ButcherCraft v0.10.2-alpha.1

Workforce Foundation Update

This release introduces the first Workforce systems to ButcherCraft. Your processing plant is no longer just a collection of machines—employees now exist as persistent members of your business, report to departments, navigate your facility, reserve workstations, and wait for assignments.

While employees do not yet operate machinery, this release lays the complete foundation for future automation while significantly expanding the business simulation.

Added

Workforce Foundation

• Added persistent employee system.
• Added deterministic Employee Identity architecture.
• Added Employment Records that survive save/load.
• Added employee lifecycle states.
• Added employee presence states.
• Added employee inspection.
• Added employee diagnostics.
• Added employee management commands.
• Added employee creation commands.
• Added employee status commands.
• Added employee shift assignment.
• Added employee department assignment.

Departments

• Added Workforce department framework.
• Added Processing Department.
• Added Packaging Department definitions.
• Added Shipping Department definitions.
• Added Office Department definitions.
• Added Maintenance Department definitions.
• Added persistent department anchors.
• Added department diagnostics.

Business Runtime

• Added configurable plant operating hours.
• Added shift definitions.
• Added active shift tracking.
• Added next shift tracking.
• Added plant open/closed state.
• Added Business Runtime diagnostics.

Production

• Added Production deadline foundation.
• Added deadline tracking.
• Added deadline status.
• Added completion timing classification.
• Added Production Order business information.

Navigation

• Added employee department navigation.
• Added workstation reservation system.
• Added workstation operating positions.
• Added workstation approach candidates.
• Added deterministic destination selection.
• Added navigation diagnostics.
• Added navigation recovery.
• Added bounded recovery attempts.
• Added reservation lifecycle management.
• Added safe navigation failure handling.

Improved

Employee Navigation

• Improved long-distance pathfinding.
• Improved alternate route selection.
• Improved arrival positioning.
• Improved workstation facing behavior.
• Improved department idle behavior.
• Improved navigation diagnostics.
• Improved reservation cleanup.
• Improved obstacle recovery.
• Improved movement stability.

Business Simulation

• Improved Business Runtime presentation.
• Improved Production Order information.
• Improved employee inspection.
• Improved department management.

Commands

• Added friendlier employee lookup.
• Improved tab completion.
• Improved department assignment commands.
• Improved diagnostics.

Fixed

Workforce

• Fixed employee inspection localization.
• Fixed employee command lookup.
• Fixed employee tab completion.
• Fixed employee command parsing.
• Fixed employee reservation cleanup.
• Fixed workstation reservation lifecycle.

Navigation

• Fixed navigation acceptance regression.
• Fixed long-distance navigation limitation.
• Fixed path acceptance logic.
• Fixed workstation reservation invalidation.
• Fixed far-side building routing.
• Fixed path-node progress tracking.
• Fixed navigation recovery logic.

Stability

• Fixed command synchronization regression.
• Fixed integrated server login failure.
• Fixed "Invalid player data" disconnect caused by custom command argument synchronization.

Technical

Architecture

• Expanded Workforce architecture.
• Added department ownership model.
• Added workstation reservation architecture.
• Preserved strict subsystem ownership.
• Maintained Execution, Scheduler, Production, and Workforce separation.

Persistence

• Added employee persistence.
• Added department persistence.
• Added workstation reservation persistence.
• Improved deterministic recovery.

Validation

• 178 automated GameTests.
• Expanded regression testing.
• Expanded navigation testing.
• Expanded command synchronization testing.
• Expanded persistence validation.
• Expanded architecture validation.

Current Workforce Capabilities

Employees can now:

• Exist as persistent workers.
• Be created and managed.
• Belong to departments.
• Observe shifts.
• Observe plant operating hours.
• Navigate through your facility.
• Reserve supported workstations.
• Wait at their assigned workstation.
• Return to their department.
• Recover from navigation failures.

Employees do not yet:

• Operate machinery.
• Move products.
• Claim Production jobs.
• Transport inventory.
• Perform automated production.

Those capabilities are planned for future Workforce milestones.

Looking Ahead

The next major milestone will focus on allowing employees to operate existing workstations through the same deterministic Execution pipeline used by the player, bringing ButcherCraft one step closer to a fully functioning automated meat processing plant.