Patch Notes - June 2018
SimAirport · published
The Default update is here and this one has in many ways been a long time coming! Aircraft pathfinding, once an ongoing cause of frustration, will no longer cause problems for any of your airports! Accompanying this major milestone are numerous additions and improvements including a new 'Sell Airport' mechanic, connecting flight passengers, AI improvements, and the addition of the Russian language pack. There are a handful of new objects and multiple balance-related changes including several research additions & removals, plus more than 50 bug fixes too!
Update Video
Watch the SimAirport Update Video - June 2018 Edition for some hands-on insight into the update. You'll also be able to learn more about how the aircraft pathfinding works under the hood and how to use that to your advantage, some initial thoughts on retail/cafes, and what we're planning in the future including further insight and an update on our progress with the latest performance improvements which are coming to Edge soon!
What's Next?
Check out the SimAirport Roadmap any time for the latest updated information about what's coming, and be sure to vote on your favorite items & make comments to provide ideas or details about what you'd like to see in the future! As a high-level summary, we think these three key aspects need the most immediate attention right now -- and numerous system improvements & additions, which we'll then be coming back to, after we get these three addressed:
- Performance
- Tutorial
- Retail / Cafes
Thank You!
We continue working hard to bring you enhancements and additions, fixes and performance improvements, and to continue evolving SimAirport every day.
We couldn't do this without the continued feedback and the unwavering support from you, the players -- the engagement, loyalty, and the patience that we observe from the community on a daily basis is truly second to none.
We can't even begin to tell you how much we appreciate it -- Thank You!
NOTABLE CHANGES & ADDITIONS
- Aircraft Pathfinding v2 -- No more stuck aircraft!
- Sell Airport mechanic added; begin new airport using funds gained (Finance —> Valuation report)
- Connecting Flight Passenger; up to 10% arrivals now catch a departure
- Bank Loan mechanic updated, loan availability & interest rate now use credit rating
- Russian (RU) language pack - Thank you @Ursus on Discord!
- NEW OBJECTS & ZONES
- Adds 'Drink Vending' machine, 'XL Flight Info Display' and 'Flight Info Kiosk' objects
- Adds 'Arcade Zone' and 4 new arcade game objects, improves pax boredom
- Adds 'Digital Ad Display' object
- Generates revenue for your airport based on nearby foot-traffic counts
- Amount generated per passenger increases with volume, determined per display
- Has a negative impact on environment
- Revenue is paid just after midnight each day, for the previous day
- Loads the advertisement PNGs dynamically from: INSTALL_DIR/StreamingAssets/ad-displays/* (add .png files here, then click 'reload sprites' or restart SimAirport)
Three new hotkey actions added, defaults are listed and can be changed in options menu:
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
- Taxiways now require a minimum 10-tile distance from structures & objects (exception: runway upgrades, gates, hangars, baggage depot)
- Adjustments to LRT boarding routines for faster/improved pax boarding
- Escalator and Stair traversal speeds increased
- Airport Valuation now includes fuel
- Phone charging station changes: enabled queueing, increased concurrency, lowered upkeep burden, decreased desirability
- Runway Lights and Gate Stairs upgrades now display visual indicator of required placement position
- Foundation tool no longer removes walls & prevents "double-walls" in more situations; improves tool consistency & performance
- Prevents staff from getting assigned new tasks after being flagged as Fired, allowing them to de-spawn in a reasonable amount of time
- Aircraft now have a stronger preference to avoid runways when taxiing
- Actual arrival time now recorded after aircraft rollout instead of on final
- Runway lighting updates for aesthetics and slightly improved rendering performance
- Construction of floor finishes requires fewer tasks for faster construction
- Adjusts stack size & task duration for a number of materials (wood, carpet, stone, etc)
- Tweaks to money range on vending objects that allow price setting, resulting in more sane default AI interactions
- Updates the approach used for Bus passenger Dropoffs to be the same as LRT, prevents build-up issues
- Adding gate stairs upgrade to small gates now validates & requires 2nd floor already exist before allowing placement
- Minor improvements to vehicle parking and lane choice preferences
- Aircraft more likely to go straight after landing rollout instead of turning around
- Aircraft now begin attempting to arrive a bit earlier
- Info objects now have angle-based impact cones; XL display is one-sided; tweaked info distance & intensities
UI & MISC
- Adds 'Lifetime Game Stats' recorded in each save; double-click clock to view (for future Steam Achievements support)
- Loading a saved game will now always start Paused
- Airline detail UI updated to use consistent color & scheme for easier flight selection
- Improvements to the top HUD money hover tooltip, now more accurate & detailed cash flow estimate based on scheduled flights & actual pax counts
- Aircraft gate build button tooltip now shows the required level
- Top UI HUD money area now turns progressively darker red when bankruptcy timer is ticking, alert icon pops up with 12 hours to go, blinks faster as bankruptcy looms
- Game startup now shows 'New Game' following interstitial; is intended to assist new players who may not realize sandbox mode & larger maps exist
- Improvements to flight crew info on Aircraft tooltip
- Improved validation warning on objects that require zones ("Requires $ZONE_TYPE" instead of "Requires Zone")
- Adds a nav button tooltip warning when reaching the 10 flight/day limit, prompting you to build an ATC Tower
- Adds a rough count of 'objects that need staff type' number to staff report UI
- Removes the 'Passenger Timings' report on Aircraft (performance reasons -- requires a different approach)
- Translation pack files all updated from repo on Github (thank you!)
- Minor optimizations to build menu UI
- Optimizes the save/load game UIs
- Minor performance improvements to satisfaction score & spacial lookup calculations
- Improves consistency of all confirmation dialog UIs
- Adds Arcade Games to maintenance control panel, updates code to auto-add objects for future additions
- Save-fix for a dumpster that never finishes construction properly
- Minor optimizations to the Flight Scheduling UIs
- Minor rendering improvements & optimizations
- Adds some metadata to saves save files which allows fast retrieval of some save info prior to loading it
- Top HUD Weather hover now reflects runway status inclusive of maintenance downtime
- Enables sprite tiling for construction indicators to improve their border appearance
- Adds 'noaudio' custom launch option for assisting with troubleshooting game startup problems
BUG FIXES
- Fixes Information objects being blocked by walls/objects in frustrating and seemingly random ways
- Fixes moving walkways preventing environment effect from spreading
- Fixes a bug that sometimes let pax slip through security without being checked (or without tickets), causing them to miss their flight
- Fixes a pax AI nullref bug that could sometimes incorrectly rule out objects
- Fixes weird overlay bug when importing Grass material (affected older existing saves)
- Fixes security zone not showing “cannot be vacated” warning when applicable (e.g. resulting in no passengers using it)
- Fixes airline custom mod BaseRefuelPercentage not serialized (previously required reimport each game load to fix)
- Fixes agents potentially becoming stuck when drawing exclusive lounges on/near them
- Fixes aircraft sometimes not selecting an alternative runway when their selected one enters maintenance
- Fixes crash when disabling save & mod dialogs
- Fixes agents leaving secure areas because a non-secure path exists which is "shorter"
- Fixes Runway Tool hoverbox display while dragging, should only display aircraft imported in current game
- Fixes valid/invalid colors not updating on the Flight Schedule UI hover tooltips
- Fixes being able to draw objects on top of conveyor segments
- Fixes being able to place baggage hubs on invalid conveyor segments (if the segment is not yet built or otherwise not attached to anything)
- Fixes custom airline refuel percent not serializing
- Fixes 'Demo Aircraft Spawn' functionality used for testing aircraft mods
- Fixes a rare bug when pax needed to abort boarding their flight due to construction cutting off their path
- Fixes dumpsters sometimes not finishing construction when supply pile is on same tile & garbage truck comes while in-progress
- Fixes being able to circumvent the 12-hr pricing lockout period via saving & reloading game
- Fixes aircraft unable to leave gates that require maintenance
- Fixes unable to schedule flights to gates that need maintenance
- Fixes vehicles not properly trying to navigate around stopped traffic
- Fixes administrators failing to re-pick offices when appropriate
- Fixes cursor not reset when closing flight schedule editor while dragging
- Fixes runway placement should de-zone tiles
- Fixes vendor workers not handling “no path” when showing up for work — could result in “working” from invalid map positions on Ground floor
- Fixes zone requirements ‘non-secure area’ inverted formatting
- Fixes janitors not finish clearing immediate area when quasi-“nearby” jobs exist above or below them on other floors (could result in throughput degradation)
- Fixes janitors not prioritizing emptying garbage bins vs cleaning floors at all (could result in throughput degradation)
- Fixes top UI HUD wind direction indicator sometimes disappearing, re-adds color based on wind intensity
- Fixes older saves with supply piles containing deprecated objects that could result in terrain drawing tools always failing to validate
- Fixes being unable to sell supply piles containing certain objects (e.g. gate/runway upgrades and utilities)
- Fixes infrastructure cash change descriptions not formatted correctly
- Fixes ‘potential blockers’ not being invalidated every time after editing one-way taxiway markings
- Fixes a few edge cases of staff/object assignments that could lead to situations where equilibrium is not achieved promptly. This could lead to staff running around the airport more than necessary and leaving objects temporarily unmanned (due to incorrect consideration of en route agents that will soon take their spot).
- Fixes agent sector frontier not prohibiting traversal from nonsecure to protected areas
- Fixes dismantled roads not clearing the sprite index cache (and sometimes later reappearing)
- Fixes LRTs being able to spawn on top of each other & go through each other
- Fixes ‘Browse Filesystem’ button on save/load game UI
- Fixes worker pathing bug when building or adding runway upgrades near edge of map
- Fixes precision for wait times specified in game seconds when at 200+ game days
- Fixes vending object currency rounding display inconsistency
- Fixes a bug that caused text to intermittently not show up or to be noisy & illegible (macOS)
- Fixes sprite lighting and over-exposure, few other graphic/render setting tweaks
- Fixes a bug related to transport Dropoffs causing late passengers due to queue build-up
- Fixes Staff UI portraits not showing up, optimizes their loading/display substantially
- Fixes Save Game UI so that clicking a save pre-fills the text box & overwrite dialog shows which filename
- Fixes P&L report expansion of categories when viewing previous days data
- Fixes bug in game reset that could sometimes cause performance degradation
- Fixes pricing not showing up for a few terrain tools
- Fixes a security reachability related bug that could cause passengers to use the wrong security areas and generally get confused about their surroundings (primarily affected more complex layouts that made use of security exits and escalators). Specific change was to ensure that reachability did not allow a passenger to cross a Security Exit into a "Secure" area from a "Protected" area.
- Fixes road vehicles so that distant traffic no longer considered when choosing a route
- Fixes dumpsters being emptied prior to construction being completed
- Fixes condition that caused aircraft to end up on roads and stuck