Holonoptic news & patch notes

Dear secret vice presidents and office drones

Holonoptic released today, with a new build containing the latest fixes and UI improvements pushed just an hour earlier. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? If it actually does, we'll just blame the IT department.

A big thanks to all the testers who helped improve this game over the last few months. Requests were sent out to include you in the credits. If you provided feedback on the demo or the beta but did not receive a request from us, feel free to reach out and we will gladly include you in the credits.

1.8.2

Fixes

- Correct executive rollerbags effect description: extends inventory by 4 slots, not 2

- Lifting probation period early now actually completes the survive probation deadline

UI improvements

- Add resource descriptions at character creation

- Make role change cooldown clearer in employee UI

1.8.1

Fixes

- Guard against a crash on inventory screen that could happen when simultaniously removing or adding items

- Fix a crash that could occur when using quickload (f9)

1.8.0

Fixes

- Item mods will no longer invisibly take up space in the inventory.

- Guard against duplicate deadline completion crashing the game.

UI improvements

- Add slider synergies held by headquarters

- Add slider for business opportunities at the map bottom bar

Dialogue & story

- Fix an inconsistency where Hordbank would pretend Leiser was still on the board in the showdown against Laurent

- Autonomous intelligence meeting and deadline cannot be triggered twice anymore by completing both the AI merge and fork

- Fix possible deadends with the Hordbank questline that can occur when Leiser was ousted via no confidence vote

- Fixed a few dozen spelling errors in company, psychology, asset and item descriptions

Other

- Include playtesters in credits

Dearest private jet frequent flyers and office drones

What is the point of owning a private jet if you cannot use it to turn around mid-flight and land wherever the hell you want?

Inspired by feedback we got, this is exactly what private jets do now in holonoptic.

A new, more shiny business opportunity suddenly came up? Just turn that jet around without having to land at your planned destination first.

Note that you will have to acquire private jet fleets to use this feature.

Apart from this, with the release next week in mind, the focus of this patch was more final polish and less introduction of new features.

Again, thank you so much for the diligent feedback that brought this next round of improvements:

1.7.0

Fixes

- "Prepare for the qMolecule acquisition" tutorial-deadline now completes after qMolecule is acquired

- Harden against messages sometimes not being played, or being played only after later events fire

- Executive selection menus on floors and missions are now modal, meaning they have to be closed before interacting with other UI elements => prevents an error where executive selection menu would seemingly stay hidden

Features & gameplay

- Large assets & synergies such as private jet fleets cannot be sold on the black market anymore

- Private jet fleets now allow executives to change their destination mid-flight

UI improvements

- mark blocked business opportunities clearer on the map

- make reasons for why a business opportunity is blocked clearer on both map and mission screen

- add the top bar with budget and resources to more screens: floor, building, floor build menu, floor unlock menu

- add an executive overview to the map screen

Dialogue & story

- Fix an inconsistency for FINMA investigation related to the Vandenbergs

- After repelling Amoeba triggered by failing Leiser's deadlines, Leiser will not pretend to be on your side anymore.

- Huber now cannot be recruited anymore by completing a "saved up" Hordbank Adviory Deal project after he left the board

- First dialogue with lost CEO now directly unlocks the dig out floor project

- Fix 30+ errors in grammar and spelling

Esteemed C-level titles and office drones

Patch 1.6.0 fixes numerous bugs reported by the community and also brings some suggested UI improvements, including a "jump-to-executive-location" shortcut and some better hints regarding NPU chips.

The game is set to release July 16 on Steam, with bigger changes to the emotion and resource systems queued for the first major patch afterwards. The free demo will stay available after the release.

As always, thanks for the great feedback that is making this game better, and here the full list of changes:

1.6.1 Fixes - Fix desert arcology location error caused by fixing typos in 1.6.0 that would cause a crash

1.6.0 Fixes - Kryzalis NPUs can now only be installed if they are in your inventory and not in your external storage. - Fix 100+ typos in dialogue and descriptions of items, companies, missions and ideoclusters - Guard against a crash that could happen when mass-selling stuff fast - Reduce laggyness for trade screen - normalize & decrease sound of airplane and helicopter - executives with multiple professions that share the same courses/feats: these feats now only show once in the executive techtree - "start project" prompt now only appears for projects with fulfilled requirements - add tooltip hint how available NPUs are counted (storage vs external storage) - Fix a crash that could occur when selecting "the Glow" for a psychology check - Harden against a potential crash for skill check abilities that scale with a resource - When choosing to continue playing after the ending, monthly board meetings will not be cancelled anymore - Conditioning now counts down hours remaining correctly rather than showing 0 hours when less than a day is left - Add control for weather sound volume (e.g. rain)

UI improvements

- Add tutorial instructions how to use Kryzalis NPUs

- Add shortcut button in executive overview that allows jumping directly to executive's location on the map or floor in a company

- Add a tutorial message hinting how to use Kryzalis NPUs

Dear secret vice presidents and office drones

Today's patch brings an overhaul that has been requested for a longer time: the ability to still do stuff while advancing time fast on the marketscape. This change was somewhat tricky but tested out well internally. Please report if you notice anything weird.

Speaking of which, if you haven't already, we invite you to request a beta key in our steam forums. And as always, a big thanks to everyone who took the time to provide feedback, some of which already made it into 1.5.0:

Features & gameplay - Retain full corporate empire control during fast time mode - Option to build an SPV now shows regardless where the executive knowing financial engineering is - Freqerique Huber drops a hint about where to find a lobby

UI improvements - remove spacing on feedback form input

Fixes - Planes of fired executives are now removed from the map - Pressing "h" or middle mouse button should no longer toggle marketscape visibility or any other screen - Disable unintentional keyboard shortcuts - Show custom charname in missed places (courses, geistnet, votes) - Do not show "assign executives" prompt when floor has an upgrade under construction

Dear directors and office drones

Of course just in time for the steam next fest, some new evil bugs made it into the codebase. The Amoeba company became a lot more evil than intended, acquiring their helpless prey qMolecule in only 2 days. Thankfully kind players reported this new bug in the forums and via the feedback form, so this was patched via hotfix.

Several UI improvements & fixes mostly based on what players reported or demanded directly via the ingame feedback form listed below.

Ah and yes, if you get the chance, play the free demo at the Steam Next Fest.

1.4.4 UI improvements - Employee roles: cannot re-assign same role. Warning given when roles exhausted. - "Login" for headquarters on the marketscape is now possible regardless of current location - Cleanup project overview & sort by facility

Fixes - starting a conference call now also hides open tooltips - harden against tooltips showing after loading a savegame - Fix a typo in the first dialogue ("month" => "months") - ui color theme now resets more reliably after loading savegame

1.4.3 Fixes - Increase image cache size to decrease laggyness

1.4.2 Fixes - Fix first Amoeba mission acquisition happening too fast

1.4.1 Fixes - Fix crash in emergency board meeting when Laurent speaks - Fix crash related to company graphics

Dear members of the board and office drones

This patch adds another demanded feature, namely the option to define a custom name for your main character. The rest address various deficiencies in functionality and user interface kindly pointed out by beta testers & demo players.

Here the list of all changes:

UI improvements - Reduce lag when typing a save name - Log archive: reduce lag when full and add a search field - Switching between executives in the storage screen no longer resets the selected company storage - add stretch-on option for screens with non-16:9 aspect ratios

Features & gameplay - Allow entering a custom name for main character - Quicksave (q / F5) now also works during dialogue, so you can save before a skill check - AI executives are no longer offered training courses

Fixes - Fix a crash during the tutorial when a chat message cleared the chat popup - Cancelling a requisition no longer resets the progress of the item currently being procured - Fix crash when quickloading (F9) after the referenced save was deleted - Acquiring a holding now also transfers the companies it owned, so their resources and employees count toward your totals - Fix Leiser's phone missing image asset & remove reference to non-existing set-ecosystem - Fix a crash when trying to continue after loading a skill-check from savegame - Amoeba's hostile takeover of Glazial and your Pacman defense can no longer both succeed, which produced contradictory dialogue and a wrong ending - Default image cache to also support low memory machines - Harden against a bug where Glazial and Amoeba could acquire each other simultaniously - Restore some broken voicelines

Dear shareholders and office drones

This update now fully addresses a major concern most players had with hostile takeovers, namely that they were useless because they did not add any new executives. They now do. For this, 3 new executives were added to the game, eagerly waiting to raise in the ranks once their superiors are removed in the power struggles of a hostile takeover.

Furthermore, an in-game feedback form was added so players can more easily send feedback, including screenshots & savegames. Because we need more! The feedback you have kindly provided us with so far is absolutely great, and all of the UI improvements listed below is exclusively based on this.

Finally, some fixes but no hotfixes this time, as less error reports have come in despite higher player & playtime count. Hopefully that is because the bugs are actually getting less, and not because the error report button is broken.

Features & gameplay - Add feedback form that can be called with CTRL+F - One-time budget rewards (e.g. granted by Leiser) are no longer clawed back by the "unused budget" penalty in the same month - "Midlife crisis" trait nerf: cannot be unconditioned and also decreases focus and euphoric states - Hostile takeovers will now also grant a new executive - Hostile takeovers now cost as much as before 1.2.0

UI improvements - Hover the active substance event to see its effects, or click it to quickly pick the next one - Add tooltips explaining the "Negotiate deals" and "Corporate Espionage" buttons - Better description for the infiltrate skill - Do not show "other services" (construction, private university, ...) in supply chain overview since they form no supply chain - More precise description of effect scope (at local floor or company rather than floorwide or companywide) - Clearer "Survive Probation" deadline description - Trait type badges are now color-coded and explain themselves on hover - Show more detailed rewards in acquisition strategy selection

Fixes - Fix potential crashes where the resource bar, effects cache, and accounting screen could be read while the background thread was rebuilding them - Fix crash when viewing a subsidiary's supply chain in/out info ('out' key error) - Fix crash when a mission expired or was dismissed at the same time it was being completed (ValueError in dismiss_mission) - Fix crash where the map's event list could be read while a project finished (OrderedDict mutated during iteration), and harden effect/project lookups against the same background-thread race - Fix requisition screen crash from old saves referencing renamed/removed item blueprints, and prune those dead entries

Dear executives and office drones

This minor patch rebalances two features deemed somewhat useless by players: The simulacra deck and hostile takeovers.

Simulacra decks allow your executives to create virtual clones of themselves, now without having to be present at the floor anymore.

Also, a cooldown was added to re-assigning employee roles. The exploit prevented here: assigning accountants to max out budget, then immediately un-assigning them to overdraw the budget.

The full changelog including silently released hotfixes are detailed further below.

Once more, thanks a lot for all the inspiring feedback and diligent error reports, which really help the game evolve.

1.2.0 - Clicking "Negotiate deals" now opens the new mission's detail screen, and an actionable entry surfaces deal missions that still need executives - Cancel pending synergy-removal tasks when the synergy is sold via a trade deal - Guard further against float infinity error - Buff hostile takeovers by making them faster and cheaper - Fix crash that could occur when trying to view an unacquired subsidiary (first_chain key error) - Add employee role change cooldown of 30 days - Fix a crash in the Geist ending if players also progressed far into the thief questline - Several non-functional typos fixed - Fix a crash when a deadline condition triggers a label jump during FAST time (JumpException in recalculate_resources_effects_projects_sync) - Virtual copies from the simulacra deck now persist after the executive is unassigned; copies are only replaced when the deck is at capacity (each additional deck or VR stations upgrade increases the limit) - Prevent exploit where the number of employees hired on a floor could exceed the maximum - Add new dialogue when doing a certain hostile takeover really fast

1.1.5 - Fix a crash when finishing a synergy-removal task whose synergy had already been removed by another path, e.g. a trade deal (ValueError in finish_task) - Fix potential issue where owned subsidiaries would not be recognized. - Hide industry overview tooltip when clicking on a subsidiary or hiding the map screen. - Fix potential issue where owned industries would not be recognized. - Add warning for decisions that will cost Hordbank support

1.1.4 - Fix a crash when a deadline's active checkpoint list was empty (IndexError in scr_deadline_mini) - Fix being soft-locked into the tutorial when picking the printer

1.1.3 - Fix a crash in FAST time when an auto-consumed substance had been removed from inventory (e.g. sold via a trade deal) without its schedule entry being cleared (KeyError in Consume_Substance) - The "chaos due to mergers & acquisitions" employee satisfaction penalty is now a temporary effect per acquired company (-10 each) that decays after 90 days, instead of a permanent penalty scaling with total owned companies - The emotionmine, holonoptic and corporate control tutorials no longer interrupt the intro; instead they trigger the first time you open each of those apps - Fix a crash when opening the inventory after gaining a storage-size effect - Fix a crash when expanding a deadline whose checkpoint tracking did not yet include all of its conditions (KeyError in one_deadline) - Further harden against "OverflowError: cannot convert float infinity to integer" crash

1.1.2 - A Glazial accounting folder & a meeting protocol are available from the beginning of the game - add an industry-supply-chain overview at the bottom of the map - improve framerate on marketscape when owning many subsidiaries - prevent destruction of the universe by guarding against a divison by zero error in project resource calculation - Show tooltip info when hovering an upcoming deadline in right-side event list - Clearer tutorial instructions for equiping items - Prefix conditioning speed effect with emotionmine icon for improved readability

1.1.1 - More robust Error reports (retries)

Hello folks

Thanks a lot for your kind and constructive feedback, and also submitting all those error reports.

They have been put to good use.

1.0.1-1.0.7 were released silently over the last couple of days, 1.1.0 was released just now.

1.1.0

- Hovering the map button now shows a quick-login menu for switching between owned headquarters

- Hovering the construction button now shows a quick-navigation menu for jumping directly to a floor

- Clicking on an executive's portrait in inventory now switches to that executive. The small arrow button that previously had this function was removed.

- Add hovered hint about scheduled calendar events (=calls)

- Fix a crash caused by effect functions returning invalid float values (OverflowError: cannot convert float infinity to integer)

- Fix a crash in the event list when an active project has no floor assigned (TypeError: argument of type 'NoneType' is not iterable in R())

- Active projects that somehow lost their floor are now paused with an error log instead of crashing the per-tick project loop

- Track finished playthroughs with ideocluster scores & endings

- Fix a crash in the savegames screen for old savegames missing the '_game_runtime' or '_save_name' fields

- Fix the runtime display in the savegames screen breaking for playthroughs over 24 hours

1.0.7

- Fix a crash when the holonoptic screen is open and an ideocluster amplifier effect reaches an invalid value

- Fix a crash that could occur while changing an executive's location or pausing a project

- Fix a crash when loading old savegames missing the '_ctime' field in save slot data

- Fix a crash when assigning resources to a project with no floor assigned

- Old savegames incompatible with this version are now labelled as such and cannot be loaded

1.0.6

- Add more error details for errors raised related to executive effects

- Fix crash that could occur after upgrading a Geist package (executive_graphics_update)

1.0.5

- Fix crash when hovering a project with no floor in the event list

- Fix crash when opening an executive screen after inventory was reorganized

- Fix lock.effect_reset bug that would break executive effects from items and skills

- Properly raise errors in the effect loop

1.0.4

- hotfix to fix still occurring crash when moving the glasses during the tutorial

1.0.3

- Fix crash by preventing showing floor/project screen from projects in event list on marketscape in fast mode

- Send automatic error reports

- Force raise on executive effect errors

1.0.2

- Fix crash when moving an item in executive closed inventory preview

- Allow users to report errors on error screen

- Make executive effects more resilient

1.0.1

- Fix a bug where the Extra instructors project would have no effect

- Allow demo savegames to transition into regular game

- Add UI option to blur conference call backgrounds

- Fix missing voice line for Haruko's third dialogue

Happy to announce the demo for holonoptic is out.

It features the first part of the story and most gameplay mechanics.

Thanks for the great & helpful feedback we already got!

Feel free to ask questions about unclear mechanics (this will help us improve the UI and tutorials), comment on things you don't like or don't work (this will help us improve the game) or what you like about it (so we can find more players who like this weird game).

Post your feedback in our steam forum

Happy playing!