1.24 Progress Thread

[Eric.B]

Welcome to the version 1.24 Progress Thread. This thread will contain the running change log for version 1.24. The following lists contain changes broken down into Testing Build releases. The bold text is the type of change such as bug fixes or new features.

Progress threads are not the place for discussion. If you wish to talk about v1.24, or any of the minor builds in between v1.23 and v1.24, you can do so here: v1.24 Discussion Thread.

Version 1.24 is the second to last major build for GearCity. As such, we will mostly focus on minor features, bug fixes, and missing content. The only major planned feature is pre-designed vehicles for players and AI. This will allow players to skip the car designer without having to design a car body.

v1.23.1

-Engine: Implemented the predesigned .car file loader system that is separate from the "Save Car" system.
-Gameplay: Predesigned or Custom Design selector when player design a vehicle body.
-Engine: Saved .Car files now included aerodynamic drag data for AI.
-Gameplay: AI now selects a predesigned vehicle body to use for their models.
-Engine: Implemented a predesigned vehicle mod loading system.
-Mod Tool: Created Predesigned Vehicle Tool in the mod tools. Added predesigned vehicles to the mod files.
-Gameplay: Implemented a "Lock Accessory Selection" system which will allow you to select an accessory or decal on the car from a list rather than click selection.
-Documentation: Redirected tutorial to use predesigned vehicles instead of custom designs. Thus reducing the tutorial by 10% or 330 words.
-Engine: Added a popularity link for fuels into components.xml files.
-Gameplay: Linked fuel type popularity for electric vehicles. All electrics will now have the highest electric type's popularity.
-Engine: Optimized Historical Player Date information.
-GUI: Added 4 sub categories for the bottom panel which has more information for funds, stocks, debts, and expenses.
-GUI: Bottom panel information is limited based on how much screen width the player has.
-GUI: Implemented a Next Month Estimated Expense System which can be found under the expenses bottom panel.
-GUI: Implemented a warning button in the bottom panel when next month's estimated expenses reach over 10% of cash funds and higher than 50% last month's revenues.
-GUI: Added new expanded bottom panel to all "rooms" in the game.
-GUI: Added selection buttons in the office top panel so players do not have to memorize hot keys to open various windows.
-GUI: Players playing with more than 2000px width now have the option to pin/unpin the side panel open and closed.
-Gameplay: Reduced munition's revenues during WW1.
-Bugfix: Fix munitions manufacturing popup when countries that you only have branches in goes to war.
-Gameplay: Modification system can only be done once every 2 years for components.
-Gameplay: Increased Modification system's exponential costs.
-Engine: Implemented a revision system into the .car loader system
-Engine: Implemented a checker and delete system to purge un-useable user created .car files from the game.
-Engine: Switched default renderer for new purchases to OpenGL.
-Artwork: Improvements made to UV coords of many models.
-Artwork: Additional paint ID's added to older vehicle models for slightly better player painting.
-Artwork: Renamed morph animations for all models to better improve terminology and fix misspellings.
-Bugfix: Fixed regression causing the game to not be able to load unicode save games.
-Gameplay: Restrict saving .car files to Latin (ASCII) characters.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug with Human Resources system not displaying proper data.
-Gameplay: Reduced Steam Fuel's weight by 20%.
-Engine: Implemented a fall back settings file in case the user screws up their settings file or when steam doesn't' delete old data at uninstall.
-Engine: First time load, the game will check savedcars folder and delete old .car files. If a car file is present that is completely unuseable (unicode file name) the entire data in the folder will be purged to prevent crashing on "Load Car Design".
-Gameplay: Removed the ability to bid on contracts with designs that are in development.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash involving closing branches and opening up selected city in Mega Menu Marketing.
-GUI: Added list pages to R&D component selection, modify components, and modify vehicle lists.
-Gameplay: 146 Predesigned Cars added.
-Maps: Completed Military History.
-Engine: Fixed line ending issue when moving .car files between Windows and Unix.

v1.23.2

-GUI: Disabled hotkeys when tutorials are active.
-GUI: Added Tutorial Panel Text before the Side Panel to the bottom Side Panel Text in case the player has poor mouse control and goes over the side panel. Thus triggering the side panel prematurely.
-GUI: Clock, door, and globe will continue glowing until clicked for the tutorial.
-GUI: Disable reports popups until end of the tutorial.
-GUI: Did You Know is now read in order at a random starting position.
-Content: Fixed some spelling and grammar issues in the Did You Knows.
-Content: Started spelling and grammar checking news articles for Base City Map (will reuse these in all maps).
-GUI: Cities listed in Human Resources are now in alphabetical order. Starting with country then city name.
-GUI: Cities in the Mega Menu are now in alphabetical order. Starting with country then city name.
-GUI: Assign Contract lists are now in alphabetical order.
-GUI: Contract bid components and vehicles are now in alphabetical order.
-Gameplay: Manufacturing Requirements effect on production numbers has greatly increased. (Min and Max effect may need to be balanced.)
-Gameplay: Manufacturing Requirement values degrade at the same pace as Factory Quality value. Thus allowing for the same number of units to be produced as the factory wears down.
-Gameplay: Increased components effect on vehicle manufacturing requirements.
-Gameplay: Some minor adjustments to sub component manufacturing requirements effect on components.
-Gameplay: Reduced component design's effect on skill rating growth. Changed from best designs to an average of all designs in a time period.
-Gameplay: Increased Research team's effect on skill rating growth.
-Bugfix Fixed bug in Research Team estimated growth rate causing incorrect values to be shown in some rare cases.
-GUI: List pages added to Outsourcing and View component and vehicle lists in RnD.
-Gameplay/GUI: Replace old design checkbox added to "New Generation" vehicle. If checked, the old generation model will be replaced with the new generation, much like using the replace feature in Auto Commands.
-Gameplay: Maximum Supported Torque effects for Gearboxes was reenabled.
-Gameplay: If a gearbox is too weak for an engine, durability and quality ratings tank. This spec no longer effects final torque due to AI calculation performance.
-Gameplay: Increased price's effect on buyer rating.
-Gameplay: Adjusted used car sales rate for lower cost vehicles.
-Gameplay: Increased the amount of time you have to bid on a contract.
-Gameplay: Furloughed employees are now cleared out when your country goes to war.
-Gameplay: Adjusted furloughed employee's effect on morale and strikes.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in the start of war code that could clear out government contracts for your HQ nation.
-Gameplay: 5-10% total turn time improvements. More to come.
-Gameplay: Stock system evaluations is now more weighted toward revenues instead of book value/equity.
-Gameplay: Changed global market economy's effect on stock values.
-Gameplay: Added "institutional buyers" which remove/buy available shares of companies when they're bull. And add/sell shares to available shares when the stock is bear.
-Gameplay: AI will no longer be forced to sell to players when players try to buy shares.
-Gameplay: Increased the frequency in which the AI sells more of their shares and shares of companies they own.
-Gameplay: Removed vehicle and component designs from book value and net worth calculations.
-Maps/Mods: Added major independence events up to 1933 into the news paper. More to come soon.
-Gameplay:Auto Production Continental Shipping Restriction (found in the factory production window with the other AP restrictions).
-Gameplay: Adjusted Top Speed calculations
-Bugfix: Missing factories not in use from factory expense report. This is a regression caused by optimization.
-Bugfix: Fixed missing reserved vehicles from vehicle reports. This also was a regression due to optimizations.
-Artwork 50 additional premade designs.

v1.23.3

-GamePlay: 5-10% improvements to turn time due to optimizations.
-GamePlay: Replaced "Driveability" rating with a "Handling". Placed Gearbox effects on Driveability rating into luxury ratings. Boosted remaining specs and sliders effects on the Handling rating.
-GamePlay: Consolidation will now automatically create a new marques with your former company name and logo. For example if Foo merged with Bar you will now have FooBar, Foo, and Bar marques.
-GamePlay: You can now save component and vehicle slider positions to a file for use in other save games. This only does sliders and not sub-component selection.
-GUI: Fixed unpopular fuel type confirmation not clearing out advanced engine designer windows.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash when using view prototype system in early game years due to 0hp engines.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with overtime (past 2020) gameplay values not resetting when returning to main menu.
-Bugfix: Reserved units not being calculated properly in the Average Transpiration costs for districts.
-Tutorials: Audio for all 44 Main Tutorial windows have been added. (Still a little post-processing work to be done, but still better than my "saliva" filled voice :D )
-Tutorials: Auto Tutorial Audio Play Checkbox fully implemented.
-Tutorials: Tutorial Audio volume dynamically adjusted with sound effects volume slider.
-Tutorials: Tutorial "Continue" button stops tutorial audio.
-Tutorials: Disabled Stand Alone Car Designer when Main Tutorial is enabled.
-Tutorials: Background Music is paused when Tutorial Audio is playing
-Tutorials: Fixed World Map Cities not being selectable when world map Main Tutorial is running.
-Tutorials: Fixed several missing glow effects and tutorial text issues.
-Tutorials: Added more tutorial checkpoints to the game so if the player stops in the middle of the tutorial, they can resume more closely to where they were.
-Tutorials: Fixed End Turn repeating some parts of the tutorial audio over and over again.
-Translations: Preliminary testing of the user side of the new translation system has been completed. Export and user functions have also been implemented. Hopefully the full system will be out by next weekend.
-Gameplay: Renamed Monthly Revenues, Expenses, and Profit Chart to Monthly Revenues, Expenses, and Cash Flow. Added Taxes to this chart and included interest income into income.
-Gameplay: Towing calculations have been adjusted to minimize hitting the minimum tow weights.
-Gameplay: Reduced engine power ratings quarter decline values.
-Gameplay: Adjusted the player/ai influence on smaller city growth. Separate bonus values are now used for economic and population growths
-Gameplay: If manufacturer employment in a city is close to a city's population, the city will have an automatic boost in population.
-Gameplay: Increased factory idle costs by 10% of full production costs.
-Gameplay: Branch costs have been increased on hard and ultra hard difficulties base on the population and income of cities. This can be toggled in the new game options.
-Gameplay: Limited the number of branches that can be built per year on Hard and Ultra modes. Only 3% + 1 cities or territories can be built on if this option is enabled. This can be toggled in the new game options.
-Gameplay: Monopoly lawsuits if your company gains over 75% market share for an extended period of time. This may cause fines or your marques be stripped away. Above 90% market share has stiffer fines and the possibility to completely break up your company into multiple companies. This can be toggled in the new game options.
-Gameplay: Increased the effect of costs that sub-components have on components.
-Gameplay: Decreased the costs effect of some sliders.
-Gameplay: Some adjustments to component pricing. This may need some more testing however.
-Bugfix: Fixed hitbox bugs in 2010 winter office and 2010 safe. (Might not be the correct years.)
-Translations: All single quotes ( ' ) are now escaped in the database side. No more need to double the single quotes in the localization/translation files. Some more testing may be required in case I missed places.
-Gameplay: Six additional lawsuits against your company have been added.
-Engine: In game chat has been moved to Quakenet due to incompatible upgrades to Esper Net's web client. We will eventually host our own ircd (and upgrade our browser) at some point.
-Gameplay: Lobbying protests have been added to the game.
-Gameplay: Some minor adjustments to slider effects on torque and rpm.
-Gameplay: Various rates and inflation are now capped when playing with random history enabled.
-Gameplay: Mass production discounts only have a static effect instead of an accumulative effect on production costs.
-Gameplay: Mass production discounts now takes into account the factory lines amount settings for the map.
-Bugfix: Fixed Monthly Sales Amount Achievement Memo firing every time it is reached.
-Gameplay: Estimated lost sales random values are now calculated at the end of the turn instead of every time a factory line is selected.
-Bugfix: Fixed a couple of New Marque Spin off Exploits.
-GUI: List pages for view competition in Branch Distribution Windows.
-Translations: Hitting Alt-T in the main menu will now display word ID numbers before text. Do this before starting a new game and also before loading a game started with this feature enabled.
-Translations: Approximately 15,000 duplicate or unneeded words removed from the game text. This is a 15% reduction in non-news related text. 18% reduction in the number of entities needed to be translated.
-Gameplay: Inherit Branch Shipping Distances now works for districts locks and district selections.
-Gameplay: Reduced Brake Specific Fuel Consumption for engines. After a certain amount of fuel economy (based on the fuel type's fuel rating) it becomes exponentially harder to increase fuel economy.
-Gameplay: Switched "hp to weight ratio" to "torque to weight ratio" in the vehicle fuel consumption calculations. (Still working on the balance for this one.)
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in AI gearboxes that could cause high fuel economy in finished vehicles.
-Gameplay: Reduced small volume contract per unit payment amounts.
-Maps and Mods: Finished National Independence news articles for Base City Map.
-Maps and Mods: Added major historical news events between 1900 to 1993 to Base City Map.
-Artwork: Premades for 40s, 50s, and 60s added.

v1.23.3 Hotfix #1

-Gameplay: Reduced the quality of AI branches to prevent them from going bankrupt due to higher branch costs. Some more adjustments will be made in v1.23.4.
-Maps and Mods:Added major historical news events between 1993 to 2001 to Base City Map.

v1.23.3 Hotfix #2

-Bugfix: Fixed issue with player fuel consumption.

v1.23.3 Hotfix #3

-Bugfix: Fixed Rare Autoproduction bug that could drop material costs to $0.
-Bugfix: Fixed French Africa City crash if player started a game in 1950 and clicked a city before their 1960s independence.
-Gameplay: Minor weight reduction for engines.
-Maps and Mods: Added major newspaper events up to 2010 for Base City Map.

v1.23.4

-Bugfix: Fixed bugs with material costs in reports and manufacturing costs in branch distribution window after you won a contract with Auto Production enabled.
-Bugfix: Fixed Limited Branches exploit when using Build Branches in District.
-Gameplay: Many older established AI no longer immediately go bankrupt.
-Gameplay: Reduced population effect on branch monthly costs when Dynamic Branch Costs is enabled.
-Gameplay: Created a setting for Auto-GUI Position Save and Disable Window Centering. For players who like to adjust the sizes and positions of their windows and does not want the game to automatically remember the locations and never automatically center the windows.
-GUI: User selected units and measurements.
-GUI: Only show user selected unit types for various specs. No more displaying SAE and SI units for the same thing. You pick what you want to see.

-Gameplay: Import tax system. Every city/territory has a minimum tax rate of 2% of vehicle sales price if the vehicle is not produced in the same country it is sold. If you import vehicles from low tax cities to high tax cities, additional rates will be charged based on your HQ city tax rate. This feature is automatically enabled for Hard and Nightmare settings. It can be disabled in the new game options.
-GUI: The City Information Window displays the Import Tax rates if the feature is enabled.
-Gameplay: Fuel Popularity will now greatly increase (at 5% per year) if the fuel has a large marketshare but is low in popularity.
-Gameplay: Bonds can not be paid back before 2 years. Thus fixing a free money exploit.
-Bugfix: Fixed IPO exploit that resulted in double income from buying back your own shares.
-Gameplay: Player can now cancel component selection when using the prototyping system.
-Gameplay: The game will now automatically sell shares when you've been out of cash for a couple of months. This prevents players from investing all their cash into a company and then not going bankrupt because they have liquid assets (stocks). Gotta be able to pay your bills/employees! ;)
-Gameplay: Using many low sliders while designing will now directly reduce vehicle's buyer rating.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug that showed outsourced vehicles in the Autoproduction model restriction lists.
-Maps and Mods: Moved Regional Names to the map.xml files. So that regional maps such as Europe, won't have North America, Asia, etc listed.
-Gameplay: Added "World" to the Districting system. So players can select the entire game world if they want to.
-GUI: Added up and down arrows to Branch Distribution Sales Price text box. They increase or decrease the price by $50.
-Mod Tools: Implemented Regional Names to the Map Data Tool.
-Settings Editor: Added Autosave GUI and Unit Types.
-Settings Editor: Fixed clear cache bug that deletes the GPU shader Cache folder, thus causing the game to crash.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in Autoproduction system that could cause production pace to be 100% toward quantity.
-GUI: Rename component textbox will have the old component's name automatically entered.
-GUI: Component modification system will automatically increment the an ending number by 1 in the name of a component being redesigned. Example: Engine-1 will be automatically named Engine-2 (If no other engines are named Engine-2) .
-GUI: Factory Expense reports now show a Production Capacity amount. This value multiplies the percentage of factory lines you use with the average position of your quality/quantity sliders. Thus giving you a rough idea of how close you are to full production. Production Line Capacity data also remains.
-Bugfix Fixed chassis outsourcing filtering.
-Bugfix Fixed bug in Autoproduction system that would not produce vehicles for contracts when the player had no branches.
-Gameplay: About 5% improvement to turn times. (Might be able to squeeze out a little bit more, just thought of something I could try. :) )
-GUI: Fixed inconsistent close button sizes.
-GUI: All windows should have titles in the title bar.
-GUI: Fixed Mega Menu Clipping of really long names
-GUI: Added horizontal scrolls to several lists, including the side panel.
-GUI: Dynamically adjust list and drop down boxes's scroll button amounts. One click should now be close to one scroll page. (Bottom of the list becomes the top of the list and you see the rest of the items below.)
-GUI: Newspaper stocks now show 2 decimal places.
-GUI: Added fuel type information to several view engine and view vehicle windows that were missing it.
-GUI: Added some missing information from the Auto Commands Mega Menu Help Buttons.
-GUI: Licensing List show now refresh after you make changes.
-GUI: Fixed World Map/Mega Menu charts that were showing revenues instead of units sold.
-GUI: Fixed several graphs and buttons in the showroom.
-GUI: Most window titles should be centered in the window now. (Some windows may not be, due to size constraints.)
-GUI: Decimal places were fixed in line charts. Other chart types will be fixed when we upgrade the web browser after full release.
-GUI: Some charts now have digit grouping. Other chart types will have digit grouping when we upgrade the web browser after full release.
-GUI: Fixed several overlapping text issues when playing the game with large font.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in racing competition view, that did not show player's race team if they were not using default team name.
-Gameplay: Adjusted Random History's inflation rates. There is now less time with negative inflation/growth rates.
-Gameplay: Readjusted base vehicle popularity values to how popular a vehicle type is at introduction time.
-Gameplay: TurnEvents.xml popularity changes are now multiplied into the popularity values instead of added.
-Maps: Added Static Vehicle Popularity growth rates for all vehicle types.
-Mod Tools: Added an importer system to Vehicle Popularity and Newspaper tools in the Turn Events Editor.
-Gameplay: Disable Static Popularity Growth advanced game option. This disables the popularity growths in the TurnEvents.xml file. Vehicles will start with popularity values between 2% and higher based on the starting popularity of the vehicle type in the components.xml file.
-Gameplay: Random Vehicle Popularity advanced game option. This randomizes the starting popularity of vehicle types.
-Gameplay: Adjusted the dynamic vehicle popularity growth. Growth rates are less, but effect all vehicle types instead of just the top and bottom vehicle types.
-Bugfix: Fixed exploit that allowed a player to use in construction factories to produce war munitions.
-Bugfix: Possible fix for low definition textures and showroom crashing for extremely low powered GPUs.
-Bugfix: Fixed buffer overflow when purchasing a company with over 4billion shares issued.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue where consolidating companies does not transfer over the target company stocks and leaves them orphaned.
-Bugfix: Fixed late game bug that was causing R&D estimated GearBox unit costs to be higher than the designed price.
-Bugfix: Fixed an issue causing tax refunds not to be issued if you over paid. (Think you can fool us GCIRS?!)
-Bugfix: Fixed a bug that could leave vehicles unlisted in factories if you used the replace and discontinue system, then discontinue the in development replacement vehicle.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug causing Auto Production not to update production quantity after factory reconditioning.
-Gameplay: RnD->Mod->Vehicle will now show a list of discontinued vehicles if you have no active vehicles. If you have no vehicles what so ever, it will then display an error message.
-GUI: Added growth trends arrows to Body and Fuel demand charts.
-Maps: Ported Newspaper articles to all maps except Classic Map.

v1.24 RC1

-Bugfix: Fixed crash caused by French Did You Know file.
-Bugfix: Fixed Q4 taxes not being charged and incorrect amount being reported in reports.
-Maps: Completed Base City Map's City Events.
-Maps: Finished computer assisted grammar and spell check of Base City Map's Newspaper Items.
-Maps: Ported Base City Map's City Events and Newspaper articles to Base Territory Map and Classic Territory Map.
-Steam Stuff: Finished creation of trading card rewards. (The trading cards are being worked on now, but they are subject to Steam's approval.)
-Steam Stuff: Implemented Steam Workshop Uploader in the mod tools.
-Steam Stuff: Trading Cards Implemented
-Steam Stuff: Workshop Downloader Implemented in Settings Editor
-Steam Stuff: Implemented 34 achievements.
-Bugfix: Fixed incorrect war status in the United States in Base Territory Map
-Tutorials: Recorded 6 video tutorials for Mod Tools.
-Bugfix: Fixed post 2020 crash.
-Bugfix: Fixed Localized and Unlocalized component name parsing.

v1.24 RC2

-GUI: AI vehicle length, width, and height now displayed in Showroom Marque Catalog and Marque Compare.
-GUI: Fixed several rounding and missing unit conversions in the Marque Catalog and Marque Compare systems.
-Gameplay: Reduced first time factory upgrade costs. Increased costs of additional upgrades.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug that could cause discontinued vehicle to not be displayed in the Mega Menu Branch even if it was still for sale.
-Gameplay: Removed the ability to use an in-development engine or vehicle for racing.
-Gameplay: Additional reduction to racing revenues.
-Gameplay: If you have a factory in a war zone, a high priority memo will be displayed when the war is over.
-GUI: Adjusted vehicle popularity "words" in the report.
-Gameplay: Adjustments to vehicle rating decline rates.
-Bugfix: Possible bug fix for a crash caused if the player discontinues a vehicle that is being outsourced to AI companies.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in the vehicles sold for the year memo.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in the Paid Back Loan achievement.
-Achievements: 6 more achievements.
-GUI Added help buttons to Main Menu New Game. (Still need to do the Settings help buttons.)

v1.24

-Artwork 1980s and 2010 premades added. (These will temporarily be used for 1990 and 2000.)
-Bugfix Fixed crash when terminating contracts.
-Bugfix Fixed Pango issues with Font Config on Modern Linux.
-GUI Standardized font in most HTML pages. Some more tweaking is needed.
-Bugfix Fixed regression in Base City Map that caused crash in French Morocco if the player started a game between 1930 and 1950 and clicked the Casablanca before Moroccan Independence.
-Gameplay Added additional conditionals for Strike Adverted achievement.
-Bugfix Fixed possible issue with City Skills Growth when growth values zero out.
-Bugfix Fixed SQL issues with Marketing achievement.

v1.24 SP1

-Steam Stuff: Implemented 12 new achievements.
-Steam Stuff: Fixed additional issues causing some achievements not to be triggered.
-Bugfix Fixed issue with unfunded research teams effecting average engineer salaries in HR.
-GUI: Changed AI starting amount selection ordering from Alphanumeric to map/mod maker order.
-GUI: Mouse wheel should scroll game GUI at one half a button click. Webbrowser scroll has been reduce by half.
-Bugfix Fix newspaper display bug that could show insanely high values for winning contracts.
-Gameplay: Adjustments done to vehicle top speed to return more effect to Gearboxes.
-Bugfix: Fixed Main Tutorial window continuously popping up even if you disabled tutorials.
-Bugfix: Fixed chassis prototyping bug that could cause the estimated finish date to be 32 months when it is actually much less.
-GUI: Added remaining help buttons to Main Menu.
-Artwork: Grey paints are more black.
-GUI: Fixed Linux Text Above sub-component buttons in assisted designer wraps.
-GUI: Assisted Designer, moved categories in Quick Details panels to the right..
-GUI: Components modification window will close if you end production of your only component.
-GUI: Increased spaces between end turn arrows.
-GUI: Fixed Advanced vehicle designer, selecting a chassis does not fill the info for the chassis unless the player clicks the chassis.
-GUI: Fixed Stock broker, Bottom of the company details cuts off the marque amount when playing with large text.
-GUI: Fixed competition date wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed bore and stroke wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed racing limitations wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed racing setup wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed Racing series filters having entries such as 0 and en
-GUI: Fixed fixed gearbox contracts requirements wrapping
-GUI: Fixed fixed R&D contract filter drop down widths.
-GUI: Fixed licensing engine text wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Dynamic font resizing for Factory/Branch/District drop downs in Mega Menu.
-GUI: Fixed fixed factory view details wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed incorrect units being used for acceleration and braking.
-GUI: Benefits disabled message in HR when benefits are disabled.
-GUI: Fixed capitalization of dynamic text in some memos.
-Gameplay: Fixed incorrect dates on some memos.
-GUI: Fixed Auto Production restriction text cutoffs with large font.
-GUI Fixed induction systems overlapping in several places with longer induction types.

v1.24 SP1 HF1

-Bugfix: Fixed crash when player uses modded AI files.
-Bugfix: Displayed RPMs being higher than they should be.
-Bugfix: Fixed Autoproduction producing too many vehicles if the player messes with the branch district locking system before enabling Auto Production.
-Gameplay: Significant optimization to player production end turn processing speed. This should help players with large save files greatly.

v1.24 SP2

Bugfix: Fixed issue with Auto Production system when player disables AP, sets district limitations on branches, and then reenables Auto Production. (Enabling AP will now automatically clear out all Districting limitation settings).
GUI: Fixed display of player outstanding shares in broker view when AI companies hold shares and are not willing to sell.
Gameplay: Reduced the effects of modifications and increased costs more.
Bugfix: Fixed modification exploit allowing the player to do more than 1 modification if they wait longer than 2 years.
GUI: Fixed Saved/Custom GUI overwriting the reports window size.
Bugfix: Fixed issue in racing where two series shared the same ID causing naming confusing.
Gameplay: Reduced random lawsuit settlement and lost cases costs.
Gameplay: Put in time limitations for random lawsuits based on player demand.
Modtools: Fixed a couple of issues with the Gearbox/Gears components editor.
Settings Editor: Fixed issues music/sound fx volumes
Settings Editor: Fixed issues with a few unit types.
GUI: Fixed word wrap with Author's name in Map Selection.
GUI: Dynamically change font size of End Turn company info based on length of the data.
GUI: Fixed some list over wrap due to engine layout name length.
GUI: Fixed alignment of Used Cars in World Map view competition lists.
GUI: Added commas to the City Information popup.
GUI: Fixed some word wrapping with the scrap checkbox for New Generation vehicles on Linux.
GUI: Fixed several word wrapping issues with large font in the Components Refit window.
GUI: Fixed GUI widgets becoming misplaced when resizing Mega Menu window.
Engine: Made the Purge Data system more aggressive. In a 1.1GB test save game, I was able to reduce it to 350MB. This also double reports generation speed. However at the cost of only having 5 years of historical production data. (Some additional optimizations are possibly coming to this system.)
-GUI: Fixed chassis selection using incorrect player units.
-GUI: Fixed several wrapping issues in Vehicle Prototyping with large font.
-GUI: Added lobbying effectiveness percentage to lobbying screen.
-GUI: Added MIssed Sales to various reports.
-GUI: Fixed several large font wrapping issues with renew contracts window.
-GUI: Adjusted the banking overview panel so that scroll bar would take up less space.
-GUI: Fixed several large font wrapping issues in Banking Overview.
-GUI: Fixed Banking window resizing restrictions
-GUI: Moved line of credit application button to the static side panel. Button also now disappears after you sign up for a line of credit.
-GUI: Fixed issues with raycasting in the world map.
-GUI: Adjusted World Map Marketing summary font size to prevent possible wrapping.
-GUI: Fixed World Map Marketing resizing issues.
-GUI: Fixed Marketing manual entry wrapping issues.
-GUI: Fixed spelling mistake in Lobbying Header Image
-Gameplay Fixed possible overflow issue with credit fees.
-GUI Increased rounding amount for Banking Interest rates.
-GUI Changed default font in GUI sheet files. This may cause wrapping issues throughout the game, but also fixes some wrapping issues.

1.24 SP3

-Bugfix: Fixed possible crash when outsourced AI vehicles are discontinued through mass means.
-Bugfix: AI Gearbox manufacturing requirements ratings were too high.
-Bugfix: Fixed incorrect fuel economy values in ratings window.
-Gameplay: MPG can now be a decimal value.
-GUI: "Save" and "Save As" now displays a message when saving is in progress.
-GUI: Clicking "New Game" on the Main Menu resets the new game options.
-GUI: Fixed skill adjustment achievement covering scroll bars.
-GUI: Auto Production Model Restriction lists now shows "All Vehicles" if no models are being restricted.
-GUI: Fixed double digit completion dates in advance designer panels a second time.
-GUI: Some fixes to the new defined font size system. (Specifically the New Game Options Windows.)
-Gameplay: 12 new achievements.
-Gameplay: Additional tweaks on the AI component selection system to reduce Single Cylinder and Two-Stroke from being paired together.
-Gameplay: Minimum Bond Amount removed.
-Bugfix: Fixed Bond rounding issues.
-Gameplay: Lowered Bond and Loan interest rates
-Gameplay: Improvements to the Credit Ratings system.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible random events that could cause departments to strike even if there were no employees in the department.
-GUI: Assisted designer now has warnings if the vehicle is too slow, and if an engine has less than 5 smoothness/comfort rating.
-Gameplay: Heavy balancing done to the Base Territory Map to reduce sales in late game.
-Gameplay: Additional tweaks done to the AI for Base Territory Maps and other small "territory" maps.
-Mod Tools: Fixed several selection issues with the Components AI Pop Table.
-Engine Removed Shader cache. Shaders will now be generated at run time, which will slow down initial loading, but hopefully reduce crashes caused by bad updates.
-GUI: Fixed wrapping issue with large fonts in Advance Car Designer Vehicle Popularity panel.
-Engine: Implemented system to prevent RnD License GUI (and others) from getting corrupted due to save gui and game updates.
-Mod Tools: Fixed stuck engine layout end year spinner box.

1.24 SP4

-Mod Tools: Fixed removal of sub-components that are no longer in the Components.xml file that are AI Components Popularity File.
-Translations: Translation system is now available in game, Click the Help Button then Translate.
-GUI: Attempted to make Drop Down Box mouse wheel scrolling faster. Still needs some testing.
-Gameplay: Increased marketing and racing's effect on consumer population specific to vehicle models. I.E. customers not in a pool for all models, but just for the specific vehicle.
-Gameplay: Racing series will now show up one year before they start in the racing series lists. You are not able to start a team in this planning stage, but you are able to view the series restrictions in case you want to produce a design for the series.
-GUI: Clone sliders systems now works with in-development vehicles or components.
-Bugfix: Fixed Engine Saved Sliders not loading proper Bore and Stroke.
-Bugfix: Fixed Bore and Stroke range checks for saved engine sliders.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with Modify engine which could cause power rating to decline.
-GUI: Fixed issue with the Auto-Save GUI checkbox which caused it not to be checked when system is enabled.
-Bugfix: Fixed destroyed factories events not canceling upgrades or rebuilds.
-Artwork: Added some player created designs! Remember, you can still submit your designs. For more information: https://steamcommunity.com/games/285110/announcements/detail/2901896660869879108
-Gameplay: Reduced AI's margin selling outsourced vehicles. Also tweaked branch prices.
-GUI: Added GUI final submission date to the contract side panel.
-GUI: HR wages now show a range of wages instead of an average for job positions that have multiple employees (manufacturing and engineering).
-GUI: HR will now hide if you have auto-production and auto-wage enabled.
-GUI: Branch and Factory Mega Menu's will now hide if you have no vehicles designed.
-Gameplay: Dealership growth and effects have been overhauled.
-Gameplay: Reduced the AI vehicle design time by approximately half.
-Gameplay: Temporary balancing change for City Maps, early year of sales in some high buyer rate countries such as Italy have been increased. This code will be removed when I implement interpolation of city buyer ratings for SP5.
-GUI: A bunch of minor GUI fixes such as over lapping text, cut off widgets, etc. I didn't keep a list as it was a fix while playing sort of session.
-Gameplay: Tweaked low funded racing team's results, which was causing horse power to be slightly more powerful than it should be. More tweaks may be coming.

1.24 SP5

-Gameplay: City specific buy ratings now interpolate between the city.xml files.
-Maps: Increased small city and low percapita city specific buy rate in early game years on all city-based maps. Also made some adjustments to European city specific buy rates in early game years to increase sales.
-Maps: Added missing infrastructure and fuel data to all maps.
-Gameplay: Dividends now split when the stock splits.
-Bugfix: Fixed development pace slider exploit when designing a new trim.
-Bugfix: Fixed month delay in the End, Scrap, and Replace old model system.
-Gameplay: Total Unit Costs and Manufacturing Costs located on the branch distribution side panels now uses previous turn data instead of estimating future data. This should make it more static, but will not reflect changes in costs until the next turn.
-Gameplay: I finally caved and made factory production lines slider only effect the number of factory lines and the tech slider effect everything else when designing a factory.
-Gameplay: Price and size adjustments when building a factory.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with build factory production line slider adjusting the price and number of vehicles that can be built, even though the production lines do not increase.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with low level conflict not effecting demand enough.
-GUI: Price Change Auto Commands now work on a district level if you have a district selected.
-GUI: Adjusting shipping distance on the world map will now show you the maximum transportation costs per vehicle.
-GUI: Added Units Shipped to Contract Revenues report.
-GUI: Color coded war status on New Game Map.
-GUI: Added a breakdown of a vehicle's buyer rating to the Wealth Distribution Chart. Click the Line Graph button next to where you enter the price of a vehicle to see it.
-GUI: Enabled previous/next arrow buttons for Mega Menu Districts.
-Artwork: Added more player designed pre-made vehicles!
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with AI engine designs that could cause bad data in save games.
-Bugfix: Small bug fix for vehicle fuel economy specs which could cause the design to run at optimal economy all the time.

1.24 SP6

-Bugfix: Fixed development pace slider disappearing when designing a new generation vehicle.
-Gameplay: Adjustments to new trim and new generation development time when not changing components.
-GUI: Disabled zoom hot keys when text box has keyboard focus.
-Gameplay: New Marques now inherit 75% of parent company's image and skill ratings.
-Gameplay: Expanded marque's image and skill growth to include component designs.
-Bugfix: Fixed "Low Morale" display when contracts are assigned to a factory.
-Gameplay: AI now purges high end vehicles from sale in small cities if they don't sell any units over a period of time. This should speed up turn times slightly.
-Gameplay: Chassis weights have been increased slightly.
-Gameplay: Increased frame's and drivetrain's effect on chassis weights. Minor reduction for other sub components.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with Buyer Ratings Table that showed all vehicles of a type instead of just the vehicles for sale in the selected city or district.
-Gameplay: Designer paint color will no longer reset after you paint something.
-GUI: Click the GUI will no longer cause an error sound when paint or accessory tools are enabled.
-Gameplay: Marketing Budgets have been added to Stock Reports.
-Gameplay: Reports header has been reorganized. Hopefully it is easier for players to find things instead of just throwing the miscellaneous reports into Reports 1 and Reports 2...
-Gameplay: Branch Reports now has wear information.
-Gameplay: Added Monthly Report to the reports header.
-Gameplay: Additional revenues information added to Quarterly and Annual Reports.
-GUI: RnD rating numbers are now displayed all the time instead of requiring the player to hover over the stars. This has required us to spread out the bottom panel more.
-GUI: Added Project Profits to RnD->View Vehicle.
-GUI: Assisted designer initial sliders positions have been corrected.
-Gameplay: AI production frequency has been replaced with AI Vehicle Design Frequency. This adjusts how many vehicle designs the AI will create.
-GUI: Last year race winnings for series is now displayed in the race series detail's panel on the Racing Budget window.
-Gameplay: Fixed issues with the AI that caused them not to discontinue designs that are listed in Licensing and Outsourcing systems.
-Gameplay: AI high performance cars should be more high performance now.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash when tabbing to name a vehicle trim's after already designing a trim.
-Gameplay: Adjustments to minimum vehicle fuel economy based on the engine design.
-Gameplay: 12 Additional Achievements
-Bugfix: Fixed some lawsuits turning negative due to high vehicle sales revenues.
-Gameplay: Merged CarReports and CityReports into 40 or so files, thus reducing the amount of reports the game generates in large save games.
-Gameplay: Removed historical Car Reports and City Reports. You only have the latest month now.
-Gameplay: Optimized car reports generation, thus reducing turn times significantly on large save games.
-Engine: Moved some historical vehicle data to the vehicle data table, thus allowing the engine to purge historical records and reduce save game size significantly for large save games.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue causing matured bonds not to clear out of company's meta information.
-Bugfix: Fixed mega menu crash when clicking arrows with no factories/branches.

1.24 SP7

-GUI: Fixed text overlapping issues in several locations.
-GUI: Fixed resize issues in several locations.
-Artwork: Added more user made predesigns! Thanks everyone who submitted!
-GUI: If music player is open and the song changes, the new song will be selected in the list.
-Gameplay: Buying AI companies with outsourced components will now discontinue any designs with bending outsourced contracts. This will prevent orphaned designs.
-Engine: Added placeholders for SaveGames and SavedCars folders so Steam will make sure you have them if you verify files.
-GUI: Components now have a total production report located in the Showroom. In the future I may break this down into vehicles.
-GUI: Up and Down Arrow Keys will now select the next item in lists if the list was the last item clicked.
-GUI: List should no longer return to the top after doing an action on a selected item.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue that was allowing players to license in development components.
-Gameplay: Increased the frequency of a dividend stripping lawsuit.
-Gameplay: Reduced the maximum amount of dividends to prevent financing the dividend.
-GUI: Adjust dividend based on EPS is checked by default now.
-GUI: Bottom bar now refreshes after purchasing a company.
-GUI: Fixed a place or two where vehicle names were missing the year.
-Engine: Updated OpenAL in Linux. Sound should now be working on Pulse Audio distros.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue which was causing militaries to use city names.
-Bugfix: Fixed taxes being off set by a month in the Expense Reports.
-GUI: Fixed Gearbox Overall rating being miss labeled as Performance.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible crash when resizing some windows too small.
-Bugfix: Project Profits values always positive.
-Gameplay: Adjusted AI's build branch behavior for when the company is not making money, has a less than 7% of the world map in branches, and has a boat load of cash.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with the component modification system that caused the new price not to be displayed.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with several predesigned vehicles with negative aerodynamic drag calculations. Thus causing bad data in the prototyping system.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with factory upgrades that caused the player not to be charged for a month.
-Bugfix: Fixed factory workers striking during the middle of major wars when they're no longer producing anything.

1.24 SP8

-Bugfix: Fixed top speeds of finished vehicles not matching top speed in ratings windows.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible negative weight modifiers if weight to hp ratio was rounded to 15 or 38 kg per hp.
-Bugfix: Fixed global demand randomization values not being tied to administration skills. Now missed demand for global shipping should be the same as shipping range demand estimations.
-Bugfix: Changed ambiguous wording in "contracts can't be bid on" memos.
-Bugfix: FIxed several issues with awards and race championships in the Showroom vehicle report.
-Bugfix: Fixed marketing funds not being cleared when spinning off or selling a marque and including branches.
-Gameplay: Now generating first turn contracts.
-Bugfix: Fixed issues with Auto-production restriction lists which was causing the lists not to refresh.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue causing discontinued parts which were being licensed to AI companies not to clear out their licensing revenues during the end turn phase. This fixed an issue with the licensing revenues report having more income than listed in other reports.
-Gameplay: Increased image growth rates dynamically if the target skill is much higher than the current skill.
-Gameplay: Linked marque's researching skills with parent companies'.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible negative loan situations.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with branch wear reports not having the correct wear amounts for every branch.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with Chassis RnD View name sort.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with holdings list not showing after taking your own company private.
-Bugfix: Fixed late game possibility to go bankrupt if playing on infinite cash mode.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with year interpolation system that caused nation and flag changes not to register if starting in a later game year.
-Engine: Merged GearCity Beardgine 1 and Beardgine 2 code bases together.
-Bugfix: Fixed contract crashes in respect to not having a component selected in the contracting lists whilst bidding or canceling a submission.
-Bugfix Fixed sliders loading crash in 64-bit build due to VS2013 code optimization system.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash related to hitting + or - while RnD is loading or doesn't have keyboard focus.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash in tutorials on Linux 32-bit build, 64-bit build, and possibly other systems.
-X64 Engine Implemented a popup warning for OpenGL players on 64-Bit windows build, letting them know that the DirectX9 system is probably better now.
-X64 Engine Implemented non-character keys for web browser Linux and Mac 64-bit builds.
-Bugfix: Fixed HR help button not having proper text.
-Bugfix: Fixed WW1 and WW2 achievements triggering a year too late.

1.24 SP9

-Engine Scale GUI Setting. This setting allows you to increase the size of the GUI. This is particularly helpful for HiDPI monitors.
-64-Bit Engine: Dynamic Report Size setting. This causes the reports windows size to be closer your vertical resolution. However, this requires a little more performance for 2k+ resolutions.
-64-Bit Engine: Removed unsupported resolutions from the in game settings drop down.
-64-Bit Engine: Fixed incorrect resolution being displayed in the in game settings with fullscreen enabled.
-64-Bit MacOS Engine: Implemented Fullscreen mode.
-Engine: Hard frame limiter can now be adjusted via settings.xml file. (Coming to the External Settings Editor as well.)
-64-Bit Windows Engine: Which Monitor the game will open on can now be set in the settings.xml file via an index number. This is only supported in Windows. (Coming to the External Settings Editor as well, however it will not poll how many monitors you have. You'll have to enter the proper index number yourself.)
-GUI: Resize scaling to center implemented for side by side lists.
-Tutorials: Fixed some issues with the tutorial which allowed the player to return to RnD or did not popup a message when components designs were not finished.
-Tutorials: Disabled normal to nightmare modes for tutorial plays initiated from the Main Menu.
-Gameplay: Increased spec effects on racing and contract wins.
-Bugfix: Fixed the game not rewarding revenues for the last month of a contract in some cases.
-Engine Added weight and size modifiers to Car Type in the components.xml file. Both default to a normal value of 1. Currently size has no effect on anything in game.
-Gameplay Added weight values for all vehicle types in the game.
-Gameplay: Car Type's weight now effects the weight of the vehicle.
-Gameplay: Tweaks to vehicle's weight effect on fuel economy and maximum fuel economy achievable by an engine design in a vehicle.
-64-Bit Engine: Fixed javascript error popup when viewing reports.
-64-Bit Engine: Automatic reports page zooming based on GUI scaling.
-Gameplay: Ordering more outsourced units will replace the previous order.
-GUI: Contracted outsourced units are now sorted by name.
-Gameplay: Vehicle Image growth rates have been increased by about 20%.
-Bugfix: Fixed a couple issues with new trim design times.
-Bugfix: Fixed issues with competition charts.
-Bugfix: Fixed issues with Factory Expense table.
-Gameplay: Minor tweaks to credit rating score calculation
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with component amounts not being shown in stock window.
-Bugfix: Fixed contract renewals having incorrect amounts in memos.
-Gameplay: Adjustments have been made to the bulk production discount values.

[Eric.B]

Work on v1.24 has been going well over the last two weeks. In that time I have implemented the predesigned car system, rewrote the bottom panel system, and fixed a couple of minor bugs/issues.

I had completed the first decade of premades, however, Serhiy decided to re-material ID most of the early game cars, thus breaking those .car files (and any saved .car you have based on those meshes). However, this is fine, as it fixes several problems with painting. He's also found 4 more car bodies not implemented in the game. In anycase, he will be working on predesigns soon. Hopefully we'll be able to fill them before v1.23.1 is released.


In other news, the bottom panel has been completely redesigned. It now includes much more information, although hidden behind a couple of buttons. (More clicks! Yay!) If everyone had 8k monitors, wouldn't have this problem. ;) Anyhoo, there is now an "Estimated" next month's expenses in the bottom panel. This should help with players over spending on things like factories or vehicle designs. Assuming they don't ignore the exclamation point button that appears in the bottom. I may have to do more things to make it noticeable...

Anyway, v1.23.1 is on track programming wise, but it might be delayed a little bit on the art side of things. If that is the case, I will either roll v1.23.2 tickets into v1.23.1 or work on Map content. Either way I'll be busy.

-Engine: Implemented the predesigned .car file loader system that is separate from the "Save Car" system.
-Gameplay: Predesigned or Custom Design selector when player design a vehicle body.
-Engine: Saved .Car files now included aerodynamic drag data for AI.
-Gameplay: AI now selects a predesigned vehicle body to use for their models.
-Engine: Implemented a predesigned vehicle mod loading system.
-Mod Tool: Created Predesigned Vehicle Tool in the mod tools. Added predesigned vehicles to the mod files.
-Gameplay: Implemented a "Lock Accessory Selection" system which will allow you to select an accessory or decal on the car from a list rather than click selection.
-Documentation: Redirected tutorial to use predesigned vehicles instead of custom designs. Thus reducing the tutorial by 10% or 330 words.
-Engine: Added a popularity link for fuels into components.xml files.
-Gameplay: Linked fuel type popularity for electric vehicles. All electrics will now have the highest electric type's popularity.
-Engine: Optimized Historical Player Date information.
-GUI: Added 4 sub categories for the bottom panel which has more information for funds, stocks, debts, and expenses.
-GUI: Bottom panel information is limited based on how much screen width the player has.
-GUI: Implemented a Next Month Estimated Expense System which can be found under the expenses bottom panel.
-GUI: Implemented a warning button in the bottom panel when next month's estimated expenses reach over 10% of cash funds and higher than 50% last month's revenues.
-GUI: Added new expanded bottom panel to all "rooms" in the game.
-GUI: Added selection buttons in the office top panel so players do not have to memorize hot keys to open various windows.
-GUI: Players playing with more than 2000px width now have the option to pin/unpin the side panel open and closed.

[Eric.B]

v1.23.1 would have been released Friday, however the main art contractor decided to fix painting on several of the older models. This resulted in the need for me to rescale those car models which broke all "saved" car bodies you created in game.

So good news and bad news. Good news first. Many cars are now more paintable with proper metal and leather paint areas. Some additional accessories have been added, and some accessories are also paintable now.

The bad news is, all car files made before v1.23.1 are broken. So any vehicle body you designed in the last 8 years and saved will no longer work. I have implemented a system to delete your old .car files so it will not clutter the system.

Since the artist broke the old .car files. I decided to take the opportunity to fix all sub-contracted artwork's broken "English" for the morph animations on the cars and accessories. This means no more (hopefully) misspellings and more descriptive terms used animations.

So v1.23.1 has been pushed back indefinitely until the artist finishes what he's doing and switches over to what I asked him to do (make premade cars). I do not want to break .car files again. Hence the delay. I am hoping it will not take more than 2 weeks, but I can never guarantee when it comes to sub-contractors. Sometimes they work fast. Sometimes they're horribly slow (guy working on the new translation site for example).

In the meantime, I will switch over to map data and possibly start working in smaller v1.23.2 tickets into v1.23.1 while we wait.


-Gameplay: Reduced munition's revenues during WW1.
-Bugfix: Fix munitions manufacturing popup when countries that you only have branches in goes to war.
-Gameplay: Modification system can only be done once every 2 years for components.
-Gameplay: Increased Modification system's exponential costs.
-Engine: Implemented a revision system into the .car loader system
-Engine: Implemented a checker and delete system to purge un-useable user created .car files from the game.
-Engine: Switched default renderer for new purchases to OpenGL.
-Artwork: Improvements made to UV coords of many models.
-Artwork: Additional paint ID's added to older vehicle models for slightly better player painting.
-Artwork: Renamed morph animations for all models to better improve terminology and fix misspellings.

[Eric.B]

Work continues on the predesigned vehicles by Serhiy. I'm not sure if he'll have at least 1 option for every vehicle type done by Friday's launch or not. But he progresses either way. We'll be opening the system up to your predesigns as well sometime in the next couple of builds.

Most morph animations used in the car designer have been renamed. I completed this task several days ago. This should clear up many grammar, logic, and spelling issues in the game.

I've knocked out several bugs that have been reported to me the last few days.

Over the weekend, the hard drive on my Slackware machine failed. This machine controlled my accounting software, site data, mod tool development, community and media relationship stuff, and all Linux development including various tools to help develop the game in, and much more stuff. Sadly I was not able to make a full image of the drive, but I have been able to save much of the unbacked up data. No code was lost in the failure. However, I was unable to backup most of the build files, so I will have to spend some time setting things back up.

The new hard drive for the Linux machine does not arrive until Wednesday evening. As such I have started my move to virtual machine development prematurely. By moving to virtual machines, it will be unlikely any future machine failure will disrupt workflow any significant amount.

So between now and Saturday, I'll work resetting up the Linux port. Do some play testing, knock out and hopefully finish Base City Map data. And wait for more premade cars to be made.


-Bugfix: Fixed regression causing the game to not be able to load unicode save games.
-Gameplay: Restrict saving .car files to Latin (ASCII) characters.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug with Human Resources system not displaying proper data.
-Gameplay: Reduced Steam Fuel's weight by 20%.
-Engine: Implemented a fall back settings file in case the user screws up their settings file or when steam doesn't' delete old data at uninstall.
-Engine: First time load, the game will check savedcars folder and delete old .car files. If a car file is present that is completely unuseable (unicode file name) the entire data in the folder will be purged to prevent crashing on "Load Car Design".
-Gameplay: Removed the ability to bid on contracts with designs that are in development.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash involving closing branches and opening up selected city in Mega Menu Marketing.
-GUI: Added list pages to R&D component selection, modify components, and modify vehicle lists.

[Eric.B]

v1.23.1 released here are a couple of things:

-Gameplay: 146 Predesigned Cars added.
-Maps: Completed Military History.
-Engine: Fixed line ending issue when moving .car files between Windows and Unix.

[Eric.B]

v1.23.2 is moving along quite well. I might even get done with it by next week! (If that's the case I will merge some v1.23.3 tickets into it.)

If any of you have a large late year (after 1960) v1.23.1 save games that you have been playing for at least 30 games years and have more than a dozen or two active models. If you could email me the save file, I will appreciative it. I need a new base file to make turn time optimizations and a few other tweaks to the game. http://wiki.gearcity.info/doku.php?id=troubleshooting:steam_installfolder#sending_a_save_game



-GUI: Disabled hotkeys when tutorials are active.
-GUI: Added Tutorial Panel Text before the Side Panel to the bottom Side Panel Text in case the player has poor mouse control and goes over the side panel. Thus triggering the side panel prematurely.
-GUI: Clock, door, and globe will continue glowing until clicked for the tutorial.
-GUI: Disable reports popups until end of the tutorial.
-GUI: Did You Know is now read in order at a random starting position.
-Content: Fixed some spelling and grammar issues in the Did You Knows.
-Content: Started spelling and grammar checking news articles for Base City Map (will reuse these in all maps).
-GUI: Cities listed in Human Resources are now in alphabetical order. Starting with country then city name.
-GUI: Cities in the Mega Menu are now in alphabetical order. Starting with country then city name.
-GUI: Assign Contract lists are now in alphabetical order.
-GUI: Contract bid components and vehicles are now in alphabetical order.
-Gameplay: Manufacturing Requirements effect on production numbers has greatly increased. (Min and Max effect may need to be balanced.)
-Gameplay: Manufacturing Requirement values degrade at the same pace as Factory Quality value. Thus allowing for the same number of units to be produced as the factory wears down.
-Gameplay: Increased components effect on vehicle manufacturing requirements.
-Gameplay: Some minor adjustments to sub component manufacturing requirements effect on components.
-Gameplay: Reduced component design's effect on skill rating growth. Changed from best designs to an average of all designs in a time period.
-Gameplay: Increased Research team's effect on skill rating growth.
-Bugfix Fixed bug in Research Team estimated growth rate causing incorrect values to be shown in some rare cases.
-GUI: List pages added to Outsourcing and View component and vehicle lists in RnD.


On a side note, I have successfully moved my Slackware 14.1 development install to a VirtualBox virtual machine. This is now rsynced to my zfs file server. Thus reducing any potential harddrive crashes effect on development.

[Eric.B]

v1.23.2 is essentially only 1 ticket away from being done. However, it's a little too early to break all the Testing users' save games so I'll be releasing v1.23.2 next week. In the meantime I will finish up the few remaining newspaper articles. Work on a little bit more optimizations. And give a little more time for Serhey to finish some pre-designed cars.

-Gameplay/GUI: Replace old design checkbox added to "New Generation" vehicle. If checked, the old generation model will be replaced with the new generation, much like using the replace feature in Auto Commands.
-Gameplay: Maximum Supported Torque effects for Gearboxes was reenabled.
-Gameplay: If a gearbox is too weak for an engine, durability and quality ratings tank. This spec no longer effects final torque due to AI calculation performance.
-Gameplay: Increased price's effect on buyer rating.
-Gameplay: Adjusted used car sales rate for lower cost vehicles.
-Gameplay: Increased the amount of time you have to bid on a contract.
-Gameplay: Furloughed employees are now cleared out when your country goes to war.
-Gameplay: Adjusted furloughed employee's effect on morale and strikes.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in the start of war code that could clear out government contracts for your HQ nation.
-Gameplay: 5-10% total turn time improvements. More to come.
-Gameplay: Stock system evaluations is now more weighted toward revenues instead of book value/equity.
-Gameplay: Changed global market economy's effect on stock values.
-Gameplay: Added "institutional buyers" which remove/buy available shares of companies when they're bull. And add/sell shares to available shares when the stock is bear.
-Gameplay: AI will no longer be forced to sell to players when players try to buy shares.
-Gameplay: Increased the frequency in which the AI sells more of their shares and shares of companies they own.
-Gameplay: Removed vehicle and component designs from book value and net worth calculations.
-Maps/Mods: Added major independence events up to 1933 into the news paper. More to come soon.

Probably a few more unmentioned things that I didn't document while trudging around the buyer rating and stock systems.

I have a little more tweaking to do to stocks. But after that I will work on an Continental Auto Production restriction. Then I will bounce between finishing up the last few newspaper articles for the maps and some easy v1.23.3 tickets.

[Eric.B]

Rolling out v1.23.2 tonight since the upcoming holidays may restrict my ability to do hotfixes. So please get a little play time in Friday if you can. :)

-Gameplay:Auto Production Continental Shipping Restriction (found in the factory production window with the other AP restrictions).
-Gameplay: Adjusted Top Speed calculations
-Bugfix: Missing factories not in use from factory expense report. This is a regression caused by optimization.
-Bugfix: Fixed missing reserved vehicles from vehicle reports. This also was a regression due to optimizations.
-Artwork 50 additional premade designs.

Also a few more newspaper articles were thrown in as well.

[Eric.B]

I've got bogged down by several family related events/issues/dramas over the last 9 days or so. Things should return back to normal soon.

Here is what's been done over the last week or so.

-GamePlay: 5-10% improvements to turn time due to optimizations.
-GamePlay: Replaced "Driveability" rating with a "Handling". Placed Gearbox effects on Driveability rating into luxury ratings. Boosted remaining specs and sliders effects on the Handling rating.
-GamePlay: Consolidation will now automatically create a new marques with your former company name and logo. For example if Foo merged with Bar you will now have FooBar, Foo, and Bar marques.
-GamePlay: You can now save component and vehicle slider positions to a file for use in other save games. This only does sliders and not sub-component selection.
-GUI: Fixed unpopular fuel type confirmation not clearing out advanced engine designer windows.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash when using view prototype system in early game years due to 0hp engines.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with overtime (past 2020) gameplay values not resetting when returning to main menu.
-Bugfix: Reserved units not being calculated properly in the Average Transpiration costs for districts.
-Tutorials: Audio for all 44 Main Tutorial windows have been added. (Still a little post-processing work to be done, but still better than my "saliva" filled voice :D )
-Tutorials: Auto Tutorial Audio Play Checkbox fully implemented.
-Tutorials: Tutorial Audio volume dynamically adjusted with sound effects volume slider.
-Tutorials: Tutorial "Continue" button stops tutorial audio.
-Tutorials: Disabled Stand Alone Car Designer when Main Tutorial is enabled.
-Tutorials: Background Music is paused when Tutorial Audio is playing
-Tutorials: Fixed World Map Cities not being selectable when world map Main Tutorial is running.
-Tutorials: Fixed several missing glow effects and tutorial text issues.
-Tutorials: Added more tutorial checkpoints to the game so if the player stops in the middle of the tutorial, they can resume more closely to where they were.
-Tutorials: Fixed End Turn repeating some parts of the tutorial audio over and over again.
-Translations: Preliminary testing of the user side of the new translation system has been completed. Export and user functions have also been implemented. Hopefully the full system will be out by next weekend.

[Eric.B]

Work continues on v1.23.3. I have been dealing with some illness and family issues. Luckily it hasn't slowed progress down but it has reduced my desire to post updates to things like this change log. :)

-Gameplay: Renamed Monthly Revenues, Expenses, and Profit Chart to Monthly Revenues, Expenses, and Cash Flow. Added Taxes to this chart and included interest income into income.
-Gameplay: Towing calculations have been adjusted to minimize hitting the minimum tow weights.
-Gameplay: Reduced engine power ratings quarter decline values.
-Gameplay: Adjusted the player/ai influence on smaller city growth. Separate bonus values are now used for economic and population growths
-Gameplay: If manufacturer employment in a city is close to a city's population, the city will have an automatic boost in population.
-Gameplay: Increased factory idle costs by 10% of full production costs.
-Gameplay: Branch costs have been increased on hard and ultra hard difficulties base on the population and income of cities. This can be toggled in the new game options.
-Gameplay: Limited the number of branches that can be built per year on Hard and Ultra modes. Only 3% + 1 cities or territories can be built on if this option is enabled. This can be toggled in the new game options.
-Gameplay: Monopoly lawsuits if your company gains over 75% market share for an extended period of time. This may cause fines or your marques be stripped away. Above 90% market share has stiffer fines and the possibility to completely break up your company into multiple companies. This can be toggled in the new game options.
-Gameplay: Increased the effect of costs that sub-components have on components.
-Gameplay: Decreased the costs effect of some sliders.
-Gameplay: Some adjustments to component pricing. This may need some more testing however.
-Bugfix: Fixed hitbox bugs in 2010 winter office and 2010 safe. (Might not be the correct years.)
-Translations: All single quotes ( ' ) are now escaped in the database side. No more need to double the single quotes in the localization/translation files. Some more testing may be required in case I missed places.
-Gameplay: Six additional lawsuits against your company have been added.
-Engine: In game chat has been moved to Quakenet due to incompatible upgrades to Esper Net's web client. We will eventually host our own ircd (and upgrade our browser) at some point.
-Gameplay: Lobbying protests have been added to the game.
-Gameplay: Some minor adjustments to slider effects on torque and rpm.
-Gameplay: Various rates and inflation are now capped when playing with random history enabled.
-Gameplay: Mass production discounts only have a static effect instead of an accumulative effect on production costs.
-Gameplay: Mass production discounts now takes into account the factory lines amount settings for the map.
-Bugfix: Fixed Monthly Sales Amount Achievement Memo firing every time it is reached.
-Gameplay: Estimated lost sales random values are now calculated at the end of the turn instead of every time a factory line is selected.

There is probably a few more things that I failed to document that I've done (and hasn't been ticketed). I would guess 1-3 more weeks before we're ready to push out v1.23.3.

[Eric.B]

Most of the work the last couple of days has revolved around getting v1.23.3 ready for the new translation program and finishing up the base city map. Here is what's going on:

-Bugfix: Fixed a couple of New Marque Spin off Exploits.
-GUI: List pages for view competition in Branch Distribution Windows.
-Translations: Hitting Alt-T in the main menu will now display word ID numbers before text. Do this before starting a new game and also before loading a game started with this feature enabled.
-Translations: Approximately 15,000 duplicate or unneeded words removed from the game text. This is a 15% reduction in non-news related text. 18% reduction in the number of entities needed to be translated.
-Gameplay: Inherit Branch Shipping Distances now works for districts locks and district selections.
-Gameplay: Reduced Brake Specific Fuel Consumption for engines. After a certain amount of fuel economy (based on the fuel type's fuel rating) it becomes exponentially harder to increase fuel economy.
-Gameplay: Switched "hp to weight ratio" to "torque to weight ratio" in the vehicle fuel consumption calculations. (Still working on the balance for this one.)
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in AI gearboxes that could cause high fuel economy in finished vehicles.
-Gameplay: Reduced small volume contract per unit payment amounts.
-Maps and Mods: Finished National Independence news articles for Base City Map.
-Maps and Mods: Added major historical news events between 1900 to 1960 to Base City Map.

[Eric.B]

v1.23.3 was released.

Most of my efforts the last week were getting Base City Map news events to 1993. And documenting/fixing errors in the v1.23.3 that cropped up.

I continued working on the map data after completing v1.23.3. I am now in 2001. Once I complete the remaining news articles, I will begin porting the news events to other maps. Sadly, this is a long process which makes it seem like not much work is going on. But it is a lot of work. We're at nearly 1,000 static newspaper articles with 408 historical photos in the game. A painful task for someone who hates writing. Anyhoo we're almost done with it.

Also premade cars were added up to 1960 base models. So you should have around 1900-1974 worth of premades in this build.

[Eric.B]

Some sad news first. The main development computer, XP64-Vipre (I name all my computers after age of the sail ships base on core count and arch/manufacturer) begun to founder Friday. Sadly the north bridge on the motherboard is starting to fail. Heavy use of PCI-E lanes causes system instability. Normally this would be an easy fix, buy a new motherboard. But at 10 years old, I think it best to scuttle her.

So what all the hubub over a computer? Well Vipre is GearCity. I built this computer in 2008 and started working on Beardgine (the game engine) shortly there after. I started GearCity in 2010 on that machine. Since 2011, It did nothing else except work on GearCity. 95% of the code, 90% of the 2d artwork, 80% of the writing all done on that computer.

*Shed a tear*

Luckily since it was just a hardware failure when the machine is under stress, I was able to clone the hard drive (for safety sake) and virtualize the machine. So now both Linux and Windows development is being done in Virtual Box. When it rains it pours. I'm down to one dev-capable machine (I don't count OSX as use-able let alone working in it, but worse comes to worse, it's still working).

This is not all bad. I planned on doing this anyway for Long Term Support of GearCity after release. It's just a bit premature since the game isn't finished yet and thus not in LTS...

Oh well, Eulogy and Rant done. On to what you really care about.

Luckily, working in a VM doesn't slow me down too much (yet). Here's what's gotten done since the last HF.


-Bugfix: Fixed bugs with material costs in reports and manufacturing costs in branch distribution window after you won a contract with Auto Production enabled.
-Bugfix: Fixed Limited Branches exploit when using Build Branches in District.
-Gameplay: Many older established AI no longer immediately go bankrupt.
-Gameplay: Reduced population effect on branch monthly costs when Dynamic Branch Costs is enabled.
-Gameplay: Created a setting for Automatic GUI Position Save and Disable Window Centering. For players who like to adjust the sizes and positions of their windows and do not want the game to automatically remember the locations and never automatically center the windows.
-GUI: User selected units and measurements.
-GUI: Only show user selected unit types for various specs. No more displaying SAE and SI units for the same thing. You pick what you want to see.

There one or two other things that I failed to document. Mostly really tiny bug fixes.

[Eric.B]

v1.23.4 is almost complete, although I will push the release back 1-2 weeks to finally finish Base City Map and start polishing minor GUI issues here and there. Here is what's been done for the last 10 days:

-Gameplay: Import tax system. Every city/territory has a minimum tax rate of 2% of vehicle sales price if the vehicle is not produced in the same country it is sold. If you import vehicles from low tax cities to high tax cities, additional rates will be charged based on your HQ city tax rate. This feature is automatically enabled for Hard and Nightmare settings. It can be disabled in the new game options.
-GUI: The City Information Window displays the Import Tax rates if the feature is enabled.
-Gameplay: Fuel Popularity will now greatly increase (at 5% per year) if the fuel has a large marketshare but is low in popularity.
-Gameplay: Bonds can not be paid back before 2 years. Thus fixing a free money exploit.
-Bugfix: Fixed IPO exploit that resulted in double income from buying back your own shares.
-Gameplay: Player can now cancel component selection when using the prototyping system.
-Gameplay: The game will now automatically sell shares when you've been out of cash for a couple of months. This prevents players from investing all their cash into a company and then not going bankrupt because they have liquid assets (stocks). Gotta be able to pay your bills/employees! ;)
-Gameplay: Using many low sliders while designing will now directly reduce vehicle's buyer rating.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug that showed outsourced vehicles in the Autoproduction model restriction lists.
-Maps and Mods: Moved Regional Names to the map.xml files. So that regional maps such as Europe, won't have North America, Asia, etc listed.
-Gameplay: Added "World" to the Districting system. So players can select the entire game world if they want to.
-GUI: Added up and down arrows to Branch Distribution Sales Price text box. They increase or decrease the price by $50.
-Mod Tools: Implemented Regional Names to the Map Data Tool.
-Settings Editor: Added Autosave GUI and Unit Types.
-Settings Editor: Fixed clear cache bug that deletes the GPU shader Cache folder, thus causing the game to crash.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in Autoproduction system that could cause production pace to be 100% toward quantity.
-GUI: Rename component textbox will have the old component's name automatically entered.
-GUI: Component modification system will automatically increment the an ending number by 1 in the name of a component being redesigned. Example: Engine-1 will be automatically named Engine-2 (If no other engines are named Engine-2) .
-GUI: Factory Expense reports now show a Production Capacity amount. This value multiplies the percentage of factory lines you use with the average position of your quality/quantity sliders. Thus giving you a rough idea of how close you are to full production. Production Line Capacity data also remains.
-Bugfix Fixed chassis outsourcing filtering.
-Bugfix Fixed bug in Autoproduction system that would not produce vehicles for contracts when the player had no branches.
-Gameplay: About 5% improvement to turn times. (Might be able to squeeze out a little bit more, just thought of something I could try. :) )

I think that just about covers it! Time to get my mop and bucket and start GUI cleanup!

[Eric.B]

v1.23.4 is right around the corner. The major change since the last update in this thread was a
readjustment of base vehicle popularity values. Previous values were created in 2010 and were based on roughly an average of how popular a vehicle type was at start and 2010. The new values are now how popular the vehicle type was at release. This means in 1900 pickup trucks won't be 8% popular in North America. Instead they will start at 0.8% and move up over the years. Mimicking historical shifts in demographics. Dynamic growth rates for vehicle popularity types have been reduced, however, they now effect more broadly. Thus allowing for more player influence on mid-popular vehicle popularity over time.

Over the next week and change I will port most of the Base City Map data over to the other game maps. I will have to manually go through city events on all maps however. After that is some play testing and balancing of the Territory Maps.

Here is a list of what I have completed the last couple of days:

-GUI: Fixed inconsistent close button sizes.
-GUI: All windows should have titles in the title bar.
-GUI: Fixed Mega Menu Clipping of really long names
-GUI: Added horizontal scrolls to several lists, including the side panel.
-GUI: Dynamically adjust list and drop down boxes's scroll button amounts. One click should now be close to one scroll page. (Bottom of the list becomes the top of the list and you see the rest of the items below.)
-GUI: Newspaper stocks now show 2 decimal places.
-GUI: Added fuel type information to several view engine and view vehicle windows that were missing it.
-GUI: Added some missing information from the Auto Commands Mega Menu Help Buttons.
-GUI: Licensing List show now refresh after you make changes.
-GUI: Fixed World Map/Mega Menu charts that were showing revenues instead of units sold.
-GUI: Fixed several graphs and buttons in the showroom.
-GUI: Most window titles should be centered in the window now. (Some windows may not be, due to size constraints.)
-GUI: Decimal places were fixed in line charts. Other chart types will be fixed when we upgrade the web browser after full release.
-GUI: Some charts now have digit grouping. Other chart types will have digit grouping when we upgrade the web browser after full release.
-GUI: Fixed several overlapping text issues when playing the game with large font.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in racing competition view, that did not show player's race team if they were not using default team name.
-Gameplay: Adjusted Random History's inflation rates. There is now less time with negative inflation/growth rates.
-Gameplay: Readjusted base vehicle popularity values to how popular a vehicle type is at introduction time.
-Gameplay: TurnEvents.xml popularity changes are now multiplied into the popularity values instead of added.
-Maps: Added Static Vehicle Popularity growth rates for all vehicle types.
-Mod Tools: Added an importer system to Vehicle Popularity and Newspaper tools in the Turn Events Editor.
-Gameplay: Disable Static Popularity Growth advanced game option. This disables the popularity growths in the TurnEvents.xml file. Vehicles will start with popularity values between 2% and higher based on the starting popularity of the vehicle type in the components.xml file.
-Gameplay: Random Vehicle Popularity advanced game option. This randomizes the starting popularity of vehicle types.
-Gameplay: Adjusted the dynamic vehicle popularity growth. Growth rates are less, but effect all vehicle types instead of just the top and bottom vehicle types.
-Bugfix: Fixed exploit that allowed a player to use in construction factories to produce war munitions.
-Bugfix: Possible fix for low definition textures and showroom crashing for extremely low powered GPUs.
-Bugfix: Fixed buffer overflow when purchasing a company with over 4billion shares issued.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue where consolidating companies does not transfer over the target company stocks and leaves them orphaned.
-Bugfix: Fixed late game bug that was causing R&D estimated GearBox unit costs to be higher than the designed price.
-Bugfix: Fixed an issue causing tax refunds not to be issued if you over paid. (Think you can fool us GCIRS?!)
-Bugfix: Fixed a bug that could leave vehicles unlisted in factories if you used the replace and discontinue system, then discontinue the in development replacement vehicle.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug causing Auto Production not to update production quantity after factory reconditioning.
-Gameplay: RnD->Mod->Vehicle will now show a list of discontinued vehicles if you have no active vehicles. If you have no vehicles what so ever, it will then display an error message.
-GUI: Added growth trends arrows to Body and Fuel demand charts.

[Eric.B]

The final compiles for v1.23.4 are being done. We should be ready for an update tomorrow.

Work continues on the maps. As the last few days have mostly went to play testing, building a list of things to fix, and editing content. It's a long and boring process, but it needs to be done.

-Maps: Ported Newspaper articles to all maps except Classic Map.