Hi everyone!
We are wrapping up with the multiplayer update. Computers are now running every day trying to find new determinism issues to fix. Every time I think that everything is fixed, there is always one side case with a specific configuration. The longest save file that I tested without issues was to 2033. It is a strange feeling when everything starts to work right, like, did I really make it? But no doubt talented players will find many more bugs. This time we will dedicate more time to fixing bugs before moving on to the next update. Also, one thing regarding the Discovery mode. At first I thought that it would be boring controlling one company. I thought that money would always be an issue and players would race to see who could build something first. But after we had a nice session in discovery mode, I started to like this mode much more in multiplayer. The start is a bit slow, but that does not last for long. Playing at the second speed, we had to dedicate responsibilities and solve our problems. This, of course, created opportunities to direct passengers to the friends side, buying countries in ridiculous locations, making others jobs harder. There are multiple ways to compete and enjoy the challenge in one team. You are welcome to try it this weekend once I release the preview build.
The release date for multiplayer will be April 18th.
Infinite passengers are fun, but they overwhelm players ability to build vehicles. There are always more destinations and more passengers waiting. Because of this, usually expansion to other cities is optional. The first thing we did was reduce how much a single destination can level up. This helped a lot with main big cities always being unable to fulfill their own needs, just surrounding cities as a hub.
Further, a new default but optional system will limit cities max level. Currently that is level 30 for capitals, level 20 for big cities, and level 10 for other cities. We are still playing around with values, but right now limitation creates a big difference in decision-making. Smaller cities are leveled up quite fast, which limits profits. Bigger cities are easier to level up, but they alone do not generate enough passengers for bigger vehicles. This means that players will have to expand multiple regions strategically, ensuring stable growth.
Then there is the destination price. In the current live version, it grows up to a factor of 1.3, making destinations very profitable. A new system will limit the maximum factor based on the city level. So if you level up a city, at some point only the budget-friendly vehicles will make sense. So it is a decision: either keep it smaller and more profitable or grow the city larger but make the payout per destination smaller. There are other factors that you need to consider, like bigger cities attract more passengers, which leads to indirect traffic. That can be either a good thing or a bad thing.
Some work went into AI and making them more logical and competitive late game. The major thing that changed is decision-making. No matter how big the AI company gets, it will constantly expand and create new vehicles. In the current live build, at some point they stop doing that because of the decision paralysis. Routes they create will also be more logical and controlled.
Hub buying logic is also improved, making them buy hubs more logically and in new countries. In long playthroughs there was a problem of some random countries not getting any AI involvement. In the new version this seems to be no longer the case. Eventually AI will expand everywhere.
There will be 11 new achievements and a vehicle for every achievement. The upcoming preview build will have some missing graphics and Steam achievements will only be live on the release date. From now on you can expect new vehicles and achievements with every major update.
Multiplayer mod support required a system to load required mods per save. If a host creates a save with some mods enabled, then connecting players will automatically download the same mods from Steam or directly from the host. This system will now be used with all save files. That means that when you play with some mods, every time you load the save file, the game will try to load those mods again. Can't wait to push the preview build live!