Hey everyone, time for another update!
So I've been hard at work on the next major content patch & upcoming engine port, which means there's not a great deal of new content in this patch.
But even though this is a minor patch in terms of new content, it's a major patch in terms of framework changes & upgrades.
These changes will make future development & much faster, easier & far less prone to bugs.
Boring technical stuff here, skip down to the changelog to see the important stuff.
To give an example of what I'm talking about, in the past if I wanted to add a single new floor or wall to the game, I'd need to go through a bunch of scripts scattered all around the project & add code for it manually, go through menu code & make space for it, go through the research tree code & add it where it needs to go & then testing it all etc.. this would take a long time.
But now as of this patch, adding a new type of floor or wall is as easy as adding an entry to a simple spreadsheet that looks something like this:
[table]
[tr]
[th]Name[/th]
[th]Sprite[/th]
[th]Price[/th]
[th]Tooltip[/th]
[th]TechID[/th]
[/tr][tr]
[td]Blue Carpet[/td]
[td]blueCarpet.png[/td]
[td]5[/td]
[td]Very fancy[/td]
[td]14[/td]
[/tr][tr]
[td]Purple Carpet[/td]
[td]purpleCarpet.png[/td]
[td]5[/td]
[td]Kinda fancy[/td]
[td]14[/td]
[/tr][/table]
Everything else is now automatically handled with code. Changes like the above example are the kind of thing I've been working on over the last few months. Tonnes of upfront coding to streamline later content additions. Many other in-game systems have been re-coded from the ground up to work just as easily, and there are many more still to go.
One side effect of all this optimisation & code cleanup, is that if I ever add mod support and/or community content, these changes will make it far simpler to implement.
But even though this is mostly 'behind the scenes' work preparing the the upcoming engine port, there's still a few notable additions:
Here's the full changelog:
_A new tech has been added to the research tree: 'Advanced Flooring'.
This tech adds 3 new types of floor, each providing a mild beneficial effect:
- Heavy Duty Gym Mat: Slows durability decay by 5% for equipment on this.
- Marble Floor: Provides a slight boost to the environment stat of those walking over it.
- White Vinyl Tiles: Mess dropped on this is cleaned 10% faster. Great for areas often exposed to mess.
There are also 4 new floors added to existing techs:
-
'Concrete Pool Slabs', a new tile that works well surrounding pools
-
3 new carpet colors added to the 'Colored Carpet' tech
-
A new type of random spawning tree has been added, also randomly spawned trees now grow slowly over time & new trees can occasionally appear.
-
The way zones & electrical cables are drawn has been converted from tile based to grid based in preparation for upcoming engine port, the end result should look the same but result in a performance increase when zones or cables are displayed.
-
Arcade Machines have had more sprites added so they can now be rotated!
Balance Changes:
- Some techs in the Research tree have had their prices re-balanced
- Star rating now has a bigger impact on casual customer spawn rates
- Trainer skills now increase roughly 50% slower
- Critically Injured customers now take around 20% longer to die
- Many pre-existing floor tiles have had their prices adjusts
- Customers will no longer complain about crowds while on computers or at the cafe
- Customers are now a little more lenient with crowds in general
- Equipment repair time has been changed from a 2 second flat rate to a variable time based on equipment price, durability & the skill of the repairer
- The managers' 'Strength' stat now reduces all assemble/build/move/repair times by a flat 1.5% per point up to a max of 75%. Meaning something that takes 10 seconds to build, will take 2.5 seconds to build with 50 points in 'Strength'
Minor Changes & Bug Fixes:
- The 'Build Wall' & 'Room' functions have been visually improved
- Lifeguard chairs now display a range indicator when selected
- More notifications & emotes have been added for user-friendliness
- Customers now say the zone they're in when complaining of crowds
- 'Rust Protection' tech no longer incorrectly halves repair costs
- Classes now get cancelled if there is nowhere for the trainer to stand
- Fixed bug allowing trainer skills to go above their intended cap
- Fixed bug allowing classes to have more signups than the zone capacity
- Fixed bug causing janitors to stop moving when they can't reach mess
- Fixed a restocking bug causing a janitor/manager to get stuck wandering
- Fixed crash caused by manually carrying an injured customer to the road
- Removed additional ways for mess to be dropped out of bounds
- Fixed issue causing dramatic framerate drop when targetting some zones
- Many minor GUI improvements & performance increases
- Many significant changes to underlying game framework
- Cleaned up & organised lots of code for upcoming port
- Framework changes made to increase device compatibility
- Additional minor changes & bug fixes_
What's next?
Between engine port preparation, working on the next major update, working on monthly updates & now taking care of my newborn son, this trend of 'content light' & 'framework heavy' updates might unfortunately continue for a little while longer.
I'm not really ready to go into too much detail yet but the next major content patch will have some very 'large' additions. Stuff I've had on my to-do list since day 1.
Stay tuned for more info & thank you for your patience & support! :)
Ps. Don't forget to send me any cool Steam achievement ideas at RecCenterTycoon@gmail.com!
Changed files in this update