Lab Rats 2 - Down to Business (v0.49.1, 2/8/2022)

[dannub]

Three players, but yes, Vren is a leech dragging out the production for the sake of patreon money. There's a thread on F95 for the game that also includes a modded version that includes a lot of new content (not by Vren, but who cares) and a lot of bug fixes that he hasn't bothered to implement. So I'd recommend trying that out.

[MaxTheDark]

not by Vren, but who cares

Me! I do! I care! Because if it's by someone else, it might actually be good!

And thanks for letting me know about F95. Heard of them before but the website was lost to my memory. Think I'm just gonna move there...

[MaxTheDark]

I don't like posting double (as you can see above I prefer to just edit my previous post) but I really wanted to bring your attention to the fact that Vren released a hotfix patch:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/v0-39-2-patch-49889162

Credit where it's due, at least he fixed it. He still sucks IMHO.

[RunningAroundInCircles]

Three players, but yes, Vren is a leech dragging out the production for the sake of patreon money. There's a thread on F95 for the game that also includes a modded version that includes a lot of new content (not by Vren, but who cares) and a lot of bug fixes that he hasn't bothered to implement. So I'd recommend trying that out.

... This isn't Lab Rats anymore...
It has content, basic game functions that should have been there from the beginning AND it's balanced...
It actually plays like a game

[MaxTheDark]

Holy shitballs guys, I've just tried out this bad boy and I haven't even progressed a single stage of the day and I already know I'm gonna be playing this one A LOT. Thank you SO MUCH dannub for mentioning F95!

[EDIT]
So I've been 'testing' it for the last 3 hours and I gotta say, I do indeed like it Although a little problem with rollbacks, seems like the modder messed around with em.

[MiscChaos]

OK, I understand your frustration with a content creator that doesn't seem to respond to anything and that you seem to disagree with the direction their project is taking, but I'll have to ask you to cool it with the name calling and vitrolic. That kind of behavior has no place here.

On the other hand, Vren, from what I am seeing, you are not interacting with your community here at all. It doesn't even appear you're looking at the comments. Yes, the behavior I'm seeing is not great, but it also would not have gotten this far if it had been addressed at all. Your current approach would fall under advertisement and would be a bannable offense. Please attempt to make steps to fix this."

[MaxTheDark]

OK, I understand your frustration with a content creator that doesn't seem to respond to anything and that you seem to disagree with the direction their project is taking, but I'll have to ask you to cool it with the name calling and vitrolic. That kind of behavior has no place here.

On the other hand, Vren, from what I am seeing, you are not interacting with your community here at all. It doesn't even appear you're looking at the comments. Yes, the behavior I'm seeing is not great, but it also would not have gotten this far if it had been addressed at all. Your current approach would fall under advertisement and would be a bannable offense. Please attempt to make steps to fix this."

I appreciate how you recognize that while our behaviour might not be appropriate but still see it wouldn't have come to this if Vren was more responsive. Gotta admit, I lost my cool after 0.39 release, and to you, I apologize for my behaviour. Not apologizing to Vren however, he can still (...).

At the same time, if Vren was active enough to see your message about him advertising, he would have most likely engaged with us long before it's gotten this far. I've even sent him a bug report via PM (all polite, no worries) and he didn't respond. I suspect you have to send him an e-mail to make him pay attention. And judging by what I've seen, he's probably just going to ignore it and move on. And the fact that he created a bugfix and didn't post here about it just proves my point.

[RunningAroundInCircles]

OK, I understand your frustration with a content creator that doesn't seem to respond to anything and that you seem to disagree with the direction their project is taking, but I'll have to ask you to cool it with the name calling and vitrolic. That kind of behavior has no place here.

On the other hand, Vren, from what I am seeing, you are not interacting with your community here at all. It doesn't even appear you're looking at the comments. Yes, the behavior I'm seeing is not great, but it also would not have gotten this far if it had been addressed at all. Your current approach would fall under advertisement and would be a bannable offense. Please attempt to make steps to fix this."

I would like to appologize for getting this heated up as well. Though I'd like to point out, that I never said anything about Vren, only about the contents of his game as anything beyond that would be speculation and I like to assume the best about people.

If he doesn't change his behavior by his posts next month, which is likely the next time he'll visit this thread, you might consider blocking it to make him pay attention.

[MiscChaos]

OK, I understand your frustration with a content creator that doesn't seem to respond to anything and that you seem to disagree with the direction their project is taking, but I'll have to ask you to cool it with the name calling and vitrolic. That kind of behavior has no place here.

On the other hand, Vren, from what I am seeing, you are not interacting with your community here at all. It doesn't even appear you're looking at the comments. Yes, the behavior I'm seeing is not great, but it also would not have gotten this far if it had been addressed at all. Your current approach would fall under advertisement and would be a bannable offense. Please attempt to make steps to fix this."

I would like to appologize for getting this heated up as well. Though I'd like to point out, that I never said anything about Vren, only about the contents of his game as anything beyond that would be speculation and I like to assume the best about people.

If he doesn't change his behavior by his posts next month, which is likely the next time he'll visit this thread, you might consider blocking it to make him pay attention.

That is the plan, yes. First step is to reach out here. Next step would be to reach out via DMs if this doesn't work, then after that an email. If none of those methods work then I would lock the topic for violating forum policy

[dannub]

I'm glad this got the attention of those higher on the food chain than me, and I also apologize if I got too heated. It's in part due to lack of response from Vren and also because I actually gave feedback previously in this thread. I commented on what was good and what needed fixing, but as noted, Vren doesn't interact with us. Or seem to take any feedback, considering the direction of the game. So I hope this is a wake-up call for him, because I'd much rather see things improve than him kicked out.

[vrengames]

OK, I understand your frustration with a content creator that doesn't seem to respond to anything and that you seem to disagree with the direction their project is taking, but I'll have to ask you to cool it with the name calling and vitrolic. That kind of behavior has no place here.

On the other hand, Vren, from what I am seeing, you are not interacting with your community here at all. It doesn't even appear you're looking at the comments. Yes, the behavior I'm seeing is not great, but it also would not have gotten this far if it had been addressed at all. Your current approach would fall under advertisement and would be a bannable offense. Please attempt to make steps to fix this."

Understood, and I'll make an effort to post more and response more actively to questions and problems. All of my development logs on Patreon are public and I try and address things there when I have the time, but I understand that that doesn't look good for my participation/activities on this forum. Would it be acceptable to link relevant dev posts in this forum (to link to a long post about a new mechanic, as a potential example), or should I aim to keep interactions here purely on a person-to-person basis?

I guess just as a blanket reminder for people passing through here: Lab Rats 2 is a project that I'm developing and distributing completely for free, right down to giving the rights to the code away*. I hope that buys me a fair bit of good will and keeps the pitch forks and torches at bay. Can't we all unite over a shared hatred of EA's loot boxes or something instead?

*Minus the ability to take it and resell it or strip it of original credit.

I'm nothing if not predictable apparently; I am indeed checking in here to post that v0.40.0 is out for patron bug testing. The update focuses almost exclusively on implementing unit testing and integration testing suites to try and address the stability issues that have plagued the last few versions. The public release will be next week, but here's a changelog if you're curious:
v0.39.3 to v0.40.0

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

*CHANGES AND ADDITIONS*
- Added Unit Testing framework.
- Updated Room definitions to contain more default arguments. Now only requires a name definition.
- add_employee functions now set work schedule automatically instead of requiring it to be set seperately.
- add_employee functions now apply the employee_role themselves.
- Renamed room variable formalName to formal_name to match naming convention in rest of LR2.
- Girls max energy may now become negative. Prevents issues with minimum values when multiple serums are applied.
- Added Integration Testing framework.
- Added unit tests. 128 initial unit tests added.
- Added integration tests. 12 integration tests added.
- Added Gabrielle LTE triggered when visiting her in her room.
- Added Rebecca LTE triggered when visiting her apartment when she is home alone.
- Added ability to explroe Jennifers room.
- Tidied up Room definitions for standard locations.
- Extended integration testing framework to include support for integration tests for mods.

*BUG FIXES*
- Fixed novelty score not being modified for girls, despite being reported as doing so.
- Fixed focus debt incorrectly interacting with reducing debt.
- Fixed novelty score becoming extremely positive if a large negative number was subtracted.
- Fixed primary speaker in group conversations not being updated when changed at the same time as someone was removed.
- Fixed skip_condom flag not being respected in some encounters.
- Fixed Cowgirl outro not providing proper Clarity release.
- Fixed several crashes during Lily's Instapic events.
- Fixed several issues with existing Instapic, DikDok, and OnlyFanatics content.

[RunningAroundInCircles]

It boils down to a lingering frustration with your progress.
While I do understand, that you want to have all the systems in place so you can work with them, the game tends to get less and less enjoyable with every update because of the unfinished nature of the content to each of these. Pair that with your complete lack of responsiveness and that's what lead to the situation.

I don't think you need to get into one on one talks with everyone here, but acknowledging our existing and responding, even if with just a single sentence or a link to the relevant post would be greatly appreciated.

I also think, that you should start to at least continue some of the content to actually utilize your frameworks. (Intapic and what not) This game is meant to be played while in developement after all and poking around a skelleton isn't all that fun.

[MiscChaos]

OK, I understand your frustration with a content creator that doesn't seem to respond to anything and that you seem to disagree with the direction their project is taking, but I'll have to ask you to cool it with the name calling and vitrolic. That kind of behavior has no place here.

On the other hand, Vren, from what I am seeing, you are not interacting with your community here at all. It doesn't even appear you're looking at the comments. Yes, the behavior I'm seeing is not great, but it also would not have gotten this far if it had been addressed at all. Your current approach would fall under advertisement and would be a bannable offense. Please attempt to make steps to fix this."

Understood, and I'll make an effort to post more and response more actively to questions and problems. All of my development logs on Patreon are public and I try and address things there when I have the time, but I understand that that doesn't look good for my participation/activities on this forum. Would it be acceptable to link relevant dev posts in this forum (to link to a long post about a new mechanic, as a potential example), or should I aim to keep interactions here purely on a person-to-person basis?

Little bit of A, little bit of B. We don't mind you linking back to your Patreon when it's relevant, but the main sticking point here is not interacting with the community here. You don't even have to address them as they come. A long post gathering all of them into one when you post an update will do, just so long as there's some interaction with the people.

[Cromulence]

I guess I'm lazy. I was happy lurking-- finding content on these forums but never registering or replying-- out of laziness. I've enjoyed vrengames's work, though, and the level of rudeness I've seen against vrengames is wrong.

I have lots of other thoughts (good and bad) about the development of Labrats2, but I guess those were never important enough to me to make me register an account here and say them.

Maybe my (and people like me's) indifference is part of the problem? I've seen a mixed bag of criticisms in this thread-- some are even-handed, while others are self-entitled and/or rude. Maybe there's a whole army of lurkers like me who, if we'd bothered to register, would have overwhelmed the rude posts with something more even-handed. I dunno.

The bottom line is that I want Vren to know that I'm grateful for their work. I like seeing even-handed criticisms. I saw enough rude criticism that I registered to say all this.

[vrengames]

It boils down to a lingering frustration with your progress.
While I do understand, that you want to have all the systems in place so you can work with them, the game tends to get less and less enjoyable with every update because of the unfinished nature of the content to each of these. Pair that with your complete lack of responsiveness and that's what lead to the situation.

I don't think you need to get into one on one talks with everyone here, but acknowledging our existing and responding, even if with just a single sentence or a link to the relevant post would be greatly appreciated.

I also think, that you should start to at least continue some of the content to actually utilize your frameworks. (Intapic and what not) This game is meant to be played while in developement after all and poking around a skelleton isn't all that fun.

That's a fair take on everything. I'm generally reluctant to develop content too deeply for systems because it A) might need to be changed in the future or ripped out entirely and B) is waiting on some other related system to be implemented. Lily's original instapic stuff, for example, needed to be modified to properly integrate in with the more general system. That takes time, which could have been spent developing something else. So it's a balancing act between how much playable content there is today vs how much content I could make in the future once more core systems are in place. I hope that at least explains the thought process a bit.

[vrengames]

Lab Rats 2 v0.40.1 is Live! You can find the most up to date download links here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/lab-rats-2-v0-40-51010157

Lab Rats 2 v0.40.1 is finished it's week of bug testing by patrons and ready for it's public release! This update focuses on improving the stability and maintainability of the LR2 code base. It introduces a unit testing framework along with a suite of fully automated unit tests. These tests will help catch the majority of bugs before a version is released and ensure a smoother gameplay experience. An integration testing framework has also been added, which should mean more progress breaking bugs caught during development rather than in your long running game! The unit and integration testing frameworks support additional tests being added by modders, so they can ensure their additions are being tested as well. In total 129 unit tests and 12 integration tests have been added. Future bug fixes will include the creation of additional tests to prevent similar bugs from reappearing later in development.

It didn't feel right to turn out a new LR2 update without including a little bit of player facing content, so I have also written two new random events - one for Gabrielle and one for her mother Rebecca. These events can be triggered at their apartment throughout the game, with varying results depending on their stats. I have also added a new "explore" option for Jennifer's room as an experiment before potentially adding similar events for all characters.

This update should go a long way to solving the general bugginess that has plagued development recently. Enjoy!
Changelog (v0.39.3 to v0.40.1):

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

*CHANGES AND ADDITIONS*
- Added Unit Testing framework.
- Updated Room definitions to contain more default arguments. Now only requires a name definition.
- add_employee functions now set work schedule automatically instead of requiring it to be set seperately.
- add_employee functions now apply the employee_role themselves.
- Renamed room variable formalName to formal_name to match naming convention in rest of LR2.
- Girls max energy may now become negative. Prevents issues with minimum values when multiple serums are applied.
- Added Integration Testing framework.
- Added unit tests. 128 initial unit tests added.
- Added integration tests. 12 integration tests added.
- Added Gabrielle LTE triggered when visiting her in her room.
- Added Rebecca LTE triggered when visiting her apartment when she is home alone.
- Added ability to explroe Jennifers room.
- Tidied up Room definitions for standard locations.
- Extended integration testing framework to include support for integration tests for mods.
- Girls now stop asking if they should strip while having sex after you tell them no the first time.

*BUG FIXES*
- Fixed novelty score not being modified for girls, despite being reported as doing so.
- Fixed focus debt incorrectly interacting with reducing debt.
- Fixed novelty score becoming extremely positive if a large negative number was subtracted.
- Fixed primary speaker in group conversations not being updated when changed at the same time as someone was removed.
- Fixed skip_condom flag not being respected in some encounters.
- Fixed Cowgirl outro not providing proper Clarity release.
- Fixed several crashes during Lily's Instapic events.
- Fixed several issues with existing Instapic, DikDok, and OnlyFanatics content.
- Fixed girl arousal gains not displaying properly when total arousal was less than 20.
- Fixed bug causing girls not to get redressed when judging their outfits.
- Fixed bug with Alexia's free purchase of advertising_license_policy not toggling the policy on by default.
- Company model must now be from the marketing department.
- Fixed crash in company model event.

[MaxTheDark]

I'm just gonna drop in and say that after discovering the modded v0.38 I've completely lost interest in your updates. Vanilla feels like less than a demo when compared to the modded one. And v0.39 and v0.40, even with mods, are just too messy (the clarity mechanic) to bother with.

Funny thing is, had vren been more responsive on the forum, I would have probably never been made aware of the mods in the first place.

[Lelantus]

I honestly think that the game is interestingly coded, and sifting through the rpy files has been quite instructive. Most people probably don't rehash what they like about the game because it's been said before and is old enough that bringing it up starts to feel like parroting. So while I know it seems like the game has a lot of negativity, I'd ask that you keep in mind that people do like the game, and many frustrations come from the potential that people see in it.

That said, I'm going to follow this up with personal criticisms. I think the Clarity mechanic is a solution searching for a problem. It's existence appears to be both a joke about "post-nut clarity" and an artificial method of throttling player progress, making early game hell even worse than the original for no discernible reason. I do understand the Tolerance stat, and it doesn't really affect me much since I end up using a single serum for everything anyway...

It boils down to a lingering frustration with your progress.
While I do understand, that you want to have all the systems in place so you can work with them, the game tends to get less and less enjoyable with every update because of the unfinished nature of the content to each of these. Pair that with your complete lack of responsiveness and that's what lead to the situation.

I don't think you need to get into one on one talks with everyone here, but acknowledging our existing and responding, even if with just a single sentence or a link to the relevant post would be greatly appreciated.

I also think, that you should start to at least continue some of the content to actually utilize your frameworks. (Intapic and what not) This game is meant to be played while in developement after all and poking around a skelleton isn't all that fun.

That's a fair take on everything. I'm generally reluctant to develop content too deeply for systems because it A) might need to be changed in the future or ripped out entirely and B) is waiting on some other related system to be implemented. Lily's original instapic stuff, for example, needed to be modified to properly integrate in with the more general system. That takes time, which could have been spent developing something else. So it's a balancing act between how much playable content there is today vs how much content I could make in the future once more core systems are in place. I hope that at least explains the thought process a bit.

This actually brings me to a question I've wanted to ask for a while. Is there a roadmap somewhere that details what core systems you want to add and in what order you're looking to develop the game? I don't think anyone needs concrete dates, but knowing that you are planning to develop content further, what content is being planned, and understanding the scope of your project would probably go a long way to assuaging a lot of concerns.

[vrengames]

This actually brings me to a question I've wanted to ask for a while. Is there a roadmap somewhere that details what core systems you want to add and in what order you're looking to develop the game? I don't think anyone needs concrete dates, but knowing that you are planning to develop content further, what content is being planned, and understanding the scope of your project would probably go a long way to assuaging a lot of concerns.

I haven't put out an official roadmap in a while now, you're right that it's something I should get around to. The key major features that the game is waiting on at the moment are: A rival company, threesome support, a training/leveling system for girls, and a more detailed leveling system for the MC. Once all of those are in place development can shift to purely adding new content (unique storylines, more variance in the procedurally generated stuff, more serum traits, ect.)

For anyone interested in giving more official input into how LR2 is being developed there's currently a poll up for patrons to vote on what new content should be added in the next update. You can check it out here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/v0-41-focus-poll-51312125

[MaxTheDark]

A rival company, threesome support, a training/leveling system for girls, and a more detailed leveling system for the MC. Once all of those are in place development can shift to purely adding new content (unique storylines, more variance in the procedurally generated stuff, more serum traits, ect.)

Out of curiosity, wouldn't it be legal for you to just use the code modders used to implement the threesome already? It works really well.