GearCity News

Greetings Everyone,


I have released version 2.0.0.4. This update fixes a few minor bugs and exploits. You can expect the next patch once the community reports a work-week worth of issues.

In the meantime, I will return to working on the Game Mechanics section of the manual. Work on the manual will last about a week. Then I will switch back to working on the Feature Bounty System items starting in the middle of this month.

That brings me to the next bit of news. As you probably all have heard, Russia invaded Ukraine, and now the country is engulfed in war. Unfortunately, Serhiy, our contract artist who has done most of the quality artwork on the game, including the backdrops, logos, and 30-40% of the vehicles, lives in Ukraine. He is safe at this time, but nothing is predictable with the uncertainties of war. What does that mean with GearCity? One of the most important elements of the Feature Bounty System was adding new vehicle types and replacing the existing vehicle bodies with a more advanced body designer. In addition to many other artwork-related items, such as visible component designs, more logos, etc.

The plan was to have each fundraising milestone require funding for an artwork bounty before the remaining funds were used on programming bounties. (I require capital to pay for artwork, whereas my time is the only programming expense.) However, because of the instability in Ukraine, we are uncertain if he'll be able to produce the artwork. So I will likely go ahead with the Feature Bounty System without any art-related bounties until the situation improves in Ukraine. When things have stabilized over there, we'll have a couple of art-only milestones to catch the artwork up with the software side if we get too far ahead.

I planned on soft-launching the Feature Bounty System on our chat networks at the end of last month. However, because of the invasion, I pushed the soft launch to the end of this month. A broader launch will be middle of next month, keep an eye out on the forums and what have you, as I won't be making a Steam announcement when it launches. Let's all hope and pray for a speedy and favorable conclusion to the war in Ukraine. Not only for a return to normalcy but for all the lives involved.

Speaking of the chat networks, we have added a Discord if that is your thing: https://discord.gg/xyxDvWPX8X

And it is bridged to our IRC channels: irc.esper.net #vent and #gearcity.

So feel free to come and join us!



Change Log:
-Bugfix: Assisted contract designer component selection breaks when running out of options.
-Gameplay: Improved assisted contract designer to cycle through component options. The tradeoff is that it will test fewer slider positions, but the assistant should be more successful now.
-Gameplay: Assisted Engine Designer will now use maximum length and width of a contract if you load the assisted engine designer via the Assisted Contract Designer. This means you can make adjustments to your sliders and it assistant will keep the dimensions within the contract.
-Gameplay: AI manufacturer and non-manufacturing race teams are now more likely to join first year of racing events and single year series. Non-manufacturing racing contracts now start an extra year in advance before a season starts.
-Gameplay: AI manufacturers are now more likely to join in racing in the early years and replace models a little more frequently.
-GUI: Mega Menu End Production racing/contract warning now only displays when the selected model is used in racing or a contract. This is to make the feature work the same as RnD End Production.
-Bugfix: End Production does not remove model from contract bid, resulting in blue selections in contract window.
-GUI: Zoom in and zoom out button for 64-bit reports windows. The game will store the zoom level for the reports until you close the game. Note, a few reports will not use the stored zoom level, but you can still manually zoom in and out.
-Bugfix: Estimated Design Requirement and Manufacturing Requirement ranges can break with certain numbers
-Bugfix: Limit Define Benefits employee fees to no more than 100% of wages.
-Gameplay: Adjusted union negotiations demands so that fees greatly increases benefits demand. Unless you have very high admin skills, you're unlikely to be able to demand more than 50% fees now.
-Bugfix: Disabled WW2, WW1, and Great Depression achievements in Random History mode
-Bugfix: Refit new trim allows unlimited characters
-Bugfix: Premade designs have availability years that don't match base model body's years. So they're not usable in those years.
-Bugfix: Stock window drop down not resetting when clicking some buttons in the stock window.
-Bugfix: Gearbox racing contract weight values incorrectly displayed
-Bugfix: Lack of rounding in the Purchase More Components memo.
-Bugfix: Refit system creating new generations of vehicle when using the trim system.
-Bugfix: Price Gouging Penalty sticking in the Buyer Rating Table until you hit apply to the price.
-Bugfix: Spin-off stock resell exploit, adjustments made to cash value in stock eval, past stock history for spun off company is now deleted.
-Bugfix: Reports when Auto-save GUI in enabled do not center.

Greetings everyone,

I have just another minor update this time. It fixes several smaller and medium-sized bugs with the game.

This update superseded work on the manual, so I am a little behind on the Game Mechanics portion. I do not plan on delaying work on the Feature Bounty system because of it. So I will begin setting everything up for that starting tomorrow. I hope to get it ready to go by the end of the month.

Change Log:
-Engine: Rebuilt Freetype on 64-bit Windows to enable legacy scaling which will hopefully fix some font resizing issues. (I will post in the manual some optional libraries for Linux users to override their system's freetype libraries. Mac users probably won't get this change.)
-GUI: Restricted warning message in Outsourced Contracts Management window when supplier's HQ nations are at war.
-Gameplay: Fixed incorrect sign in chassis length slider that caused longer chassis to be weaker.
-Gameplay: Now allowing restart production of licensed designs.
-GUI: Added fuel type to showroom Marque Catalog and Model Compare fuel consumption information.
-Gameplay: Fixed Hybrid fuel type end date.
-GUI: Fixed chassis name not appearing in Refit information window.
-Gameplay: Fixed possible condition that could cause double taxation in Q4. The IRS isn't too happy to close this loophole.
-GUI: Displayed additional tax rebate info next to Monthly Expenses in the reports when you get a rebate.
-GUI: Fixed typos in the supplemental texts (newspapers, map events, reviews)
-Engine: Enabling borderless window with the In-game settings will toggle off fullscreen. And enabling fullscreen will toggle off borderless window.
-Translations: Updated translations from the website.

Hello Everyone,

Another bug-fix update for GearCity. With the release hype dying down some, the next bug fix will be in a couple of weeks unless someone comes across a major issue.

-Media: Normalize tutorial audio speaking, sound fx, and music.
-Bugfix: Changing sound effects vol from off to on doesn't change tutorial audio volume.
-Bugfix: Fixed auto-production not producing enough components for contracts when multiple contracts use the same engine for different types of contracts.
-Bugfix: Apply to all not working when merge trims is enabled.
-Bugfix: Merge Trim not showing all models on the world map.
-Bugfix: Non-English language causes a innocent sqlite error on player creation table.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible issues in the reviews system that could cause no reviews for a design. This issue is probably impossible to duplicate playing the game.
-Gameplay: Reduced wage demand/strikes during economic downturns.
-GUI: Fixed some GUI scaling issues. (Some more work needs to be done here.)
-GUI: Added commas to Breached Contract memos.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible exploit that allows for loans to be taken twice in a month by reloading a save game.
-Bugfix: Fixed inversed engine manufacturer requirement stars and stuck chassis manufacturer requirement stars in the Licensing window.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with custom district factory upgrades that could result in a free, small upgrade to your factory.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue in the standalone car designer that duplicated accessory buttons.
-Bugfix: Monthly report page will now scroll back to the top after you end a turn in 64-bit builds.
-Bugfix: Fixed HiDPI Auto-Scaling issues on Apple.
-Translations: Updated to latest translation files and fixed some translated tutorial audio.

Hello everyone,

A small bug-fix patch this week. I wanted to get it to you all yesterday, but my week was very heavy with greater than expected release traffic and some offline headaches. Then I was going to release the update Saturday morning, but at the last minute caught some vandalism in our translation system. So an evening update, which I hate doing.

With that said, the translation system is locked down. You need to email me to register an account and tell me what language you want to work on. I will also be locking translators to a single language. This is for damage limitation in case anyone goes rouge again. In advance, I'd like to apologize for the inconvenience. I think it's better to inconvenience a handful of people than to break the game for a few hundred to a couple of thousand people.

I will be working on another bug-fix patch. I'm aiming for next weekend, but it might be a little longer if I deem nothing large enough to build a patch. I'll also start work on the manual again starting tomorrow.


-Bugfix: Fixed issue causing orphaned save games from not being deleted when exiting the game on the Select HQ Location screen.
-Bugfix: Fixed Research Teams RnD window not showing gain amount when skills are over 99.
-Engine: Initial support for the Korean language. If you're interested in translating to Korean, please let us know.
-Bugfix: Fixed several off screening and off window issues when users are running low resolutions (1080p and less) with high GUI scaling.
-Engine: Updated software OpenAL implementation for improved support of newer sound cards. Knock on wood, it doesn't cause issues for anyone running the game fine before.
-Bugfix: Fixed side panel disappearing when another window overlaps the panel and the player hits escape.
-Engine: Reports should work when characters that require URI encoding are in the file path.
-Bugfix: Fixed chassis size requirements for contracts having badly rounded data with SAE when referring to minimum requirements.
-Media: Added some Italian tutorial audio, added all missing Portuguese tutorial audio, and added all German and Japanese tutorial audio.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue causing memos not to pop up when priorities are hit.
-Gameplay: Reduced negotiation times for critical strike events from 3-6 months to 1-2 months.
-Bugfix: Possible fix to a crash issue on Linux that involved decal placement, body resize, decal placement again, and a dangling pointer.