Software Inc. cover
Software Inc. screenshot
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Genre: Simulator, Strategy, Indie

Software Inc.

Alpha 11 is officially out!

To continue playing alpha 10, you should switch to the "Legacy" branch in steam, click here for example.

What’s new?


Graphical upgrade


During the development of alpha 11, Lasse, who made the current character model, joined Coredumping and increased the company size to 2 people. He’s already begun improving the art style and creating new art for the game. Here are some of his massive upgrades over the previous programmer art:



Hardware inc.


I finally caved to the most demanded feature request and added hardware manufacturing to Software Inc.

To be honest, I just decided to add conveyor belts to improve the product printing aspect of the game and hardware was a simple shoe-in at that point. Hardware adds an entirely new layer to console and phone development, and greatly improves the potential of mods.

Unlock new furniture rewards


Software inc. has gotten fairly big in terms of game mechanics over the last couple of…*checks date*… Many years! So, to avoid people only seeing a small part of what the game has to offer, I’ve added a new reward system to guide you through the game’s mechanics. The rewards are not gating any major features, can easily be unlocked and persist through all save games. I’ll definitely be adding more as I come up with ideas for rewards…


New tools to create your dream HQ


Style panel


Picking the colors and materials of your software mansion has become a lot easier with the style panel. I’m hoping this change will result in a lot less default grey rooms in your screenshots!


Rounded and smooth walls


You can now stretch walls into circular shapes and smooth over any hard edges.


Temperature, security and acoustics


Building your office in Software Inc. brings forth new challenges for you to plan around and overcome.

The new temperature regulation system means you can build rooftop ACs and distribute cool air throughout your office through inconspicuous floor grills and/or plop down electric radiators in every single room until your electric bill explodes.

Just make sure you don’t watch it all go up in flames due to poor fire safety and lax security systems. Or just get it insured, maybe, I don’t know.

You may also notice a slight echo when placing down the first table in your new office. Big empty halls will now be a horrible place for your employees’ ear holes, but luckily, it’s easy to combat with some well-foamed walls or well-furnished spaces.


Overhauled software development system



The development system has been completely revamped to promote creativeness, make research more interesting and make interdependencies clearer. This change will also have a huge impact on the "update"-update, which you can read more about below.

This change adds the notion of tech levels that are researched over the years to unlock better technology for existing features. Target demographics are now simulated in the form of submarkets, which will impact which features you should pick for your software. Frameworks have been added, which allow you to speed up development by reusing old code or licensing it from competitors. Finally, special features have been added to the game, which contain small scripts to alter the simulation in unexpected ways, fully moddable!

New employee education system



Your employees' educational specializations are now split up into 3 stars, which limit which features they can work on, and their base skill in each role now fully controls their effectiveness and how much quality they can add to a product. You can easily send multiple employees out for education and you'll finally be able to queue up several courses at a time.

Your development staff aren't the only ones with fancy degrees anymore, as leaders now have their own specializations, which control which managerial tasks they can perform, and the Support role has been split into Support, Marketing and Legal, each with their own specialization level.

Publishers


You can now get help with funding, marketing and distribution through the use of publishers, if you're willing to part with a percentage of the profits.

The future of Software Inc.


Immediate future


After keeping up with support for this release, I'll start working on the "Update"-update. This update will include the ability to release updates and extra content for already released software and, in extension, the ability to sell your software as a subscription service. My plan is to push this update out as part of Alpha 11. Which is to say it shouldn't break save compatibility, but I can't guarantee anything at this point.

I expect this update will take a while, as it touches a lot of core systems, which was written anywhere between now and 5 years ago, and it will include a lot of new UI work/rework. So there'll likely be the usual major-alpha-testing-release 3-9 months radio silence.

Towards Beta 1


When the "Update"-update is out officially, the game will move into beta, which means no more large mechanical overhauls and more focus on polish and balancing. The first mechanics I want to tackle in beta are research, subsidiaries, project management and digital distribution. The research and digital distribution mechanics still have some work to go before being completely done and the subsidiary and project management mechanics seem like the usual suspects, when it comes to gameplay issues I see raised in the community.

Patch notes for Alpha 11.7.50 (Testing branch)


Component printers and assemblers will now automatically be grouped into assembly lines, which should result in less pile ups and I'm hoping it'll make them easier to manage.

Changes

  • Component printers and assemblers are now automatically grouped into assembly lines, which can be assigned to active printing tasks
  • Component printers in an assembly line are now stalled periodically when assigned to tasks that don't need them, avoiding extra component pile ups from other tasks that do
  • Updated Manufacturing tutorial
  • Missing recycler message is now only shown for assemblers assembling the final product
  • Added ability to quickly change room to pillar and vice versa
  • Added percent input field when selling stocks and changed percentage calculation when adding more shares, so it is equal to the amount of company share lost
  • Burglars no longer sneak while being arrested
  • Made furniture culling more aggressive when rendering shadows from the sun to improve shadow rendering performance
  • Added more variety to contract company names
  • Added new task filters to filter deals and contracts


Fixes

  • Fixed security getting stuck in sitting animation if going from loitering to standing guard
  • Fixed stock window breaking when player is worth less than $0
  • Fixed cases of staff being stuck turning around due to floating point precision error
  • Fixed employees sometimes being teleported to bus on load if bus was driving away when saving
  • Fixed bug where employees would skip elevator queuing entirely
  • Game will now display the correct error for snapping furniture when the room placement is invalid
  • Fixed rent data overlay not displaying unrentable rooms correctly
  • Fixed first loaded save after launching game generating nav meshes extremely slowly due to the low default minimum thread count in the .NET threadpool
  • Fixed game freezing for a while on big saves due to the aforementioned nav mesh generation issue
  • Doors and rooms will no longer have the inaccessible/blocked marker if they are in the process of generating nav meshes
  • Fixed cooks being stuck trying to get food to a tray with no food in hand
  • Fixed game freezing when placing furniture in rapid succession in rooms with lots of stuff, due to main thread waiting for navmesh generation to finish
  • Fixed room meshes not being batched correctly for shadowing, decreasing shadow rendering performance for complex buildings
  • Fixed rare cases where code that scales furniture to avoid wall clipping could end up scaling something, that was placed near a wall without clipping it, by a high factor


Patch notes for Alpha 11.7.52


Changes

  • Blueprints can now be grouped together
  • Added search + enter to build in blueprint window


Fixes

  • Fixed pillar tool breaking in basement
  • Fixed manufacturing panels not updating printer and assembler counts if they were hidden when new machines were placed
  • Fixed employees complaining about night shifts on the way home from work, if the walk home takes them into night shift hours
  • Fixed product detail window updating at the end of the day, right before all losses were calculated, thereby showing an incorrect loss value until re-opened


Patch notes for Alpha 11.7.53


Changes

  • SSR is no longer scaled by SSAA, which would cause a large performance drop when both were enabled


Fixes

  • Fixed RECOMPILE_DLL_MOD command throwing back the same cached compile result from launch
  • Fixed being able to place acoustic panels on top of eachother

Patch notes for Alpha 11.7.47 (Testing branch)


Changes

  • Replaced grass system with something simpler and more performant


Fixes

  • Fixed being able to place in-floor objects over stairs and elevators
  • Fixed selection detection for corner carpets
  • Made thread safety more robust for pathfinding and navmesh generation, to avoid furniture being marked as unreachable because the navigation mesh was still being generated
  • Fixed NaN progress in alpha stage, if employee with exactly 0% art or code skill was working both art and code
  • Fixed cases of data in list columns not being visible immediately


Alpha 11.7.48


Changes

  • Optimized grass shader
  • Most graphics options now default to lowest setting on intel graphics processors
  • Fixed some furniture textures causing darker furniture after being copied


Fixes

  • Fixed issues with staff randomly not being able to reach certain areas
  • Fixed grass being rendered through floors if mask is refreshed during early hours, due to fog


Alpha 11.7.49


Fixes

  • Fixed grass index out of bounds error
  • Build grid is now rendered through grass always
  • Fixed environment objects, such as lakes and houses, not being accounted for in navigation mesh when loading map, allowing people and animals to walk across them
  • Fixed pathing along actual paths not always being generated causing unpredictable pathing near paths, like walking too close to walls and going in and out of doors along the path
  • Fixed elevators randomly becoming unreachable since waiting area was no longer scaled when elevator is squished against walls

Patch notes for Alpha 11.7.43 (Testing branch)


Changes

  • "Upcoming releases" window has been upgraded to a full calendar view of all upcoming releases and deadlines
  • Added ability to only apply interior or exterior style to rooms using style panel
  • Rounded and Inverse corner carpets can now be placed on the same tile
  • Improved parking space and dead end avoidance for AI cars
  • Garage port can no longer be built on floors that don't have road access
  • Textures loaded from furniture mods are now compressed to preserve VRAM, but take a little longer to load
  • Optimized server wire rendering
  • Increased how far off pallet pickup and drop points can be from a pallet and still work
  • Optimized gamma handling


Fixes

  • Fixed AI releases being too centered on December
  • Made "Rooms inside rooms" error even less likely to occur when just free-building up against other rooms
  • Fixed furniture at edges of room sometimes getting lost when splitting room and undoing
  • Fixed furniture moving to mouse position when rotating while holding alt
  • Fixed style panel not working for furniture in Custom Map mode
  • Fixed people stepping out into the middle of the road if they have nowhere to go and the nearest exit is directly in front of the road
  • Improved loading order when moving company to empty plot, to avoid ID clashing
  • Fixed not being able to place multiple copied wall furniture in some cases
  • Fixed cases of server wires not lining up when server was placed up against a wall
  • Fixed reloading modded furniture not cleaning up old data from VRAM
  • Fixed progress panel on marketing work being incorrect when marketing options are not selected in order


Alpha 11.7.44


Fixes

  • Fixed pallet pickup points no longer working
  • Fixed saves having environment re-generated on load causing doubling of trees, water, plots, etc.
  • Fixed UI breaking when scrolling horizontally using pad or wheel in lists that are exactly as tall as there are items
  • Fixed calendar software filters not working when modded software categories contain no descriptions


Alpha 11.7.45


Changes

  • Made it so you can't select features that depend on a chosen tool, which does not support their specialization (Not relevant for vanilla software)
  • Made burglars more sneaky


Fixes

  • The game will now correctly identify if an area outside is enclosed by rooms and not treat doors from that area as accessible from the outside
  • Fixed burglars not fleeing until they are completely done burglarizing a single large room with no security cameras
  • Fixed burglars walking back and fourth between most valuable items, instead of prioritizing nearest valuable items
  • Fixed server wire vertical offset
  • Fixed employees complaining about benefits getting worse when they are improved, because got older and their priorities changed
  • Added daily recount of product storage to fix any sync issues


Alpha 11.7.46


Changes

  • Added ability to quickly shift grid by 1/2
  • Added a bunch of tooltips to design document detail panel, including new "Wasted interest" stat
  • Added auto balance button to submarket targeting in design document window
  • Added stat to product detail window showing how much OS sales were boosted by supported products (This has always been simulated)


Fixes

  • Fixed pillars in basement
  • Fixed line rendering for path building, wall rounding and roof editing not working since last patch
  • Fixed putting furniture in inventory not retaining atlas index, e.g. for painting and carpets

Patch notes for Alpha 11.7.42

Changes

  • Added option to use solid ground instead of void as world background
  • Adjusted fog distance based on camera zoom level


Fixes

  • Added fail safe to avoid components suddenly not printing
  • Fixed being able to place furniture inside each other up against walls using scaled grids
  • Fixed deleting wrong style in style panel if selected object had unsaved style
  • Fixed couriers giving up completely if trying to fetch boxes from a blocked garage port
  • Fixed top floor being unreachable in Hardware Inc map

Patch notes for Alpha 11.7.40 (Testing branch)

Changes

  • Added ability to place and rotate furniture, rooms, doors and windows with no grid by holding Alt
  • Added red outline to intersecting furniture when placing new furniture


Fixes

  • Fixed some list content not being visible at first until interacting with it
  • Fixed furniture silently becoming unreachable if moved in a specific order under certain conditions
  • Fixed cost not displaying correctly when dragging conveyor belts or just moving furniture
  • Fixed server dropdowns not updating instantly when server configuration changes
  • Fixed specialization panels not updating instantly when new specializations unlock
  • Fixed game sometimes breaking when deleting a room outside of build mode in the same instant an employee decides to use a furniture in it


Alpha 11.7.41 (2021-02-12)


Fixes

  • Fixed corner and inverse corner carpet boundaries being reversed, making impossible to place properly in room corners
  • Partly fixed bug where rooms could be marked as inaccessible if the room leading up it is divided into multiple areas using furniture and each area has multiple separate entrances
  • Fixed not being able to freely place furniture from inventory if you can't afford full price
  • Fixed corner fence posts missing from outdoor areas in some cases
  • Made "Rooms inside rooms" error less likely to occur when just free-building up against other rooms
  • Fixed game suggesting room auto-completion when it would create invalid rooms with very low angles


Patch notes for Alpha 11.7.36 (Testing branch)


Changes

  • Made it easier to create and save styles on the fly using the style panel
  • Ability to filter selection directly in style panel
  • Added RGB PC in 2015 and moved Holo PC to 2030
  • You can now enable code mods from the Mod window in the main menu
  • Improved position of computers and computer peripherals


Fixes

  • Fixed build mode shortcuts being obscured by style panel
  • Fixed specialization 2 and 3 project management settings being reset when leader quits or changes to leader with lower specializations
  • Fixed framework option being reset when starting new project management task
  • You can no longer drag a column to be completely invisible, never to be seen again
  • Fixed replacing furniture not resetting color
  • Fixed bug where very bright lights could end up becoming black holes instead
  • Added self correcting code to save system ID assignment


Graphics

  • New subway model
  • New helicopter model
  • New Holo Computer
  • New RGB Computer
  • New Mini fridge
  • New Fridge


Alpha 11.7.37 and Alpha 11.7.38 fixes save corruption bug



Alpha 11.7.39


Fixes

  • Fixed game breaking with modded furniture that inherits from furniture with look points, with none defined
  • Fixed shortcuts not sticking around when switching between furniture to build
  • Fixed style panel showing black furniture after replacement
  • Further save game stability fixes (No fix for corrupted saves from Alpha 11.7.36, sorry)
  • Fixed issue where non rounded number window sizes and positions would cause Unity to recalculate layouts every frame resulting in low FPS
  • Optimized performance of lists by disabling elements that are not visible horizontally

Patch notes for Alpha 11.7.33 (Testing branch)


Changes

  • Added a style panel to quickly pick colors and texture designs for rooms, roofs, paths and furniture, before and after placing them
  • The fire report now has a button to select offending rooms
  • Made fire inspector more lenient towards fire alarms in small rooms if there are alarms in adjacent rooms
  • Updated furniture material (Atlas and Masked) and furniture variable (AltStyles, CustomHeight, etc.) sections on modding wiki


Fixes

  • Walls are now accounted for when deciding which room to apply reverb to in build mode
  • Fixed placement of custom wall height furniture slowly breaking the higher up you are
  • Fixed unlocking the 800 square meter reward in custom map mode
  • Main menu no longer loads entire patch note list at once, to avoid lag
  • Fixed modded lamp furniture not having light range set correctly since shadow update
  • Fixed cases of furniture not being fixed when broken while state is above zero percent


Alpha 11.7.34 Fixes style panel breaking because Unity puts "(Clone)" in instantiated objects' names

Alpha 11.7.35


Fixes

  • Fixed modded furniture not inheriting from existing furniture and not defining alternative colors breaking style panel
  • Fixed style panel breaking when trying to load building textures in a save file from mods that haven't been loaded

Alpha 11.7 out on testing branch

Click here to see how to join the testing branch.

Please note that the hardware mechanic will not be available in older Alpha 11 saves, since they require changes to the software types, which are embedded in the save file. However, they will still load.

Major changes



This update adds conveyor belts, forcing you to plan out your logistics in more detail than just placing down some printers and some pallets. With conveyor belts comes a lot more options for how boxes travel from printer to courier. They can be routed through walls, floors and even out of a building directly to a parking lot.


Hardware manufacturing seems like a natural offshoot from conveyor belts. Hardware manufacturing currently affects how you have to approach console and phone development. You also unlock new hardware contracts with 2 business stars, and you'll receive hardware manufacturing deals whenever a competitor develops a console or phone operating system.


Employees will sadly no longer partake in majestic flights through empty elevator shafts. Elevators now require queueing and load balancing. 2 new larger elevators have been added and each of them has a display showing current floor, load and direction.

Roadmap changes


The final release of Alpha 11 has been pushed back a couple of times now. It mainly came down to the fact that the convention mechanic hasn't panned out the way I intended, when I brainstormed it. I've decided to make Alpha 11.7 the final update before I release it officially. The convention mechanic has been shelved for now in favor of the new hardware mechanic. The "updates and expansions" update is still planned and I'm still planning on making it a part of Alpha 11.

Patch notes


Alpha 11.7.32 (2021-01-30)


Fixes

  • Fixed employees getting stuck eating after loading a save from before alpha 11.7.31, if they were already eating at a table
  • Fixed game breaking due to employee missing food while in eating state when loading old save game
  • Fixed not being able to rotate a group of furniture if center furniture can't rotate on its own
  • Fixed parking spot prioritization for security staff
  • Fixed acoustic foam sticking through roof
  • Fixed custom height furniture not being placed exactly where mouse is


Alpha 11.7.31 (2021-01-30)


Changes

  • Added eating animation and a "fork"
  • Added ability for employees to eat in couches, by their PC or just standing around
  • Vending machines and mini fridges now output food objects that employees have to eat before their hunger is satiated
  • Improved look of conveyor belts at 90 degree angles
  • Employees will now pick subway over bus, if it's closer


Fixes

  • Fixed modded furniture sometimes combusting on load
  • Fixed already broken furniture sometimes causing fire on load
  • Fixed noise overlay sometimes not updating in real-time


Alpha 11.7.30 (2021-01-27)


Changes

  • Limited which UI sound effects are affected by reverb in a room
  • Added new reward


Fixes

  • Fixed chance of employee getting stuck when trying to flee outside while already outside
  • Fixed game showing error dialog when a code mod fails to compile
  • Fixed issues with injection of error handling code into code mods when methods contain yield and control statements


Alpha 11.7.29 (2021-01-26)


Changes

  • Added proper code mod error handling
  • Added ability to place some wall hung furniture at custom heights
  • Added room acoustics with reverb sound effect, which affects noise propagation, and effectiveness of meetings and social interactions
  • Added new reward for releasing software


Fixes

  • Helicopter now subtracts money instead of adding
  • Fixed headphones loading in at the wrong position if worn by an employee
  • Fixed having to pay for a subsidiary's patents and frameworks


Alpha 11.7.28 (2021-01-21)


Changes

  • Game now caches shadows from in-world lights, making it possible to play with "More shadows" on non-super computers, but moving objects no longer cast shadows inside rooms
  • Upgraded the manufacturing panel with scrolling conveyor belt graphic and printer/assembly color indications
  • Increased price of helicopters to $6500 per pickup
  • Quadrupled market recognition gain
  • Component printers can now be limited to specific print jobs
  • Project info window now lists active publishing tasks
  • Added warning when manufacturing process doesn't end with recycler
  • Added 12 month cooldown on the fan loss warning
  • Replaced Phone and Console tech lag with hard unlocks, to avoid making it seem like hardware research didn't work


Fixes

  • Fixed console history not actually being saved
  • Fixed possible save corruption from moving company with furniture in inventory
  • Fixed context menu going behind UI in Linux with UI anti-aliasing off
  • Fixed toilet censor rendering no matter which floor is being viewed


Alpha 11.7.27 (2021-01-12)


Changes

  • Added helipad for transporting boxes quickly
  • Added helipad to Hardware Inc starting map
  • Added subway to city maps (Requires moving company to spawn one in old saves)
  • Added matted windows for toilet privacy
  • Ability to select objects from the floor above if they span 2 floors
  • Doubled market recognition gain
  • Added HDR dithering to remove banding
  • Project management will now fast track projects whenever a phase finishes before time, to avoid long beta phases
  • Changed how project management prototypes are selected to allow for removing prototypes
  • Optimization work on employee position updates and furniture LODing


Fixes

  • Product storage count was wrong after undoing destroying pallets
  • Fixed post-tasks sticking around in project management panel after selling IP
  • Fixed HR not taking role assignment into account when picking specializations for education and new hires
  • Fixed wall generation breaking when windows or doors are overlapping
  • Cooks will wait for a bit after their shift has begun to start complaining about the availability of stoves
  • Employees will no longer walk across the map for toilets, coffee, food, loitering, etc.


Alpha 11.7.26 (2020-12-30)


Changes

  • Added panel to view current project management handled support and marketing tasks

Fixes

  • Fixed employees not being able to reach computers in some cases


Alpha 11.7.25 (2020-12-28)


Changes

  • Updated pallet drop point tutorial animation to show a more optimal setup
  • Added automation log to keep track of HR and project management
  • Random optimizations


Fixes

  • Replacing furniture will now use inventory
  • Fixed cases of furniture overlapping after replacement
  • Game now correctly considers inventory when calculating price of placing furniture
  • Fixed not getting inventory back, and windows and doors sometimes being doubled when undoing placing blueprint
  • Fixed floating point precision error in room binary space partitioning causing interaction points to be offset incorrectly sometimes


Alpha 11.7.24 (2020-12-22)


Fixes

  • Fixed modded furniture not being reachable when placed up against wall in certain cases
  • Fixed cases of furniture not being reachable due to floating point precision errors in the nav mesh
  • Fixed error when burglar was caught by police without any stolen goods
  • Fixed every active print job acting as a multiplier for each product printer's cost and degradation
  • Fixed employees' feet clipping through sidewalk
  • Fixed being able to place medium printer through ceiling mounted conveyor belts


Alpha 11.7.23 (2020-12-21)


Changes

  • Added furniture inventory
  • Police will return 75% of stolen furniture to player's inventory when arresting burglar
  • Contents insurance now covers half of building damage
  • Secondary roles are now included in consideration of whether a team has adequate specializations for a job
  • Merry happy!


Fixes

  • Fixed top of walls rendering through doors and windows when walls are lowered


Alpha 11.7.22 (2020-12-18) Fixes modded furniture not being reachable

Alpha 11.7.21 (2020-12-18)


Changes

  • Rooms can now be selected by clicking on their walls
  • Greatly lowered fans needed for higher market recognition


Fixes

  • Fixed total shares for a company overflowing uint32 by rebalancing shares when they get below $25
  • Fixed assemblers breaking too fast
  • Fixed cases of hardware components not being counted correctly, causing print jobs to not finish
  • Added FIX_COMPONENT_COUNT console command to fix previous saves with stalled hardware print jobs (Shouldn't be necessary for jobs started after this version)
  • Fixed security staff ignoring room assignment when looking for desks
  • The game will now try to move interaction points around a tiny bit to avoid some cases of unreachable furniture
  • Fixed warning message position when UI is scaled
  • Fixed entire map being counted as an unreachable room with an error message at the map origin


Alpha 11.7.20 (2020-12-10)


Changes

  • HR specialization filter now lists all specializations, to avoid having to remove them as new ones become available


Fixes

  • Fixed employees not being able to pathfind outside, causing them to get stuck in elevated parking garages
  • Fixed another bug in team assignment algorithm causing it to never terminate


Alpha 11.7.19 (2020-12-08)


Changes

  • Added yearly fire inspections with fines and insurance validation
  • Lowered fans needed for more market recognition
  • Added flammability data overlay
  • Improved detection of inaccessible rooms based on obstacles and elevated error message


Fixes

  • Fixed bug in elevator load balancing


Alpha 11.7.18 (2020-12-05)


Changes

  • Increased fan gain chance per sale
  • Capped how long a room can be on fire for and increase rate of spread to reduce overall time
  • Sprinklers now protect furniture below them from being destroyed during a fire, but will break electronics that are on
  • Improved dot, indexing and negation parsing in SIPL


Fixes

  • Fixed game breaking on extremely underpowered graphics cards, instead of just being slow
  • Fixed bug in team assignment algorithm causing it to never terminate and create stuttering during thread locks
  • Various other fixes


Alpha 11.7.17 (2020-11-28) Fixes game breaking when running some feature scripts after loading game

Alpha 11.7.16 (2020-11-28)


Changes

  • Added shortcut to filter employees by next class column, to only show employees with education available
  • Added type checking to SIPL to avoid loading mods with obvious script errors, instead of them failing mid game
  • Added support for indexing into non-variables in SIPL


Fixes

  • Fixed team assignment algorithm not correctly allowing teams in rooms that are available due to room pass through


Alpha 11.7.15 (2020-11-27)


Changes

  • Changed how fans are summed in UI so it no longer looks stuck
  • Improved market recognition dropdown
  • Increased traffic density based on environment type and time of day
  • Added talent pool, plot, utilities and ISP cost modifiers to environment type
  • Enabling "pass through" on a room now allows any traffic and is disabled by default
  • Removed green team labels for when game inferred team assignment from surrounding rooms
  • Reduced debuff from incompatible co-workers a tiny bit


Fixes

  • Fixed some instances of game incorrectly complaining about rooms in or around other rooms while building


Alpha 11.7.14 (2020-11-23) Fixes not being able to load saves with printers or assemblers

Alpha 11.7.13 (2020-11-23)


Changes

  • Improved chart highlighting


Fixes

  • Auto-complete room has been mapped to a button, to avoid clash with pillar creation
  • Fixed inconsequential bugs from room team assignment algorithm
  • Undoing destroying printers or assemblers didn't refresh their output sticker


Alpha 11.7.12 (2020-11-22)


Changes

  • Overhauled market recognition to be more consistent
  • Added back simulation of fan loss over time
  • Made it easier to gain market recognition intially, depending on profitability of software
  • Put keyboard shortcuts on screen when building
  • The game will now infer actual room assigment and warn player if there are issues, leading to less lag from pathfinding
  • Added meeting status to team window
  • Added ability to create pillars by holding Ctrl. Basically rooms without interiors
  • Added option to change medium speed multiplier
  • Added Teams data overlay to visualize which teams are allowed where
  • Added LOAD_FROM_LOCALIZOR console command to download unfinished translations from Localizor.com
  • Improved grass and cloud shaders
  • The "More shadows" graphics option is now disabled by default in all quality settings


Alpha 11.7.11 (2020-11-12)


Changes

  • Component assemblers will now stop accepting input when they are outputting finished assemblies, to clear out after a conveyor back up
  • Server electricity use now depends on actual usage
  • Adjusted server wattage to balance out watt per MB between servers
  • Added ability to bind key to move furniture, default M
  • Improved table group prioritization for meetings
  • Improved data overlay


Fixes

  • Fixed employee data overlays not working when zoomed out
  • Fixed game breaking when undoing replacing furniture with furniture that had multiple layers of snapped furniture
  • Fixed bottom most tasks sometimes not updating if task panel was full
  • Fixed roof dissapearing when room had stairs and wasn't fully covered by room above


Alpha 11.7.10 (2020-11-04)


Changes

  • Improved data overlay
  • Disabled publisher printing deals for hardware products


Fixes

  • Fixed deadlock that had chance to crash game when a print job finished
  • Fixed conveyor splitters not updating routing when changing assembler output
  • Fixed couriers not prioritizing garage ports in rooms player actually owns or has rented
  • Fixed invisible room floors when using garage ports and opaque windows


Alpha 11.7.9 (2020-10-29)


Changes

  • Conveyor Splitters will now auto-route components to the right assemblers
  • Added conveyor belt flow visualization when placing conveyor objects
  • Updated Unity version


Fixes

  • Fixed game crashing when loading a game with texture resolution set to low using DirectX
  • Fixed floating point bug in sub-market comparison that could tank market recognition, among other issues
  • Fixed hardware component icons not showing up on boxes after last patch
  • Fixed issue where product boxes would get stuck at garage port because they were empty
  • Various other fixes


Alpha 11.7.8 (2020-10-25)


Changes

  • Added randomization to staff parking prioritization so they don't always park at the same building
  • Made couriers prefer garage ports over pallets when choosing parking spots
  • Made manufacturing limits work like product printing limits, by not taking current stock into account
  • Added extra check to assembler to make sure old manufacturing jobs didn't get locked up by new jobs
  • Made assemblers clear out any lingering components from cancelled jobs


Fixes

  • Fixed bug where manufacturing process could get stuck because components were assembled in an order where they wouldn't fit together
  • Fixed bug where headphones worn by founder would stick around after quitting game and starting a new one
  • Fixed freezing bug from potential deadlock in component machine code when turning on and off


Alpha 11.7.7 (2020-10-24)


Changes

  • Sped up conveyor belts by 25%, and improved assembler logic and effectiveness calculation
  • Increased fridge capacity and added warning when all are empty
  • Made it so conveyor belts don't have to line up exactly to connect


Fixes

  • Possible fix for some DirectX + GeForce related crashes
  • Fixed not being able to do alpha reviews for hardware products
  • Fixed marketing and price warnings being disabled at some point in the past


Alpha 11.7.6 (2020-10-18)


Changes

  • Manufacturing contracts now pay out on delivery rather than at end of day
  • Halved penalty on manufacturing contracts
  • Improved component assembler logic for a tiny speed boost
  • Capped complaint demands to 25% of current salary


Fixes

  • Fixed employees complaining about having to pee while going to meetings
  • Put software category tech lag in tooltips, so Console and Phone won't have wrong unlock year for 3D and Network in UI
  • Various other fixes


Alpha 11.7.5 (2020-10-16)


Changes

  • Added effectiveness stat to printers and assemblers, which is reflected in the manufacturing overlay


Fixes

  • Fixed not being able to change screen resolution on some computers
  • Fixed game breaking when starting press release without any selected teams with employees
  • Fixed reward count being stuck with unclaimed rewards and permanent unlocks enabled


Alpha 11.7.4 (2020-10-15)


Changes

  • Made specialization panel in new game screen scale with screen width
  • Added progress bars to press releases and warning for missing specialization levels
  • Added manufacturing contract warning
  • You can now cancel manufacturing contracts with no penalties if you haven't started printing yet
  • Removed screen refresh rate options, as they aren't used in windowed fullscreen mode
  • The penalty from raising the price of a product now slowly decays over a year


Fixes

  • Fixed couriers not prioritizing garage ports correctly
  • Fixed box elevator not being valid in basement
  • Fixed employees getting stuck in other teams' bathrooms and complaining about a lack of seating after the sink was added
  • Fixed bugged human color mapping, causing all-blue staff members
  • Fixed publishing deal not resetting when changing software type or category
  • Fixed Employees tutorial
  • Fixed employees getting stuck in parking structures after panicking over burglars
  • Various other fixes


Alpha 11.7.3 (2020-10-12)


Fixed boxes and printers not being simulated when skipping time

Alpha 11.7.2 (2020-10-12)


Fixes

  • Fixed contracts not refreshing on pre-alpha 11.7 saves
  • Fixed game breaking when trying to pick component outputs on pre-alpha 11.7 saves
  • Fixed game breaking due to AI changes in couriers being incompatble with pre-alpha 11.7 saves
  • Fixed instances of boxes getting stuck


Alpha 11.7.1 (2020-10-12)


Changes

  • Added hardware toggle for software categories, making them physical distribution only and altering their sales simulation
  • Added hardware manufacturing, allowing players to print products from components using a series of printers and assemblers
  • Added hardware contracts and made contract generation algorithm pick more varied contracts
  • Boxes now have to be transported using conveyor belts
  • Elevators are now simulated with limited capacity and load balancing
  • Added security desk to micro manage security staff locations
  • Employees' work timer no longer starts until they have walked into the office, and they offset their arrival time by how long their commute takes
  • Default room style has changed to drywall and concrete floors to encourage player customization
  • Overhauled look of UI
  • Heavily increased payout from bigger contracts
  • Updated default rent buildings and added a new building for hardware manufacturing
  • Added TOGGLE_SPEC_CAP console command


Fixes

  • Fixed bug causing software with categories overriden in mods to always be priced at 0, making the AI bankrupt constantly
  • Fixed not being able to override name generator when modding existing software with no categories
  • Fixed bug where bus could get stuck waiting all day for employee that didn't plan on using it
  • Fixed bug in path calculation causing employees to lose several meters every day when playing at max speed
  • Fixed snapped furniture not always getting corrected to avoid wall clipping, causing PCs to not line up with chairs
  • Fixed being able to pick software features unsupported by any OS, as long as OSs had already been selected
  • Fixed subsidiary price adding player stock worth twice, making it almost twice as expensive as intended
  • Various other fixes


Graphics

  • Old Computer
  • 90s Computer
  • Laptop
  • Modern Computer
  • Elevators
  • Product printers

Alpha 11.6 out in testing

Localizor


Software Inc. is now available to translate on Localizor.com. So if you want to help me localize the game, join up over there and start earning points.

What's new



This update adds a task system, that rewards you with new furniture, when you complete certain tasks. The reward system is meant to guide you through the game's features, so they are not hard to get and the new furniture isn't gating any important mechanics.

I've also fixed the incessant complaint spam that would happen when your employees were being annoying and demanding the most basic of office facilities.

Patch notes


Alpha 11.6.11 (2020-07-29)


Changes

  • Adjusted lower payout from work deals a tiny bit
  • Added specialization requirements to design and development deal detail panel
  • Added tooltip hints for complaints where solution isn't obvious
  • AC Unit can now be built towards outdoor areas
  • You can now input salary directly for a single employee in wage negotiation window


Fixes

  • Severance pay and team debuff is no longer applied if employee quit by themselves
  • Failing a hosting deal no longer affects market recognition for player in product category
  • Fixed longstanding bug causing extreme fan loss when server fails to handle load
  • Fixed employees creating paths in grass and snow when walking on elevated roads


Alpha 11.6.10 fixes a small bug in the specialization system (2020-07-17)

Alpha 11.6.9 (2020-07-17)


Changes

  • 2m and 3m round tables have been deprecated in favor of corner tables, they will still load but can't be placed
  • Computers now auto snap towards chairs when placing them and will allow non angle aligned rotation if it aligns with a chair
  • Improved colorblindness support for toggles, task system, button counters and education dots


Fixes

  • Fixed cleaners sometimes staying past their shift
  • Fixed camera dragging sometimes sticking
  • Fixed tasks with monetary goals not having correct currency
  • Fixed not getting error message when trying to place roof objects in rooms with slanted roofs
  • Fixed not being able to add new specializations in mods if they weren't supported by an OS
  • Fixed INSTA_DEVELOP_DESIGN command not working for modded software


Graphics

  • Table
  • Corner Table
  • Glass Table


Alpha 11.6.8 Fixes product printers not working after loading game (2020-07-09)

Alpha 11.6.7 (2020-07-09)


Changes

  • Made medium difficulty easier, renamed old Medium to Hard and Hard to Realistic


Fixes

  • Fixed server and distribution tutorials being active while game is loading
  • Fixed being able to place solar panels on roads
  • Fixed not being able to start marketing product after publisher goes bankrupt


Graphics

  • Fire alarm
  • Sprinkler
  • Inbox
  • Tower Server
  • Server Rack
  • Big Server Rack
  • Bench
  • Reception Desk
  • Bookshelf
  • Cheap Chair
  • Executive Chair
  • Office Chair
  • Waiting Chairs
  • Couch
  • Industrial Ventilation
  • Vending machine
  • Pallet


Alpha 11.6.6 (2020-06-24)


Changes

  • The education button counter will no longer count education in roles employees aren't assigned to
  • Button counters now go to 99 and made complaint button flash


Fixes

  • Fixed employee salaries not being scaled by days per month when calculating development costs
  • Fixed button counters not being hidden in build mode
  • Fixed headphones being too small to fit heads


Alpha 11.6.5 (2020-06-20)


Changes

  • Improved education dot position
  • Added actual shipping capacity in distribution window as it is now affected by warehouse logistics
  • Added a bunch of new EventHandlers for code modding, check the modding wiki for more information


Fixes

  • Made it so bugs in data mod scripts don't break the game completely
  • Various other fixes


Alpha 11.6.4 Fixes (2020-06-16)



  • Fixed various issues with new furniture
  • Various other fixes


Alpha 11.6.3 Fixes (2020-06-15)



  • Fixed out of order programmer and design education dots in employee window
  • Various other fixes


Alpha 11.6.2 Fixes (2020-06-14)



  • Fixed couriers getting stuck with more days per month than 1
  • Various other fixes


Alpha 11.6.1 (2020-06-14)


Changes

  • Added new task system with furniture rewards
  • Added a bunch of new furniture and new minor mechanics to go along with them
  • Couriers now carry actual rendered boxes to the van, 9 boxes at a time (represented as 3), instead of all at once
  • All complaints are now listed in a single window, no longer requiring immediate action and the mechanic has been rebalanced
  • Room boost calculation have been overhauled and added to room info panel
  • RoleBuffs have been renamed to UseEffects for furniture modding, however it is automatically converted for existing mods
  • Chairs now have an ergonomic score (Chair.MiscPotential) that affects sick leave, effectiveness and mood
  • DLL mods now have to be placed in their own folder, rather than straight in the DLLMods folder
  • Employees ready for education now have a green dot in the employee overview
  • Company financial overview no longer counts hidden transactions in the final sum, e.g. intercompany transactions
  • Updated UI for transferring IP, to allow for transferring multiple IPs to a subsidiary at once


Fixes

  • Fixed cases of HR not picking specializations correctly when educating and hiring
  • Fixed bug causing modded furniture not loading in normal and extra maps correctly
  • Moving into buildings created after Alpha 11.6 that are from an earlier year than the current game, will no longer break furniture as if they've been sitting around for all those years
  • Fixed all employee complaints being counted towards chance of lawsuit, despite not being listed in the final reasons
  • Burglars now instantly despawn if they get stuck somehow, to avoid locking the player out
  • Added safeguard if AI gets stuck in a "Dummy" node loop
  • Employees will no longer go for empty vending machines
  • Courier van color was never initialized


Graphics

  • Phone
  • Drawing Tablet
  • Calculator
  • CCTV