Megaquarium News

v2.0.3 is now live!

Ahead of the launch of Freshwater Frenzy tomorrow (!) I thought I would push the base game update a day early so people could get used to some of the new features before diving into the expansion.

[h2]Ledger[/h2]
The animals ledger (found via the little fish-book icon in the bottom right) allows you to view all your animals and tanks in one place.


If you switch the filter to problems, it will only show you tanks/animals which have problems associated with them - very handy!

[h2]Live cultures[/h2]
Live Mysis, Live Lug Worms and the new Live Artemia are all now Live Cultures.


This means that these food dispensers need to be fed themselves with Zoo Plankton. Don't worry, your old saves will work just fine, but you may need to pop down a couple of extra Zoo Plankton dispensers.

[h2]Tunnel tanks now generate prestige![/h2]
Support has been added for tanks themselves to generate prestige. The small and large tunnel tank will each have a chance to generate a new prestige thought when your guest views it.

Just like every other prestige thought, a guest can only enjoy an object once. So don't go filling your aquarium with 100% tunnel tanks - it won't work!

[h2]Three new achievements[/h2]
To celebrate the launch of the expansion I decided to add 3 new achievements. They focus on sandbox play and can be completed with or without the expansion installed.

Sandbox Trials - Standard - In Sandbox mode, reach rank 12 using the Standard preset on normal difficulty or higher.

Sandbox Trials - Limited - In Sandbox mode, reach rank 12 using the Limited Supply preset on normal difficulty or higher.

Sandbox Trials - Completionist - In Sandbox mode, unlock every animal using the Quick Start preset on hard difficulty or higher.

That's some of the highlights but check out the following list for all of the changes.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]

• Ledger added.
  
• Live cultures added.
  
• Moon Jelly now eats Zoo Plankton.
  
• Guests don't like seeing food/tool dispensers now! Put them behind the scenes with your filters. ;)
  
• You can now set default paint for new construction by right clicking on the paint in the build menu.
  
• Improved messages - growth events have a clickable link to the animal and you get a message when a tank is too small for an animal to grow up.
  
• Tunnel tanks generate prestige.
  
• Increased prestige of some of the more prestigious animals (some sharks, green turtle).
  
• Costs of most animals have gone up a small amount in a balance pass. The cost of some high prestige (12+) animals has been increased quite a bit as they were underpriced before. Noticeably the Whale Shark and Manta Ray both cost 2-3x what they cost before.
  
• New reliability icon tells you estimated time between breakdowns so it's more useful in making judgements between equipment.
  
• Tweaked equipment reliabilities so that they remain useful throughout the game.
  
• The aquarium can now be closed. You can find the toggle by selecting the entrance.
  
• A number of sharks and rays require skill now.
  
• Autofeeder cannot be used on as many animals due to previous change. The time between breakdowns has been increased to make it more competitive.
  
• Research window now scrolls rather than shrinking the projects. It also has unlimited capacity now.
  
• Build menu scroll speed has been capped for when the menu gets very full (with mods!)
  
• Improved tooltip for growth icon.
  
• Tweaked tooltip for tank depth and require tank depth icons for compatibility with expansion.
  
• Tweaked tooltip for warning/danger to icons for compatibility with expansion objects. It now shows the size as a range. "Fish" has been replaced with "Animals" so that it can include reptiles and mammals. Mechanically nothing has changed. It basically means any animal that is not a crustacean, starfish, clam, gorgonian, soft coral, stony coral or anemone.
  
• Added new icons for starfish, clam, gorgonian, soft coral, scavenger, anemone and empty dispenser.
  
• Guests holding balloons can go inside toilets now.
  
• Animals move between containers e.g. they will move between all parts of the u-shaped tank.
  
• Small tunnel tank has an extra container at the top to allow animals to swim over.
  
• Mega tank is now a large tank instead of huge. It doesn't need its own category.
  
• Food dispensers appear before the fish in the search so they are easier to find.
  
• Improved scenery placement on tanks with sunken floors. The scenery now appears at the cursor instead of below it.
  
• Messages with enclosed objects do not jump to the top when you pick one up.
  
• Creator mode starts on rank 12 so you have access to better staff.
  
• The quick start preset has been tweaked to work better with the new achievement.
  
• 3 new achievements: Sandbox Trials - Standard, Sandbox Trials - Limited, Sandbox Trials - Completionist.
  

The first two videos in a series taking a deeper look at the expansion are now live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPImMP8RCJo

This first one introduces how some of the basic mechanics work like freshwater, pH and some of the new care requirements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w76fYXMBog

In the second we look at how you can breed and hybridise the animals in our aquarium.

A new chapter in Megaquarium history. Freshwater Frenzy is the first Deluxe Expansion for Megaquarium. It adds a brand new environment for you to explore and master – freshwater!

This expansion has been in the works for the last 9 months! Suffice to say, it is jam-packed with exciting new features and content. Here's a brief rundown:

[h2]Features[/h2]

• 5 levels in a freshwater-focused campaign
  
• 30 freshwater species
  
• Breeding and hybridisation
  
• 7 new tanks
  
• 4 accessories to equip your staff
  
• Dozens of new objects including decorations, plants, equipment and posters
  
• 4 brand new paints to keep your aquarium looking “fresh”
  

The expansion will be priced at $11.99 or your regional equivalent.

I'm going to draw a spotlight over some of these features later in this post but before we get started, head over to the store page for a full rundown.

I'd also recommend adding the expansion to your wishlist so you get a reminder on release day, which is 4th June 2020. ːsteamhappyː

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1315300/

What's more, the base game is set to get a huge upgrade with additional quality of life features, gameplay improvements and even some brand new mechanics.

But more on that later. First, let's dive into some of the big features in Freshwater Frenzy!

[h2]I mean like... it's FRESHWATER![/h2]
I have received a lot of requests to add freshwater to Megaquarium over the months and I know its addition will make a lot of people happy.

I've taken the time to do it right. Freshwater comes with its own set of unique challenges: new aquascaping types, pH requirements and compatibility considerations. This all adds up to a design challenge with a completely new feel.

I mean how many of these icons do you even recognise? ːsteamfacepalmː


[h2]The big one - Breeding![/h2]
Ever dreamed of raising your own baby fish in Megaquarium. That will soon be a reality.

A selection of the new freshwater fish are breedable. Each has its own set of unique breeding requirements, which, if you fulfil them will allow them to breed. Some require a special location to lay their eggs, others need lighting or a specific temperature to induce their breeding tendencies.

Getting them to breed is the easy bit. Then you have to look after the eggs and fry until they reach adulthood. Trust me when I say this: it's going to require your full attention.

[h2]There's more - Hybridisation![/h2]
There are some very special species in the game that can be hybridised to create new colors and patterns. Check out what is possible with the humble Guppy:



I won't reveal all the mechanics just now, but suffice to say this isn't a purely random thing. By pairing specific animals together you can increase the chances of getting the hybrid you want.

[h2]Base game goodies![/h2]
Let's talk about some of the improvements heading to the base game. Let me be 100% clear: players who don't own the expansion will still enjoy all of these improvements.

Live Cultures - live foods such as live mysis, live lug worms and artemia will need to be fed themselves to ensure a constant supply of food.



I think this is a really fun mechanic. It's a low skill job so if you can get your weaker feeders to feed the cultures while your experts handle the actual feeding to the animals it works well.

Default Paint - another popular request. Ever wished you could change the default paint used on new constructions like it does on some campaign levels? Well soon you will be able to do just that.

Animal Ledger - one of those features that once you get used to using it, you won't know how you ever coped without it. This ledger provides a filtered list of your tanks and animals allowing you to simultaneously get an overview of your aquarium as well as focus down on any areas that need attention.



New non-freshwater specific care requirements - some of the new care requirements introduced in the expansion are not specific to the freshwater environment. I've decided to make these compatible with the base game too so that modders can make use of them on their marine animal mods!

[h2]Hungry for more?[/h2]
If you're as excited as I am about this release then I have more to share with you. Between now and launch day I'll be releasing a series of videos which will show off all the new features in more detail.

If you don't already, consider subscribing to my Youtube channel.

The major addition this update is Japanese language support. But for all the existing players there's a neat package of bug fixes and small improvements. See below for all the details.


I've mentioned this a few times in the forums, but I can officially confirm that new content is in the works.

I would love to share certain details about the theme of the new content, and what the exact format will be, but as things are still changing from week to week as I explore ideas, I've decided to wait until I have something concrete. Thank you for your patience. ːsteamhappyː

• Japanese localisation.
  
• Place staff doors directly over walls.
  
• Slightly reduced memory footprint.
  
• Fixed bug where floor tiles in maps with default paint were not being automatically painted.
  
• Fixed bugs where painted objects were not appearing correctly when being moved/placed.
  
• Fixed 'silent sound bug' which occured when you held shift in first person mode.
  
• Fixed positions of shark hat and copperband toy gift shop items.
  
• Fixed bug where not all water quality icons (skimming, uv sterilising, heating, chilling etc.) were appearing in the context bar when placing an object.
  
• Fixed hard and brutal difficulty strings which had some incorrect figures.
  
• Fixed bug where tank point value was updating before animal health, leading the out of date tank point values (until updated again, which happened regularly).
  
• Fixed bug where pump could connect to same tank twice.
  
• Fixed bug where you could switch to the pipe connecting tool when already using it, caused extra connections to stay on screen permanently.
  
• Fixed bug where staff did not return their item when they were fired.
  
• Fixed bug where staff did not resume their work animations when game was loaded.
  
• Fixed various bugs where item accessibility was not being updated correctly for use in tasks.
  
• Fixed bug where music label disappeared when at a value of 0.
  
• Fixed bug where guide book shelf was not lit correctly.
  
• Fixed bug where supplements were not causing animals to lose health correctly.
  
• Centred "Let's Go" button on rank up screen.
  
• Expanding, filling in, walls, platforms and stairs all vary in cost based on difficulty.
  
• Guests now switch to standing animation when they view a tank or use an object.
  
• Tweaked Megalopolis final objective to remove the angelfish and surgeonfish requirement. Too restrictive.
  
• Tweaked Napalos level so that you need 24 animals to win. The level lasts slightly longer and forces you to use some of the animals you unlock at rank 7 which is fun.
  
• Reworked podium code to be more robust and deal with interruptions, saving/loading etc. mid-talk.
  
• Fixed bug where dispensers for non-consumable items were being refilled at the beginning of the day.
  
• Fixed bug where if you moved a wall when it was 'dropped' then it would not drop in the new position.
  
• Increased size of text in drop down list items.
  

• Tanks no longer
• need* PointGenerator.
  
• Expanding, filling in, walls, platforms and stairs costs are set in data file so can be overriden within mods.
  
• Doubled bonus Ecology and Science from cheat hotkeys for faster testing.
  

Hey guys, v1.5.2 is now live and comes with lots of nice goodies.


Since the addition of Workshop support for Megaquarium, players are building bigger and better aquariums than ever! One piece of feedback that came back to me as a result was that there were not enough staff in sandbox mode to cope with all the extra animals available via the Workshop.

I communicated the various options available to increase the staff numbers and asked for additional feedback on the preferred option. The results were unanimous: adding fully randomised staff to sandbox mode - thus removing the staff cap completely. Just in case you're not aware. Before this change, all the staff were hand-designed by me which, to avoid duplication, lead to a hard cap on the total staff available.

One of the things I liked about this solution was that it also has the potential to add a new gameplay dynamic to sandbox games. Due to the randomisation, there's a larger variety in the type of staff that are available.



While testing, I found there were often times where I had to compromise on one talent. Like "this person has some fixing skill and decent precision but they have 1 for fitness! Do I really want to hire this slowcoach?" or "Nice, a 7 for fitness, and actually a decent amount of Empathy for feeding but they currently have no feeding skill and a 2 for Memory so they are going to learn really slow!".

During the time that this update spent in beta I received additional feedback that people were missing the predesigned staff, so as of v1.5.2 you have the best of both worlds: unlimited randomised staff with a sprinkling of your favourites from the campaign missions. All hail Dante - the divine comic!

Personally I've really enjoyed playing with this new feature and I hope you do too!


It took several weeks but I think the results are worth it! This is part 1 of a large rewrite of the entire graphics pipeline for Megaquarium in an effort to improve performance.

The increase in FPS that you see will depend on the size of the aquarium and PC specs but I've recorded an increase of 75% (!) when zoomed out on a large map where the CPU is the limiting factor.



I've also slightly reduced the maximum zoom-out level. The reason for this is that the number of objects onscreen is a major factor when it comes to performance. Off-screen objects contribute a lot less. My goal is to reach a point where the engine can run at 60fps, on a PC with the recommended specs, with an aquarium of *any* size. This is much more likely to be achievable with this new max zoom level. The alternative would be a cap on total game objects which I believe would be much more restrictive for players.


Based on yet more player feedback, I've made a few tweaks to the sandbox generation code.

1. Trades and merchants are generated even with animal availability set to 'everything unlocked'.
2. With animal availability set to 'standard', Trades and merchants generally try to offer the player animals that can't be unlocked with research points. Previously, when these ran out, no further trades or merchants would be generated. With the update, they will still be generated but will offer animals from a rank above instead, so they are still valuable.
3. Some side-objectives will offer base prestige as a reward instead of money.

There are few other subtle changes but overall I think the play between the various trades, merchants and side-objectives now feels better than ever!


Megaquarium can now be played in Italian! :)

• Tweaked staff speed algorithm to make increase between fitness levels more linear. Speed now increases by 8% for each level of fitness. These values are exposed for modding in simulation.data.
  
• Added staff salary to staff window.
  
• Fixed bug where game would not load when a mod had a corrupted info.data file
  
• Added Italian localisation.
  
• Smoothed out 'freeze' on new day in large aquariums.
  
• Removed freeze during autosave when entering the menu.
  
• Improved animal swimming animations.
  
• Tweaked fixing animation so that toolkit sits on the floor next to staff.
  
• Fixed bug where an object could be not "in game world" but still occupying the floor.
  
• Reduced cap for zoom level.
  
• Fixed darkening of rounded corners of tanks when viewed from behind.
  
• Improved visual look of animals with transparent meshes like the Volitans Lionfish.
  
• Added minimum work animation speed for staff.
  
• Fixed purple plume fan and leopard clam icons.
  

This update has been live on the beta for a little over a week so it should be pretty stable, but if you notice any bugs or graphical glitches, don't hesitate to let me know.

If you'd like to gain early access to the next update while also helping me test the game, then consider switching to the [beta] branch of Megaquarium as described here. Make sure you subscribe to the discussion so you know when a new beta is available.

Tim