Containcorp News

[p]This patch was quick! The last one was only a few days ago. This patch is the result of the final effort before the lead developer (one who is writing this) goes on holiday. 2 week holiday to be exact. However I can't say I achieved everything I wanted with this patch. I really wanted to get the interactive demos in, but that will have to wait till after my holiday. Anyway onto the changes:[/p][h2]Cascading Experiments[/h2][p]Experiment modules have gotten some design changes. The main change is that experiments when failing will make the experiments around them fail as well. You can see this below:[/p][p][/p][p]Experiments get a yield bonus by being near other experiments but in turn have this cascade failure risk. However if you want to really increase your yields, look no further than the experiment rel[/p][h2]Experiment Relays[/h2][p]Experiment relays are objects you can place around experiment modules. What's its function? It connects all the experiments together such that activating one will activate them all at the same time. This is an easy way to run multiple experiments at once (instead of running them individually).[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Experiment Observation Tube[/h2][p]Introducing the new "Experiment Observation Tube". This handy block generates experiment logs when researchers use it to observe anomalies in their cell. Pretty simple.[/p][p][/p][p]You can see in in use below. Le fishe is getting observed by some scientists here.[/p][p][/p][p]Why did I add this no one asked? Well because I figured there should be a bridge between generating science from science modules and creating science from experiment logs taken from staged experiments. In between that, the experiment observation tube exists as a easy way to get experiment logs created, without setting up staged experiments, allowing you to figure out how labs work before getting to the big stuff. Makes sense right?[/p][p][/p][h2]Spooky Appliance Action at Distance[/h2][p]A major change has come to appliances. We decided that it was just too janky to have to place those small cables ad infinitum. So we got rid of them. Now appliances connect automatically to the nearest large cable. See below:[/p][p][/p][p]With this comes a realisation. Power just isn't very compelling in terms of logistical design! There aren't really any constraints or considerations players need to keep in mind, which I feel is an area of improvement going forward. We have some ideas for how to make electrical logistics more interesting, but we are open to any ideas you may have![/p][h2]Smarter Nuggets[/h2][p]One thing that was really silly was nuggets wandering into containment cells. This was probably the worst oversight in terms of design! It caused a lot of unnecessary headache (and deaths). But no more! Nuggets no longer wander inside containment cells, or many other high risk and important regions for that matter. So you can build your containment cells with the peace of mind that that one janitor isn't going to wander into that particular containment cell for the 100th time.[/p][p][/p][h2]Some Polish[/h2][p]We found it hard to communicate the idea that those lines by the road were power and water lines! Many players we found didn't realise this and were trying to place down a power generator (and mistakenly thinking the steam generator was the solution, oops). So it should be impossible to miss now.... hopefully.[/p][p][/p][p]And no longer do you have to stress about selecting objects in a stack. You can now cycle between stacked entities. How lovely.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Well that's it. Sad I didn't achieve the main goal of this patch, which was to improve onboarding. But it sort of turned into a polishing and design patch... like most patches do. Since I am gone for 2 weeks, expect radio silence until January. So what's next? Nothing, I suppose. But after the near year, more patches and new anomaly content. Things people actually want![/p][p][/p]

• [p]Fixed bug with arrows not disappearing when assigning anomalies[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug with objects larger than 5 by 5 not being built[/p]
• [p]Added new "Experiment Relay" object[/p]
• [p]Added result modals for assigning cells[/p]
• [p]Fixed lag from autosaving causing UI to refresh[/p]
• [p]Added latest changelog to main menu landing page[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug where nav notifications would "bunch up" when switching between UI interfaces [/p]
• [p]Staff no longer wander inside containment cell[/p]
• [p]Staff no longer wander in dangerous areas[/p]
• [p]Fixed issue with NPC mugshots[/p]
• [p]Background color of main menu now set to black[/p]
• [p]Fixed refresh state bug when Firing staff on view employed menu[/p]
• [p]Can no longer fire unhirable staff members [/p]
• [p]Fixed bug with right-click menu hidden behind inspector[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug where database menu was not accessible if no anomalies were on site[/p]

[p]This update was a long time coming, its been a few weeks since the last patch. A lot of things has contributed to the slow down. For one we have moved back to sprint based work, which means there isn't a convenient time to upload patches. But I hope to address this and just release a patch a set number of days to capture any work we have done. Maybe a weekly patch would suffice instead of daily. Anyway, I'll briefly outline the changes in this patch below and be on my merry way,[/p][h2]Tutorial Questions[/h2][p]The focus of this patch (and the next one to come) is to improve the onboarding experience of the game. We are doing this in multiple ways:[/p]

• [p]Improving the handbook[/p]
• [p]Adding visual interactive demos[/p]
• [p]Fixing unintuitive design[/p]
• [p]Adding "training tutorials" (as a last ditch effort)[/p]

[p]Below you can see what the questions in the handbook look like, excuse the poor cropping. Oops.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Aside from just questions, I've been working on an interactive demo system. This will be a visual aid to tutorials to better communicate ideas, without having to read a mountain of text. I think these two things hand in hand will go a long way in making the game easier to approach. I haven't gotten around to adding all the necessary interactive demos but I hope to get it done this week in time for the next patch! You can see how it looks below.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]The Many Faces of Boxxy[/h2][p]Boxxy has been getting some new artwork. It's been fun drawing variations of him. As I made more variants and started to place them around the game, the idea of Boxxy as a proper assistant came to mind. Much like Clippy from old Windows versions. [/p][p][/p][p]This idea of Boxxy as an assistant is a very interesting and useful tool for assisting with our onboarding issue. We can have Boxxy actually give hints to the player to help them with the game. One example could be when you are assigning an anomaly a cell, and maybe Boxxy could give a hint about whether the cell is inadequate.[/p][p][/p][p]Another idea is to have boxxy give suggestions in the construction menu. The types of suggestions might fall into the following categories:[/p]

• [p]Layout & pathing problems[/p]
• [p]Power & infrastructure problems[/p]
• [p]Containment design problems[/p]
• [p]Security problems[/p]
• [p]Safety problems[/p]
• [p]Staff efficiency problems[/p]
• [p]Resource & budget problems[/p]
• [p]Risk & hazard problems[/p]

[p]There may just be a system that can check for these problems, probably common problems, and Boxxy can give a go at helping you figure them out. I think there's a spectrum of it being a very simple mechanic to very complex. I think the most effective would be Boxxy highlighting the problem and pulling from a list of preselected suggestions to resolve the problem. For now he lives in the bottom corner of construction mode. Waiting for whenever we add this suggestion feature in. But we think its a golden opportunity to give players assistance whilst having it fit into the games fiction.[/p][p][/p][h2]New "Rebuild Facility" Scenario[/h2][p][/p][p]I have completely gutted and removed the campaign from the game. It just wasn't working. It would require too much time to polish to perfection, whilst just not really being effective at what it set out to do: teach the game. So its gone! We will just work on making the game intuitive from the get go instead of having an elaborate story mode. Maybe something like that is best reserved for 1.0. But definitely not now. But not all hope is lost! I have repurposed the map for the campaign into a new scenario: rebuilding the lost and forgotten Facility 13. The scenario isn't as exciting as it could be. I tried to add a group of invaders that had taken hold of the facility, but combat and unit selection is a bit too janky for it to work. So currently, its just a empty broken down facility which you can rebuild.[/p][p]I think for players who want to jump in without having to build a lot initially, it will be quite good! I will add another scenario in the near future where you are taking over a already functioning site, but with the goal to improve its operations, and I think that will give a good amount of scenarios to satisfy most player urges.[/p][p][/p][h2]My new Job: A spanner in the works[/h2][p]The last major update, and not necessarily a game one, is that I have a new job. Well, not really a new job. I was unemployed before. I have my first job. This might raise alarm bells because how can I possibly work on this game whilst also working a job? Well good question! I am fortunate in the fact that my job has literally 0 commute time. My office is a 5 minute walk away. So I still have many hours in my evenings to hack away at this game. I don't know how much my productivity will take a hit, but I haven't been very productive in the past 2 months and progress was still good. With the full time job, if I apply myself properly, I should actually be more productive than I am now. But I won't be able to reach my productivity peak (which frankly I don't want to reach anymore because burnout can be pretty bad).[/p][p][/p][p]I'll have to see how I handle my job and working on the game. The early access release is still going to be in mid 2026 any how![/p][p][/p][p]The next patch will fix some of the issues that have come to light recently. We had a youtuber play the game as it gave us some valuable insight into some design issues. You can check out the videos here:[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]They are really funny![/p][p]Aside from fixes and polishing. I will be introducing the full suite of interactive demo tutorials and improving the suggestions of tutorials so they more closely align with player activity. There'll also be a slew of game design changes in the next patch, but I am too lazy to type them out. After the next patch, I hope to start adding more anomaly content and getting those anomalies finished. But I am going on a 2 week long holiday over Christmas, so those changes will come in the new year. My job also starts in the new year too! Hopefully I find a decent balance. I am feeling optimistic about it![/p][p][/p]

• [p]Removed "Hauling Missing" Issue[/p]
• [p]Added questions to handbook tutorials[/p]
• [p]Added interactive demo tutorial system[/p]
• [p]Renamed "Campaign" to "Training"[/p]
• [p]Rewrote tutorials for accuracy[/p]
• [p]Added "Building", "Profiteering" handbook tutorial[/p]
• [p]Clicking on border of modal closes modal[/p]
• [p]Plus and minus keys can be used for zoom control[/p]
• [p]Removed campaign mission 1[/p]
• [p]Added Ignore All button to issues[/p]
• [p]Added issue count to issues[/p]
• [p]Nuggets no longer try to shoot through ceilings[/p]
• [p]Added new rebuild facility scenario[/p]
• [p]Fixed issue with lag on construct mode when time-warping, and hovering over objects[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug where UI reload would make scrollbar reset to system default[/p]

[p]This update comes after a few days of silence. Definitely a departure from my normal schedule. However, I am hoping to get the pace back. On that note, there are some background changes with the development team that will improve the pace of updates, which I will get into below.[/p][p][/p][p]I finally got the new science modules into the game! [/p][p][/p][p]Theres currently only two in the game but I hope to add the rest in, in the next few patches. Not much else to say about this, But if you want to see how they work, check out the next section.[/p][p][/p][h2]Improving Player Onboarding[/h2][p]Improving player onboarding has become an acute focus in recent days as we have been communicating with investors and the like. But generally, the onboarding process for the game is fundamentally flawed. Well, effectively non-existent really. The campaign failed to succeed as an onboarding and was way too complicated for its own good. Sure, a story is good, but this game doesn't need a fully featured campaign with some crazy story just to teach the mechanics. At least not now. Probably never.[/p][p][/p][p]In light of terrible onboarding, I made a tutorial video covering how the game works, in a nutshell. Take a look if you are confused![/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]Maybe I should like this video in the game itself! Might drive some traffic to the YouTube page. Who knows. Things are pretty slow regarding public attention, but hopefully that changes... [/p][h2]Campaign Restructuring[/h2][p]To fix the onboarding, the campaign is going to be restructured. In fact, it's not even going to be called a campaign anymore. It will be renamed to "training". And will be reframed as a training manual for new facility directors. "Missions" will be renamed to "courses", and completing each course will yield you badges that are displayed on the main menu. Each course will be structured in a very clear and guided way using a TELL, SHOW, DO, APPLY approach to teaching.[/p][p]Below is an example of how one of the courses could look.[/p][h3]Containment tutorial Example[/h3][p]Cutscene[/p][p]The facility manager tells you that you will be doing onsite training and building a cell for an anomaly. The manager tells you what anomalies are and why they are important to the corporation [/p][p]Part 1[/p]

1. [p]Tell - Boxxy tells you to first look up the anomaly and see what it needs. [/p]
2. [p]Show - game shows you how to do that[/p]
3. [p]Do - You do it, with the handbook present for further questions, and the game waits[/p]

[p]Part 2[/p]

1. [p]Tell - Boxxy tells you how to build, and what rooms and regions are[/p]
2. [p]Show - game shows you how to open the construction menu and select objects, and build stuff. Also shows you how to place regions and what rooms are[/p]
3. [p]Do - You build a room with handbook assistance[/p]

[p]Part 3[/p]

1. [p]Tell - Boxxy tells you to bring the anomaly to the site and how to do.[/p]
2. [p]Show - game shows you how to do it[/p]
3. [p]Do - You do it...[/p]

[p]Part 4[/p]

1. [p]Tell - Boxxy tells you to assign an anomaly to a containment cell and tells you the various ways to do that, and what ATD's are, etc[/p]
2. [p]Show - game shows this...[/p]
3. [p]Do - you do it...[/p]

[p]Part 5 [/p]

1. [p]Tell - Boxxy tells you about ATD releasing in the containment cell and waiting for janitors to haul[/p]
2. [p]Show - game shows you how to release atd and what happens when that happens[/p]
3. [p]Do - you do it....[/p]

[p]Cutscene[/p][p]The facility manager applauds you and tells you another anomaly is inbound, unprecedented, and the player has to build a containment cell for it quickly.[/p][p]Apply[/p][p]You are given a checklist of things to do and have to build a containment cell to contain the anomaly[/p][p]Cutscene[/p][p]The facility manager applauds you and gives some interesting lore about the world, etc.[/p][h3]What is "Showing" actually going to do[/h3][p]When parts of a course show you how to do something, what I mean is that the game will create a pop-up window with a slideshow of images. You would be able to flick through these images, one by one, and they would guide you through the process of doing whatever the action is, with further prompting. This is inspired, quite serendipitously, through a website that teaches you how to use Jira, which is a developer organisational tool.[/p][p][/p][p]https://www.storylane.io/tutorials/how-to-create-labels-in-jira[/p][p][/p][p]You can check it out here. Storylane is a general website for making interactive tutorials, and it's quite effective. Perfectly suiting our needs for this game.[/p][p][/p][h2]Fixing Bugs & Polishing[/h2][p]Our focus as the release of the game gets closer is polishing the game up to a standard that is "good enough" for early access. Our biggest pain points are the user interface and optimisation in general. But we are definitely trending towards improvements! [/p][p][/p][p]We have started organising development as a team properly again, using something called Jira. I mentioned earlier in regards to the Storylane thing. But if you are interested (it really isn't that interesting), it's pretty much just a long list of tasks in a bucket that you can define and work on, and you split up those periods of emptying the bucket into "sprints". Sprints are typically 2 weeks, and so are ours.[/p][p]It should speed up development as every member of our team will know what to do and when to do it, and ideally, we can maximise our work throughput with minimal communication overhead.[/p][p][/p][p]I am feeling really lazy with this one, so I'll keep it short:[/p][p][/p][p]Bye.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Added science modules[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug with CTRL scroll tile brush selection offset not resetting properly[/p]
• [p]Floors automatically snap to wall columns [/p]
• [p]Fixed bug where actions on object extension logic would not show up in Inspector[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug where closing the inspector would not remove tile range selections[/p]

[p][/p]

[h2]Introducing the New Research Screen![/h2][p]The new research screen is here! I still need to add research trees for 2 anomalies that are currently in the game, but now that I've finished this new UI, I can move on to focusing on core content once more, and also fixing all those terrible bugs. The game also needs a bit more optimisation work, which will take a lot of brainpower and draining evenings to crack. But I turned this game from a 5 fps lag machine to a 10 fps lag machine, and then to a 20fps lag machine. And if I learnt anything about the power of exponentials in school, it's one thing: most of the change comes right at the end when you least expect it. So hopefully that notion carries over to optimising the game further.[/p][p][/p][p]Anyway, here are some screenshots of what the new UI looks like. [/p][p][/p][h3]Tree Selection[/h3][p]Below is the first page you see when you press the research tab. Here, you select the anomaly you want to open the research tree of. The stats that get displayed here at a glance are how much "refinement" progress you have made; that is, how complete the research tree is. The small bar shows the progress on the current research project you are researching within the tree, just for convenience. I will have to make adjustments as more anomalies get added to the game; who knows how messy it will get.[/p][p][/p][h3]Research Tree[/h3][p]Here are some screenshots of the research trees themselves. Pretty close to the mockups, I'd say, other than no visible scrollbar at the bottom. I am too stupid to figure out how to make that work, so I just silently omitted it. But, in a stroke of genius, I realised the page was missing a back button! So I went and added that in.[/p][p][/p][p]That's all I have to say about the UI. It honestly took a lot quicker than I thought to implement. Definitely a lot more usable than the previous one. I will miss the unique presentation of the old one greatly. The 3D architect paper aesthetic was really cool. I think I will reuse it for the world map, maybe? Hmmm.[/p][p][/p][p]So what's next? Actually quite a big update, at least game design-wise. [/p][h2]Lowering the Bar for Experiments [/h2][p]A big problem I noticed with the game, and its something I noticed only after doing my own playthrough the game (I should really spend time to do that more often), is that every other pillar of the game (Containment & Profit) where able to be satisfactorily engaged with within an hour of playing the game, but the remaining pillar (Research), took hours of buidling, hiring, contract completion and overall setup to actually engage with. And that is a problem, not because it takes time but also because it places more burden of knowledge onto the player. The player needs to know how experiments work, how intern intake works, and how science and research work, all at once, to understand just how to complete their first research. This makes no sense! So what to do? How do we fix this problem?[/p][h2]Introducing Science Modules: Experiments Made Small[/h2][p]It's quite simple, really. We need to do science. But science is too big. So what do we do? We shrink the science. Experiments, in the early game, will be condensed into small "Science Experiment Modules", which can be built inside containment cells as permanent fixtures. These modules can run experiments independently with a simple press of a button, wherein an intern or researcher will walk up to and activate the experiment, and the experiment will run for X amount of hours. After the experiment is done, it will spit out research points. Easy! [/p][p]However, nothing easy comes for free. There is a chance that the experiment can fail. Much like proper big-scale experiments. If they fail, they may irritate the anomaly and cause an incident. Or the experiment module itself may malfunction and explode, or leak fluid or do something entirely unknown. And the biggest catch, every time you activate an experiment, there is a short startup phase of a few ticks where this risk is doubled. And if things go sour, you'll very likely lose the nugget you sent to activate it. Oops.[/p][p]Though each time you activate and complete and experiment with a science module, it will improve a stat called its "rating". This stat will make it less prone to failures, but make its failures more catastrophic when they do occur. But every anomaly will have research nodes that can reduce experiment failures. And each module will be able to be upgraded every 10 rating levels to either: Reduce failure chance, or reduce failure magnitude, or speed up experiment time. The highest rating will unlock an upgrade for remote activation, allowing you to complete the manual activation process. [/p][p]So there's a small progression I can add to individual modules. There are more interesting mechanics I can envision for this, like experiment modules being able to interact and complement each other. Maybe certain modules in combination with others can increase the science output of all of them.[/p][p]The more I think about it, the more I see it might even just be able to completely replace the existing experiment system! But I think for now keeping both in the game is fine, I am apprehensive to making big design removals like that without seeing how it plays.[/p][p]These were my ideas for the experiment modules to add for now.[/p]

• [p]Gray Goo Containment Unit,[/p]
• [p]Barostatic Thermometer,[/p]
• [p]Atmospheric Barometer,[/p]
• [p]Correlative Gravity Detector,[/p]
• [p]AE Rift Energy Anomalometer[/p]

[p]Those who have played Kerbal Space Program might see the inspiration.[/p][p][/p][p]Each module will have slightly different stats, probably a linear increase in cost, experiment length, risk and science rewards. And each one will probably take up more "room space", making them harder to include in containment cells. And I may even add some "crowding" mechanic where science modules too close to each other get a negative debuff, and the more science points a module creates the bigger this crowding radius is. Maybe I'll call it "Instrument Interference".[/p][p]I think there's a lot of interesting stuff with such a simple system. Thanks, Kerbal Space Program![/p][p]Hopefully, that gives a good idea of where the game is headed. The basics of the experiment system will make their way into the next patch, and hopefully a few bug patches and optimisations too. Depends on how much time adding the science modules takes. There are also some optimisation issues (possibly only in build?) for certain hardware, which I need to address. [/p][p]I have been slowed down by various life stuff, so the development pace will be quite malaise for a few weeks. But I'll try my best to get patches out every 1 or 2 days. But if there are a few days where I am MIA, then don't be surprised :/[/p][p]Anyway, ending on a light note. Please try and break the research page! [/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p]

• [p]Overhauled Research screen[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug where builders would fall when climbing up ladders[/p]
• [p]All anomaly files are viewable from the database screen[/p]

[p][/p][hr][/hr]