Constructor - Get To Work! Update

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QUICK UPDATE

• 25/04/18 We have pushed a new update which includes the following changes as we'd like to address a few more things for our fans. Please note, the localisations are still underway so they will be part of a different update. Thank you for your patience and support, everyone. :) Have a wonderful day!

GET TO WORK - HF#1 Implemented tooltips for all options items (translated versions will follow). Replace Drowning In Debt mission to remove tenants. Add CENTRE video option for large desktops - This will display the game at its native resolution, and surround it with black borders. Be sure to restart the game. IMPORTANT: Do not use if your resolution is below 1920x1080. There is an issue with lower resolutions which will be fixed next patch. Delay mission stage complete messages if spawned simultaneously .

Wall o' Patch Notes

Hello again, wonderful fans of Constructor, it is I your brightful BrightPaw with the Get To Work! Update! To sum up this update here are a few choice words:

• Fixes

• Features

• Quality of life improvements

• Missions

• Auto-saves - Top Tip: Press J to initiate an auto-save at any time!

Did you say... missions?!

No, but I did TYPE it! :fhappy: That's right, we will be releasing the missions with this patch because we said we'd get them in the next patch no matter what... Nigel Plasterboard has been bugging us about it, and since we've run out of suitable ear plugs, it's time to give him a chance at recruiting the next manager for Cobble & Stones' Construction.

This sounds too good to be true. What's the catch... 22?

Hey, nice rhyme! There is no catch per-se, but we must inform the non-English speaking fans of the game that we do not yet have the localisations in a ready state for implementation. Therefore, the missions will only be in English at this point in time. In the coming weeks we will be implementing anything that we had missed this time around. The unfortunate result of having to get the patch ready so as to not keep fans waiting too long for their DLC! :) We are releasing this update because of a recent issue which popped up where owners of the building pack DLCs were no longer seeing them in-game. Unfortunately, to correct this issue we had tried multiple solutions. In the end we had to change how the game receives ownership of the DLC due to a change Steam had made two weeks ago. We also apologise for the inconvenience caused by it, and hope that this resolves the issue for everyone experiencing it. If you wish to read beyond and see the changes in detail please carry on, otherwise get back to the building site and start construction of that blasted Wood Yard.

What does this patch do for me?

Great question. I'm glad I asked! In this patch, we have implemented a lot of wonderful changes that we have been wanting to make for quite some time, but just have not had the time to do so due to sorting out issues in the previous patches. We have also added a number of quality-of-life changes to the game to improve the experience of everyone. We will be working on more changes in the coming months so do not take this as an exhaustive list of the only things we will be changing. Please note that not every change can be looked at, but we will do our best to accommodate our fans. :)

See what we have to deal with? Nigel just doesn't know when to stop! Moving along... Some of the biggest changes are the implementation of a much more robust save system. Previously, we had Designer saves and Regular saves - not great considering you might want to also have separate saves for missions too. Therefore, we have expanded the save system to allow for the following saves:

• Regular Game (free-play)

• Missions

• Designer

• Auto-Save

• Quick Game (don't worry about this one for now. It'll be important later on.)

Functionality for auto-saves can be enabled from the Gameplay Options menu where you will be able to pick from a selection of save frequencies. That's not all, though, the system will store up to ten auto-saves in sequence allowing you to jump back to an earlier period as long as the save is still present. Some other changes we have made include better support for mouse-wheel scrolling of lists, toggling of auto-zooming as well as making the movement between properties feel much more consistent. Overall, everything should 'feel' much better. In a future update, we will be looking at other things such as allowing you to remap the UI shortcuts to ones you are more comfortable using! In short, it will be a very exciting year for Constructor. 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) and here (2018). You will find the supplement thread for this patch here. Anyway, we have a lot of wonderful plans for this year and we're very excited to share them all with you as we move through 2018. It's a big year both numerically, and for Constructor. :fhappy: Without further delay, please meet the latest fixes, features, and... um... Hello?... Oh, good, they've all left. *Starts eating really noisy food*

WHAT'S NEW IN THIS UPDATE? New Content Implemented missions! Please note: Localised versions are not yet ready and will be added as soon as the translations are ready. Sorry! ☹ The following missions are now available: Mission 1: Basic Job Mission 2: The Takeover Mission 3: Salvage Operation Mission 4: Managing Expecations Mission 5: Drowning in Debt Mission 6: Full Circle Quality Of Life Changes Deliverymen now start deliveries slightly faster (2 seconds faster to be exact!) Allow recovered work teams to be summoned for work from hospital. Added ability to stop certain properties from complaining to Designer Mode. Added mob bribes indicator to gangster when selected. Addition of support for auto-saving progress. The frequency can be adjusted in Options -> Gameplay. Tip : Press J to initiate an auto-save at any time! After level 1, all tenant homes unlock at the same time instead of you being required to build the first three of each level. Added toggle to disable/enable auto-zooming. Keyboard shortcuts can be forced to display by pressing the K key even when a controller is plugged in. Addition of multiple save types. Toggle between them by clicking the arrows in the Load screen. Hippy distraction now prevents AI from breaking out. No, not that kind of break out! Fence list now moves to the correct position in the list based on the current fence in-use and will even do so when moving between houses. Building list now orders each building by cost so cheaper properties will be at the top. Fixed sorting of houses for a block so that repairmen properly circle the estate. Improved timing on clown's 'give a dog a bone' ability to prevent dog bites. Added faint team-colour tint to police overlay to allow players to see which estates are owned by each team. Minimap can now permanently be displayed even when a character video is playing. Remember, press R to toggle the minimap inside buildings! Enabled scrolling with the side-buttons on the mouse. This is a stop-gap measure for a future patch which will bring some more changes to keys. Added 'go-to' button to super tenant notification to allow players to more easily find rival super tenants. Added 'go-to' button to zombie outbreak notification to allow players to quickly jump to the affected estate. Adjusted position of PGDN text so that it does not cover the button. You can now use the mouse-wheel to scroll through many in-game lists! Residential Manager Building Manager External Gadget manager Fence Manager Hospital Patients Options menu Designer Mode Game Select Startup The Hospital now shows a total of all patients inside, as well as those who are currently recovering. The number will appear as follows: (x- injured recovering /Y - total inside )Hospital list now shows total patients, and those being treated. Floating icons of what the tenant is producing are now visible inside the fence screen in addition to the arrow of which home is selected. < and > Shortcut keys added to each data screen to allow you to go to the next neighbour on the block. Balancing Changes Word Domination now allows any building to count towards the goal, as well as the town hall. This will prevent unwinnable scenarios. If a player provokes a rival policeman by attacking, and then running away, the policeman may attempt to arrest the offending character. Don't catch them on a bad day. :P GP Super-Tenant effect reduced to 25%. Policemen no longer arrest characters under the effects of cloak of darkness unless directly targeted by them. Guard dogs and patrolling Gangsters are unaffected. When a dog bites any member of a workteam, only the bitten character will run away. Guard dogs will now continue to attack characters that are in their garden. Player can no longer spam target a building to quickly destroy it with their gangsters. General Changes Added additional audio to certain notifications. Increased depth clipping on zoomed out house icons which caused them to become invisible. Stopped skipping of next-neighbour links when button was clicked inside a home. It should now take you to each home in sequence. Fixed a crash that sometimes occurred when transitioning to the main menu after winning a game. Pause mode no longer interferes with the sliding HUD elements. Mob repossession of properties upon failing to repay debt works as expected now. Be afraid of the Mob once more! Certain undesirable actions can no longer be exploited by using the demolition action of your foreman. Pressing ESC at the beginning of Designer mode will no longer cause buttons to become unresponsive. Prevented an action that broke the tutorial when a player delivered a computer to the AI's Soweto Hut if they had one. Gadget factory icon now blinks when the factory is in-use or displays a work team being present. Arrest cage no longer stays with character when policeman that had arrested them is decommissioned. Stopped an instance where undesirables could inadvertently break from their current action if selected in a group of characters that attacked another character. Fixed an issue where garden decorations larger than 1x1 would continue to block the spaces they were using if it was destroyed before the deliveryman had placed it. Tenants spawned by the ghost will no longer display "Empty" as their name. Additionally, ghosts will no longer cause tenants to spawn if haunting the same property. Corrected incorrect reference to Xbox controls when building footprint selected. Minimap will now slide back in if a footprint that exploded was still selected. Attacking partying Thugs will no longer cause the party to be restarted, and display multiple messages. Ghost will no longer drift off into space after he had finished spawning zombies. Additionally, he will now correctly rise to the top of the ground when the ability has either been completed or cancelled early. Corrected ground tiles for some buildings once Mr Fixit's leak had been cleared. Residential properties will now display the rising gas if Mr Fixit has bodged their gas if a tenant was already inside the building. Upgrading a room, exiting the screen, and returning to it whilst it was still being upgraded no longer disallows you to continue upgrading the same room due to insufficient funds. Corrected positioning of building healthbars after visiting an undesirable abode which caused the health bars for certain buildings to not display correctly. Corrected a draw-culling issue which caused the Gadget Factory icon to stop showing the status of the factory once a resource yard had been built. Corrected a buffer issue which caused excessive amounts of ghosts to crash the game. Pressing the PGUP or PGDWN keys at the menu no longer provides sound feedback. This had no effect previously and is merely for peace of mind. Moving over something whilst the game is fading to the win-screen no longer continues to draw whatever the pointer had been over at the time. Corrected an interaction between resource yards and being upgraded to resource factories which permanently reduced the total available resource yards for the rest of that level. A ghost leaving a haunted property at the end of his ability will not cause the game to treat it as if a tenant had died. Corrected drawing issue where numbers for visible characters inside a building were causing the UI shadowing to not draw. Objects inside the gadget factory will no longer take on the shadows of in-game objects when the background is disabled. Thug leader no longers get stuck in position during recall from a street fight if you select, and move, a different thug in the group. Ghost can no longer use invisibility on himself. This had no effect, but instead cancelled the ability. Paying tax the second it was due now properly stops the flashing UI element. Policeman will no longer get stuck in place if he is shot by another character during an arrest. Guard Dogs will no longer bite decommissioned policemen. Gadget factory icons will no longer take on the colour of a team you are currently hovering over if the background for it is disabled. Fire icons on the minimap no longer take on the colour of a team you are currently hovering over and will display as intended. Resolved an issue where a guard dog could become stuck outside the property if knocked out of the garden. Council workers will now finish their pavement/road job properly even if possessed by a Ghost. Loading a saved game now properly reinitialising the road markings allowing council workers currently on-duty to continue placing them. Guard dogs no longer wait outside for a character who enters a building. Solved the situation where gangsters would try to target enemies inside your buildings, and instead run on the spot because they could not get inside. Dogs no longer wait outside the property if it was taken over before the dog could get back to its kennel. Changing a gangster’s active weapon whilst moving no longer causes him to get stuck in his firing animation. Stopped an exploit where a player could steal resources and then use the 'recall' button to stop police from detecting them. Resetting a policeman's patrol now resets the custom patrol so that it does not think you have still set a custom starting point. Removed a debug key that was accidentally left in the game which, if triggered, caused it to slow down desyncing multiplayer games. Repairmen will no longer skip repairing properties if a ghost exorcism was cancelled in the garden. Optimisations Screen draw has been increased Compensated for slowdown when moving Hud elements around. Achievements Achievement "Trumped" will now trigger every 100 buildings to resolve an issue where the achievement was becoming bugged. Corrected Built Like A Thug achievement so that it does not trigger from killing zombies, cockroaches, or council workers.

Now, you might be thinking:"Woah, BrightPaw those are some really long notes compared to previous updates. What gives?"As we spent most of the last patch trying to sort out problems with multiplayer, it did not leave very much time to investigate other issues. Therefore, we felt that last patch was lacking in quite a few areas which we are hoping this one will more than make up for, especially for those who might have been experiencing these issues! :) Once again, thank you very much for your patience and support thus far - stay wonderful, everyone! However, if you'd love a short introduction to the missions, Nigel Plasterboard will fill you in with a little back story...

• Above image not from ingame.

The story so far

"Turns out in this world you're either a builder or a digger. Bloody ingrates, the lot of them! If I don't find someone soon I'm going to end up on the wrong side of a gangster's shotgun..." "Last time I do business with bloomin' mobsters, I'll tell you that much. Right, let's see here... Ah, your records show that you have a knack for 'completing tasks on time, but often failing the cockroach mission'. What in blazes is a cockroach mission?" "You've also unlocked several... achievements? Hold on a minute, what sort of plonker do management think I am? Achievements? Bloody heck..." “Well then, you’re certainly not the apprentice I asked for… Ah well, I suppose you passed the tutorial so you’re already ahead of the other candidates.” Nigel gives you a look that tells you he’s not quite thrilled at working with you. “Er, look, you see the problem is we’ve got a touch of trouble brewing. An old business partner of mine has kicked up a storm after my… ah… unceremonious departure with at least half of his assets. Do what you gotta do, right? Haha… “ “Anyway, enough of that rubbish. We’ve got a plane to catch in a few hours. We’ll be landing about thirty minutes away from a rundown part of town run by another construction firm called Brick & Brack Construction Solutions. Right then, pack your lunch and let’s be on our way.” A few hours later the two of you arrive at your destination. “Well, would you look at that! Our boy’s gone and run off leaving us to clean up for him... Just lovely, eh?” Nigel mutters a few choice words under his breath, and the two of you continue on to Trashcan Alley. “Gawd, they weren’t joking when they named this area were they? It certainly smells like a trashcan. Erm, hold on a second…” Nigel extends his arm to stop you in your tracks. “Oh, you’ve got to be bloody joking. What on earth has happened here? Our business in this town is, for lack of a better term, in the dumps!” Nigel motions to a set of rickety looking properties set up next to the branch headquarters. “It looks like someone who doesn’t know the right end of a hammer has been around and smashed the places up. We’ll need to fix those up or else we’ll lose our clients.” A rather slovenly man waddles up to the two of you and lets out a burp that would level even the strongest building. “Ere, mate. Why have you given us a big yard and put nuffink in…” He is quickly interrupted by Nigel. “Bugger off. We’ll get to your garden soon but let us figure out what’s gone wrong here.” Nigel appears to be a little frustrated. “What’s gone wrong? Ere, mate, those boys over the bridge have been sending us dodgy builders. That’s what’s gone wrong. Where the flippin’ heck is our usual?” Nigel looks at the man for a moment and nods. “I have a feeling I know who is responsible for that, but I'll need to make some calls first. Ah, well, thank you Mr, uh?” Nigel pauses. “Bob the Slob, mate. I was here wiv me wife summat like er…” He holds out his hand and starts to count his fingers. “One, two, ten, five… yeah, we was here five years now. Never once complained and suddenly your lot have buggered off.” He shrugs. “Buggered off?!” Nigel’s clearly not having any of it. “Who in God’s na- Ah, forget it, that’s what I get for trusting that plank Samson Steele with managing our branch here. “Right, well, we’d better get to work then. What do you think, my son? Ready for a basic job?” Nigel gives you a rough slap on the back and heads off to inspect the headquarters. Something tells you this won't be quite as basic as he makes it out to be...

Thank you for your patience

As always, thank you very much for being patient whilst we prepared this patch for you. We hope that you enjoy what it has to offer and are looking forward to future updates. :)

Oh my gawd! Nigel, please wait your turn. You'll be meeting the lovely folk very soon, and you can tell them all about your problems then!!! BTW: For those interested, we have not forgotten about Constructor Plus. More information on that will follow at a later date! Have a wonderful day! :fhappy: :lovekami_heart: System 3