Prosperity

0.5 is now available to download from the itch.io link provided to all Patreon subscribers. Details and change list below.

Features

Prosperity

Vending Machines are finally providing an impact beyond mild economic benefit.

A core theme I'm interested in exploring with Honcho is that capitalism can be of benefit to society when handled responsibly. I wrote about this last month with the Sanpō-yoshi philosphy of the Ōmi merchants. Prosperity is the gameplay mechanic that aims to guide this theme.

Each region in Honcho starts off at 0% prosperity. At 0% prosperity, roads are in poor condition, population is dwindling and goods and components are scarce. Prosperity, however, can be improved through vending machines.

Installing machines and filling them with reasonably priced goods will improve the regions prosperity to a maximum of 25%.

A higher prosperity increases the region population, leading to more traffic thus more sales opportunities. The population's disposable income also increases (up to 2.5x more). Though road traffic will also increase.

Jobs payouts scale with prosperity. Loot generation is also influenced. So at 25% prosperity, route generation will provide an addition 25% rarity to generation, leading to better finds in that region.

Static Region Produce

Each region produce is now static as follows:

Wadashima produces "Food".
Mizunuma produces "Caffeine".
Yamanashi produces "Alcohol".

As food is the cheapest produce, and alcohol the most expensive, this change should help provide a better sense of progression with regard to job payouts and trade.

This feature also applies to loot generation for each area. Wadashima is now much more likely to produce abandoned goods filled with food, whilst Yamanashi will provide more Alcohol.

Overall amount of goods found on routes has been reduced, but this can be improved by increasing the region prosperity.

Details on the spawn weighting changes are provided in the change list.

Fuel Economic Events

Fuel price is no longer mindlessly random. Instead, there is a base price of ¥150 that can be adjusted by new fuel economic events. Fuel price is also reduced with a higher region prosperity.

Details of these economic events are provided in the change list.

Improvements to Kusahiro

Kusahiro are abandoned trucks found along routes that players can strip for spare components.

Stripping Kusahiro of components felt overly tedious, requiring a lot of spanner use to get parts removed.

Component condition will now determine nut tightness. The lower a component’s condition, the more of its nuts will already be loose, allowing easier removal.

As region prosperity influences rarity of routes, a higher prosperity will result in better kusahiro finds.

Improved Visuals

The game now utilises ACES tonemapping to provide deeper contrast, darker nights and a more "cinematic" look.

The game now utilises volumetric fog to add more depth to the scene.

Some textures have been replaced, such as road condition and pavements.

Flashlight

Due to the darker nights, players now have a flashlight to help them see in the dark. Default input is F.

User Manuals

Both the Batako and Daizo trucks now come with their own user manuals.

User manuals provide details on how to use your truck, along with a chassis number and where the truck was produced.

To help preserve the legacy of the original Honda truck, the Daizo user manual is built from real-world manual of the T360.

Water Dispenser

Each kitchen now has a water dispenser, allowing players to fill containers with water. Helpful for refilling radiators, but also can be used to water down oil / petrol if you're being cheap.

New Whiteboard

The whiteboard in each garage now provides information on all your vending operations, the status of the local area and the player's market share of that region. There's also a collection of "completion marks" showing you're overall progress in the area.

Full Change List

Features

• New Mechanic: Area Prosperity

  • Area Prosperity can now be increase through installing and stocking vending machines

    • Each vending Machine installed in region provides up to a maximum of 2.5% prosperity each

    • With 10 fully stocked machines leading to a prosperity of 25%

    • Fully stocked vending machines provide the full prosperity amount. Condition, good types and pricing does not affect prosperity.

  • Road Condition is now determined by Area Prosperity.

  • Added prosperity icon to the completion marks of Holdings page

  • Traffic Density of routes now influenced by Area Prosperity

    • Low prosperity leans more towards lower traffic density

    • Higher prosperity leans more towards higher traffic density

    • Traffic density no longer influences rarity of items found on the route

  • Area Prosperity only effects Jobs at the point of generation (8:00am each morning). So increasing prosperity will only kick in for jobs upon them regenerating each day.

  • However, Area Prosperity effects the town and travel between towns immediately.

  • Area Prosperity increases NPC Customer disposable income, up to 2.5x more. Meaning the more vending machines you own and the higher the area prosperity, the more customers are able to spend. Thus more sales.

    • For example, here's the the base disposable income of a construction worker with this change:

      • 0 Prosperity = ¥400–¥900

      • +10% Prosperity = ¥640–¥1,440

      • +25% Prosperity (max) = ¥1,000–¥2,250

  • Area Prosperity increases Population

    • As population grows, so does NPC footfall.

    • Thus, higher NPC footfall leads to more potential vending sales

    • Remember to price goods appropriately

• New Fuel Economy and Economic Events

  • Fuel price is now base 150 yen per litre

  • Fuel price is now adjusted by all new fuel economic world events

  • Fuel price is now adjusted by region prosperity

    • Fuel prices updated daily

  • The following new fuel-based economic events have been added

    • Tanker Disruption (high fuel price)

    • Panic at the Pumps (very high fuel price)

    • Government Conservation Drive (low fuel price)

    • Oil Glut (very low fuel price)

    • Tanker War (surging fuel price)

    • OPEC Price War (collapsed fuel price)

  • If continuing play from older saves (0.48), players will need to pass time to 8:00am to allow the game to attempt to generate new fuel-based economic events. Though the events are more rare than trade good events.

• Each regions local produce is now static.

  • Wadashima now produces "Food"

  • Mizunuma now produces "Caffeine"

  • Yamanashi now produces "Alcohol"

    • As food is the cheapest produce, and alcohol the highest, this change should provide a better sense of progression for the following:

    • Better base payouts for jobs as player progresses through the regions. Food delivery has a lower base payout compared to alcohol.

    • Staggered trade good acquisition. Areas that produce food provide a higher chance of finding that produce on the road. The base sale value of that product is also lower in that region.

  • Amount of trade goods found on the side of the road whilst travelling on routes has been reduced

    • Players were stockpiling goods too easily, the idea behind roadside goods is to provide players a gateway into vending, not the source. The bulk of goods should really be attained through utilising the arbitrage system, looking at the map for economic events and capitalising on bulk buying from them

  • Trade goods found on the side of the road whilst travelling are now heavily weighted towards the goods produced in that region

  • This also helps add weight o region produce. If you want Alcohol, you'll find significantly more of it in Yamanashi, as that region produces it.

  • Base spawn weighting for trade goods spawned in each region is now more heavily weighted towards that regions produced good

    • i.e. Wadashima produces FOOD trade goods so the base weighting for the trade good spawn rates is as follows:

      • 1) Still Water - 6.33% (previously 19.08%)

      • 2) Sparkling Water - 4.74% (previously 18.13%)

      • 3) Orenji Fresh - 3.16% (previously 17.18%)

      • 4) Corn Soup (FOOD) - 63.25% (previously 16.22%)

      • 5) Oni Giri (FOOD) - 15.81% (previously 8.59%)

      • 6) Deluxe Fruit Sando (FOOD) - 5.06% (previously 2.29%)

      • 7) Tea (CAFFEINE) - 0.32% (previously 6.68%)

      • 8) Coffee (CAFFEINE) - 0.13% (previously 3.44%)

      • 9) Gold Anti-Fatigue Health Tonic (CAFFEINE) - 0.06% (previously 0.95%)

      • 10) Beer (ALCOHOL) - 0.63% (previously 4.77%)

      • 11) Best Zero (ALCOHOL) - 0.32% (previously 1.91%)

      • 12) Sake (ALCOHOL) - 0.13% (previously 0.57%)

      • 13) Hancho Coffee (meme) - 0.06% (previously 0.19%)

      • Markets in each region also utilise this system, so the same weightings for goods spawned in markets are applied.

      • Similar weightings are applied to Wadashima and Yamanashi, only with heavier weighting on the region's produce.

  • Route generation now always generates a route based on the town the player has left.

    • This ensures that whilst leaving Wadashima, for example, the game knows to weigh spawned trade goods and components on the Wadashima weighting (i.e. more food trade goods, batako items).

• Improved visuals

  • Darker nights

  • Sharper yet more nostalgic look

  • Softer lighting and new volumetric fog helps add depth to scenes

• Added Flashlight

  • Default binding F (Keyboard), D-Pad Down (gamepad)

  • New User Manuals for both the Batako Type-1 / Type-2 and the Daizo T360

• Added Water Dispenser in each home garages' kitchen

  • Water Dispenser allows refilling liquid containers with water.

• New Garage Whiteboard with Info Overview and Completion Marks

  • Whiteboard now shows the information for the area, such as population, local produce, road condition and prosperity

  • Whiteboard now shows the market share for your vending empire

  • Whiteboard now shows the status of each vending machine

    • clicking on these icons will place a navigation market on that vending machine making it easier to find

Changes

• Hovering on local info on the Holdings page will display tool tips relating to the information displayed

• Wallet UI now displays on the Jobs UI screen. This is essential for vending purchasing, but also useful for judging jobs, trade good runs and fuel runs.

• Wallet UI display position has been lowered

• Pothole tyre damage reduced by 90%

  • The bumpiness of terrible road conditions feels bad enough, such high tyre damage just felt cruel

• Economic event influence on roadside tradegoods spawn weighting has been lowered

• Rarity has been moved to the top of Map Tab UI under Unique Attributes category, so it's the first attribute players see

• Rarity unique attribute will also show how much prosperity is affecting this value, as this is the main way players can influence rarity

• Prosperity value added to world map town Map Tab UI , under the Unique Attributes category

• Traffic density no longer affects route rarity as it is now driven by region prosperity

• New tutorial explaining Prosperity mechanic

• GPE Fuel tank renamed to "Built-in Fuel Tank"

  • Added unique attribute to built-in fuel tank, to show that it cannot be removed

  • Removed value and weight from built-in fuel tanks on the GPE engine

• Spanner input has changed

  • Interact (default Left Mouse Button) to loosen nuts

  • Zoom (default Right Mouse Button) to tighten nuts

  • Keiko no longer thrusts the spanner forward when player uses Interact input

• - New Kusahiro tutorial explaining how to remove parts

• Damaged components found on KusaHiro now have a chance of appearing with loose nuts and screws.

  • The lower the condition results in more loosened nuts / screws.

  • This change was implemented to speed up Kusahiro component removal

• Polished up the crack effect on roads

• Weather changes now hourly

• New blur effect when entering the following states:

  • Pause the game

  • Opening tool bag

  • Sleep menu

  • Jobs menu

• Repair bench now has UI lines indicating the part that needs fixing

• Repair Bench now has a tutorial pop-up.

• Vehicles now generate, save and production date, manufactured location and chassis number

• Overloading the truck now adds strain the the running of the engine.

• Overloading the truck now increase oil quality reduction rate.

• Oil quality reduction rate increased slightly while engine running

• Tooltips for basic input will display the first time players start the game, this will only display once for new players

  • Intention here is less to ensure players know basic movement, but more to make them aware of features such as the tool bag, flashlight and pushing

• Less annoying suspension audios for loading, unloading and overloading

• Rebuild the potholes to look nicer and be less annoying with the new prosperity driven road condition system.

• New Road condition effect

• Tyre fault "Damaged Rubber" renamed to "Puncture"

• Digital watch now displays a charge level which relates to Keiko's current energy

• Sleep UI now also shows Keiko's expected energy level after sleeping

Performance

• Refactored volumetric clouds render code to improve cloud performance

• Optimised cedar trees on environment border walls

• Cleaned up some duplicate border walls

• Pot hole reduction should improve performance

• Tree LOD now works off of a dither shader rather than transparency

• Added option to turn all post-process off to the video options

  • A decent option for players who are finding themselves GPU bound

Fixes

• Petrol Station fixes

  • Fuel pump now resets correctly after paying for fuel or acquiring fuel debt.

  • Petrol station dialogue now contains the price of fuel in the dialogue.

  • Fixed fuel pump petrol not rendering puddles

  • Fixed fuel pump petrol colliding above ground level

  • Fixed fuel pump petrol color

• Fixed typo in Diazo parts shop dialogue "authroised" to "authorized".

• Fixed Batako mirrors showing as Dazio branded

• Fixed issue where players could purchase vending machines from the operations menu even if they didn't have the money

• Fixed issue where world economy wasn't setting economic events to "none" if there had been an economic event in that region before

  • This could lead to seeing unexpected pricing on trade goods in locations that were showing as having an event but didn't actually have an economic event

• Fixed camera effects making the road map look blurry

• Added a distance check to the repair bench part rendering

• Fixed tooltip hover UI not disappearing when using ESC to exit the jobs UI menu

• Fixed spanner input not changing to tighter / loosen when socketing onto a nut

• Fixed spanner input reverting to "place" when navigating nuts

• Road Map UI now only sets the vending icon to "low" if the total stock is below 50%

  • This makes it consistent with the Operations overview page

• Fixed MapTileVend_InstallMachines_Inventory_MoneyInMachine" no loading correctly, causing players to load in with vending machines that didn't have money in them

• Fixed missing rear light holders for Batako beds.

• AI Cars now beep a maximum of 6 times before giving up

• Improved AI Car LOD pop-in

• Fixed exposed seams in Inaka_Straight_Nature_06

• Fixed exposed seam on tunnel segment roads

• Fixed home lights turning themselves off during the day

• Fixed slight inconsistency in Keiko's height when exiting the vehicle