Development has been progressing smoothly. I've almost finished the overhaul of the development mechanics, I still need to rewrite software types, balance and bug fix. When the overhaul is done, I have to add some new features, before I can release the initial test version, including conferences and publishing deals (You can read more about it in the Trello). I don't expect the initial test version to have the software update mechanic, as that requires quite a bit of work by itself. I expect to be able to add it without breaking save files, so it isn't worth delaying for.
What has changed
Education and specializations
Specializations are now split up into three separate levels, rather than one continuous value. Each level has a major impact on gameplay, rather than just being a quality multiplier. For programmers and artists each level decides what level of features they can work with and not the quality they add, which means the "minimum specialization" hack I added in alpha 10 is no longer needed. Product quality is now controlled by the base skill of an employee and development speed is simply controlled by employee satisfaction, making it much easier to guesstimate timelines in the game. This change will most likely also bring back the progress bar in the alpha phase, which I know was a major pain point for some of you.
Leaders and marketing employees now also have specializations, which means you no longer send leaders off to a single HR course, instead you unlock HR features by levelling up leaders' HR specialization.
As employees increase their skill in a role, they also slowly earn experience which you can use to unlock the next level for a specialization, making education more RPG-like, but also way simpler and more discernible.
Features and the design document
Most of the feature dependency systems have been removed, to declutter software and simplify creating new software. As such the feature tree has been removed completely. Software now consists of a few main features (up to one for each specialization) and contain a bunch of smaller sub-features that satisfy each target market differently. The main features can depend on other software, like how 2D graphics will depend on having a 2D graphics editor, but sub-features can't have any dependencies, other than their main container feature.
There are no longer patentable features, instead each specialization has a tech level that can be researched and patented. Each main feature has a tech level based on its specialization, which impacts the satisfaction of your target markets and development time.
The design document has been pagified to accommodate the new target market selection screen. It currently consists of 4 pages: General information, dependencies, target markets and overview/team assignment.
Level 3 features
Each "sub-feature" has a level that controls its impact and the required level of employees to work on it. The max level features don't add anything to product quality, but actually change gameplay in some unique way. To accommodate this change I've written an interpreter from scratch, so you can write C# like code directly in your XML mod files, to add new and interesting features to your software types.
Other stuff
Software licenses are now only paid for needs (Not operating systems), and they are paid monthly during development, instead of as a onetime fee at the beginning.
The delay phase preceding the beta phase of development has been removed.
You can no longer "over-design" a product, the design phase just ends at 100%
The skill of applicants no longer depend on company reputation, but company benefits.
I made some 3D animal models in my spare time to practice, which will be spread around the maps.
Alpha 10.10 adds the long requested feature: Paths. You can now build paths from the road construction menu and since employees walk slower on grass in this update, paths won't just be for looks.
Alpha 10.10.11 (2019-02-28)
Changes
Added ability to favorite furniture to put it first, and filter furniture by favorites
Added ability to fine tune sliders in options window using arrow keys while hovering with mouse
Fixes
Employees will now attempt to get at a section of path in different ways if it is blocked, instead of just idling
More work towards fixing save state corruption
Benefits requiring money upfront (e.g. company car) would be free when activating them for new employees
Fixed number keys getting translated as being 1 number higher in UI
Alpha 10.10.10 (2019-02-21)
Fixes
Possible fix for rare save state corruption
Fixed error sound still playing after successfully splitting a room
Fixed being able to put furniture in invalid rooms by rotating near a wall while placing
Improved feedback window content sizing at bigger UI zoom levels
Alpha 10.10 highlights (including Alpha 10.9.9)
Changes
Added path system
Added secondary role and task system, so certain tasks and roles can be prioritized over others
Ability to drag selection to rectangle to select employees, furniture and parking spaces (using multi select will filter by current selection)
Added grass (you can increase the amount or disable completely in graphics options)
Employees now walk 25% slower on grass
Added performance column to active deals
Road crossings are now added dynamically to improve look of roads and parking
Added warning to product detail window when product has no more people to sell to
Elevated roads no longer appear blocky in miniatures
Added footprints and direction to dirt, and improved dirt spread
Employees now actively look at what they're interacting with and randomly around when idling and walking
Replaced newsfeed with offline patch notes in main menu
Duplicate shortcut now works for rooms (in build mode) and room clone button works for furniture
Anchor grid is now mapped to G by default and mapping is shown on grid gizmo
Ability to use arrow, esc and enter key in save game window
Price overlay when building will now default to being colored according to current bank balance
Select building now includes roof in selection
Improved how game generates nav and build mesh boundaries for modded furniture when using AutoBounds. Specifically sets minimum width and height for nav mesh and converts build mesh to a line if very thin. This should fix bugs with cubicles, if updated by author (If you are re-using the vanilla cubicle, leaving out nav and build boundary from the XML would be the best solution)
Fixes
Fixed bug causing AI companies to sometimes heavily underestimate physical sales and not order enough copies
Fixed room textures getting purged on Linux when changing resolution (would cause rooms to be black)
Fixed options window spawning new controls every time it was opened
Fixed snow and rain sticking to screen
Fixed undo placing houses and skyscrapers in custom map mode not working
Fixed employees walking through houses in town maps after load
Fixed camera zoom being overridden by default value on load
Coffee liquid held by employees on other floors would stay visible
Fixed wall top edge sometimes having holes or poking out over outdoor areas
Clone/blueprint tool will now correctly handle (recursively) surrounded open spaces in a building when checking for collisions
Fixed FURNITURE_DEBUG lines not being drawn on top of everything else
Fixed path to log file on Linux sometimes being incorrect
Optimizations
Improved dirt mesh data handling
Optimized all particle systems and disabled particle pausing to try and fix crashes caused by particle systems
Alpha 10.10 adds the long requested feature: Paths. You can now build paths from the road construction menu and since employees walk slower on grass in this update, paths won't just be for looks.
Alpha 11 plans
As you may or may not have noticed, Alpha 11 development has been delayed quite a few times now. The planned features for Alpha 11 have been quite clear in my mind, but I've been unable to figure how to add those features, without breaking other parts of the game. I've finally figured out how to make it happen, but this is turning out to be quite a big overhaul. Since Alpha 11 might be one of, if not the last Alpha release, I think having it be a major overhaul of the main game mechanics makes sense, as this might be my last chance to rectify the issues I have with the game.
I'll be looking out for bug reports on the new path system, while I plan out how to implement Alpha 11. I'll start implementing Alpha 11 once I'm confident the new path system is stable.
Once my plans for Alpha 11 are finished, I'll have a good idea of how long it'll take to finish the initial release, but for now I'll guestimate it at somewhere between 3 and 9 months. I'll keep you posted at https://twitter.com/SoftwareIncGame
Alpha 10.10.8 (2019-02-11)
Changes
Duplicate shortcut now works for rooms (in build mode) and room clone button works for furniture
Fixes
Fixed bug that would sometimes occur when splitting rooms
Alpha 10.10.7 (2019-02-10)
Changes
Elevated roads no longer appear blocky in miniatures
Added footprints and direction to dirt, and improved dirt spread
Path materials can now be picked for outdoor areas
Color window now changes based on whether selected rooms are outdoor areas
Employees now actively look at what they're interacting with and randomly around when idling and walking
Fixes
Pressing enter to confirm deleting save file no longer causes game to try and load said file afterwards
Right clicking with path and any other object selected didn't group actions properly
Coffee liquid held by employees on other floors would stay visible
More fixes to room clone collision calculation
Optimizations
Improved dirt mesh data handling
Alpha 10.10.6 (2019-02-06)
Fixes
Fixed furniture wall offset algorithm in cases where furniture would get squished
Fixed wall top edge sometimes having holes or poking out over outdoor areas
Alpha 10.10.5 (2019-02-05)
Fixes
Fixed game breaking when modded furniture breaks
Fixed game breaking when assigning project management leader to no team
Alpha 10.10.4 (2019-02-04)
Changes
Improved path related pathfinding
You can no longer place path ends on blocked areas and paths will snap to room boundaries, so they don't get blocked
Added line to show if path is going to connect to a door
Added performance column to active deals
Clone/blueprint tool will now correctly handle (recursively) surrounded open spaces in a building when checking for collisions
Ability to use arrow, esc and enter key in save game window
Price overlay when building will now default to being colored according to current bank balance
Fixes
Blocked path endings no longer break pathfinding and a warning has been added
Adding door near path could make path corrupted and unselectable
Undoing extending path in a straight line didn't work
Optimized broken furniture smoke particles and disabled particle pausing to try and fix crashes caused by particle systems
Alpha 10.10.3 (2019-02-01)
Reported bugs fixed for path system, particle systems (should reduce crashes in Windows) and secondary task system
Alpha 10.10.2 Fixes (2019-01-30)
Game would fail to save if a path system had been corrupted
Fixes to path undo procedures
Alpha 10.10.1 changes
Added path system
Added grass
Employees now walk 25% slower on grass
Added secondary role and task system, so certain tasks and roles can be prioritized over others
Improved selection responsiveness
Snow is now dynamically added to exterior walls, roofs and paths
Road crossings are now added dynamically to improve look of roads and parking
Added warning to product detail window when product has no more poeple to sell to
Anchor grid is now mapped to G by default and mapping is shown on grid gizmo
Replaced newsfeed with offline patch notes in main menu
Fixes
Fixed undo placing houses and skyscrapers in custom map mode not working
Fixed employees walking through houses in town maps after load
Fixed camera zoom being overridden by default value on load
Ability to drag selection to rectangle to select employees, furniture and parking spaces (using multi select will filter by current selection)
Employee walk paths are now drawn when selected
Select building now includes roof in selection
Improved how game generates nav and build mesh boundaries for modded furniture when using AutoBounds. Specifically sets minimum width and height for nav mesh and converts build mesh to a line if very thin. This should fix bugs with cubicles, if updated by author (If you are re-using the vanilla cubicle settings, leaving out nav and build boundary from the XML would be the best solution)
Fixes
Fixed bug causing AI companies to sometimes heavily underestimate physical sales and not order enough copies
Fixed room textures getting purged on Linux when changing resolution (would cause rooms to be black)
Fixed snow and rain sticking to screen
Fixed options window spawning new controls every time it was opened
Fixed FURNITURE_DEBUG lines not being see-through
Fixed path to log on Linux sometimes not working
Alpha 10.9.8 is officially out with reported bugs fixed.
Alpha 10.9.7 adds a new grid manipulation gizmo(2018-12-12)
(You can toggle the old grid manipulation panel in the options menu, if you prefer)
Alpha 10.9.6 changes (2018-12-10)
Objects are now highlighted when cursor is hovering over them, to make selection more intuitive
Ability to bind duplicate furniture key
Reduced complexity of windows and doors during mini map generation when necessary to avoid hitting mesh vertex limit, because some of you managed to add at least 2730 exterior windows and doors in one save!
Alpha 10.9.5 fixes bugs in the Market recognition drop-down and column filtering.
Alpha 10.9.4 changes (2018-12-08)
Furniture builder will now try to keep furniture inside room boundary instead of just giving up placement
Ability to transfer IP to relevant subsidiary using trade button
Specializations picked for HR now affects education choice
Roof points can snap to grid
Fixed some localization pluralizations
Added inline functions to localization system, currently only includes Vowel, Plural, FirstOrCount function
Market simulation now ignores in-house products when determining current highest tech level on market
Shift click a work filter toggle to isolate it
Better handling of error when generated mesh has too many vertices
Improved feedback window message box
Added salary NaN check to avoid game corruption and hopefully locate source of bug
Fixed software type and category dropdown localization
Overhauled options window
Ability to set multi-placement as default mode
Ability to disable rain, snow, thunder and lightning
Added dynamic colorization to popup messages and message boxes
Fixed window dragging and max size when UI is scaled
Alpha 10.9.3 changes (2018-11-16) <-- last official release
Zoom to cursor instead of center of screen
Fixes
Fix dropdown position when UI is scaled
Fixed missing assignment buttons in deal window
Improved handling of generated geometry to try and fix Windows crashes
[2018-11-15] Alpha 10.9.2 is out officially. The only change from 10.9.1 is that the furniture replace window has been fixed.
This update mainly contains bug fixes and optimizations. Notably, I've updated to Unity 5.6 from 5.5 to try and mitigate several crash issues.
Work on Alpha 11 is still ongoing, but it is still in the design phase. Alpha 11 will be the final iteration of the development mechanic, so I want to make sure I don't make any big mistakes.
Changes
Move to Unity 5.6
Added syntax highlighting to mod source code reader
Hold R while placing furniture to randomly rotate based on current angle snap
Ability to control camera with touch using 2 fingers (Only tested on an MS Surface (which does not meet minimum requirements FYI))
Fixes
Saves broken by having the start options mod installed and upgrading to alpha 10.8 without installing the updated mod will now have their difficulty setting clamped on load, if it is out of range
Undoing deletion of rooms in basement could break game
The previous bug could break saves such that altering rooms in the basement and ground floor would behave weirdly. A process to fix save files during load has been added, but might not work in all cases
People no longer talk to themselves in empty meetings...
Mod source code reader would break on long source files
Various other fixes
Optimizations
Optimized drop-down list handling
Random optimization work in market simulation and main game loop
Slanted roofs and code modding is officially out. You can read more about code mods in my last announcement.
I tested Software Inc. on the latest version of Ubuntu and had some issues launching it, which was fixed by forcing fullscreen mode and re-launching and restarting until it just started working, which I guess is par for the course. The launch parameter to force fullscreen is: "-screen-fullscreen 1 -screen-width 1920 -screen-height 1080 -disableresolution", but switch out 1920 and 1080 with your screen resolution. When the game launches successfully you can set the game to fullscreen in the graphics options and remove the launch parameters, if you so desire.
Alpha 10.8.4 fixes
Fixed duplicating outdoor areas
Fixed having to re-validate mods when using RELOAD_DLL_MOD
Full changelog for Alpha 10.7 and 10.8
Added slanted roofs
New Autumn track by Sinnott Soundworks
Added 2 new startup maps, a garage and a skyscraper
Basements are now separated for blueprints and cloning
Doubled starting cash on easy mode
Changing team arrival and leave times will now take immediate effect
Whether project management makes a product in-house will now depend on base product
UX changes
Build menu category list now uses thumbnails instead of checkboxes and text
Added calendar window when date is clicked to see employee and staff working hours
Ability to manage staff room assignment from staff window
Pressing the focus button (space by default) now cycles between all selected objects
Ability to highlight unsupported rooms if cloning or blueprint creation fails
Fixes
Fixed room grouping bugging out when re-grouping rooms
Fixed bug regarding how door blockage is checked for doors to upper floor parking. Doors going nowhere or in basement will now show as blocked
Various other fixes
Modding changes
Code modding
Added system for compiling C# in-game and securing access to certain types
More confirmation has been added before loading new or changed dll mods
Added code mods to the Steam workshop
ModMeta is now an Abstract Class rather than an Interface and the FloorMod has been updated to show examples
DLL mods will now be queried to save and load data from save files
Changed WindowManager interface to avoid misuse of active window lists that would cause crash (Use OnlyHide, StartHidden, Shown and OnClose to control lifecycle)
Game assembly now includes xml documentation to help develop dll mods in Visual Studio (Only some of the codebase have been commented so far, mostly UI stuff)
Improved logged message when an error occurs loading a dll mod
XML modding
Deprecated mesh and snappoint Parent tag in furniture mods and added Parent ATTRIBUTE to all tags that searches everything in the furniture with a name(Use ComponentName tag to name Meshes and InteractionPoints, Name tag for Transforms)
Multiple and custom lights for modded furniture using the LampScript's Lights variable(will automatically find all light components in a furniture if not manually set, at the expense of performance)
Modded furniture can now optionally have the IsIconic variable set to an array of category names, if it should be used as a thumbnail for custom categories
Alpha 10.8.3 fixes further issues with mod loading. Alpha 10.8.2 fixes some issues with mod loading.
You can now upload and download code mods in the Steam Workshop!
First off: Do not download code mods if you don't want to ruin your PC, but also don't want to verify the safety of the mod.
Here are some quick Q&As to explain what this change means:
What is a data mod?
As you most likely haven't noticed, because I literally just changed it, mods in the workshop are no longer called "Mods" but "Data mods". Everyone who has a "Mod" on the workshop should re-upload it to gain access to this new exclusive title. A data mod is basically a mod that doesn't change how the game works, but gives the game more content to work with, which is what mods on the workshop have done so far.
What's the difference between code mods and data mods?
Code mods are written using a programming language and actively change how the game works, add new mechanics on top of it or they pretend to be mods while they quietly mine bitcoin in the background.
Aren't there already code mods on the workshop?
The way code mods work in Software Inc. can pose a serious threat to your computer, since they have the same access to your files and internet that the game has, but have the advantage of not being developed by me. Because of this, I had decided not to allow code mods on the workshop. Clever modders got around it by uploading their programs as text files, which is obviously not an ideal situation.
If code mods are so insecure, why are you allowing them now?
This latest update includes a way to load mods that are still in text format and actively tries to shut off parts of the mod that would access your internet or files. Please note that the mods can still be very dangerous. I will try my best to moderate code mods on the workshop, but feel free to study the files, find and flag any malicious code yourself. The game will prompt you to read the code directly in the game before it loads any new or updated code mod.
Slanted roofs are finally in! I hope this makes up for the slightly misleading roofs in the town map screenshots I released, leading up to alpha 10.
Slanted roofs are currently purely cosmetic. I'll try to figure out some way to utilize them in a future update, but for now, they are free in-game.
I made some big changes to the DLL modding system, which will break all current DLL mods. See changes at the end of this post.
This marks the end of alpha 10. I'm keeping Alpha 10.7 in testing for a short while, to make sure there aren't any major issues.
Alpha 10.7.2 fixes
Fixed employee working hours in calendar window going 1 hour too long
Fixed modded furniture with lights stopped working
Alpha 10.7.1 changes
Added slanted roofs
New Autumn track by Sinnott Soundworks
Added 2 new startup maps, a garage and a skyscraper
Basements are now separated for blueprints and cloning
Doubled starting cash on easy mode
Changing team arrival and leave times will now take immediate effect
Whether project management makes a product in-house will now depend on base product
UX changes
Build menu category list now uses thumbnails instead of checkboxes and text
Added calendar window when date is clicked to see employee and staff working hours
Ability to manage staff room assignment from staff window
Pressing the focus button (space by default) now cycles between all selected objects
Ability to highlight unsupported rooms if cloning or blueprint creation fails
Fixes
Fixed room grouping bugging out when re-grouping rooms
Fixed bug regarding how door blockage is checked for doors to upper floor parking. Doors going nowhere or in basement will now show as blocked
Various other fixes
Modding changes
DLL modding
ModMeta is now an Abstract Class rather than an Interface and the FloorMod has been updated to show examples
DLL mods will now be queried to save and load data from save files
Changed WindowManager interface to avoid misuse of active window lists that would cause crash (Use OnlyHide, StartHidden, Shown and OnClose to control lifecycle)
Game assembly now includes xml documentation to help develop dll mods in Visual Studio (Only some of the codebase have been commented so far, mostly UI stuff)
Improved logged message when an error occurs loading a dll mod
XML modding
Deprecated mesh and snappoint Parent tag in furniture mods and added Parent ATTRIBUTE to all tags that searches everything in the furniture with a name(Use ComponentName tag to name Meshes and InteractionPoints, Name tag for Transforms)
Multiple and custom lights for modded furniture using the LampScript's Lights variable(will automatically find all light components in a furniture if not manually set, at the expense of performance)
Modded furniture can now optionally have the IsIconic variable set to an array of category names, if it should be used as a thumbnail for custom categories
This patch contains fixes for every bug reported in-game since the official release of alpha 10.
Development update
I've taken some much needed time off since alpha 10 released, which is why I've been mostly quiet on social media. I plan on releasing another Alpha 10 update introducing slanted roofs, after which I'll move on to Alpha 11.
The planned features, as they are listed on Trello now, will not change at this point. I will most likely still randomly add features not on Trello, like the previously added multi-floor parking, outdoor areas and upcoming slanted roofs, but I'm aiming for beta at this point, which means a complete freeze on new gameplay changing features (not including what's on Trello). I don't expect to reach beta within at least one year. Once in beta, development will focus on bugs, balancing, steam integration, localization and adding content.
Patch notes for alpha 10.6.9
Fixed a bug that would allow a product to get sales with any price, if it was the sole release on an OS with active users
Fixed game freezing due to HR hiring more than 300 employees in one go and optimized team compatibility calculation a bit
Fixed deleting rooms under unowned roads when buying plot and added a warning
Fixed being able to see and control product under development by going to product details from design document window
Fixed tutorial arrows when UI is scaled
Fixed money, reputation and market recognition dropdown panels not closing in build mode
Fixed game breaking when filtering columns in product detail window
Fixed default custom material for modded furniture having full emission/glow (use _EmissionColor)
Fixed some issues with AC and central heating not updating when being moved or not having correct Type
Fixed marketing deal not showing progress due to wrong value scaling
Fixed debug spawning guests breaking game(will also fix bugged saves)
Clarified error message when trying to change price of a free product
Alpha 10 is now stable enough for an official release. I might still have some changes that are big enough to warrant an update or two for Alpha 10. I want to cram as many features in as possible before moving on to Alpha 11, since the bulk of features planned for Alpha 11 will render Alpha 10 saves completely incompatible, as usual.
If you are not done with your Alpha 9 save file and want to continue playing Alpha 9, you can switch to the "old" branch by right clicking the game in Steam and going to properties and then betas.
I recommend going through the tutorials, as they have been updated to reflect changes in gameplay and new additions. A lot of strategies and play styles from Alpha 9 will not work in Alpha 10, since hiring and employee skills have been overhauled.
Alpha 10 highlights
Ability to lease rooms
Ability to relocate company
New plot system
Added map editor, town map, map generation string, rain and thunder
Multi-floor parking
Ability to mod room material textures
Overhauled hiring mechanic and employee skill system
Overhauled employee satisfaction mechanic and added customizable employee benefits
Ability to assign multiple roles per employee
Ability to control subsidiary releases and assign tasks
5 new tracks from Sinnott Soundworks
Added ability to change the price of a product
Removed scenarios and added ability to take out loans in new game screen
Overhauled temperature mechanics to instantly reflect changes instead of simulating in realtime
Software sales are now calculated per OS market, so software released for different OSs are no longer in direct competition
Plus massive amounts of bug fixes, QOL improvements and optimizations
Finally, I want to stress that Software Inc. is still in alpha, which means major features are still in development, so the gameplay might feel unbalanced at times, which is only exacerbated by the fact that nothing in Software Inc. is scripted. Sometimes the market lines up in a way that makes the game very easy, kind of like how Software Inc. became this (relatively) big success, considering I'm just one person who hasn't released any other games before. I've tried my best to balance the market, but I've also tried to keep it to a minimum, as the effort is basically wasted in the long run.
Changes since last patch
Rebalanced marketing deal and hosting deal reputation effect and made companies cancel deals with bad player performance
Made computer-auto-assign more likely to assign employees to computers in rooms that fit their role, if assigned
IT support would sometimes not unreserve a PC, making it unavailable for use by employees for a random amount of time
Fixed not saving employees' current retirement fund sum (Was still deducted from company monthly, so this was purely cosmetic)
Fixed tutorial bugging out when going from Welcome to Leasing tutorial
Optimizations
Switched to PA Particle Field system for snow and rain
Alpha 10.6.6 changes (2018-07-31)
Added interaction point indicator when placing furniture
You can now rotate snapping furniture using keyboard, instead of just click dragging
Fixes
Fixed furniture placed on high shelves not being selectable
Doorways that are blocked weren't ignored by pathfinding system, causing employees and staff to give up instead of trying alternative routes when pathfinding to a room
Couldn't translate software features in product detail window
Loosing reputation on marketing deals
Going to build mode, pressing esc, and esc again shows non build mode windows in build mode
Various other fixes
Optimizations
Glass door stickman rendering
Alpha 10.6.5 changes (2018-07-17)
New summer track from Sinnott Soundworks
Remember team selection in hiring window
Use hearts instead of a smiley face for market recognition
Clarified outdoor furniture error message to include "fenced areas"
Ability to copy multiple lines of commands at once in the console
Fixes
Fixed HR not hiring anyone because a few people on the team were dragging compatibility down below minimum standards
Taking over a project from project management doesn't update next release date on task
Starting a support or marketing task on a product released using project management will now take over active task instead of doing nothing
Alpha 10.6.4 changes (2018-07-11)
Overhauled distribution deal bidding mechanic
Balanced digital distribution cost
Greatly increased accuracy of ISP cost calculation
Ability to see bandwidth percentage for each distribution client in the distribution window
Balanced hosting deal income
Added keyboard shortcut to button tooltips and keyboard bindings for toggling team labels and wire mode
Split physical and digital distribution tutorials and updated digital distribution tutorial with fixes and going over the new bidding mechanic
Job satisfaction can now affect chance to call in sick
Fixes
Fixed game sometimes bugging out in distribution window due to how the physical copies sold value was retrieved
Fixed localization of specializations on new pie chart legends
Checking furniture collision on replace did not account for rotation correctly and would allow furniture to overlap and stick through walls after being replaced
Tutorials shouldn't auto skip after first tutorial message if skip condition was met before the message was shown
Alpha 10.6.3 fixes (2018-07-06)
Fixed not being able to expand work items because buttons would pop up
Fixed game bugging out if opening info window on a project that has dependencies in beta
Alpha 10.6.2 changes (2018-07-06)
Ability to use software that is in beta for product needs (Allows you to develop games for game engines in beta)
Press ctrl to autocomplete a room when building up against previous rooms
New build track from Sinnott Soundworks
Count employee sick days and show in employee window, complaint window and wage window
Count complaints and resignations handled by HR and show in HR management window
Specialization degrade should change based on difficulty
Instead of hiring very low compatibility employees, low skilled leaders in HR will now just take longer to find applicants that are less compatible on average
Add product detail button in distribution window and total copies sold column
Filter furniture assign window by teams/roles assigned to room and include role with name
Added legends directly on piecharts
Specialization pie chart in design document is now separated by art and code (This is a temporary fix, as the design document will be overhauled in Alpha 11)
Project info window now includes specialization chart
Shift + click a label in a chart legend to only show that stat (helpful for quickly isolating one item in a company's cashflow chart)
Renamed "units sold" to "Net units sold" to clarify that refunds have been deducted from the total
Lowered leader skill gain from HR
Added AI company specialization to company detail window
Fixes
Fixed bug caused by one or more mods setting software as an OS dependency without that software actually depending on an OS. Mods with this issue will be disabled and mods will now be incompatible if they cause this issue together
Employee complaint demands were calculated incorrectly
HR will now reject complaints if the employee has already demanded too much
HR should not educate employees that are about to retire
Fixed some license key/pc combinations resetting license key every time offline version launched
Fixed race condition during new game load that could cause game to not finish pre-simulation, causing general instability, and missing companies and products
Fixed some issues with furniture mod error logging and added base furniture name case insensivity
Added fix in cases where rooms grouped for rent would be recursive, causing an out of memory crash when loading a rentable building
Budget is now set automatically when accepting marketing deals
Rare race condition when checking furniture availability could cause game error when loading game or placing furniture
Fixed game bugging out if employees are fired while interacting with them in the role management window
Added custom string formatter to avoid game bugging out if localization uses the wrong number of arguments in a string
Fixed plot panel being in the wrong place for larger GUI scales
Various other fixes
I've done some "behind the scenes" design work on Alpha 11, and I've ironed out most issues I had with how the new feature system should work. I'm fast tracking alpha 10, so I can move on to alpha 11. I don't expect more than a hotfix or two before I officially release alpha 10. Note that this does not mean I'm throwing out all the feedback you have provided for alpha 10, it just means I'm putting off working on it, until I get the new feature system in place, as that will heavily impact gameplay.
Changes
Added new plural/singular localization XML nodes, which contain both the translation itself in singular and plural form, plus the subject as a postfix in lowercase in a single XML tag
Added ability to compare localization UI files from Console by writing e.g. "COMPARE_LOCALIZATION French English"
New winter track from Sinnott Soundworks
Added ability to change the price of a product
Changed how price affects sales when price is below market average
The AI will now try to port software to new operating systems and also kindly ask any dependent software developers as well, e.g. game engines for games. This should decrease the chance of the player gaining a lot of money purely by the virtue of being first on an OS
Ability to see and change multiple teams' work assignments in the team window
Added warning popup when two employees dislike each other to help identify the exact employees
Compatibility is now shown for each team when changing teams for one employee
Specialization chart no longer counts specializations below the minimum team spec level when calculating average for a team, which makes it easier to see the effect of raising minimum spec level on software quality
Added price warning and ability to change price before release if a product is priced way over market average, as this was causing some unintended 0 sale products
Increased amount of game dev companies to fill out void in categories (only affects new games)
Rebalanced stress levels to make stressed employee way less stressed and lazy employees a little more stressed
Rebalanced personalities traits so all extremes are possible and average personality combination has medium trait values
Employees will now automatically prefer to use computers which boost roles they are assigned to (note that it is still first come first served, so someone less suited for a PC might call dibs before a better suited employee does, you can reverse this by assigning manually)
Half follower loss rate if release date has been announced
Improved computer auto assignment
Furniture tooltips should go away once action has been carried out by player
Grouping rooms for rent that are already grouped in the map editor will now ungroup them all
Work item filters are now saved
Proper tutorial for new team window options
Rebalanced print deal payouts
Added warning when subsidiary is running out of money
Improved company cashflow chart color, order and highlighting
Fixes
All active print deals would get cancelled every time a company went bankrupt
Toggling all in the multi select window would untoggle everything that had been filtered by the current search
Products which had a million dollar price tag could end up generating sales if no other product had been released in the same category for at least 5 years
Sometimes AI companies would avoid releasing software in a specific category because another company was planning to do it in several years
Lazy employees left too early on average
Stove quality state had no bearing on cooking
Trees visible underground on load
Made furniture ownership checks more robust to avoid them switching around on load (won't fix previous saves)
Fixed employees walking in and out of the elevator when reaching their floor for no reason
Made employees more likely to pick parking spots that are closer in height to where they want to go
Fixed instances of employees walking through cars and backtracking when going from parking space to room on upper floors
Moved chair repair point closer to avoid it getting blocked by stuff behind the chair
Changed "Not qualified for assigned tasks" to "Not qualified for active tasks" to clarify that it does not apply to finished assigned tasks