Pre-Alpha DevBuild 0.38

**Status:** Released 26 Nov 2023

## Maker of Mechs Pre-Alpha DevBuild 0.38: Divergence

Come and experience Tonics, Boosts, more relevant world loot, faster mechs, and more in our latest update.

### Progression

* The progression curve has changed to allow for a significantly larger future world.
	+ Changed from n² + n to (n² + n) \* 1.05^(n-1)
	+ Max levels have been decreased from 10 000 to 1 000 to compensate.
	+ Affects Factory Upgrades and Syngen's Shares.
* Saves from previous versions will not open in this update.
* When travelling to parallel universes you will now only take with you what you can carry.

### Early Game

We are making several changes to improve the cadence of the early game:

* Corporal Jansen's Water Pumping Station now needs 3 Iron Bars to unlock (down from 5).
* Copper Bars can now be immediately crafted at the trader in Copper Crest.
* Traders will now buy any item that has a market value (no more faction locks for selling items).
* Player mechs now move 20% faster.
* Player mechs now turn 33% faster on the ground and 20% faster in the air.
* Player mechs now require less altitude to start turning.
* Player mechs now lift off the ground 25% faster.

### Flux Crystals

* Flux Crystals now increase the amount of primary upgrades a building has, rather than acting as a multiplier to their production. This makes Flux Crystals significantly stronger in the era right after you get Mechs, and diminishes their effect as you go deeper.
* Storage Area Walls now have base cost of 1 Brick (up from 0.25).
* Storage Area Floors now have a base cost of 1 Concrete (up from 0.1).

### Boosts

Establishments can now consume boosts for various short-term benefits:

* Production Boost: +50% Production for one Recipe Cycle.
* Sell Faster Boost: +50% Faster Sales for one Sell Cycle.
* Overflow Storage Boost: Overflow output space in warehouse for one Recipe Cycle.
* Rushed Deal Boost: Each boost gives +50% Faster Execution time (every 30 seconds becomes 20 seconds) for one deal unit.
* Big Deal Boost: Each boost temporarly gives the trader 1 extra max deal capacity.

Boosts can be acquired using favor or tonics.

### Favor

Favor is being repositioned to offer boosts and less permanent bonuses - which are now limited to lore and other once-off NPC rewards.

* Removed the unlimited permanent favor bonuses from "Work Harder!", "Tidy Up!" and "Think on your feet!".
* "Work Harder!" now grants a Production Boost.
* "Tidy up!" now grants a Overflow Storage Boost.
* "Sell Faster!" now grants a Sell Faster Boost.
* "Rush this deal!" now grants a Rushed Deal Boost.
* Zorionites now gain a 5% personal productivity bonus (was 1% bonus to all Zorionites).
* NMC members now gain a 5% flexibility bonus (was 1% bonus to all NMC members).
* Beers now cost 5c (down from 10c).
* Electronic Snacks are now 0.1 Electronics and grant 2 favor (was 1 Electronics for 1 Favor).

### World

* Mushrooms can now be looted when harvesting rocks and ores.
* Foliage and silicon can now be looted when harvesting trees.
* Mushrooms and Flux Crystals can now be looted when harvesting silicon crystals.
* [Fix] Zone (3, 3) now has an ocean.
* [Fix] Oceans will now always generate before lakes, preventing some scenarios where universe generation could fail.
* [Fix] Fixed a scenario where "Index was outside the bounds of the array" could very rarely happen when generating a variety of objects.
* [Fix] H'arbek Bays will no longer place on water.

### Tonics

Tonics can be given to NPCs to gain boosts. They are crafted at a Mech Workbench.

* Costs Foliage, Flowers and Mushrooms to make. Mushrooms make more tonic than foliage or flowers.
* Red Tonic grants a Production Boost or Rushed Deal Boost.
* Yellow Tonic grants a Overflow Storage Boost or Big Deal Boost.
* Green Tonic grants a Sell Faster Boost or Rushed Deal Boost.

### User Experience

* The dialog window's left panel now has a better background and image scaling.
* Continued to improve on the smaller User Interface.
* Continued to iterate on in-game punctuation.
* Many quest chains now more clearly indicate their rewards in their text.
* Added new artwork for the Exodus Ark.
* The inventory window will no longer show statistics on invested items and inventory totals across all buildings. This was causing too much clutter.
* [Fix] Some text at the Mech Workbench being too large.
* [Fix] Durations would not always display correctly.

### Other

* Photoshoot Mode will now interact better with Dialog Options.
* Progress Bars will now always face the camera in Photoshoot Mode.
* Custom Unity Analytics:
	+ Are now sent once every 2 minutes (down from every 30 seconds)
	+ Now includes RAM used by the game.

### Update 1 (8 December 2023)

* Andre de Riter will now actually send you to X-52 and not leave you stranded in the void.
* Fixed trader's taking your stuff and giving you nothing if the item is not aligned to their previous faction.
* Fixed a null reference exception that could occur when dragging a window which closes.
* Fixed an issue where the Storage Area Floor and Wall sliders was incorrectly calculating how many you can build.
* Exodus Ark's home page now has content again.