Constructor - About Bloody Time! Update

https://youtu.be/1BK46uqXChk *Tick tick tick* *BZZZzzzzzttt*

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ IF USING UNOFFICIAL RUSSIAN LOCALISATION

If you are using the Siberian GRemlin release of the Russian localisation, and the game crashes upon trying to start, please uninstall it as there will be issues with the new patch due to changes to the text. You can uninstall Siberian GRemlin's release by running the uninstaller that came bundled with it. Alternatively, if you are unsure about this delete everything in the DATA folder EXCEPT the DATA.FIL file, delete any external fonts in the FONTS folder too. After doing this please verify your game to ensure that nothing is missing from it.

CONSTRUCTOR - ABOUT BLOODY TIME! UPDATE

Yes, you wonderful people, that's the sound of an update being released for Constructor, and it's about bloody time if you ask us! Now, we realise that the last time we released an update for the game man had only just discovered fire (has it really been that long?!), but we've been hard at work improving multiple areas of the game. So, whilst your update is in progress let's sit down and talk about some of these improvements. Oh, but where are my manners? I am, of course, the brightful BrightPaw who will be bringing you yet another announcement from within the bowels of hel-System 3. So without further ado, let's take a trip down patch-way pass. Oh, and don't feed the programmers!

NEW FEATURES

In this patch we will be introducing a number of new things to Constructor. The first is, of course, the new net-code but as this has its own section down below we will save the nattering until then. When you start the game up you may notice several new fences in the game which can be built for your tenants. Each of these have their own defensive values as well as stress factors. On the topic of defensive values, the value displayed for fences no longer correlates to a rough idea of how many hits they can take before a foreman removes it. Each fence now provides a bonus to the property it surrounds in terms of protecting from nearby explosions. So, if you're planning on building a hedgerow you'd better get some shutters installed quick-smart! The AI will also now make use of any DLC buildings you happen to own. As we've only currently released one pack they will only make use of the buildings in that pack. However, as your collection increases so too will the AI's collection. You know what they say about sharing and caring, don't you? In addition, for anyone who hated the voices of the tenants but preferred the soothing ramblings of the narrators, you can now mute the tenant voices. This feature is accessed from within the tenant selection screen as a new toggle button. This will only need to be toggled once.

BUILDING PACK TWO - Out Soon

We appreciate the patience of the fans who have supported us since release and, as a gift, we will be making the second building pack free for two weeks in February. Be sure to pick it up while its hot! You can see the buildings it will include below - a fine set of accommodation, and utilities, for your picky tenants.

MULTIPLAYER

Multiplayer is one of those things that's been plaguing us for quite some time now, and whilst the previous patch put it in a good spot it became clear that there was still room for improvement. Over the last few months we have been extensively testing multiplayer and, we believe, our efforts have bore fruit - delicious digital fruit to be specific! I am, of course, referring to the new and improved net-code! The changes to the net-code are rather significant when put into perspective. If you recall, issuing orders was often a chore in and of itself, and you'd be sporting a full beard before you'd placed your first building. Obviously, this was not acceptable, and we have looked at different ways of alleviating this issue for our fans. With the new and improved net-codes you'll be issuing orders faster than an overworked employee at Starbucks, and you'll look good doing it too! In less round-about terms, your performance will be much better than it was previously. If you've tried to play with someone from across the globe or who has a less than ideal connection, then you will no longer have time to order a pizza, then eat it, before your game realises that you asked it to do something thirty minutes ago. Or your pizza is free. In addition to this, the game will be much more consistent later on when lots of things are happening. One of the biggest causes of delay was during the late game when lots of characters were doing whatever they do, and when workers were finally using their nailguns for something other than nailing themselves to the supports of your latest building. As a result, feel free to engage in lots of fighting without the game fighting to keep itself in sync! On the topic of sync, or more specifically desync, we have tracked and eliminated several additional causes of the aforementioned loss of sync. We are cautious to advertise it as completely desync free, but we believe we have got the main culprits. Of course, if you do experience a desync then let us know and we'll investigate it! It's worth mentioning that clients who go out of sync with the host will have a nifty "1" displayed in the bottom-left corner of their screen. If this is not being display then you have not gone out of sync! Whilst we are confident that even people who have low bandwidth can still stream Netflix, and build, we advise against doing that as there will be times where the game needs to catch up. However, it will mostly be a short delay and it will keep everything synced up juuuust right.

MISSIONS

The missions are another part many of you will be wondering about, and unfortunately we weren't able to launch any with this update. Whilst the missions themselves are close to being implemented, we are still waiting on the narrations (starring Mr. Challis himself), as well as the translations for each one. We understand that this is somewhat disappointing for those who have been waiting, but we want to make sure that they do not have any glaring issues of stability like the good ol' tutorial. As previously mentioned, the missions will be a mixture of story-based, and goal-oriented missions like those found in Street Wars, as well as mini-challenge missions which give you very specific set of goals for the entire level. We can confirm that Constructor Plus will also contain its own missions on top of the base ones. We are very much looking forward to sharing all of them with you, the wonderful fans of Constructor. In the coming weeks we may provide sneak peeks at the missions to give you, the curious fans, a little more in the way of information. However, we will do our best to stop short of completely spoiling the missions.

OVERALL GAME STABILITY

For many of you Constructor runs just fine, but there is always the odd issue that comes up when you least expect it, and steals five hours of progress from you. We have used the time since the last update to rigorously stamp out yet more crashes, and fix a bunch of other bugs with the game so that you can get back to building a better world! We expect that for the vast majority of fans the game will have no problems, and things will run as expected. However, we still have a list of issues to work through, including the infamous 'walking on the spot' glitch that shows up to steal away an undesirable from you, or the unsuspecting AI. By the way, if you're just joining us now and are curious on how things have changed you can take a look at the previous patches in order of release here (2017). You will find the supplement thread for this patch here.

WHAT'S NEW IN THIS UPDATE?

New Features • Tenant voices can now be muted in the 'Assign tenant screen'. • HQ fences will now change depending on the map the player has selected. • Changed fence for several classic buildings. • Allow player to access options from in-game pause menu. • Allow computer to choose more variety of fences for each tenant type. • Allow computer to build DLC houses. • Fence defence no longer influences take-over hits but instead provides a bonus to property defence against nearby explosions. • Number of tenants, cadets, and mob favours available can now be changed in Designer mode. General Fixes • Certain complaints are no longer specific to a difficulty level and can instead be adjusted using "Complaints Included" in the options menu. • Sending a worker into an enemy utility no longer lets you interact with the building. • Game can no longer be saved during the tutorial which caused issues if the tutorial was reloaded whilst player was inside a building. • Tutorial progress no longer impeded as a result of getting a tenant too early. • Fixed crash when jumping from house gadget screen to exterior gadget placement. • Game will no longer crash when jumping from the Prison screen to the residential manager, estate manager or external gadget placement screens. • Fixed corruption to background which occurs when visiting Missions/Police/Mob screen from house gadget screen. • Fixed road sections that were missing in Riverside and Concrete City. • Fixed a bug which caused complaints which stopped rent being paid to still affect rent in War Mode. • War Mode can no longer be started without at least one opponent. • Fixed a crash which occurred if the HQ exploded while the player had the HQ open. • Player will no longer hear flames from enemy buildings that are off-screen. • Fixed issue with juddering footprint when auto placing houses which had the potential to cause the game to crash if a building was placed illegally as a result. • Game will no longer display incorrect tenant info for "Infested" or "Squatter tenants". • The game will no longer crash as a result of the thief attempting to steal a weapon from an enemy Mob HQ. • The thief no longer walks on the spot when attempting to steal a weapon from an enemy Mob HQ. • Fixed an issue where characters were attacking beyond their range. • Fixed looping situation when going overdrawn in Designer mode. Multiplayer fixes • Multiplayer code has been updated to resolve issues with extreme delay. • Thug Rave no longer causes multiplayer to desync. • Fixed an issue involving Mr.Fixit's electrify ability. • Prevent crash when joining network game in some languages. Localisation • Russian localisation now released. • Allow Cyrillic usernames in saved games. • Additional adjustments to Portuguese Brazilian. Hot Fix - 30/01/18 • Reverted a change to the maximum number of Mob Favours and Police Cadets so that this maximum value is only applicable during Designer mode. Bear in mind that you can go over this limit if you create gangsters, but this will have no effect as gangsters have their own cap.

We hope that you enjoy the latest update, and we look forward to sharing even more of Constructor with you as we move through 2018. Thank you for your continued support, and patience. We couldn't ask for a better fanbase! :lovekami_heart: - System 3