Release Notes


v0.5.0.44 - September 1, 2012



UPDATE


It's been 6 months since our last release. I wish I can say that time was used for Synekism benefit. It hasn't. However, last few weeks have been spent on Synekism and it felt pretty good. Today comes Synekism 0.5 which is most certainly not a major release but does introduce some of the changes I wanted to make in the longer term.


The first major change is the pricing structure in Synekism. You no longer pay (as much) for zoning. Instead, you actually get some money when someone develops on your zones. The logic here is that you are actually selling the city's land to private owners. In turn, if you want to dezone or simply clear some land you need to buy the land back so it will cost significantly more to do so. In addition, land costs are directly related to land value which, for lack of support, is just local population density for now. The higher the density, the higher the land costs.


A somewhat negative side effect of this change is that government lots, which you now own, will cost you money to develop. You don't have to buy the land since it's already yours but you have to pay the construction costs. The problem is that you don't have full control when and how big each government building will build so your budget will somewhat randomly drop. Hopefully the cash you get from "selling" the land will counter this extra unpredictable cost.


I've also done minor updates to Synekism's looks. The buildings are now darker in colour at their bases than the roofs giving the fake effect of shadows. Unoccupied lots are translucent until they develop. And building colour brightness now depends on height which makes cities appear more randomly coloured than before.


So that's it. Hopefully the infusion of stress and motivation for work which this release drove into me will last. Next release is slated for January 1st, 2013. I no longer feel comfortable making any promises, especially now that I'm basically working by myself on this. I'll just stick with progress reports each month.


NEW FEATURES


Engine:

  • made buildings get brighter in colour towards the top (gradient from dark-bottom to light-top)
  • made unoccupied lots partially translucent - turning opaque when built up
  • building overall colour brightness is also based on height which will give cities a more random appearance than the constant-solid coloured buildings before

Tool Set:

  • disabled tool validation by default as it was more annoying than useful - use F3-V to turn it back on
  • zoning no longer costs (as much) money (the roads in the zone still do though)
  • deleting a building (or dezoning) costs more money and its dependant on the local density (land value)

Simulator:

  • you get some money when lot gets developed, based on the local density (land value) around the lot
  • government buildings now cost money when they build (it's a fixed cost per cubic meter of "building")

BUGS


Fixed:

  • fixed more instance were the building would overflow the lot (but this can STILL happen in even rarer circumstances...)
  • fixed the installer to always ensure full installation of Synekism prerequisites like the Visual C++ and DirectX runtimes (no more missing DLL errors)
  • fixed a potential crash regarding the bulldozer tool

Known:

  • Windows XP installer does not add a Start Menu folder for Synekism, despite claiming to do so
  • for large lots the dozer may permanently select a building until the tool is deactivated or something else selected
  • roads may not build properly (only the endpoints) when using angle lock mode (sometimes)
  • zoning along more than one, non-aligned, road segments does not work
  • 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

INSTALLATION


System Requirements:

  • Windows XP/Vista/7
  • 2 GHz single-core or 1 GHz multi-core processor
  • 1 GB of system memory
  • 100 MB of hard disk space*
  • Support for DirectX 9.0c, Shader Model 2 and 128 MB of graphics memory
  • Access to an administrative account

* Does not include space requirements of DirectX End-User Runtimes and the Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable which may be anywhere from 20kb to 500 MB depending on what has already been installed.


What we install:

  • Synekism v0.5.0.44
  • DirectX Redistributable
  • Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable
  • GPU-Z.0.6.3.exe (to check DirectX support - removed after installation is finished/aborted)

LICENSE


IDIMORIS SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS


SYNEKISM


ALL FURTHER REFRENCES OF THE "SOFTWARE" WILL REFER TO SYNEKISM.


Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (Synekism) the right to use the Software. The Software is furnished to do so and is subject to the following conditions:

1. User may not distribute the Software.

2. User may not modify, translate, or make derivative works of the Software.

3. User may not sub-license, rent, lease or provide service bureau services such as Freeware leases or rentals with any portion of the Software.


THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.


Copyright (c) Idimoris 2012