Greetings Directors! We've been very very busy so this will be a big one.

Game Systems & Balance

Economy & Fines

Overall, we feel players are currently receiving too much income from treatments, especially when they optimise their hospitals with upgrades and consultants. We’ve lowered the base treatment income a little bit, and increased the starting amount of credits you start with to ensure the initial construction phase isn’t too punishing.

• Income from treatments reduced by 12%
• Starting credits increased from 75,000 to 100,000
• You can no longer set staff salaries to negative amounts (regardless of how passionate they may be about their job)
• Fixed fines not applying when kicking patients out of the hospital

Treatment & Patient Health

The impact of both research and higher level doctors wasn’t being felt quite enough, so treatments are now overall a bit harder, and patients will lose more health whilst waiting - whereas doctor levels and research levels now both provide larger bonuses.

• Base treatment difficulty increased from -30 to -35
• Treatment bonus from doctor rank increased from +5 to +6 (per rank)
• Treatment bonus from research increased from +5 to +6 (per research level)
• Danger Level 1 condition health decay increased by 36%
• Danger Level 2 condition health decay increased by 36%
• Danger Level 3 condition health decay increased by 36%
• Danger Level 4 condition health decay decreased by 2.5%

Disruptive Patient Spawner

The disruptive patient spawner is responsible for disrupting your hospital, but these disruptive patient waves weren’t being felt enough once your hospital reached a certain size. This system is now slower to ramp up, but later in it will spawn larger, more dangerous waves of patients for you to deal with.

• Now more likely to spawn patients with lower starting health
• Minimum wave size reduced (when the hospital is small)
• Maximum wave size increased (when the hospital is large)
• No longer kicks in immediately when the hospital is opened in sandbox mode

Character Mood & Needs

Simply put, doctors were not using the Staff Lounge enough. We’ve made a round of changes to nudge them towards taking more regular breaks focused primarily on the staff lounge. Additionally, you now need to work slightly harder to keep everyone happy.

• Adjusted the needs system so staff will now primarily take breaks to visit the Staff Lounge, and will make use of vending machines and toilets far less often
• Characters now have a base mood of 40 (down from 50)
• Patients will now make use of toilets and vending machines much more often
• Patients are now more likely to use toilets and vending machines shortly after entering the hospital
• Staff are less likely to need to use toilets and vending machines shortly after entering the hospital
• Vizarj now need to use the toilet more frequently than other species (as it's their only physical need)

Congestion

The congestion system was being hampered by a number of bugs. These have now been resolved, and we’ve made a few minor balance changes to smooth the system out.

• Fixed an issue which caused Kouber Baly characters to never forget about any congestion they observed
• Tweaked some thresholds to make congestion overall a bit less sensitive
• Fixed an issue which caused Loamgates, escalators and elevators to produce a large amount of congestion
• Improved some text, tooltips, and icons associated with the congestion system

Hospital Rating

We’ve made some adjustments to the hospital rating system to better balance the difficulty of each category, instead of some categories being universally much easier than others to max out. We also fixed a very impactful bug which caused decorations inside rooms to not count towards species desires.

• Throughput rating requirement reduced by ~20% (this requirement scales based on the size of the map)
• Finance rating requirement reduced by ~20% (this requirement scales based on the size of the map)
• "Good" threshold for Patient Mood increased from 80% to 85%
• "Good" threshold for Staff Mood increased from 80% to 85%
  "Good" threshold for Success Rate reduced from 95% to 90%
• Patient Health rating now has a larger impact on your overall Hospital Rating
• Additional minor adjustments to other thresholds throughout the system
• Fixed deaths in treatment rooms not being tracked most of the time (now those deaths really are just statistics)
• Fixed an issue which caused decorations in rooms to not count towards species desires & hospital rating
• Fixed hospital rating sometimes erroneously being rounded up in the UI, making it seem like you have reached 5 stars when you actually haven't (sorry, you'll need to try a bit harder!)

Pricing Changes

• Medibot: 20k (200 Craftium) → 40k Credits (400 Craftium)
• Stabilising Solution: 3k (30 Craftium) → 2k Credits (20 Craftium)
• Repair Kit: 3k (30 Craftium) → 2k Credits (20 Craftium)
• Technique Monitor: 30k (300 Craftium) → 20k Credits (200 Craftium)
• Bio Analyser: 30k (300 Craftium) → 20k Credits (200 Craftium)
• Subsonic Dampener: 30k (300 Craftium) → 20k Credits (200 Craftium)
• Regenerative Nanites: 40k (400 Craftium) → 30k Credits (300 Craftium)
• Critter Lure: 30k (300 Craftium) → 40k Credits (400 Craftium)
• Genetic Replicator: 25k (250 Craftium) → 20k Credits (200 Craftium)
• Training Room: 10k → 3k
• Training Room Matrix: 1k → 1.5k
• Recovery Ward: 10k → 3k
• Recovery Ward Bed: 1k → 1.5k

Other Balance Changes

• Reputation gains from treatment increased by 25%
• Loamble collection reward: 1 Loamite → 2 Loamite
• Holo-Docs now generate 50% reduced income from their treatments
• Regenerative Nanites health boost: +15 → +20
• Subsonic Dampener damage protection: 85% → 95%
• Nourishment Module need reduction: 75% → 90%
• Ohde Energy Collector: 15 credits per second → 5 credits per second

Campaign

Chapter 1

• Various tweaks and updates to prevent overlapping dialogue sequences

Chapter 3

• Fixed an issue which caused Klem Banzig's truck to occasionally block the track for longer than intended

Chapter 4

• Fixed some minor dialogue timing issues

Chapter 5

• Updated the final event patient wave to spawn 20 patients, rather than just 5
• Fixed some scorch marks that were placed incorrectly
• Fixed some minor dialogue timing issues

Chapter 6

• Fixed some minor dialogue timing issues
• Fixed security drones being attracted to Critter lures, despite not being critters (don't listen to them if they tell you otherwise)

Chapter 7

• Fixed some canister objectives not displaying the full information

Chapter 8

• Improved the animation of Xil shuttles
• Improved the appearance of the generator

Chapter 11

• Improved the appearance of some background elements
• Fixed some canister objectives not displaying the full information

Visuals

Visual Improvements

• Improved the appearance of the Memory Tank decoration
• Soft drink cans now attach to hands (and other appendages) in a more pleasing manner

Visual Fixes

• Fixed an issue which caused Tenki patients to occasionally violently detach from beds mid-treatment
• Fixed Parasitology VFX issues when the room was built on the upper floor
• Fixed the dot-matrix displays on the exterior of the hospital occasionally skipping
• Fixed a visual issue on the 'brain vomit' in the Dreamarium
• Photonymphs extracted in parasitology will now actually be removed from the patient. Timing updated on visuals.
• Fixed some missing VFX on the Electromagnetic Pest
• Glubs extracted by the Doctopus in Parasitology will no longer remain floating in the air
• Fixed canister avatars in the Dramarium not receiving the correct material

User Interface

UI Improvements

• Doctors now display their currently-assigned room in the staff management panel even when they are on break (and you can also lock and unlock them whilst they are on break)
• Added a dedicated "default" cursor mode button next to the other cursor mode buttons (this improves the flow when switching in and out of other modes, such as the crafting mode)
• Clicking on any of the "Inspect [X]" in the objective panel will now pan the camera to that thing
• Added a Support link to the pause menu (PC only)
• The initial loading screen will now display "Loading..." in your own language, instead of internal debug messages
• Mousing over any whereabouts text will now display the full message in a tooltip, even if the original text was truncated due to its length
• Most room upgrades and consumables now list numerical information in their tooltip (eg: how much of an XP boost you gain from the Technique Monitor) (Note: this change is English only for now, other languages will gain this in an upcoming update)
• Character skins are no longer categorised as art in the galactic exchange

UI Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue which caused some UI panels to refuse to open (or close immediately upon being opened)
• Fixed the research room build wizard erroneously suggesting that you place another Hyper Computer (you can not, in fact, place another Hyper Computer)
• Fixed hospital rating reward toasts not popping up in sandbox mode
• Fixed the galaxy menu transition effect sometimes appearing behind certain screens (like the galactic exchange)
• Fixed in-game Loamite counter not updating after spending Loamite in the galactic exchange
• Fixed staff trait icons being coloured incorrectly in some circumstances
• Fixed only the top half of the consultant hero portraits being clickable
• Fixed a rare issue where the hospital rating panel wouldn't close
• Fixed consultant rank up toasts missing not actually including the name of the consultant that's levelled up
• Fixed the reward trail VFX not playing properly when the game was paused
• Fixed an issue which caused the holographic brains in Cerebral Rehab to be completely invisible
• Fixed staff level labels spilling out of their box in the staff management screen
• Additional safeties added to the recruitment panel portraits

Other

Game Settings

• Added an accessibility option to disable screen shake effects
• Added a control option to enable free look when holding the middle mouse button
• Added control options to invert pitch & rotation
• "Subtitle Size" has been renamed to "Dialogue Text Size"
• "Environmental Dialogue Volume" has been renamed to "Environment Volume" (it always was environment volume

Localisation

• Updated some German localisation to use slightly more modern language
• Fixed some text in the room creation panel bleeding out in certain languages
• Improved the appearance of the consultant skill tree when playing in some languages
• Fixed some missing localisation in the hospital rating panel
• Fixed the "save template" button text bleeding out in some languages
• Fixed some typos in the French localisation

Other Changes

• Improved the way recruits are generated - the frist recruit can now be anything, instead of being a guaranteed trainee (instead, the last recruit will now be a guaranteed trainee if you don't already have one available)
• Babylo Getaway (the first sandbox map) is now unlocked after completing Chapter 2 (not Chapter 1)
• When starting Sandbox a new sandbox you now begin with 500 Craftium

Additional Bug Fixes

• Fixed canisters very occasionally not being able to find a path to a treatment room
• Fixed a rare occurance of calls not appearing when they should
• Fixed some occurrences of patients sitting in the air, opposite a bench
• Fixed an issue which caused patients to attempt to vomit mid-treatment
• Fixed an issue which caused patients carrying Ultra's Warp Buddies to occasionally teleport mid-treatment
• Fixed an issue on console where the game could lock up when opening the consultant roster
• Fixed an issue which caused litter underneath placed objects to stick around forever, causing complaints of mess that never went away (as they couldn't be cleaned up)
• Fixed the Overflow Tank decoration not being placeable anywhere but a Skin Lab
• Fixed patients killed by malpractice being incorrectly marked as being killed by a malfunction (own up to your mistakes, please)
• Stabilising Solutions can no longer be used on patients that are mid-death (it's too late for them, sorry)
• Fixed some of Twiggy Pop's dialogue being a bit too quiet
• Fixed an issue where 3 star hospital rating rewards would sometimes not be unlocked despite your rating being significantly higher
• Fixed an issue where sometimes interaction points in rooms could be blocked by decorative objects, making the room non-functional
• Fixed various issues with the system that teleports characters and other objects away from newly-constructed rooms
• Fixed an issue where consultants would sometimes not enter the hospital with their previously-selected skin
• Fixed long queue notifications for reception desks being offset from the desk
• Fixed an issue which caused staff to not train in the Training Room despite being manually assigned there
• Fixed a very rare issue which caused all movement logic in the game to cease functioning
• Fixed lenses painting tiles in outer space, instead of just inside the hospital
• Fixed various issues with consultant personal goals
• Fixed several sandbox events showing the wrong condition icon in the objective panel
• Fixed an issue which caused Medibots to sometimes be highlighted in red when placing them
• Lens highlights should now correctly disable during cutscenes
• Fixed an edge case where returning shuttles would not be detected by the level script - after a short window the script will now continue regardless
• Fixed Baz's Lucky Tooth not actually speeding up the merchant cooldown
• Fixed characters sometimes not facing forwards in their character portraits

As always, please keep reports coming in via our Official Tracker and please read our Instructions for best quality reports.

Until next time Director,

• Brightrock & CULT
  

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