Learning Factory News

Here's a handful of kilobytes that make Learning Factory better:

• Bug fixes
  
• Lunar New Year in-game event is now effective
  

Hey factory workers,

This update is pretty standard stuff: polishing the game, improving the visuals, adding some features requested by you, the players! Business as usual, for a change.

However, we might have a Learning Factory-related surprise for you later this week! Stay tuned, stay alerted! Until then...

[h3]v0.26.169 Released![/h3]

• New upgrade: Priority Merger is an upgrade for the X-Switcher, and it only lets items from one of the two inputs to pass - unless it's empty, in which case items from another input are allowed (suggested by Lord Neodym)
  
• Re-rendered Rope Maker
  
• Re-rendered Dredge
  
• Animated Furnace
  
  
  
  
• Updated engine version (comes with slight performance improvement)
  
• Added contextual error messages for promotional buildings
  
• Added contextual error messages for Roadside Boutiques
  
• Upgrade for more spacey Storages now provides even more space
  
• Decreased Dormitory upgrade costs in the early stages of the game
  
• Grandma cats now appear a bit later in the game
  
• Hitting screenshot buttons no longer skips slides in the comics (suggested by S'Kleer)
  
• New cats are now registered at the Factory as soon as they arrive, and not when they reach the Stores (suggested by S'Kleer)
  
• Research projects slightly rebalanced
  
• Trading deals slightly rebalanced
  
• Added ChatGPT-made translation + community translation for the Estonian language
  
• Updated fonts for the Arabic, Hebrew and Thai languages
  
• Added alternate, ChatGPT-made translations for both Chinese languages
  
• UI/UX fixes
  
• Bug fixes (kudos to S'Kleer)
  

A friendly reminder: you can always chat with us directly on our Discord server. We're using Discord for work, so you'll find many of us there most of the time, don't be a stranger!

An even friendlier reminder: don't forget about our collection of items in Steam Points Shop! Sergei the artist makes wonderful factory art to be observed from above, but his works' magic really shows at close-up perspective:



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1150090/Learning_Factory

Don't forget to follow Learning Factory on Steam to get the news about new updates as soon as they're out there



[h2]How to Get More Involved[/h2]

Going to Early Access is but the first step to glory (and eternal cat happiness). Wanna be part of what happens next? Head to this blog post and learn how to help make the game even more awesome!

[h2]Share Your Gameplay and Become Part of KOTOVOD History[/h2]
Learning Factory needs your help! Record a 10 or more minutes of you playing the game, share a video using any way you see fit, write your name into Learning Factory credits and get a promo cat! Make history here

Hey factory builders!

[h2]Steam Workshop (Beta) Now Supported[/h2]
Learning Factory is a game developed in close contact with the community, so support for mods was in our plans from the very beginning. An option to create a custom scenario and/or share a generated map with your fellow factory builder was in the game for some time now.



Today we're finally bringing all those features under one comfortable umbrella of Steam Workshop, so all the players could have access to them. But what's also cool is that you can share your work with just a couple of clicks!

At the moment, the following kinds of mods are available:

• Sharing of Ruins: pre-made parts of map that might appear upon generation of a map can be shared from Map editor
  
• Sharing your Factory is available at any time in the game, just press 'Esc' and find the respective button
  
• Sharing a Blueprint: select a Blueprint in the Blueprint Library ('B' by default), click 'Details' and share your Blueprint to the Workshop from there
  
• Sharing a map seed: available from map generating screen in the Freeplay mode
  

You can read the detailed instructions in our official guide

We have added a small selection of mods of our own (you can run around that goofy Factory that we use for making screenshots, among other things), and the rest is up to you!

This is, of course, not the Learning Factory's Workshop final form (hence the 'Beta' subheading). At this point, we've focused on adding stuff that can be easily crafted and uploaded from the game, but we've got more plans!

And if you're looking for some hardcore modding action, like changing game assets, adding/modifying item recipes and making new types of cats - come to our Discord, let's discuss it like serious people!

Note: Workshop is not supported for Mac users at this time, but you can download a mod and paste it to your Local mods folder (located in Learning Factory folder, by your saved game files).



[h2]v0.26.168 Released![/h2]

• New upgrade for Storage units: underground Storage
  
• Regular Storage redesigned as well, now with visible stacking points
  
• Re-rendered Apple Collector
  
• Re-rendered Box Office
  
• Animated Dredge
  
• Animated Pillow Maker
  
• 2 new articles in the Wiki, explaining the mechanics of terraforming and tending to Martian plants
  
• Catopia Milestones bonuses re-balanced
  
• Reaching Milestones related to Catopia Ark now also slightly improves Factory stats
  
• If a Legendary cat has a 5+ Loyalty level, it will request High Quality (++) items (suggested by Zydox79)
  
• Sorting by item categories is now available in the Backpack
  
• Middle mouse button now serves as an alternative input for the 'Q' button (suggested by Brewski-Casegod)
  
• Improved Map/Scenario editor
  
• New interface for Docks menu, feedback form, Zeppelin menu, Territory purchase menu, the inventory, and the 'Esc' menu windows
  
• The variety of sounds increased greatly
  
• In Freeplay mode, you can now play Story content on a random map (and this is the default option now)
  
• Translations updated: German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish (LatAm), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil)
  
• Added ChatGPT-made translations for all Steam languages, community localizations are still available
  
• Bug fixes (kudos to bloom16night, Lord Neodym)
  

Please don't forget to add Learning Factory to your wishlist, it's very important for us, and brings the 1.0 release closer:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1150090/Learning_Factory



[h2]Re: Factory[/h2]

In this section of patch notes, we answer the question from community that were submitted via the in-game feedback form and/or seemed especially interesting to us, You can always contact us directly in the comments or join our Discord server

Q: "When clicking on a catopia shuttle part, it would be nice if the inventory opened instead of closed (the part where you have to drop off 100 vitamins and so on)" -Zydox79 A: The dedicated interface for providing items to the Ark modules is part of our plan already, it will make its' way to the game later on.

Q: "I wish I could use lava bridge for water as well. This would increase comfort while building underground as I can use the lava bridge for both obstacles.
Maybe a renaming of ""bridge"" to ""wood bridge"" and ""lava bridge"" to ""stone bridge"" will keep the immersion.
That a wooden bridge does not fit for crossing lava might be somthing which cats with their much better brain find obvious and could be used for some of the joys of the game :)" -Lord Neodym A: Terraforming could definitely used some improvements in the code, but that's not one of our immediate tasks for now... As for the naming, you have the point, but there's certain logics in the way those items are named as they are now. The name must explain the purpose of the item at the first time a player stumbles upon it, so adding another word to the name would make it harder to comprehend.
Subsequently, the word 'Lava' in the name points where to place a bridge; before we had it there, many players would try placing them on the water instead. So, to state it again, your suggestion does make sense, but could ruin UX for some of the players.

Q: "It would be nice if ML training automatically stops when ""trained into stability"". I received a message ""ML model trained into stability"" and another, that it should be 20% more effective as the current one. But upon reaching the shop with the models, the new one (Linear Regression: 22) has a far worse error rate of 3.xx in compare to the previous used one of 1.18 (Linear Regression: 21)." -Lord Neodym A: If a model would automatically stop after trained into stability, it could lead to a situation when the data changes, and the model quality will start degrading over time, as it had stopped learning. You can put any model on hold manually though!

Q: "I wish building configuration would be copied into blueprints as well. If I copy a building via Q key and have at least one in my inventory, all settings get copied to ne new building. If I need to place a blueprint and craft it afterwards via quick build (J) the building configuration is at default. Now I need a second step to copy the configuration manually."-Lord Neodym A: We'll definitely add this one to the game, thanks!

Q: "For the ""Balanced Merger"" it is stated, that it will evenly merge two lines. This is only true as long as both lines are packed. As soon as at one of the lines items are missing, it will pull fully from the remaining line. This can be ssen at my Cat Foot production. As long as enough fish was available, everything went well. But as fish supply is too low, all factories are now backed with enough Catnip Algae. But fish will never get resupplied due to the inbalance happen before. It would be great if the Balanced Merger requires even inputs waiting if one line is empty. Thx4Reading and this awesome game :)" -Lord Neodym A: We might have to specify Merger's description, as it was intended for situations different from what you described. We'll think of introducing other kind(s) of Merger, but we do not have plans for introducing another building for a task as narrow as that, unfortunately.


A friendly reminder: you can always chat with us directly on our Discord server. We're using Discord for work, so you'll find many of us there most of the time, don't be a stranger!

An even friendlier reminder: don't forget about our collection of items in Steam Points Shop! Sergei the artist makes wonderful factory art to be observed from above, but his works' magic really shows at close-up perspective:




[h2]How to Get More Involved[/h2]

Going to Early Access is but the first step to glory (and eternal cat happiness). Wanna be part of what happens next? Head to this blog post and learn how to help make the game even more awesome!

[h2]Share Your Gameplay and Become Part of KOTOVOD History[/h2]
Learning Factory needs your help! Record a 10 or more minutes of you playing the game, share a video using any way you see fit, write your name into Learning Factory credits and get a promo cat! Make history here

We'd like to say we've been chilling and relaxing during the Holidays, and we were, really! But somehow, we have managed to add a whole new mode for Learning Factory in the meantime… Yeah, apparently that's how we roll. But first, let's take a moment and review the most important transformations the game was going through in that turbulent year of 2023…

Let's start with a quick recap from the past couple of years… It almost seems like we're playing a different game every year, huh?







Originally, our plans were to release Learning Factory into 1.0 version last year. Well, it turned out that the game grew way bigger than we were contemplating back in 2021… But we just couldn't leave our players hanging, especially those brave factory builders with 100+ hours of Learning Factory on their accounts.

That's why we made a huge leap in mid-December, releasing a major update adding the end game part to Learning Factory. That's right, the secret to Catopia is officially out there for you to research your way to. But that's not the end of the game: after you discover a secret of making all cats (and, subsequently, other living beings) in the Universe happy, you'll be honored with a quest to plan and launch an interstellar mission, spreading the catisfaction all over the outer space!





Naturally, you would need to equip your ‘meowthership’ (a.k.a. Catopia Ark) with the finest items from your Factory, because outer space cats deserve all the best! The end game mechanics are far from being final, we still have some ideas for that part, so stay tuned for more news!

We hope that from now on thigs you do on the Factory make sense, but do they though? Come to our Dicord server to let us know, it's important for us to make the Learning Factory experience wholesome for you!

The next hero of today's diary wears no cape. You may even not notice it for some time, until you find yourself in its modern and comforting embrace! We're talking about the game's interface, if course: it's going through a massive renovation right now, which is part of our epic pre-release quest of polishing the game:



More changes to this aspect of the game are happening at this very moment, and will be featured in the next updates! And any feedback from you is always welcome, too.

This last year was full of changes that do not sound very impressive in text, but do make a big difference, especially when they all come together! To save you some time, let's review the most prominent improvements around Learning Factory in 2023:

• All items (included, but not limited to Quality and High Quality items) were re-rendered and now feature their own unique looks
  
• Most buildings are/were going through the process of re-rendering, too, which implies higher quality animations, shadows for each and every building, and higher quality graphics in general
  
• The Underground level of the game finally become a full-fledged part of your Factory, where mmysterious Neon Cotton and Underground Algae grow, metals are mined and smelted, and whatnot! Since you'll probably get to spend way more time over there, the Undergound graphics was re-done, too:
  
• Blueprints are finally there, helping you plan your Factory campus in many exciting ways
  
• 20+ new buildings made its way into the game, including Chillout Space, Teleports and Schrodinger's Chamber for cloning cats
  
• Cat Zeppelins: yet another revolution in Factory logistics - they tranfer cats, and also shaped like cats - as seen in ‘My Neigbor Totoro’, but maybe a bit less weird
  
• Alternate campaign map, with more challenging watery landscape
  
• The great crafting rebalancing occured: in short, it is stimulating you to produce higher quality items in the later parts of the game
  

Of course, there were more changes, big and small: you can read about them (along with other stories) in our blog.

[h3]What's Next?[/h3]
If you're asking yourself “Are they done there, finally?”, - the answer is strictly negative: the next update will be out in a couple of days, and it's going to be yet another major update! With some new animations, undergound Storages, many QoL improvements, and something very special. A little teaser: it starts with an “S-”, and ends with “-team Workshop support”.



Seriously though, we're running out of points to check on Learning Factory roadmap, and that means a lot of boring, steady work, preparing the game to the long-awaited 1.0 release.

And of course, none of this would be possible without you, the players! Thank you dearly for being with us, sharing your insights, opinions and suggestions: we take our players’ advice seriously here at Luden.io, and many features in the game are suggested by our community!

Come join us: this year promises to be especially interesting for Learning Factory! See you in the next edition of these Diaries.

There really isn't much to say... This year was epic for Learning Factory, but the next will be even better!

We'll talk about this later, but now it's time to celebrate:

[h3]Learning Factory is 35% off, and all DLCs are 13% off until January 04![/h3]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1150090/Learning_Factory/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1545760/Learning_Factory_AI_Generated_Soundtrack/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1545770/Learning_Factory_Art_Pack/

Get yourself a copy, buys some for your friends, and, by all means, have fun! Happy Holidays