Captain Of Industry Update 2 Is Here
And It Is HUGE!
I wrote about this excellent town-building game some time ago, and since then, it has undergone some major changes.
The combination of nicely colored graphics and intricate mechanisms gives it a really great feeling when one plays it, and it quickly became one of my most favorite games.
Today, a major update — Update 2 — was released, and I would like to go through the most interesting new features with you.
I don’t want to repeat all the tiny details, as you can read the full patch notes yourself, but I will highlight those that I think are most significant.
New Built-In Map
All existing maps have been adjusted, and we’ve also obtained a new option to start in different locations instead of a single predefined one.
But it’s not just the existing islands that have been enhanced; a whole new one has been introduced.
This new island, named Armageddon, is really huge. If you are curios how it is huge — it is 3072*3072 titles. The previous largest map was 3072*2304 titles. This means that you can work on enormous 9 437 184 tiles — seems crazy, right?
Map Editor
Well, if you feel that new built-in map is too small for your ever expanding island town, you could still edit it in Map Editor and change size to the ever bigger one — 4096*4049 tiles, which will give you something a bit under 17 million tiles.
Yes! A long-awaited and much-required feature of Map Editor is finally here, and it’s fantastic.
Until now, we were only able to play the whole game on several maps, but that’s changing now.
The map editor not only brings the possibility to design your own maps but also provides the opportunity to adjust existing ones.
I’ve tried the map editor myself, and although it may seem a little complicated at first glance, it’s really deep, and one can create almost anything imaginable — well, within the boundaries of the provided tools.
COI Hub
Sometimes, when you’ve built a really nice, useful, or intricate industrial setup using various buildings, belts, and whatnot, you’d like to create a blueprint from that so you can reuse it in the future.
However, now, with the new COI Hub, you can easily share all of your creations with others, and if you spot something that could be useful for you, you can also download such a blueprint yourself.
However, this doesn’t end with just blueprints.
You can share maps or mods for the game in the same way! It’s similar to Steam Workshop but fully in the hands of game developers, so you can ditch all your fears of abandoned mods ruining your playthrough.
And you can already get new maps here and start immediately playing on them.
Loans
In Captain Of Industry, you’re usually limited to a finite amount of resources that are available on your island and in external mining sites. Before Update 2, we were able to trade with other settlements and exchange some of our goods for others that we required.
But what if the offered trades were something we couldn’t afford at the moment, and our whole economy was spiraling into a death spiral? In many situations like that, you were lucky if your people somehow survived, and sometimes it even led to a total collapse, forcing you to start from scratch.
Now, with the new system of Loans, you can easily borrow a limited amount of important resources from your neighbors and pay them off later in agreed installments.
The system of loans looks fun, and I already have plans for how to use it to my advantage :).
New Surfaces and Decals
Until now, all your trucks and factories were basically placed (or traveled) over terrain colored based on its main material. Sure, over time, “paths” were generated in places of high traffic, but that was all.
Creative souls were able to prepare “roads” by dropping, for example, rock or gravel in desired places, but it didn’t feel quite right. But with Update 2, we can utilize a variety of new Surfaces and Decals to make our factory town look like a proper factory!
And if the trucks travel over specific terrains, they will be even less damaged (e.g., their maintenance cost is reduced) — isn’t it awesome?
Ore Sorting Plant
Even before Update 1 of Captain Of Industry, trucks were only able to carry a single resource, be it sand, dirt, rock, iron ore, etc. After Update 1, this changed so trucks were able to carry mixed ores and drop each one at their respective delivery point.
Now, with Update 2, an Ore Sorting Plant has been introduced. You can choose to play without it, so everything will be the same as after Update 1, or you can try a higher challenge with it, and your trucks will need to deliver that mixed ore to the Ore Sorting Plant first, so, well, ore will be sorted into separate ones.
I’m so excited for this addition; it really adds to realism and, again, I have my plans for how to use it to my advantage :D.
New Visuals for Assemblies
As simple as new visuals for already available buildings may seem, this change in aesthetics is actually an important one.
You can see at first glance what is actually being assembled in it, and the new look better blends with the others.
So, yes, I love this small yet important change.
Hydrogen Vehicles
Until now, we were only able to run diesel-powered vehicles. All those trucks, excavators, and ships were requiring reprocessed dead dinosaurs to run around our island, but as of now, this is history.
Sure, at the start of your journey, you will still depend on traditional fuel, but as you advance with your inventions, you will be able to rebuild all (or some, it’s up to you) to be powered with hydrogen. We already had the option to prepare hydrogen previously, but it was only used for several recipes.
Now, with the option to go hydrogen as a power source instead of diesel, in combination with nuclear plants and solar panels for your power network, we will finally be able to go fully green — well, probably not; your factories will still exhaust all those fumes, and you will need to deal with them (and yes, it is possible).
So many changes and so little time to test them all. Yes — I was part of the canary group (as I can tell now), so I was participating in testing Update 2 even before release.
And from my experience with it — wow, this update is so great.
I plan to dedicate a lot of my weekend time to it, especially to start my new colony on the new Armageddon island. Will my colony prevail? Only time will tell.
So, see you around, Captains :).
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