The idea for this is to make different workshops more meaningful -- whether those are your own or belong to an NPC. The system will also force you to specialise your own, up to a point, as you can't have one space being great at everything. There is always general workshop capability, but on top of that, specialisms include electronics, heavy work, chemistry, vehicles, etc.
In fact, whilst the game calls everything a "workshop" for the sake of consistency with the mechanics, really you can think of these are being labs, garages. There are additional things in testing too, such as the ability to install specific machines with their own dedicated mechanics -- 3D printers, PCB printers, etc.
There's also a bit more stuff to do in your workshops, but the emphasis this time has been on the mechanics. There will be a lot more functionality added soon.
Why now?
Apart from workshops being a bit of an old and neglected area of the game, this is actually all to do with the upcoming main mission and hacking content. You'll need to be able to build lots more of your own things for them, so this was a good time to get it all up to scratch.
Changelog
- Workshops now have a cap on their capability.
- – If you've invested heavily in one of your own over the new cap, you'll get some recompense.
- NPC workshops will now trend back towards their default level over time.
- There are a load of new specific workshop capabilities.
- – For NPCs, there are fixed and usually proportionate to the current level,
- – For your own, you'll have to work on them yourself through Workshop maintenance.
- – Actually using specific capabilities is in testing but not yet live.
- New supply packets (in a separate menu) for workshop stuff.
- Various other workshop tweaks and a few more things you can do..
- You can now call in Willow for her first kill on Dead man cares?*
- [i]Bob's Tools has been reorganised.
- Some new stuff to buy.
- New artwork.
- Fixed some typos and minor bugs; thanks for the reports!
