Hello everyone! Captain Filip here, and welcome to our last pre-release Captain diary. We have a few logistical items to go over, plus a few exciting updates on landmarks, so let’s jump on this.
Translations
First of all, I want to say huge thanks to all the folks who contributed to the translations. It is a massive boost for the project. As we announced in our previous diary, we have pushed lots of new strings over the last two weeks, so if you are interested and have time to translate COI into your favorite language, we would appreciate your help. We expect to add more strings over time, especially since we will most likely add more tutorials. Our translation tool can be found here.
Supporter edition
We want to give extra thanks to all our supporters without whom the current Early Access version wouldn’t be where it is now. And to do that, we are introducing a Supporter edition of COI which will be given in the form of an upgrade DLC to all the folks who supported us in our crowdfunding campaign. By all, I mean all the pledges we have received via Kickstarter and our webpage, including Captain pledges, because we know that some of you have been waiting for a long time, and we really appreciate it.
The Supporter edition is a pack with extra cool decorations and an additional map. However, this pack is not aiming to be a significant DLC or change the game significantly. As the game is in Early Access, the Supporter edition is in EA as well, meaning that it may receive some extra content later on. This pack will be distributed via Steam and so will be available for purchase for folks who did not pledge during our campaign.
Now let’s go over the new content in the base game and the Supporter edition!
Statue of maintenance
Maintenance is important, and it is also important to embrace and celebrate it, so you have an option to build a statue of maintenance. You can supply it with fuel gas in order to light up its torch. When built and its torch is burning, it decreases maintenance consumption by 5% globally. However, if the statue is not maintained well, the maintenance consumed will increase by 5% globally!
This statue will be available in the base game, and the Supporter edition will get a golden version as well.
Settlement decorations
You can now build decorative squares for your settlement. Each square provides a Unity bonus to nearby housings. You will get two empty squares - light and dark and also one with a nice decorative pillar in the middle.
The Supporter edition will have a working fountain as an extra settlement square.
Tomb of Captains
This item is exclusively in the Supporter edition. As time passes by, it becomes apparent that the island is not ruled by just a single Captain but by a generation of Captains. The Captains are so loved by their people that they decide to build them the Tomb of Captains, which serves as their final resting place (well, one of the Captains made the order to build it, but this is not in the official statement released by the Captain’s office).
This building is incredibly massive and no costs were spared on it. It’s so lavish that it has to be built in 6 stages.
Keys distribution
If you have pledged for alpha/beta access, you will get the EA version via an automatic update through Steam. You will also receive a separate email from us that provides you with keys for the Supporter edition upgrade pack and soundtrack.
If you have pledged for a Captain, you will receive a Steam key (plus the Supporter edition upgrade key) a few days before launch so you can activate the game. However, the game will unlock on 31st of May - these are Steam policies and we cannot affect this.
Development update
We are currently focusing on improvements and polishing. We are also playing the game and fixing any bugs or balance issues we find. There are some improvements we can share as well.
Terrain graphics
We have found some issues with how the terrain was being rendered. After fixing these, the terrain now looks better than ever!
Statistics
We have revamped how in-game statistics are handled. Since each product tracks its own statistics, the amount of data was too large and it was bloating save files, save/load was slow, and it was even affecting game performance. We have added new data structures that compress the data in memory so we can store it all with no problem! This decreased save/load times to half, and save size at 25 years old factory went down from 2.5 MB to 0.6 MB!
Additionally, we have added way more statistics since now they are cheaper to store, like what exactly is product being used for (construction/machines/dumping/export). Finally, many statistics such as electricity or global product quantities are now updated daily (instead of once a month)!
More insight into logistics
Based on frequent feedback from players, we have added new statistics that show all the truck cargo jobs performed per a given timeframe. This will help to identify which parts of your logistics would benefit from some extra automatization.
Mysterious package
More than three years ago, Captain Marek purchased a “motivational gift” for himself and pledged that the package can be opened only after Captain of Industry is released to the public! Nobody knows what is in this package, not even me! He said that whoever can be the first to guess what is inside of this mysterious package before the game is released will receive an extra key for Captain of Industry as a reward. If you would like to guess, please do so on our Discord server in mysterious-package channel. Only one guess per person, no editing ;)
Outro
And that’s all I had for you today! The next stop is … the Early Access release! See you all there! :)