Pre-Alpha DevBuild 0.31

**Status:** Released 28 Apr 2023

## Maker of Mechs Pre-Alpha DevBuild 0.31: The Trader's Favor

* Join in on the Maker of Mechs discussion on our Discord (https://discord.gg/BpPJMs3dzX)!
* If you wish to help test the game you can request a key from OmniUno on Discord

DevBuild 0.31 adds the last 2 buildings required for full Mech production automation, as well as automated Mech delivery to your carrier. It also introduces Favor on Trader's, a mountain, many new NPC Avatars and a new Warehouse upgrade.

### The Trader's Favor

* NPC bonuses are now referred to as NPC modifiers.
* Buildings will now say "from NPC modifiers" instead of "from stories" for their modifiers.
* NPC Modifiers now describe NPC traits:
	+ Production Bonus is now Productivity
	+ Scanning Bonus is now Flexibility
	+ Organization Bonus is now Organization

You can now gain Favor with traders.

* Productivity increases the speed at which traders do deals.
* Flexibility increases the speed at which traders do deals (multiplicative with Productivity).
* Organization increases the maximum size of deals.

### NPCs

* Several new NPC avatars have been added.
* NPC avatars are now generally beter distributed across buildings.
* Hundreds of new NPC names have been added.
* Improved the algorithm responsible for randomizing NPC sprites to always aim for an optimal final balance.
* NPCs are now better organized on-disk.
* NPCs now use Age Sets rather than age ranges for avatar descriptions and generation processes.

### Storage Area Walls

Warehouses now have an option to build walls for storage areas.

* Walls can be built for every Storage Area that has been built.
* Walls require Brick to build.
* Walls increase the space of a storage area by 4x.

### Silicon Mine

* Produces 1 Silicon every 90 seconds.
* It takes 2 minutes to construct a new shaft.
* Needs Bricks to build more shafts.
* Existing universes will have 2 silicon mines added.

### Water Pumping Station

* Produces 1 Water every 30 seconds.
* It takes 3 minutes to install a pump.
* Needs Iron Bars to install more pumps.
* Existing universes will have 2 water pumps added.
* Since water can now be extracted:
	+ The Crude Oil deal now requires 0.1 SymCoin (up from 0.05 SymCoin).
	+ The Concrete deal now requires 0.2 SymCoin (up from 0.11 SymCoin).

### Balance

* Mech Upgrades are currently overpriced for when we want them to be accessible:
	+ Lowered the cost of the Jump Sprocket to 0.2 SymCoin (from 1)
	+ Lowered the cost of the Rotation Speed upgrade to 5 Copper Bars (from 25)
	+ Lowered the cost of the Movement Speed upgrade to 5 Wire (from 20)
	+ Lowered the base cost of Jump Upgrades to 1 Gold Bar and 4 Wires (from 5/20)
* Reinforced Plate now uses 2 Wire instead of 1 Concrete
	+ Deals is all universes will use the new recipe. Factories in old universes will keep the old recipe.
	+ Trader price (in new universes) increased to 1.56/7.80 (was 1.42/7.10) to reflect the increased crafting cost.
	+ This change removes pressure from the Rock / Brick / Concrete chain and also aligns better with what Reinforced Plate is.

### The Small Things in Life

* Most buildings now have output item visualization.
* Har'bek Couriers will now pick the route which offers the highest transfer rate.
	+ Takes into account travel and docking times as well as scan speed at the remote station.
* Har'bek Courier times now vary based on the distance between pickup and drop-off points.
	+ Arrival Time is not impacted (remains 90 seconds).
		- Delivery Time is computed as 30 seconds base + 30 seconds per zone (as-the-eagle flies).
* Clicking on a Har'bek Bay and selecting the "I like the landing lights" option will now take you to the building's home page.
* Harvesting Rock, Copper and Iron Ore veins now have a chance to also give Gold Ore.
	+ Syngen's investment now costs 5x more to adapt to the improved availability of Gold Ore.
* The Mech Factory will now deliver Mechs directly to your carrier.
* Charcoal now has a description.

### Bug Fixes

* Fixed a case of NullRef spam when closing UI that has queued sprite transitions.
* Fixed an issue with loading some DevBuild 0.28 saves.

### Engine

* The dynamic sprite system now supports folder systems.
* Added support for larger decor items. A mountain can now be found in some zones.

### 29 Apr Hotfix

* Reinforced Plate Factories in old saves will now accept Concrete as input.
* Silicon mines now face the camera.
* The limit for storage area walls now take into account already built & in-progress walls.
* When a Har'bek Bay is configured to supply other buildings (the default), you will no longer be able to withdraw more than half of its contents.
* X-52 is considered a robot again.
* The Mech Factory no longer has a Collection option (since it automatically delivers Mechs to your carrier).
* Reduced the base cost of Storage Area Walls to 0.25 Brick (was 1 Brick).
* Factory output items now show.

### 3 May Hotfix

* The Reinforced Plate Factory will now accept Concrete or Wire as relevant to the loaded universe.
* Fixed an issue where some old saves could break when updated to a new game version and saved/loaded again.
* Fixed an issue with the quest tracker for the Warehouse segment of Lady Zorion's quests.
* Updated to Unity 2021.3.24f1.
* Several performance improvements.