I've gone ahead and updated the modding wiki to reflect the changes in alpha 10.

https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Modding#Alpha_10_changes

Furniture mods can now use their own textures AND still benefit from custom player coloring. This will allow you to bake in AO among other things:
https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Furniture_Modding#Meshes_and_materials



Last but not least, you can now add your own building materials and upload them to the Steam workshop:
https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Material_Modding

I've gone ahead and updated the modding wiki to reflect the changes in alpha 10.

https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Modding#Alpha_10_changes

Furniture mods can now use their own textures AND still benefit from custom player coloring. This will allow you to bake in AO among other things:
https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Furniture_Modding#Meshes_and_materials



Last but not least, you can now add your own building materials and upload them to the Steam workshop:
https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/wiki/index.php/Material_Modding

• Support ticket handling speed should be less dependant on employee skill
  
• Added minimum skill cap to marketers and leaders as hiring low level employees in these roles did not have any benefits
  
• Info in bottom left corner didn't refresh due to bug introduced in last update
  
• Updated LEASING18 and LEASING19 of the leasing tutorial to include actually selecting a room and pointing out the lease button
  
• Instead of rendering black fill in leasable rooms, hide furniture and color interior and floors black
  
• Ability to set a maximum stock goal for player printing jobs
  
• Increased speed of in-house training and education
  
• Shifted quality labels
  
• AI companies should reject player offer to purchase IP, if it is their only original IP
  
• Various other fixes

Known issues

• Difficulty setting chosen in the new game screen is not updated in the options window in-game

Alpha 10 is getting pretty stable, I wouldn't worry about save file corruption anymore.

• Plot window bug
  
• Contract bug for non standard contract categories
  
• Starting a new game on an empty map after using the map editor will put the new game in map edit mode
  
• Online products are left on player servers after being traded away
  
• Could avoid providing product hosting by trading products back and fourth
  
• Select furniture types in rooms only selected furniture on current floor
  
• Print storage wasn't reset when moving company
  
• Decreased fast learner effect on education speed
  
• You can lose reputation from just finishing a work deal
  
• Difficulty setting should affect starting funds in character creation menu
  
• Lower founder starting skill points based on difficulty setting
  
• Add relocation button to build mode

Alpha 10.1.5 has focused on bug reports, I still haven't gotten to gameplay feedback yet.

• Increased difficulty of gaining followers and difficulty of getting sales on medium and hard
  
• Research work didn't work properly with new multi role system
  
• Bug in support work made ticket handling instant if all bugs had been verified
  
• The debug console is now always enabled, but not assigned to a key by default and all previous bindings have been reset
  
• Tutorial system could make the game not able to unpause after releasing a product
  
• Optimized wall segment exterior calculation and disabled internal segment rendering in opaque glass mode
  
• Made it more clear if the loading screen is done and when/if it wants you to press a key
  
• Fixed bug when placing houses on edge of map CAUSED BY BUGGY MONO COMPILER OPTIMIZATIONS
  
• Fixed skyscraper editor and added removal tooltip for environment objects
  
• Stopped game from focusing on different windows when a dropdown is open
  
• Benefit window scrollbar doesn't work
  
• Fine tuned right click dragging
  
• Fixed printer repair point priority
  
• Various other fixes

• Only draw build grid in leased rooms in rent mode
  
• Undoing a furniture move would bug game
  
• Houses were visible from underground
  
• Added steam sticker for blueprints and materials
  
• Added lease termination tip about sold furniture
  
• Room grouping button in room group window did not work
  
• Furniture value wasn't added back to player when relocating from a rent map
  
• Map editor furniture was time locked
  
• Deleting a building would only delete file, not containing folder and thumbnail
  
• Various other fixes

Disclaimer: THIS IS A PRE-RELEASE FOR TESTING! Do not grow attached to your save files the first couple of days after this release. I'll be monitoring bug reports closely and patch often, but expect possible save file corruption. Alpha 9 save files are not compatible with Alpha 10

• Limiting a room to a role kept all employees from entering it
  
• Simulation randomly breaking when changing month due to bad subsidiary check
  
• Shouldn't count plot worth in money dropdown panel in rent mode

• Can place environment objects outside map area
  
• Days per month setting didn't work
  
• Plots counted towards worth in rent mode
  
• Couldn't make IP trades
  
• Auto graphic settings didn't work
  
• Random bug during alpha phase due to out of bounds competency check
  
• Various fixes

Work on alpha 10 has focused on balancing expenses and adding more options regarding your company's physical presence, namely the ability to relocate your company, buy and sell plot areas, and lease rooms one at a time. Furthermore, employee mechanics have received a giant overhaul in regards to employee satisfaction and education, including a new benefit system that allows you to give and remove perks for all your employees.

I'll be spending the next couple of weeks stabilizing all the new features and documenting the new modding capabilities. I still have a lot more I want to add and improve in alpha 10 before I move on to alpha 11, so there is no concrete timeline at this point.

The new development/feature mechanics did not make it in this release. I underestimated how much work it needed and it fits thematically better with alpha 11, in which I'll be focusing more on the development mechanics in general.

Changes

• Ability to relocate company
  
• New plot system
  
• Ability to lease rooms
  
• Balanced construction and building costs
  
• Rebalanced employee costs and skills, and overhauled hiring mechanic
  
• Ability to control subsidiary releases and assign tasks (More to come)
  
• Overhaul employee satisfaction mechanic
  
• New employee benefit system
  
• New spring and build track from Chris Sinnott
  
• Overhauled business reputation to be more predictable
  
• Overhauled HR mechanic
  
• Added Rural, Town, City and Cold, Temperate, Warm map types
  
• Overhauled room rendering and added ability to mod room material textures
  
• Add ability to use colorable textures for the standard furniture material, instead of forcing the default UV map
  
• Ability to sum financial sheet or cashflow chart by month, quarter or year
  
• Add proper data overlay window
  
• Added key (F) to align furniture to nearest wall when placing
  
• Better control of door direction when building
  
• Doors should not open when employees are just passing by
  
• Remove insurance account (now savings account) interest cap, but lock interest for years after depositing depending on amount
  
• Software sales are now calculated per OS market, so software released for different OSs are no longer in direct competition
  
• Added loading screen and fixed long loading times caused by music decompression
  
• AI company salaries should be higher than bills
  
• Ideal product price should be determined statically in SoftwareType or SoftwareCategory tag
  
• Improved AI printing strategy
  
• Market simulation now uses release dates for hype calculation, no release date gives no hype
  
• Deprecated scenarios and changed how starting funds are chosen
  
• Add select all button to wage negotiation window
  
• Add specialization pie chart to contract window
  
• Add wall skirting
  
• Chairs now degrade in comfort over time
  
• Drag camera now uses momentum, can be mapped to already mapped keys and will default to right click
  
• Ability to generate the same map twice using a text string
  
• Open chart window and products window from company window
  
• Open company window from stock list
  
• Output different symbols from employees depending on work being done
  
• Tutorials can use dynamic values

Fixes

• Holes in a blueprint floor plan were counted as rooms, which would make it so you couldn't duplicate a floor on top of itself unless the floor plan consisted of separate whole areas
  
• Cap active users to OS users
  
• Could not make games for in-dev OSs
  
• Count loans due in stock worth
  
• Employees will now move to the furniture they are assigned if they are currently using the same type of furniture, which they do not own
  
• Failing to deliver on a print deal will now account for time left on the deal to discount the penalty
  
• Difficulty option and PC upgrades weren't being applied to alpha dev speed
  
• Fixed long standing bug causing windows to become invisible if they were the same height or width as the screen on last launch
  
• Physical copies weren't returned to stock after having been refunded
  
• Reset search when changing build category
  
• Right hand holdables not aligned properly

Optimizations

• Group furniture by type to increase query speeds
  
• Optimize market simulation
  
• Ability to turn windows opaque and don't render any room content below current floor in gfx options

Known issues

• Can't update material mod in steam workshop after initial upload

• Support ticket handling speed should be less dependant on employee skill
  
• Added minimum skill cap to marketers and leaders as hiring low level employees in these roles did not have any benefits
  
• Info in bottom left corner didn't refresh due to bug introduced in last update
  
• Updated LEASING18 and LEASING19 of the leasing tutorial to include actually selecting a room and pointing out the lease button
  
• Instead of rendering black fill in leasable rooms, hide furniture and color interior and floors black
  
• Ability to set a maximum stock goal for player printing jobs
  
• Increased speed of in-house training and education
  
• Shifted quality labels
  
• AI companies should reject player offer to purchase IP, if it is their only original IP
  
• Various other fixes

Known issues

• Difficulty setting chosen in the new game screen is not updated in the options window in-game

Alpha 10 is getting pretty stable, I wouldn't worry about save file corruption anymore.

• Plot window bug
  
• Contract bug for non standard contract categories
  
• Starting a new game on an empty map after using the map editor will put the new game in map edit mode
  
• Online products are left on player servers after being traded away
  
• Could avoid providing product hosting by trading products back and fourth
  
• Select furniture types in rooms only selected furniture on current floor
  
• Print storage wasn't reset when moving company
  
• Decreased fast learner effect on education speed
  
• You can lose reputation from just finishing a work deal
  
• Difficulty setting should affect starting funds in character creation menu
  
• Lower founder starting skill points based on difficulty setting
  
• Add relocation button to build mode

Alpha 10.1.5 has focused on bug reports, I still haven't gotten to gameplay feedback yet.

• Increased difficulty of gaining followers and difficulty of getting sales on medium and hard
  
• Research work didn't work properly with new multi role system
  
• Bug in support work made ticket handling instant if all bugs had been verified
  
• The debug console is now always enabled, but not assigned to a key by default and all previous bindings have been reset
  
• Tutorial system could make the game not able to unpause after releasing a product
  
• Optimized wall segment exterior calculation and disabled internal segment rendering in opaque glass mode
  
• Made it more clear if the loading screen is done and when/if it wants you to press a key
  
• Fixed bug when placing houses on edge of map CAUSED BY BUGGY MONO COMPILER OPTIMIZATIONS
  
• Fixed skyscraper editor and added removal tooltip for environment objects
  
• Stopped game from focusing on different windows when a dropdown is open
  
• Benefit window scrollbar doesn't work
  
• Fine tuned right click dragging
  
• Fixed printer repair point priority
  
• Various other fixes

• Only draw build grid in leased rooms in rent mode
  
• Undoing a furniture move would bug game
  
• Houses were visible from underground
  
• Added steam sticker for blueprints and materials
  
• Added lease termination tip about sold furniture
  
• Room grouping button in room group window did not work
  
• Furniture value wasn't added back to player when relocating from a rent map
  
• Map editor furniture was time locked
  
• Deleting a building would only delete file, not containing folder and thumbnail
  
• Various other fixes

Disclaimer: THIS IS A PRE-RELEASE FOR TESTING! Do not grow attached to your save files the first couple of days after this release. I'll be monitoring bug reports closely and patch often, but expect possible save file corruption. Alpha 9 save files are not compatible with Alpha 10

• Limiting a room to a role kept all employees from entering it
  
• Simulation randomly breaking when changing month due to bad subsidiary check
  
• Shouldn't count plot worth in money dropdown panel in rent mode

• Can place environment objects outside map area
  
• Days per month setting didn't work
  
• Plots counted towards worth in rent mode
  
• Couldn't make IP trades
  
• Auto graphic settings didn't work
  
• Random bug during alpha phase due to out of bounds competency check
  
• Various fixes

Work on alpha 10 has focused on balancing expenses and adding more options regarding your company's physical presence, namely the ability to relocate your company, buy and sell plot areas, and lease rooms one at a time. Furthermore, employee mechanics have received a giant overhaul in regards to employee satisfaction and education, including a new benefit system that allows you to give and remove perks for all your employees.

I'll be spending the next couple of weeks stabilizing all the new features and documenting the new modding capabilities. I still have a lot more I want to add and improve in alpha 10 before I move on to alpha 11, so there is no concrete timeline at this point.

The new development/feature mechanics did not make it in this release. I underestimated how much work it needed and it fits thematically better with alpha 11, in which I'll be focusing more on the development mechanics in general.

Changes

• Ability to relocate company
  
• New plot system
  
• Ability to lease rooms
  
• Balanced construction and building costs
  
• Rebalanced employee costs and skills, and overhauled hiring mechanic
  
• Ability to control subsidiary releases and assign tasks (More to come)
  
• Overhaul employee satisfaction mechanic
  
• New employee benefit system
  
• New spring and build track from Chris Sinnott
  
• Overhauled business reputation to be more predictable
  
• Overhauled HR mechanic
  
• Added Rural, Town, City and Cold, Temperate, Warm map types
  
• Overhauled room rendering and added ability to mod room material textures
  
• Add ability to use colorable textures for the standard furniture material, instead of forcing the default UV map
  
• Ability to sum financial sheet or cashflow chart by month, quarter or year
  
• Add proper data overlay window
  
• Added key (F) to align furniture to nearest wall when placing
  
• Better control of door direction when building
  
• Doors should not open when employees are just passing by
  
• Remove insurance account (now savings account) interest cap, but lock interest for years after depositing depending on amount
  
• Software sales are now calculated per OS market, so software released for different OSs are no longer in direct competition
  
• Added loading screen and fixed long loading times caused by music decompression
  
• AI company salaries should be higher than bills
  
• Ideal product price should be determined statically in SoftwareType or SoftwareCategory tag
  
• Improved AI printing strategy
  
• Market simulation now uses release dates for hype calculation, no release date gives no hype
  
• Deprecated scenarios and changed how starting funds are chosen
  
• Add select all button to wage negotiation window
  
• Add specialization pie chart to contract window
  
• Add wall skirting
  
• Chairs now degrade in comfort over time
  
• Drag camera now uses momentum, can be mapped to already mapped keys and will default to right click
  
• Ability to generate the same map twice using a text string
  
• Open chart window and products window from company window
  
• Open company window from stock list
  
• Output different symbols from employees depending on work being done
  
• Tutorials can use dynamic values

Fixes

• Holes in a blueprint floor plan were counted as rooms, which would make it so you couldn't duplicate a floor on top of itself unless the floor plan consisted of separate whole areas
  
• Cap active users to OS users
  
• Could not make games for in-dev OSs
  
• Count loans due in stock worth
  
• Employees will now move to the furniture they are assigned if they are currently using the same type of furniture, which they do not own
  
• Failing to deliver on a print deal will now account for time left on the deal to discount the penalty
  
• Difficulty option and PC upgrades weren't being applied to alpha dev speed
  
• Fixed long standing bug causing windows to become invisible if they were the same height or width as the screen on last launch
  
• Physical copies weren't returned to stock after having been refunded
  
• Reset search when changing build category
  
• Right hand holdables not aligned properly

Optimizations

• Group furniture by type to increase query speeds
  
• Optimize market simulation
  
• Ability to turn windows opaque and don't render any room content below current floor in gfx options

Known issues

• Can't update material mod in steam workshop after initial upload

It’s been one month since I last released a patch, so I thought I would update you on how alpha 10 is coming along.



I have overhauled the plot system, so instead of slowly expanding a rectangle, the game now generates pre-shaped plots with individual pricing, which you can buy upfront or take out a mortgage for.

The plots will be laid out differently depending on which map type you have chosen for your company. In addition, instead of picking between forest, city, tundra and desert you now pick the climate and environment individually: Cold, temperate or warm, and rural, town or forest.

Map layouts are now generated based on an input string, instead of just being completely random, so you can generate the same map as many times as you want, by reusing the input string.





In alpha 10 you’ll be able to rent in a larger building, as opposed to buying an empty plot and creating your building from scratch. This will help you a lot financially in the beginning and help if you’re having trouble getting creative on an empty plot. Depending on the building you're renting into, you’ll be able to rent out more rooms as you get tight on space.

Since buildings don’t just randomly generate themselves, alpha 10 will include a map editor where you can create maps with buildings, designate which rooms are up for renting and share them on the workshop.

If you decide you no longer want to rent or you can’t afford your building, alpha 10 will include the option of moving your company to a new map, whenever you want, making your current building available for new companies.

Other than polishing and debugging the new systems I’ve just described, I plan on rebalancing construction costs in alpha 10, to make sure expenses keep up with income, so making a million dollars will no longer be an instant win condition. I also want to rebalance employee skills and overhaul the hiring process, to make skilled employees the exception, rather than what you’ve come to expect from late game. If development doesn’t drag on for too long, I also want to overhaul the entire feature system, as this work will be necessary for adding software updates/expansions in alpha 11, but it could just as well be delayed until then. Finally, the much requested “multiple roles per employee” will be added, so you can have a programmer/designer or an artist/marketer/leader, etc.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your patience!

It’s been one month since I last released a patch, so I thought I would update you on how alpha 10 is coming along.



I have overhauled the plot system, so instead of slowly expanding a rectangle, the game now generates pre-shaped plots with individual pricing, which you can buy upfront or take out a mortgage for.

The plots will be laid out differently depending on which map type you have chosen for your company. In addition, instead of picking between forest, city, tundra and desert you now pick the climate and environment individually: Cold, temperate or warm, and rural, town or forest.

Map layouts are now generated based on an input string, instead of just being completely random, so you can generate the same map as many times as you want, by reusing the input string.





In alpha 10 you’ll be able to rent in a larger building, as opposed to buying an empty plot and creating your building from scratch. This will help you a lot financially in the beginning and help if you’re having trouble getting creative on an empty plot. Depending on the building you're renting into, you’ll be able to rent out more rooms as you get tight on space.

Since buildings don’t just randomly generate themselves, alpha 10 will include a map editor where you can create maps with buildings, designate which rooms are up for renting and share them on the workshop.

If you decide you no longer want to rent or you can’t afford your building, alpha 10 will include the option of moving your company to a new map, whenever you want, making your current building available for new companies.

Other than polishing and debugging the new systems I’ve just described, I plan on rebalancing construction costs in alpha 10, to make sure expenses keep up with income, so making a million dollars will no longer be an instant win condition. I also want to rebalance employee skills and overhaul the hiring process, to make skilled employees the exception, rather than what you’ve come to expect from late game. If development doesn’t drag on for too long, I also want to overhaul the entire feature system, as this work will be necessary for adding software updates/expansions in alpha 11, but it could just as well be delayed until then. Finally, the much requested “multiple roles per employee” will be added, so you can have a programmer/designer or an artist/marketer/leader, etc.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your patience!

Alpha 9.11.6 fixes some small bugs and lets mods remove the default personalities. This most likely represents the last update to alpha 9. Future bug fixes will be rolled into alpha 10, unless they are very critical. I cannot give a timeline for alpha 10, but it will not be out for another couple of months at the very least.

Alpha 9.11.5 is a hotfix for pathfinding breaking in some circumstances when placing a vending machine.

Alpha 9.11.4 includes fixes for rare but critical bugs.

Alpha 9.11.3 includes small bug fixes and optimizations.

Music by Chris Sinnott is finally in, with more to come!

Full changelog:
Changes

• Group right click buttons
  
• Added music
  
• Instead of having a default room style, you should be able save and apply custom styles
  
• Ability to group rooms and blanket assign them styles and staff
  
• Dialog confirmations can now be ignored on an individual basis
  
• Improved cook serving tray priority logic
  
• Amount of people who can take food from a serving tray at a time is no longer limited by space around the tray
  
• Mark roles in green which comprise the most skill when selecting teams
  
• Added ctrl+z to undo in build mode

Fixes

• Undoing deleting rooms would not recover all their settings
  
• Various other fixes
  
• Product detail window header was off

Optimizations

• Random optimizations to employee simulation

Alpha 9.11.6 fixes some small bugs and lets mods remove the default personalities. This most likely represents the last update to alpha 9. Future bug fixes will be rolled into alpha 10, unless they are very critical. I cannot give a timeline for alpha 10, but it will not be out for another couple of months at the very least.

Alpha 9.11.5 is a hotfix for pathfinding breaking in some circumstances when placing a vending machine.

Alpha 9.11.4 includes fixes for rare but critical bugs.

Alpha 9.11.3 includes small bug fixes and optimizations.

Music by Chris Sinnott is finally in, with more to come!

Full changelog:
Changes

• Group right click buttons
  
• Added music
  
• Instead of having a default room style, you should be able save and apply custom styles
  
• Ability to group rooms and blanket assign them styles and staff
  
• Dialog confirmations can now be ignored on an individual basis
  
• Improved cook serving tray priority logic
  
• Amount of people who can take food from a serving tray at a time is no longer limited by space around the tray
  
• Mark roles in green which comprise the most skill when selecting teams
  
• Added ctrl+z to undo in build mode

Fixes

• Undoing deleting rooms would not recover all their settings
  
• Various other fixes
  
• Product detail window header was off

Optimizations

• Random optimizations to employee simulation

This update changes some gameplay mechanics, so I've decided to put out in testing for some days before releasing it officially.

Music by Chris Sinnott is finally in, with more to come!

Changes

• Group right click buttons
  
• Added music
  
• Instead of having a default room style, you should be able save and apply custom styles
  
• Ability to group rooms and blanket assign them styles and staff
  
• Dialog confirmations can now be ignored on an individual basis
  
• Improved cook serving tray priority logic
  
• Amount of people who can take food from a serving tray at a time is no longer limited by space around the tray

Fixes

• Undoing deleting rooms would not recover all their settings
  
• Various other fixes

Optimizations

• Random optimizations to employee simulation

This update changes some gameplay mechanics, so I've decided to put out in testing for some days before releasing it officially.

Music by Chris Sinnott is finally in, with more to come!

Changes

• Group right click buttons
  
• Added music
  
• Instead of having a default room style, you should be able save and apply custom styles
  
• Ability to group rooms and blanket assign them styles and staff
  
• Dialog confirmations can now be ignored on an individual basis
  
• Improved cook serving tray priority logic
  
• Amount of people who can take food from a serving tray at a time is no longer limited by space around the tray

Fixes

• Undoing deleting rooms would not recover all their settings
  
• Various other fixes

Optimizations

• Random optimizations to employee simulation