0.23a: For Science (Alpha) now available for Brothel Owners!

This was one of the longest updates so far (I had to skip town for a couple weeks). Thanks for waiting so patiently! This version adds a tech tree, a new room, some new content in a lot of systems, and some bugfixes.

Downloads:

Windows 

Mac OS 

Linux (I've heard people say that the Windows version with Wine is more stable, but here you go anyway)

Changelog:

Tech Tree

The station upgrade selector has been replaced with a full tech tree, which will allow you to unlock a ton of stuff across most of the game's subsystems. You may notice that a lot of furniture you're used to can no longer be built without researching it first. The early game was a little too fast. This slows it down a bit.

There are 40 technologies in all, which are separated into four branches:

• Warfare is the most straightforward, and contains ships and their upgrades. In addition to unlocking the more advanced ships you know and love, it also contains upgrades for their systems, which can do things like reduce the probability of damage or increase attack power.
• Biology is mostly focused on modifying your slaves, and unlocks things like the surgery center and planetwide genetic modification.
• Neuroscience is focused on modifying mental states, and contains things like training implants and the new propaganda station.
• Physics is a grab-bag of advanced projects, ranging from the xeno arena to the new warp gate, which allows your ships to travel instantly.

Technologies can be acquired in a couple of ways. They can be researched by slave scientists at the new laboratory room, or, if you find certain VIP's, you can interrogate them for their knowledge. There are three new event chains for special slaves that can unlock top-tier technologies without the need for time-consuming research (at the cost of their sanity, most of the time).

The Laboratory

The laboratory is a brand new room that contains the workbench furniture, as well as the medical devices (surgery center, growth vats, serum fabricator, etc) from the slave quarters. Obedient slaves can be assigned here to research new technologies. Their effectiveness is driven by their intelligence.

Added planet upgrades: 

There are two new planet upgrades, both unlocked by research.

• Strip mines grant massive income at the cost of the planet's ecology
• State media will give you a significant boost of obedience over time

Added furniture:

• The Propaganda Center (in the lobby) will boost your reputation and influence over time
• The workbench will allow your slaves to do research
• The AI Workbench will double research output from your slaves.

Other Changes/Bugfixes

• The porn studio now properly triggers sex between slaves, so you can use it to breed your slaves together (if you don't want this, make sure to sterilize your porn stars or make them all one gender).
• Fixed some intermittent issues that prevented furniture from being placed properly when clicking on the station floor
• Changed graphics of the growth vat, advanced growth vat, autodoc, and surgery center to match the rest of the laboratory
• Fixed a bug that caused the game to lock up strangely when certain events (particularly Cryo Pods) were triggered (Discord users will know this as the "Man Tits" bug)
• Fixed a bug that caused twin/triplet/etc pregnancies to revert to single pregnancy when the game was slaved and loaded
• Added a new event chain specifically for stupid slaves assigned to the laboratory (my new favorite slave event)
• Halved ship repair costs to make them more reasonable
• Fixed a bug that caused the ticker to render in front of some modal dialogs
• Removed old station upgrade system
• Fixed a few typos in events
• Slaves will no longer path through space when rooms are deleted
• Slaves will no longer get stuck in corners when they can't find a path (they will now just teleport as they did before)

Still on the list

I haven't gotten into the changes to the slave markets yet, but that's job one for the final version of 0.23. I'm going to be altering the interface slightly to make it a bit more consistent with the rest of the game's UI, and I'm going to lock some of the better markets behind a reputation threshold. 

There will be a few new planet upgrades that can be unlocked by conquering the major factions.

There are also numerous little experiments I'm playing with now that the core functionality of the tech tree is done. None of those are ready for prime-time yet, but at least one or two of them should end up in 0.23 final.