Hi everyone, Captain Zuff here, and I am thrilled to announce that our first major update is now released! Update 1 is big, so I've prepared a short video summarizing the most important ones. You can also see the full changelog at the bottom!
Key highlights from Update 1
Significant graphics update, new terrain textures, trees, grass, and props.
New dynamic ocean, dynamic sky, and fog.
Tree planting & automated harvesting.
Significant improvements in terrain simulation & physics.
New graphics for machines and vehicles.
Revamped storage units that now show stored products.
New terraforming options: Leveling designations, Stacker + mixed cargo mining & hauling.
Vertical pipes!
Significant extension of Nuclear power, including new reactors and reprocessing plant.
More than 14 new machines and buildings.
More than 16 new products, including new production chains.
Extra 30 minutes of music.
Lots of QoL features, including new dashboards or direct vehicle upgrades.
We are also celebrating our first anniversary since Captain of Industry was released into Early Access a year ago, on 31st May 2022. 🎉 Thanks for being with us on this journey. We are truly grateful for having such a great community, and we can’t wait to see what next year brings!
To learn more about the development of this update, see our previous posts:
Full change log for v0.5.0
Graphics improvements
* Added sun, dynamic fog, and dynamic sky that change based on weather.
* New high-quality terrain textures for nearly all materials.
* New simulated ocean that adapts its wave pattern and color properties to the current weather conditions (old ocean is still available as a low-fidelity setting).
* New tree models: spruce and fir.
* Added rocks to the terrain. Rocks are impassable for vehicles but buildings can be built on top of them. Excavators can also remove rocks when on mining designations.
* New terrain grass coverage system, mixing multiple types of grass and flowers.
* Refreshed all maps with better resource placement and improved tree distribution.
* Trees leave stumps after they are harvested. Stumps decay over time.
* Products are now visibly stacked on conveyors, trucks, and around storages.
* Storage units now show icons of what is stored in them.
* New models for Excavator T1 and T2, Truck T1 and T2.
* UI improvements.
Music
* Added 8 new tracks totalling 30 minutes of new music.
Forestry
* New Forestry tower and tree planter vehicle can perform tree replanting and fully automated harvesting.
* Trees are planted using saplings that grow on farms.
* Tree harvester now visibly slices trees into smaller logs.
* World map lumber mill was removed.
Vehicles improvements
* Mixed mining: Excavators can mine mixed products, always scooping a full bucket.
* Mixed hauling: Trucks can be loaded by excavators with mixed cargo, significantly increasing mining efficiency. For now, mixed cargo can be only loaded by excavators.
* New widget for vehicles that allows a choice for their replacement with a different tier. Replaced vehicles keep their assignments.
* New vehicle scheduling that is more performant and allows assigning jobs to the closest available vehicles.
Major features
* Pipes can now be constructed vertically, taking up less space when changing levels.
* Added leveling terrain designation (combination of mining and dumping designation).
* Stacker: allows dumping of loose material from conveyors directly on the terrain.
Nuclear energy changes & new content
* Brand new model for Nuclear reactor I.
* Added a new MOX reactor (tier II reactor), allowing to reprocess spent fuel and minimizing waste that needs to be stored. Also provides extra 33% of power compared to the previous tier.
* Added a new Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) (tier III reactor), allowing to reprocess and burn all the waste while providing twice more power than the MOX reactor by generating super-pressured steam (a new type of steam).
* Added a new Nuclear reprocessing facility that was designed to work together with FBR and MOX reactors.
* Added more than 12 new products: Enriched uranium (4%, 20%), Reprocessed uranium, Depleted uranium, Plutonium, MOX rod, Core fuel, Blanket fuel, Fission product, Spent MOX, Retired waste, and more.
* Introduced a new Super pressure steam turbine to be used with FBR.
* Reduced capacity of nuclear waste storage from 5k to 1.6k since all waste can be now processed eventually.
* Nuclear reactor now needs to be turned off before an upgrade is possible.
* Fuel gets loaded into the reactor without requiring positive target power.
Quartz & sand changes
* Added a new mineable resource: quartz, available on all maps.
* Sand is no longer made by crushing rock but by crushing quartz instead.
* Silicon production now requires sand instead of quartz.
* Introduced manufactured sand that is produced by crushing Rock and can be used to produce Concrete and Filter media.
* Reduced unity cost for world map Quartz mines from 0.5 to 0.4.
Computing changes
* Added mainframe: predecessor to datacenter, making bootstrapping of microchips easier.
* Made microchip production 25% faster and also 25% cheaper on computing.
* Increased server rack cost from 20 to 25 servers but doubled its computing output. This means that a datacenter still requires the same maintenance while providing twice more computing.
New machines & buildings
* New Captain’s office I
- Makes blueprints available much sooner and provides basic edicts.
- The previous office is now Captain Office II and provides access to advanced edicts.
* Thermal storage: enables storing heat and use it later in the form of Steam.
* Tier 2 diesel generator: more efficient and 6x more powerful than tier 1 and allows to filter exhaust.
* Tier 2 electrolyzer, both tiers also got new models.
* Tier 2 mixer, both tiers also got new models.
* Tier 2 crusher: 4x the size and 6x the throughput compared to tier 1.
* Waste incineration plant: allows to burn waste more efficiently while also providing free Steam. Also outputs exhaust for potential filtration.
* Compactor: Allows compacting trash in 1:3 ratio.
* Shredder: Allows reversing compacting and also can shred wood.
New recipes & changed recipes
* Hydrogen can be created more efficiently from water using super-pressure steam.
* Dirt can be made out of compost and gravel using a mixer.
* Wood can be converted into woodchips and burned in the boiler to produce steam.
* New product paper that can be made from wood and limestone and used in lab supplies instead of a nitrogen tank. Removed nitrogen tank as a product (nitrogen gas remains).
* Chicken can be converted directly into trimmings instead of having to go through meat.
New mechanics
* Electricity surplus: Entities can now be set as "surplus consumers", only consuming power generated by "surplus generators".
* Conveyor belts and storages can now operate in three selectable modes:
1) Belts and storages do not consume any power.
2) Belts and storages consume power with the highest priority but still function without power.
3) Belts and storages consume power and won’t work without it.
* Landfill now decays over time and produces pollution. It takes 4 years to fully decay, at which point the pollution stops.
Balancing and changes in production chains
* Major
- All food types now feed +20% more people.
- Reduced costs of pipes and conveyors by 30%.
- Minimum intervals between diseases were increased by 30-100% (based on disease).
- Gold ore yields half the gold and comes with increased crushing costs.
* Electricity inflation
- All machines consume 4x more and all generators generate 4x more.
- Conveyors only consume 2x more, reducing their consumption by 50%.
- Settlement transformers only consume 3x more, resulting in a 25% decrease.
* Electricity production
- Increased steam energy density by 50% (less steam is needed for the same amount of power, but it costs more to make to compensate).
- 50% increased mechanical power throughput on turbines and mech. power generators
- High-pressure and low-pressure turbines now have the same throughput and their layouts have been changed as well.
* Bricks
- Brickworks has double throughput and costs 10 CP less.
- One brick now costs 1.75 dirt instead of 2.
- Starting bricks in ruins reduced from 800 to 600.
* Wood
- Wood now yields almost twice as much coal in a charcoal burner.
- Reduced wood required in construction parts from 4 to 3.
- Doubled wood input in household goods but reduced steel from 2 to 1 and glass from 10 to 8.
* Refinery
- Fixed that the cracking unit was returning less diesel (6) than it should (8) (based on the energy density of the input).
- Increased ethanol yield from sugar cane by +50%, making it more energy efficient.
- Increased diesel yield from canola and sugar cane by 40%.
- Increased hydrogen reforming yield from 12 to 14 (to account for extra 2 hydrogen from input steam). The recipe for fuel gas takes extra 2 hydrogen to compensate for that.
- Fuel gas to diesel recipe now returns water as a bi-product instead of Co2.
- Decreased cooking oil needed in diesel production from 12 to 9.
- More acid yield from 2 sulfur increased from 8 to 12.
* Fertilizer
- Fertilizer is now made with ammonia + oxygen instead of ammonia + nitrogen + water.
- Sour water stripper ammonia output reduced from 4 to 3.
- Fertilizer I was made cheaper as the chemical plant produces 10 instead of 8 in the same recipe.
- Fertilizer II production increased from 10 to 12 by accepting extra sulfur and limestone.
* Electronics rebalance
- Reduced cost of Electronics II by requiring half of Electronics I and Polysilicon.
- Increased cost of PCB by requiring 2x more glass.
- Electronics II and PCB production throughput increased by 100%.
- Reduced cost of Construction Parts IV by requiring half of Electronics II.
- Lab equipment 3 now costs 2 electronics II instead of 8 glass.
- Lab equipment 4 now costs 2 electronics III instead of 2 electronics II.
- Servers now require 5 Electronics III instead of 4.
* Desalination
- Reduced desalination cost by 15% (energy-wise).
- Thermal desalination plant throughput increased by 85% when using HP steam, by 400% when using LP steam, and by 300% when using Depleted steam.
* Electrolysis
- Electrolyzer I throughput for hydrogen production increased by 100% (power demand increased as well)
- Electrolyzer can no longer be boosted.
- The volume of depleted steam returned from burning hydrogen in a boiler changed to be equal to the volume of water it takes to make the hydrogen using an electrolyzer.
* Maintenance
- Crushers now cost maintenance.
- Maintenance II requires 25% fewer mechanical parts.
- Maintenance II depot throughput increased by 100%.
- Maintenance III depot throughput increased by 50%.
- Reduced maintenance costs of robotic assembler I from 5 to 4.
- Changed robotic assembler II to require maintenance II (7x) instead of tier III.
- Moved several machines and tier III vehicles to use maintenance II as it now comes
* Other
- Crushing is now 2.5x more power-hungry.
- Decreased ocean pump output from 20 to 18 water.
- Decreased effectiveness of cooling of HP steam from 12 to 10 output water.
- Waste burning in a regular burner changed to take twice as long.
- Sludge digestion and composting are now 30% faster.
- Settlements now return biomass for wood consumed from household goods
- Increased radiation tolerance due to new, more radioactive products.
* Rewards
- Increased world map rewards by 10-20%.
- Added more rewards after goals completion.
- Removed microchips and servers as rewards from the world map.
Changes in research
* Electronics II is now available earlier due to the removed Quartz input. This also allowed making Construction Parts IV and Maintenance II available earlier as well.
* Solar panels, Power generation IV, Household appliances, and Hydrogen Reformer all come before Research Lab IV.
* Moved cooling tower II from nuclear research to power production IV.
* Ship weapons II are no longer locked by Electronics II
* Merged reforming and cracking so cracking comes earlier.
* Early research is faster to unlock.
* Research locks: Some research nodes now require a certain amount of products created in order to be researched.
Quality-of-life and UI
* Added a quick remove unity action for storage units when they are being cleared.
* Added new dashboards that provide a breakdown of the consumption and production of electricity, computing, workers, and maintenance.
* Blueprints now automatically downgrade their locked items on placement.
* When a blueprint is locked, a list of locked entities is shown on hover.
* Notifications in entity inspectors are now shown in a panel on the side, eliminating jumping UI.
* Clicking on a machine icon in a recipe book now starts building it.
* Power, computing, and workers displays in entity inspectors are now grayed out when the is not consuming the resource.
Other changes
* Transports can no longer turn and initiate a ramp up/down at the same time. These types of ramps were removed as they were not extendable once placed.
* Recycling plant now returns sorted products via a single conveyor, final sorting has to be done using sorters. This provides more extensibility in the future.
* World structures are now paused after repair.
* Advanced tools such as cut or copy are now locked behind initial research. This increases discoverability and makes the game less intimidating for new players.
* Main folder with save files and blueprints has been moved to the appdata folder to prevent issues with their accessibility on non-standard systems.
* Chained storage units automatically disconnect corresponding vehicle import/export settings to improve vehicle jobs scheduling and performance.
* Added difficulty setting to allow to increase contracts profitability.
* Added more generous difficulty options to reduce maintenance.
* Added more options for autosave intervals.
Terrain performance & physics
* New terrain representation storing data in contiguous arrays.
* Terrain can be up to 65k tiles squared large (260 km^2).
* Terrain now supports up to 256 different materials (up from 28).
* Terrain now properly distinguishes between solid materials (cliffs) and mined ones (mined rock), each type having its own physics parameters.
* Improved terrain physics now takes material layer thickness into consideration, allowing thin layers to stick at steeper angles.
Performance
* Various internal improvements increase the simulation speed of many components by 10-30%.
- Completely rewritten simulation of machines
- Increased performance when exchanging products between ports and buffers
* New terrain rendering tech improving FPS by 1-8x (based on map size and view) and reducing memory consumption by 4x.
* Terrain operations such as mining, material collapse, or disruption after vehicles are 2-4x faster.
* New conveyor and pipe rendering system resulting in 3x speedup.
* Ocean access area checking is 10x faster, not lagging the game when placing docks or a shipyard.
* Optimizing products rendering to use batched GPU instancing (rendering multiple products per single instance).
* New LOD system that adjusts ocean quality based on view distance. If the ocean is not in the view, it is not even simulated.
* New terrain details rendering system (grass, flowers, etc.) with LOD support that also adjusts density based on camera distance and does not render details that are too far from the camera (previously, all details on the entire map were rendered).
Rendering infrastructure improvements
* Switched to Forward rendering pipeline (from Deferred). This allowed the use of multi-sample anti-aliasing and greater control over rendered pixels.
* Terrain now uses tri-planar rendering (on a high-quality setting), removing texture stretching from steep slopes.
* Added rendering quality options and presets to be able to get the game to run smoothly on a wider range of hardware.
* Added three separate FPS limits for the game, menus, and when the game is in the background.
* Shadow distance is now dynamically adjusted based on the camera zoom.
* Fully unlocked game camera, which can now look up at the horizon.
* Small objects such as grass, flowers, or crops on farms no longer disappear when zoomed out slightly.
Small Quality-of-life
* Holding shift while adding or removing servers to the datacenter adds or removes 8 at a time.
* Recipe book now shows radiation levels for products.
* Contracts view now sorts contracts by output so that similar contracts are near each other.
* Changed machine UI to display "waiting for products" status instead of "missing input" together with a list of products missing on mouse hover.
* Added a notification strip when transport snapping is disabled.
* Added a legend for the shortcut which allows preventing applying copied config when placing entities.
* Terrain grid is now visible when modifying Mine Towers areas.
Fixes
* Game no longer freezes when on the loading screen.
* Music now does not stop on the loading screen.
* Made ocean pumps and dumping entities stop working when the ocean is no longer present.
* Edicts effects are correctly combined with other effects, such as difficulty options.
* Fixed that datacenter racks didn't appear on load.
* Fixed that global products statistics kept increasing when machines ran partial recipes (e.g. cooling towers).
* Fixed that storage units that were not built yet were already reporting their capacity.
* Fixed that blueprints would add locked recipes into machines.
* Fixed that launching a rocket returned its scrap value back.
* Lots of improvements and fixes in how products are handled in quick build and removal.
- Storage units now have priority over Shipyard to store products.
- Shipyard has priority over storage units to provide products.
- Cargo depot that is exporting products no longer provides them for a quick build.
* Balancers and sorters now show power consumption in the entities menu popup.
* Camera, even "free look", cannot go underground.
* Fixed issues with map borders and added support for cargo depots built near the border.
* Fixed that the fuel station had its input buffer registered into logistics instead of solely relying on piped input.
* Fixed fuel station that was often sending partially loaded fuel trucks.
* Trees are no longer moving when mined under but fall down instead.
* Increased maximum number of rendered characters per element from 15k to 18k to accommodate Update 1 changelog.
Contracts balancing & changes
* Contracts removed:
- Glass => Coal
- Diesel => Quartz
- Diesel => Limestone
- Coal => Limestone
- Coal => Gold ore
- Vehicle Parts II => Uranium
* Contracts added:
- Household goods => Coal
- Lab equipment III => Coal
- Rubber => Wood
- Household appliances => Wood
- Lab equipment II => Copper
- Vehicle parts II => Quartz
- Sulfur => Sludge
- Consumer electronics => Crude oil
- Lab equipment IV => Uranium
- Servers => Gold ore