Welcome to Factory Default! + MicroProse Partnership and Version 0.0.7.0

Welcome to the official Steam page for Factory Default: Build, Trade, Repeat! I am Chett Fitzgerald, the solo developer behind the game.

I started building Factory Default as the game I have been hoping someone else would make for years. A business simulation set on a real-world map, focusing entirely on global logistics, dizzying supply chains, as well as resource management instead of combat.

I'm also incredibly proud and humbled to announce that I have partnered with the legendary strategy and simulation publisher MicroProse to bring the game to life! Their backing will help this logistical sandbox to reach its full potential.

I want to give thanks to those that played the very early versions of the game on Itch.io. Factory Default would not have gotten this far without you.

To celebrate the page going live, I want to share the details of our newest major update: Version 0.0.7.0. You can read the detailed patch notes at the bottom of this post if you like, but here are the major highlights:

The Communications Menu and Global Diplomacy The old influence mini-game is gone! You now have a messenger-app interface to communicate directly with 105 world government representatives. You can buy influence, and negotiate their political favor using cash or specific resources.

The General Assembly You can now spend your ill-gotten influence to call a global vote. The first issue on the floor? Securing international permission to build and mine in Antarctica. If you negotiate well in the Communications Menu, the vote will pass!

Supplier Contracts You can now spend a bit of influence to seek out and sign permanent Supplier Contracts. These lock in buying prices at a 5% to 20% markup. Just be careful, as cancelling a contract early comes with hefty fees.

Tutorial and Searchable Guide A brand new step-by-step tutorial has been added to walk new players through the first hurdles of their budding empire. Alongside it is a long, searchable in-game manual covering everything from market pricing math to Global Perception scoring.

New Game Stats and QoL Improvements The new game screen now features a data panel for every starting country. It shows wages, taxes, tile counts, and notable fertilities so you can make an informed choice on where to start. I have also added a "Focus Mode" toggle to hide all countries you are not currently building in.

Massive Item Expansion I've added 102 new items, refined materials, and packaged goods to the game. Ranging from canned goods to household appliances and medical equipment. All of this allowing you to complete Phase 2 of the Ultima Mundi megaproject.

New Features

SUPPLIER CONTRACTS

You can now manage how your supplies are sourced.Steam post image

Example: You have several paper mills generating paper and needing Paper Pulp. You are generating 200t Paper Pulp per day, but you need 500t to fulfill your need.

Previously, your inventory would buy that 300t needed every day at a markup of 35%.

Now, you have 3 options:

• Let your inventory supply all needed buildings with Paper Pulp purchased from the local market at a 50% markup.

• Hire a manager (Remember, managers manage single resources for the whole country, and not individual buildings.), and they will supply the buildings with Paper Pulp purchased from the local market at a 35% markup.

• Sign a Supplier Contract, which will lock in the buying price at 5% to 20% markup.

  • To find a contract, you need to generate 3 prospects using 100 influence. Some R&G will give you 3 options within that 5% to 20% range, and you select the one you want. If none look good, you can generate more with 100 more influence.

  • Once signed, you have that price until you cancel it. (These contracts don't expire.)

  • There is a cancellation fee equal to 1000% the value of a single ton/unit of the contract, but it reduces by 0.1% for every ton/unit you buy under the contract.

    • Example: You have a contract for buying Coal at $100/t, and you buy 500t a day. The cancellation fee will reduce by $50,000 every day that the contract is active. All the way to zero.

There is also a little icon next to all negative-generating items in the inventory side panel. This will allow the player to see at a glance how well they are doing. They can click the icon to change it at any time.Steam post image

There is also a "Suppliers" tab in the "Contracts" menu. This shows all items in the game that the player is buying. You can show all, or only show certain countries if you wish.

This will also tell you if there is currently a trade route that might be supplying that country with the un-contracted or un-managed resource.

You can hide those with a toggle if you don't want them in your way.

Note: Since it is possible to have a item within a country under a Supplier Contract, AND a manager, the transaction will always pick the contract first. This is because Managers can come and go willy-nilly, but contracts are a bit more sticky.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

There are now 4 times in the game. (1 implemented, and 3 others for the future) where you will need to ask the world to vote on an issue. The one currently in the game is asking permission to allow the player build in Antarctica. As of this update, the player will not be able to build on Antarctica by default.

• Resource fertility quantity has been reduced, but quality has been increased. (Keep in mind that all of Antarctica's land tiles are snowy versions, and have a 50% efficiency.)

  • (X 300%) 50% = 1.5X

To trigger a vote, the player must simply have 10,000 Influence to spend, and press the "Hold Vote" button.

• Votes will pop in one at a time until they are all counted. Majority wins.

  • If you pass, you now have permission to build in antarctica.

  • If you fail, you will have some work to do.

The other three matters that will need to be put to a vote are:

• Permission to build a Space Elevator

• Permission to build a Space Station

• Permission to Mine Celestial Bodies in the Solar System

Votes are not random, they will start out the same every play-through. They can be changed by what the player does.

The player will not know about the Space Elevator, Space Station, or Celestial Mining until they reach that point in the game. (Those things aren't in the game yet, but the voting is already set up, as well as the spoiler_checker that keeps the player from seeing what is coming.)

COMMUNICATIONS MENU

The old "Influence" Menu is gone. It was kind of out of place having a mini-game that relied on speed in the game, and this was the planned adaptation of that.

• Early in the story Uncle Ian gives you access to his contacts, 105 representatives of the various markets around the world. Their exact title is unknown, and it's probably best that the player doesn't know.

• Your only method of communication with them is through this messenger-app-type interface. You are given options on what you wish to communicate, and the Rep will act accordingly.

To start a conversation with a Rep, you will need to introduce yourself. You will be immediately be prompted with something along the lines of "I'm very busy, please tell me why I should be talking to you."

• You must make a gesture of good faith, which is simply contributing $1M to them. Presumably to be put to good use within their market.

• Once you do this, you can start asking them for things.

• You will be given 2 types of options:

  • Ask for Influence. You can trade money for influence at the cost of $10,000 per point.

    • Every time you ask however, the value of both sides goes up 10-fold.

      • First time: $1M for 100 Influence

      • Second time: $10M for 1K Influence

      • Third time: $100M for 10K Influence

      • Fourth time: $1B for 100K Influence

    • This will cause the player to use this method wisely as you only have 105 contacts. It will be in the player's best interest to secure a way to generate influence without having to ask for it constantly.

  • Ask for them to vote "Yes" on an issue that matters to you. Right now that issue is the permission to build in Antarctica. (Once they get farther in the game, the other vote options will appear.)

    • These options might be greyed out under the following conditions:

      • That matter isn't ready to be acted on. (Ex. you can't build a Space Station in the beginning of the game, and asking for a vote to do so would be silly.)

      • If the Rep has already publicly voted "Yes" on the matter.

    • If you ask for a vote, one of the following will happen:

      • The will tell you that they are already planning on voting "Yes"

      • They will ask you for a currency: Money, Influence, or Research.

        • You have the option to send (if you can afford it) or "Nevermind" which will bring you back to the general choice menu.

      • The will ask you for a resource: Computers, Electric Vehicles, Barges, Towboats, IE Bulldozers, IE Crane, IE Diesel Generator, IE Pavers, MRI Machines, Uranium Fuel Assemblies, Silver Ingots, Gold Ingots, Diamonds, Emeralds, Rubies, or Sapphires.

        • You have the option to send the resource if you have that resource in that market. If you don't have any, you will be given the option to buy the goods from the local market to send directly to them. Or you will have the "Nevermind" option to go back as well.

Once they have taken your encouragement, they will promise to vote "Yes" when the vote is held again.

• This may sound tedious, but from the General Assembly screen, after you hold a vote you can click on any of the flags that voted "No" and it will bring you to their communications menu where you can quickly ask them to change their vote.

• It may be good to know that the Rep's needs will be the same every play-through.

  • Since there are so many markets, this will be novel unless the player plays a lot!

  • There is a strategy to be had knowing what all the Reps are going to ask for before they do.

Something fun to know, there are about 10 different phrases for each of the Rep's dialogue options. Dialogue keys are saved in the save file so the "random" phrases will stay the same when you load.

UNCLE IAN AND ULTIMA MUNDI PROJECT CHANGES

This is more of a change then a new feature, but instead of Uncle Ian sliding out and popping up a speech bubble, (Giving visual novel, or mobile incremental-game vibes), now he is part of the Communications Menu which automatically pops up when the game starts. Giving a slightly more focused version of what he was saying before. This time with some pictures.

This now means that Uncle Ian will have no visual representation, and only exists within the Communications Menu.

It is from Uncle Ian that you get the contact info of all the world's representatives.

Ultima Mundi Phase 2 is in the game now with all the items listed further down.

IN-GAME GUIDE

I had no intention of making an in-game guide, but it felt like a natural addition while I was trying to flesh out a tutorial. This guide is meant to cover everything currently in the game, and hopefully is a welcome addition.

Subjects Covered:

• The Basics: Controls & Camera, Interface, Build Menu, Tile Types.

• Production & Economy: Items & Resources, Unit Types & Measurements, Production Buildings, Power Plants, Country Markets, Market & Pricing.

• Logistics & Expansion: Management, Trade Buildings, Transport Methods, Trade Routes, Contracts, Influence Cost Calculations

• Global Stage: Research, Global Perception, EIU Buildings, Communications, The General Assembly, Auctions, and Finances.

• Directives & Data: The Ultima Mundi Project, News, The Library.

• Behind the Scenes: Calendar Events, The World Tick Manager.

The guide also comes with a search so you can see all entries that have to do with whatever subject you are searching.

Say you type: "Influence", you will get information about the interface showing your influence, the influence costs of buildings, spending influence to re-roll contracts, your influence rewards for completing objectives, the influence generated from your Global Perception, spending influence on policies, etc.

TUTORIAL

The greatly needed tutorial is now in the game. This brings players to the point of having a steady $50K to $60K per day income, as well as complete setup of $3B in contracts. I left some of the less necessary features for the player to figure out. Like the auctions, and policies. Here is the run down:

• Rotating, Zooming, Locking Selections

• Expanding our wood pulp to include paper pulp, paper, and printed media. (Including using the eyedropper tool, and adjusting employee pay.)

• Building a research lab, and completing researches.

• Completing objectives. Global Perception and Finances.

• Taking out a loan.

• Coal production and auto-selling

• Wind Power Plant

• Accepting contracts

• Quick Navigation

• Supplier Contracts

• Airplane Trade Route

• Communications Menu for buying influence

• Have the player buy back 1 share, and set them off with the goal to buy the rest.

A couple of things to note about the tutorial:

• The player does have the option to skip steps or go back steps if they wish.

• There is a "Tutorial Subsidy" during the "Build this building" steps, it just keeps the player above $15M so they don't run out while doing simple things. This subsidy stops when the player is introduced to loans.

• Game speed is set to 1x every time the player completes a step. This is because there are times when the player is going to be losing money, and if they are on high speeds, that money will go quick. (Particularly after the player starts taking out loans.)

• Every tutorial step comes with a panel underneath that shows the new guide's entry on the subject. If they wish, the can click "Open Guide" which will take them to that entry in the guide.

• During the tutorial, the player's camera is locked in tight just so they don't lose their build menu, as that could be confusing.

NEW GAME MENU INFO

The character creator was disabled in previous versions of the game and has been completly removed. I replaced it with a panel that shows some info about the country that you have selected so that you can cycle around and decide on what country you want to start in.

The Panel shows an image of the country on Earth as well as the following data:

• Wages

• Benefits

• Minimum Wage

• Poverty Line

• Electricity Rates

• Water Rates

• Land Cost

• Building Cost

• Import Tax

• Export Tax

• Property Tax

• Market Power

• Market Sensativity

• Land Access

• Ocean Access

• Total tile counts

• Land/Mountain/Desert/Off-Shore/Snow/Snowy Mt. tile number and percentage

• Notable Fertilities (Any fertility that has a advanced or expert production rating, or any resource worth more than $10,000 per ton.)

This will hopefully take some of the guess work out of picking a starting country.

New Items

New Items for Ultima Mundi Tier 2

• Clay Bricks

• HVAC Unit

• Lightbulb

• Desk

• Chair

• Table

• Mattress

• Sectional

• Refrigerator

• Oven

• Microwave

• Washing Machine

• Toilet

• Shower Head

• Water Heater

• Treadmill

• Spin Bike

• Weight Bench

• Barbells

• Dumbbells

• Pencils

• Microscope

• Stethoscope

• Thermometer

• Centrifuge

• MRI Machine

• Bandages

• Syringes

• Fire Truck

• Ambulance

• Police Car

• Fire Extinguisher

• Dumpster

• Trash Can

• Recycling Bin

• Networking Cable

• Computer

• Laptop Computer

• Telephone

• Router

• Switch

• Fiberglass

• Antiseptics

• Painkillers

• Antibiotics

• Shampoo

• Conditioner

• Lotion

• Clay Tiles

• Canned Peas

• Canned Beans

• Canned Pears

• Canned Pineapples

New Items added for completing recipes:

• Aloe Vera

  • Expert: Thailand, and Mexico

  • Advanced: Caribbean Union, Central American Union, Mekong River Union

  • Standard: Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Pakistan

• Lavender

  • Expert: Romanian Union, and France

  • Advanced: Ukraine, Türkiye, and Morocco

  • Standard: United Kingdom, Italy, Balkan Union, Japan

• Willow Bark

  • Expert: Russia, and France

  • Advanced: Romanian Union, Balkan Union, Argentina

  • AddedStandardNew Zealand, Sweden, Korean Union, North Sea Union

• Isopropyl Alcohol

• Salicylic Acid

• Penicillin

• Textiles (Cotton)

• Textiles (Wool)

• Steel Cans

• Transformer

• CPU

• RAM

• SSD

• Gold Ingots

• Gold Rods

• Gold Wire

• Iodine

• Ceramics

• Nichrome Alloy

• Nichrome Wire

New Items added for the sake of completing the sets:

• Case of Almonds

• Case of Asparagus

• Case of Blueberries

• Case of Cashews

• Case of Hazelnuts

• Case of Kiwifruit

• Case of Peas

• Case of Pistachios

• Case of Plums

• Case of Pomegranates

• Case of Raspberries

• Case of Sweet Potatoes

• Case of Watermelon

• Canned Applesauce

• Canned Apricots

• Canned Asparagus

• Canned Cherries

• Canned Carrots

• Canned Chickpeas

• Canned Chili Peppers

• Canned Corn

• Canned Lentils

• Canned Mangoes

• Canned Olives

• Canned Papayas

• Canned Peppers

• Canned Tangerines

• Canned Tomatoes

• Canned Yams

Small changes:

"Focus" Toggle

Added a toggle to the lower UI that allows you to hide all countries you do not have locked.

This also replaces the water with a black sphere and hides all transport vehicles. This allows the player to focus on which tiles actually belong to which country because this could be confusing. This can also be toggled with the F4 key. I was tempted to remove the locked country select all together and replace it with this, but I could see people not wanting to use the focus mode because it kind of ruins the whole "global" feel when you hide all other countries.

Country Labels Toggle

Added a toggle to the lower UI that allows you to hide country labels.

The labels can get annoying if you don't need them. You can also hit the F2 key to toggle them as well.

Resource Generation Labels Toggle

Added a toggle to the lower UI that allows you to hide the labels that pop up above production buildings every time a resource is generated.

When you start filling in lots of hexes, it can be too noisy. Not to mention, everything you need to know about the country's generation is in the Storage Panel. You can also hit the F3 key to toggle as well.

Library

The library now remembers where you left off instead of starting fresh every time you open it.

Item Names

• I changed the "Alcohol (12 bottle case)" to "Bottled Alcohol", and put the "case" in the description. It seemed more logical. Also added the cardboard to the recipe.

• I changed the name of "IE Fuel Tank" to "IE Tank" to allow for it to be used with other liquids.

Fertilities Panel

• Is now restricted to 1 line, so it will no longer cover up menus.

Protected Items (10% sell price, 1000% buy price):

• Poppy is now a protected item.

Item Balance:

• Standardized the packaging of produce to be one of the following:

  • 1000, 500, 250, or 125 tons per day.

• Adjusted the output and price of Peas.

  • From: 10t/day at $350

  • To: 6 t/day at $800

• Adjusted the output and price of Clay.

  • From: 500t/day at $20/t

  • To: 40t/day at $300/t

• Adjusted the output and price of Gold Ore.

  • From 0.2t/day at $60,000/t

  • To: 4t/day at $2,500/t

• Adjusted the recipe and price of Fishing Bait:

  • From: 100t Anchovy, 100t Sardine, 10t Fat --> 100t Fishing Bait at $250/ton

  • To: 25t Anchovy, 25 Sardine, 5t Fat --> 50t Fishing Bait at $600/ton

• Adjusted the recipe and price of Soap.

  • From: 20t Fat, 10t Lye --> 20t Soap at $1,200/t

  • To: 240t Fat, 120t Lye, 1t Cardboard --> 120t Soap at $2,500/t

• Adjusted the recipe and price of IE Diesel Generator:

  • Doubled the recipe and output

  • From: $135,000/unit

  • To: $175,000/unit

• Adjusted the recipe and price of the Power Inverter:

  • From: 5t AlMg Alloy, 5t Aluminum Sheets, 10000u Semiconductors --> 500 Power Inverters at $100/u

  • To: 3t AlMg Alloy, 300 Transformers, 6000u Semiconductors --> 500 Power Inverters at $300/u

• Adjusted the recipe and price of the EV Powertrain Control Module:

  • From: 200u Microcontrollers, 200 Power Inverters, and 4000u Semiconductors --> 100u EV Powertrain Control Modules at $500/u

  • To: 200u Microcontrollers, 100 Power Inverters, and 4000u Semiconductors --> 100u EV Powertrain Control Modules at %525/u

• Adjusted the price of Barge:

  • From: $325,000/unit

  • To: $410,000/unit

Item Icons:

• Replaced the icon for Alfalfa. (The one previously used for Alfalfa makes for a better Lavender.)

• Replaced the icons for all cased produce.

Flags:

• Replaced all country flags with altered/cropped versions. This way they are all the same size for the interfaces where they are all listed one after another.

  • This was also done because some countries like Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and India have legal protections around elements of their flags. I will investigate further, but these should be obscured enough to not be an issue.

  • These flag icons were sourced from a GIT repository allowing use under the MIT license.

    • I have included the license in the credits.

Icons:

• Replaced the News Button Icon with a different one as it looked a bit too similar to the new "Communications" button.

• Replaced the icons for Research and Influence as they looked a bit too similar, and are now a bit more clear about what they are at a glance.

• Replaced red exclamation point icon so that it stands out a bit more.

• Replaced Contracts button icon and the Global Perception Button icon in order to better reflect what is happening in those menues.

Balance:

• Adjusted Indonesia's Import tax from 0.15% to 15% as was intended.

• Adjusted Libya's Import tax from 0.15% to 15% as was intended.

Tiles:

• I changed 1 "Mountain" tile in Germany to "Land". This was done purely because I needed 1 more land tile to complete the tutorial.

Starting UI

• The UI is now visible when the game opens to Uncle Ian's conversation. Since switching it to a chat window, it looked very lonely without the top and bottom bars.

Boot and Main Menu:

• Added the current game logo

Controls

• Added the new toggle controls to the game options. I also got rid of the "favorites" ones. They were leftover from a time when moving around the map was more of a pain.

Optimization

World Resource Generation Manager

• Greatly increased efficiency of resource generation - It will ONLY re-calculate when there is a change.

Bug Fixes

Ultima Mundi Market:

• Ultima Mundi no longer shows up in the Library Resources as one of the top markets, since you can not buy or sell in that market.

• Ultima Mundi is no longer listed as one of the countries to select from in the Market.

Storage Panel:

• I removed the odd delay in the storage panel whenever you would change your hovered country.

• Fixed the issue when clicking on an item icon and getting a "COUNTRY SELECTION LOCKED" error.

Research Menu

• Bottom rows of research tree segments were only half-selectable. Now they are completely selectable.

Build Menu

• Cost tooltip was showing things like upgrade costs for power plants (even though they can not be upgraded.) as well as painting costs even when the spot being painted is not valid. These are fixed.

Trade Popup

• The demolish button was enabled for warehouses, fixed.

Protected Item Selling:

• There was a bug where selling any protected item on the market would poison all profits with the protection penalty. Tanking your Money trend. This is fixed.

Settings:

• The ability to customize controls seemed to disappear with the last update, it is now fixed.

• The ability to stop the stars from spinning around broke with the last update, it is now fixed.

Recipes:

• In 0.0.6.0 there was a bug with long recipes. Anything with 10 inputs would only show 9. Fixed.

Company Value:

• Company Value is now actually calculated based on assets, and not just money in the bank. (This had been a placeholder that got overlooked when moving the tile maps from 2d to 3d.)

If you made it this far down, I would love to hear what you think about Factory Default: Build, Trade, Repeat.. Feel free to comment here, or check out the Factory Default Discord:

https://discord.com/invite/74uwzz2FPA

I will be sharing progress as it continues.

Thank you,

-Chett