W3C - Game Updates Aug. 22

1. Cost of the Army

Many weapons and types of ammunition became cheaper with this upgrade. For some the change is significant. The reduction is across many weapons and ammo, not only defensive ones.

This is another step in reducing the cost of war. Some types of weapons remained unchanged and will be updated with the next upgrade.

The number of soldiers and officers in the army is also reduced by a small percentage.

The weapon and ammunition corporations remain very profitable despite the price reductions. The defense industry corporations employ a much smaller number of workers compared with non defensive industries. The numbers are about 50% while the expected profit is nearly at the same level as in non military corporations.

Some defensive products now have a wider range of pricing when shortages occur and the corporations can become very profitable.

2. Bug fixed - updating public user data

A problem with the updating of the public data record is now resolved.

3. Shoes are added as a new product in Simcountry

Shoes are only used as a consumption product, bought by the populations. Countries and enterprises can now store Shoes and real consumption numbers will start showing up after a day or so.

The market can be unstable in the initial days. The gamemaster is adding some Shoes to the market to prevent initial problems.

4. Shuttles Aging - bug fixed

The aging process of cargo shuttles did now work correctly to the end. Many shuttles aged (by use and by time elapsed) but remained hanging in there and where not removed when expired.

This caused the number of cargo shuttles, game wide, to increase into very high levels. In fact, several thousands expired or nearly expired shuttles remain in the galaxy.

Cargo movements are updated very frequently and the processing of large numbers, checking if they have moved, aging, location etc. became a time consuming issue.

We have noticed that the server where the cargo shuttles reside is becoming too busy. This happens to be our portal server.

With the fixing of the problem, we expect that many older cargo shuttles will disappear in the coming 2 to 3 months.

More changes will be released in the coming days.
We intend to increase the number of smaller upgrades, starting at the middle of September.

Thanks for the changes Andy.

I noticed that some corporations have increased their work force slightly. Everyone check your employment levels you may need to make some adjustments.

How come the prices of non military products dropped also?

Prices of non military products remained largely unchanged.
several small changes always take place, maybe you have noticed some that are a little larger. This time in very large products like electric power and factory maintenance.

The downward trend is a long term movement to reduce prices in the game, also reduce quantities a bit and make money worth more.

In the past, numbers were much higher and reductions are taking place for several years.

However, corporations keep their profitability potential.
The use of raw materials is also tuned down many times and we hope it will end up with smaller quantities/numbers in general.

The absurd shortages on the markets may be reduced by a fraction too.
Large changes there are absolutely impossible as we cannot predict long term results.

What we in fact hope will happen is that some products that are produced by a very large number of corporations will see a small reduction in the number of these corporations and that new corporations will be formed producing products that are in severe shortage.

I understand. Thanks for clarification on your future vision. I will adjust my strategy accordingly.

Shoes!!!! Yay!!!!! Thank you, Son!!!! :-D

I am working to stabilize the oil market on LU. As you may have noticed, there is massive oil overproduction right now due to the update. Every oil corp increased its output by approximately 10% since the update. As the largest oil producer on LU, I am doing my part to bring things back to profitability. I intend to close 400 of my state oil corporations. I have already closed 160 and the overproduction seems to have halted for now, but there is still a massive surplus on the market waiting for buyers. I will continue closing corporations every month until I hit my target. This will allow me to redirect some production toward other product groups that are in major shortage right now, which I think was the intention of this update. Adapting is the name of the game, and LDI is always up to the challenge. Glory to the Pinktator!

THe OIL MARKET on most of the worlds is jacked up

If anyone has their country ordering and quality set, you'll have to change the setting for Shoes. It has the default setting on the consumption page.

Thanks Andy.
My sims will not go barefoot anymore.

I know, Michael! Isn't it exciting! :-D

There are major shortages of war materials and maintenance products.
these products are produced by a small number of corporations and are easy to manipulate.

The entire industry was always unstable.

we have recently made an effort to stabilize and increase the number of corporations producing some weapons and ammo.

Numbers have already increased but not enough.
I think that it will improve in the coming weeks.
recent upgrades addressed the issue and we see results.

Some of the weapons and ammo products are produced by a very large number of corporations but production numbers are increased a bit several times (cost reduced) and this too will stabilize.

Sounds good!