Software Inc. News

• Ability to drag selection to rectangle to select employees, furniture and parking spaces (using multi select will filter by current selection)
  
• Employee walk paths are now drawn when selected
  
• Select building now includes roof in selection
  
• Improved how game generates nav and build mesh boundaries for modded furniture when using AutoBounds. Specifically sets minimum width and height for nav mesh and converts build mesh to a line if very thin. This should fix bugs with cubicles, if updated by author (If you are re-using the vanilla cubicle settings, leaving out nav and build boundary from the XML would be the best solution)
  

Fixes

• Fixed bug causing AI companies to sometimes heavily underestimate physical sales and not order enough copies
  
• Fixed room textures getting purged on Linux when changing resolution (would cause rooms to be black)
  
• Fixed snow and rain sticking to screen
  
• Fixed options window spawning new controls every time it was opened
  
• Fixed FURNITURE_DEBUG lines not being see-through
  
• Fixed path to log on Linux sometimes not working
  

Alpha 10.9.8 is officially out with reported bugs fixed.

(You can toggle the old grid manipulation panel in the options menu, if you prefer)

• Objects are now highlighted when cursor is hovering over them, to make selection more intuitive
  
• Ability to bind duplicate furniture key
  
• Reduced complexity of windows and doors during mini map generation when necessary to avoid hitting mesh vertex limit, because some of you managed to add at least 2730 exterior windows and doors in one save!
  

Alpha 10.9.5 fixes bugs in the Market recognition drop-down and column filtering.

• Furniture builder will now try to keep furniture inside room boundary instead of just giving up placement
  
• Ability to transfer IP to relevant subsidiary using trade button
  
• Specializations picked for HR now affects education choice
  
• Roof points can snap to grid
  
• Fixed some localization pluralizations
  
• Added inline functions to localization system, currently only includes Vowel, Plural, FirstOrCount function
  
• Market simulation now ignores in-house products when determining current highest tech level on market
  
• Shift click a work filter toggle to isolate it
  
• Better handling of error when generated mesh has too many vertices
  
• Improved feedback window message box
  
• Added salary NaN check to avoid game corruption and hopefully locate source of bug
  
• Fixed software type and category dropdown localization
  
• Overhauled options window
  
• Ability to set multi-placement as default mode
  
• Ability to disable rain, snow, thunder and lightning
  
• Added dynamic colorization to popup messages and message boxes
  
• Fixed window dragging and max size when UI is scaled
  

Slanted roofs and code modding is officially out. You can read more about code mods in my last announcement.

I tested Software Inc. on the latest version of Ubuntu and had some issues launching it, which was fixed by forcing fullscreen mode and re-launching and restarting until it just started working, which I guess is par for the course. The launch parameter to force fullscreen is: "-screen-fullscreen 1 -screen-width 1920 -screen-height 1080 -disableresolution", but switch out 1920 and 1080 with your screen resolution. When the game launches successfully you can set the game to fullscreen in the graphics options and remove the launch parameters, if you so desire.

• Fixed duplicating outdoor areas
  
• Fixed having to re-validate mods when using RELOAD_DLL_MOD
  

• Added slanted roofs
  
• New Autumn track by Sinnott Soundworks
  
• Added 2 new startup maps, a garage and a skyscraper
  
• Basements are now separated for blueprints and cloning
  
• Doubled starting cash on easy mode
  
• Changing team arrival and leave times will now take immediate effect
  
• Whether project management makes a product in-house will now depend on base product
  

UX changes

• Build menu category list now uses thumbnails instead of checkboxes and text
  
• Added calendar window when date is clicked to see employee and staff working hours
  
• Ability to manage staff room assignment from staff window
  
• Pressing the focus button (space by default) now cycles between all selected objects
  
• Ability to highlight unsupported rooms if cloning or blueprint creation fails
  

Fixes

• Fixed room grouping bugging out when re-grouping rooms
  
• Fixed bug regarding how door blockage is checked for doors to upper floor parking. Doors going nowhere or in basement will now show as blocked
  
• Various other fixes
  

Code modding

• Added system for compiling C# in-game and securing access to certain types
  
• More confirmation has been added before loading new or changed dll mods
  
• Added code mods to the Steam workshop
  
• ModMeta is now an Abstract Class rather than an Interface and the FloorMod has been updated to show examples
  
• DLL mods will now be queried to save and load data from save files
  
• Changed WindowManager interface to avoid misuse of active window lists that would cause crash (Use OnlyHide, StartHidden, Shown and OnClose to control lifecycle)
  
• Game assembly now includes xml documentation to help develop dll mods in Visual Studio (Only some of the codebase have been commented so far, mostly UI stuff)
  
• Improved logged message when an error occurs loading a dll mod
  

XML modding

• Deprecated mesh and snappoint Parent tag in furniture mods and added Parent ATTRIBUTE to all tags that searches everything in the furniture with a name(Use ComponentName tag to name Meshes and InteractionPoints, Name tag for Transforms)
  
• Multiple and custom lights for modded furniture using the LampScript's Lights variable(will automatically find all light components in a furniture if not manually set, at the expense of performance)
  
• Modded furniture can now optionally have the IsIconic variable set to an array of category names, if it should be used as a thumbnail for custom categories
  

Alpha 10.8.3 fixes further issues with mod loading.
Alpha 10.8.2 fixes some issues with mod loading.

You can now upload and download code mods in the Steam Workshop!

First off: Do not download code mods if you don't want to ruin your PC, but also don't want to verify the safety of the mod.

Here are some quick Q&As to explain what this change means:


As you most likely haven't noticed, because I literally just changed it, mods in the workshop are no longer called "Mods" but "Data mods". Everyone who has a "Mod" on the workshop should re-upload it to gain access to this new exclusive title.
A data mod is basically a mod that doesn't change how the game works, but gives the game more content to work with, which is what mods on the workshop have done so far.


Code mods are written using a programming language and actively change how the game works, add new mechanics on top of it or they pretend to be mods while they quietly mine bitcoin in the background.


The way code mods work in Software Inc. can pose a serious threat to your computer, since they have the same access to your files and internet that the game has, but have the advantage of not being developed by me.
Because of this, I had decided not to allow code mods on the workshop. Clever modders got around it by uploading their programs as text files, which is obviously not an ideal situation.


This latest update includes a way to load mods that are still in text format and actively tries to shut off parts of the mod that would access your internet or files.
Please note that the mods can still be very dangerous. I will try my best to moderate code mods on the workshop, but feel free to study the files, find and flag any malicious code yourself. The game will prompt you to read the code directly in the game before it loads any new or updated code mod.


You can just skip right along on here to the wiki, to read more about creating your own fancy cheats:
https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Code_Modding



Changes

• Added system for compiling C# in-game and securing access to certain types
  
• More confirmation has been added before loading new or changed dll mods
  
• Added code mods to the Steam workshop
  

Fixes

• Game would break during loading when installing DLL mods for the first time
  
• Pre 10.7 blueprints that only contains basement rooms would break the game
  

Slanted roofs are finally in! I hope this makes up for the slightly misleading roofs in the town map screenshots I released, leading up to alpha 10.

Slanted roofs are currently purely cosmetic. I'll try to figure out some way to utilize them in a future update, but for now, they are free in-game.

I made some big changes to the DLL modding system, which will break all current DLL mods. See changes at the end of this post.

This marks the end of alpha 10. I'm keeping Alpha 10.7 in testing for a short while, to make sure there aren't any major issues.

• Fixed employee working hours in calendar window going 1 hour too long
  
• Fixed modded furniture with lights stopped working
  

• Added slanted roofs
  
• New Autumn track by Sinnott Soundworks
  
• Added 2 new startup maps, a garage and a skyscraper
  
• Basements are now separated for blueprints and cloning
  
• Doubled starting cash on easy mode
  
• Changing team arrival and leave times will now take immediate effect
  
• Whether project management makes a product in-house will now depend on base product
  

UX changes

• Build menu category list now uses thumbnails instead of checkboxes and text
  
• Added calendar window when date is clicked to see employee and staff working hours
  
• Ability to manage staff room assignment from staff window
  
• Pressing the focus button (space by default) now cycles between all selected objects
  
• Ability to highlight unsupported rooms if cloning or blueprint creation fails
  

Fixes

• Fixed room grouping bugging out when re-grouping rooms
  
• Fixed bug regarding how door blockage is checked for doors to upper floor parking. Doors going nowhere or in basement will now show as blocked
  
• Various other fixes
  

DLL modding

• ModMeta is now an Abstract Class rather than an Interface and the FloorMod has been updated to show examples
  
• DLL mods will now be queried to save and load data from save files
  
• Changed WindowManager interface to avoid misuse of active window lists that would cause crash (Use OnlyHide, StartHidden, Shown and OnClose to control lifecycle)
  
• Game assembly now includes xml documentation to help develop dll mods in Visual Studio (Only some of the codebase have been commented so far, mostly UI stuff)
  
• Improved logged message when an error occurs loading a dll mod
  

XML modding

• Deprecated mesh and snappoint Parent tag in furniture mods and added Parent ATTRIBUTE to all tags that searches everything in the furniture with a name(Use ComponentName tag to name Meshes and InteractionPoints, Name tag for Transforms)
  
• Multiple and custom lights for modded furniture using the LampScript's Lights variable(will automatically find all light components in a furniture if not manually set, at the expense of performance)
  
• Modded furniture can now optionally have the IsIconic variable set to an array of category names, if it should be used as a thumbnail for custom categories
  

This patch contains fixes for every bug reported in-game since the official release of alpha 10.


I've taken some much needed time off since alpha 10 released, which is why I've been mostly quiet on social media. I plan on releasing another Alpha 10 update introducing slanted roofs, after which I'll move on to Alpha 11.

The planned features, as they are listed on Trello now, will not change at this point. I will most likely still randomly add features not on Trello, like the previously added multi-floor parking, outdoor areas and upcoming slanted roofs, but I'm aiming for beta at this point, which means a complete freeze on new gameplay changing features (not including what's on Trello). I don't expect to reach beta within at least one year. Once in beta, development will focus on bugs, balancing, steam integration, localization and adding content.

• Fixed a bug that would allow a product to get sales with any price, if it was the sole release on an OS with active users
  
• Fixed game freezing due to HR hiring more than 300 employees in one go and optimized team compatibility calculation a bit
  
• Fixed deleting rooms under unowned roads when buying plot and added a warning
  
• Fixed being able to see and control product under development by going to product details from design document window
  
• Fixed tutorial arrows when UI is scaled
  
• Fixed money, reputation and market recognition dropdown panels not closing in build mode
  
• Fixed game breaking when filtering columns in product detail window
  
• Fixed default custom material for modded furniture having full emission/glow (use _EmissionColor)
  
• Fixed some issues with AC and central heating not updating when being moved or not having correct Type
  
• Fixed marketing deal not showing progress due to wrong value scaling
  
• Fixed debug spawning guests breaking game(will also fix bugged saves)
  
• Clarified error message when trying to change price of a free product
  
• Various other fixes