Lab Rats 2 v0.47.1 Release! Get it Here!

2 months into a new game with the new version I have finally gotten to tier 3 (used to only take 1 month in the old version) Take the first week to hire 2-4 workers, research tier 0 and make suggestion drugs. Do not unlock the next tier production until you have a serum for that tier researched. Unlock tiers on saturday morning after building up a lot of supply thursday and friday so you can produce that tier's serum without having to pay the daily cost for 2 days. Clarity and Training: The fastest way to get clarity is to have highly slutty and obedient girls strip on command. (Lily with 80 slut and 200+ obey gives 40LC) The Stripclub gives 20-50LC for $20, it is not usually worth it to give more than the first $20. Spend whatever you can to raise Stephanie's intelligence (11 to 12 costs 3394) it is definatly worth it because it increases everyone's research output. Don't train any Cha, Int, or Foc under 5 (except Steph's Int) until you research Natural Talent which raises them to 5. Do not train Mom or Sis sluttiness until you have unlocked all their taboos. The first trance training on any girl should be "Being Submissive" so you can raise their obedience with blowjobs (insult her). Get everyone 1 point in "Showing Her Tits", "Showing Her Ass", and "Skimpy Outfits" then "Online Attention Whore" for daily clarity. (It is better to get all 4 for 1 girl at a time than to get 1 for 4 girls) As soon as you get "Blood Brain Penetration" researched, get everyone "Trigger Word Orgasms" "Climax Cycler" is your next target along with "Improved Reagent Purification" and "Low Volatility Reagents" to make 50% sug and constant orgasms for 10 turns. (1 day is 8 turns) Contracts: Contracts are the biggest money makers but are slow, I made my first $3k contract at the end of the first month and a $30k at the end of the second month. Look at the contracts on monday and try to research what you need to make it. Some contracts are impossible in the first few weeks. If you can make what is needed for a contract, build up your stock of it and start the contract when you are close or on friday, weekends don't count towards contract days to deliver. Fulfilling contracts does attract attention so save some of the money you made from it. ($3000 should be enough) Business Policies Only do "Strict Corporate Uniforms" after you get uniforms as a goal and are making money. Ignore the rest of the uniform policies until you have a lot of money. Get the attention policies as soon as you start selling serums. Get "Recruitment Skill/Stat Improvement" before hiring after the first 5. (I don't bother with "Recruitment batch size ...") Get Serum Batch sizes as soon as you can. Once you start catching your employees masturbating, get "Office Punishment" and "Corporal Punishment" and use that to lower their pay.

aevojoey

Spoilers

aevojoey

I wrote a quick guide for v0.47.1 I will put it in a reply to a reply because only the first reply automatically loads. (Hopefully this doesn't break anything.)

aevojoey

Found another bug: In game\major_game_classes\business_related\Attention_Events.rpy label attention_seize_inventory(the_person): python: inventories = [self.inventory] for contract in self.active_contracts: inventories.append(contract.inventory) highest_attention_design = None for inventory in inventories: for design in inventory.get_serum_type_list(): if highest_attention_design is None or design.attention > highest_attention_design.attention: highest_attention_design = design if highest_attention_design: $ doses_seized = 0 python: inventories = [self.inventory] for contract in self.active_contracts: inventories.append(contract.inventory) Change "self" to "the_person"

aevojoey

One suggestion I would make for 'new content' which I think could help alot, If/when major overhauls are done, look at making it easier (and give a few 'examples' on how user could add modules. If there was an easy way for users to create a new NPC, a new 'event', etc (if not new animations/positions/etc) that would open up alot of 'content' while allowing the development to be on the core system/functions/etc rather then pure content.

Laughingowl

All if it is too difficult, post your problem here (and/or direct IM me) glad to give options' to 'cheat' to address the difficulty (although Vren has adjusted the business file some already). Balance is personal and for a single player game usually easy to adjust. Personally while needing balance (and I have made it much easier for myself) overall I like the new systems and see great options to expand. (personally thinking about trying to make a serum with moderate high attention but an 'addiction' factor. That raise demand (at a business level) and possible desire/obedience/sluttiness at a character level, representing their desperation for another hit.. DO agree 'new' content would be nice and while some of the updates may have been needed for new content, seeing more new content would be nice.

Laughingowl

Found another bug: It is possible to get impossible contracts. In my current game I have a contract that requires "Men: >=1 Sex >=1 Flw <=2 Attn <=0" The Organisation Policies don't work on contracts and there are no traits that have sexual aspects and 0 attention.

aevojoey

Found a bug in opinion_trainables.rpy label train_new_opinion_label(the_person, sexy_list = False): Change: for known_opinion in the_person.get_opinion_topics_list(include_unknown = False, include_sexy = False): To: for known_opinion in the_person.get_opinion_topics_list(include_unknown = False, include_sexy = sexy_list): This will make the "Inspire a New Sex Opinion" list not show sex opinions you already know.

aevojoey

Yeah, I am going back/staying at 46.1 until something is done... this isn't fun OR erotic which makes me ask myself why I would play it. :(

William Urquhart

Which to me suggests the contract system just isn't ready yet. It never feels like something the player can meaningfully take advantage of, which is a damn shame because it could've been a great way to fast forward the player out of Tier 0, for example.

Killer300

It's not an easy fix but all the files are there, I was able to use MSCode to just edit the starting values for things and the console to load myself OP so I can play - it's a good play actually. NB still losing money at this point.

GDwg

I agree, I think these are very fixable issues. This game concept has a great deal of potential.

Vren, I think you have a window here to make suitable fixes to the balance. I'd also point out that the community around Summertime Saga for example provide consistent user feedback on where to spend the time and what they feel are priorities. The premise is too good to just let it fold, I'd be throwing myself at a fix and a change of direction here. Roll on 48 and quickly.

GDwg

im sorry i have to agree with the rest of the comments to this point. needing to keep the attention off our company makes early game too difficult. the side projects to help us get money are ok in theory but having to worry about getting busted by the feds....

markjr

It's also a bit off that you only get contracts scaled to your current tier. It *should* be possible to continue to do lower-effort-lower-reward contracts; as it stands upgrading to a higher tier before you've researched a bunch of traits on that level pretty much means you're agreeing to forgo contracts for a while. That's probably not a great dynamic to introduce in a game where a big part of making these serums is being able to use them yourself rather than just sell them - when you've researched some slick new trick, you want to be able to start exploiting it, not put off doing so for 2w while you expand your business knowledge base. I mean, at least not in a porn game...

Nona

if you go to the release tab ( at the top of page )and scroll down a lil bit you can get 47 which isnt so bad. like i said just dump money into the first 2 attention skillz and your good to sell and the weekend will kill about 40 attenion so your pretty good there. this is how i start all my replays and it works good for me by week 3 everything is dropping into place and smoothed out

DREWSKY

Drewsky, could you link it for the rest of us? I’m keeping 46.1 going for now. My efforts with 47 are the same cliff like death. And I didn’t pick this game up to run around like a loon in a lab, going bankrupt. Really annoyed.

GDwg

I'll be completely honest with you. the direction you're taking this game makes no sense for the genre. This is a porn game man. You've made it nearly impossible to progress in the name of increasing playtime however you haven't added any actual content. when's the last time we got any sort of story progression, or character dialog that wasn't explicitly tied to reworking old systems to force the players to grind more. I loved the premise of this game back in the early days but at this point its become more of a chore to even attempt to play. all of the random npcs still have the exact same dialog. The family story has barley been touched. I'm convinced you've forgotten about Alexia. The worst part though is that you use business reworks to cover up the fact that the game itself has very little actual content. Not to mention IF you EVER actually expand on the characters at all I'm going to have to use console commands to make it through the BS early game consistently. The Juice just aint worth the squeeze anymore. I'm sorry but I cant support this game any further

kb131313

The only problem I have with the new systems (beyond some lack of transparency with regards to daily costs and the sales UI) is that half of all T0 contracts (and a fair number of T1) are impossible to fulfill because they require Sex>=1 and Attn <=0. That combination can't be achieved with any serum. Attention reducing business policies don't help either. Contracts that require zero attention should be very rare at any tier, since a large number of traits have Attn 1 or 2.

i kept a copy of 47.0 and imma play that till things get smoothed out cause because yea its a learning cliff not a curve it to easy to fail within the first couple weeks if you cant get things going right away

DREWSKY

One thing that feels very off with the way prices fluctuate is that demand is tied to extremely abstract categories rather than actual features or products. Selling more Mood Enhancer will reduce the demand for Fertility Suppression, Hair Dye makes Caffeine less desirable, etc. I get why it's being done from a programming standpoint - this is very straightforward to track and can be easily quantified for the player - but it's really weird mechanically and has counter-intuitive outcomes like changing to a new product when your market is tapped out won't increase demand unless it's a product totally unlike any you've sold before.

Nona

I played a little further i unlocked tier 2 and got totally screwd. I don't know how vren played his game and to which day or tier, because normally i am not to bad in such games but in my opinion this is too much. i really liked patrizier but this game is more complicated and less fun at this moment, in my opinion.

Victor

And this is what i really despise, if you are forced to do things that where before something you could do but must not do and you must do this things to survive. you can also list walking the street and picking moneycases :-/ Oh and not giving your Mom money ...

Victor

Now i have found time to play it and i am surprised. Why do i have the feeling that vren doesn't play his game ... . I was fearing timegating and grind and welcome to timegating and grind. I really liked that your sales department can sell serums automaticly, now with decreasing money per sell it is in my opinion bad to use autosell. I really liked that you can have more than a few employes and take your time to corrupt them, now fewer is always better and making sales oder production or buy supplies become mandatory if you don't want to go bancrupt. I was a friend of restricting the sale of "questionable" drugs, now legal drugs are making less and less on sale and there are no upgrades for them, so now I have to sell drugs that I never wanted to sell. Oh and some of the request are not possible at the time you get them, thanks ... The last update made it difficult to get ahead with the taboo renewal at the beginning, which is only partially implemented because it resulted in some really strange conversations. The new update forces me to play the game in a fashion i never wanted it to play. I must do more in my firm restricting the time that i have to corrupt someone. I must with less time repeat more steps while corrupting. When i want some of the fun drugs the upkeep for my business rises to much and i can't compensate with producing simply more stuff, because it keep falling in price. In the old Versions you can play as long as you want, now it has a timer and you must hurry things that you want to try before your business goes down. It is as i feared, to mask that there are few charakterstorys and progression of story something was implemented to stop you from asking why there is so few content and why some storylines are stuck ... because now you have to focus much more on the business. I will stop playing and hoping that the next update will fix some of the strange things from the taboo update and the balancing issues i see in this update. And maybe we get story too. If it goes further in this direction i will withdraw my support and wait until vren has time to make the game again more fun to play.

Victor

You can also help Lily with Instapics in both the early morning and evening for $50 each, or $100/day. That gets me through until Rebecca and Gabrielle move in when you can only help Lily with Instapics in the evenings. That's also about when I'm ready to start manufacturing serums.

Scott S.

Okay, so, I've now made way more progress with some tips from Nona. I will note, once you get someone in Marketing, a lot of issues with serums becoming infuriatingly low profit really dissipate a bit, especially if you get a serum without side effects. With that said, I'm already seeing costs on the horizon that are... not encouraging.

Killer300

my best start was dumping evrything into lower attention so it wouldnt affect my sales then i worked on getting profit and peeps

DREWSKY

Wait, the hell?! Okay, that explains a TON, and I hope this immediately gets fixed, as it would explain I've just been hitting a brick wall. On a side note, okay, the strip club does make a huge difference... but it costs money and its hidden behind exploration. Yeah...

Killer300

There's a problem in the new version - you're losing $50/day more than your listed salary costs. That's gonna make a pretty drastic difference at T0.

Nona

Okay, there's a HUGE problem here, and I'm pretty sure it's why people are complaining they can't survive T0 with the new version. Your company is losing an extra, unlisted $50/day above and beyond its salary costs. At the start that'll be enough to break someone who's not playing optimally.

Nona

I am having some serious difficulty getting out of Tier 0. This is very frustrating, and I have lost interest in trying to figure it out. Also there is no room to experiment with serums, and where the hell am I suppose to get enough clarity to unlock all of tier 0? This build has too much to manage and is not fun to play at all.

Well. I will admit I'm playing like someone who's played this game too much - I spend a lot of the first week "finding wallets" while Steph gets the first couple of traits researched. That gives me a bit of a buffer to hire people week 2 instead of spending week 2 doing my own grunt work. I've barely touched contracts, though. Perhaps I should start a new game and specifically avoid wandering downtown except to find the strip club. I do strongly agree the contracts/sales page needs a tutorial popup. And if someone has selected the intro/tutorial start, giving them a really basic one-time contract to show how that works - something sorry like Medical 1 or 2 so they can do it with little or no research - might help as well. It doesn't need to be in the normal start, but showing newcomers the ropes is useful when they just got knottier.

Nona

Re: early serum, if Steph has nothing to do she'll come ask you for a direction, and may help clarify your thoughts if you're got nothing for her. The strip club is also a fair source of T0 quantities of clarity. I went through the tutorials for the first time in a long time, though, and those could use updated. There's not enough guidance there for someone starting from scratch.

Nona

So, for some data: The furthest I have gotten is 19 days, roughly. That is ridiculous, but it's the situation I rapidly run into unless I refuse to hire any employees for some insane amount of time. Even in that case, I'd eventually go bankrupt because I seriously doubt I could research any new serums in that context. Again, I have yet to get to the point where I can put together a serum for any of the contracts. I suspect the only way to make the system as it is currently is function to chop the clarity requirements of everything in Tier 0 in half, so that, among other things, A. Serums only cost say, 15 clarity to turn into a drug instead of 25 clarity, which is far too much for the early game as it presently stands, B. The clarity costs of every single serum effect being chopped in half, if not more, would make it more reasonable to actually fulfill contracts. As it is, I have yet to find a single contract I could actually fill out, and the closest I got, I went bankrupt before the drug could hit production, or get anywhere close to the number of drugs requested. The alternative is to just give the player some serums right off the bat besides Primitive Serum. Starting from scratch doesn't work when you bleed money so quickly and when it takes so much clarity to put together even a basic drug, especially if you're trying to reduce side effect chance.

Killer300

So, yeah, two major problems, 1. Okay, maybe there's an event I'm missing with the head researcher, but I have no idea how to trigger that, or when it happens. What I do know is I have never felt like I was in a position to fulfill a single contract, because by the time I could make a serum for one, I'd be out of time and have no money. In the current version of the game, it seems impossible to make any sustainable revenue without that, because, 2. The value of serums decreases far, far faster than the player's ability to invent new serums that can actually make money. There isn't anywhere near enough clarity gain in Tier 0 unless the player is basically already in a sexual relationship. Over all, this feels like an economy for the mid or late game, when the player has already corrupted several employees, and so has easy access to clarity, plentiful serum diversity, ect., In Tier 0, the game is basically unplayable in the current form without luck, or cheating. To fix this, I'd suggest adding a contract to the tutorial the player can fulfill immediately to make some quick cash, and insure players have any. Fucking. Clue how the contract system works. As it is, this is a giant cliff that could kill this game's player base with people having no idea how to progress, and, the utter lack of a wiki or similar available to give them guidance. Also, for anyone reading who has had more success with the game's current system, you desperately need to give out tips and otherwise explain how to get thorough Tier 0. I feel like I'm missing something obvious, as Nona, for example, is clearly able to make more progress than I have.

Killer300

My problem so far, by contrast is... How the fuck do you actually make money? From what I can tell, you can't have any employees until you get to the point where serums can fulfill contracts, and in the process, get some breathing room. I bring this up because I think a lot of people are going to bounce, HARD, off this update because they no idea how to actually make money.

Killer300

I love what you've been focusing on in this update. Great work and stay productive as always!

VitAnyaNaked

So far this looks very promising! A few bugs: * There needs to be some clearer indication that you can still sell serums piecemeal, w/o using contracts. Unlike R&D, production, and business policies, there's no popup tutorial the first time you open "Sell Serum" - that feels like a real problem now that serum sales actually has not just a subscreen, but one that has some features that are not immediately obvious. It took me three visits to the marketing screen to notice that I could sell outside of contracts. While it's my fault for not looking over the UI, the Contracts portion takes up the most real estate and attracts the most attention. * This is a small, petty thing, and kinda silly, but you can start w/o setting names for yourself and your company. It'd probably be better to throw in either a default name for these, or generate random names so the owner of Input Your Business Name isn't Mr. Input Your Last Name; Input Your First Name Input Your Last Name. * Liquidity Goal states that the sum is checked at the end of the day, but if you clear the total required earlier (e.g. by finding a wallet, or manual sales), it will immediately complete. * The tooltip for "Find new clients" still talks about how its purpose is to sell serums marked for sale.

Nona

After playing a few hours, i think you killed 1/4 of the players, the dificulty curve at the start of the game it's no longer a curve it's a clif twice the size of Everest. After three restarts, was able to reach tier 1, to lose again. To lower the difficulty the first 3 contracts need to be fixed not random, without the money the 4 first employes can't be random ether or we have to save and reload until some girl's with the right stats show up. The attention of the authorities gain at the start of the game need to be lower, at tier 0 too. Just my opinion.

Zankriger

a few thoughts (I guess I missed where you were discussing the changes before): A] From an economic aspect, there are two immediate problems I see: 1]if there is demand for your product (largely generated by the marketing dept in combination with the serum traits), then price/revenues should be a function of successfully meeting that demand without going over and not a function of time (as time before off-brands can appear - even IF someone knows how to make it - are incredibly long in pharmaceticals). I like the idea of including this, it will give the game a nice challenge while having some real-world zing. Any 1st year econ book should give you the fairly simple formulas to simulate this (or contact me and I can look them up). 2] You are introducing price fluxation on the serums produced on a time scale - if we add that level of realism then we should also add the corresponding flux in COST. Things like: * Bulk and constant ordering of certain supplies (by our Supply department) results in lower costs (i.e. their combined skill * modifier for how much/long that formula has been used). * The production efficiency as the task (of producing that formula) becomes routine and the resultant increase in workflow (perhaps also an increase in batch size over time for that formula) and decrease in wasted materials/mistakes. B] Also there would need to be some changes from the Marketing aspect of the game (and where the skill of a dedicated Marketing rep - instead of the player just 'making some calls - really comes into effect): 1] While an older, established serum (pill?) no longer has the 'New!' appeal, the Name/Brand recognition along with proven effects generally picks up most of the 'slack' in demand. Until a newer product that serves the same need comes out, the price point and demand should both stay fairly constant once they stabilize (after introduction). 2] The marketing effort (not cost necessarily) for an 'established' serum should decrease as orders from various resellers become planned/predictable enabling the Marketing dept to sell more of that formula per time chunk. Conversely, the number of a NEW formula serum sold per time interval should be less (and grow to a stable amount - barring an event) than 'normal' (early life-cycle) and MUCH less than 'established' - the person has to call around and drum up sales rather than just ship out a requested amount. (perhaps add a shipping dept under/reporting to Marketing?) C] 'Attention' should affect more and provide mixed effects: 1] Attention should *increase* demand of almost all serums/formulas. Only those with a 'bad' side effect would Attention hurt... from a sales point of view. A lot of the Attention value should come out as an effect of the Marketing dept. 2] Attention from the Authorities for 'questionable serum effects' - which seems to be what you are focusing on now - should GREATLY effect demand. Think back on several of the more notable real-life examples (Ambien being huge one); a large part of the population *really* wanted the product for its side effects rather than its primary purpose! 3] Even forumlas/serums that were receiving negative Attention from authorities could be 're-purposed' if the player (and primarily the Marketing dept) handle it correctly. For example Viagra was *originally* developed to treat Hypertension and one form of cardiovascular disease - but after being shelved for the 'side-effect' is now marketed and sold exclusively FOR that! Almost all the sexual serum traits can be fudged as 'treating' this or that disfunction to get around authorities (whether legitimately or not). 4] Items sold for sexual purposes / functions are mostly ignored by authorities due to the potential bombshells of dealing with them - unless it is an election year! Of course then, a few judicious bribes... err... 'campaign contributions' by the company to either the governing body (to stop them from taking action) OR the judges (to get them to overrule an action taken or declare the action unenforcable/unconstitutional) is the normal direction a company takes. This would give the player 2 chances to head off problems (and provide for the introduction of a lawyer character, perhaps?).

William Urquhart