Hello Tycoons,
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leave feedback or a Review please - if you like my work! :) As a solo developer any feedback and help is greatly appreciated by me!
I'm happy to share with you this version of the game that I've been working on during the past months. Tho this version is still not the next big major update, it is a significant one and the last one as such before the last big major update.
The biggest additions to the game of the previous updates were the managers and the offices. The next major update will give you the CEO Negotiations and the CEO Stuff features (I just renamed "CEO Diplomacy" to "CEO Negotiations", don't worry). If you don't know what those will be, then in a nutshell the CEO Negotiations are going to be something that you have in Civilization games but with CEOs (you will make agreements about market rights, trade technology, etc.) and the "CEO Stuff" will give you the possibility to spend your money on useless things which might also trigger some random events or affect your relations positively with other players.
The main goal of those additions will be to make the game more immersive, making you feel more like a Tech CEO.
Now before that, I thought that it is important to polish the existing systems in the game, help new players and support the players' decision-making. Therefore I've added 3 new screens to the game and added extra hints, descriptions, labels/fields to existing ones as well and have changed the sales algorithm as well.
[h2]The Profitability Screen/TAB[/h2]
This new screen (which is actually a new tab on the Market Survey Window) helps you to know if you are profitable or not in a given market. Tells you how much you've spent here and why, and of course how much you make. The economy/business simulation behind Computer Tycoon is simplified compared to reality but is already way more complex than what most players are used to, and isn't trivial to comprehend - so we needed that one.
You don't just see the total income/total expenses and your total profits, but your profit per 1 million people in the market. This number helps you to compare the different markets' profitability. This helps for example in deciding where you should send your accountants to reduce taxes, or where should you stop selling computers when you don't have enough PP, or helps to decide if you should move to a new empty market instead of this one.
Some costs are averaged. For example, how much does a computer that you've just sold here cost? It depends on where it was manufactured, but when you think about the profitability of this market or another market, this shouldn't be a factor, as it is not dependent on this market. So, the production cost of your computers is averaged. But your Sales Tax or Reseller Cut is very specific to this market and isn't average. (If you hover over the labels on the screen, you will get explanations, don't worry).
Also, you see a Local Market Profit and a Global Company Profit separately. The difference is that the first one doesn't include any costs that are not directly connected to this market. For example, when you have to pay Salaries to Managers which are not working here or are not working where the computers that you sell here are made. But still, they mean an expense, and you should know if this country can pay for them. Right? Now it is also not a trivial thing, but the solution here is that you can see your "Local Market Costs and Profits" plus your "Global Costs and Profits", too - the latter including an averaged amount by those as well, where the proportion of these is dependent on the population of the country you are in. It means that your Global Company Profit being negative doesn't mean automatically that you don't make a profit here. It just means that if that was your only country, then you wouldn't and that this market might decrease your profit margin on computers sold.
Now obviously if your Local market Profit is negative, then you make a loss in that market, but it still doesn't mean that you cannot have a reason to be there (like simply pushing out your opponent for example).
[h2]The Alternatives Screen/TAB[/h2]
This screen helps you to compare your computer with other computers and also answers questions that might concern you when you'd like to know why your computer sells... or doesn't sell. You see the two most popular computers (of your opponents) sold in your markets, you see your and those computers' ranks in the different attributes and their price matrixes. But you also see how many markets you have where you are the sole company selling computers etc.
[h2]The Best Sellers Screen/TAB[/h2]
On this screen, you can see the 4 most popular computers in the given market, and a pie chart with the top 10, showing their sales figures. Before this screen you had to check where your opponents are selling, to know what computers you are competing with, in a market. This screen helps in that regard a lot. Tho after a while you will all sell everywhere, so it won't be so much of an issue, as the next major update will give you the ability to make deals with your opponents where you sell or don't sell, the screen won't lose its relevance then during late-game.
Also, that pie chart is just fun to see... isn't it? Of course, you can set which players and design types are shown on the screen.
I hope that these additions will greatly improve the playability of the game before I add new systems to it. Other than these, there are other smaller changes, such as a new little window giving tips on the research screen - and of course, I've fixed bugs as well.
[h2]Less Jumpy Sales Figures/Nerfed Manufacturing Managers[/h2]
Many thought that the sales figures were too volatile and too hectic in the earlier versions. Most importantly, when a new opponent entered your market, you could easily see your computer losing all its sales overnight. While it is normal to see drastic changes in sold computers when your opponent has just a way way better model than you (or a way cheaper one), it was indeed not realistic that the change happened instantly. Now I've changed the sales algorithms so that the change is gradual. You won't lose all your sales and also your opponents won't lose theirs either that fast. This immediately meant that you will have more sales, which had to be addressed - so it was of course balanced out.
Also, manufacturing managers were reportedly too OP. This wasn't only a problem because new players didn't know that and without a manufacturing manager it was harder for them to survive, but it also meant that Managers with Logistics Bonuses were meaningless. Now, I've halved the bonus coming from Manufacturing Managers and tripled the bonuses coming from Logistic Skills. Now it is worth it to actually have a Logistics Manager giving you way more LPs, as you can greatly reduce your taxes that way, too! Also, it offers the possibility to spread your "bonus" between markets instead of just decreasing your taxes in a single Market as with an Accountant Manager.
Of course, as always, here is a changelog for the new version, with all the bug fixes and changes and the usual pictures about the things coming later.
I would like to reach a beta version this year, so if you wanna be part of its testing, please join my discord server, where I will count on your feedback about it!
BUG FIXES- The day/year label was inconsistent on the Manager Report screen for 2 tasks.
- On the Research List for some the ordering arrows didn't appear on 1080p resolution.
- If you have one in the testing phase, and you can only have one in the testing phase but competitors can launch multiple computers on the same day.
- After researching a technology the research bar in the top left will briefly show "No research in the queue" before showing the next tech that was already in the queue. I think that if you open the research queue before the tech has been fully researched the bar will move straight onto the next research without this erroneous 'nothing' message.
- After training the report said that now your manager has 4 experience points to allocate, while it should have said only 3.
- The accessories were not correctly added to computers and were messing with the cloning and polishing sometimes
- On the cash flow window only the values had hints, the icons didn't.
- It was possible to set more than 100 experience points on skills under some circumstances.
- You were able to click through the Market Information Window.
- The Market stats window showed bad values for reseller cut and sales tax since it was showing the summarized value for all players instead of just the human player.
- The Release Tab showed incorrect production cost value for computers as it included the costs of SPP generation as well.
- It was possible to create a CPU with memory added to it as cache, but not actually having cache on the CPU as not all CPUs can have a cache (only the ones after 386s)
- Russia was called the predecessor of the USSR – it is corrected to successor now.
- The tech delete button on the Research Queue says that you can delete a technology by double-clicking on its line, but it didn't do anything.
- UXGA repeated its text in research
- On the Computer List the data in the rows were not shortened so with high values it was unreadable. Fixed (now it looks like the Hardware List, values have different formatting)
- Multi-Core Feature on OS had a 5% performance boost per CPU core when used next to a Multi-Core CPU. The issue was that even tho this was described in its research description, there was no other indication about it on the Computer Designer screen - and in practice, a multi-core 128 CPU was more powerful than a Quantum CPU that has no multiple cores, so to the player it felt like a bug or at least a step backward. Therefore I've increased the speed of the Quantum Processor Technology and the CPUs after that one.
- The Refresh button on the Fan Distribution Screen was actually not refreshing the shown data. You had to change Tabs or close the screen to refresh things.
- When you had multiple issues with your computer prototype like a too-high price set, too-high temperature, not enough money to start the testing, etc. then multiple windows appeared at the top of the screen, but on top of each other, making them unreadable. Now only one pop-up message appears once.
- Lots of Text corrections
CHANGES- I've changed the rate of how fast a computer can lose or gain sales (including the situation when an opponent enters your market). Many thought that it was way too sudden in the earlier version because when a really superior computer appeared next to yours you could lose 90% of your sales overnight. This is reduced now. We assume that people need some time to change their thinking/mind about a given model and they can stick to their chosen one for a while even when there are better alternatives out there already. This effect exists also when you just suddenly increase or decrease the price of your computer. But still, when you enter a new market with your computer, tho the computers sold there are not affected as dramatically because of your computer right the next day, still your computer will have roughly the same sale numbers during the first days, which will still also gradually decrease until its balanced just as earlier. Still a superior computer will push out other computers, and the effect is still dependent on the difference between the computers.
- I've created a new TAB/Screen to show what computers were bought in a given market yesterday. You can see the top 4 computers (ordered by sales figures) and a pie chart.
- I've created a screen on which you can see if you make a profit or not in a given market with all the required details. The most important values are also shown on the Market List.
- I've created a new TAB/Screen to show what alternatives your computer has, and in general why it sells as for some players it was hard to gather the required data until now. You can see the price matrix of your computer and the 2 most popular alternatives in your market, their ranks in the main attributes and how many were sold yesterday, etc.
- On the Fan Distribution Screen used to be a pie chart showing your user group distribution (the last one). Now it shows your sales distribution between user groups. The point of this pie chart was to show how many fans you have compared to other user groups, but the number of your fans is so low normally compared to normal user groups in your markets, that it was pointless to see. Now with the sales figures, it is actually useful as the impact of your fans there is visible.
- From now on the task Report Screen tells you who was the target (when stealing tech or spreading lies etc.)
- The computer list now shows how many computers were sold so far plus how many were sold yesterday, so you don't have to calculate this yourself.
- I've extended the tutorial with an extra line and changed the hints on the particular labels to make it more obvious that the Upfront Cost of designs is paid only once when you finish the design and not every time when you manufacture hardware or computer.
- I've altered a few Tutorial messages to be more straightforward.
- I've put a close button on the active/passive task selection window.
- From now on when you click on the “New” button the hardware list won't be closed so you can still see existing hardware parts in the list as a form of reference.
- From now on fully researched tech nodes and their lines are a bit transparent to make the research tree easier to read.
- I've added extra hints for shortcuts to the research tree and the research queue.
- I prohibit the player from starting a passive manager task before he/she has a site where the manager could be delegated.
- I've replaced the descriptions of multicore processors with 2 and 4-core processors as they were just too long.
- I've changed the technology name “Virtualization/Emulation” to “Virtualization & Emulation”
- I've altered the labels on the Computer Review Screen to show which magazine covers which user group.
- I have changed the ATA technology to be available for motherboards and removable media drives as well (PATA, SATA, etc. already were, which was confusing)
- I've added a close button to the Active/Passive Task selector window.
- I've created a little tips window on the research screen that changes its text as time goes on so that the player has a bit more idea about what he/she should research.
- I've added a hint on the “of the whole user group” label on the Customers Screen to explain what it means exactly.
- I've changed the order of the fields on the Site Manager, so that the first one under the “Next Level” label shows how much it costs to build the next level and also shifted the whole block of the next level a bit lower and made the titles bold, so it is a bit more separated from the rest.
- I've set back the base price of computers to 8000 by default instead of having 0 there. I hope that it will make players realize at the start that their base price can be as high as this even under given circumstances because beginner players (not checking the tutorial) tended to under-price their computers.
- I've altered the Active/Passive Task chooser windows so that only the Skill value (like 55/100) and the dynamic Time values are bolded, in hope of players realizing easier that different managers are good with different tasks.
- I've touched the Logistic Distribution Window to make it a bit more straightforward. (I've changed the labels and added a new hint)
- I mention in the tutorial when you have to get your first market, that you need to find a first market at least with a population of 30 million. It was necessary because many started in small countries with way fewer people in it which resulted in very low sales numbers of course.
- I've made the little numbers showing how many new unused pieces of technology you have on the Computer Designer Screen a bit bigger and bold as many didn't notice that they don't have to go into the actual hardware part to see if they have new technology for it.
- I've made the notification balls 50% bigger as they were too often overlooked by new players.
- I've added an extra note during the tutorial, that a bigger factory is always cheaper per computer produced. As players are often afraid of building a bigger one because of expenses! Now, this shouldn't be a concern anymore.
- I've added an unloading screen to the game to indicate that it is unloading (some thought the button is not working without it).
If you'd like to know more about the
Managers & Offices update, you can read about it here:
LINKHere is the game's
roadmap that we created together:
LINKAround 70% of this is already implemented in the coming version. With the next big major update I will focus on these:
- Talking/making agreements/trading parts with the opponents (a.k.a. "CEO Negotiations")
- More immersion with random events and potentially manager requests
- The "CEO Stuff" screen, where you will be able to spend your hard-earned billions
This is the point when the game will reach 1.0, and I can start working on Localization and Steam Integration, etc.
If you'd like to know more about
localizations:
LINKHeartfelt thanks to all of you and have fun! :)
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Pictures from the future (not part of the advertised version)
