GDM Update 10 - Start your engines~!

Note..  Due to major changes in core structures I highly recommend you start a new save game to try the latest version build.  If you don't there may be odd ball bugs and or game crashes.  Do so at your own risk, but it would be best to start a new save game if you wish to try the new engine features.

In order to play the current build you will need to delete your old files and download the new gdm_v10.7z file unzip and run the gdm.exe to play.

Build Info

This update was focused on a complete overhaul of the create engine process as well as adding new options to this feature.

Create engine

The engine creation page has been remade to be quicker and easier.  Instead of one long scroll-able list of features to add it is now broken into sections based on stage's, and lists features from all 3 categories of that stage.  This makes selecting features way less tedious and clean.  On top of the rework to how you create the engine you can now also select to commercialize an engine, and with that you can set a revenue percent from 5%(epic) - 30%(steam).  This revenue percent combined with the tech of the engine based on the year is used to determine if an  Ai company will use your engine for there next planned game release.

The actual creation after your selection has not changed, it is still a special project and makes use of skills and stats that use special projects.

Note:  If you set the engine to be commercial you have to pay x2 cost to simulate "legal fees" which is just another way to make this a choice you will have to make.  Is this engine worth paying for a commercial license?  If the engine is good the returns will greatly out pace any additional fees.  You may also only have one engine commercial at a time.  If you wish to make a new engine commercial the game will automatically turn off commercial for the previous engine that was listed as commercial.   Also if you dismantle a commercial engine then you will have no commercial engines until you create and flag a new engine as commercial.

Manage Engines

The manage engines sections has been added to allow you to review your engines.  This will show you all the important data for each engine as well as which engine has been set as commercial for Ai companies to license.  It will also show any revenue made from that engine.

One of the key features with the manage engines section is the ability to dismantle an engine.

When you dismantle an engine you receive research points based on the engine tech x 3.  This will help keep your list of engines cleaner as well as get you something back for old engines you no longer use in the form of more research points.

Update Engines

The update engine section allows you to add more features into an existing engine which will extend its technical power making it viable in more years than previous.

When you create a new engine the total tech for the engine divided by 3 gives you your available upgrade tech limit  IE. if your engine has 30 tech you have 10 free tech slots to add features into.

The cost of upgrading is only based on the features you are adding and there associated cost, there is no baseline engine creation fees which should make this a cheap and meaningful way to extend the life of an engine for minimal costs.  After you have used up all your free tech slots then you will need to create a new engine again.

Note that if the engine is commercial you have to pay feature cost x 2, if it is not commercial than its just base feature costs.

Revenue

The algorithm for Ai to choose your engine is pretty complex and will likely change based on player experience.

In the simplest terms the tech of your engine based on the year, and the revenue % determine the chance for Ai to license your engine.

Example:  think of a score from 0-10..   If you have an engine with 15 tech in year 1 that would be a 10, but if you have an engine with 15 tech in year 5 that would be a 0.

Same for revenue % the value of 5 - 30 % is mapped to a range and then the two numbers are used together to create a % chance for Ai to use your engine.

If an Ai decides to use your engine you will see revenue based on there sales and your revenue %'s

I have been running a number of simulations to determine how much tech you can have per year if you were very focused on engine creation / research.  These values are being used to help determine how good your engine is, but they may see changes to be made easier or harder for Ai to pick your engine.  At the end of the day somethings just can not be balanced without more player data / feedback.  It's possible you will make to much money from engine sales or not make any money depending on your play through, but these values will be brought in line over time as we collect more data.

Conclusion

This update took a while due to technical debt, which if you aren't familiar with it's the price you pay when you create complicated interacting systems without adding the ability to expand / change them in the future.  I always knew I would add Revenue with engines that was easy, but the idea to update engines came from multiple player feedback and was unplanned.  As such this was a technical nightmare to get running bug free, but we got it there.

I know I said I was planning to flesh out systems in the game after the last update, but I answer to no-one and the idea for changing the engine was brought up by a few people, and I agreed it needed revamped so I did it.  Next up I do plan to flesh out some of the systems that exist but are only in there infancy such as milestones / char creation etc etc

If you haven't yet please consider wish listing the game on steam as this support really does help increase visibility for players, as well as seeing the number go up brings me joy to know people are interested in what I am doing.  Mind you I do my best to not check it more than once ever couple of weeks, as you could easily obsess and watch it like the stock market, but  doing so would only lead to less productive work.  So I try to minimize my views and just focus on creating the best tycoon experience possible.  With your help and feedback I think we can get there.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1478350/Game_Dev_Masters/