Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

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bundyaxl
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Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

Post by bundyaxl »

I usually like to play the game from 1900 but the products invention years are still from when the game only supported starting in 1990.

Can you add accurate invention years to the products and services in game as an option at least.
I usually use a script so not sure of the standard single player but this should also have the 1900 option.

I know it's possible to do through the mod system but would be nice to have as standard feature and should be easy enough to implement.
Products are one thing but also internet companies should not exist in 1900, not sure if modding allows to change the years these are available.

Another option which should be put in anyway is to add time based unlocks to the script goal system.
Then we can easily adjust the invention years of buildings, services, products and/or classes using scripts by setting an unlock to be based on a reaching a certain date.
Although I think this might require the script system to allow things to unlock for all AI instead of just the player, not sure if the current system already allows this.
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David
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Re: Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

Post by David »

I usually like to play the game from 1900 but the products invention years are still from when the game only supported starting in 1990.
I don't quite understand what you meant above. Could you please elaborate?
bundyaxl
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Re: Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

Post by bundyaxl »

I play the game set to start in the year 1900 but the invention years aren't set up for it by default unless I'm missing something.

For example, the mobile phone is available immediately when in real life it wasn't available until the 1980s.

When the game only supported starting in 1990 it didn't make a difference but since we can start in 1900 it would make more sense to set this up.
I'd like to see the game update the invention years of each product to closer reflect real life invention years including the new services such as the internet companies.
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David
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Re: Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

Post by David »

This is something that you could mod quite easily.

For details, please see: http://www.capitalismlab.com/mod/advanc ... -products/

Search for "INVENT_YR" on this page to see the relevant fields.
bundyaxl
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Re: Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

Post by bundyaxl »

I know you can mod it but it should just be in the game.

I just got back into this game so I'm not sure if the main big mods have the realistic invention years but I think they didn't in the past.
Without the source files I can't change them.

The mod still doesn't solve the services issue.

The internet wasn't around in 1900 either.
It should become available in the 70s-80s or whenever it came out.
Maybe the player or AI can speed it up by funding research into it.
saffgee
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Re: Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

Post by saffgee »

Playing from the 1900's is an interesting mod project - but it is exactly that, a project. If you were looking for an easy fix on this, that doesn't exist. It will take meticulous research, careful editing and exhaustive playtesting to make this work as desired....quick and dirty is always possible of course, but for the scope you seem to be looking for that just won't cut it I'd say.

My mod has accurate time tables for most tech items at least (eg. phones, tablets, etc), but beyond that it's just switch on or off in the options, your choice. I will release my mod: "Modern World" by end of this week.
bundyaxl
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Re: Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

Post by bundyaxl »

The easy fix is put in somewhat accurate invention dates to the base game now that the game can handle 1900 year start.
Not sure what meticulous research you are referring to.
I want exactly what David said I can do with a mod, just update the years of like 10-15 products, the computer and electronics stuff mainly. Most food products, clothing products, cars were basically around in 1900 so most products wouldn't change.
Right now if you start in 1900 using base game invent years you can make desktop computers right away but have to wait until 1990 or whatever to make a laptop.
With the mod I did this in like 2 minutes, then the packing utility wouldn't work for me, I either missed something like the header files or it won't take on my Win98 virtual machine, game won't work for me on Win 10, I'll try it on Win7 VM.
I'm not even saying to add any products, just fix the dates on the current ones, doesn't have to be exact, just approx.
If you would add 1900 products though I would suggest a landline phone to cover the comm device market and simple radio to cover the electronics market.

Really though I'm almost feeling the 1900s DLC. Then we can include more time based phased out products and changes and more dynamic factories with automation options through the years. Maybe some phased out industries even, can't think of any at the moment.


With that said, if David comes in and says it will takes months to make this change to the base game and modding is the best practical solution then I'll accept that but why wouldn't the base game just have this?

The easy fix for the tech stuff (no internet based companies before the internet) also seems to be in the works.
The Modding instructions include the CANINV_YR for techs but it says it's for future use.
This would allow the internet technologies to be locked until a realistic year.
Maybe the buildings will be available right away but not effectively usable which is good enough for me.
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Re: Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

Post by saffgee »

Well the meticulous research I was referring to was finding out when each product was actually invented - but if you just want to approximate that works too.

In actual fact though, very few products in mine or Piermarios mod would have been "invented" in 1900 as many rely heavily on plastics, etc. Just as a side note, and as a matter of fact, pretty much all modern plastics had been researched by the end of the 50's. Problem was their commercial use (or eventual commercial use) was very often still years off. Which is another complexity, as just because something was invented it did not immediately make it commercially viable (due to cost, etc) or even popular.

Anyway, the project sounds interesting. I'd still recommend you give my mod a whirl when I post it end of week and see if the added layers of complexity in that might actually scratch some of your itches. If you then wanted to send me me some additional invent dates I can certainly add those in as I do like a bit of realism.
bundyaxl
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Re: Add 1900 invention years or time unlocks to goal system

Post by bundyaxl »

The big research project would be DLC scale, I think there's probably better priorities.
I just think for what is a really quick fix to just add some dates it would be better than what we have now.

Dates would be just approx since it doesn't have to line up perfect in the game plus it takes in game time to research which will depend on the capability of the companies in the game so no point in making the dates perfectly accurate anyway.
Also too with the point you bring up with plastics and gradual progression, realistically they are still inventing new plastics and steel's today.
What might be cool is to allow anyone to research anything anytime but put in a penalty based on the invention year.
For late game tech it you can try to research computers for example but it would be extremely expensive to the point where it's not practical to research until maybe a decade or two ahead of the regular time for a huge company.

When I made a simple real year mod I still had to make other compromises like silicon which was probably not used until the 50s but I use it for electronic components to make the hi-fi (kind of like a simple radio) around the 1910s and TV's around the 1930s and the house appliances which were around in some way in 1900 but probably not with electronic components.

I'll check out the mod, still haven't checked out the latest versions of the other big ones.
Just got back into this last week, liking the quality of life improvements since last time I played and of course the Digital Age DLC, pre-ordered.
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