VERSION 0.9.9.04 is out in the "Open Beta Branch" NOW!

Hello Tycoons,

I promised in my last post that I would come back with some news and a new version this week. So! I'm happy to tell you that there is a new version in the "Open Beta Branch" on Steam.


To play it, you just have to right-click on Computer Tycoon in your Steam client, then click on "Properties", then there click on "Betas" and select the "Open Beta Branch" from the dropdown list, save and restart your client or your computer so that Steam can install this version instead of the previous one you had on your computer.

This version cannot load your earlier saves!


Compared to the "Holiday Test Branch" lots of small improvements and polish - plus now you can also sue your opponents. Since that version wasn't played by the majority of the community (it required you to check the forums), to you what's more interesting is what's different compared to the public main version, the main branch of the game...

1. 1 - The CEO Negotiations Expansion
   
2. 2 - The CEO Stuff Expansion
   
3. 3 - Lots of changes... I mean - A LOT.
   
4. 4 - Lots of bug fixes.
   

[h2][/h2]
It's not the first time that I write about this new system, it is the backbone of the last major update of the game. It lets you do business with your opponents, offers a lot of replayability and new strategies, and makes the experience more immersive. I'm super hyped about it - and according to testers from the community, it makes the game more interesting.
You can trade technology, lend money, send/get gifts, demands and extortion is a thing now, you can have various contracts, etc. and you can also sue your opponent - after you receive grievances for their bad deeds (but it can happen to you as well!).
I've put a lot of time and effort into giving your opponents personalities, they all have their own offices, their own music, etc. If you have a favorite, please talk about them, I'm happy to see - what you think about them!
When you lose a court case - somebody could have to go to prison... and that makes loyalty a bit more important again - since you can "blame" anybody from your team instead of the actual perpetrator, in return for some loyalty points (and remember, that loyal managers are also cheaper to pay)



[h2][/h2]
This is just a silly try of mine to make the game more immersive again. I think lots of tycoon games make the mistake that you cannot spend your hard-earned money on anything else than your business. Now you can. How about Velociraptor as a pet or a new speaking car? Or just a house? Or maybe a space station? All these have no real effect on the game other than your opponents complementing them - when you get something that they like. That's all. It might be not a great investment, but makes being rich more fun!



[h2][/h2]
There were a few aspects of the game that were always criticized by the community - and now I am trying to eliminate them. Tho, I still have my to-do list, I hope that I'm getting there where I wanna be!
For example, from now on you can't only "Roll" the stats of your character and your partner - but you can edit them at the start. You can give a maximum of 70 points on the same skill OR Roll them. This gives more freedom to the player to try a given strategy - or they can decide to play as earlier - where you had to adjust your strategy to what you get randomly. Also, when you are looking for new managers, tho you cannot set their skills - so there is no change, your manager always finds another manager - it just takes more time, and how long it takes depends on their Charisma skill.

I still have to add a custom difficulty option - but since balancing is not finished yet and I need to get feedback about the presets - I have added new difficulty levels and they have different names as well. I've also added descriptions for those levels in hopes of making it easier for the player to pick the right one - tho still, if the game is just too hard - pick an easier level.

I've changed the building site, too - since some players thought that it is too punishing when you upgrade the bad departments. From now on you can build factories without recreation buildings - and recreation buildings and the offices also have a budget slider. So if you accidentally built one - you can just zero out its budget - and you are good to go. You are not forced to sell the whole site - you should do that only if you need cash. Also, recreation buildings now have a different effect instead of just being mandatory to build factories. They give you a small chance of a "technological breakthrough". When it happens you finish your current research immediately. The chance could be small, but it is a daily chance, so if you have two maxed-out rec. departments, it is kinda sure that in like every 3-5 years it could happen. That offers a new strategy again - since it will be worth optimizing your research for big ones - when you try to max out your chances with this.

We have a manager task as well - Sabotage. With that, you can harm your opponents' production or research. But if you are caught, then your opponent can gain a grievance. It is not automatic, but there is a chance! Other bad deeds, such as black marketing also generate grievances. Your grievances can be forgiven if you can make an opponent of yours to be your friend! But being friends also has other benefits... just as it has benefits to be rivals.

I've improved on the game's economy and other aspects as well. Please do not be surprised if your earlier strategies are not enough anymore on higher levels. Simply the fact that you can trade technology means that you have more ways to acquire technology - so you have to adapt to that. Btw. Poverty and Poor markets are not as hard to make profitable now as earlier - and in general, the difference between the economic levels is smaller, fans by significantly more than before and I updated the UI so that it is easier to compare their sales with the other user groups. This was also necessary since your wrongdoings will affect your fan base - so you are actions have a bigger impact on your profitability.

Normal marketing is more effective now - the different campaign sizes have hints to help you, group selection is more important and marketing departments are way more expensive than before! I hope that these changes will make the game more interesting and also less punishing for beginners.
Also, now when you win a game - your opponents say goodbye. That's one of the things that I enjoy the most - doesn't matter how small it is. It just feels good! :) Btw. if you are bothered by your opponents, you can automatically ignore their demands or all their messages except these goodbye messages.



[h2][/h2]
I have fixed a lot of older issues around the UI and gameplay, too. Not being able to add cache to "plentum" processors? Edit boxes messing with time in some places? I've fixed all the bugs from my to-do list - but unfortunately, I don't think we got them all - and I might have introduced new ones with the new features - so please if you find anything, save your game and report it to me with the save file! It helps a LOT!



I still have plenty of suggestions/improvement ideas (lots of UI things for example) that I would like to implement in the coming weeks, and there are two bigger still gameplay features I would like to add: Random Events and Scenarios.
Scenarios will just offer different settings for how you start a game or even different winning conditions. While Random Events will make the game a bit more dynamic. These are not huge things to add, but still, they are there.

After polishing the game and completing my to-do list, I will start preparing the game for localization. That's something that will take a while, unfortunately, since the task is enormous. The game has around 60k words in it! That's like a Harry Potter book - and I have to be sure that the game will be ready to use and show the new texts etc. Localization isn't a trivial task, unfortunately. As soon as it starts, I will post a news post here and ask you to join the volunteers so we can have as many languages as possible.


Thank you very much for your patience and support over the years. We are getting there and I'm super thankful to all of you! Have fun, give feedback and if you enjoy the game, please leave a review!

András aka Progorion



[h2]BUG FIXES[/h2]

• When software appeared the first time and was still unreleased, then the release date instead of being empty - was showing the date formatting formula. Fixed.
  
• Smaller issues with the Trade offer balancing. Fixed.
  
• A Few CEO Illustration's poorly cut. Fixed.
  
• Under certain circumstances the hardware price field's value was changing also when you changed the Money values in your CEO offers. Fixed.
  
• When you had multiple products and factories then the production cost label showed incorrect numbers sometimes. Fixed.
  
• There was a bug connected to firing managers that messed up the pool. Fixed.
  
• Not all notification balls were activated right after loading a game, some needed a day to appear - fixed.
  
• "If you use the "Delete" key when editing the name of a part, the part you were trying to rename or the part from which you copied the part will be archived. Since the shortcut for archive restore is the "Delete key," it will react to it. If you don't notice it, you may think, "Hey, where did the parts I just made go? If you don't notice it, you will end up saying "Hey, where did the parts I just made go?" Fixed
  
• Sometimes on the market analysis screen the "Orders fulfilled" field showed "no" incorrectly.
  
• Some Typo corrections.
  
• "There was this type of bug when for example Yugoslavia breaks apart, if you're selling there, it'll say you're also selling in for example: Croatia, but it doesn't take a logistic point away" - Fixed.
  
• "There is a small problem when generating the high-end storage drives. If I first enable SSD Density 5TB and then add CDD, increasing the capacity to 100TB, a drive costs well over 3000 dollars.
  If I disable the 5TB density, I have the same capacity but the drive only costs 375." Fixed.
  
• Some trickery was possible around drive-size extenders and techs to make them very cheap. Fixed.
  
• It could cause issues if you saved a game before setting up your CEO and Partner Managers - so from now on you cannot save until that.
  
• I have fixed a bug connected to Spying - when the attempt was a failure then you might have got no response about the task being completed.
  
• You were unable to go back into the game after a game over at the end.
  
• "486 CPU is the last one which can put Cache Mem normally, for the next ones I need to each time firstly choose 486, then add Cache, then remove 486 and add the latest gen of CPU." Fixed
  
• I've added some tech combination restrictions, plus made a note that impossible combinations are not accepted - like a pen drive together with SATA.
  
• The Hardware Designer Helper Hints from the top right corner were showing all the same description - earlier it wasn't the case, but I rewrote them all because they had some grammar issues anyway.
  
• A few expressions/parts of the screen were not matching in the tutorial and in-game. Fixed.
  
• I made North Korea communist and changed "liberal markets" to "capitalist markets" since the naming was confusing.
  
• No hint on the credit button on the statistics tab. Fixed.
  
• Ordering your markets by profitability had this issue, that markets without profitability were between the profitable and unprofitable markets - making it harder to read the list. From now on, markets where you don't sell will be at the end of the list instead.
  
• When the game started and still there was no market selected then the market details window had "asdf" values in its fields. Fixed.
  
• Raki has reported that the gov. Tax bonuses are sometimes incorrect when combined with manager bonuses. Fixed.
  
• The tutorial move indicator icon didn't have a hint.
  
• "When you have the Building Site List open, the [Spacebar] is a shortcut to pause/un-pause AND build the building. The spacebar should only pause or un-pause the game. I’ve accidentally built many buildings with this “feature”." It was a game-wide issue that needed to be solved. What happens is that some buttons become highlighted/focused and if you press the spacebar button it gets clicked. All fixed!
  
• Sliders in the game where it used to be enough to click on the empty part to increase a value, you had to grab the handle instead in the last version - I reverted this to the previous solution.
  
• And more...
  

[h2]CHANGES[/h2]

• I've added a pop-up for the RP value to the main window bar and the CEO info panels.
  
• You can manually set techs obsolete - so they won't appear in the tech list of the hardware designer.
  
• Now you can set your hardware price (for PCs) on the hardware list, without opening them - this way you have to click less.
  
• I've added a better difficulty selection screen with descriptions, plus updated the names of the levels.
  
• I've changed the movement of the world map - so it doesn't have the rubber band effect as you move around. Now it has a constant, fixed speed just like the research tree, or Google Maps.
  
• I've increased the generated heat by hardware parts.
  
• I've redesigned the notification messages in the bottom left corner - so that they are prettier and easier to read.
  
• When you are in the Research View then the Research Details window won't close - so that you can click on the "add to queue" button - when you are checking your opponents' computers. This makes it easier to find research targets.
  
• I've added an ALL tech button to the hardware designers.
  
• On the market list the maret filters are reworked - and are hopefully more flexible and easier to understand.
  
• I've put the PP cost on the pop-up window on the Computer List that originally showed only the discounted prices of computers.
  
• I've put an extra fire button on the screen where you used to be able to spend your manager's exp. points.
  
• From now on if you click on the Notification Ball that tells you that there is an idle manager - it will show that manager and also open the task selector window. Plus you can move those windows on the screen, too.
  
• From now on if you click on the Notification Ball that tells you that a computer doesn't have any discounts - it will open that computer.
  
• From now on if you click on the Notification Ball that tells you that you cannot get a loan because you already maxed it - it will open the Loan Window.
  
• I've increased the sales by fans by x3, adjusted the computer budgets of economy levels (making poorer countries more profitable and richer ones less profitable, decreased the research and manufacturing passive skills bonuses by 50%, and made factory costs lower by 10%.
  
• I've changed the hint for the view site's window.
  
• I've added hints to the marketing screen sliders.
  
• The pop-up notification windows about important events have now different colors per importance. Critical messages are Red, Informational ones are Blue and Positive events have a Green message.
  
• "During testing a new computer, the MARKET button always turns green after just a few days, and I ALWAYS almost instantly click it. Going from greyed out to full green makes me think, “OK, it’s done!”. What I’d like to see is that it turns Yellow to let you know you can market it now but it’s not fully “baked” and then turns full Green when 30 days have passed."
  Nice idea, noted and done!
  
• I've changed the sales graphs so that they don't show the current month/year because many misread them and thought that their sales dropped while those last month/year data points were just incomplete, yet.
  
• From now on when you click on an input field that is connected to a slider like the frequency slider on the CPU designer the game selects the text in it as earlier, but now it is enough to type in the number that you'd like to have without the unit (MHz for example) and then the game will know that you'd like to use the earlier unit that is already there. You can of course still use a different unit if you want to (when it makes sense). Also, pressing ENTER will have the same effect as clicking outside of the control (you finish editing and the game checks if the new value is correct or not and saves it if it is). This makes it faster to edit these values.
  
• From now on you always find a manager, it just takes a maximum of 2.5 years - while charisma can greatly decrease that time. You can also edit the stats for yourself and for your manager manually at the start. But still, you get only 1 manager when you hire - not 2.
  
• The big dollar icon in the top right corner opens the budget tab of the statistics window.
  
• I've altered the CashFlow Window, so now it has "sum" values and is clearer to read.
  
• I made the cash flow window movable.
  
• I've updated the error message that you get when you don't have an interface or integrated graphics on your MOBO when building a PC to make it easier to understand what's missing.
  
• There is a new Connection Graph between the players - so one can know what's going on.
  
• You can ignore the demands of your opponent or all of their messages automatically except when they say goodbye.
  
• I've added hints to the manager pool window's two buttons.
  
• Economical differences are smaller between market economy levels, fans buy more computers, and passive manager skills were nerfed a bit.
  
• Marketing departments cost way more now - but marketing is more effective, too - and target group selection has a bigger impact.
  
• I've made changes to how the Site Manager shows data.
  
• New software and games are now indicated on the Computer Designer Screen - so that the player knows when to create a new OS for the extra points.
  
• You can rename your managers.
  
• Now there is a check in the tutorial - that guarantees that the player's first market has more than 30m people in it! So that it is not too small to be profitable.
  
• I've rearranged the upper bars in the game - so that they are a bit easier to read and look better - tho there is still room for improvement.
  
• Now all departments have a slider - so you won't over-upgrade your sites - since you can just adjust your costs by using their sliders. The Recreation Department now has a different effect. Instead of just being a mandatory department to upgrade your factories, they give you a small chance for a "Technological Breakthrough" which is an event when your current technology is unexpectedly finished. You can upgrade Factories without restrictions now, but the Recreation Department is limited to the level of your highest-level department at the same site. Establishing a new site is more expensive from now on - and of course, the Recreation Department has different costs, too.
  
• I've changed the required LP points to distribute your computers in a country on your own by two-thirds but at the same time halved the number of LPs that your departments can produce. AND also increased the penalty for using more LPs than what you have.
  
• And of course... I've updated the Wall Of Gratitude!
• And this list doesn't contain some smaller things that I've done on the fly...
  

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Holy! The game's text file is already longer than the first Harry Potter book... If you'd like to know more about localizations:
LINK

Heartfelt thanks to all of you and have fun! :)

* Also thank you so much for the reviews, they help a LOT! *