Going International Update
major updateNews Tower · published
Hello Newsbearers!
It's tiiime to expand overseas!
The Going International update is here. Your newsroom now has access to European headlines via the Telegrapher, letting you cover stories from across the Atlantic.
And to speed up deliveries and make your tower run smoother than ever, we're also introducing the Pneumatic Tubes and the Dumbwaiters. Hopefully they help you keep up with the ever-growing demand for scoops!
This update wouldn't be possible without our incredible community testers, who helped us refine the experience ahead of launch. In the patch notes below, we have highlighted the additions and changes that were a direct result of your input, so you can see how impactful your contribution truly is. Thank you so much for taking part in the testing. ❤
KEY ADDITIONS
International News (Europe)
Your tower now has the world at its fingertips! Europe has been introduced as a key region for international stories. To support this expansion, you can hire a dedicated telegrapher to relay news from across the continent with precision.
Additionally, new traits have been added to your employee roster, enhancing their ability to tackle the challenges of international journalism.
Dumbwaiter
The dumbwaiter optimises resource management by facilitating the seamless transfer of coal, paper, food, and more between floors. By strategically selecting the floors where they are installed and ensuring a sufficient number of resuppliers, heavy crates can move from the pavement to their destination in no time!
Pneumatic Tubes
This high-speed transport solution ensures reports and other production items can move swiftly between floors, regardless of distance. With this upgrade, your tower’s workflow will be smoother than ever, allowing you to place critical workstations wherever you see fit.
The tubes can significantly enhance the efficiency of your text and image production chain by directly connecting desks, even across different floors.
Instead of carrying items from one desk to another, climbing stairs, or waiting for the elevator, employees can send them straight to the next desk using the pneumatic tubes.
As a reminder, the flowchart illustrates the sequential steps of the production chain for text and images, from their source to the printer. Connect some of them with tubes - you'll thank us later!
IMPROVEMENTS
Revamped transportation AI
This overhaul ensures that your employees make smarter, more dynamic decisions to keep your operations running smoothly. This upgrade was essential to fully integrate the pneumatic tubes and dumbwaiter into your tower’s logistics, enabling your employees to cooperate, improving the efficiency of transport across all floors.
Employee List revamped to Staff Board
The Staff Board makes employee management easier than ever. You can toggle jobs and skills, view the number of employees assigned to each role, and sort traits and skills efficiently. Expanded employee cards now provide detailed information at a glance.
New Employee Traits
We’ve added a variety of traits tailored to automatic desks and foreign news. These include:
- Policy Hawk: Adds one Quality Star to a Legislative Report.
- Market Maven: Adds one Quality Star to a Stock Index.
- Locker Room Insider: 50% chance of adding an Insider tag to Baseball Results.
- Bloodhound: 50% chance of adding an Evidence tag to a Court Report.
- Anointed Pen: Experience gained from working on Obituaries increased by 10%
- Astrologist: Task speed on Horoscopes increased by 25% but has a 50% chance of adding a Lie.
- Psychic: 25% chance of adding a Forecast tag to Horoscopes and 25% chance of unlocking the next story file within news.
- Parisian Socialite: 25% faster reporting times for stories that take place in Paris.
- Berlin Observer: 25% faster reporting times for stories that take place in Berlin.
- London Insider: 25% faster reporting times for stories that take place in London.
- Kremlin Confidant: 25% faster reporting times for stories that take place in Moscow and Leningrad.
- Roman Consul: 25% faster reporting times for stories that take place in Rome.
- Continental Connector: Increases research speed by 20% for all foreign news.
- Polyglot: Opens up Language Barrier locks in news.
- Diplomat: Opens up Diplomatic Route locks in news.
Tutors across 1931
To ensure players don’t miss out on important mechanics, we’ve introduced tutors across the 1931 timeline. These guides highlight key features, such as the Europe radio tower, dumbwaiter, pneumatic tubes, advertising systems, graphics processing chains, and the rush button.
Improvements with the help of the community
Overhauled Europe Content Algorithm
The Europe content algorithm has had a complete overhaul and is now completely separated from the rest of the content algorithm. This ensures that all necessary tags for districts or quests will always be available in North America, preventing the game from becoming more difficult when unlocking Europe.
Globe Filter Lights
Globe filters help you prioritise your telegraphers’ efforts towards tags you need. Their lights will now have three states:
- Solid green: The tag can be found on the currently displayed continent.
- Blinking green: This newly added state indicates that the tag can be found on a different continent.
- Red: The tag has been depleted from the pool for the current week.
Production employees can assist with transportation
All production employees can now help with transportation—except the lawyer, who remains focused on lawsuits.
Employees will prioritise their own desk but are not restricted to it.
Preference is given to transporting items on the same floor or nearby, but this is not mandatory.
Smarter Pre-Transport Planning
Production employees who are working on their last item can be considered for “pre transport” planning. This means they can already “reserve” bringing their item to the next desk in advance.
For example, this prevents situations where a distant resupplier is sent when it would have been faster for the employee to handle the task themselves.
Rebalanced Influence Cost in Newsbook
Influence point requirements for the pay-up node in the Newsbook have been adjusted, now capping at 3 Influence Points instead of 10.
Other fixes made during the community test
- Certain cities in Europe now feature dedicated background maps.
- Mutable Europe news placeholder text has been removed.
- Reporters now begin moving sooner after being dropped off by the taxi in front of the tower.
- Fixed a bug where graphic reporters would not assist with items if they’re assigned in the newsbook.
- Elevator usage is slightly discouraged for resources. Making the dumbwaiter a little bit more likely to be used when they are close to each other.
- Travel mode pricing changed: Boat: $50, Zeppelin: $150, Plane: $300
- The travel discounts are not 50% instead of 25%. Note that for legacy save games which already have purchased this discount, unfortunately you are stuck with the 25%. However, you will still benefit from the zeppelin and plane being cheaper overall.
- Fixed a Mayor NPC quest asking for a Mafia tag instead of a Mayor tag
- Reduced the “thinking” time when picking up an employee that was carrying an article.
MEET OTHER NEWSBEARERS!
Join the community! Talk with the dev team, share with other players, be a part of the journey to the 1.0 and beyond!
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See you very soon in the Tower! Take care!