Software Inc. News

Alpha 10.4.6 fixes trees not getting removed

Alpha 10.4.5 fixes another bug regarding clashing object IDs when undoing

Had some fun stomping around with a microphone to create footstep sound effects in 10.4.4.

• Added footstep SFX, which can be changed in modded floor materials by adding FloorType tag with value set to either Wood, Ceramic, Carpet(default) or Concrete
  
• Increased game world SFX volume
  

Fixes

• Fixed issue with clashing object IDs after relocating company or starting in rent office causing potentially unpredictable behavior when loading the save file later on
  
• Hiring window bug when no team is selected
  
• Tables were not getting regrouped for meetings, canteen and lounge after undoing
  
• Bug when deleting tables used by employees while eating if the delete prompt is disabled
  
• Employees would miscount available chairs for a table group due to the new chair repair action
  
• The position leaders would use to socialize with employees at their PC would sometimes become unavailable by being JUST inside a cubicle wall
  
• Pathfinding would generate buggy paths when employees are walking directly from a room to a ground level parking space
  
• Added error if contracts in a mod has categories defined
  
• Employees would zigzag going between rooms and roads from certain angles
  
• Various other fixes
  

Optimizations

• Turned interaction name from string to enum to reduce string comparisons. Makes it harder to mod AI, but not currently relevant
  

I had a brainfart in the last update and added sidewalk pathfinding as a separate system from the normal pathfinding, but it turns out I could just unify these two systems, which means you can now build rooms with doors up against elevated roads, and employees will use that door to get off parking lots, if it makes sense to do so. This will allow you to connect buildings directly to elevated parking lots or add elevators to get from a parking lot to the ground.

• Employees can now move directly between rooms and elevated roads
  
• Ability to use arrow, home, end and ctrl+a keys in lists if last clicked thing was a list item
  

Fixes

• Game would bug when undoing road changes above a second story ramp
  
• Fixed employees choosing very suboptimal paths outside in some cases
  

Optimizations

• Optimized room graph generation
  

Alpha 10.4.2 fixes games with assigned parking spaces not wanting to load.



This update comes with a new, completely unplanned, multi-floor road building system. The road building system has been arbitrarily limited to 3 floors for performance reasons and since a small parking lot can now hold 3 times as many cars, which should be plenty considering the game wasn't balanced towards having thousands of employees on the premises. Note that road pricing has also been updated, keeping the standard roads and parking on the ground at 5000 in-game standard rate currency.

You cannot build below roads and, as before, you have to build 2 floors above the road to avoid clipping cars. However, you can now build roads and rooms over roads you don't own, to connect plots in city and town maps.

Changes

• Multi floor parking
  
• It is now allowed to build rooms and roads over ground level roads on plot you don't own, for connecting plots in city and town map
  
• Added error messages to blueprint building and room cloning
  
• Added warning if cook doesn't have access to serving trays
  
• Leader room role assignment takes priority over anything else, meaning leaders won't prioritize rooms assigned to one of their other roles
  
• Turned car noise distance down and increased the low pass + low volume effect to shield off noises outside the current room
  

Fixes

• Minimum specialization cap was not saved
  
• Keep track of employees' retirement plan deposits so it figures in the termination report as a payout
  
• Fixed long standing bug where cars would slowly arrive later and later until the road was changed
  
• Fixed cars spawning on top of each other
  
• Maintenance will now fix chairs while in use
  
• Clicking a notification would make the camera keep panning to the target position when trying to drag the screen
  
• Room role assignment was applied incorrectly when prioritizing which room to go to, so employees would not always prefer rooms with their role assignment
  
• Room role assignment rules were accidentally applied to staff making them more likely to work in role assigned rooms(not including IT, maintenance and cleaning staff)
  

Optimizations

• Improved car pathfinding cache
  

• Updated vending machine, central heating, fridge and 90s PC models
  

Fixes

• Fixed auto graphic settings option not working due to target framerate being 60 fps by default
  
• Submeshes in imported furniture is now merged so they have selection outlines
  
• Added missing error handling to hour input fields
  
• Fixed employees getting their classes and vacation cut short by relocating
  
• Furniture animation speed always 1 (fridge)
  
• Various other fixes
  

• Room temperatures now instantly reflect temperature changes, instead of simulating temperatures in realtime
  
• Water and electricity costs now depend on how much your heating and cooling elements are actually needed, e.g. a radiator will not use water or degrade in quality during warm summer days
  
• Tundra and desert temperatures have been re-balanced
  
• Each heating/cooling element now have much clearer area and power stats that control how much they can heat/cool.
  
• Rooms have an insulation stat controlled by adjacent rooms and windows (can be viewed from the data overlay).
  

Changes

• Overhauled temperature mechanics
  
• Ability to set individual employee benefits
  
• Ability to set minimum specialization skill on a team before an employee is allowed to work with it in code and art
  
• The role column in the employee window now uses sprites instead of text to show assigned roles
  
• Seasoned devs will now have more specialized education rather than none at all
  
• Added christmas bonus benefit
  
• Ability to control HR specializations for new hires
  
• Added target framerate option for non Vsync mode
  
• Added thermometer to UI indicating outside temperature
  
• Cleaned up team window
  
• Rooms should always show area, and multiple selected rooms should show aggregated area
  

Fixes

• Fixed HR preferred age label not updating
  
• Lowered hype effect on sales to avoid sudden hype causing random sales drops
  
• Select furniture types in rooms would keep some previously selected objects
  
• Buildings from workshop not loading on systems with case sensitive paths
  
• Removed printing alerts for traded products to avoid spam after company takeover
  
• Fix plot near bus stop in leased mode, so employees don't walk into a building from the bus (this fix is not retroactive)
  
• Rooms over a road cause unsupported message when placing blueprints or cloning rooms
  
• Retroactively fixed some furniture mods breaking saves
  
• Game would bug when pressing enter after searching in multi selection window like furniture assignment
  
• Improved car pathing logic and cornering speeds
  
• Developed a tool to batch spell check XML files and spell checked all XML files
  

Optimizations

• Added character LOD and added a unified low poly shadow caster. This will most likely only impact very low spec systems. If you're having performance issues on a newer system and your GPU is stressed, disable "More shadows"
  

Known issues

• Auto graphic settings option no longer works, due to the new framerate target option. You can get around it by temporarily disabling VSync and setting the framerate target to -1 before running the tests. Will be fixed in next patch.
  

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