Airships: Conquer the Skies News

I completely redid the way roads work to be prettier and more flexible. As a result, landships can now finally travel via multiple cities in one go. There are also more sea lanes.

Saves from previous versions can be loaded in too, but might not look as pretty. If you want to finish ongoing games using the previous version, you can switch to the "1.0.22.2-oldroads" branch in Steam.

Also, landships are now are 25% cheaper to build and maintain. Legs are up to 50% more expensive, relatively speaking. And there's the occasional AI player that focuses on landships.

Other fixes:

• Option to display a clock in the corner.
  
• Loading from autosave no longer targets the autosave file for quick save afterwards.
  
• Fixed a problem where the wrong module would be selected in the editor.
  
• The AI no longer sends out a zillion spies and bankrupts itself in the process.
  
• Adding a keel in the editor now immediately has the right effect on module hit points.
  
• Ships no longer try to shoot at targets that have been destroyed or that ran away into the reserve.
  
• Guards now fight to retake captured ships and buildings.
  
• Crew in captured buildings no longer treasonously fire on guards.
  
• Crew no longer forget they're POWs when they leave a ship.
  
• Fixed gaps and lines in ship rendering. Finally.
  
• Added the letters Åå.
  

Upcoming: a technical post on the road update, and a post about diplomacy update progress.

I've mostly been busy with the diplomacy update - more on the state on that soon - but here is a minor update that fixes some crashes and visual issues, and improves performance:

• Fixed combat performance problems caused by trying to play too many sound effects.
  
• Fixed weapon beams not being drawn at certain angles.
  
• Fixed crash at the end of LAN multiplayer combat.
  
• Fixed crash on resuming combat setup with ships already placed.
  
• Mod transfer is now faster, thanks to the ancient technique of "not transferring mods no one needs".
  
• Fixed blazon (description) of coats of arms with scarpes.
  
• Fixed fleet command bonus text.
  
• When defeating a fleshcracker mad scientist, you're now more likely to discover fleshcrackers.
  

The combat performance improvements are thanks to a player sending in a recording of a problematic combat. So remember: if you encounter a bug or performance problem in combat, look up the recording afterwards and use the "Send Feedback" button in the recording to send it to me, so I can analyse it.

Airships (v 1.0.22) now supports mod cross-loading, which means that you can enter any modded multiplayer game and it will automatically transfer over and activate any mods you need.

It also takes care of managing multiple versions of mods, so if you have the wrong version of a mod, it can transfer it over.



Security-wise: Airships mods are entirely data-driven, so you're not copying over any executable code.

The game also keeps the crossloaded mods separate, so it won't overwrite any existing mods you have installed.

• Fixed dyslexic font rendering.
  
• Added the Cyrillic letter Ё to the game, which was missing for some weird reason.
  
• Updated German translations.
  
• Aerial dragoons and other boarding troops now return to the ship that launched them if their target ship goes missing.
  
• Bees and wasps will now find a new target to invade if the old target goes missing.
  
• Fixed pathing issue that caused boarding crew to go back and forth endlessly.
  
• Fixed issues with bonuses not being applied when building ships, for starting ships, and for ships in single player combat setup.
  
• Rebalanced proportion of monster nest types.
  

My hand's pretty much healed now. :)

(And 1.0.21.13 fixes a bug with airplane AI that 1.0.21.12 introduced.)

Right hand is mostly better, but I'm still taking it slow. Here's an update that was mostly ready before the Incident:

Fixes and Improvements

• Undid a "fix" that made things worse: Single combats should no longer incorrectly end in draws, but individual ship fates in the post-combat screen may once again be incorrectly displayed as immobile. This does not affect conquest games.
  
• When editing a ship in multiplayer, you can now go to spectate or setup a combat, and will be nicely returned to the editor after the combat.
  
• Soil and grass is sturdier and should no longer evaporate into deep craters upon contact with crashing ships.
  
• Added the following new letters for display in game text: đďþňčřžšßťǎăāæěĕēòôøœůÿïĐĎÞÑŇČŘŽŠSSŤÂǍĂĀÆËÂĚĔĒÒÔØŒŮŸÏÍ
  
• Fixed a boarder pathing bug that would cause borders to not move when told to board an enemy ship.
  
• If you load a ship where one module is blocking another (eg a slope in front of a cannon), the game now treats this as an error. This is to prevent a potential exploit where you could use a mod to disable placement restrictions but then still use the resulting ship in unmodded play.
  
• Instead of air sailors, landships now have crew with their own visual appearance and reduced maintenance costs, designed by Meowskyi (thanks!)
  

Modding

Modules can now add bonuses to ships they're in using the providesBonus value. This opens up a lot of interesting potential, as bonuses can be used to change nearly everything about modules. Note that modules will grant these bonuses whether or not they're in a running state - this is to prevent paradoxical / unstable situations where a running module's bonus causes it to stop running.

You can now partially overwrite existing Loadables (game data entries) instead of having to replace the whole thing. To do this, set "patch" to true and provide a partial entry with just the keys you want added or replaced.

Multiple patches from different mods can layer on top of each other - of course with no guarantee that the end result makes sense, or that it even runs without crashing. But it allows for eg one mod to change the visual appearance of cannons, and the other once changing the damage progression.

Note that each mod still has to be loadable on its own, so you can't make a mod that requires another mod to function. For that case, just make one mod instead.

I've made a small example mod that shows both of these new modding features: an alchemist's chamber that boosts damage from explosive weapons.



Off the top of my head, here's some other things you could do with modules that add bonuses:

• Increase fire safety by reducing the fireHP values of flammable modules.
  
• Improve storage capacity for resources.
  
• Improve stats of specific weapons like fire rate, damage, accuracy.
  
• Improve lift / propulsion of specific modules.
  
• Change the stats of armour.
  
• Change the visual appearance of modules.
  
• Improve firefighting or repair effectiveness.
  

Enjoy!