Airships: Conquer the Skies
The Shellwalker
[previewyoutube="CPaW2Wqd6pE;full"]
The Shellwalker, a biomechanical abomination. Once he is able to defeat it, I will add it to the game for everyone to, uh, enjoy.
Version 1.0.11 - Ray Guns!
There's also a new set of AI ship designs that specialize in those ray guns.
For modders, this means you can finally make beam-type weapons, including various options for beam dynamics, custom beam textures, and so on. As always, feel free to ask me for details on how to set this up.
Work on the big diplomacy/conquest/multiplayer update is ongoing.
macOS Catalina Compatibility
If you encounter any issues, please do get in touch.
Addendum: Steam mods should work once again now. Also, if you want to read a long blog post about the Catalina stuff and how to make your own game run on Macs now, here you go.
Version 1.0.10.2
Version 1.0.10 - Tech Tree, Gold Leaf & More
Note that with the new gold leaves, the list of decals is now well and truly overloaded. I will add decal categories for better organisation in the next non-bugfix update.
And there's some under-the-hood stuff that's relevant to modders:
Yes, all of these new features are currently tragically underused in the game. It's just the groundwork for New Stuff. :)
As always, if you want to discuss these changes or the game in general, head to the forums or join our Discord.
Note that there was a checksum problem with the update that has now been fixed.
Version 1.0.9.4
- Improved networking code that can deal with your connection failing and automatically reconnects.
- Planes now lead their shots and are much better at intercepting each other and hitting smaller fast-moving ships.
- Biplanes have a significantly higher rate of climb and descent so they can catch up to torpedo bombers.
- You can now (finally) tell the game to auto-select your preferred screen resolution.
- Rewrote text input code to be smoother. Also now offers some support for writing Chinese/Japanese input methods in Windows, though at the moment you need to play in windowed mode to see the input window.
Tournament!
(Note that the tournament is endorsed by me but administered by a committee of players, who are responsible for tournament rules, referee decisions, etc.)
v1.0.9.3 - Demonstertruckification
- A few more decorative items: ornate name plates, concave curved blocks, more domes, ornate decking, and crenellations.
- Introduced minimal upgrade time for monster nests, so you won't be surprised by pirate kings or elder dragons early in the game on lower difficulties.
- Hitting escape in a confirm dialog in the file screen no longer exits the file screen.
- Demonstertruckification: New spring values for track suspensions (based on work by Yellowminer, thank you), plus larger undercarriage graphics, so landships no longer have quite as ridiculously tall suspensions.
- New setting to reduce flashing caused by shots, explosions, lightning, etc.
- Fixed a bug where a fleet would be incorrectly unable to intercept another.
Version 1.0.9.2 - Balance and Number Stencils
- There is no longer a giant carrot peeking out of hussar bays.
- AI vs AI combat resolution is no longer biased towards fleets of small ships.
- The AI is more likely to build large ships if it can.
- Front/back light cost and price are now the same as top/bottom.
- Added stencilled numbers as decals.
Known issues:
- Unable to input Chinese and Japanese characters.
- Bomber-building AI is still weirdly dominant sometimes.
Version 1.0.9.1
Fixes a number of rare crash bugs during map generation, conquest, and ship editing.
More interesting things to come - in July, I've been busy, overheated, and sick twice, but diplomacy is progressing, if more slowly than planned. (Ugh, I really dislike having to make a "and here's why nothing visible has been happening" post.)
In the meantime, I'd like to tell you about two games by friends of mine that I've been enjoying:
Nowhere Prophet is a game about taking your tribe on a pilgrimage across an alien planet, fighting your way through various enemies in a card-based combat system. I've been playing this a lot, on the lowest difficulty level, while too stupid to code, and it's very satisfying with a lot of options to unlock.
I found out about Merchant of the Skies by seeing cute pixel art of airships on Twitter. I talked the developers into letting me see it a week or so early. It's a game of trading and building up industry in a cute world of floating islands. Also, some turtledoves appear to have flown through a spatial rift and ended up there.