Ground of Aces News

[p]Ground of Aces is about to enter a new era:[/p][p][/p][p]Watch our date reveal trailer:[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h2]Three things you can do right now::[/h2]

• [p]Mark the 10th of July red on your calendar![/p]
• [p]Now you still have the chance to play the free demo and tell us your thoughts before the Early Access starts. On the 30th of June, we will take down the demo to put all the focus on the upcoming Early Access launch.[/p]
• [p]If you are a non-English speaker: You can help as a COMMUNITY TRANSLATOR! Go here to see how far we are with translating the game with the community. Over 90% of the game is already translated into 17 languages! If you know a non-English language, you can help by adding your own translations and make the game more accessible for everyone. Every small bit is greatly appreciated![/p]

[p][/p][p]Thank you so much for playing the demo and for being excited for Ground of Aces![/p][p][/p]

[p]Our new demo of GROUND OF ACES is part of the STEAM NEXT FEST! This is our biggest opportunity to present our WW2 base builder to the wider Steam community before we will go into Early Access later this summer. [/p][p][/p][p]For this, we have updated our demo with the latest Alpha 6 features and other improvements. [/p][p][/p][p]Get an overview of the most important changes here:[/p][p][/p][p]AIR RAIDS: EXPERIENCE BOMBINGS AGAINST YOUR BASE BY THE LUFTWAFFE[/p]

• [p]Your RAF base can now get randomly attacked by the Luftwaffe during the 28 in-game days of the demo.[/p]
• [p] Experience the consequences of a bombing! Your structures, airplanes, workbenches and props can get destroyed in the air raids. Destroyed structures will turn into rubble that the crew has to clean up before repairing and rebuilding.[/p]
• [p]Sirens will alarm the crew of an upcoming attack. How much earlier depends if you also have a radio tower on your base.[/p]
• [p] The demo starts with a small air raid and after 28 in-game days, a pre-programmed big bombing attack will happen. This will conclude the demo. You can still go back to a previous save or start again fresh.[/p]

[p]DEATH & BURIAL[/p]

• [p]Be careful, your crew members can now die. This means you also have to take care of their burials if you lose someone. The crew members who survive will bury and mourn their fallen brothers.[/p]

[p][/p][p]HIRE NEW CREW MEMBERS AND PILOTS[/p]

• [p]You need more crew and pilots? Go to the new Crew Acquisition Menu and order more personnel with your Victory Points. [/p]

[p][/p][p]NEW MAIN MENU & INTRO[/p]

• [p] The main menu has a new 3D set up showing a hobby room of a WW2 aviation and comics aficionado[/p]
• [p] When you start a playthrough on the Lichfield map, you get a new intro introducing you to your base and showing the first attack
  [/p]

[p]Unlock an alternative version of the Gloster Gladiator by signing up for the newsletter [/p][p][/p][p]New language added[/p]

• [p]Ukrainian[/p]

[p][/p][p]Other improvements including:[/p]

• [p] More sound effects, e.g. for mission announcements, fails and successes[/p]
• [p] You can now place a parking spot and it automatically schedules the obstacles for destruction[/p]
• [p] Roofs are now one build element to make building roofs more efficient. We also adjusted the duration of build times for roofs.[/p]
• [p] Runways can’t be expanded over parking spots and objects any more[/p]
• [p] Roof visibility buttons are now part of the main UI[/p]
• [p] Now a warning message gets displayed to explain why a roof can’t be built[/p]
• [p] New buttons for opening up the resource window and for expanding the whole list of resources[/p]
• [p] Pressing issues warnings includes new items like “no gardening zone”[/p]
• [p] And more UI and UX adjustments!
  [/p]

[p]
And we fixed several bugs, including:[/p]

• [p]Several game crashing issues (e.g. game crashing after a Stuka dive, when brick doors get destroyed, or crashes connected to workbench issues) [/p]
• [p] Save games getting corrupted, in which all the buildings are gone[/p]
• [p] Roofs getting destroyed and then not being able to rebuild them[/p]
• [p] NPC and objects not getting any damage by air raids after the roof of the building is already destroyed[/p]
• [p] Destroyed wall not getting removed by crew because of which direction they are facing[/p]
• [p] Game freezing when you force an NPC to drop an item[/p]
• [p] Game freezing when moving a manned AA gun and searchlights [/p]
• [p]Issue with saving and reloading in the morning of Monday when you get the weekly report[/p]
• [p] Game breaking when cancelling move tool interaction[/p]
• [p] Supply truck not arriving when the truck changes from enough space for a large shipment changes to only a small shipment[/p]
• [p] Large shipments not being accepted for the supply truck[/p]
• [p] Game breaking when saving after an air attack[/p]
• [p]Cancelling a move action with right mouse click while the object is placed in an invalid location, leading to objects appearing as red ghosts permanently [/p]
• [p] And more![/p]

[p]
Please fill out our survey to tell us your feedback and if you come across a bug, please use the in-game feedback form (click the button “Give Feedback” in the game).

We also prepared a new trailer to celebrate the Steam Next Fest:

The demo will stay online for the duration of the Next Fest and for a while after the event. When we are closer to the Early Access start, we will take down the demo to focus on the EARLY ACCESS release.

So now is your chance to play the demo of Ground of Aces and give us your thoughts before we go into Early Access!

We hope you have fun with our demo and we look forward to hearing your feedback!

The Blindflug Studios team
[/p]

Today is the Victory in Europe Day! Fitting for this historic anniversary, there is a special event starting today on Steam that showcases several World War II games, and our game Ground of Aces with its pre-release demo is also part of it.

There is probably a high chance that you like video games about World War II, right? Explore the other games here:
[h2]GO TO THE WW2 GAMES SALE
[/h2]

And if you haven't heard it yet: We just updated the demo with new features like:

• Save & Load System
  
• Quest System
  
• New rewards from the HQ like the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft guns
  
• Experience your first air raid by the Luftwaffe as the conclusion of the demo
  

Learn more in our previous news post:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2308690/announcements/detail/510705212398240261

Did you know it's possible now to review demos? Don't hesitate to leave your thoughts about the new demo as a review!

After we released our new demo in April, we received a lot of great feedback from our demo players. Based on this feedback, we decided to do an interim update between Alpha 5 and 6, for which we focused on fixing the most urgent bugs, making more quality-of-life improvements and adding the Save System to the demo.

So yes, we heard you, demo players, we saw your requests: We are adding the Save & Load feature to the demo! We also see that unlocking it for the demo will help us get even more useful feedback from a bigger player base.

We hope you can understand that we have to set some kind of limitation for the free demo. This is why we have designed something new for that based on your inputs. Read more about this below:

NEW FEATURES FOR THE DEMO:
SAVE SYSTEM
You can now save & load in the demo!

AIR RAID ENDING
Instead of locking the save feature, there is now an in-game time limit of 28 in-game days in the demo. After these 28 days, your air base will get attacked by the Luftwaffe with an air raid. The demo concludes with this attack, and you will get an overview of what you have achieved in those 28 days. You can still replay from the start or load an old save.

NEW FEATURES FOR BOTH THE DEMO & VERSION FOR ALPHA SUPPORTERS:

QUEST SYSTEM
As a guideline for new and old players, we implemented a quest system that gives you clear objectives. With these tasks and an improved “Pressing Issues” display, you will not lose sight of what needs to be done for your air base.

NEW REWARDS FROM HQ, incl. ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS
You can now get Bofors 40mm Anti-Aircraft Guns, Searchlights and Radio Towers from HQ.

TAKING COVER FUNCTIONALITY, ALARM STATE AND SAFETY ZONES
Define your Safety Zones where your crew should take cover during an attack. You can activate the new Alarm State for your base yourself, or see how it automatically gets triggered during an air raid.

OTHER ADDITIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS:

• New languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Hungarian
  
• Move Tool: Use this tool when you want to change the location of a prop or workbench that is already built
  
• You can adjust screen shake intensity in the Options Menu (the screen shakes during air raids)
  
• New assets like sand bags and sirens
  
• New sound effects for NPC eating, garden work, harvesting fuel, maintaining airplane and more
  
• Landing gear animation for landing and takeoff
  
• Redesign of the Pressing Issues alerts (the notifications on the right side that tell you if food is low, if there are not enough beds, etc.)
  
• NPCs are more efficient at high speeds
  

Our team worked on over 60 bug tasks for this update, many of which were reported by you, the players.

An overview of the most important bugs we fixed:

• Plane and mission related bugs that led to
  
• Plane stuck on runway
  
• Plane never returning from mission
  
• Plane set for takeoff but not taking off
  
• Newly ordered planes not arriving
  
• Bugs that led to crashes and game freezes (e.g. changing the requirements of a food workbench task while fast forwarding)
  
• Pilots or crew disappearing after missions
  
• NPC getting stuck in a pose after delivering resources
  
• Issues with cancelling or destroying hangar doors
  
• Workbenches producing endless food
  
• Deconstructing workbenches with active tasks makes them completely disappear
  
• People not working and not reacting to new direct orders
  
• Constant particle effect at inactive saw station
  
• Wrong animations when harvesting certain resources
  
• Bubbles displaying missing resources or moods not disappearing
  
• Wrong estimation of percentage of missions success when plane strength equals minimum strength
  
• Not getting tooltips when looking through a roof
  
• Opening the build popup while a structure is getting finished didn't let you close it
  
• Deleting parking spot when plane is parked caused errors
  
• Not being able to deconstruct tight hangar walls
  
• People getting stuck on chairs at walls
  

For completion of this overview, here are also the changes from our smaller hotfix update that was already released in April:

• Streamer Mode: You livestream the game on Twitch or want to upload videos about it to YouTube? Activate this mode so only Creative Commons music gets played while playing.
  
• Bug fix for NCPs getting stuck on the beds and staying in panic mode
  

We are looking forward to your new feedback. Once again, please use the in-game feedback tool and fill out the survey, which is linked in the game. Your input really helps us improve the game!

Our team now continues working on the Alpha 6 update, which focuses on the attacks against your base.

Stay tuned and have fun with the new update!

- The Blindflug Studios team

To reach more Chinese players, we have opened a Bilibili channel. If you use the platform and want to keep up with our games, please follow us! We would greatly appreciate it.



And as a reminder: Steam just launched its City Builder & Colony Sim Fest! This is an excellent opportunity for you to check out our free demo of Ground of Aces. To celebrate the fest, we are doing a special giveaway week. Open the demo and click the "Join our Giveaway" button in the main menu to learn more.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2308690/Ground_of_Aces/

Thank you very much for playing!

- Nuria from Blindflug Studios