There is a bunch of stuff that is currently 'in progress' but I didn't want to delay these changes any longer:
1) [Bug] Fixed anomaly where the large battery upgrade could sometimes still require a small battery per car as well.
2) [Bug] Fixed visual anomaly where previous games efficiency chart data showed up in empty area of slot efficiency chart.
3) [Bug] Fixed issue where the medium map scenario was confused with another scenario when loading in saved scenario games.
4) [Feature] You can now toggle the fading out of music with zoom feature on the options dialog.
5) [GUI] Nicer GUI style for the objectives screen in-game.
6) [Bug] Added code to auto-select sound driver if current sound driver fails to initialise.
7) [GUI] New icons on the vehicle design screen show warnings if features are researched, and universal or common, but not enabled.
8) [GUI] New window appears, when needed on vehicle design screen to show common or universal features you have not yet researched.
9) [Balance] Slot upgrade costs increased by 20%
10) [Bug] Cars always now face the right direction if stationary on load.
11) [Feature] Game now saves minutes as well as hours in save game for the factory time.
12) [Bug] Display time for a production slot details window now correctly updates to show time to process the current car.
13) [Bug] Fixed bug where the flashing 'new' on the slot picker could be incorrectly activated or deactivated.
14) [Bug] Fixed issue where applying upgrades to cars in the post-research screen failed to automatically enable pre-requisite upgrades.
15) [Bug] Post-research screen feature-applying screen now scrolls in both directions!
16) [Bug] Improved stockpile management algorithm to prevent sudden unexplained refunding of resources from stockpiles.
17) [GUI] Redesigned resource price screen so it shows a single generic graph and more sensible layout.
18) [Feature] The first auto-generated design of any new game now defaults to a 20% price markup to make use of markups more obvious.
19) [GUI] Tutorial window background color changed and text animated.
20) [Bug] Fixed bug calculating total vehicles of all types sold for some achievements.
So also coming soon are 8 new achievements, and new logos for your company, plus logos for the different banks making loans, and translations intoDutch and Polish. Don't forget to vote on the priorities for the next patch, and if you haven't already left a steam review, a reminder that these are super helpful.
I'm hopeful that this patch also fixes some save game corruption some people are experiencing.
Updated to 1.44. Lots of balance changes
Hi there! We just released build 1.44 which has a lot of balance changes, plus fixes to loading all save games. here is the complete list:
1) [Gfx] Added laser-room to sensor manufacture, and fuel-tank press to fuel tank manufacture.
2) [Bug] AI research icons for polished paintwork and aircon now show up correctly.
3) [Balance] Make valves slot output doubled to 2
4) [Balance] Make engine blocks slot output doubled to 2
5) [Balance] Make hood slot output doubled to 2
6) [Balance] Make horn slot output doubled to 2
7) [Balance] Make trunk slot output doubled to 2
8) [Balance] Make window slot output doubled to 2, plus process time increased from 1800 to 5200
9) [Balance] Make steering wheel slot output doubled to , plus process time increased from 2100 to 6000
10) [Balance] Make airbag process time reduced to 14000 (from 21,500).
11) [Balance] Sodium Azide resource cost reduced from 300 to 220.
12) [Balance] Make steel sheet slot output doubled to 2 process time increased from 1600 to 3000
13) [Balance] Make sensor slot output reduced from 6 to 4.
14) [Balance] Make aircon slot process time reduced from 22000 to 14000.
15) [Balance] Make panoramic sunroof steel requirements reduced from 2 to 1.
16) [Balance] Make axle slot output doubled, process time increased and construction cost increased
17) [Balance] Make headlights slot output doubled.
18) [Balance] Make Xenon Headlights upgrade extra process time increased from 600 to 3,200.
19) [Balance] Make Alloy wheels upgrade now has higher power and speed penalties.
20) [Balance] Reduced the time penalty for the make heated steering wheel upgrade.
21) [Balance] Make powertrain slot process time reduced from 7200 to 5200.
22) [Balance] Make wheels slot construction cost increased from 36125 to 54900, process time increased from 1,060 to 2,300.
23) [Bug] Fixed bug where cars would sometimes seem invisible until you zoomed in closer.
24) [Bug] Fixed bug where save games could not load and gave error: Saved subtask not found..\src\SIM_ProductionSlot.cpp 1369
25) [Feature] New games show screen to pick your logo and company name, also editable from the icons on all of the main windows now.
26) [Balance] Reduced the impact of competition on the desirability of car features (less dramatic car pricing swings).
27) [Bug] Fixed bug where some animations did play on certain facilities.
28) [Feature] Resource importers now periodically sort queued objects so slots waiting for resources for longest get their resources first.
29) [SFX] Slot deletion sound volume now varies properly with the size of the deleted object.
30) [GUI] Improved layout of resource importer GUI.
I hope these changes improve the balance, difficulty and long term playability of the game. We have some new achievements on the way, and a few more bits of GUI art coming too, and also I want to improve the user-feedback and tutorial/help side of things too.
Please not that naming your company and picking a logo are completely placeholder for now. There will be proper company logos in the next update with any luck :D
Thanks
Version 1.43 released today (24th Jan)
A big update this time with a long list of changes and improvements:
1) [Feature] When placing down a supply stockpile or a slot with a mini-stockpile, the stockpile tile now automatically gets a free overhead conveyor belt added to that tile.
2) [Bug] Sandbox text now displayed correctly on choose mission screen when first shown.
3) [Bug] Fixed flickering effect when dragging a potential resource conveyor that started from a supply stockpile.
4) [Balance] Increased the price of robot upgrades by 50%
5) [Gfx] Cars now rotate to the correct facing rather than rotating early, when taking corners!
6) [GUI] Customers who consider a showroom car to have too-low a spec now do not randomly suggest a missing feature (was confusing players).
7) [Balance] Adjusted market competition so its more reactive to your capital expenditure and bank balance.
8) [GUI] Resource importer GUI expanded to show multiple columns when needed.
9) [Content] New scenario added for the second map.
10) [Content] Finish paint coat now uses a new resource: colored paint.
11) [Balance] Reduced the time that stockpiles keep resources that are not being used until they get purged.
12) [Content] You can now manufacture airbags, using a new resource (sodium azide)
13) [Gfx] Added some racks of electrical cable to various electrical-using production slots.
14) [Gfx] Added new animation to polish machine and glass-bending machine.
15) [Translations] Added Italian, Portuguese and Czech.
16) [Balance] Keyless entry now requires central locking to be researched first. (thanks to trifler500)
17) [Feature] Fit dashboard is now researchable to be split into fit controls and fit cabin.
18) [Feature] Market sales matrix tips now take into account current stock in the showroom.
19) [Balance] Vehicle conveyor speed upgrades are now more effective.
20) [Bug] Fix for the 'too many sales records' bug.(also a memory optimisation)
We have a bunch of new graphical stuff in there, translation for 3 new languages (hurrah!) and also some new features for luxury cars which should make the end game more interesting,. plus a new scenario and a bunch of usability and bug fixes.
I've been made aware that some VERY BIG games are brushing up against the 32bit limit for memory which is 2GB. We dont have immediate plans to port the game to 64 bit, but we have cunning plans for how to noticeable reduce memory consumption which will also result in performance improvements and much faster loading times. Expect that to be in with the next patch.
I'd like to again thank everyone for their fantastic ideas, patience, enthusiasm and support for buying the game during early access. It is much appreciated. The game wouldn't be as good as it is without the support for players like you. Thankyou so much for your support!
Version 1.42 released (scenarios!)
We just updated the game to version 1.42, here is the full changelist:
[version 1.42]
1) [GUI] Changes to marketing GUI to make active campaigns more distinctive.
2) [GUI] Event notifications in the bottom right of the screen now flash to draw attention.
3) [Balance] Strength of competition now affects how negatively customers perceive missing (expected) features.
4) [GUI] The Task-picker window now shows the color coding used for zoom-out UI when zoomed out, also some colors changed to be more obvious.
5) [Bug] Fixed crash bug when archiving a car design whilst the production schedule window was open and showing that design.
6) [Balance] Customers will now purchase cars from rivals if competition is high and your brand awareness is low.
7) [Feature] Added options to allow the game to run when in the background, and to disable the floating resource-consumed tooltips.
8) [Feature] New start game window allows you to choose sandbox or freeplay mode (no competition or costs).
9) [Feature] Support for scenarios with goals (and a single test goal added for the first map.
10) [Balance] Slowed down the rate at which market competitiveness changes.
The big change in this build is support for freeplay (no financial worries or competition) and also for scenarios with fixed targets and timelines. Because I wanted to get a build out there with all the other GUI and balance tweaks in, the objectives GUI is not as polished as I would like, and right now only the first map in the game has a scenario, but all that will change with the next update.
Hope you like it! And if you do, positive steam reviews are really welcome, and obviously telling your friends about the game or tweeting / posting to facebook really helps us a lot too. Thanks for all your support and ideas!
Updated to build 1.41 (21st December)
Here is the change-list for this version:
[version 1.41]
1) [GUI] Design scheduler window now has plus and minus buttons as well as allowing text edit.
2) [GUI] The 'new' that flashes on and off for slots is now disabled if those slots were already unlocked at the game start.
3) [Bug] Fixed bug where you would get an error notice if a conveyor belt went right past a resource importer.
4) [Bug] Fixed a bug relating to stockpiles not always accurately reporting when they were disconnected from the resource network.
5) [Bug] Fixed bug where save games from prior to build 1.4 would show missing slots for cars that were post-qa but not yet exported.
6) [Feature] Electric cars can now drive straight through the emissions check, because hahaha electric cars are awesome!
7) [Bug] Fixed bug where in certain circumstances custom lot rents for user-created or edited maps did not save correctly.
8) [GUI] Layout for the efficiency and marketplace dialogs changed to give much higher prominence to the important stats.
9) [Music] Added 2 new pieces of original music to the game!
10) [Balance] There is now a cap on the creation of new loans if you already have 3 taken out.
11) [Performance] Optimized processing for when there are a very large number of cars in the showroom.
12) [Feature] Smart Junctions can now be unlocked and used.
13) [Balance] The price pressure on features, wages and rent is now higher in the long run.
14) [Bug] Fixed bug where marketing campaigns were not correctly loaded from saved games.
Obviously smart junctions are the big 'new thing' but hopefully you also enjoy the new music, and like the UI changes and balance tweaks. Happy holidays everyone! and dont forget to vote on developer priorities with the new build.
Updated to build 1.4 (30th november)
Hi there! Here is the latest update. We have some minor known issues with this one listed after this changelist:
1) [GUI] Layout of the car design screen improved so that the horizontal tabs are now lines in a vertical column on the far left.
2) [Feature] The green ticks on slot upgrades can now be toggled to switch upgrades on and off temporarily.
3) [Bug] Fixed crash bug when selecting a car in the bottom pane of the showroom after it was sold.
4) [Bug] Fixed bug where minimalism achievement would not make progress if you had researched any vehicle upgrades.
5) [Balance] Wheel manufacture output doubled, production time shortened.
6) [Balance] Alloy wheel manufacture now requires aluminium, not steel.
7) [Balance] Value of alloy wheels feature increased, and imported wheels increased slightly in price.
8) [GUI] When a slot has been researched and is placeable, but no slot has been placed a flashing 'new' indicator is added to the slot picker.
9) [GFX] Fixed bug relating to invisible metalpress graphics on some slots at some angles.
10) [GUI] Changed power indicator so it has a battery symbol instead of numbers.
11) [Bug] Fixed the 'Too many Path Objects requested!' bug on very large layouts.
12) [Balance] Removed predictive stock control from multi-task slots that receive little or no benefit from it.
13) [Bug] Fixed display bug where R&D Tooltips would not list everything the selected item unlocks.
14) [Feature] New researchable QA specialization allows you to break down the QA process into 3 separate stages.
15) [Bug] Achievement descriptions now update correctly.
Known Issues:
1) Those 'new' flashing signs are annoying at the start of a new game. I'll fix that so they have to be unlocked by research for the next build.
2) The red warnings about a slot not being connected to resources *might* be broken. I need to verify and fix that
3) electric cars shouldn't need emissions tests :D I'll change that...
4) random crash bug. This is very rare, and seems related to sound engine code which we need to really concentrate on for the next build...
I know people are keen on having luxury car stuff and also conveyor logic, but I want to eliminate all those 'known issues' before even thinking about that.
Thanks for supporting the game and a reminder to potential buyers that there are no discounts for the game planned this year.
Cheers!
Updated to build 1.39 (20th November)
Hi all. I was going to wait a bit longer and get more stuff into this build, but I know people really wanted the 'not connected to resources' bug fixed and also I have got major performance improvements in this one, so I thought I'd get it out there. here are the changes:
[version 1.39]
1) [GUI] Apply model changes dialog (after research) now resumes the game on closing (if it was paused by the previous dialog).
2) [Balance] Some later researchable items have higher research counts now.
3) [Bug] Fixed potential crash bug with slot picker during tutorial.
4) [GUI] When overriding the current research with a new one, existing research gets pushed back into the research queue.
5) [Bug] Fixed anomaly, and eventual crash relating to deleting resource conveyors.
6) [GUI] Some new sounds in the GUI.
7) [Simulation] Doubled the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
8) [GUI] Percentage completion now shown in achievement matrix tooltips.
9) [SFX] Music now fades out when you zoom in on the factory.
10) [GUI] Achievement popup now shows a car in the unlocked color, if a new color has been unlocked.
11) [GUI] Always present features now white, and dont show availability on the car features list.
12) [Bug] Fixed a crash bug when loading a game, quitting to the main menu then loading another game.
13) [Bug] Finally fixed bug where orphaned 'red' vehicle icons could appear when zoomed out when laying certain junctions.
BTW the latest developer blog video showing some of this stuff is here:
https://youtu.be/R0jTGyGF78c
Hope you like the latest update.
Updated to version 1.38, lots of GUI improvements & other stuff
Hi again! we just set build 1.38 live. Here is the full changelist (quite a long one this time...)
1) [GUI] Research button tooltips now color to show design/main R&D and queued items by different colors.
2) [GUI] Marketing menu button now greyed out until you have placed your first marketing facility.
3) [GUI] Configure imports button is now a tab on the slot window instead of a separate confusing window!
4) [GUI] The sales matrix now greys out and adds a new tooltip for body styles you have not yet researched.
5) [GUI] The list of car options on the design window is now more visually responsive.
6) [GUI] New window created to make the task of assigning newly-researched techs to car models much simpler.
7) [GUI] Clicking on a disabled (due to tech) slot on the slot picker window now launches the research screen focused on the required tech.
8) [Simulation] Supply stockpiles now need import priorities researched to configure them.
9) [Graphics] All animations now correctly stop when game is paused.
10) [Feature] Cars now stop, and slots display a warning, if a feature is on a cars design but cannot be installed at a slot.
11) [Bug] Deleting an office no longer removes the pre-existing partitions.
12) [Bug] Fixed bug where under certain circumstances there would be 'orphaned' zoom-out icons for cars.
13) [GUI] Summary of achievement progress added to the main menu and loading screens.
14) [GUI] Some UI windows now expand to fit available & required room.
15) [GUI] Corrected wrong scrolling on the sales showroom window.
16) [Simulation] Deleting a slot now credits you with a full refund of the value of any stock in its stockpile.
17) [GUI] When a customers budget is high enough, the feedback on insufficient features now mentions a reasonable missing feature.
18) [Bug] Fixed crash bugs and hangs when returning to the game after sleep/lock/alt+tab.
19) [GUI] Hold down CTRL now (not shift) if you temporarily want to bypass the delete confirm GUI. shift selects the conveyors.
20) [Feature] New car feature, upgrade & research item: Side airbags!
I guess the big changes here are the import control moving to a tab, the all-new post-research features dialog, and the resolution-adapting windows so you get to use more of those bigger monitors.
The top priority according to player-votes seems to be conveyor logic control, which is basically being able to place a special conveyor junction with the option to control which car designs go through which exit, which will allow you to have a ';fast' lane for budget cars and a slower lane for the high-end ones that need a lot of features. This will take a little while to design and get right, but I think it will be cool. It involves a lot of tricky code to work into the existing stuff...
if you want to see a video showing off most of the new stuff, check out our latest video blog here:
https://youtu.be/L305UmnDzt4
Thanks for your support.
Updated to version 1.37 ELECTRIC & Hybrid Cars!!!
Here are the latest changes to the game:
[version 1.37]
1) [Feature] Clicking on any point on the options dialog sliders now jumps the slider to that point.
2) [Feature] Hybrid and electric powertrains are now researchable and usable in the game!
3) [Performance] Much better performance for routefinding.
4) [Balance] More fine tuning of the rate at which AI carries out research.
5) [Bug] Fit windows slot now uses the correct red welding robots.
6) [Graphics] The power generators and transformers now have a crackling spark animation playing.
7) [Bug] Fixed bug where a roof or other basic option would not be physically fitted to a car if an upgrade was not installed.
8) [GUI] Moved the slot-picker button and now color it to tie-in with the slot picker GUI, other minor tweaks.
Hope you like these changes. This was a major code change because of support for the new power-train types, plus the re-writing of a lot of resource-finding code which sped things up a lot more. The next few patches are likely to concentrate more on gameplay balancing and UI/tutorial style stuff to make the games usability and learning-curve a lot better.
I hope that adding hybrid & electric engine types introduce some longer-run goals for the people who have already clocked-up more than 20 hours of gameplay (there are a lot of you :D)
Thanks
Version 1.35 released. here are the changes.
Hi all! this is the full change-list for today's update:
1) [Bug] Fixed bug where a clearer better route would not be immediately prioritized over an inferior one when routing resources.
2) [GUI] Expanded the selection box for the +/- expand buttons on the slot picker.
3) [GUI] Copy from slot GUI for supply stockpile is larger and now sorted by name.
4) [SFX] Smoother volume changes for factory conveyor & resource belt sounds.
5) [GUI] Fixed tooltip Z-order bug on research queue in R&D screen.
6) [GUI] Research complete dialog now shows current item being researched (if any), and button text is more relevant.
7) [GUI] Added a small right-click confirm window with timer for deleting slots, which can be turned off under options.
8) [Gfx] Drying fans now look different, and some slots have white parts-boxes.
9) [Simulation] The effects of brand-awareness marketing campaigns now linger for a while after a campaign ends, and slowly decay.
10) [Balance] 20% reduction in the base number of customers that visit a showroom/hour without any marketing.
11) [Performance] Optimisation to the way some GUI elements are drawn.
12) [Bug] Fixed rare crash bug relating to resources that screwed up some save games.
13) [GFX] Welding robots are now red. other robots emit less sparks.
14) [GUI] vehicle details window reduced in size so it does not show invalid values relating to quality & brand.
Hopefully frame rates should go up a bit, and you might enjoy some of the animations and graphics ( I hope :D). I'm very open to feedback on the changes, especially the right click GUI change (dont forget you can disable this if you dont like it).
We also have steam trading cards currently in review, so they should get added any day now.
I honestly am still planning on starting on electric/hybrid cars soon. Then I think I need to take some time to improve a lot of the unintuitive aspects of the GUI...
