Release Notes

v0.4.2.66 - November 1, 2011

November's release benefits from more user-visible updates than usual but also includes major changes to our code structure.

Synekism now has data views, though not much data yet exists to display, you now have a better insight into what the Simulator is doing. Data views can be enabled through the settings menu.

To make some use of the data views we introduced land value. For now, government lots will be the only ones increasing the land value of an area. With this change comes the restriction that high density lots will only develop in areas of high land value, that is, nearby government lots. IMPORTANT: Already developed high density lots will de-develop if the land value goes down so when loading cities from a previous version, before un-pausing, it is recommended that you use the land value data view to locate and address any unsatisfied high density lots with some additional government zones.

And in addition to making road segment midpoints visible while using the road or lot tools, we also fixed several bugs throughout the game.

Finally, Synekism now supports tooltips to help with our often strange icons.

PLEASE NOTE: Until we restore faith in our installer (hopefully by next release) please back up any treasured save files (in your My Documents/Synekism folder) prior to upgrading!

Minimum Requirements:

Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
1 GHz processor
1 GB of system memory
Hard drive with at least 50 MB of available space*
Support for DirectX 9.0c, Shader Model 2 and 128 MB of graphics memory

* Does not include space requirements of DirectX and Visual C++ Redistributable which may be anywhere from 20kb to 500 MB depending on what has already been installed.

What we install:

Synekism v0.4.2.66
DirectX Redistributable
Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable
GPU-Z.0.5.5.exe (to check DirectX support - removed after installation is finished/aborted)

NEW FEATURES:

Core:

several quick camera alignment tools added: top view, N, S, W, E, NW, NE, SW, SE; using Ctrl + Space, Ctrl + Up, Ctrl + Down, Ctrl + Left, Ctrl + Right, Alt + Left, Alt + Down, Alt + Up, Alt + Right, respectively
ESC now works in the Select City screen to return to the main menu (or in-game menu)
F10 now also brings up the in-game menu

Tools:

can now see road segment mid-points (while using the road or lot tool and holding down M)

Simulator:

the settings menu now contains two extra options used to display (or hide) density and land value "heatmap-like" data views
it goes from 0% as fully transparent, to 50% as red, to 100% as white; this will be refined and made editable soon
to view the data views better try hiding the buildings through the settings menu or pressing P
for now, Gov. lots are the only ones that can add to land value; the higher the density of the Gov lot the larger the area of effect
high density lots will no longer grow if there are no Gov. lots nearby; use the land value data view to identify problem areas
high density lots will de-develop if the land value in the area drops (if Gov. lots are removed)

UI:

all clickable and informative UI components should now have descriptive tooltips

BUGS FIXED:

no more extra intersections created behind the start point of a new road segment on extremely nearby road (this should also reduce the occurrences of non-proper road intersections)
game window now focused when clicking inside the game area (not just the MS Windows borders)
can no longer change camera focus by double clicking on the map while the in-game menu is up
if the angle lock option was on you could not create regional roads

KNOWN ISSUES:

zoning along more than one, non-aligned, road segments does not work
zoning very sharp-angled lots can cause them to overlap the road
on some machines, the game will just refuse to work even if they meet the minimum specs (we are working on this one)
as we increased slightly our load times (to be fixed soon) Windows might claim that Synekism froze during loading of large cities but please, disregard, and let the game load in peace