Expansion Pack 2 Progress Report
Many of you might have seen some new "hints" in the game - yes, Expansion Pack 2 is actively being worked on. There are quite a few new exciting features and changes and I am happy to share the progress.
[h2]Perth[/h2]
As our first map in the southern hemisphere, the building spinners rotate clockwise, which is different from the rest of the cities. Apart from aesthetic changes, Perth has a few new notable new mechanisms:
- Geothermal Vent and Geothermal Power Plant
- "Factory Mining" allows a factory to mine the deposit tile directly! This would be a great permit saver especially in the late game
- "Adjacent Explorer" gives resources explorers massive boosts when placed next to a mine, which brings them almost on par with a regular mine
More bonuses are being added to the map, you can check the latest in-game.
[h2]Random Island[/h2]
Do you know Random Island is a real place in Newfoundland, Canada? This map is for you RNG lovers. All the deposits and unique bonuses are randomly generated after you start the map - you don't even know it beforehand!
[h2]Kansas City, Water And Hydro Dam[/h2]
Yes, farming is coming to "Industry Idle", Kansas City is the new map that features a new "water" tile. But don't worry, you will be able to farm on other maps as well - Vapor Condenser allows you to extract water out of thin air!
There's a new building - Hydro Dam that has to be built on top of a water tile and it will flood adjacent empty tiles and turn them into water tiles! Of course, you need to have enough power to maintain the dam otherwise flooded tiles will turn back to empty tiles.
(See above, the highlighted water tiles are flooded by the dam)
You have to build a dam on natural water tiles - if a tile is a flooded tile made by the dam, building another dam on it won't flood more tiles.
Apart from building a hydro dam, you can also build Water Pump to extract from the water tile.
[h2]Farmland and Greenhouse[/h2]
Farmland has to be built on top of a water tile -it can be a flooded tile as well. It only works 50% of the time (when the sun is up) but it will work when you are offline as well, as long as you build it on a natural water tile! You can change what the farm produces at any time.
A Greenhouse needs power and water but it is reliable - works all the time. It can also produce when you are offline but you need capacitors. Wait, what is the capacitor thingy?
[h2]Capacitor And Offline Production[/h2]
A capacitor is power storage - One capacitor stores 100WxSec energy. The main purpose? It allows a factory to produce when you are offline! If a factory has enough capacitors in its storage, it will use that as the power source to continue production instead of using power from your grid.
Of course, since transportation doesn't run when you are offline, you need to stockpile a factory's input resources, in addition to capacitors in its storage. For your convenience, you can see a timer in the building panel that shows you how long the factory can run when you are offline.
In Central Bank where you normally claim your offline cash, you can also see the offline production as well (the actual production is credited to your balance without clicking the claim button)
[h2]Warehouse Push Mode[/h2]
"Offline production sounds cool!" - you think, but "how do I stockpile resources and capacitors?". Introducing warehouse push mode. Now warehouse not only can pull resources from any buildings, it can also push resources to any buildings as well.
(In the above screenshot, the warehouse is pulling capacitors and coal and feeding it to the coal gasification plant, which enables it to produce offline)
[h2]Manual Source and Multiple Sources[/h2]
The building's sourcing AI has been rewritten to allow more control! You can set a manual source for each input and the buildings will pull from there instead
You can also specify a fallback strategy - if the manual source doesn't have enough resources, you can ask the building to pull what it has currently, skip this cycle, or use the default AI router to find a new source instead.
There's also a "Multiple Sources" mode for a building. Currently, a building will pull from the closest building that has enough resources. If you turn on that option, a building will pull from the closest building, period. And if that building doesn't have enough, it will pull from the second closest building and so on - potentially a building can pull from multiple sources in one production cycle.
[h2]Playtesting is On![/h2]
I am happy to announce that playtesting for Expansion Pack 2 is now on (and free of charge to participate of course). If you are an experienced player and don't mind some adventure, join our Discord channel to apply for playtesting: https://discord.com/invite/xgNxpsM
Also, I want to take this opportunity to thank our players for making our in-game community the best I've ever seen! The game has quite a steep learning curve and the tutorial is lacking at the moment. Your answering question from new players is essential to growing our player base and I really appreciate all your effort.
[h2]Perth[/h2]
As our first map in the southern hemisphere, the building spinners rotate clockwise, which is different from the rest of the cities. Apart from aesthetic changes, Perth has a few new notable new mechanisms:
- Geothermal Vent and Geothermal Power Plant
- "Factory Mining" allows a factory to mine the deposit tile directly! This would be a great permit saver especially in the late game
- "Adjacent Explorer" gives resources explorers massive boosts when placed next to a mine, which brings them almost on par with a regular mine
More bonuses are being added to the map, you can check the latest in-game.
[h2]Random Island[/h2]
Do you know Random Island is a real place in Newfoundland, Canada? This map is for you RNG lovers. All the deposits and unique bonuses are randomly generated after you start the map - you don't even know it beforehand!
[h2]Kansas City, Water And Hydro Dam[/h2]
Yes, farming is coming to "Industry Idle", Kansas City is the new map that features a new "water" tile. But don't worry, you will be able to farm on other maps as well - Vapor Condenser allows you to extract water out of thin air!
There's a new building - Hydro Dam that has to be built on top of a water tile and it will flood adjacent empty tiles and turn them into water tiles! Of course, you need to have enough power to maintain the dam otherwise flooded tiles will turn back to empty tiles.
(See above, the highlighted water tiles are flooded by the dam)You have to build a dam on natural water tiles - if a tile is a flooded tile made by the dam, building another dam on it won't flood more tiles.
Apart from building a hydro dam, you can also build Water Pump to extract from the water tile.
[h2]Farmland and Greenhouse[/h2]
Farmland has to be built on top of a water tile -it can be a flooded tile as well. It only works 50% of the time (when the sun is up) but it will work when you are offline as well, as long as you build it on a natural water tile! You can change what the farm produces at any time.
A Greenhouse needs power and water but it is reliable - works all the time. It can also produce when you are offline but you need capacitors. Wait, what is the capacitor thingy?
[h2]Capacitor And Offline Production[/h2]
A capacitor is power storage - One capacitor stores 100WxSec energy. The main purpose? It allows a factory to produce when you are offline! If a factory has enough capacitors in its storage, it will use that as the power source to continue production instead of using power from your grid.
Of course, since transportation doesn't run when you are offline, you need to stockpile a factory's input resources, in addition to capacitors in its storage. For your convenience, you can see a timer in the building panel that shows you how long the factory can run when you are offline.
In Central Bank where you normally claim your offline cash, you can also see the offline production as well (the actual production is credited to your balance without clicking the claim button)
[h2]Warehouse Push Mode[/h2]
"Offline production sounds cool!" - you think, but "how do I stockpile resources and capacitors?". Introducing warehouse push mode. Now warehouse not only can pull resources from any buildings, it can also push resources to any buildings as well.
(In the above screenshot, the warehouse is pulling capacitors and coal and feeding it to the coal gasification plant, which enables it to produce offline)[h2]Manual Source and Multiple Sources[/h2]
The building's sourcing AI has been rewritten to allow more control! You can set a manual source for each input and the buildings will pull from there instead
You can also specify a fallback strategy - if the manual source doesn't have enough resources, you can ask the building to pull what it has currently, skip this cycle, or use the default AI router to find a new source instead.
There's also a "Multiple Sources" mode for a building. Currently, a building will pull from the closest building that has enough resources. If you turn on that option, a building will pull from the closest building, period. And if that building doesn't have enough, it will pull from the second closest building and so on - potentially a building can pull from multiple sources in one production cycle.
[h2]Playtesting is On![/h2]
I am happy to announce that playtesting for Expansion Pack 2 is now on (and free of charge to participate of course). If you are an experienced player and don't mind some adventure, join our Discord channel to apply for playtesting: https://discord.com/invite/xgNxpsM
Also, I want to take this opportunity to thank our players for making our in-game community the best I've ever seen! The game has quite a steep learning curve and the tutorial is lacking at the moment. Your answering question from new players is essential to growing our player base and I really appreciate all your effort.
