A Word from CO

Hi mayors! It’s been a while since we last had a chat about what we’re working on, so we’re happy to finally share an update with you. We have a few topics lined up, and some screenshots, of course, covering work-in-progress content for Bridges & Ports as well as the base game.

Before we get into that, we know that many of you are waiting for news about the console release and the Asset Editor. While we don’t have any updates to share today, both remain important to us, and we’ll let you know as soon as we have concrete news to share. 

Today’s dev diary is focused on features, improvements, and bug fixes currently in development, and we’re excited to give you a look behind the scenes. Without further ado, let’s pull back the curtain and have a peek!

A lot is currently happening with resources. In patch 1.3.3f1, also known as Quays & Piers, you got a bunch of fixes related to the transportation of cargo, plus an improved UI for storage buildings. With these fixes out of the way and goods moving around the city as they should, we are digging into the production chains themselves, starting with a rework of the Production tab. 

This tab, found in the Economy panel, provides an overview of all the raw materials and goods in the game, the city’s surplus or deficit of each resource, and an overview of the production chain, so you can easily see how things are made and what raw materials can be used for. Before we look at the upcoming changes, here’s a reminder of what the panel looks like today:

On the left is a list of all the resources in the game, with 3 bars showing production (blue), surplus (green), and deficit (red). When selecting a resource, the production chain is displayed on the right-hand side, showing the resources required to produce the selected resource and its potential uses.

Our goal for this rework was clear: To provide more transparent information about the production in the city in a way that makes it easier to compare different production chains. 

We decided to use a Sankey diagram to represent the production chain visually. This allows us to not only display which resources are involved in the production chain, but also the production and consumption of these in the city, so you can compare your production of, for example, chemicals, to its further use in your industries. The left side of the panel still has a list of all resources in the game, however, it’s much more compact and now shows production (blue), surplus (green) or deficit (red), and consumption (orange), the latter being a new addition to the list.

In our example below, the city produces 852 tons of chemicals. Thanks to the Sankey diagram, we can easily see that 49.8 tons of the chemicals are used to manufacture plastics, while 71.2 tons are used to produce pharmaceuticals. The remaining 731 tons are surplus, that is currently stored in various warehouses for later use or export through Outside Connections.

A work-in-progress screenshot of the new Production Tab – the final version may have some differences.

While the new Production tab is functional, we still have work to do before it is ready for release. As an example, the text currently does not scale properly with different resolutions or text scaling options, but we still wanted to give you a sneak peek at what the final result might look like. And, if you looked at the above screenshot and noticed the numbers don’t quite add up, you’d be right.

The new Production tab highlighted what we already knew: The production chains are due for a rebalancing. Even accounting for water used in the production of the chemicals above, we end up with a lot more output resources than input, and that needs to be balanced. In short, this happens as the production chains were balanced in an environment where bugs affected the production. As we have discovered and fixed these, in part thanks to your bug reports, those values need to be updated.

We have 36 resources in Cities: Skylines II: 10 raw materials, 18 material goods, and 8 immaterial goods. These interact with each other in various ways, and their buy and sell values all affect the economy of the companies in your city, and through them, your city’s economy. Rebalancing the resources is no small task, but the new Production tab is making it a lot easier for our design team to track the changes and spot any outliers that need tweaking.

Another great example of how an imbalance in resource production and consumption can affect the city is the current issue with offices downsizing their workforce to just 5 workers. Downsizing is a feature that helps companies stay profitable when times are tough. In this case, the demand for and consumption of office-produced goods, like Finance or Telecom, is too low to sustain office companies in the city. This causes them to downsize as much as they can, and as 5 workers is the absolute minimum the game allows them to have, that’s where they end up.

A very lonely place to work.

The rebalancing of both production and consumption of these goods is needed to resolve this issue, so offices have a proper chance to be financially viable with a workforce more appropriate for their density. This does mean we do not have a quick fix for offices, but instead are working towards one that benefits the entire city and cements offices as an important part of the city’s economy.

You may have noticed how none of your buildings have become abandoned and collapsed as a result. A while back, we encountered a bug that caused issues with the abandonment of buildings, and as a quick fix wasn’t possible, we temporarily disabled the feature, so empty buildings don’t get the “Abandoned” notification or collapse. This let cities continue to function while we could work on a proper fix.

That fix is now in testing, and while we don’t have an ETA for its release just yet, we want to take you through the basics of the system. Like plopped buildings, zoned buildings have an Upkeep Cost that renters (households and/or companies) pay in addition to Rent. When both the Rent and Upkeep are paid, the building’s condition improves, and once it reaches certain thresholds, it levels up. Similarly, the building’s condition deteriorates if the renters cannot pay the Upkeep Cost, and once it reaches certain thresholds, it becomes abandoned. 

Homeless people may move into an abandoned building, causing noise pollution locally, and abandoned buildings are at risk of collapsing if left long enough. Both abandoned and collapsed buildings negatively impact the Well-being of those living nearby, and they also increase the risk of being targeted as a crime scene.

It’s busy days in the office, and between testing and adjusting the above changes, our resident map experts are updating the water on the existing maps. For some time now, we have been working towards an update to the water simulation that improves how water behaves and fills in rivers or lakes that extend outside the playable area on maps. The update will only apply to new cities created after its release, so while your existing cities won’t experience the benefits of the new water simulation, they will be safe from unexpected flooding as a result of the changes. And as a little bonus, we have taken the opportunity to update the maps, fixing known issues, adding the new bridges, and making minor improvements to the terrain and resources. We’re excited to share this with you in a future update and hear how it feels.

Before this dev diary comes to an end, we promised to touch on Bridges & Ports. The delay of the expansions allows us to polish the features included in the expansion and expand the scope to include as many water-related features as possible. While we can’t cover everything in one expansion, we’re doing everything we can to ensure the expansion is worth the wait and lets you build wonderful seaside cities — with more than just the quays and leisure piers you have now. We’ll have all the details for you in dedicated dev diaries as we get closer to release, but for now, we can give you a little peek at the “white boxes” that are currently being worked on as a new addition to the expansion, thanks to the extra development time.

Whiteboxes define the general size and shape of a building and are used in-game to test functionality before finalizing the art.

We hope you enjoyed this look behind the scenes and update on what we’re working on. While we don’t have a date for when these features will be added to the game, we’re excited to share them with you and hear your thoughts. Is there a particular thing you’re looking forward to? Or is there something entirely different you hope we dig into next? We’d love to hear your feedback.