Greetings dear Comrades of the Soviet Republic. We have great news for you this week as there is not that much time left until the current public test version will switch to stable. If everything goes well it can be out next week. But many of you are interested in a feature, we were mentioning on our roadmap, and was not implemented yet. We want to talk about Realistic mode (often called Hard Mode Challenge or Cosmonaut Challenge by the Community) a bit in this report. You may be aware that it will not be part of the update we are currently working on, but we want to implement this new difficulty level into upcoming Metro update in a little bit different way that you were expecting.
There were several ideas how to make implement Realistic mode but first we need to define what does this mean for those who are not familiar with the challenges community created to offer additional difficulty to players and making the game more systematic and management heavy. Realistic mode will remove all options to purchase goods and vehicles inside facilities directly and remove the option to complete construction using money. This brings in several new challenges for the planning process as every resource needs to be transported to your storages from customs house at the border and every vehicle needs to be able to get to the depot from the border on its own wheels. There will be no magic appearance of stuff inside the building anymore and no magic appearing of infrastructure or buildings too. Of course, this mode will be optional as you really need to be remarkably familiar with how the game works to be able to succeed when starting a new Republic.
We found a way how to implement this Realistic mode and allow it to work and be turned on for every map. There will be a brand-new difficulty level besides existing ones (Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard) and that will be called Realistic. It will be the same as hard but there will be new setting Realistic Mode which will be enabled. This Realistic mode will prohibit any direct purchases, and everything will need to be produced or imported buying at customs on the border. As we mentioned already vehicles will not just magically appear in the depo but will need to drive into depo from the border after purchase and that means you will need an existing road connection between the border and the depo. Also, no construction will be allowed be done using money and everything will need to be built using construction offices. And we want this to be available for every existing game.
There are few things we need to take into consideration when adding this new mode into the game. We needed to add few buildings which can be built for free to allow players the initial build up. These are only some muddy versions of Construction office, Distribution office, Technical office, Gas station, Open storage, Aggregate storage, Bus stop and parking lot. All these facilities are necessary to build the initial infrastructure and first residentials to allow first migrant to move in.
Construction office will be able to cooperate with the customs house, and it will be able to import concrete and asphalt from there. This option will be available also when the Realistic mode will be turned off. So, you will have still options to use it when you decide to play a little bit less restrictive game mode. We need to keep in mind that there are lots of potential issues a player needs to face when he is fully restricted by self-construction and self-distribution and this kind of gameplay can be frustrating without proper knowledge and experience. The goal of the game is first having fun, so do not jump into highest difficulty if you failed on easier difficulties before and did not managed to create an existing successful Republic there.
Regarding the initial construction process as there are no citizens living inside the Republic yet, we added foreign workforce to customs house beside tourists. Player will be able to use buses or trains to bring workers to construction sites or even factories from the border. After the shift they will disappear as tourist are disappearing but this way there will be a workforce you can use when building first infrastructure, storages, production facilities or residentials. Of course, you will need to pay their salary as you are not the one who is supplying their needs but on the other hand you will be able to exist without expensive facilities for a while until you establish your first towns and industrial areas.
This is not all we have to say about cosmonaut mode, but this will be enough for this report. In the upcoming one we will talk about how we want to deal with railroad construction in Realistic mode and we hope we will be able to reveal more details to you. With the new Realistic mode, we will also improve the look of mud road as this kind of road will be more in use since then, just because there will be no other option from the beginning.
We hope you like the way how Realistic mode is going to be implemented. We are glad that we were able to deal with several key issues in past months that were making the Realistic mode impossible to implement. There may still be more but lot of them may have been resolved. Thanks to all the feedback of those who dare to play this game in challenging way and can stay disciplined and stick to their rules while playing. It may be more difficult as you may imagine initially. We wish you nice sunny days and enough wind to keep your power networks running. Enjoy your gaming and stay tuned for the next report.
Thank You for Your support
3Division Team