Tinkerers & Tycoons!
We checked the reports of the past week since the 0.11 update and fixed a few issues with high priority. Many thanks to everyone helping to pin down bugs and issues. Please keep using Bugsplat and contacting us via mail, forum or Discord.
Cheers, Your Chasing Carrots
---
v0.11.1 Patch Notes
Fixed an issue where games could not be loaded due to an unknown problem. The size of the save files stressed the game. Those games should load now, even if it looks like it hangs a little (please allow up to half a minute for big save files)
Various stability issues that were reported via Bugsplat
Fixed an issue with Automatic Retrieval Segments where the threshold was displayed as 1 when one wanted to reset them to 0. This was an issue with the display that we fixed.
Good Company - Update v0.11
Hello, Tinkerers and Tycoons!
With your support, we have been able to improve a few more things and stomp some nasty bugs. Thank you for helping us to get the next major update ready! Good Company v0.11 is out of beta now, and we are excited about how our community will be enjoying the two re-worked Campaign levels, a couple of overhauled challenges, and the logistics improvements – along with other happy changes and Quality of Life improvements. Be sure to check out the details below!
After each major update for Good Company, there are some important things for players to consider. This post will fill you in.
As always, we are happy to get your feedback and answer your questions! And if you haven't played in a while, Good Company v0.11 might be a great time to revisit the game...
Enjoy and all the best!
Your Chasing Carrots
---
Update notes v0.11
Campaign
Since earlier this year, we have been very busy bringing the campaign into the final state. The tutorials were the first step. This time we are updating the whole world map in preparation for the road to the final release, including prepared space for levels to come.
The order of levels and challenges has been adjusted to fit to the final story line
There are some branches throughout the story and some levels that can be skipped
Additionally, there are greyed out placeholders for levels and challenges to come
Level Update: Bet on Bots
Bet on Bots has been rewritten, adding more characters and explanation for policies. The goal in this level is still the same: produce safer Courier Bots and Delivery Drones. But besides only having fuses at your disposal, you can now also apply policies to your work zones.
Inspector Yang is still your main contact person, but more characters are joining the level, either helping you or trying to push you out of business.
New Level: A Happy Workforce
Several months after sustaining yourself on bots, Dr. Kuznetsov has a proposal for you to expand your business. But, as it appears, not every idea is ready for the market yet and your employees don’t take it well when a company on the rise struggles with a new product. Expand across the original borders of the facilities and keep the happiness of your employees high. This level introduces happiness and new buffs to the campaign.
Tutorial Improvements
Thanks to your feedback, we noticed that in some places of the original tutorial things aren’t visualized or explained well enough. Another problem was that players got stuck because they progressed faster than the tutorial expected them to. We fixed and improved on the tutorial levels in these regards.
Using holograms to display expected placement of objects where it is relevant
Allow most tutorial tasks to be completed ahead and recognize the progress
Updated texts to avoid unclear instructions
Added reactive texts in case something unexpected happens
Challenge Updates: Module Mania, Smart as a Cup & Product Frenzy
We are using tools we added for tutorials to now explain challenges when starting them. Not all challenges have been updated to include this change, but the challenge-line of Module Mania to Product Frenzy are ready! Also some other general changes have been added. We intend that those challenges will be final with this version.
Challenge Update: Rocketspeed Science
This challenge got a major facelift as when we released it into Early Access, many necessary mechanics changed shortly before we had to finish the challenge. The new challenge is now a Competitor Challenge and not a Production Challenge anymore. You will compete against other characters to see who can reach the highest score. You are earning trophies for each character you can beat.
Get a monetary reward for every Data Point you have on a daily basis
Your score depends on the collected Data Points
Trophies are earned by beating competitors
The high score depends on the collected Data Points
Higher tier Data Points grant a better score
Business Development with Data Point cost has been added to the challenge
Challenge is now using electronics over Fuses as main items
Policies and Skills have been activated for this challenge
Every employee gets 100 skill points at the end of each week
Conveyor Belts
We have been changing how the Conveyor Belts work under the hood. The main reason to make this change was that previously, every material was simply pushed through the Belt System, not considering if there is any demand, which often resulted in blocked Belts unless they were very well balanced. This has fundamentally changed by only allowing items to be put or pushed on belts if there is storage space at the end of the line, enabling more advanced Conveyor Belt Segments.
Plain Conveyor Start/Ends
Employees will consider how much storage is at the end of the belt when putting items on Conveyor Belts. In case of plain Conveyor Belt Ends, the storage capacity equals to all available shelves that the item put on the conveyor belt. For this change, we had to remove the Rollerbands from the game.
Automatic Retrieval Segments
It is not necessary to set ratios on Retrieval Segments anymore. Instead, it will automatically detect the required item amount at the end of the belt. This may lead the Automatic Retrieval Segment to empty attached storage in one go. In case you don’t want this to happen, you can set storage thresholds for Retrieval Segments. Those thresholds define the amount of items the Retrieval Segments won’t touch in case another entity wants to take the item from the storage.
New Segments: Splitter and Merger
Splitters and Mergers were added. Mergers function pretty straightforwardly and merge whatever they can. As mergers have inventories themselves, it will never happen that a segment before will push something a merger can’t take or forward, so mixing items will not be a problem. Splitters and Mergers both require you to set which items should be handled at what input/output. The system can’t assume to know this.
Limitations
For the Conveyor Belt nerds: You will find that the system has a few limitations, for example you can not have more than 6 different items on one conveyor belt. In a normal case, you won’t be able to configure any input/output of the Belt System with over 6 Items.
Additionally, because the system can always only push items on the belt for which you have storage, the throughput is limited. Please note that Mergers, Splitters and Automatic Storage Segments are in between storage and for every item, they only have 1 stack of space (3 for products).
New Product: Virtual Pet
A new low tier product, the Virtual Pet has been added to the game. Currently, it is only available in the Freeplay and can be designed and produced right off the start. Unlike the Calculator and the Cassette Player, the Virtual Pet requires higher initial features and has a more steep growth. But the opportunities are greater as well!
With the Virtual Pet being added, we adjusted the Market Tree and added new Company Goals for the Pocket Pet. Fulfilling the Pocket Pet company goals early in the game enables you an additional source for Discovery Points.
Also to complement this, the Calculator passive reward for the first Company Goal has been changed as well and is now rewarding Research Data depending on the Processing Power used in your products.
Quality of Life: Mass Deletion
The deconstruct mode enables you to delete objects in areas. Optionally, you can decide to fire the employees that are working on affected workplaces and also to delete all items in target storages. No more inventory management after cleaning up a Work Zone!
Insights: Automatic Connection Previews
When placing storage, moving tables and shelves or when changing recipes, you will now be able to see preview lines of what the automatic logistics will be changing in your logistics. We hope that this will improve the understanding of what happens within your company and inform the player of unwanted changes before they happen.
Good Company - Update v0.11 *Beta Test*
Greetings, Tinkerers and Tycoons!
Welcome to the Beta Test for Good Company v0.11! With the last major milestone, "Skills & Happiness", we have introduced various new features. The upcoming version of Good Company contains adaptions and refinements for core parts of the game: campaign, challenges, and conveyors. And there's more! (Psst, Splitter and Mergers!) You can find detailed patch notes below.
As always, we are excited to share the beta version with our community before its final release. Check out what Good Company v0.11 brings, share your feedback, and report bugs even the QA couldn't catch!
We're looking forward to getting in touch with you. Thank you for your ongoing support!
All the best, Your Chasing Carrots
---
Patch notes v0.11
Campaign
Since earlier this year, we have been very busy bringing the campaign into the final state. The tutorials were the first step. This time we are updating the whole world map in preparation for the road to the final release, including prepared space for levels to come.
The order of levels and challenges has been adjusted to fit to the final story line
There are some branches throughout the story and some levels that can be skipped
Additionally, there are greyed out placeholders for levels and challenges to come
Level Update: Bet on Bots
Bet on Bots has been rewritten, adding more characters and explanation for policies. The goal in this level is still the same: produce safer Courier Bots and Delivery Drones. But besides only having fuses at your disposal, you can now also apply policies to your work zones.
Inspector Yang is still your main contact person, but more characters are joining the level, either helping you or trying to push you out of business.
New Level: A Happy Workforce
Several months after sustaining yourself on bots, Dr. Kuznetsov has a proposal for you to expand your business. But, as it appears, not every idea is ready for the market yet and your employees don’t take it well when a company on the rise struggles with a new product. Expand across the original borders of the facilities and keep the happiness of your employees high. This level introduces happiness and new buffs to the campaign.
Tutorial Improvements
Thanks to your feedback, we noticed that in some places of the original tutorial things aren’t visualized or explained well enough. Another problem was that players got stuck because they progressed faster than the tutorial expected them to. We fixed and improved on the tutorial levels in these regards.
Using holograms to display expected placement of objects where it is relevant
Allow most tutorial tasks to be completed ahead and recognize the progress
Updated texts to avoid unclear instructions
Added reactive texts in case something unexpected happens
Challenge Updates: Module Mania, Smart as a Cup & Product Frenzy
We are using tools we added for tutorials to now explain challenges when starting them. Not all challenges have been updated to include this change, but the challenge-line of Module Mania to Product Frenzy are ready! Also some other general changes have been added. We intend that those challenges will be final with this version.
Challenge Update: Rocketspeed Science
This challenge got a major facelift as when we released it into Early Access, many necessary mechanics changed shortly before we had to finish the challenge. The new challenge is now a Competitor Challenge and not a Production Challenge anymore. You will compete against other characters to see who can reach the highest score. You are earning trophies for each character you can beat.
Get a monetary reward for every Data Point you have on a daily basis
Your score depends on the collected Data Points
Trophies are earned by beating competitors
The high score depends on the collected Data Points
Higher tier Data Points grant a better score
Business Development with Data Point cost has been added to the challenge
Challenge is now using electronics over Fuses as main items
Policies and Skills have been activated for this challenge
Every employee gets 100 skill points at the end of each week
Conveyor Belts
We have been changing how the Conveyor Belts work under the hood. The main reason to make this change was that previously, every material was simply pushed through the Belt System, not considering if there is any demand, which often resulted in blocked Belts unless they were very well balanced. This has fundamentally changed by only allowing items to be put or pushed on belts if there is storage space at the end of the line, enabling more advanced Conveyor Belt Segments.
Plain Conveyor Start/Ends
Employees will consider how much storage is at the end of the belt when putting items on Conveyor Belts. In case of plain Conveyor Belt Ends, the storage capacity equals to all available shelves that the item put on the conveyor belt. For this change, we had to remove the Rollerbands from the game.
Automatic Retrieval Segments
It is not necessary to set ratios on Retrieval Segments anymore. Instead, it will automatically detect the required item amount at the end of the belt. This may lead the Automatic Retrieval Segment to empty attached storage in one go. In case you don’t want this to happen, you can set storage thresholds for Retrieval Segments. Those thresholds define the amount of items the Retrieval Segments won’t touch in case another entity wants to take the item from the storage.
New Segments: Splitter and Merger
Splitters and Mergers were added. Mergers function pretty straightforwardly and merge whatever they can. As mergers have inventories themselves, it will never happen that a segment before will push something a merger can’t take or forward, so mixing items will not be a problem. Splitters and Mergers both require you to set which items should be handled at what input/output. The system can’t assume to know this.
Limitations
For the Conveyor Belt nerds: You will find that the system has a few limitations, for example you can not have more than 6 different items on one conveyor belt. In a normal case, you won’t be able to configure any input/output of the Belt System with over 6 Items.
Additionally, because the system can always only push items on the belt for which you have storage, the throughput is limited. Please note that Mergers, Splitters and Automatic Storage Segments are in between storage and for every item, they only have 1 stack of space (3 for products).
New Product: Virtual Pet
A new low tier product, the Virtual Pet has been added to the game. Currently, it is only available in the Freeplay and can be designed and produced right off the start. Unlike the Calculator and the Cassette Player, the Virtual Pet requires higher initial features and has a more steep growth. But the opportunities are greater as well!
With the Virtual Pet being added, we adjusted the Market Tree and added new Company Goals for the Pocket Pet. Fulfilling the Pocket Pet company goals early in the game enables you an additional source for Discovery Points.
Also to complement this, the Calculator passive reward for the first Company Goal has been changed as well and is now rewarding Research Data depending on the Processing Power used in your products.
Quality of Life: Mass Deletion
The deconstruct mode enables you to delete objects in areas. Optionally, you can decide to fire the employees that are working on affected workplaces and also to delete all items in target storages. No more inventory management after cleaning up a Work Zone!
Insights: Automatic Connection Previews
When placing storage, moving tables and shelves or when changing recipes, you will now be able to see preview lines of what the automatic logistics will be changing in your logistics. We hope that this will improve the understanding of what happens within your company and inform the player of unwanted changes before they happen.
Good Company Update v0.10.2 – Bug Fixes
Hello Tycoons!
Thanks to the crash reports and support mails you sent we were able to identify a few issues and were able to fix them. We are not that far away from another bigger update starting into the public testing near the end of the month, so 0.10.2 will just contain the necessary and important bug fixes.
Fixed that in levels that players could not interact with the environment anymore
Fixed missing to-do lists
Fixed to-do list entries not getting checked of
Fixed a crashing issue when using quick hire
Please continue to support us and don’t hesitate to report bugs and other issues via Steam Forums, Reddit, Discord or our official support mail. (support@chasing-carrots.com)
Sneak Peek in case you missed it: https://twitter.com/Chasing_Carrots/status/1418224325631619074
All the best, Chasing Carrots
Good Company - Patch v0.10.1
Greetings, Tinkerers & Tycoons!
With the help of recent community reports, we identified and fixed a couple of issues that occurred after the latest big Good Company update "Skills & Happiness. Thank you for your feedback!
If you encounter bugs or have input about Good Company, we'd like to hear from you! Check out goodcompanygame.com and get in touch.
Cheers, Your Chasing Carrots
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v0.10.1 Patch Notes
Archived blueprints are now filtered/hidden in item selections by default
Achieved blueprints can be shown by disabling the filter in the respective widget
The Assembly Table II and Assembly Station can now process lower-tier products, but they do not give you any advantages over the Assembly Table I
FIXED: Crash when using quick-hire in a challenge without having enough money
FIXED: Logistics employees could sometimes get stuck
FIXED: Logistics UI could sometimes get broken in manual logistics mode
