Hi there! Beta 22 is now available. Restart Steam to get it right away! Beta 22 introduces quite a big list of new features, changes and improvements to the game. We're very excited to see how all our players will adapt their companies to these changes and how new companies will use them to prosper! We're very eager to share this all with you! As with each Beta release we just want to make sure that youre aware of the fact that there might be some bugs or other unexpected issues. Jonas is on standby, ready to make sure that any discovered issues are fixed as soon as possible. If you find any bugs or experience any issues make sure to either let us know on the community hub or by joining our Discord!

New office building

After enormous demand from you guys, it's finally time to introduce the new office building. You get 2 floors and an 400 employees high limitation. Enjoy!

Improvements to Sales Executives/Leads

Beta 22 introduces two big changes to the Sales Executive: First, the maximum amount of leads has been increased. For individual Sales Executives the numbers will be: [table] [tr] [td]Beginner[/td][td]3[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Intermediate[/td][td]6[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Expert[/td][td]9[/td] [/tr] [/table] However, if you choose to team up multiple Sales Executives using a Manager, you'll be able to share leads between your executives! The lead limits for teams will be slight lowered like so: [table] [tr] [td]Beginner Manager[/td][td]9[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Intermediate Manager[/td][td]18[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Expert Manager[/td][td]27[/td] [/tr] [/table] The second exciting update to the Sales Executive is filters. You'll now be able to choose the minimum and maximum impressions you're looking for. No more rejecting offers because the impressions don't fit your time-slot. This has been heavily requested by the community.

Manual Saving

Startup Company has always been using auto-save for handling savegames. This is convenient as players don't have to remember to save. However, with a tycoon game like Startup Company, you sometimes want to try things out without having to start over if it goes wrong. Beta 22 introduces manual save functionality. You'll now have to save your game manually and choose a name for your savegame (basically "slots" as you know it from other games). The game will still auto-save (now every 5 minutes), but instead, save to a new "hidden" savegame and not overwrite your existing savegames.

Website Logo and Name

Beta 22 includes another highly demanded feature: Changing your website's name and selecting a logo.

Improved Employees Menu

I've been able to put some hours into the Employees Menu. For a long time, it has been missing a "multi-employee actions" feature. The list was also incredibly laggy later on in the game. The new menu introduces a couple of new features:

• Added icon next to speed to show if the employee is ready to be upgraded.
• Show if an employee is unseated.
• Remember the selected sorting order when re-opening the menu.
• Added mass action functionality allowing you to apply the following actions to multiple employees at once: remove from desk, fire, send home (1/3 days), start/stop training and release from manager.
• Greatly improved performance and removing lag when having more than 200 employees.

Employee Switcher

A brand new "Employee Switcher" will also be introduced in Beta 22. It will allow you to quickly cycle through your employees. The switcher will follow the order of your Employees Menu allowing you to customize the sorting. When changing employee, the switcher will automatically stay on the same tab if it's available for the employee type.

Paying a Bonus

Beta 22 offers you the ability to pay your employees bonuses. Paying a bonus will instantly increase your employee's mood to 100%. The price is based on a combination of the employee's salary and their current mood. The bonus is meant as an alternative to sending your employees home in order to restore mood. Once a bonus has been paid you'll have to wait 30 in-game days before paying another bonus.

Ad Contracts Daily Payment

The number one question asked since Ad Contracts were introduced has been "Why do I lose money when the finance overview says I earn money every day?". Most players never noticed that contracts were paid upfront and if you had a contract running for 7 days (for example) it would mean you'll have 6 days with no payments. Beta 22 changed this and instead made payments happen daily. I personally wasn't too happy with this change, as I liked the realism of having to take into consideration when contracts were paid out (I know a few of you agree with me). However, the frustration and confusion for new players simply wasn't worth it.

Scheduled Training Days

HR Managers will be updated too. Scheduled training days work identically with "Days Off" by simply allowing you to define weekdays in which the employee should train. Once an employee starts a training day this cannot be cancelled (same with days off). "Days Off" and ''Training Days'' cannot be scheduled to the same weekdays (obviously). Limitations have also been added: Setting "days off" requires an Intermediate Level. Setting "Training Days" requires an Expert level.

Improved Queue System

The current production system for developers, designers, etc. allows you to switch between the Repeat and Queue functionality. In Beta 22 those two functionalities are combined into one: an ''Infinite Repeating Queue''. The queue size has also been increased to 10. Components will remain in the queue after they have been produced. The blue background indicates which component is currently in development.

Updated employee demands

• "Fire Employee" is now rarer and will only occur for existing employees, and not new candidates.
• Employees' demands are now more realistic, especially with desks, including demanding the correct Programmer/Executive desk at Expert level.
• Differ the number of new demands generated on employee upgrade based on level.

New loans

Beta 22 brings two new loans allowing you to loan 1 and 2 million. Loans will only be available if you meet the minimum company valuation (valuation of all websites combined). Fever Inc (the 600k loan) has also been limited to companies with a minimum valuation of 1.2 million.

Last chance before bankruptcy

I've added an additional mechanic which gives the player a last chance before the company is declared bankrupt. The offer only comes if the player owns more than 15% of his website, hasn't bought out the investor and no loan options are available in the banks.

Improved hosting stats

The stats in the bottom of the hosting centre has been improved to support larger numbers. A "bottleneck alert" has also been added to make it easier to understand what to increase in order to increase produced CU.

Furniture/desk inventory

When removing furniture and desks from your office they will now be added to your "purchase inventory", allowing you to save items for later use.

Improved UI for placing unassigned employees

Beta 22 makes it much easier to find the right employee when you have a lot of unassigned employees. The new table allows sorting and introduces a "Hired" column, making it easy to find the newly hired employee.

Changes:

We made a lot of minor changes as well, which are outlined in the bulleted overview below:

• Fixed bug causing employee not to quit if ignoring competitor offer.
• Fixed bug causing employees with missing requirements not showing as flashing overlay.
• Fixed two memory leaks causing lag in late-game.
• Fixed bug causing merging competitors to fail or end prematurely.
• Fixed bug causing events to be launched too early (at game start)
• Fixed bug causing hosting building temperature not to update correctly.
• Fixed bug causing employee name changes not to update on overlays.
• Added support for panning using arrow keys.
• Added PageUp/PageDown keyboard shortcut for changing floor.
• Added Q/E keyboard shortcut to toggle between employees (switcher).
• Improved sliders when buying/selling competitor stocks.
• Added time limitation to investment offers.
• Limited feature efficiency from a maximum of 104% to a maximum of 100% (only affects new savegames, not existing ones).
• Changed overlay label to "At home" when not at the office.
• Added "sell" feature to rack devices
• Added the new 6-frame hand animations.
• Suppressed "office upgrade"-confirmation when renting the very first office.
• Show relevant Research category when clicking on "Research more" tips.
• Added hovering + sorting to Manager's employee list.
• Improved UI of rack stats and (mass)configure view.
• Added localisation for watt, kilowatt and megawatt.
• Added popup to the rack's Add Device view, allowing you to see throughput and size before buying.
• Added warning when trying to add a device to a rack with no space left.
• Added tooltip explaining manager bonus. Lowered the bonus when a manager isn't at the office.
• Improved demands view in employees' stats menu.
• Allowed employees to demand for "Coffee Machine" to be fulfilled by "Industrial Coffee Machine"
• Features' level marked with blue if at framework's maximum.
• Changed "Sell Out" achievement percentage from 10% to 50%.
• Fixed bug causing duplicated "Fire co-worker" demand.
• Stopped action-depending events from firing when the time machine is active.
• Changed the minimum marketing campaign conversion rate from 0% to 1%.
• Improved UI of "change desk" view.
• Added "Go to Manager" button to all employees.

As always, we're dedicated to making sure everything runs smoothly by fixing potential issues, listening to the community and continuing the development by working towards Beta 23. Do you have suggestions or ideas for the game? Check out our Conflux board. All the best, Jonas & Robert [url=https://discord.gg/hovgaardgames]

[ 2019-03-15 20:40:28 CET ] [ Original post ]