Hello, pilots!
A new Rotary Knights career in development begins in General Service. You arrive without a specialization, learn the common work of an RFC pilot, and fly an Avro 504 familiarization circuit before choosing the posting that will shape your career.
That order matters. It lets the first decision come from something you have done in the cockpit instead of a label on a character-creation screen.
Earn Your Posting
Ground school covers movement, observation, risk, and the return leg. Then the Avro flight asks you to plan complete routes, manage fuel, read an unexpected contact, and bring the machine back in one piece.
Your instructor records how you handled those situations and may recommend Fighter, Reconnaissance, or Bomber service. The recommendation is advice. The posting board keeps all three paths open and tells you the first machine, the job, the central danger, and the people you will fly with.
Choose the work you want. The career changes immediately after you report for duty.
Fly the Whole Manoeuvre
The tactical board now asks for a complete route each turn. Airspeed sets the movement budget, and the plotted manoeuvres must spend it. Climbing costs speed. Diving builds it. Position, altitude, facing, ammunition, and the route home all compete for attention.
Firing information appears before you commit: range, arc, chance to hit, and ammunition cost. When the guns cannot bear, the board should tell you why.
The larger battlefield also makes withdrawal a flight problem. Getting home means reaching the friendly side of the engagement, not stepping off the nearest edge.
Orders with a Point
Balloon Bust, Cloud Cover, and Trench Strafing each put a different problem on the board. A balloon keeps its damage between attacks. Cloud can break visual contact and leave only a last-known position. A ground attack weighs the target against Archie, ammunition, altitude, and the escape west.
The fight does not end when the shooting stops. You still have to bring the pilot, aircraft, and result back across the lines.
Bring It Home
Landing settles the sortie. Wounds, airframe damage, ammunition, stress, rewards, and local front movement return to the aerodrome with you. The War Diary records what changed, and the next flight begins from that new state.
This is the rhythm we want for Rotary Knights: prepare, fly, live with the result, and decide what comes next.
A Focused Demo
The next Steam demo candidate is a deliberate slice of that loop. Its achievement display matches the four achievements available on Steam, and its menus stay inside the aircraft, missions, and art included with the demo. The wider campaign, role progression, and full achievement set belong to the paid game in development.
We reached this version by putting the opening in front of new players, watching where they hesitated, and fixing the places where the game failed to explain itself. Four uncoached test rounds reshaped the posting flow, combat instructions, return rules, screen layout, and demo boundary.
Play the current free Steam demo and wishlist Rotary Knights to follow this rebuilt opening into Steam Next Fest and Early Access.
Which posting would you choose—Fighter, Reconnaissance, or Bomber—and what would decide it for you? Tell me in the Steam discussions.
Clear skies,
Steve
Old Blue Chair