Airport Master Public Alpha v. 0.3.5a RELEASED!

Airport Master Public Alpha v. 0.3.5a RELEASED!

Changelog follows:

Game workflow

• Changed how Time Tables work: from now on only ATC (in tower view and as main UI overlay available when holding on keyboard) has full Time Table of nearest 10 departures, 10 arrivals, 5 local flights and 10 airfield events; each terminal (Pax 1, Pax 2, Cargo) has its own Time Table display (however specific and realistic they may be); this is now an extendable, manageable feature that provides standard data exchange interface for Time Tables allowing each specific Time Table to only poll data relevant to it, get corresponding update intervals, announcements, events etc.; changed
• Changed core code for managing Time Tables data in such a way that all data requests are now managed centrally; as the game grows larger, we have noticed significant concurrent data polling delays (especially when multiple objects - and that is very important in regards to future DLCs that may feature extendible airport facilities - start polling Time Table data frequently or in large batches from Flight Scheduling System, slowing down both the FSS and the game itself) - at one (thou specifically simulated instance we measured around 400 simultaneous calls to FSS for TT data on loading a savegame which in turn caused a 14 seconds delay on test machine running i5\4GB) - this has now been eliminated by introducing centralized data delivery to Time Tables, which is now smooth, and depends on type of Time Table; changed
• Removed Private flights from Time Table of Terminal 1 Display, only regular operators appear on it now, thou passengers would still hear announcements when boarding starts for Private flight; changed
• Added daily Airfield Events to ATC Time Table Display (note: administrative events such as electricity and salary payments are not displayed here); added
• Added new Avatars system, which completely replaced our old pseudo-3D avatar system prototype; the new Avatars system uses a set of pre-defined human face features to produce computer-generated avatars with a lot of diversity, it then applies image-transformation effects to make resulting avatars look rather realistic yet with a touch of cartoonish \ comic style; among those generated images, there is a chance to find several 'easter-eggs' with stylized photos of members of our development team and some great folks who help us create the game; added
• Added Appleton Hospital of St. Pantaleon with helipad, which will be used as local destination by MedEvac helicopters
• Fixed bug with minimum details draw distance parameter being interpreted wrong by large city objects like Stadium, Expo Center, Warehouses etc. resulting in distorted view distance values on lower draw distance setting; fixed
• Added new airline - Government Flight Squadron; this airline has no base airport, provides air transportation to City Mayor and visiting government officials, never posts Service Contracts Auctions, never shown on public time table displays, always has priority for ATC when sequencing traffic, always has priority when requesting time slots, does not accept rejections to flight scheduling, has basically higher than average rating of Player's airport, any Player-induced rating decrease (like delays in servicing aircraft) will result in major rating penalties, angering City Mayor and eventually premature termination from the position of Airport GM (note: there are safeguarding mechanisms making it much harder to loose job over ignoring government priority flights, yet it is possible); added
• Changed regular airlines scheduling templates to reflect new fleet additions; changed
• Added Calvert (CAT II precision approaches) Approach Lighting System for runways 16 and 34; Calvert-2 will be the first ALS available for Runway 2 (Airport Upgrade Tier 3) and it will be upgradable to ALSF-2 (CAT III precision approaches); added
• Changed runway 34 entrance lights to LED-versions and moved them to correct placement at the end of displaced threshold of runway 34; changed
• Added runway 34 stopway (50m) to compensate for displaced threshold of runway 34 and thus keep the ASDA equal for runways 16 and 34; added
• Changed Runway 2 (16-34) concrete material to be compatible with sub-pixel lit shader; changed
• Fixed sky dithering at horizon line becoming to appear broken at sharp angles of camera, fixed
• Fixed Moon and Sun size depending on time of day and Moon phase sometimes allowing for depiction of ridiculously large Moon and unrealistically small Sun; fixed
• Fixed placement of wind power generators located on ridges of mountains near the Lake Intahoe; since terrain model has changed and adopted new elevation matrix, some wind-farms required position corrections; fixed

Aircraft

• Added Vertical V-1900D (real life prototype: Beechcraft B-1900D) turboprop. A very capable regional, military and executive transport. With service ceiling of FL330 and typical cruise speed of 275kts it covers range of up to 1400nm, thus providing high comfort and near-jet performance at much lower cost. Favored by governments, politicians, businessmen and rock-stars, V-1900D is often used as executive and administrative transport; aircraft with following registration numbers were added: APMYR (operated by Government Flight Squadron), Appleton City Mayor's executive aircraft, BS-RDQ and BS-VOF (operated by TravelAir), RK-CCE and RK-PVX (operated by Aster Airlines), N-521-L and GC-DAE (privately operated); added
• Added two new aircraft of type VE20 - N733-D and LT-GVO (both are privately operated); added
• Changed B409 helicopters rotors depiction at high RPM - thou realistically not accurate (as real life prototype merely reaches 300 RPM and any side observer would see rotor spin as individual rotor blades), but for the sake of great screenshots and videos this was decided to be changed - both main and tail rotors now produce fast rotation effect (rotor blades spin so fast that they are perceived as single spinning disc); changed
• Changed main to tail rotors ratio slightly on B409 helicopters from 1/3.35 to more realistic 1/3.5; as we now use fast spinning rotors effect, we may as well stick to actual real world value; changed
• Added tail lights to the following types of aircraft: VE9D, AN25, CT55, J358; tail lights are turned on after engine startup for departures and after landing for arrivals, tail lights are turned off after takeoff for departures and after shutting down engines for arrivals; added
• Added missing APU (logics, effects, original sounds) to AN25 aircraft that was missing it due to non-standard scheme: thou a turboprop in reality it has additional small jet engine located in rear cowling of engine number 2 that serves as an APU on ground and may be used by flight crews on takeoff to provide additional thrust on short runways and\or when close to MTOW; added
• Switched all aircraft of types VE9D, VE20 and AN25 to new extended physics colliders (previously tested on A210 aircraft) that provide more precision to all physics-based calculations, easier selection-by-clicking and more comfortable walking around when using overview camera; changed

Vehicles

• Added new ground vehicle type - Tow tug (model Schoopt TF50). This universal aircraft towing tug, is suitable for traditional towing using towbar of aircraft with MTOW up to 130 tons. Heavy, reliable and versatile. Frontal and rear hinges stacks allow for attachment of most popular aircraft towbars. Great cabin visibility assures safe obstacle avoidance when towing; added
• Fixed Airport Security cars may have taken spot near Administration building that was directly in the way of driving Follow Me cars, entering the Administration building premises; now the assigned Airport Police car spot near Admin building moved further to parking facing Heliport; fixed
• Fixed Fire Engines occasionally used real emergency siren mode (high pitch) during routine shift changes (ow pitch siren mode is used); fixed
• Fixed Heliport Buses reporting all jobs complete slightly prematurely (when still moving to parking spot) which sometimes caused incorrect vehicle readiness flag to be set upon Time Skip invoked by Player immediately after a Heliport Bus report it has completed all assignments; fixed

ATC

• Added new type of Radar screen mapping object - Helipad, used to mark helipads not on Airport property but in located in Airport TMA such as hospital helipad, energy company helipad and upcoming helipad on lake bank; added

Weather

• Added Q-Pressures system to the game: Q-Pressures (mostly notable for Player would be QNH and QFE, thou other Q-Pressures are calculated and used in weather module as well) represent a complex data structure that holds a custom tendency (for instance it could be seasonal QNH tendency chart for Player's Airport or a tendency of abnormalities in QNH drift in climate pattern etc.), several mechanism for randomizing tendency change, several interfaces to other weather conditions (e.g. temperature influences pressure, pressure influences dew point, pressure change rate influences visibility etc.), normalization algorithms and other very useful tools - a Q-Pressures data block can be included multiple times in Weather Block, or exist on its own, it can easily be summed up or deducted from other Q-Pressure data blocks, as well as multiplied by a factor or by another QPB - thou we argued whether we should make this kind of data such a powerful tool, it was decided that this way we ensure maximum capabilities for building realistic weather patterns and also we may provide very powerful tool-set for mod-developers should we decide to open moding after the release of 1.0, if later is achieved - moders will be very happy with this kind of implementation; added
• Added QPBs to the following Weather Blocks: Previous, Current, Next; note: thou QPBs also present in Weather Blocks Tomorrow and SuddenChange - they currently carry no functionality other than passing data thru Timeline, as most forecasted changes happen in Next block - in future versions this may change to imitate far- and near- forecasted Weather changes; added
• Added Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF) generation, providing 24h weather forecasts in airport area; added

Terrain

• Changed Terrain model to version 5.3; new terrain model features twice as smooth mountains and lakebed and more precise tiles management: unused tiles now free up memory in much smarter way: based on weighted per-average bit-statistics of tiles loading\unloading (this bit is stored in tile itself), less frequently used tiles have much higher chance to be unloaded than those with higher use frequency stat; changed
• Added Lake Intahoe to the game world; Lake Intahoe (hence intersection name LINTA) is a large mountain rivers-fed lake, occupying significant part of Appleton valey; besides directly influencing local weather in Appleton TMA, there will be a hydrodrome for floatplanes and at least one helipad on shore of Lake Intahoe; added
• Changed Terrain around airport, mostly to the East of Passenger Terminal 2: Airport land max boundaries are now well-defined by all roads from all sides; further East agricultural area been moved further to mountains with two new mountain rivers defined; changed

Sound

• Added new sounds for VE9D aircraft engine operations recorded from the real aircraft; added
• Added new sounds for VE9D\VE20 aircraft gear motor operation recorded from real KingAir 200; added
• Added new flap motors sounds for VE9D aircraft recorded from real aircraft in hangar; added
• Added RU-19-300 engine (APU) sounds for AN25 aircraft, recorded from real RU-19-300 auxiliary unit; added

User Interface

• Added Time Table overlay to Main UI (available by holding on keyboard); added
• Added ATC Flight Priority markers to ATC Time Table Display; added
• Changed Help Screen to reflect new keyboard commands; changed
• Added tab to Flight Strips control to display Ground Service Vehicles currently operating in airport; Player may switch between Flight Strips and GSEs at any moment, clicking a Vehicle Strip brings the camera to that vehicle; added
• Added tabs to control Flight Strips displayed: for aircraft it is now possible to select only Fixed Wing (airplanes) or only Helicopters; the Flight Strips controls allow switching between All Aircraft - Fixed Wing - Helicopters - GSE Vehicles; current tab\filter selection is stored in saved game file; added
• Changed Flight Strip design for better, cleaner and crisper look; new Flight Strips use background checker-toning for better readability, they are also spaced by 2px distance in scrollable list; changed
• Added new color-coding for GSE Vehicles, with pale-green being Service vehicles, light-gray being Security vehicles, red being Emergency vehicles, yellow being administrative and follow me vehicles and light-brown being towing vehicles; added
• Added 35 new male and 35 new female avatars setups for new Avatars system; added
• Changed Player Avatar depiction in main UI (buttons bar): now Airport Upgrade Tier icon and Player Level icon are shifted out of borders of Avatar image, while experience bar is slightly smaller and moved slightly below the Avatar image; changed
• Changed Player Avatar depiction in Airport General Manager tab of Airport Management screen - Airport Upgrade Tier and Player Level icons are now located to the right of Avatar image forming a data row, that will include other Player statuses display in future versions; changed
• Changed customer Avatar sizes, proportions and placement in Cafeteria and Flight School UI; changed
• Fixed Flight School UI not polling avatar images for Flight School students due to lack of appropriate number of non-repeating avatars; fixed
• Changed how selected Avatar looks when starting a new game: once selected - the Avatar gets tinted pale-green to indicate readiness to start the new game, all hover effects for selected avatar image are disabled until another avatar is selected; changed
• Added UI logos for airline Government Flight Squadron; added
• Added new flight operation classifier 'Government Flight' to Flight Scheduling \ Slot Editor UI; added
• Changed the main UI Notifications design for better readability, especially against sky and other lighter objects; more contrast scheme is now in use; the notification messages can now span wider, and Notification type icons been moved to the right; changed