Software Inc. News

Changes

• Peer reviews now affect bug count and quality
  
• Bigger plot option for rural map, more expensive but simpler expand progression
  
• Show average team skill and spec against selected employee in hiring window
  
• Change HR and time settings for multiple teams in a row
  
• Ability to save and load character defaults in new game screen
  
• Ability to delete room styles
  
• Ability to localize key names for key bindings if name is longer than one character by writing KeyCode + KeyName as written in UI, e.g. KeyCodeDelete
  

Fixes

• Leasable black material had gotten selectable as floor in-game
  
• Raised lower compatibility chance of employees hired by competent HR
  
• Slightly decreased effect of disliking a team member
  
• Difficulty setting was not saved after starting a new game in a building
  
• Further decreased skill effect on support ticket response rate
  
• Fixed newspaper writing article before game had calculated feature score
  
• Fixed plot window for multi monitor setups
  

Known issues

• Preferred age label in HR not updating
  
• Renting multiple building units at once will cause loud cash register SFX
  

I've gone ahead and updated the modding wiki to reflect the changes in alpha 10.


https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Modding#Alpha_10_changes


Furniture mods can now use their own textures AND still benefit from custom player coloring. This will allow you to bake in AO among other things:
https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Furniture_Modding#Meshes_and_materials




Last but not least, you can now add your own building materials and upload them to the Steam workshop:
https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Material_Modding

• Support ticket handling speed should be less dependant on employee skill
  
• Added minimum skill cap to marketers and leaders as hiring low level employees in these roles did not have any benefits
  
• Info in bottom left corner didn't refresh due to bug introduced in last update
  
• Updated LEASING18 and LEASING19 of the leasing tutorial to include actually selecting a room and pointing out the lease button
  
• Instead of rendering black fill in leasable rooms, hide furniture and color interior and floors black
  
• Ability to set a maximum stock goal for player printing jobs
  
• Increased speed of in-house training and education
  
• Shifted quality labels
  
• AI companies should reject player offer to purchase IP, if it is their only original IP
  
• Various other fixes
  

Known issues

• Difficulty setting chosen in the new game screen is not updated in the options window in-game
  

Alpha 10 is getting pretty stable, I wouldn't worry about save file corruption anymore.

• Plot window bug
  
• Contract bug for non standard contract categories
  
• Starting a new game on an empty map after using the map editor will put the new game in map edit mode
  
• Online products are left on player servers after being traded away
  
• Could avoid providing product hosting by trading products back and fourth
  
• Select furniture types in rooms only selected furniture on current floor
  
• Print storage wasn't reset when moving company
  
• Decreased fast learner effect on education speed
  
• You can lose reputation from just finishing a work deal
  
• Difficulty setting should affect starting funds in character creation menu
  
• Lower founder starting skill points based on difficulty setting
  
• Add relocation button to build mode
  

Alpha 10.1.5 has focused on bug reports, I still haven't gotten to gameplay feedback yet.

• Increased difficulty of gaining followers and difficulty of getting sales on medium and hard
  
• Research work didn't work properly with new multi role system
  
• Bug in support work made ticket handling instant if all bugs had been verified
  
• The debug console is now always enabled, but not assigned to a key by default and all previous bindings have been reset
  
• Tutorial system could make the game not able to unpause after releasing a product
  
• Optimized wall segment exterior calculation and disabled internal segment rendering in opaque glass mode
  
• Made it more clear if the loading screen is done and when/if it wants you to press a key
  
• Fixed bug when placing houses on edge of map CAUSED BY BUGGY MONO COMPILER OPTIMIZATIONS
  
• Fixed skyscraper editor and added removal tooltip for environment objects
  
• Stopped game from focusing on different windows when a dropdown is open
  
• Benefit window scrollbar doesn't work
  
• Fine tuned right click dragging
  
• Fixed printer repair point priority
  
• Various other fixes
  

• Only draw build grid in leased rooms in rent mode
  
• Undoing a furniture move would bug game
  
• Houses were visible from underground
  
• Added steam sticker for blueprints and materials
  
• Added lease termination tip about sold furniture
  
• Room grouping button in room group window did not work
  
• Furniture value wasn't added back to player when relocating from a rent map
  
• Map editor furniture was time locked
  
• Deleting a building would only delete file, not containing folder and thumbnail
  
• Various other fixes
  

Disclaimer: THIS IS A PRE-RELEASE FOR TESTING! Do not grow attached to your save files the first couple of days after this release. I'll be monitoring bug reports closely and patch often, but expect possible save file corruption. Alpha 9 save files are not compatible with Alpha 10

• Limiting a room to a role kept all employees from entering it
  
• Simulation randomly breaking when changing month due to bad subsidiary check
  
• Shouldn't count plot worth in money dropdown panel in rent mode
  

• Can place environment objects outside map area
  
• Days per month setting didn't work
  
• Plots counted towards worth in rent mode
  
• Couldn't make IP trades
  
• Auto graphic settings didn't work
  
• Random bug during alpha phase due to out of bounds competency check
  
• Various fixes
  

Work on alpha 10 has focused on balancing expenses and adding more options regarding your company's physical presence, namely the ability to relocate your company, buy and sell plot areas, and lease rooms one at a time. Furthermore, employee mechanics have received a giant overhaul in regards to employee satisfaction and education, including a new benefit system that allows you to give and remove perks for all your employees.


I'll be spending the next couple of weeks stabilizing all the new features and documenting the new modding capabilities. I still have a lot more I want to add and improve in alpha 10 before I move on to alpha 11, so there is no concrete timeline at this point.

The new development/feature mechanics did not make it in this release. I underestimated how much work it needed and it fits thematically better with alpha 11, in which I'll be focusing more on the development mechanics in general.

Changes

• Ability to relocate company
  
• New plot system
  
• Ability to lease rooms
  
• Balanced construction and building costs
  
• Rebalanced employee costs and skills, and overhauled hiring mechanic
  
• Ability to control subsidiary releases and assign tasks (More to come)
  
• Overhaul employee satisfaction mechanic
  
• New employee benefit system
  
• New spring and build track from Chris Sinnott
  
• Overhauled business reputation to be more predictable
  
• Overhauled HR mechanic
  
• Added Rural, Town, City and Cold, Temperate, Warm map types
  
• Overhauled room rendering and added ability to mod room material textures
  
• Add ability to use colorable textures for the standard furniture material, instead of forcing the default UV map
  
• Ability to sum financial sheet or cashflow chart by month, quarter or year
  
• Add proper data overlay window
  
• Added key (F) to align furniture to nearest wall when placing
  
• Better control of door direction when building
  
• Doors should not open when employees are just passing by
  
• Remove insurance account (now savings account) interest cap, but lock interest for years after depositing depending on amount
  
• Software sales are now calculated per OS market, so software released for different OSs are no longer in direct competition
  
• Added loading screen and fixed long loading times caused by music decompression
  
• AI company salaries should be higher than bills
  
• Ideal product price should be determined statically in SoftwareType or SoftwareCategory tag
  
• Improved AI printing strategy
  
• Market simulation now uses release dates for hype calculation, no release date gives no hype
  
• Deprecated scenarios and changed how starting funds are chosen
  
• Add select all button to wage negotiation window
  
• Add specialization pie chart to contract window
  
• Add wall skirting
  
• Chairs now degrade in comfort over time
  
• Drag camera now uses momentum, can be mapped to already mapped keys and will default to right click
  
• Ability to generate the same map twice using a text string
  
• Open chart window and products window from company window
  
• Open company window from stock list
  
• Output different symbols from employees depending on work being done
  
• Tutorials can use dynamic values
  

Fixes

• Holes in a blueprint floor plan were counted as rooms, which would make it so you couldn't duplicate a floor on top of itself unless the floor plan consisted of separate whole areas
  
• Cap active users to OS users
  
• Could not make games for in-dev OSs
  
• Count loans due in stock worth
  
• Employees will now move to the furniture they are assigned if they are currently using the same type of furniture, which they do not own
  
• Failing to deliver on a print deal will now account for time left on the deal to discount the penalty
  
• Difficulty option and PC upgrades weren't being applied to alpha dev speed
  
• Fixed long standing bug causing windows to become invisible if they were the same height or width as the screen on last launch
  
• Physical copies weren't returned to stock after having been refunded
  
• Reset search when changing build category
  
• Right hand holdables not aligned properly
  

Optimizations

• Group furniture by type to increase query speeds
  
• Optimize market simulation
  
• Ability to turn windows opaque and don't render any room content below current floor in gfx options
  

Known issues

• Can't update material mod in steam workshop after initial upload
  

It’s been one month since I last released a patch, so I thought I would update you on how alpha 10 is coming along.



I have overhauled the plot system, so instead of slowly expanding a rectangle, the game now generates pre-shaped plots with individual pricing, which you can buy upfront or take out a mortgage for.

The plots will be laid out differently depending on which map type you have chosen for your company. In addition, instead of picking between forest, city, tundra and desert you now pick the climate and environment individually: Cold, temperate or warm, and rural, town or forest.

Map layouts are now generated based on an input string, instead of just being completely random, so you can generate the same map as many times as you want, by reusing the input string.





In alpha 10 you’ll be able to rent in a larger building, as opposed to buying an empty plot and creating your building from scratch. This will help you a lot financially in the beginning and help if you’re having trouble getting creative on an empty plot. Depending on the building you're renting into, you’ll be able to rent out more rooms as you get tight on space.

Since buildings don’t just randomly generate themselves, alpha 10 will include a map editor where you can create maps with buildings, designate which rooms are up for renting and share them on the workshop.

If you decide you no longer want to rent or you can’t afford your building, alpha 10 will include the option of moving your company to a new map, whenever you want, making your current building available for new companies.


Other than polishing and debugging the new systems I’ve just described, I plan on rebalancing construction costs in alpha 10, to make sure expenses keep up with income, so making a million dollars will no longer be an instant win condition. I also want to rebalance employee skills and overhaul the hiring process, to make skilled employees the exception, rather than what you’ve come to expect from late game. If development doesn’t drag on for too long, I also want to overhaul the entire feature system, as this work will be necessary for adding software updates/expansions in alpha 11, but it could just as well be delayed until then. Finally, the much requested “multiple roles per employee” will be added, so you can have a programmer/designer or an artist/marketer/leader, etc.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your patience!