Welcome to the greatly awaited EA 0.9!
Are you ready for a big update for Big Ambitions? Good then let's get started!
We want to start by thanking you for the little delay in the full release of EA 0.9 - it was a huge update with lots of changes, and it needed a little love and balancing, based on the feedback from our experimental version players!
But now we are ready to fully unveil the new and improved EA 0.9! There's a LOT of new stuff in this update, so let's walk through it all!
Brand New Tutorial
First up - we have a brand-new tutorial! For the most part, it should feel similar but heavily upgraded. Several items were missing from the previous tutorial like Health Insurance and Headhunters, so we made sure to add those.
Plus, many of you have expressed that you don't want to have to create the same two stores every time you do the story mode, so now the tutorial allows you to start any wholesaler business and dynamically adjust the tasks based on what store you set up!
With our new tutorial, we say a heartfelt goodbye to our original Uncle Fred actor, Mike McKay, who has passed away, and we welcome Jeff Pillars as the new voice of Uncle Fred to guide you on your business journey.
That guidance extends to some new "side quests" that pop up, based on what's happening in the game - like the first time a rival starts fighting you, Uncle Fred lets you know what's going on!
This new tutorial is ready to guide you through the latest and greatest version of Big Ambitions!
New Starter Delivery Job
Speaking of side jobs - we have a new starter job! For those who love the classics, you can still work at El Gato, but now you can spice it up with a new job option: the delivery driver!
Scattered around the city are vans that have deliveries waiting to go. These vans locations have a toggle in Voogle Maps to help you find them.
Once you take one of these delivery jobs, a timer starts ticking down for you to deliver items to three locations. Quickly make all three deliveries to earn your payday, but try not to damage the van - they'll deduct that from your earnings!
Upon returning the delivery van, you'll get paid for your services plus any tips from generous customers. Remember, faster deliveries can potentially earn more tips, so try to make the deliveries quickly!
Industry City
Speaking of driving around - remember that bridge that's been teasing "Opening Soon"? Well, that bridge is finally open and ready for you to venture across! What lays on the other side? Industry City!
It's a whole new neighborhood for you to take over, build your factories and dominate the market!
Industry City brings 6 new warehouse sizes (P1, P2, P3, Q1, Q2, Q3), which are great for creating factories:
New and Relocated Businesses
Okay along with these Industry City changes, some businesses have moved, so here's a handy guide to what's new and relocated!
Titans of Industry Supply is a new wholesaler in Industry City
Stonegood Architecture is a new Interior Installation Firm in Industry City that now handles warehouse and factory blueprints.
You should now find some basic, default factory blueprints at the installation firm
Kristian Bahood continues to handle retail blueprints from their original location in Hell's Kitchen
Factory Supply Depot has moved to Industry City
US General Trucks has moved to Industry City
The Truck Repair garage (previously a garage hidden near US General Trucks) has also gotten a major facelift in Industry City and become a full truck gas station, IC Truckers.
There is a new clinic in Industry City.
Metro Wholesaler has moved up to Hell's Kitchen
⚠️ Note: If you had a residence in the rarely used, 18 1st St, unfortunately, you have been evicted, but you should receive an in-game refund for any items in that location!
StockCo is a new wholesaler in Midtown.
Blueprint Creator
Now for a highly requested feature to help you conquer NYC. While our goal with the game is a bit of immersion, many of you have asked for an easier way to build your new stores without having to run to the store 50 times! Well we think you'll love this new feature.
The Blueprint Creator is here to save the day! Quickly drop all the items you want for your store, and arrange them to set up your perfect layout. Access this new tool from the Blueprint page in the Main Menu!
New tools like the "duplicate" tool can copy an item with all of its attachments in one click - set up a desk with a chair, computer, mousepad, and everything you need, click the duplicate tool, hold shift and copy that full workstation with ease!
Now you can make new layouts faster than ever! Once you're done just head over to the Interior Installation Firms and install your blueprints into your businesses.
While we were in there, we fixed a few other little things about blueprints:
You can preview your custom blueprints in the Interior Installation Firm preview kiosk!
If you subscribe to a blueprint on Steam, the game will now recognize it in your library without having to redownload it in game
You can now edit your blueprints and reupload them to Steam without needing to create a new Steam Workshop entry - allowing you to add new features to your existing blueprints!
Bathrooms
Speaking of adding new features, that segues us to bathrooms! Don't worry - we didn't add a bladder meter to your character! This is for customers and employees, because they don't complain enough yet!
In retail stores, customers will complain and your customer service score will go down if you don't have bathrooms. And in offices, bathrooms will now be required based on the building size.
⚠️ Note: If you load an existing save, offices will now require bathrooms or they won't earn money. To help ease this transition, you will find toilets and sinks in your office's "Delivery Spot" waiting for you!
But just because bathrooms aren't required for your character, doesn't mean you can't use still them! Put a sink and toilet in your apartment, and buy yourself a shower! Your character will get a happiness boost from your good hygiene habits.
Plus, our art team added some bathroom decorations you can use as home decor!
New Progression Update
Okay, but why is this update called "The Struggle" and what is a "Progression Update"? Great questions - let's dive in!
It's no secret that you could previously start the game and be making millions if you create the right store in the right neighborhood. Well, now you can still do that, but it's going to be a bit more of a challenge to get to that point. You'll need to "progress" through a bit more "struggles" to get there.
To help balance this, though, "Easy" difficulty now adds a nice free boost of customers to your default traffic, and "Normal" adds a small boost as well!
Item Availability
The biggest change is what items are available from wholesalers and importers.
All wholesalers now sell the same items and can provide inventory for:
Each importer sells paper bags, sodas, and a unique selection of items. Importers can provide inventory for:
Bookstores
Liquor Stores
Nightclubs
Cheap Jewelry
Headphones / Earbuds
Cheap Clothing
And you will need a factory for the most profitable items:
Expensive Jewelry
Expensive Clothing
Smartphones
Smartwatches
Wholesaler and Importer Deliveries
Wholesaler and importer deliveries have had some updates as well.
Both importers and wholesalers now deliver in units instead of boxes since box sizes are different for each item
You can quickly see how much of an item you have sold and how much you ordered last week
No more "minimum order amount" - you can order 1 paper bag if you want!
You can now manually toggle "Smart Delivery" on or off
Deliveries happen once per week now on Monday morning, 08:00
Items now have a weekly ordering limit, but this is per location, so you can make separate orders from different wholesalers or importers
Warehouse Deliveries Van
The original van was in serious need of rebalancing, and it has been replaced with a new (more expensive) delivery van, the Mersaidi Dash.
You'll still find the original van being used by the delivery job, so it hasn't been removed completely, but you won't be able to purchase it any longer!
Expenses
You might have noticed that rent is incredibly cheap - especially with no utility costs or upkeep! That has been increased a bit, especially for things like warehouses, making it a bit more of a jump to start using importers!
Additionally, a few more business courses have been added to the "Manhattan Business School" that you will have to complete and pay for all the way up to factories!
Economy
Rivals and Market Events have gotten a little bit of an upgrade as well and should be a little more dynamic and reactive to your actions.
Rivals
For instance - you should now notice a distinct difference between the income of the rivals. The lowest earning rivals only use wholesaler stores, while some larger rivals use importers and wholesalers. And, of course, the special rivals are the top earners, selling everything they make from their own factories!
Rivals should also now close their businesses more logically - if their business is doing well, they shouldn't randomly shut it down, and if you've driven their business to being unprofitable, they will shut it down and focus on the ones earning them money!
And finally, the rival income has been balanced to be more in-line with what players can earn as well! Rivals should no longer be earning more than the player can make at the same store.
Market Events
Market events are now more dynamic as well, so you'll have to watch your inventory!
The first time a new product is added to a neighborhood, that product should go on "Hype", increasing sales for a week. However, items that go on "Hype" often end up in a "Shortage" the following week.
Or if too many stores are ordering from the same wholesaler or importer, that item has a higher chance of going into a Shortage. And finally, if you continue to order an item that is in shortage, it has a chance of going fully out of stock and into "backorder".
Balancing
In addition to balancing the rivals income compared to the players, store income has been rebalanced a bit as well, and some of the worst performing stores have been improved a lot!
Florist and Fruit and Vegetable stores can now make decent money (although they use a lot of inventory), and nightclubs are now much more profitable during the weekend!
And in exciting news: REAL ESTATE rent has been balanced! Now rather than taking 450 years to earn back the millions you are paying for a building, you can earn back your investment after a few decades!
Previously Unused Items
Two items that have existed, but weren't functional have been activated!
New Art
Beyond the entire Industry City, new buildings and bathrooms, our art team decided to add even more new props, including:
Quality of Life
Storage and Bathroom areas have been added to D2 and J1 size buildings!
You can now overtake a business even after buying the building
When looking over candidates in your MyEmployees app, we added a "Hire and Assign" feature so you can hire and assign many recruits much faster
Want to change up how your character looks? In addition to changing hair, beards and eyebrows at the hairdresser, you can now visit Mr. Ternity at the hospital for a quick "plastic surgery" option to redesign your character!
All decorative items should now be in the help files. Several Areas were expanded as well to give more detail on many sections!
In a Custom Game mode, you now start with full energy (previously it matched the old story mode where you started tired).
You can now put the flatbed in the V150 and Nunavut vehicles
The appliances stores should now have flatbeds and hand trucks available for use
All items that are sold now have product icons instead of box icons
Overall billboard update
Translations Revamp - all of our supported languages should have working links and translations now, but please let us know if anything seems strange!
Bugs
Fixed marketing appearing to charge double the first day
Fixed loading into a game that was raining won't ever show rain
Fixed loading into save while inside a car at night won't turn the lights on properly
Remove security warnings from stores like Fast Food Restaurant that don't require security
Fixed incorrect warning when assigning a driver to a spot with no vehicle
Fixed casino wasn't leaving a spot open for the player
Fixed issue where Manhattan Movers weren't deleting old headquarters plans, so you couldn't access your employee roster
Fixed you couldn't pay more than $9,999 per day on loans unless you paid it off completely
Fixed a bug allowing pallet shelves inside retail stores
Fixed some signs weren't updating when the store would shut down
Fixed Logistics Managers destination list not working when having businesses without names
Fixed employees not resigning after having an unmet demand
Fixed can place items in C2 building corners overlapping the walls
Made the wholesaler signs click-through to the shelf
Fixed returning hand truck to station shows "Unassigned vehicle" notification
Fixed selling certain items in the Interior Designer mode would cause issues
Fixed Neighborhood Overlays working incorrectly in Low Detail City Map mode
Fixed many item colliders
Fixed several small UI glitches and sorting issues
We hope you enjoy Industry City and all the new challenges this update brings!
Meanwhile our team is already working on 0.10 and bringing a lot of love to the factories!
~Hovgaard Games, and the Big Ambitions Team
