[Game Update] v0.7.8.0.0 - Stable Version, Moods, Dish Pit, Rating

The stable version of the EOTC era is here with lots of fixes, improvements, and balance changes. While working on the Nightlife Update (which will start its testing on the public test branch very soon) we were also working on this update for the main branch. This includes fixes for almost all of the active reports, and some cool improvements and a decent sized balance pass.

This can also count as the end of the Early Access public branch beta, and the start of a new chapter heading toward 1.0, beginning with v0.8.0.0 which is on the way. The only things I would still call beta are maybe the onboarding and tutorial improvements, and the environment visual upgrades such as the new background city visuals (which are coming with the Nightlife Update) and the interface overhaul, translations, and Quality of Life pack, which are coming right after it.

Thank you again for playing, reporting issues, and bearing with us during the alpha and beta versions. The help was incredible. We really couldn't manage to keep up with this detailed simulation as a little two person team without you. ːcrt_Luckː

Here are some of the highlights of the update:

Improved Mood System

The mood and moodlets system got improved a lot. First of all, we added 17 new main moods and face animations for them:

Vengeful, Lovestruck, Panicked, Smug, Hopeless, Bitter, Irritated, Unhinged, Poker Face, Cringe, Warm, Nervous, Euphoric, Hopeful, Burned Out, Professional, Rejuvenated

A mood can now be neutral instead of only positive or negative.

We also decided to revisit all of the moodlet texts and make them more fun thought snippet style, rather than my initial programmer brain action reporting robot ones, with a separate header part that says what's happening more directly. While doing that, we decided to add 2 more variants to each. This one actually took longer than I expected. I don't know what I was thinking, it's 3 text variants for each of the ~987 moodlets. ːcrt_Blackjackː

But the final result is something I'm happy with. These little guys experiencing everything in the resort you're building is a very nice part of CRT, so this improvement was needed now that it's taking its new shape. We'll be adding more and more moodlets to all of those new actions with each content update on the horizon.

So in short, every moodlet now shows main header info about the situation, a thought snippet style text based on moodlet type, and the related object if available, such as a menu item, room, inventory item, etc. I added lots of new moodlet types and placed them into more actions that are already happening around the resort.

Even using the toilet has 6 different moodlet types, from "Had a Poo" and "Had a Massive Poo" to "Upset Stomach", and I don't know why, lol ːcrt_Laughː. I think these are my little fun moments while implementing stuff into this simulation. ːcrt_Luckː

Dish Pit

A community member reported an issue where dining tables in hotel rooms kept rendering dirty dishes after the room got cleaned. This was a bug that could happen, but the normal behaviour was the housekeeper coming in, changing the bed sheets, then marking the room as cleaned while also removing the dirty dish from the table.

After watching an awesome documentary about everything that happens in the dish department of a huge hotel during these fixes (yeah, they had a whole department for dirty dishware handling), I ended up adding a whole new little system for it ːcrt_Laughː

So if you decide to add mini bar service to your hotel rooms, you now need to handle the dishes too. Housekeepers collect the dirty dishes from dining tables like they do with laundry. They can carry 3 at a time and wash them like waiters do in restaurants in the new room type. I'm planning to improve this "dirty dish" system further and make it more of a physical object in the resort that can accumulate on the map itself, like the trash system, and like what we did with the laundry storage bins.

I did some more work on balancing and testing hotel usage too: tweaks like increased average hotel room usage time so people spend more time in the rooms they've booked, plus serious base price increases to hotel services. Every hotel room type now requires a dining table as an essential item, but the mini bar unlocks with the Budget Room research, while the Budget Room itself still doesn't require it as an essential item.

Crime, Security, and Resort Rating

People now enter a "waiting to be detained" state after committing a crime. An indicator timer appears above their head, like the order waiting indicator in restaurants. If a security officer doesn't reach them in time, the detention counts as "Failed" and the suspect leaves the scene. People around get a moodlet for watching the suspect just walk away.

Another change (which is connected to the resort rating system, where we made lots of important fixes and changes) is that failed detentions no longer directly drop rating points.

So crimes no longer decrease your rating points from your total pool directly, but they now have more impact on your daily resort rating score. As you know, your daily resort rating is calculated based on 8 subscores: Happiness, Security, Environment, Social Status, and the service subscores Entertainment, Cuisine, Hospitality, and Leisure. The service subscores are mostly about your service variety and room prestige, which you build and progress over time. Their effect on the daily final rating score is now halved, and their score can no longer go below 0, while the other 4 scores remain in the -100/100 range.

The security score now affects guest population directly by influencing guest appeal, which leads us to the next topic.

Guest Appeal, Capacity, Crowdedness, New Resort Hype, and Marketing Changes

You know the main deal: you have a daily service capacity coming from the things you design and build, and the guest appeal value determines how many patrons you end up attracting daily based on that capacity. All of your attracted guests end up coming to the resort that day if you have enough transportation space from your parking, vehicles, and so on.

There was a bug causing the end of day report customer departure numbers to show too high values, which was reported by a community member on Discord. I always thought it was an issue with the UI layer, or maybe mostly with the resort data recordings which are connected to the graphs. But it turns out the system was actually removing guests from the map and adding them to recycling multiple times when they left. There was also an issue with late game resorts that had near full daily rating scores and very high guest appeal with high transportation capacity experiencing too many empty slot machines and services.

Fixing these issues threw all the balance work and number tweaks I'd done right out the window, just before release. So I moved one of the planned improvements from the Nightlife Update (the new casino hype modifier, marketing, and guest appeal changes) into this update and balanced everything together.

Active marketing campaigns and the new business hype now increase the number of attracted guests directly, instead of boosting the daily rating score. And guest appeal (the value that determines how many customers you attract based on your service capacity) is now calculated using that day's security score as well, instead of using only the rating points and happiness. It now uses that day's rating score instead of the main resort rating.

I also did a balance pass on the numbers. My target was: a high rating, high guest appeal resort should be almost always full given enough transportation capacity. People tend to come in the evening so pre-noon can be emptier, but even then a 5 star resort should be nearly full. On the other hand, if you have a low daily rating score with bad appeal, low security, poor environment, and neglected decoration and cleanliness, evenings might still be nearly full but daytime could be half empty, or even down to a third during the dead hours between 7am and 10am. But if you are a new business riding that opening hype, or you have an active marketing team running campaigns, you can make up for weaker scores in the meantime while you sort things out.

Pathfinding Improvements, Balance, and Fixes Pack

Most of the balance passes I planned, plus lots of fixes, are in this update. I'm expecting some more patches before and during the Nightlife public testing on the test branch, but we can call this a stable Early Access version.

While fixing some issues with the elevators, I made quite a few tweaks and balance changes to pathfinding. People now try to avoid lines they've previously found too crowded, and factor in the total usage of stairs and escalators when creating a path. Elevator shaft speed per floor level and capacity per elevator cabin are both greatly increased, while elevator cabin wait time per floor is reduced.

With architectural heights now appearing on the horizon, I'm thinking about adding an elevator engine on top of the elevator lines that runs on a single power socket, with some of its values always upgradeable like the speed of stuff.

Fixes and polish reached all the way out to even the transformer world light blinkers, which now correctly play animations and emit light showing the utility line status. ːcrt_Laughː

Happiness Graph and the Remaining Graphs

I had promised to unlock all the remaining graphs for this update, but that time ended up being spent on the new moodlet system (which took longer than expected) and the last minute spawn system fixes and rebalancing pushed most of them to probably the UI overhaul. I don't think there will be room in the Nightlife update for this either. Maybe during public testing I can find a window, but that time will mostly be taken up by onboarding and tutorial improvements. Since we're now about to start translations and the UI overhaul, I think it's best to tackle these during that phase too.

I did go ahead and unlock the early version of the happiness graphs anyway though, since a graph about happiness history, current dominant mood, and current thoughts adds real value when deciding things during building.

Here is the full changelog, I tried to log everything properly. Some minor fixes, balance tweaks and typo fixes might be missing.

FIXED:

• Fixed a bug causing people passing by in front of a room to be counted as users, incorrectly affecting room capacity.

• Fixed a bug causing people to sometimes exit and re enter elevators while riding them.

• Fixed a bug causing people to sometimes not enter an elevator even when it is going in the direction they want.

• Fixed customers checking room capacity while searching for a casino cashier, causing them to avoid cashiers in a crowded casino even though cashiers don't affect room capacity unlike the casino cage.

• Fixed the system spamming too many "Trash Bags Out of Stock" reports after going out of stock.

• Fixed a bug causing housekeepers not to clean dining tables.

• Fixed Italian Desserts unlocking after Italian Cuisine 2 when the research tree shows it should unlock after Italian Restaurant.

• Fixed candidates not showing "Unhappy Settle for Same Offer" lines during hiring texts.

• Fixed townsfolk rating showing 96 on the rating window while all relations are at 100.

• Fixed the employee menu list sorting button showing the "auto salary pay" button tooltip instead of its own.

• Fixed the taxi movement minimap indicator icon offsetting outside the taxi management window.

• Fixed the customer wealth segment tooltip window showing an empty text box under the header info.

• Fixed some employees getting stuck for a while when using the employee locker room.

• Fixed a bug causing people not to wait for a new dealer during a shift change.

• Fixed the end day report menu showing 2–4x the actual number of leaving customers due to a bug counting leaving passengers multiple times.

• Fixed incorrect spelling of "Locomotive."

• Fixed an item remaining transparent after canceling a move, as if still in moving overlay mode.

• Fixed security guards on patrol routes sometimes using the break room while not on a break.

• Fixed acquiring employee parking space licenses not increasing total parking space.

• Fixed customers being able to play an unassigned sports betting kiosk.

• Fixed employees not changing clothes when they leave.

• Fixed the issiue of building demolish particle affect not playing on pause.

• Fixed customers reading a newspaper or using their phone while playing at casino tables.

• Fixed not being able to find a seat in the Cigar Lounge despite plenty being available.

• Fixed a bug causing Cigar Lounge prices not to update after being changed from the pricing menu.

• Fixed the lounge showing as at capacity with no customers in it.

• Fixed a bug causing customers not to buy from patrolling vendors.

• Fixed customers being able to use the toilet more than once per visit.

• Fixed transportation maintenance values resetting on reload.

• Fixed the room pricing UI not updating for a while after a change.

• Fixed a cold drink vending menu error.

• Fixed the rating graph showing incorrect categories under Cuisine.

• Fixed misspellings in rating report graphs.

• Fixed some people not exiting the elevator.

• Fixed a bug where garbage collectors and delivery workers could get stuck when returning to their truck if the truck park was sold.

• Fixed an elevator cabin not picking up people for one floor when its direction was changed from the UI.

• Fixed a bug causing very old saves from before the data recording update to not receive the end day report until the following day.

• Fixed waiters sometimes not clearing themselves from table assignments after cleaning a table.

• Fixed the OnDestroy in SelectionRunner subscribing instead of unsubscribing.

• Fixed the rating graph showing the min and max total day numbers of the financial graphs.

• Fixed the menu items box showing +5 instead of the preparing time of the menu item.

• Fixed a bug causing security officers not to quit work at the end of their shift before completing 5 patrol rooms.

• Fixed customers canceling their state when the dealer of their card game table leaves — they now enter a waiting for dealer state instead.

• Fixed a bug causing employees who reach shift end while on stairs or elevator to lose contact with the floor during pathfinding.

• Fixed the item occupation records system to prevent occupation related wait time increases on items.

• Fixed a bug causing the parking policy to incorrectly report no employee parking space available when employee parking spaces exist but no general parking spaces do.

• Fixed the jackpot pool button showing "Items" as its tooltip.

• Fixed a bug causing room maintenance to only decrease based on crowdedness instead of item count as well.

• Fixed a bug causing people to wait at a closed hotel reception if they started the path while it was open.

• Fixed some hotel rooms incorrectly showing service capacity since it is handled by the hotel booking system.

• Fixed a bug causing housekeeper AI to try to sync with a removed hotel room's sign table.

• Fixed a duplicate ticket station appearing in the cyber cafe research tree.

• Fixed a bug where a security officer detaining someone while on an elevator caused the suspect to slide through the map without a walking animation.

• Fixed a bug causing townsfolk to accept document requests with fewer documents than required.

• Fixed a bug causing hair dresser legs to glitch while cutting hair.

• Fixed a bug causing the new day happiness data to not sync correctly right after midday.

• Fixed a bug causing some people not playing animations while doing yoga.

• Fixed a bug causing people to sometimes not show the money spent indicator after using the sauna, gym, or massage room.

• Fixed a bug causing the item utility indicator icons in rooms with a switchboard to scale at -50%.

• Fixed the low range receiver giving a "too close" error when receivers are not actually close.

• Fixed CCTV module numbers not syncing right after placement, only updating after reopening the overlay or placing another one.

• Fixed a bug causing customers to cancel using the smoothie bar when it is available.

• Fixed the prestige buff not being applied in the massage room.

• Fixed a bug causing the massage therapist not to use an empty massage table while a customer is waiting.

• Suspects no longer get released if the police car park is deleted while being taken. Police now escort them off the map instead.

• Fixed a bug causing detained suspects to wander in front of the elevator entrance before entering.

• Fixed delivery, construction, and waste collection workers disappearing after their parked truck's parking space is deleted.

• Fixed a bug causing police to disappear from the map after deleting a police car park.

• Fixed a bug causing all employees to arrive at 5am/pm using only the walkways.

• Fixed the car abandon logic not executing if the driver is nulled beforehand.

• Fixed a bug causing janitors to spam too many "no dumpster available" error indicators when there is no viable dumpster.

• Fixed the employee break room item usage limiter causing a bug where employees using a vending machine stayed longer than they should, increasing the timer instead of decreasing it.

• Fixed a bug causing people to consume menu items faster in restaurants if the order took longer to arrive.

• Fixed the smoothie bar not appearing on the barista employee assignment map.

• Fixed the vendor assigned to a patrol route showing a "parking their car" status while patrolling. Changing the route to none now correctly switches them to "patrolling as vendor."

• Fixed a bug causing worker trucks to carry one passenger less than their capacity.

• Fixed a bug causing employees with cars in the park to respawn on load.

• Fixed the townsfolk communication box background not aligning with the townsfolk menu.

• Fixed townsfolk rating quests being accepted or rejected with wrong numbers.

• Fixed a bug causing windows to be placeable on wall items.

• Fixed the end day report menu reopening and showing the current new day instead of the past day when the game is save loaded at 1am.

• Fixed a bug causing people's speed to reset on load without recalculating walk speed traits.

• Fixed a bug causing the maintenance value not going below 0.

• Fixed a bug causing the lighting value not going below 0.

• Fixed a repaired item not syncing the updated room maintenance value before another item gets repaired.

• Fixed a bug causing a divider wall to be placeable on an escalator while cloning a room.

• Fixed a bug causing the tooltip to sometimes show info about items behind the UI.

• Fixed the happiness top info bar hover tooltip showing a value of 0 between midnight and the 1am update.

• Fixed the Resort Total Rating Point being able to drop below zero instead of capping at zero when a daily final score is negative.

• Fixed a bug where service capacities for the Smoking Room, Lounge, and Cigar Lounge were not being calculated correctly.

• Fixed a bug causing vehicles to overshoot their stop positions when running at high game timescales.

• Fixed a bug where people would occasionally display an 'eating' facial animation while doing yoga.

• Fixed business payments that cannot be paid with documents incorrectly showing "00 00" on the payment box document info bar.

• Transformer electricity light indicators in the world now correctly show green, yellow, or red based on their utility line's surplus level.

CHANGED / ADDED:

• Added 17 new mood types and lots of new moodlets.

• Added 3 text variants to each of the 964 moodlets and fully reworked all moodlet text.

• 1 new room type (Dish Pit) added.

• People with the germophobe trait now get a low cleanliness moodlet when room cleanliness drops below 6.

• People with the art lover trait now get a low decoration moodlet when room decoration drops below 6.

• People now only get the "could not find favorite menu item" moodlet if there are other menu items available to buy.

• Manager mode starting money increased from 500.000 to 675.000

• Moodlets now show headers and sub-info such as room name and menu item.

• People no longer get a negative moodlet for every souvenir shop item they check and don't find, after already getting one.

• Mini bar moved from executive hotel room research to deluxe hotel room research.

• Guests in hotel rooms now always generate a dirty dish when using a dining table, and trash when consuming mini bar items.

• Reduced the money needed for all individual advanced cuisine menu item research entries while increasing the initial restaurant unlock costs.

• Customer wait time for dealer increased by 40%. The wait should now cover a break where everything went smoothly.

• Added a small indicator to menu items already on the list in the menus window.

• Security officers now wait longer at the rooms they patrol.

• Starter managerial decision now has HR documents instead of marketing documents.

• Steam SDK updated.

• Removed screens from the archive shelf sprites.

• Added a new "reading menu" animation for restaurant customers while they wait to order.

• Added a world info bar indicator to the vendor patrol menu item shopping interaction.

• Added specific research info to the locked research cover UI indicators.

• Customer wealth distribution now uses 0.5 rating increments for smoother transitions between rating tiers.

• Every hotel room type now requires a dining table as an essential item.

• Employees no longer go on break if they were hired during that same shift.

• Increased delivery person shelf stacking time by 25%.

• Increased waste collector dumpster emptying time by 25%.

• Toilet paper usage reduced.

• Bed prices increased.

• Wardrobe prices increased.

• Hotel room base booking prices increased: budget room 175 > 425, deluxe room 275 > 675, executive room 450 > 1000, presidential 750 > 1500.

• CEO cleaning time increased from 4 to 5. Janitor cleaning time increased from 3 to 4.

• Trash bag capacity decreased from 25 to 20.

• Hotel room sleeping time increased by 75.

• Appeal now affects 75% of total capacity instead of 50%.

• Decreased dishwasher detergent usage.

• Crime no longer decreases rating points directly. The final security score now affects guest appeal directly, and its impact on the daily rating point calculation is increased by 50%.

• Extended the rush hour end from 1am to 3am.

• New resort base hype reduced from 75 to 50.

• New resort hype now gives an attracted customer buff instead of a rating point buff. You will have more customers coming to your resort in the early days despite guest appeal.

• Elevator shaft speeds increased: low speed 7 > 15, standard 10 > 20, high speed 15 > 30.

• Elevator cabin capacities increased: Low Capacity 10 > 12, standard 15 > 20, High Capacity 20 > 25.

• Elevator wait time before repathing increased.

• People are now more likely to go for an escalator if they waited for an elevator for some time during that path.

• People are now less likely to come to resort between 8am-11am more then the non rush hours which is between 4am-17pm

• Elevator cabin wait time for each floor before moving again decreased by 35%

• People now try to avoid elevator lines they previously left after waiting, until that path finalizes.

• Added a total cost indicator to the elevator shaft placement overlay.

• Server rack electricity usage increased: Small Server Rack 4 > 7, Server Rack 4 > 10, Large Server Rack 6 > 15.

• CCTV cam minimum range for placement increased.

• Vendors no longer patrol in halls.

• People now wait longer in bar, smoothie bar, and coffee counter lines.

• Changing cabin added to the sauna room 1 research.

• Added indicators to the massage salon.

• Increased massage service time by 40%.

• Shower soap usage decreased by 25%.

• Massage service base price increased from 50 to 200.

• Sauna service base price increased from 35 to 75.

• Sauna essence usage decreased by 60%.

• Sauna usage time increased by 50%.

• Sauna item price increased from 3,075 to 5,750.

• Menu item sell prices adjusted: cheap pricing cost x3 > x4, budget x4 > x4.5, premium x6 > x5.5, luxury x7 > x6.

• Inventory item vending sell prices adjusted: cheap pricing cost x3 > x4, budget x4 > x4.5, premium x6 > x5.5, luxury x7 > x6.

• All vendor vending price modifiers for each pricing type increased by 20%.

• Transportation fare price modifiers adjusted: cheap stayed same, budget x2 > x1.5, standard x3 > x2, premium x4 > x2.5, luxury x5 > x3.

• Casino bet modifiers adjusted: cheap stayed same, budget x2 > x1.5, standard x2.5 > x2, premium x3.5 > x2.5, luxury x4 > x3.

• Room-based customer service price modifiers adjusted: cheap stayed same, budget x2 > x1.5, standard x2.5 > x2, premium x3 > x2.5, luxury x4 > x3.

• Instant capacity of services affecting daily total capacity decreased by 25%.

• Maintenance now repairs all broken items in a room instead of only 1 before leaving.

• Vendors and security officers now select the most crowded room to patrol when not assigned to a specific room or route.

• Employees coming through walkways or personal cars now start arriving at 6am/pm instead of 5am/pm.

• Townsfolk relations rating score is now the direct average of their relations instead of the relation status calculation.

• Increased security officer time spent in each patrolling room by 25%.

• Security boost an officer gives to a room during patrolling increased by 40%.

• Added a looking-at-menu animation for people waiting to order at restaurants.

• TV ads marketing document cost increased from 115 to 150.

• Wander waiting time per position at transportation stations increased by 75%.

• Max speed assigned to a person on creation reduced by 20%, except for speed walker trait employees.

• Added a walk speed bar to people's info menus.

• Added a menu manage shortcut to the items info box of related items.

• Hourly walkway capacity is now calculated 50% higher when based on daily capacity.

• Ceiling lamp lighting increased from 15 to 20. Floor lamp lighting increased from 15 to 22.

• Money cost for subway link decreased from 2.5M to 1.25M. Document costs increased from 250 to 275 per doc type.

• Cars now make an initial payment upon first parking instead of only at every hour end.

• Car parking base price increased from 3 to 7.

• People's max waiting time for a yogi before leaving increased by 50%.

• Instruction duration per yogi session per person increased by 30%.

• People's chance of wanting another yogi instruction session after each session decreased by 30%.

• People using seats outside break rooms now have a 25% longer usage time. Break room seat usage time remains fixed.

• All bar and restaurant table and menu item consumption time increased by 35%.

• Dart board play time increased by 20%.

• Yoga service base price increased from 65 to 140.

• Gym base fee increased from 35 to 75.

WARNINGS:

When loading an old save from before this version, everyone may stop what they are doing on the first load and "redecide" what to do. This is due to improvements made to the item usage and occupation system which required a data structure change.

I'm happy that we got this cleanup done and moved important systems forward before continuing with the Nightlife public test. It's Early Access but little bugs become expensive if you let them linger. This update will now be merged into the nightlife public test branch and then testing will start.

Thanks again for all the help and support. There might be some little patches coming but I usually only post the changelog with those and maybe a quick heads up. So I will see you on the Nightlife post then!

Cheers! ːcrt_Blackjackːːcrt_Luckːːcrt_Officialː