Low Tech Gadgets

A key part of Factory Town is developing tech like conveyor belts, rails, and pipes that let you automate & streamline delivery of goods between production buildings. Yet, a lot of that fun stuff was locked in the tech tree until nearly the middle of the game. That meant that players had to focus too much on micro-managing worker units and population capacity. I decided to add some new lower-tech gadgets that will let you use all these fun & useful features much sooner!

Wooden Conveyor Belt

The player can now build Wooden versions of conveyor belts as soon as they have completed Basic Logistics and Woodworking. They are made at the Workshop from Planks and Wood. They can carry everything that the higher tier conveyor belts can. The catch? They're SLOW. So they're great for moving an item between nearby buildings, but for longer routes you'll still want to use Wagons, Chutes, Rails, or...

Wooden Railroads

These new lower-tech railroads will help move bulk goods (grain, crops, flour, stone, ores) around your early-game town. The rail tiles are available to build at the Workshop, and cost Planks and Stone. Wooden Minecarts are available, using up Wood Wheels and Planks. All rail cars move slower on wooden rails than the metal rails available later in the game. Wooden Minecarts can't carry very much, but don't require a worker unit and can (slowly) move uphill, unlike chutes.

Rafts

Another new early-game option are Rafts. They cost 4 Planks to build. They move in the water (again, very slowly) and can carry 5 items at a time. They can also harvest Fish, and any resources on the shoreline. So if you have a map with lots of water, you will be able to move stuff across rivers or islands without having to get too far in the tech tree.

Improvements to Train Loading

Because the train system has changed so much over time, the process for loading them was kind of a clunky patchwork. You had to choose between Minecart Loaders, Train Stops and Fuel Loaders, and very often the game would place one of them automatically when the player actually wanted something different. And there was no way to switch functionality without deleting and rebuilding a brand new loader! I decided to finally consolidate all these rail loading and unloading functions into one "Rail Transfer" block, with a bunch of options you can turn on and off anytime to change how it works. This gives more control to players who need specific behavior, while keeping convenient automatic setup functions when you just need something quick & simple.

Here is the list of improvements to railway-related items:

- Rail Transfer block has several options that mimic the older blocks: Transfer Minecart Cargo, Transfer Train Fuel, and Transfer Train Cargo. Those settings can be changed on the fly without having to delete and rebuild a different block type.
- The new Rail Transfer blocks can be assigned multiple behaviors at the same time (e.g. load Train fuel AND cargo)
- Legacy Minecart Loaders, Fuel Loaders, and Train Stops are converted to Rail Transfer blocks, with the appropriate settings enabled to maintain previous behavior.
- Rail Transfer block is now the block automatically created when placing a building that faces a rail tile. It defaults to be able to transfer everything (Cargo and Fuel, from both Minecarts and Trains)
- 7 Rail Transfer block presets are available in the build menu: Minecart Loader & Unloader, Train Loader & Unloader, Rail Loader & Unloader, and Fuel Loader. However, they all create the same basic block type with the same flexible parameters.
- Improved Input / Output icons on Rail Transfer blocks, and in menus
- All rail cars have configurable Signal Tag values
- Signal Tag Filters can now use the format “A,B” to trigger for worker units tagged with A *or* tagged with B.
- Moved all Rail Transfer blocks (plus Barrier Gate) into new Build menu category “Rail Control”
- Rail Transfer blocks no longer have any research requirement so they can be used as soon as the player can build any type of rail item.

Misc Improvements

- Added a new Interface preference: 'Global Hotbars'. If enabled, the game will display a hotbar that is automatically saved & loaded at the player account level, instead of the per-map level. The global hotbar is synced by Steam Cloud along with other player data
- Changed title on agent filters (on Agent Triggers, and now Rail Transfer blocks) from “Workers” filter to “Agent Filters”
- Context controls menu is draggable / resizable
- Added button on pipe connectors and Mines to jump directly to the relevant underground view
- An alert will appear on a Rail Transfer block if there is no connected building
- Fixed performance issue: Building status / Inventory panel being redrawn several times per frame when inventory changed multiple times during frame
- Fixed performance issue when trading posts were running multiple recipes very quickly. Was also preventing them from running at maximum transfer speed
- Build menu clears Search Text when new category selected, to prevent inadvertent filtering
- Improved performance of Rail Tile rendering
- When a player can’t afford an action due to lack of currency, the error message now instructs player to sell more goods instead of bringing more items to storage
- Silos and Crates now default to being placed on lower level of terrain, and are allowed to overlap with 1 unit of terrain slope. This is to avoid common placement errors (i.e. too high on scaffolds) preventing worker access
- Can now use PageDown to lower cursor offset below initial location
- Changed some labels: Magic Rail Tile is now Magic Rail, Fishing Boat is now Boat, Cargo Boat is now Cargo Ship
- Mine Shaft moved out of the “Paths” build category into “Farming / Mining”
- Moved all rail cars out of the “Workers” build category and into new category “Rail Cars”
- On the Item Tooltip panel, a recipe’s inputs are shown in-line with its producing building to make the layout more compact
- Improved the Mana Tutorial
- Added Enchanter tutorial map

Balance Changes

- Steam Locomotives start with some fuel and water when first built
- Crates now contribute to shared player inventory
- The rule ‘Minecarts use Gravity’ will now default to off, so they can climb hills on their own
- Minecart inventory increased from 20 to 50
- Removed Elixir cost from Omnipipe recipe
- Fishing Boat inventory increased from 8 to 10
- Fishing Boat speed reduced from 5 to 4
- Cargo Boat speed increased from 4 to 6
- Cargo Boat population requirement reduced from 2 to 1
- Cargo Boat can now harvest fish directly
- Airship population requirement reduced from 4 to 2
- Crates cost 4 Wood instead of 4 Planks, and no longer require Woodworking research
- Basic Logistics cost of General Knowledge points reduced from 50 to 25
- Removed research requirement for Barrier Gate
- Chute requires its own research (instead of unlocking with Basic Logistics), has prerequisite of Woodworking
- Increased coin and research point costs for several early game researches
- Added alternate recipe for Metal Conveyor Belt that uses more metal but doesn’t require a Cloth Conveyor Belt
- Removed Stone Slab requirement for Metal Rail recipe. Decreased output from 2 tiles to 1 tile.
- Removed Stone Slab requirement for Cloth Belt recipe
- Fish tiles now disappear when fully depleted
- Worker units can harvest Mana Shards & Elemental Stones
- Magic Rail Tile recipe now requires Metal Rail instead of Mechanical Rail (Is preserved as Mechanical rails on legacy maps)

Bug Fixes

- Changing recipes on a building with a Steam Booster would assign existing Steam as ‘Storage’ slot and render the booster unusable (legacy maps that encountered this problem will be automatically fixed)
- Rail Controls button was visible for train cars, when it should only be shown on the engine
- Storage buildings with some inventory item filters would not show filter options for all inventory contents
-When placing Grabbers or Rail Transfer blocks, the potential linked building was not being highlighted
-Steam Locomotive was outputting smoke even when running on Magic Rails, consuming no fuel
-Game was not clearing cache that stored references for Sensor blocks (e.g. Agent Trigger), causing null references and unexpected behavior when subsequent maps were loaded
- Redundant unlock notifications for items that are both a structure and a recipe, e.g., Cloth Conveyor Belts
- Unusable Intermediate Grain Processing” was showing up in ‘unlocked research’ menu (is a not yet fully implemented feature)
- Placing or dragging a path facing away from a building, where the path was on a ramp beneath the building, would not create the correct Grabber structure automatically
- Text on House Upgrade request was too large, resulting in truncated ‘Supply Reinforced Plank’ text
- Unable to highlight or inspect Fish tiles
- Fish tiles would be depleted but harvesting workers would get stuck trying to continue its harvest action
- Inadvertent building highlights when placing a single conveyor belt facing into a building, or a single pipe path near a building
- Changing an inventory slot’s access type (Input, Output, Storage, Off) would not immediately update the visible tooltip
- An item produced by more than one recipe would not show any of them in the item’s tooltip panel
- Campaign 7 Trading Posts were unlocked
- In some situations, purchasing a new terrain chunk would not establish correct navigation links into the new chunk

Enjoy! As always, if you're enjoying these updates, reviews & ratings are much appreciated.

With each update the game is getting closer to "1.0"...will keep everyone updated when I have a specific timeline for official launch. Cheers,

Erik