Airship: Kingdoms Adrift News

This is the final Alpha release before we move on to BETA testing!



Sign-up using this form to join our final Alpha test release:
https://forms.gle/b6u7F7vgteLeuQJz5

What's new?

⛵️ Features:

• Meet Kara Wilkur at Silberblum's Storehouse Grocer
  
• Key mapping in the main menu setting screen is now allowed
  
• Updated shop with new shop UI, you can now see how cheap/expensive offers are
  
• Traversable edges are now enforced, Jean will turn the ship around if you go too far towards the edge
  
• Minerva now has her signature active skill
  
• Keep track of your wealth, added UI at the top-left of the screen
  
• New narrative GUI doesn't only look better but allows you to skip the conversation
  
• Receive money as rewards from quests
  
• In-game clock now dials faster than in real life as it should be, a day now takes 20 minutes to cycle
  
• All encounters now have proper descriptions
  
• Added more harvestable encounters such as stray islands and shipwrecks
  
• More ports are now enabled for resupplying, their visuals will follow in future updates
  
• Shift + Click now makes activates bulk transactions on items
  

🔨 Improvements:

• Ship supplies run out faster and voyage planning becomes more challenging
  
• Improved some AK ship models
  
• Improved particles and effects
  
• New buttons layout should make you feel at home as a vehicle simulation game
  
• Newly designed warehouse and inventory management view and UI
  

⚖️ Balancing:

• Improved Pirnmill's quest sequence
  
• Changed ships' prices
  
• Changed player's starting ship loadout
  
• Get rid of gun clearance restrictions on some grid types and make them work the same on all types
  
• Your rival's ship is now bigger the next time they come around
  

🔧 Bug Fixes:

• Encounters are now stabilized, there should be no more freezing or other bugs taking place on new encounters, and on landing/taking off
  
• Quest descriptions are no longer out of context
  
• Quest submission now saves properly regardless of interruptions
  

Join the community of Skyfarers and stay up to date on the upcoming BETA Test on our Discord community: https://discord.gg/BVcgwY6AM4

Chapter 1 Patch 0.7.2 - 25th February 2022 is released!
Branch: Playtest-Default

What's new?

Chapter 1 Contents
- 3 new populated areas to explore: Port Blueglade, Port Crossington and Everspring island
- Continue your journey on the brand new main story quests
- 20+ new high level random encounters

Main story quest
- Investigate pirate activities along the Blueglade and Crossington trade route
- Rush to the Layton's Dream Crashsite and search for survivors
- Meet new NPC: The Young Agent, Minerva Marleigh
- Meet new NPC: The Spy Master, Oliver Harrows (Everspring town)

Ship store
- All the airships will be available to purchase at the Silberblum HQ ship store
(Complete the Pirnmill questline to unlock)

New ship and encounter types
- High mobility NVR Corvette "River Mare"
- Havestable encounter: Floatsams, shipwreck and even floating forest or mine
with gatherable resources
- Spectacle encounter: Special locations and events to explore

Visual improvements
- New and exciting Airship's travel and combat visual effects

UI/UX improvements
- Improved Hangar UI
- Updated merchant UI and new airship tooltip for ship store
- Specialized facility icons
- Display correct information on encounter pop-up
- Now all available ships in the same port can be select and modify in the Shipyard

Miscellaneous
- Increase cannons' and light weapons' damage
- Increase Large and explosive rounds' velocity
- Rebalanced early game enemy fleets
- Add onselfmoralelow+onselfsupplylow battle situation
- Refresh facilities after Quest reported
- Make location icons on minimap updates as players receive items
- Supply part information now working properly

How to get onboard the playtesting?
Join the community: https://discord.com/invite/BVcgwY6AM4

Patch 0.7.1 - 27th January 2022 is released!
Branch: Playtest-Default

What's new?

Debug Console
- This build provides debug console for a better playtesting experience
- Shift+F2 to Activate/Deactivate debug console
- Use "ListDebugStatus" to see all debug features

Sidequest
- First look at the new side quest system
- Transport goods between Silberblum storehouse and Pirnmill port for quest rewards!

Combat improvement
-Now in a fleet battle, guns are allowed to lock on and fire at secondary target(s)

Visual improvements
- New Character portrait for William Walter Wellington III
- New AK fleet background image (as William's backdrop)
- New Silberblum HQ background image (as Sigrun's backdrop)
- New Quest item sprites
- Smoke particles in ports now showing properly
- Update in-game logo assets from Airship Academy to Airship: Academy

UI/UX improvements
- Replace travel UI buttons with High-resolution assets
- Improve UX/UI for item transfer system inside the shipyard
- Better readability for item tooltip
- Better readability for enemy fleet UI
- Partial reskin of the travel screen UI

Miscellaneous
- Resistance bonus for larger protection parts
- Ship control types are now selectable (Classic turning and Advanced turning)
- Port facility systems are now refreshed upon quest completion
- Dramatic narration can no longer interfere with the combat gameplay
- Allow the player to middle-mouse click and pan around during immersive narration
- Change Ship-based encounter rendering range to 3,000m
- Remove boundary from traverse map
- Landmass for Everspring region

Bug fixed
- Stackable item now working properly
- Shipyard's firing chain panel now working properly

How to get onboard the playtesting?
Join the community: https://discord.com/invite/BVcgwY6AM4

If you have managed go and pick up Sigrun from the nearby storehouse. You'd find a peculiar individual waiting for you on your way up. And he is captaining an Aetherfalcon Skiff armed with some musket men, trying to come close and have a blast at you and the guys.



Today's story is not about that peculiar individual, even if we would want to cover him eventually. But about the ship he was in, as he made an introduction into our story. The "Aetherfalcon" is a symbol of the Aecerlian coming to terms with how the world has changed. A small, yet complicated ship with replaceable parts, allows for ease of parts replacement while maintaining the core design secret within their domain.

The airframe came out officially very late into the war and while it missed many of the major actions taken place, it became commonly adopted and widespread during the stalemate that came after. While it is true that the Aecerlian Crown has begun the mass decommissioning of vessels, they keep on manufacturing more of the Aetherfalcon and ship them along with their freshly trained offers and crews to join expeditionary forces all over Europa. Aside from the success in modernizing the fleet, the Royal Commission has also tried something they have never done before. They designed a companion framework that looks almost identical but stripped off combat effectiveness then manufacture and sell them to private owners all over the Blue Belt with great commercial success.

Due to the romanticization of war, glory, and the service to the Eagle, the Aetherfalcon has become the Aecerlian new generation youth's icon of military expedition spirit. Young and upstart Aecerlian nobles and military families would join the navy to be trained and shipped off to see some "light actions" in the foreign land then return home for a desk job a decade or so.

Given that they survive through those years of service.

Tune into our community for more: https://discord.gg/BVcgwY6AM4
Register to the playtesting branch, update once every 2 weeks: https://forms.gle/b6u7F7vgteLeuQJz5

The recent playtest release last week's Thursday saw an introduction of the "Snow Basilisk" (The name may change later down the milestones). So as the Pony, the Basilisk is the result of centuries of iterations.



Gameplay-wise, the Basilisk is the smallest vessel available in Airship: Academy and is classified as a Gunboat. Among the smallest ship class, the Basilisk could potentially pack the most punch. To most grey belters, the Basilisk, and similar ships are not just ships, they are so much more.

Grey belter families often make their home inside one of these ships, children would grow up in its cramped, crowded, lower deck and join the crew as soon as they become a toddler. Closely related families that can't afford larger ships often live and make their living looting wreckages, hunting wild creatures, hauling, and doing whatever they can to make ends meet with the Basilisk and some similar ships as their instruments.

At the beginning of the Great War, many of these "Family Ships" signed up to tag along with larger warships on expeditions to other belts. It is at this point, that the grey belters started learning that the climate of the Green Belt means that they no longer have to huddle around the ship's furnace at night. And getting fed is just the matter of stopping a merchant for a small share of their cargo in exchange for not tearing a hole into their ships. So, it is natural that after the war, only a few of them make their way back to the Grey Belt.

However, life in the Grey Belt goes on as it was with Thousands of the Basilisk and families still roaming the icy wastes, clinging to their traditions of looting and pillaging settlements of fellow grey belters.

Tune into our community for more: https://discord.gg/BVcgwY6AM4

Register to the playtesting branch, update once every 2 weeks: https://forms.gle/b6u7F7vgteLeuQJz5