Java Cultivation Spiral [Release 2g] [CSdev]

[Acidcola]

Are there cheats for this game? I tried messing with Cheat Engine but got nothing

This is a Java game, Java moves stuff in the memory around, and looking into the file after decompiling it shows that most values are BigInteger which is an Object, not a value, so CE won't be able to do anything. To tinker with it you have to use recaf, which is a Java decompiler.

So far I was able to get dreamings to turn into 1.4M MOL (so Focus multiplier can be upped to 2.0 and Stamina multiplier can be upped to 10 stamina per point), and found where the Stamina is deduced, so was able to freeze it, but that borks the game's logic as you can't change stances to those that require Stamina to be above or below 100.

But my machine is a potato, some of the changes make the game so slow that I am going to stick around to playing normal, after getting that 1.4M MOL headstart. :-D

 

[TheToadEmperor]

I guess people topping my high score is gonna have to wait till the HoF bugfixes. I can't imagine climbing the ladder without using instructions.txt every 20 days or so.

Some things I would like to see(after bugfixes)

I'd like for Instructions.txt to list the MoL earned in the loop.

When verifying a save, since you're going through the whole run anyways I think it'd be useful to be able to select an end date within the loop. There could be a dialog that asks what day to end on, with the default being the current day.
Possibly also have the ability to end in an earlier loop to make changing HoF runs easier, though I think this is less important.

I'd like to be able to change the frequency of auto-saves. I know at lower loop counts I'd just completely disable them aside from looply if the above was implemented, and at higher loop counts I'd still reduce it to save on disk space.

 

[TofuCircle]

I'm wondering how many MOL upgrades are worth a manual loop. Like

- Buy 1 upgrade
- 1 hour finetuning a manual loop
- increase total MOL by 10

But that 1 hour could've been spent autoing 3-4 loops, which would be 6k-8k MOL for me. So the increased MOL wouldn't be worth it, and wouldn't pay for itself without a few thousand loops. Also not all upgrades are created equal

Does anyone know if the issue with jet being inconsistent has been fixed on patreon yet?

 

[CSdev]

I have finished a loop. The new scenes are very nice. We might have to do a side quest to become a therapist for Tanaka

Jet is useful but... inconsistent. Thanks to jet I've increased my 100 day loop MOL gain by 104 (2,132 > 2,236). Thanks to Ruler(?) bugging out I immediately lose 98 MOL if even a single day is auto-ed. So yay for +6 MOL gain! I've attached the save

Days - If Jet works

42 - yes
48 - yes
50 - yes
54 - no

57 - yes
59 - yes
61 - no

64 - yes
66 - yes
68 - no

71 - yes
73 - yes
75 - no

78 - yes
82 - no

88 - yes

...do the days for when jet works change based off other factors like the computer running the game? The only other possible difference I can think of is that I have the game's background set to black all the time

I'm wondering how many MOL upgrades are worth a manual loop. Like

- Buy 1 upgrade
- 1 hour finetuning a manual loop
- increase total MOL by 10

But that 1 hour could've been spent autoing 3-4 loops, which would be 6k-8k MOL for me. So the increased MOL wouldn't be worth it, and wouldn't pay for itself without a few thousand loops. Also not all upgrades are created equal

Does anyone know if the issue with jet being inconsistent has been fixed on patreon yet?

It turns out that the bug which was causing trouble with travel between cities was in fact related to the background-changing code! I only just isolated it during my playtesting, so it's not fixed in the patron version yet.

Weird thing that happened to me: I could challenge paladin and win using syndicate clothes once, then later I couldnt do it anymore... I didnt expect this to be a bug (at the time I thought, this must be one of tanaka`s goals)
Do you want the save?

If you have a save where you can complete one of Paladin's goals while wearing the Syndicate uniform, then I'd definitely like to see it.

I guess people topping my high score is gonna have to wait till the HoF bugfixes. I can't imagine climbing the ladder without using instructions.txt every 20 days or so.

Some things I would like to see(after bugfixes)

I'd like for Instructions.txt to list the MoL earned in the loop.

When verifying a save, since you're going through the whole run anyways I think it'd be useful to be able to select an end date within the loop. There could be a dialog that asks what day to end on, with the default being the current day.
Possibly also have the ability to end in an earlier loop to make changing HoF runs easier, though I think this is less important.

I'd like to be able to change the frequency of auto-saves. I know at lower loop counts I'd just completely disable them aside from looply if the above was implemented, and at higher loop counts I'd still reduce it to save on disk space.

The HoF feature should be working properly again in the next release. In my testing of the development version, the game verifies and generates the instructions.txt file in less than a minute (it'll probably be hard to get much faster than this, since it involves replaying your entire playthrough). Adding more info to the instructions.txt is also something I plan on doing this month. A dialog box which lets you specify an end loop and day is a good idea.

Disk space should be much less of an issue in the coming release. In the development version, the game now separates your save file into one file with game state and action sequence (which is generally a couple hundred KB) and a larger text archive which contains your saved scenes and action variants (but which the game doesn't need to read or write to nearly as often). There's also an option to ask the game to throw out your action sequence (which is toggled on automatically for runs with 100+ loops), and this causes the main save file to drop below 100 KB.

 

[TofuCircle]

It turns out that the bug which was causing trouble with travel between cities was in fact related to the background-changing code! I only just isolated it during my playtesting, so it's not fixed in the patron version yet.

Nice!! Will the fix also be uploaded here when it's done? Since Jet is already released, and honestly doing a manual loop is scary since it means I'll have to make and load saves another 50ish times if I improve my loop and start traveling earlier

Also I bugged out Jackal during this manual loop (I did not have game autoing in background)
Worked together with her on Skidrow (the option that gives Finances, not Wetworks). Completed goal Form a more personal relationship
Halfway through the scene, auto stopped working on a blank page. Clicking forward leads to Jackal disappearing and more blank pages until the scene ends

Spoiler: Images

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[NilTide]

Are there any other games like this? Not even necessarily H-games, but just any other games focused around this particular set of mechanics: An incremental, non-idle, time/resource management game with turn or menu-based gameplay and progress centered on ascension upgrades. Most incremental games lean far too heavily towards idle gameplay for my tastes, and those that don't are generally either too short or have action-focused rather than strategic gameplay. There are lots of turn or menu-based roguelites, but they almost all focus on unlocking new options for future runs, not powering up a single repeating run.

This game scratches such an incredibly specific itch for me, and I cannot find anything else to fill the void between major updates. The closest is maybe something like Darkest Dungeon, but I just don't enjoy that game's combat systems.

 

[roboflyer24]

Are there any other games like this? Not even necessarily H-games, but just any other games focused around this particular set of mechanics: An incremental, non-idle, time/resource management game with turn or menu-based gameplay and progress centered on ascension upgrades. Most incremental games lean far too heavily towards idle gameplay for my tastes, and those that don't are generally either too short or have action-focused rather than strategic gameplay. There are lots of turn or menu-based roguelites, but they almost all focus on unlocking new options for future runs, not powering up a single repeating run.

This game scratches such an incredibly specific itch for me, and I cannot find anything else to fill the void between major updates. The closest is maybe something like Darkest Dungeon, but I just don't enjoy that game's combat systems.

The game that I think best fulfills that criteria is

You must be registered to see the links

, which is a non-idle time loop incremental that is also heavily story based (though the upgrades are focused primarily on incremental skill upgrades that make you perform an action faster, rather than prestige upgrades). Personally my favorite time-management focused incremental is

You must be registered to see the links

, but it is heavily idle so I don't necessarily expect it's what you want.

 

[NilTide]

The game that I think best fulfills that criteria is

You must be registered to see the links

, which is a non-idle time loop incremental that is also heavily story based (though the upgrades are focused primarily on incremental skill upgrades that make you perform an action faster, rather than prestige upgrades). Personally my favorite time-management focused incremental is

You must be registered to see the links

, but it is heavily idle so I don't necessarily expect it's what you want.

Fantastic recommendation, thank you. Certainly a different flavor than Cultivation Spiral, but it's hitting the right spot so far. Course as it's also in development, I expect I'll burn through it too fast and crash into a wall, but gonna enjoy the ride while it lasts.

 

[GammaXai]

Fantastic recommendation, thank you. Certainly a different flavor than Cultivation Spiral, but it's hitting the right spot so far. Course as it's also in development, I expect I'll burn through it too fast and crash into a wall, but gonna enjoy the ride while it lasts.

Love Terraformental, Idle loops was fun for one prestige which was a pretty long time.

You must be registered to see the links

might tick some of the boxes in a roundabout way

 

[TofuCircle]

If any one of you start considering refunding impatience upgrades to buy drive / intelligence / magnetism upgrades or whatever... Don't. Absolutely terrible idea that wrecks the whole loop and needed me to rearrange everything for 2 days only to get +4 total MOL

Romance routes probably need variants. This one doesn't account for me bouncing back and forth for Ruler feats since day 47. It acts like this is the first time I've returned

Edit: Also it bugs auto. Scene doesn't show up when autoing, but it still forces auto to stop on the day scene 1 should've triggered. Same for scene 2

Spoiler: Hashimoto romance route scene 1

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[TofuCircle]

Anyone know what's in ver 2g?

 

[random_hypothesis]

Anyone know what's in ver 2g?

Off hand? Nope. But kinda moot point since we will get 2g in 4 days. I imagine more extended content and events. I did read earlier that CSDEV had found a way to fix the bloat from many cycles and make the save system run smoother with it. They might be implementing that overhaul in G.

Edit: This post above. I can't believe I forgot. https://f95zone.to/threads/cultivation-spiral-release-2f-justice-csdev.239086/post-18979713

 

[CSdev]

Nice!! Will the fix also be uploaded here when it's done? Since Jet is already released, and honestly doing a manual loop is scary since it means I'll have to make and load saves another 50ish times if I improve my loop and start traveling earlier

Also I bugged out Jackal during this manual loop (I did not have game autoing in background)
Worked together with her on Skidrow (the option that gives Finances, not Wetworks). Completed goal Form a more personal relationship
Halfway through the scene, auto stopped working on a blank page. Clicking forward leads to Jackal disappearing and more blank pages until the scene ends

Spoiler: Images

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The R2g I just uploaded is the same one that patrons got a month ago. Thanks for the heads up regarding the Jackal scene, though! This isn't actually a bug in the code - it's just a dialogue variant depending on Tanaka's status which I forgot to write. I'll make sure to fill this in, next time I go back and write more scene variants (which is going to be very soon, since R2i is going to involve a lot of that).

The game that I think best fulfills that criteria is

You must be registered to see the links

, which is a non-idle time loop incremental that is also heavily story based (though the upgrades are focused primarily on incremental skill upgrades that make you perform an action faster, rather than prestige upgrades). Personally my favorite time-management focused incremental is

You must be registered to see the links

, but it is heavily idle so I don't necessarily expect it's what you want.

Love Terraformental, Idle loops was fun for one prestige which was a pretty long time.

You must be registered to see the links

might tick some of the boxes in a roundabout way

I also appreciate the recommendations! I have a pretty firm idea of the mechanics for the rest of Cultivation Spiral, but I always enjoy looking at other incremental games and seeing if I can glean anything from them.

I can also say a little bit about the gameplay inspirations for this game. One major influence was Groundhog Life, which is sadly unfinished. I think it's intended to be played more as an idle game, but it's deep enough that pausing the game very frequently in order to optimize your route is rewarded.

Trimps was another major influence. However, a lot of the later content is balanced around leaving the game running for long periods without player interaction.

If any one of you start considering refunding impatience upgrades to buy drive / intelligence / magnetism upgrades or whatever... Don't. Absolutely terrible idea that wrecks the whole loop and needed me to rearrange everything for 2 days only to get +4 total MOL

Romance routes probably need variants. This one doesn't account for me bouncing back and forth for Ruler feats since day 47. It acts like this is the first time I've returned

Edit: Also it bugs auto. Scene doesn't show up when autoing, but it still forces auto to stop on the day scene 1 should've triggered. Same for scene 2

Spoiler: Hashimoto romance route scene 1

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You're right that the College Town romance scenes could probably use a few more variants now. But if the romance scenes are disrupting your auto runs, I'd recommend turning them off in the gender settings. You can always turn them on again later if you want to.

Anyway, Release 2g has just now been released to the public! Here's the update post.

The main feature of this update is the introductory scene of Tanaka's romance route in the Metropolis. Players who are interested in checking it out should spend plenty of time with her in the College Town, then meet up with her again in the Metropolis and focus on completing her 'mission' without getting involved with Lancia at all. Someday, Tanaka will get a separate route for if you manage to keep her in the College Town, but that's still a ways off.

Players who don't care for Tanaka should also be pretty happy with this update, because it's now possible to go through the Metropolis storyline without Tanaka's involvement. This entails spending time at DuMont's country club until you learn about a job opportunity at the Metropolis. The already-existing goals there now have full scenes for when you complete them, and there's now a completely new goal connected to that job which will put the player in contact with Lancia and kick off the regular storyline.

When meeting Lancia through the Metropolis job, her storyline still has all the same goals and most of the same story beats, but some of the scenes have pretty significant branches to reflect the fact that the protagonist isn't familiar with the Syndicate and doesn't have any reason to fight them. Some of those branches themselves have sub-branches depending on whether the abduction was prevented or whether Tanaka is still in the Metropolis, but without the protagonist's knowledge. They offer some more context regarding things which might be unclear in the "normal" route, so I'd recommend checking them out.

The other main addition is related to preparations for Release 3, but you can still play around with it now. There's now a "Buffs" menu in the Stats section which appears as soon as the player has gained at least 1 level of any buff. The "Master your popularity" goal is the first buff, and the new "Manage your investments" buff has been added to the Metropolis job after meeting Lancia there. This menu allows you to review all your buffs in one place. More buffs will be coming in Release 3.

With this, all the important writing-related loose ends from Release 2 have been tied off, and I'm going to be directing my focus at the coding-related issues. My goal for January is to resolve the save file size issues, since those seem to be causing bugs and bad performance in several places. Notably, is currently takes several minutes to use the "Test" feature for the hall of fame saves, which makes them hard to use. Testing the save involves resolving every single day of the playthrough at once, so it's never going to be super fast, but it can definitely be improved. I have some solutions in mind, and I don't expect it to take the entire month to implement them, so we'll see what else I can finish before the next update.

 

[fenyx]

hey you asked for a save that did it, but I said that after playing a lot of loops, are you interested in it anyway? can you search for the win?
this was in 2f btw

P.D. My bug report is that I won against paladin once by wearing the syndicate uniform

Sorry if Im recalling this wrong, but im sure I had not enought stamina to win normally and with just the armor

 

[TofuCircle]

-Other: It is now possible to work together with Jackal even before the day of the abduction.

YES!!

Also, does the game still freeze if I unlock generous day 4?

Edit: It works!!
Edit 2: Generous day 4 is useless to me. It postpones me getting focus lvl 1 by 2 days. Because I have Drive lvl 43, those 2 extra days of having focus 1 is worth more than unlocking generous 7 days early

 

[fenyx]

I can confirm that if, if you have enought power to eventually trivialize a fight with paladin, if you wear the syndicate clothes , at the very least the game will tell you you can complete the objetive, but it will not make it complete.

I also remember defeating her once and yet i cant replicate it