We are thrilled to bring MULTIPLE FLOORS to you on the general release default branch! Building an airport across 5 different floors is truly a game changer and it brings a completely new & unique gameplay experience to SimAirport.
MULTIPLE FLOORS!!! Escalators, Stairs, Moving Walkways, and more!
This single update, known as theMulti-Floors Update, quite literally contains a higher number of features & additions from the "big stuff" category than any update that we've released prior.
Moving walkways are consistently a top request and while it wasn't an easy one to implement, that is indeed what we've done. The ability to build vertically -- to take your airport from the world of constrained simulators, and to instead step into the realm of real-world possibilities -- that has easily been the most desired feature, and one that we've been vocal in our desire to tackle. That's precisely what we've done and we're excited to bring it to you. Tonight we invite you to the next level.
Build your airport with real-world possibilities and reach new heights!
What's Next?
Of course the first question that we hear after releasing any update, including huge updates, is what will be next! It's a great question and it is one that we are excited to answer. We're especially excited to continue our ongoing collaboration with you, the community, and in order to better facilitate that ongoing collaboration we're rolling out a few more new things to make things easier going forward.
SimAirport Survey - 2018 Edition
If you've been with us since release you may recall that we ran a survey early last year to better understand the community and get a feel for what everyone was looking for out of the experience that is SimAirport. It's back! Similar to the first but updated for relevance. Your feedback is what allows SimAirport to flourish, so please consider taking a few moments to complete the survey. By doing so you'll be playing an integral role guiding the future of SimAirport's development.
SimAirport Roadmap - Updated & Interactive for 2018
We have historically released a new roadmap every few months, but the document often is quickly and it really doesn't contain everything that we're thinking about or that's on our proverbial 'primary radar'. Tonight, we're including an extra fix -- we're fixing the Roadmap itself!
We will continually keep this roadmap updated, in 2018 and beyond, and we invite you not only to take a look -- but to actively participate as well! You can check out each card, vote on them, read & post comments with your ideas & details, and really get hands-on with the future of SimAirport's development process.
Update Video
We just barely had enough time to squeeze the video in this month while sticking to the deployment schedules, burning through bug fixes, preparing the roadmap, attending to our personal schedules (and getting taxes done!) -- it's been a whirlwind as we work to wrap up this monster update. Unfortunately Rob was tied up on the day of video capture, which means that you're stuck with Arthur -- who's been known to be a bit wordy & opinionated -- but the show must go on! Hope you enjoy, and Rob apologizes in advance for not being available to control Arthur's rambling!
This update IS backwards compatible though there are a few things to note when bringing an existing save into this patch. Additional details can be found below, and in the full change log as well.
Gates (XL and L) now require second floor doors; gates from existing saves will work on the first floor however, and can also be one-time transitioned to being second-floor.
Baggage System has changed substantially in the latest version. When loading an existing save, all baggage-related conveyors & objects will be removed upon initial load. For baggage guidance we recommend A-Train's fantastic baggage video. Thank you @A-Train for being such an asset in the community!
Fuel Pipelines have changed only slightly but will also be removed upon loading existing saves. Pipelines now require floor -1.
[H1]Full Change Log - Multi-Floors Update, April 2018[/H1]
Finally, the juicy details in all of their glory! Below you will find the full patch notes for tonight's update!
NOTABLE CHANGES
Multiple Floors - Core Details
Adds floor selector on right side of main HUD UI
Default hotkeys are page up/down keys - can change in preferences
Adds new floor transition objects: Escalators & Stairs
Small Aircraft Gate requires a ground-floor door; can also purchase 'Stairs' gate upgrade to make it 2nd-floor accessible instead
Large and XL Gates require 2nd floor door for the jet bridge
Baggage Carousels requires connection from "below" ("same level" and "above" varieties to come soon)
Preliminary luggage movement visuals have been re-added
Note About L/XL Aircraft Gates in Existing Saves ALL gates in existing saves will continue to work on the Ground floor. You can make a one-time transition on Large & XL gates from existing saves by selecting the gate and clicking "Set to 2nd Floor". New LG/XL gates built will always require second floor doors and cannot be changed. Small gates require a first floor door (and second floor door when stairs upgrade is present).
Utility Network Changes
Conveyors and baggage objects (except Baggage Depot) require indoor areas
Draw validations reduced for conveyors; 3-way intersections allowed
Conveyor segments limited to 1 "consumer" per segment; connections must still pass through a hub
Adds Conveyor Transition objects which allow conveyors to move between floors
Conveyors are considered as non-walkable tiles
Fuel pipes now require outdoor areas; fuel pipes are limited to being on Floor -1
Note: Existing saves will have all baggage & fuel related objects removed upon initial load
Moving Walkways
Use the moving walkway tool to draw & extend walkways (similar to runways)
Select a walkway and click "switch directions" to invert walkway movement direction
Bonus Money for 100% Boarded and 100% On-Time Flights
Bonus begins at $200/flight and can reach $2k/flight max
Max bonus is reached after 15 consecutive "100%" days
Any delayed or cancelled flights, or any pax missed flights, causes bonus to reset
Calculated & credited in the early AM each day, for the prior day; completely tax free!
Translation Support
Full in-game translation & localization support
Four complete language packs included
Chinese, German, Dutch, and French
Change languages via: Options -> Gameplay -> Language, then restart SimAirport
Public repository for adding new language packs & submitting improvements
Information need no longer impacts Pax desire to get tickets, now primarily impacts pax post-security
Tweaked passenger departure attenuation, resulting in more urgent desire to handle departure-related needs
No longer consider objects that could get them stuck or that have no exit path
Less likely to leave a secure area to use a non-secure object when otherwise “starved” for something to do
Pax AI Report improved: while active, hover gates or aircraft to highlight the pax for that aircraft/gate (very helpful!)
Quality of Life / UI / UX
Build Menu searches both name and description, uses localized/translated version
Adds gate size filter to the Airlines UI
Adds 'See Interested Pax' button to smart objects, shows which pax considering the object & how strongly
Adds user setting for disabling shadows & ambient occlusion (Graphics tab)
Adds setting for disabling day/night cycle (Graphics tab; time still moves without getting dark)
Adds user setting for Zone alpha transparency (Gameplay tab)
Zone Toggle preference/hotkey now only toggles zone text
Adds 'Kiosk Scheduling' button to retail kiosk objects & adds a 'selected object' highlight to the scheduling UI
Improves the scaling of assignable object dialogs to reduce overlapping bounds
Selecting Fuel Pipe will now change the view to -1 (the only valid level for fuel pipes)
Secure area reporting now differentiates between 'Secure' (behind a security zone) and 'Protected' (unreachable by insecure)
Hides the Flight Crew checkbox when queue is assigned to a “Not Applicable” object (e.g. Ticketing Desk or Gate Agent Desk)
Adds a yellow highlight & active notification to aircraft with delayed departure due to late flight crew boarding
Added tooltips for Dirty Floors, Garbage Bags, Baggage Car/Hangar Vehicles
Misc. Changes & Improvements
Zones now periodically re-validate while game is paused
Door placement is now blocked by pending construction
Passengers now must always have some route to leave the airport -- including prior to finishing security (which must be a fully non-secure when pre-security)
Construction workers now escort stuck pax out automatically; pax in "leave airport" state are eligible for escort (ie arrival pax & missed-flight departure pax); workers take 1 pax at a time
Construction now requires explicit removal of foliage/decor objects, no longer cleared automatically
Removes separation forces from laborer to improve their reliability when doing low-distance tasks
Gate to Ticketing Zone assignments are now be applicable on both ticketing desks and kiosks
Aircraft can now choose new departure runway if the original becomes inactive due to maintenance
Visual improvements for the base grass underlay
Roads now form a sector, improves pickup & dropoff pathing/behaviors
Large & Specialty hubs have been removed in favor of Small hub (continue to function when placed in existing saves)
PAPIs now limited to 2 per runway
Minor wording changes/adjustments on New Game UI screen for UX purposes
Updates taxiway, gate, ramp, and fuel port sprites for a bit better aesthetic 'fit'
Adds taxiway-to-gate easement sprite for visual improvement, updated fuel port sprite to match
Adds small angular sway to the luggage vehicle trailer
Improved positioning for luggage vehicle during loading/unloading aircraft
Fixes Clear tool not running can-be-dismantled validations
Fixes fuel HUD being 1 game minute behind the true market price
Fixes a small memory leak on save/load game UI
Fixes airline details fleet pane scroll reset bug when switching between airlines
Fixes a bug with the 'corrupt save' dialog triggering when it shouldn't
Fixes a bug that allowed clicks to sometimes 'bleed thru' on selected object UI buttons
Fixes a race condition in vehicle map invalidation that could cause stuck vehicles
Fixes agents stuck on no-path to baggage for long periods of time without giving up
Fixes bug with aircraft pax timings report that caused report to get stuck and stay open
Fixes placement validation bug that allowed some objects to be placeable on foliage/decor objects
Fixes several vehicle sort order & occlusion issues when behind large objects
Fixes money description being empty for retail (Cafe) food income
Happy Birthday!
SimAirport's birthday is/was today! March 6th! Happy Birthday!! :)
At this time last year we were nervous & flooded with emotions, the hours & days leading up to the release were tense & challenging, thrilling even, though absolutely nerve wracking to say the least. Release day, and the time that followed, would prove to be an incredibly unique experience for us -- one filled with a wide array of emotions, numerous challenges to face, and plenty of mountains to climb.
We worked hard through those first few days, finding bugs and sorting through the chaos -- often working through the night to ship another set of fixes. All told, we shipped 20 patches in the first seven days -- all while riding the emotional waves. It was truly unlike anything we'd experienced in our careers -- there's just something different about building a game that draws you in closer than in any other part of our careers prior.
While there are definitely things that we would do differently if we could, we're thrilled with the progress that was made in this first year. We consider ourselves to be incredibly fortunate for the support that many of you extended & continue to extend to us.
SimAirport's community, the level of engagement, the interest and intellectual discussions that we are so lucky to be able to spectate & engage with, on a daily basis -- it's incredibly humbling and is beyond anything we imagined or had hoped for. For that, we cannot thank you enough -- for sharing your time and your insights with us, and the community as a whole; for your support of not only SimAirport but also of us, the developers. We thank you, and we look forward to continuing to work with you as SimAirport continues to evolve into 2018.
What was accomplished?
SimAirport was a very different game one year ago and it continues to rapidly evolve -- we're incredibly excited to continue sharing that journey with you -- but we'd like to take a few minutes to reflect back on the first year to see what we've managed to achieve so far. Here are just a few highlights (more here too, though slightly dated), including some of our personal favorites, and a few charts to give some perspective on our development paradigm.
Multiple Floors We'd never have imagined it'd be in already (edge only, so far)
Localization Support Chinese, German, and more (edge only, so far)
Completely Revamped UI Modernized and entirely redesigned UI for a this-century feel
Systems Fuel Systems, Baggage Systems, Upkeep Systems, PA Systems, Vendor Scheduling, etc.
Everything's Bigger Larger maps (up to 20X+), larger runways, gates, and terminals, and more.
Aircraft & Airline Mods, Workshop Support Easily share your experience with the community
Numerous Reports & Heatmaps Night and day difference in management-oriented features since launch
Weather, Retail, Objects, Lighting, and More Plenty of refinements, too.
So, What's Coming in 2018?
Of course, this is what you came for -- you want to know what you can expect, where things are heading, and especially now that we're getting closer to moving Multiple Floors over to the Default branch! :)
We're still working on the next official roadmap and you can expect it to drop a bit after Multiple Floors hits Default but, in the meantime, here are some higher-level pieces that you can definitely expect to see us addressing as we move further into 2018.
In-Game Tutorial After a year, it's due time that we explained how to play instead of having to rely on YouTube! :)
Performance We'd like to see ~10k pax. No promises, but we know we can do much better than right now & we're certainly up for the challenge.
Gameplay Balance Should be a solid, ever-increasing progression ramp and not a single hurdle.
General Gameplay Polish Refine the user experience, fix the 'small stuff', finish the half-finished, update and improve tooltips, etc.
Smaller Additions Especially items that we have systems in place for already. EAM flights, passenger connecting flights, one-way doors, pricing imrpovements, deals/negotiations, etc.
Cafes & Duty Free/Shopping Fix and/or decide on the destiny of Cafes as the workings currently stand, re-implement new or fix existing to function better. Implement Duty Free and general shopping. Improve Passenger AI to utilize them appropriately.
AI & Behavior Refinement Shore up any recurring issues and rare problems, begin considering and initial implementations for random events.
New Gameplay Mechanics Government lobbying & grants; airline partners/relationships & negotiations; parking; transit additions/upgrades; scheduling; etc.
There's plenty more on our mind, too, but these are some of the things that we're really antsy to work on and get improved, fixed, or polished up. We'll get an official roadmap out soon to provide a more concrete timeline, and we're going to actively work towards a "live roadmap" both to save us time for future roadmaps and to improve our overall communication and invovement in the planning process on an ongoing basis.
Closing Thoughts
This first year went by so quickly, and it's incredible how much things have changed since the initial release. We're so fortunate we have the luxury of being excited about our work, and about what we're going to tackle each day. We're very excited for what 2018 holds in store and we hope you are, too.
We sincerely look forward to working with you this year, each and every day, to continue building SimAirport into the best game possible and ensuring that it lives up to it's fullest potential.
Thank you for supporting SimAirport, and thank you for supporting us.
-Arthur & Rob
Edge Translations and Progress Report
Tonight we’re releasing an Edge update which accomplishes a major milestone: game localization and translations. We also want to take a few minutes to provide a brief status update on our progress so far this cycle, and let you know where we stand on this cycle overall.
Progress Report
We’ve been quieter than normal lately, as you have probably noticed - for the first time since release we’ve been able to slow down a bit and really dig into some larger scale undertakings. Towards the end of 2017, the holidays and a few positive personal events took place, but as of the last few weeks we’ve been back to work as usual.
We’ve continued to be a bit quieter still, but it’s for a very good reason! We have been working very hard, staying very focused, and we're on track to hit the two major milestones we have set out for to begin the year -- localization and multiple floors!
It's our intention and expectation that we will hit both milestones this cycle; we're very much on track to do so. That said, we do also expect that the cycle will be running a longer than normal, most likely about two months in total -- this will allow ample time for bugs to be found & fixes and for any mechanic adjustments and balance changes which we anticipate will be needed due to the extra dimension.
Localization & Translations
The latest Edge update, released tonight, contains the functionality to support game localization and language translation throughout the game. The initial release also includes the complete German Language Pack, and we will be adding additional language packs throughout the next few as, as each is finished. Additionally, support for community-created language dictionaries has been added and we’ll be providing additional information on that in the very near future as well. For now we’d mainly like to focus on collecting your feedback on the German translation quality, and find any bugs or missing/non-translated text that we may have missed!
We continue to get closer with each day's worth of code -- we're quite close to having it ready for initial release on Edge. We expect it to arrive most likely some time next week and, once released, we'll then be spending the following weeks on fixes, tweaks/mechanic adjustments and, if time allows, potentially adding in a few additional enhancements that most likely won't make it in initially (elevators, 2+ floor w/ single escalators, etc).
We're incredibly excited for the future of SimAirport -- we're already off to a great start this year -- but we'll be taking SimAirport to the next level in 2018.
Holiday Fixes - December 26th, 2017
Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! We are releasing a small update tonight to address a handful of issues that surfaced from the main December Holiday Update that went up last week.
This small patch includes an important performance fix due to an oversight on our part, a few minor usability improvements that caused some confusion, and it addresses several smaller issues that were brought to our attention as well.
We hope you all enjoy the remainder of your holiday celebrations -- we'll see you back here in 2018 with even more as we gear up and get under way for the next cycle!
CHANGE LOG
Disables a verbose agent debug log that was accidentally left on (could cause RAM over-usage/churn, and potentially crashes)
Fixes aircraft rotation on vertical runway takeoff directions
Fixes aircraft not rotating upon initially entering the runway
Fixes flight crew & first class not using correct security wing on some advanced layouts (multi-wing w/ lounge separating 2+ wings)
Fixes in-game preview image for Airport Sharing via Steam Workshop
Minor UI adjustments on Staff Hub hiring screen, for improved usability and context
Fixes a bug that prevented cancellation of dismantle object projects
Fixes Toolbox Locker counts being wrong (e.g. preventing dismantle)
Fixes Maintenance Operations showing incorrect default thresholds prior to unlocking required research
Fixes duplicated repair projects being created under special circumstances during saved game loads (caused "re-repair")
Fixes bug that caused Small Bar sprites to show partial bits of other sprites
Makes ATC Tower turn transparent when hovering over tiles it occludes
Holiday Patch - December 2017
It's that time of the year, and we have presents for you! Tonight we're rolling out the December 2017 update for SimAirport, and with it comes an entirely reimagined UI, multiple noteworthy content & feature additions, Aircraft mod support, tons of systems improvements and enhancements, and plenty of bug fixes too! We're excited to roll this one out to you tonight, and we hope you enjoy the new features & improved visuals that SimAirport will be sporting as our airports prepare to ring in the New Year!
December 2017 Update Video
In keeping with our new tradition, check out the SimAirport December 2017 Update Video that accompanies the patch! Check it out, let us know what you think, and we'll continue to do our best to improve each month, even as we work to overcome any remaining stage fright! =) We actually had a good bit more content for the video this month, but due to time constraints during editing we weren't able to get quite as much in as we had hoped for -- as always, we'll continue to do our best to improve on this front as well.
Before we get to the patch notes we wanted to briefly touch on our overall progress and what you can expect to see from the next few updates as we prepare to head into 2018. We worked extremely hard to deliver to you an ever improving and consistently evolving gameplay experience -- throughout the course of 2017. In many ways, we hope you feel that we've done a good job at living up to that goal, to this point at least.
That said, there are still tons more things that we know you want to see implemented -- and that we want to get implemented -- and, equally important, there are still a few items from the most recent Roadmap that we have not yet delivered to you. Most notably, Multiple Floors & Translations -- and so that's precisely what you can expect to see from in the next cycle as we head into 2018. Due to the size of the additions, as well as the holiday, it's likely that the next cycle may run a bit longer than usual by the time we get both of those features fully tested & stable -- but that's exactly what we plan to do, we'll be directing our focus towards those items.
There's more!
That's not all! We still have a lot more planned, even beyond those two major additions. We have a long list, but some noteworthy mentions include: random events, passenger & crew AI, lounge improvements/depth, luggage system re-revamp, general aviation, and a whole lot more.
We're tentatively planning to put out another survey in Q1 2018, and additionally to release another updated updated not long after -- so that we can make sure we're in tune with what you want to see, and in turn provide you with a more concrete picture of what to expect from SimAirport in 2018!
Thank You & Happy Holidays!
Finally, we'd like thank you all for your continued support -- for supporting not only SimAirport, but also for supporting us, the dev team, and for supporting one another in the community. We wouldn't be here without that support, and we sincerely cannot thank you enough.
Adds a mod demo airport and a "Demo Spawn" button for Aircraft & Airline mods, lets you quickly preview new aircraft & airline sprites
All Workshop UIs improved and streamlined, generally more consistent throughout
Adds 'Auto-Resolve' functionality; when opening a save that used mods the game will now prompt to automatically download those mods for you
Adds new: First Class Lounge and Flight Crew Lounge
Passengers & crew prefer to wait in these areas when applicable
Passengers and crew may arrive to your airport a bit earlier when your airport has this amenity
Further lounge related features will be expanded upon in future updates (quality, airline-specific / dedicated, food services, etc)
User Interface Revamp
All UIs have been revamped and streamline, both visually and organizationally
Build menu reorganized substantially for a more organnized and hierarchical feel
Adds new in-game cursors
Combined Airline screen and Schedule screen into a single Flight Management screen; can resize/minimize the top & bottom as needed
Reorganizes things more functionally; adds new Staff Hub & Finance Hub
Heatmap reports moved to bottom right of main UI HUD; they now update live and can be used even while building your airport
Game loading interstitial screen updated
Tons of general UI fixes & improvements; cursor/resize/drag improvements, schedule drag improvements, research-locked visual improvements, etc.
Adds Kiosk Scheduling to the Staff Hub
Allows you to set how many workers are staffing each retail 'kiosk' at each hour of the day
Kiosk hourly costs are now based on worker count for the hour; kiosk objects have different max worker counts
Right click on any row to 'Apply to All' of the same type, or to copy/paste schedules between objects
Kiosk workers arrive and leave the airport by vehicle; they are not (yet) required to go through security
Object listing in the schedule UI is by "sector grouping"; highlighting a row in the UI will put a blue game-world highlight on the object being hovering
Scheduling UI will be receiving further improvements in future updates
Adds Maintenance Systems
Objects will deteriorate over time with continued usage
Objects at 0% condition, or under active repair, will not be usable
Daily maintenance window, configurable in Ops Control Panel
Neglect will cost more (time & material costs) than regular periodic maintenance
Adds research for more advanced configuration ability
Active on all runways, gates, restroom objects, and security objects to begin
New Objects
Sushi Kiosk, retail
Pizza Joint, retail
Apparel Stand, retail
Bar - Large, retail; will receive future improvements, wanted to get it out since we've had the art ready for a long time!
Phone Charging Station
Handful of new misc. decor objects including several varieties of Coffee Table objects
Numerous RAM & CPU Optimizations
Notable areas include...
Zone drawing performance improvements, significant improvements (RAM & CPU)
Flight validations
Standby gates/gate change logic checks
Aircraft pathfinding
Rendering and draw calls
Road/taxiway “graph” representations and pathfinding
Construction indicators
GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS & CHANGES
Revises staff distribution algorithm for smarter, holistic rebalancing (instead of arbitrary staff moving to higher priority objects)
Adds two new hotkey options, with defaults; Staff Hub (default: H) and Ops Control Panel (default: O)
Retail object monetary cost range effect on AI shifted down substantially; may require you to increase prices, likely requires further tuning
Optimizes memory allocation of passenger object selection
Runways can now be built nearer to Fences
Foliage objects (decorative trees/plants) will no longer produce a trash bag when dismantled
Vehicles will no longer complain “Stuck!” for 15 minutes if deserialized after having moved Dropoffs zone
Runway numbering scheme updated (a) 0 padded, (b) lower number always listed first on the name, (c) 10° offsets with more than 3 parallel runways (distinct names, was multiple sharing ’C’ suffixes)
Passengers & flight crew will no longer skip security when no bag scanners, metal detectors, or body scanners are active
Removes Gate <=> Ticketing Desk assignments and replaces them with Gate <=> Ticketing Zone assignments. Existing saves require re-assign, research still required.
Tweaks to money costs (negative utility), will impact various retail objects
Revise the money transaction display(s) to show the most recent 15 minutes of transactions; additionally performing intra-frame grouping of like-category transaction
Property taxes will now be applied before income tax calculation
Bank loan transactions are now excluded from income tax calculation
Fuel sell price spread increased to $0.15 (was $0.05)
Fuel off-site pending quantity is now limited to on-site capacity (i.e. requires infrastructure vs. just trading futures w/out ability to take delivery)
Fuel recurring quantity is now limited to on-site capacity, per day max
Aircraft will now select a departure runway prior to undocking from gate
Makes windows that overlook the outdoors have a positive environment effect
Adds 'Pax Timings Breakdown' button & display to Aircraft menu, shows categorical breakdown of where departing pax (for that flight) spent their time. Data is not serialized/saved, and is only computed while the aircraft is spawned. Will be improved upon further in the future.
Adds a visual helper upon selecting stuck aircraft which shows their current target and potential blockers (e.g. blocked by one-way taxiway markings, dead-ends, etc)
Functional warning icons are now centered on the object instead of positioned at corners
Encourages flight crew to substantially prioritize boarding; can now pursue the Gate Desk much earlier
Adds a Passenger AI 'debug report', bottom right icon on reports HUD.
Passengers now split between LRT and ground pickup based on your scheduled intervals; also will now only choose LRT if a train arrives within the next 2 hours
Passenger AI tweaks & improvements; no longer pursue negative-value objects, distance toned down, etc
Agents now use correct lighting when walking indoors vs outdoors
All new 'Career Mode' games will now begin with the Medium map size
Adjustments to Pax AI -- should result in more nimble & higher-awareness decision-making ability
Adds an auto-unstuck feature allowing passengers to get “out” automatically if new construction or zoning prohibits access to where they’re currently positioned. This can include temporarily walking through staff-only doors and lounges but does not include walking through walls.
Adds environment effects to a number of additional objects that didn't have them previously
”Abort & Reconsider” will now also give passengers 15 minutes to ignore staff only doors (e.g. for cases where they accidentally got stuck)
Adds an additional heuristic to object selection that should result in better coordination and queue distribution
Prevents pax from using assigned security objects if they don’t fall within the same zone
Adds a tooltip displaying the assignment status of security objects, including a warning if they’re not in the same zone
Passengers in pickups zone will mostly idle in place instead of wandering, mainly for performance
Updated aircraft tooltip to show flight crew boarding status as a separate item
Edge scrolling will now activate after 2 seconds when otherwise in hit box region but blocked by UI elements
Adds a button to the object context menu that displays possible non-secure-only paths, to help troubleshoot when “Requires secure area” warnings are active on Runways, Aircraft Gates, Hangars, and Baggage Depots
BUG FIXES
Adds a pathfinding fix for destination sectors surrounded by a single security zone
Small edge-scroll / WASD camera pan fix
Fixes agents sometimes appearing under chairs while seated
Fixes an issue that could allow passengers to skip through walls at high game speed and/or low FPS
Fixes an issue that could result in aircraft getting stuck on taxiway in certain conditions with presence of one-way markings
Workmen will be less likely to walk on or through walls
Fixed a bug that allowed zones to be functional without any entrance/exits
Fixes a sector generation bug that could rarely result in incorrect “everything is non-secure” warnings and havoc with stuck agents
Revises text formatting of sectors report
Fixes coach pax should not be allowed to use objects that require traversal past first class lounges
Fixes “Break Deadlock” on aircraft not always ignoring one-way taxiway markings (e.g. after having been edited)
Fixes a bug allowing assignable security objects when completing Advanced Ticketing Research (should be Advanced Security)
Makes the one-way taxiway markings never occluded while in edit mode (was resulting in sometimes hard-to-decipher stuck aircraft)
Fixes passenger sometimes getting through staff only doors
Fixes functionality warnings sometimes not preventing object usage
Fixes an issue preventing dismantle of roads/taxiways caused by abandoned reservations
Fixes stuck aircraft if gate destroyed (a) after undocking and (b) before takeoff, then reloading game
Fixes an issue that could allow aircraft to skip gate reservation upon game load, which could result in multiple aircraft using the same gate
Fixes a bug that could result in stuck retail workers if a retail inventory task fails due to dismantled object targets
Fixes passengers sometimes hopping through walls when their target object is adjacent to walls
Fixes sector bug when clearing Fences
Fixes flight crews not being completely disallowed from staff-only doors
Fixes aircraft taking off from middle of runway
Fixes aircraft taking off with improper alignment
Fixes a bug that would have caused trash drops to be lower than expected
Fixes retail worker carrying food box offset
Fixes null reference when flight crew use seating
Fixes boredom getting too high too easily
Fixes remote bag scanners should only be assigned to at most one monitoring station (could result in erroneous warning if assigned to multiple then unassigned)
Fixes a crash/freeze that could happen on very specific map layouts during runtime and load game
Fixes a bug causing passengers to randomly have no objects in scope resulting in idle/wander behaviors (e.g. at drop-offs)
Fixes a rare bug that caused all pax to stop moving, caused by a task manager exception
Optimizes memory and CPU overhead on very large Cafes
Fixes a reservation integrity issue that caused aircraft to get stuck on pushback
Fixes a stuck aircraft bug when trying to reserve a runway that hasn’t been selected
Fixes aircraft stuck during pullback from gate related to intersecting runways. Runway endpoints must now have at least 1 adjacent taxiway node (that is not also a runway) — temporary validation until more refined takeoff behaviors are ready.
Fixes agents getting temporarily stuck in various places due to perfectly opposite steering forces canceling out
Fixes aircraft sometimes landing backwards
Fixes UI scaling - window position, drag bounds, etc. Also resolves UI scale-related issues on schedule & runway UIs
Optimizes the opening of Save/Load menus; makes 'Save Game' menu text input filter/search the saved game list.
Fixes a (potentially large) memory leak with sector generation/re-generation
Fixes passengers not in (new) pickups zone if it’s moved
Fixes land expansion hitbox indicator sprites (border) being trivially incorrect
Fixes one case where passengers could walk through walls when traversing through queues
Fixes flight crew heading to Dropoffs zone when spawning from light rail train
Fixes some baggage sprites invisible after reload
Agents will no longer walk through prohibited lounges (bug existed in certain airport layouts)
Makes Information and Environment overlay updates use background threads when updating internal data representation
Adds ‘stuck’ thought bubble to aircraft when no path to target (e.g. blocked by one way taxiway markings)
Updates the gate validation to check if no runways are set to accept arrivals or departures
Patch - November 5, 2017
Tonight brings the next default branch patch which contains a large & varied array of additions, improvements, bug fixes, and general quality-of-life enhancements. The full changelog can be found below, and we're also trying something new this time around -- for the first time, we've put together an update video to accompany the release.
The update video is a bit longer than we had initially anticipated, and it's our first time doing something like this (go easy on us, we'll get better at it!) so it's not perfect, but we hope it's something you enjoy & find insightful. Let us know your thoughts on it! It's something we definitely enjoyed doing and we'd like to continue doing them for each of the monthly updates going forward, especially if it is something that you all enjoy. If there's anything specific you'd like to hear us talk about just let us know and we'll definitely try our best to work it into the next video!
We'll be kicking off the next cycle this coming week, we've got a lot of great stuff coming this round and as usual we'll be shipping it to the Edge branch incrementally as soon as things ready for you.
Thank you for your continued support -- we hope you're all enjoying SimAirport so far, there's still a lot more to come and we hope you're as excited about the future as we are! Thank you!
Crews will sometimes deplane and then be replaced by a new team of pilots & flight attendants.
Flight crews must be onboard for the aircraft to begin boarding.
Crews are required to go through security.
Chance of crew change is based on aircraft type & size.
Allows queues to be designated as multiple types
Adds new 'Flight Crew' type, in addition to the existing Coach & First Class types.
Dequeues will still happen from the queue with the highest priority designated type (i.e. FlightCrew > FirstClass > Coach), and then (in case of ties) by wait time.
Intersecting Runways
Runways are now drawn with the new Runway drawing tool
Runways can now be arbitrary length in either asphalt or concrete
Runways can intersect perpendicularly (requires research)
Security Flow & Remote Bag Scanners
New Remote Bag Scanners can be assigned to new monitoring stations, which can be operated by a single security staff member (more than 5 assigned at once results in slower bag scanner usage)
Security objects can now be assigned to one another, allowing you to to specify precise security flow & custom configurations
Misc.
Substantially improves overall performance while construction projects are active
Fixes Foundation tool ("double walls" and other quirks)
Adds new "Staff Only Door" object
Adds a number of various "Fancy Chairs"'" and similar seating objects
Adds One-Way Taxiway tool, can set Taxiways as one-ways for improved tarmac traffic management
Adds property & income taxes, several related research items
Many retail objects now allow their prices to be set (e.g. vending machines, retail kiosks, etc)
The base layer of the tile map has had its texture updated
Passenger AI object selection/re-selection substantially improved
Adds default lighting to all aircraft gates
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
Minor price & construction time adjustments to several raw materials
Adjustments to passenger AI heuristics and behavior based on player feedback
Fuel & LRT financials recategorized more appropriately
Personal passenger vehicles (including taxicabs) chance has been increased
Refuel request chance has been increased
Dirty floor chance has been increased
Retail objects (food/cafes) will now start out with empty inventory. When dismantled, available inventory will be sold at cost.
Adds a variable for tracking average basis (paid amount) on fuel purchases. This is a weighted moving average so will be inaccurate at first if you own any fuel already.
Replaces “Send Home” with “Abort & Reconsider”
Triples the maximum keyboard scroll speed
Multiple new research items (construction foreman, bank loans, tax-related)
Larger default map size
Reduces deplaning duration
Revises alignment on Office Desk & Ticketing Desk with respect to chairs
Research progress now shows time remaining
Queues will now display a pendant instead of coloring the graphics
Fuel deliveries will now occur at 11PM
Taxes will now be deducted at the end of current day instead of the following day
Land expansion parcel availability is now by total airport area instead of a fixed number of allowed expansions
Land expansion parcel cost significantly increased
Adds additional validations for detecting airport problems; revises wording
P&L report now includes a ‘net’ line item column that matches the totals found on cashflow chart
Passengers will no longer wait to cross the tracks when LRT trains are inbound
Deactivates a routine that would auto-dismantle decorative objects (trees, bushes, statues) when doing any construction over their tiles
Fixes some takeoff-related aircraft sound effects cutting out prematurely
Removes animation for underground utility endpoints
Cancels flights that still haven’t landed within 20 minutes of their scheduled departure time, to complement the existing “within 90 minutes of scheduled arrival” validation
Fuel market price now slightly less volatile
UI-related
Placement indicator fixes and optimizations (e.g. the dimensions text being occluded by main text)
In-game windows will now retain their size and position between game sessions
Adds a ‘Delete Save’ button to the Load Game menu
Operations Menu is now a resizable window
Adds a fuel HUD that can be optionally enabled; includes yesterday's demand + forecast for tomorrow
Adds a configurable hotkey for enabling the Planning Mode layer (default "L")
Various button icons updated
Adds dock icon notifier to top Weather UI, alerts when all runways are closed due to weather
Transit capacity report now includes 2 additional series for demand broken down by departure/arrival status
Human-readable task description for hangar vehicle tooltips
Adds 'Autofocus Build Menus' Preference (page 2), off by default. When on, opening a build menu will auto-focus the search field.
BUG FIXES
Reduces periodic GC from the functional object manager
Various minor UI bug fixes and improvements
Fixes an uncommon but reproducible crash that happened at midnight
Various edge scrolling issues resolved; expands hitbox area & exempts navbars
Fixes "resume game speed" not working when autosave invokes while paused
Graphics Setting improvements; should resolve any quirks on both OSX & Windows and generally be more reliable and better able to detect native resolution
Toilet Stall ‘abort’ issue fixed; could cause stuck passengers and similar issues
Ensures that when objects are marked for dismantle any agents will stop using it
Various optimizations to the abstract road graph cache and enables threaded vehicle pathfinding
Fixes a bug that could result in operations/transit services failing to spawn when running at very low frame rates
Fixes a bug that would prevent deserialized demolish conveyor tasks from completing successfully
Various performance optimizations (object pooling, functionality validation, map cache)
Demolishing fuel pipes will now update neighboring sprites
Fixes outdoor baggage claim resulting in stuck passengers and workmen tasks
Fixes a race condition that often resulted in pax using garbage bins twice per ‘hasTrash’ invoke
Fixes agents sometimes not facing the correct direction
Fixes ’NaN’ passenger satisfaction bug
Fixes a bug that could rarely cause passengers to partially oscillating between object targets when too many attractive options are present
Standby gates
Bug fix: sometimes failing to invoke when it otherwise could
Bug fix: sometimes invoking when it otherwise shouldn't (e.g. wait for busy runways; layovers past end of allowed standby period)
Fixes P&L report (should be limited to most recent 30 days)
Fixes cashflow report (datapoints not grid-aligned)
Fixes an issue that could result in vehicles spawning even if spawn nodes were occupied
Fixes an issue that could result in stuck agent if despawned and pooled closely after deserialization and then immediately reused
Fixes a deadlock when sharing a queue between 2 or more Gate Agent Desks assigned to different gates (now prohibited)
Fixes fences not added when reloading a game more than once during land expansion
Game loading (including land expansions) will now attempt to free up additional RAM as well as include detailed logging information
Fixes a stuck baggage cart, mid-turn, by fuzzy resolving its start node if it’s mildly “off road”
Fixes a bug that would allow pax to use any ticketing desk (when assigned desks are present) after editing a flight’s schedule
Fixes a chance that agents could be pushed past staff-only doors by separation forces of nearby neighbors
Fixes a runway validation that could incorrectly allow ‘off map’ runway drawing
Optimizes rendering of queues & fixes minor view-state bugs
Fixes a bug that could result in player preferences not being committed
Fixes a thread related race condition during map invalidation
Fixes aircraft spawn/despawn points not far enough off the map
Fixes grass underlay size
Fixes the marquee sound not stopped when resizing flight layover
Fixes an object pooling bug on food items which would eventually result in abandoned preparation task chains and idle staff
Fixes object pooling bug on passengers (various behavioral and needs-related bugs)
Fixes agents scooting into chairs that are flagged as not moveable
Several minor aircraft pathfinding related performance improvements
Fixes underground endpoint arrows not disappearing after aborted object placement
Fixes a sprite flipping aircraft during takeoff
Fixes an issue that would result in fuel resale to airline failing to generate an income transaction if the truck already had enough on board
Fixes a bug that could be exploited to sell fuel at a higher price than demand warranted
Fixes an issue that could temporarily cause agent hit boxes to not work (related to queue drawing)
Fixes income from airline refuel requests not working recently
Fixes an issue that would prevent aircraft undocking from the gate
Fixes baggage disappearing from carousel after deserialization
Adds a new command line option that can be used to assist in portability of saved games across different platform library runtime versions
Happy Halloween from the Dev Team!
Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween from the entire dev team!
Here's a little festive display of the passion that we have for SimAirport: https://twitter.com/SimAirport/status/925530976586842113
Wanted to also provide you all with a quick update on where we're at, especially since things have been quieter than usual over the last few days. Things were slow for us this weekend and during the early part of the week as we took a little bit of personal time to get caught up on general personal responsibilities. Robert was in the midst of moving and he's just now beginning to get settled in at his new digs. I spent much of the weekend catching up on my "husband chores" list, which had grown nearly as long as the suggestions thread -- so I was finally able to spend some time helping my wife get ready for our first daughter, who we're expecting to arrive 2 months from now (hoping for an on-time arrival)!
We're just getting back into the swing of things -- we've got a handful of small bugfixes ready, and some small additions/tweaks, though there are still two outstanding/un-fixed bugs remaining that we'd like to get resolved. Once we're able to track those down (possibly tonight, more likely tomorrow) then we'll be shipping the next Edge/Experimental update. And then, once we're confident that things are smooth & stable, we plan to deploy the Default patch and then we'll be pretty much immediately beginning the next patch cycle.
We're very much ready for the next cycle in fact -- we've got several things ready, or just about ready, and you can expect to be seeing the first of those things on Edge probably within ~24 hours or so of the Default patch going live (which we're hoping will be this week). Just to give you an idea of some of the things that we've got very nearly ready for the next cycle, it includes:
General Aviation
Passenger "Personalities"
Upkeep / Maintenance (concrete vs asphalt, it's going to matter soon!)
New UI (around 50% implemented right now and looks great; more info & previews will come very, very soon!)
Also expected to come during the next cycle (note: is subject to change!) are the following, which are less finished but are all in various states of completion right now:
First Class Lounges
Crew Lounges
Moving Walkways
Initial 'Staff Scheduling' concepts
We've also got a few other things we've been playing with that may or may not shape up in time for this next cycle -- not to mention the remaining items from the most recent roadmap (Multiple Floors & Translations, which we've been steadily working on as well) -- but we'll definitely continue to keep you posted as usual.
And finally, we did some audio/video recording to make a "dev update" video for you all; we'll see how it turns out, and if it turns out OK we'll be releasing that fairly soon as well. Worst case, we may need to do a second take of it -- but we're definitely going to give it our best shot! :smiley:
Didn't mean for this to get so long, really just meant to wish you all a Happy Halloween! Thank you everyone for your patience and for you continued support, we'll have more for you soon!
Patch - October 2, 2017
We're rolling out the default update tonight, this time around we've got a number of additions -- including the Fuel System & Marketplace -- and numerous important enhancements and a bunch of bug fixes, too. We're very happy to announce that tonight's update also officially brings Linux support to SimAirport!
It's been a great month for us, and along with the additions & fixes there have been a ton of enhancements that we expect will have quite a positive impact on gameplay. Altogether, the gameplay experience is now getting to a level that allows us to more freely put our efforts into the advanced, deep-gameplay features that we all want to see -- that we've started calling out in the SimAirport Late 2017 Roadmap -- and that be "layering on" from here. It's incredibly exciting for us, it means we get to focus more of our time on the "fun stuff" -- features, content, and even more robust simulation elements (multiple floors, anyone?), and it means we get to deliver these fun things to you, and that's what we really enjoy doing! =)
We'll soon be kicking off the next cycle on Edge, as most of you probably know (and if you aren't familiar with Edge, come check it out & say Hi! Updates are released almost every day during the cycle!). We're really excited for the next couple of rounds, there's a lot planned and we think you're going to really enjoy what you'll be seeing.
Lastly, we'd like to give a thank you to those of you who are in the forums helping us & others, and especially to those of you who hang out with us in the Edge forums every day! Thank you for your unwavering support & for your continued feedback. We really couldn't do it without you, and we really appreciate your help & guidance. Keep it coming -- feedback, reports, and saves -- and we'll continue to keep the updates flowing!
We're truly excited about what's to come, and we hope you are too! We'll see you all on the forums where we will be kicking off the next round soon.
Thank you everyone!
NOTABLE CHANGES
Full Linux Support
New 32/64-bit Linux builds added
Fuel System
Buy and sell jet fuel in the exchange with dynamic market price model
New infrastructure including fuel depot, fuel tanks, underground pipes, and output port gate upgrades
Manage refuel services successfully to attract greater airline interest
Announces boarding & last-minute departure warnings to affected passengers, encouraging more complete boarding of flights
New infrastructure including PA speakers, amplifier, electrical zone, and CTO
Assignable Ticketing Desks
This can help steer passengers to deposit their baggage at the correct desks so it ends up at the right Baggage Depot, or to facilitate other more advanced airport configurations.
Misc.
Smarter Janitors: they now optimize spatial locality of jobs over all else (i.e. cleaning the immediate area first)
Queue Improvements: much better throughput, minimized gaps, and increased robustness in the face of integrity errors
Queue Edit Tools: revamped with drag & drop multi-tile drawing, consistent with other build tools
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
Major performance improvements in the render pipeline, including multiple lighting/shader optimizations
Adds a new research option for expanded capacity LRT trains
New objects:
Toilet Stall has replaced Toilet
Outdoor Pole Light & Outdoor Flood Light
News Stand
Decor Statue A & B
Enables a few new audio sources
Several minor balance adjustments for Passenger AI & objects
Improves the distance heuristic used for assigning outdoor baggage tasks which should result in increased efficiency
Removes an unnecessary heuristic applied to selecting metal detector vs body scanners
Body Scanner now takes less time for pax to use (whom also now lift their arms up briefly during scanning)
Misc. icon sprites updated; fixes ‘Show Wires’ not disabling object placement controller if active
Various Aircraft pathfinding changes & improvements
Adds new ‘Ramp Agent’ contractor; hire a Ramp Agent temporarily to get rid of stuck aircraft
Runway selection now based on a hybrid heuristic; factors in runway ‘occupancy’, favors smallest suitable, nearest distance from gate
Default airlines have had their core ‘Concerns’ updated to include minor interest in refuel services
Objects with transactional income (e.g. vending machines et al) will now show their pending batched income by day instead of hour
Staff dialog now shows “busy” count too
Minor tweaks to Electronics Vending, ATM
Numerous minor user interface changes (tooltips, scrollbars, verbiage, icons, etc)
Flight Schedule UI now allows column resize & right-click header to hide/show columns
UI Zone Notifier now includes a check for garbage zone capacity, is silenced for the first 30s of gameplay
Fixes an issue with a subset of pax stuck after deserialization
Fixes a cascading movement failure
Fixes Small Aircraft Gate stairs not being flush with side of aircraft
Fixes Small Aircraft Gate stairs in wrong position when deserialized into docked state
Fixes movement contention (wiggle) with passengers wandering while waiting to get picked up
Reduces the amount of trash passengers leave around — the probability is now simulated correctly with respect to game time
Planning mode now always above all other layers, including bugfix when above wall-occlusion masks
The gender constraint applied to Male/Female restroom zones is now active for all object types (was previously only sinks, toilets, urinals)
Fixes LRT Platform limit 1 validation
Fixes a bug that could result in incorrect agent sorting order if Y-axis delta is very small
Fixes multiple bugs related to agent culling at low zoom
Outdoor-only foliage objects are now blocked by roads
Fixes the scrollbar on Operations Menu: Runways
Fixes a bug preventing placement of certain above-ground objects over conveyor belts
Fixes a placement validation erroneously applied to underground objects (usage markers walkability)
Above-ground ‘Demolish’ tool no longer demolishes underground utilities
Fixes a bug that caused Janitors to double-charge their hourly rates
Fixes a bug when trying to create a food order for an out of stock kitchen
Fixes SaveMenu + FuelMenu from blocking hotkeys — is now only enabled specifically when input fields are focused
Fixes a bug that caused passengers to sometimes be too happy with their current activity leading to missed flights
Fixes memory leak related to luggage loading & unloading
Fixes depth sorting/visual for several of the Retail/Food Kiosks
Fixes a shader related bug that may have rarely caused some graphical anomalies
Prep carts can no longer be placed on top of other objects or outdoors
Fixes runway lights not turning on/off as intended
Fixes an issue causing Garbage Trucks to get stuck
Various aircraft visual fixes including sorting order, lights, shadow, and rotation-related quirks
Fixes a bug in old save-fixing code (auto-dismantle objects with invalid placement) to prevent multiple construction projects being enqueued for the same object
Fixes an issue that caused aircraft to get ‘blocked’ for a short time when near a gate that another aircraft recently docked at
Numerous minor performance optimizations
Patch - September 7, 2017
SimAirport launched 6 months ago yesterday -- it's been an awesome ride so far, and we've got a great update for you tonight -- and we have a lot more in store for you still, too!
Just to give you an idea, and even though this patch took a bit longer than usual, this patch contains just under 500 "code commits", or individual sets of changes -- just in this patch alone! In total, we've shipped several hundred builds to you. On top of that, we've had hundreds of interactions with many of you directly, here in the forums & across many of our different channels. The community that has formed around the game is second to none, and we're sincerely grateful for the opportunity you've given us -- and for your continued support & feedback.
Most importantly, the game itself has improved dramatically -- hundreds of bugs have been fixed, numerous new features have been added, performance has improved by orders of magnitude, and overall we've implemented hundreds of things based off of player requests and your direct feedback.
The evolution you've seen so far -- just over this first short 6-month period of time -- we've come a long way. But we've got a lot more in store for you, and we're still here working hard every day, listening closely to your feedback, and iterating based off of it.
We're still incredibly excited for the future of SimAirport, and there's a lot more coming (we're already super excited about the next patch cycle's progress, soon to be on Edge branch!!).
If you haven't already, be sure to check out the most recent SimAirport 2017 Roadmap, and if you aren't participating in the forums yet there's no better time than now, and we'd absolutely encourage you to jump in!
Once again, thank you! We thank you for your continued patience, your support, and your participation and feedback. We truly do have a lot more planned -- and, as usual, we'll have more for you very soon! =)
And now, here's what you can expect from tonight's patch:
NOTABLE CHANGES & ADDITIONS
Adds Airline Mods -- Custom Airlines
Create and play with custom airlines and custom art. Includes full Workshop support. See how-to / schema info for details.
Working examples of more complex JSON setups, PDF templates, and more are available via the 'How To' topic
Thank you @Plotz for the PDF templates!
Adds Runway Operations Control Panel
Adds 'Runways' tab to the Ops Control Panel; allows you to set runways to allow only Departures, only Arrivals, or both.
Requires researching the new 'Aviation Operations' item
Adds 'Crosswind Maximums', makes various runway upgrades impact the maximum thresholds
Numerous changes to Runway selection, including smarter distance & size-based priorities
Adds Small Aircraft Gate
Has stairs and no jet bridge
Aircraft adjustments to appropriate gate sizes
Adjusted prices and material requirements for Small, Large, XL Gates
Default map now comes with a Small gate
Revised Passenger Satisfaction
Changes to top UI and hover, now shows trend direction & intensity
First class pax now have an increased impact on overall satisfaction score
Satisfaction now less volatile, will be a bit more challenging in general
Tweaks to initial spawn values, object/action interaction modifiers, need rating weights
Needs used only for driving AI no longer directly factored into rating
Note: When loading a older version save, the satisfaction rating may temporarily be skewed. Old saves are compatible however it may jump up or down for the first few minutes after loading -- after a few minutes it'll be using the new algorithm entirely & behaving the same as it would on a newly-created save.
As always, please let us know your thoughts & feedback. Too difficult, too easy? Too fast or too slow? Let us know, we're listening!
Performance Improvements
Numerous performance improvements! We've optimized numerous aspects, with a focus on movement and agent rendering: threading adjustments that will allow us to better utilize multi-core processors and parallelize computationally-intensive work; other various startup and runtime optimizations, including memory/RAM optimizations; multiples rendering pipeline optimizations and improvements.
Misc. Additions & Improvements
Adds configurable key bindings settings to Preferences (page 2)
Added 'Ramp' outdoor tile, can be used for aesthetic purposes around your tarmac area (via request on Reddit)
Separates 'Break Deadlock' and 'Force Departure' buttons on Aircraft menu
Adds additional columns to Flight Status UI; column visibility can now be toggled via the "I" button, top left of the flight status screen
Adds a button to “Show All Queue Assignments”
Passenger object/action selection improvements -- should improve passenger distribution & object selection variation. May increase missed flights a bit, likely needs some further tweaking, is hopefully a solid improvement to pax behavior in general.
Adds aviation-style wind heading & velocity to the top UI weather hover
Left control key now displays crosshairs when using build tools
Staff Job Selection
Revised to be more efficient. Includes fixes for a few staff-related bugs when more than enough staff are present (wander, stacking, fanning out evenly). Known: Janitors still need to be smarter.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
Queues set to 'First Class Only' tinted a faint blue, helps distinguish them visually
Further adjustments to improve boarding rates, early boarding, boarding time awareness
Several queue adjustments, including a change aimed at improving the 'slow queue join' issue
Changes to default Airlines: interest rating sensitivity, interest percentage component adjustments, and sizable changes to Airline pricing sensitivity (now more price-sensitive, especially at the high end of the spectrum)
NOTE: This change may result in reneged offers when initially loading any existing saves!
Zones that require non-secure area will now fail to meet requirements
Relaxes pathfinding constraints when starting on security exit/dividers — should reduce number of MM370 warnings
Passengers will no longer spawn for flights that are accepted but not yet scheduled
Adds some additional zoom-based culling, including hiding of construction indicators at higher zooms
Small adjustment to make passengers more likely to line up at Gate Agent Desks during pre-boarding
Updates Baggage Depot description and tooltip
Aircraft Gate hover info are now less verbose unless zoomed in
Electronics vending machine tweaks
Changed worker task assignments to prevent excessive 'task swapping' and retain priority properly
Adds ability to cancel queued but not-yet-started research
Updates descriptions on ILS/PAPI regarding maximum crosswind tolerance
Further tweaks to Passenger action/object selection; should be more attracted to gate area pre-boarding, less likely to miss their flight during boarding, and a bit more 'decisive'
Crosswind maximums adjusted: 12KT default; 15KT with PAPI upgrade; 20KT with ILS upgrade
Realtime Flight Status now shows # of ticketed Pax and # boarded pax; can be toggled on/off via the column settings on the UI
Aircraft will now prefer the smallest suitable runway that is available, and will select the nearest to their gate if multiple of that size are available when needed
BUG FIXES
Improves the movement code to now anticipate collisions with walls, mitigating an issue where agents could become stuck behind a sheer wall after getting pushed too far off path by other agents. In certain cases, this could also result in stuck aircraft (if waiting for stuck agent).
Fixes a few internal errors producing integrity check warnings
Fixes construction sometimes failing to complete based on erroneous ‘path available’ validation
Fixes an issue that could result in large swaths of passengers not moving because of a failed background job enqueue when engine is under extreme load
Fixed a bug on Flight Scheduler that showed an incorrect gate size requirement
Fixes LRT drop-offs, should always avoid Drop-offs zone
Fixes a bug that caused saves (and Land Expansion) to fail when a Small Aircraft Gate was present on the map
Fixes water emission position offset on sinks
Fixes an issue with agent appearance position offset not getting reset after using chairs
Fixes an issue with janitor serialization that could result in stuck after load game
Fixes an issue with pax not leaving after missed flight
Fixes an issue with passengers sometimes taking shortcuts through non-secure areas to reach a destination in their same sector (high chance of resetting their security status)
Fixes inconsistent mouse position / 'offset' when placing objects
Fixes an issue that could result in stuck aircraft if indoor luggage and no baggage claim zone
Reliability improvements to task assignment/manager for employee agents
Improvements to janitor clean floor task to be more resilient
Resolves an issue that could cause passengers to occasionally walk through walls
Fixes an issue that could result in queues becoming deadlocked (e.g. if placed on the edge of a sector or zone boundary)
Fixes a 'Move To Object' failure abort condition
Fixes a vehicle risk condition that could sometimes occur on parallel, half-offset roads
Vehicles should no longer drive on pending construction roads
Fixes indoor flooring, no longer removes walls (just excludes those positions now)
MISC
Adds a new Command Line option ("RESET") / advanced option (or 'Safe Mode'), which forces the game to forget all settings, preferences & graphics configurations
Updated code base to the latest engine version
Multi-core/multi-thread code runner updates, now using higher performance sync structures
Optimization to saving/loading game; reduces risk of 'Out Of Memory' crash and truncated output/corruption
Patch - July 18, 2017
A bit earlier than normal this month, tonight we're releasing a patch to the default / general release branch. Conveyor Systems have received some updates based on your feedback, several quality-of-life enhancements, and numerous bug fixes and improvements throughout.
If you missed it, we just recently released the updated SimAirport 2017 Roadmap -- be sure to check it out if you haven't already!
We've already been working on the next stuff and, as usual, we'll be back with more on the Experimental/Edge branches just as soon as we have it ready for you!
Thanks everyone!
Patch Notes for July 18, 2017
Conveyor System Changes -- By popular demand!
Conveyors inbound to a hub (blue, labeled with an "H") can now have 3-way intersections
Conveyor sections with a 3-way intersection will only be allowed to connect to other "to hub"/blue sections
The pink ("R") side of the network is unchanged, does not allow intersections
Adds a separate setting for keyboard pan speed
Adds the 4th facing for Bag Scanner!
Revises the flight status window; optimized, resizable, and condensed
LRT Platform can now be dismantled and repositioned
Several queue tweaks including improvements to prevent stacking
Revise the custom gate name UI to now support unlimited number of gates
Adds a 'Important Zone Problems' notification/alert icon to the Zones UI button (missing deliveries zone, zone full, etc)
Updates the capacity/demand graph, now incorporates arriving passenger demand (leaving airport) & ignores unscheduled flights
Fixes an issue with vehicles sometimes becoming stuck
Fixes an issue with construction indicator appearing under walls
Several Queue related tweaks to reduce issues with passengers entering too slowly or 'clumping'
Fixes the “# Bags Loaded” (outdoor luggage) always showing 0
Drawing walls/fences over defined queues is now prohibited
Fixes an issue that could cause stuck aircraft adjacent to runway
Adds a tooltip warning that runway lights do not carry over when upgrading runways
Adds hover tooltip to Supply Trucks to better communicate their current status
Fixes passengers initial movement target when closing in on an object — prevents overshoot and/or backtracking
Fixes light rail train 30 minute interval setting (will always spawn vs. checking for overrun)
Fixes the estimated transit capacity series on Capacity Graph, was 4x too high
Expands the collection of flight data metrics (e.g. actual arrival time, time spent doing X, Y, or Z) in anticipation of future reporting tools
Several timing & aesthetic improvements to bars & food-serving kiosk objects
Fixes CFO/COO/Janitor not being included in hourly wages
Fixes gate agent desk getting outdoor material on default map
Changes the secure areas report to show sector-like wings vs just “secure vs nonsecure”
Fixes a few conveyor/object placement validation bugs
Early Access dialog will now link to the appropriate Bug Report forum based on client version/branch
Slight visual fix for Passengers when entering defined queues
Fountains can be placed outside now
Removes the “Break Deadlock” button from vehicles (remains on Aircraft for now)
Aircraft pathfinding updates & upgrades
Fixes the UI money hover not limiting the number of recent transactions displayed
Fixes a sprite error on very large land expansion area indicators
Resolves the issue with road construction sometimes not completing
Fixes one issue with sectors job sometimes not completing successfully that could result in an inconsistent map state that shows everything non-secure, all zones failing validations, etc.
Slightly optimizes sector generation
Fixes recent transactions not limiting properly in the top UI hover
Fixes an issue that could cause projects to re-allocate supplies incorrectly
Fixes an issue that rarely prevented sector generation from finishing
Fixes several thread-safety related issues
Fixes the issue that caused sectors to generate incorrectly in some cases; this sometimes resulted in secure areas being incorrect, bad paths/through walls, etc
Makes the 'dock notification' icons more obvious
Fixes a bug that allowed objects to be placed on top of queues
Fixes a bug that prevented graphs from updating properly when game was paused
Fixed a bug that could occur when loading a save with a recently-spawned aircraft on final
Fixed an issue that caused staff task priorities to not always be observed
Fixes a queue heuristics bug that could result in 'looping' with some setups/layouts
Queue entry now faster, more direct, less 'jitter' before entering
Through-queue movement speed slowed down slightly
Passenger reaction time increased while in queues, reduces gaps
Conveyor endpoints now displayed prior to selecting conveyor tool
Changed underground view so that only the utility objects will be hovered/selectable
Audio updates, some new effects, updates to existing; feedback appreciated!
Profit & Loss report now categorized; old data will be in 'Undefined' category, new data will categorize properly
Several minor performance related changes, memory usage improvements
Minor Aircraft pathfinding tweaks, should avoid runways a bit more aggressively
Minor tweaks to 'Bird In Hand' heuristics, intended to reduce "looping" issues
