daredloco / sincultimate

Ultimate Difficulty mod for Software Inc

SincUltimate

No matter how hard CoreDumping will try, Impossible will never a great enough challenge. That's where Ultimate Difficulty comes in! You start out 30k in debt and half to crawl your way to your first product without the help of a publisher, without any contracts or deals. Stocks aren't an option either at the start, so you have to be careful with your choices!

What does this mod do?

This mod adds a new difficulty called "Ultimate," and it makes the game a lot harder. Here's what it changes:

• You start with -30k in debt and have a 120k loan automatically applied
• Founders start at 40 years old
• Founders have 65% skill in the character creation screen*
• Founders get half the specialization stars*
• Half the alpha phase bonus*
• Half the employee skill gain bonus*
• Half the press release hype deadline*
• Double the importance of creativity*
• Double the rent cost*
• A tenth of the product reputation factor*
• Double the AI company intelligence*
• 20% more founder dividends*
• Limited the start date to 1980
• Founders are limited to 50% creativity
• Disabled OS development for players until player has 100k fans
• Tax rate is increased to 75%

*Compared to the vanilla impossible difficulty

In all, this mod definitely brings a tough challenge to the game. It might take you many tries to be successful at the start, so we wrote a tutorial down below to help you understand the best tactics to employ with this mod.

Backstory

1976: The year that our company was destroyed by an antitrust lawsuit. Once a behemoth of the software industry, it now remains as a shadow of its former glory. However, you, starting off as an intern 10 or so odd years ago, now stand alone as the only remaining employee. The public drown when they hear your company's name, and the government has done anything in its power to prevent you from making a monopoly again. But you're planning for the long-run, and you're thinking waiting for everyone to forget about the past so you can make a massive comeback. Regardless, there's still lots of debt to be paid, and you can't sit there and wait, so go and make some money!

Tutorial

• Click the Difficulty drop-down menu in the top-right of the character creation screen, then select impossible.
• Since rent is doubled, the garage costs us $4000 a month, which is 12 times more than your own office will cost your ever month, so consider buying your own plot.
• (The mod is definitely subject to change a lot in the coming days, so I won't write much more right now, sorry 😞)

Notes

• Avoid enabling this difficulty mid-game through the options menu, as you may encounter many bugs.
• This mod is definitely work-in-progress, so please report any bugs you encounter here
• If you want to see a feature added to this mod, feel free to write a suggestion here

Credits

• daRedLoCo: Came up with the idea and developed the mod in its entirety
• CF: Made the artwork/description and helped with playtesting/balancing

Steam Workshop

sincultimate's Issues

Harder AI, More Companies, and Fewer Bankruptcies in Game

Feature description:
I would like to request an update to the mod that increases the AI difficulty and raises the maximum number of companies beyond the current limit of 15-20. Specifically, I'd like AI companies to behave more competitively in both software and game development, actively challenging the player rather than falling behind. Additionally, having more than 20 companies would add diversity to the competition, making the in-game market more dynamic.
It would also be great if AI companies could last longer, instead of disappearing or going bankrupt so quickly. In the vanilla game, AI companies tend to collapse within 20 years, leaving the player with little competition toward the late game.

Why do you think we need this feature?
The game, as it currently stands, becomes too easy in the late stages, with AI companies either underperforming or going bankrupt quickly. Enhancing AI difficulty would keep the game more challenging and engaging throughout the entire experience. By having more companies and making AI rivals more resilient, the player would face tougher competition over longer periods, adding more depth and strategy to the gameplay. In addition, the AI rarely poses a real threat, and I often outperform them in every aspect without much effort. This feature would help prevent the player from outpacing AI companies so easily, making the game feel more balanced.

Additional context
I know there was a mod called "Competitive," but it no longer works properly due to bugs and outdated support. A similar update or feature that increases AI competitiveness and prevents them from going bankrupt so quickly would greatly enhance the gameplay experience. If possible, I'd love to help test any new features or updates for future versions of the mod. Additionally, I’d be happy to contribute through a donation or a Steam gift to show my support.

_

(I've used AI to fix my grammatical errors because my English grammar is poor.)

_

Founder creativity tooltip changes

Feature description:
Add a warning to the creativity slider tooltip to let players know that it is limited by Ultimate difficulty.

Vanilla tooltip:
Creativity determines the quality of ideas your founder will generate as a lead designer when developing new products. Creativity is innate and cannot improve with training. It is not recommended to increase this on your first playthrough

Modified tooltip:
<color=#990000><b>Ultimate Difficulty limits founder creativity to 50%.</b></color> Creativity determines the quality of ideas your founder will generate as a lead designer when developing new products. Creativity is innate and cannot improve with training. It is not recommended to increase this on your first playthrough

Why do you think we need this feature?
This would help new players understand why creativity is limited and will maybe reduce the chance of useless bug reports.

Founder age inaccuracy

Describe the bug
A clear and concise description of what the bug is:
Founder starts at 50 years old and not 40

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behaviour:

1. Launch game as normal (blablabla)
2. Open employee window
3. Notice founder is 50 and not 40
4. Become depressed

Expected behaviour
Founder should be 40, not 50.

Screenshots

Software Inc Version:
Beta 1.7.32

Mod Version:
1.2.0

Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

Localization

Feature description:
At the moment, only english localization is provided, we should add other languages.

Why do you think we need this feature?
Because nonenglish speakers would have it way easier

Players can still buy OS from AI companies and use this as exploit

Describe the bug
The player can still buy an OS from an AI or other player and use this as exploit.

To Reproduce
Buy OS from AI or other player

Expected behavior
Players won't be able to buy OS until a certain point ( #10 )

Software Inc Version:
All

Mod Version:
1.1

Character creation screen tooltip additions

Feature description:
Add some tooltips to the start year and loan buttons to make it more clear that they are limited

Loan tooltip:
<color=#990000><b>Ultimate Difficulty</b></color> automatically starts you with a $120,000 loan. If you want to modify it, just get a $30,000+ loan with your desired terms.

Start year tooltip:
<color=#990000><b>Ultimate Difficulty</b></color> forces the player to start in 1980. This is to force the player to go through the beginning of the game paying lots of distribution fees.

Why do you think we need this feature?
This would help new players not get confused and will also perhaps reduce the chance of useless bug reports like with the last suggestion I wrote.

Mod options window changes

Feature description:

There is too much distance between the Debug mode checkbox and the rest of the mod description.
I recommend shrinking the distance, because with the vanilla window size, the checkbox isn't visible without scrolling.

From the top:

Scrolled down:

Instead of playing around with rectangle whatever sizes, I suggest changing the text part to this, which reduces the font sizes and conveniently gives me more credit by putting me beside you ;D
var title = WindowManager.SpawnLabel();
title.text = "<b>Ultimate Difficulty</b>";
title.fontSize = 20;
var author = WindowManager.SpawnLabel();
author.text = "by daRedLoCo and CF";
author.fontSize = 16;
var description = WindowManager.SpawnLabel();
description.text = "Brings a real challenge to Software Inc!";
description.fontSize = 12;

Why do you think we need this feature?
:stonks:

Checkbox in Options to govern Console logging

Feature description:
Checkbox in the Options/Mods/Ultimate Difficulty that disables logging things to console

Why do you think we need this feature?
Not by any means necessary, but would be nice for modder who use the console and need to see stuff easier with less clutter when they have the Ultimate Difficulty mod enabled.

Additional context
1.2.1??

Creativity Changes

Feature description:
Lower the creativity importance to 1f, because low skill means there are no downsides to picking visionary (OR: disable the ability to take inspiring or visionary creativity in the character creation screen)
LoCo: Yes, remove inspiring and visionary for founders

Why do you think we need this feature?
Because of the visionary/inspiring creativity.

Additional context
From CF

Increase loan interest rate

Feature description:
Increase loan interest rate (by like 25% (0.075*0.25, not 0.075+0.25)

Why do you think we need this feature?
Loan interest rates are too low

Additional context
From CF

Put players company shares to public market

Feature description:
Give X% of shares to a random AI company

Why do you think we need this feature?
As the player would start with most of his shares sold to another company, the pressure for him would be enhanced.

Remove OS for players

Feature description:
Remove the option for players to create OS until a certain point.

Why do you think we need this feature?
OS are overpowered products, we should remove them until a certain point so players will have a more difficult time when starting a new game.

Additional context
Not sure what the certain point should be, maybe X amount of copies sold for software products? Open for ideas in the comments.

Remove Stockmarket

Feature description:
Remove or lock the stockmarket. Not the one from the companies, as this should continue, but the one with random stocks.

Why do you think we need this feature?
This would remove one more thing that could be exploited (if RNG is on your side)

Raise prices for furniture

Feature description:
Raise the prices when a player buys furniture. This would make the early game more difficult and will also affect mid/late game, but probably not as much as early game.

Why do you think we need this feature?
Because higher prices would mean higher costs in early game, mid and late game probably not that much, but CF would need to test that.

Additional context
Just an idea for now.

Force start in 1980

Feature description:
Force the player to start in 1980

Why do you think we need this feature?
Because later gamestarts are easier, i guess?

Additional context
From CF

Add localization to mod menu

Feature description:
The mod menu content is english only, make it localizable.

Why do you think we need this feature?
This would help the nonenglish speakers.

Enable OS development after a certain point

Feature description:
Enable OS development after a certain point.

Why do you think we need this feature?
Good players shouldn't be punished in the future.

Additional context
Lets discus what this certain point is.

Founders get tired, etc.

Feature description:
The founders should get tired and such, equal to a common employee

Why do you think we need this feature?
Because the founders at the moment is like a god...

Contrast for Difficulty Title

Feature description:
Make the "Ultimate" title in the difficulty dropdown menu bold and in dark red.

Make it something like this <b><color=#990000>Ultimate</color></b>

The result should look like this:

Why do you think we need this feature?
It will help players distinguish the vanilla difficulties from Ultimate mode.

Raise costs for electricity and water

Feature description:
There could be a modifier to raise the costs for water and electricity, I don't know if its possible and I'd need to test it first.

Why do you think we need this feature?
Higher difficulty, due to higher costs.

Additional context
Just an idea for now, maybe not even possible.