Pitwall news

The past weeks I've been working intensely on an updated development script. This script changes the development side of the game quite heavily with a few new strategic changes. The full changes will be posted once the update is live, but if you're interested in what these changes are then head over to the forum topic (link) that was created a while ago.

This update is now almost completely implemented on a test site. This test is now publicly available and everyone can test the changes here.

Please note that this is still under development and that a few things are still not working as can be expected (such as certain elements or buttons that don't do anything yet). Also, the following functions as were described in the original specifications announcement have not been implemented yet:
* Project developers
* Team rebalance
* Auto-create parts
* Designer instructions
* Testing programs

Thanks everyone for participating and providing your feedback (here).

The money that was paid double has been paid back. In your finances screen you will see that you've gotten refunds for all the double paid money from last week on this week. As of course everyone has to be paid, the amounts have been deducted again on this week. That way everyone has paid for wages, suppliers, etc... this week, for last week.

The updates have been enabled again, and everything should be back to normal. To catch up on the missing updates, I've set the hourupdate to also run at minute 30 of each hour for the next 2 days. That way all the lost updates will be caught up. Again apologies for the issues.

Unfortunately there was a server problem from Sunday to Monday which caused the week update to fail. The weekupdate ran twice more, and therefore there will be some manual labor involved to fix the double (triple) updates.

This will be done this evening, and therefore I've had to disable all the updates on the game. My apologies for this, I'll try to make sure the game is up and running as fast as possible.

During the down time, please do take some time to read about the upcoming development changes. A few months ago I wrote that I wanted to make the game more transparent, and more of a game. These changes are a first step towards making Pitwall more of a game.
I've published the specifications in the forum (click here) which I'm basing myself on while developing the development script. These changes do affect everyone and will cause a lot of changes in the development system, so it's best to read them to make sure you're prepared for what's coming.

Again, apologies for the (sort of) down time. I'll post another news update when everything is resolved.

As you may have noticed, the server started going slow about 24 hours ago. The cause of this I'm not 100% sure about, but I have my presumption. The problem has been fixed now, and because of the lost day of testing I have extended the testing session with 1 day. Therefore it's still possible to test today, and because of this qualifying has been reduced to 1 day only (tomorrow, Saturday).

The job market page has been updated today. The page now also has an option to select persons based on the fact whether they're allowed to leave the team immediately. This can be done so by selecting "Allowed to leave". This is an option that the manager of the person has to release the person from the team without firing them. If the person is willing to negotiate with other teams, and he/she accepts a new contract the person will transfer to the new team immediately.

This option is also shown on the person page, but there was a bug that caused that this option was only shown for persons who were allowed to leave in the current season of their contract. In other words, if in season 2 of the contract the person was allowed to leave the person the person wouldn't be shown as allowed to leave in season 3 of the contract, while he/she was actually able to immediately transfer to a new team once an agreement was reached. This bug has been fixed, and the person page now also sets the tick in the "Allowed to leave immediately" contract option, even if this option was not agreed in the initial contract (how it was showing before).
Because of this, everyone is advised to check their contracts to make sure that nobody forgot that they allowed their person to leave the team a few seasons ago.

Another change is the job market list now only shows drivers and staff who haven't retired yet. And the division of the team is showing next to the team name.