SimAirport News

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HUGE. Seriously, this patch release is massive in both scope and volume -- it covers an extremely wide coverage area that touches on so many vastly distinct aspects. There's truly a bit of everything; lots of all-new features & objects, new systems, tons of refinements, and an absolute plethora of fixes.

Usually we'd have a bit more substantial message alongside the notes, but this one really speaks for itself so we're going to be extremely brief. Plus we'll have plenty to say over on the live stream anyways!


We'll be live-streaming for the next few hours tonight -- we'd love for you to join us! Ask us your burning questions, provide gameplay feedback, laugh at our airport construction skills, or just hang out and have a good time!

Live stream has ended for tonight -- we'll be back & streaming again tomorrow though and will update this post accordingly!

• Here on Steam
• via YouTube
• via Twitch

And now the good stuff, the meat & potatoes -- following are the full patch notes for tonight's default release. Thank you! :)

• Fix intermittent black screen when beginning tutorials
  
• Fix vehicle spawn not prioritizing supply truck appropriately
  

• Adds SIX different playable tutorials covering progressively more advanced topics
  
• Earn 1 Steam Achievement by beginning any tutorial
  
• Completing each respective tutorial earns 1 Steam Achievement

• New 'Staff Hub' UI separates Staff/Administrator, hire/fire management for each
  
• Control costs by Scheduling Staff at only specified operating hours
  
• Mass Hire/Fire: add/remove 10 with CTRL+CLICK, 5 with SHIFT+CLICK
  
• Staff paid hourly wages when at airport, leave when not scheduled
  
• New daily overhead charged for hired/on-payroll staff, regardless schedule
  
• Staff types that can be scheduled are: Staff, Security, Retail Workers, Chefs
  
• All staff now arrive & leave via transport
  

• Adds Clone Tool that allows you to copy/paste segments of your airport
  
• Requires Foreman Administrator and is restricted to indoor areas
  
• Certain objects cannot be cloned (walkways, stairs/escalators, queues, zones)
  
• Rotate your copied selection with the rotate key or mouse button (default is 'R')
  

• Adds 'Store' zones that can be renamed like Cafes
  
• Pax purchase products from various displays & pay at cash registers
  
• Pax browse displays before purchase; varied displays increase chance of sale
  
• New Store Objects:
  
  
  
  • Clothing Display
    
  • 2x Candy Display
    
  • 2x Book Display
    
  • 2x Makeup Display
    
  • 3x Souvenir Displays
    
  • 2x Shoe Displays
    
  • 3x Pharmacy Displays
    
  • 3x Jewelry Display
    

• Adds 'Road Ramp' transition objects, ability to draw/build underground roads
  
• New system that provides capabilities not available previously
  
• Maintenance project improvements; reliability & new per-type config options
  
• Improved handling, performance, data integrity for Supply Pile related logic
  
• Area Sell now provides per-type sale price breakdown
  
• Can now zone over pending construction
  
• Most placement & build validations no longer blocked by pending construction, validates based on 'future' state
  
• Dismantle button now validated 'live', prevents untimely dismantles
  
• Construction tasks now more responsive and workers 'think ahead' (head to project while supplies are carried by other worker)
  
• Adds agent tool animation back, displays when worker is actively constructing
  
• Improves handling of multi-change construction on a single tile, primarily Foundations & underground roads
  

• Adds 'Chef' staff type. Cooks food in the kitchen & stocks up food kiosks, food displays in cafes.
  
• Cafes now accept all chair types except office chairs
  
• Cafe min size now 6x6; kitchen min size now 4x4
  
• Cafes zones can be renamed for aesthetics
  
• New build menu category for kitchen & cafe objects
  
• New Hot Plate item added to the kitchen
  
• Chefs now wash up at kitchen sinks for food safety purposes
  
• New items: Food Warmer and Food Cooler for the Cafe; these are food displays for your passengers to pick food from & take to the cash register
  
• Food kiosks & displays now require food to be produced by the kitchens
  
• Workmen now stock up kitchen storages and refrigerators with ingredients
  
• Bars and coffee kiosks require stocking with drinks by workmen
  
• Each food has its own cooking process, meaning that having multiple appliances will help the efficiency of your kitchen; chefs perform each step
  
• Pax have a preferred food (including drinks), and will only eat or drink at places that serve it. Vending machines are used by everyone but with less effectiveness
  
• Kitchens have a new 'Kitchen Overview' screen (click any kitchen zone to access); shows how each food is cooked & which steps you are missing
  
• Retail workers are allocated directly to cash registers in the cafe, no more running back and forth to the kitchen to finish orders
  
• Cafe zones now get assigned to kitchens (previously individual cash registers)
  

• Multiple staff can be allocated to work on some objects to improve effectiveness
  
• Kiosk Scheduler removed & replaced with Staff Deployment; includes a paintable timeline feature to organize schedules
  
• Bare concrete now has negative environment impact
  
• Staff hire/fire now exclusively via staff hub UI
  
• Add zone validation 'requires adjacent road that can reach spawn/despawn'
  
• Add ability to construct up to 3 LRT platforms (1 train each, round robin style)
  
• Lowest LRT interval reduced to 7 minutes
  
• Improved speed of LRT boarding/unloading routines
  
• Fuel truck now visually drives on/off aircraft gate
  
• Pax now have slightly more urgent desire to leave after missing flight
  
• Dumpsters now allowed indoors to accommodate underground garbage zones
  
• Tweaks to defined queue movement behavior for higher efficiency
  
• Adds all-new aircraft liveries/textures for all built-in airlines/aircraft
  
• Adds Thirst pax need -- applicable retail objects now satisfy thirst
  
• Improve error handling & recovery on agent task runners
  
• Fuel trucks now willing to refuel themselves even if network cannot fully fill them
  
• Vehicles re-attempt when zone target goes away instead of giving up
  
• Improved save version tracking for better player warning capabilities
  
• Welcome text shown on new maps
  
• Any camera movement key-press now stops camera 'follow mode'
  
• Cash register sprites updated
  
• Numerous decorative flooring tile sprites updated
  
• News Stand & Apparel Stand now require retail workers instead of vendor workers
  
• Revises all non-vehicle agents to unified task-based system
  
• Fuel Depot now using road-adjacency system, requires direct-adjacency
  
• Improve 'can reach spawn' and 'can reach despawn' checks; now checks for primary de/spawn points OR Pickups/Dropoffs (can be improved further still; setups that do not produce warnings could rarely have the potential to be logically problematic)
  
• Adds validation warning if no lighted runway but night flight scheduled
  
• Runway light placement now force-refreshes applicable validations
  
• Multiple minor improvements & adjustments to agent sprites, offsets, colors, etc.
  
• Adds gate validation warning if no reachable runway has lights & night flight scheduled
  
• Object placements now force-refresh applicable 'related object' validations
  
• Improve road placement tool validation error messages to include specifics on the offending “nearby blocker” object/structure
  
• Find 'nearest zone' lookups now accurately account for floor deltas
  
• Changed certain path following routines, less likely to 'cut corners' through objects
  
• Add validation to aircraft gates to help prevent them from being placed backwards
  
• Balance adjustments on all Fuel Tank types
  
• Flight schedule resolution increased; can schedule on per-minute basis
  
• Add ability to configure maintenence priority & choose 1 of 3 'settings' for when repairs take place on that object type
  
• Object 'repair override' now simply allows out-of-window repairs
  
• If object hits 0% override automatically is switched on; override is automatically disabled upon repair completion
  
• Workers can now abruptly stop working on a maintenance project when window closes, override turned off, or settings changed
  
• Construction project 'options' menu now accessed via standard left-click
  
• Can now set construction project priority to Urgent/High/Normal/Low
  
• Rough balance adjustments to maintainable objects via MTBF adjustments
  
• Add BClaim validation: 'requires valid path to Pickups'
  
• Add 'door must be reachable from desk' warning validation to Gates, existed previously but now distinct from 'requires assigned desk' message for confusion avoidance
  

• Implemented staff task pooling - RAM
  
• Multiple extremely commonly used position enumerations - RAM
  
• Commonly called appearance lookups - RAM
  
• Functional object manager - RAM
  
• Vehicle movement & node find/recall - RAM
  
• Zone periodic validations to be more allocation friendly - RAM
  
• Pax 'need display' tooltips - RAM
  
• Core passenger AI loop - RAM
  
• Long-distance & local-area path following routines - RAM
  
• Build menu button requirement / count checks - CPU
  
• Find 'nearest walkable area' now threaded - CPU
  
• Agent identity logic & setup routines - CPU+RAM
  
• Road graph generation performance - CPU+RAM
  
• Objects in zone find & cache mechanisms - CPU+RAM
  
• Object selection - CPU+RAM
  
• Assignment mode data structures - CPU+RAM
  
• Agent 'carried object' handling routines - CPU+RAM
  
• Object pool CPU usage when pooling/de-pooling certain objects - CPU+RAM
  
• Rendering of: Trash Bags, floor dirt, Supply Piles, Roads & Taxiways - CPU+RAM+GPU
  
• Attach to wall visual render - CPU+RAM+GPU
  
• Vehicle transfer animation visual render - CPU+RAM+GPU
  

• Add Spanish language support (THANK YOU!!)
  
• Update all translation files to & from Github including new Tutorial.xml
  
• Add numerous new translation keys and re-implemented localization on some UIs
  
• Add stroke/outline to agent sprites
  
• Add graphical post-processing stack (anti-aliasing & color grading)
  
• Increase max zoom distance slightly for a given map size
  
• Add slight color variation to some tiles to improve aesthetic
  
• Foundation tool now shows tiles that are to-be-walls visually for better UX
  
• Minor tweaks & improvements to Flight Schedule UI
  
• Multiple minor improvements & adjustments to agent sprites, offsets, colors, etc.
  
• Revise thread-based state systems into unified state manager
  
• Improved save game screenshot previews
  

• Fix 'X' button on main menu settings UI not opening the primary menu screen
  
• Fix Flight Crew arrival & boarding routines that were using legacy code
  
• Fix Gate Desk using legacy pax handling code, more robust & may speed up slightly
  
• Fix 'Circle Flight Pax' not circling newly spawned pax
  
• Fix environment pax need impact not taking window effect into account
  
• Fix zone HUD alert/notifier showing repetitive messages
  
• Fix camera settings sliders rounding to whole number values causing unexpected setting changes when resuming a gameplay session
  
• Fix Perfect Ops bonus showing negative days
  
• Fix several bag hub registration / de-registration bugs
  
• Fix moving walkway build cost bug
  
• Fix material ordering & disallow project cancel for runway/walkway extension projects
  
• Fix runway validation bug when attempting to place on right or top edge of map
  
• Fix weather dialog showing "Inactive due to weather" when runways are down for non-weather related reasons
  
• Fix memory leak and errors due to leftover adhoc queue upon object dismantle
  
• Fix UI selected object hover box being rotated incorrectly on non-rotated objects
  
• Fix error on some rare short-distance agent pathfinding requests
  
• Fix PA Speaker not unregistering when deserialized in a pending dismantle state
  
• Fix maintenance projects started via override while outside of window
  
• Fix duplicate state-set bug that could cause projects to be left in undefined state
  
• Fix piles destined for non-walkable underground (fuel tank), were being dropped in poor locations resulting in very long walks
  
• Fix runways able to be built half off-map, causing numerous downstream issues
  
• Fix placeables sometimes not populating translated name/description during init
  
• Fix luggage cars can get stuck when depot is in certain orientations relative to the nearby road(s)
  
• Fix supply pile not preferring against being dropping on existing escalator/stairway/walkway
  
• Fix multiple Workshop & mod related bugs
  
• Fix departing bag count incorrectly displaying arrival bag count
  
• Fix pause toggle action sometimes getting stuck on pause
  
• Fix wind UI text display, update it to show 3-char direction
  
• Fix supply pile project re-allocation not seeing all piles correctly causing price mismatch vs display price
  
• Fix flight schedule UI bug for certain flight time
  
• Fix middle mouse scroll not taking into account zoom level
  
• Fix ticket kiosk logic may have been able to errantly allow usage when not in gate-assigned zone
  
• Fix agent state bug that could cause failed agent startup on some very old saves (circa 2017)
  
• Fix pooled path data structures rarely not being fully reset if canceled late
  
• Fix thread safety issue, maybe caused boarded pax to very rarely be 'missed flight'
  
• Fix vehicles running traffic-aware paths before being stuck in traffic
  
• Fix Perfection Bonus showing all days, should only show prior 30 days
  
• Fix staff not getting floor change on last waypoint during path-following
  
• Fix road node reservation bug during runway construction/dismantle/expand
  
• Fix pax spawner only looking at “Today” in prep for EAM flights
  
• Fix extremely delayed passengers unable to despawn due to archived flight data
  
• Fix several UIs need to check if game is quitting before cleaning up
  
• Fix zone removal not always cleaning up scheduled staff tasks/allocations
  
• Fix Fuel Truck reachability check which could cause failed fuel requests
  
• Fix Fuel Truck distance heuristic returning inaccurate distance numbers causing failed refueling or poor/distant vehicles to be assigned
  
• Fix performance 'leak' during when initializing & configuring certain agents & objects
  
• Fix sub-task tracking issue that mostly impacted retail workers
  
• Fix target selection bug that could cause retail staff to attempt to path-find to a wall
  
• Fix aircraft being visible and 'floating' after takeoff on some large maps
  
• Fix pax rarely becoming stuck mid-security process when objects are deleted
  
• Fix multiple save/load issues related to zones, revised zone references to use primary GUID & assignments system
  
• Fix roads unable to be placed on outdoor gates
  
• Fix Needs UI not showing 'fully satisfied' for Environment/Frustration
  
• Fix taxiway & runway light sprites not respecting underground opacity
  
• Fix flight spawn curve shifted towards being too late
  
• Fix attach-to-wall objects not not always causing wall sprite to refresh/update properly
  
• Fix luggage using wrong material when on conveyors
  
• Fix object selection dialog 'Follow' mode not providing state feedback
  
• Fix fuel one-time purchase input too small
  
• Fix object warnings flashing too rapidly
  
• Fix Luggage Vehicle checking one-way path instead of bidirectional
  
• Fix sector generation thread safety issue, could cause corrupted sector state (stuck & clumping pax, strange behaviors, etc)
  
• Fix sector data pooling bug that caused RAM usage to continually increase
  
• Fix lighting 'flash' each day at 20:00
  
• Fix road reachability matrix & caching when using one-way taxiways
  
• Fix rain appearing off screen when zoomed out
  
• Fix several bank loan text/translation related issues
  
• Fix gate name dropdown visual quirk
  
• Fix mod status menu not being sorted alphabetically
  
• Fixed duplicate floor types (removed Floor09, dupe of Floor12)
  
• Fix PAPI not being blocked by other objects
  
• Fix and update several aspects of Hangar submenu; adds money validation text
  
• Fix wall tiling/bitmask not visually treating all doors the same
  

Happy Birthday! SimAirport turned 2 years old today and to celebrate we are doing something a little bit different this time around. Instead of an update video, this time we're going to be PLAYING it with you LIVE!


You're all invited to the celebration! The patch will go live on Saturday, March 9th at 10PM US Pacific. The developers themselves will then be live-streaming, taking your questions, and discussing your feedback & ideas late into the night!

We'd love for you to join the celebration -- we'll be talking about all kinds of things, and we'll be happy to answer any questions you might have about the game and what is to come in the future.

• When?
  
  Saturday March 9th, 2019 at 10PM US Pacific.
  If you're across the pond from us, that's 07:00 CET (GMT+1) on Sunday morning!
  
  
• What?
  
  
  
  
  • Developer Live Stream
    Interact directly with the devs, ask questions, learn about the game, provide feedback, and share your ideas. We'll be talking all things SimAirport!
    
    
  • Default Patch Release!
    The latest update will go live when we begin streaming on Saturday!
    
  
  
  
• Where?
  
  We'll be streaming directly to the store page here on Steam and simul-casting to YouTube. We'll be playing late into the night, so stop by and join us for some fun!!
  
  Links to the streams will be posted with the patch notes, on the forum, and this post will be updated to include them.
  

We hope you will join us this weekend and we're definitely looking forward to it -- and to having a chance to sit back a bit, talk about the game that we're so passionate about, and to have some fun building an airport ourselves, too! :)

See you this weekend!

Happy Holidays from the LVGameDev team!

We're just shy of two years into Early Access as this year comes to a close and we begin to look towards 2019 and what it has in store for SimAirport. We're incredibly excited about the contents of the next default patch, and we really couldn't be happier with the state of affairs right now -- gameplay has evolved tremendously, even just this past year, and we're extremely well-positioned to really start pushing content out & hitting home on quality-of-life desires.


The next cycle is well under way, and it's already shaping up to be an awesome one -- it's absolutely packed full of new content and several incredibly impactful new gameplay systems. Substantial improvement to the continued desire for 'depth', numerous new objects, and a renewed attention to visual fidelity all combine to make the upcoming release one of the most anticipated since the Multiple Floors update went live just under a year ago!

Here are just some of the highlights:

Tutorial - Several of them!
Long requested and finally delivered -- multiple tutorials to help players of all skill & experience levels. New players can start with the basic tutorial while those who have the basics down can play through more advanced tutorials to help master game concepts such as Baggage Systems and multi-floor construction.

Staff Scheduling
No longer will your staff be working 24-hours shifts, unless you want them to! Staff up to handle the travel rush & scale back during the sleepy overnight hours. Airport operations efficiency taken to a whole new level.

Complete Overhaul of Cafe/Retail & New 'Shops' Zone
Long needed & finally delivered. No longer will your retail workers be running confusingly between the kitchen and the cafes -- now your Chefs will work the kitchens & do their best to keep food flowing to their respective retail establishments. Pax are smarter too, with quicker & more realistic interactions that won't bog down your airport. True retail corridors are now possible; a wide array of new shop related objects & new sellable merchandise options will keep pax happier & increase your profits.

Clone Tool
Yep! Restroom placement just got a whole lot less tedious, and it's a very welcome change. Copy an area, rotate the entire thing, and 'paste' it with the new Clone Tool. Previously-annoying placements instantly become satisfying again!

Enhanced Visual Fidelity - Renewed Focus
While we've never focused heavily on graphics it's become more clear, especially as gameplay quality & depth has improved so substantially, that the game visuals have started to become the weakest link. Our focus remains gameplay, but the visuals must not be allowed to detract from the overall experience. We've already upgraded flooring textures, redone several sprites, and we're almost finished with completely revamped aircraft/airline sprites as well. You can also expect some technical art improvements -- namely anti-aliasing and color grading improvements -- to be coming, too!

Several of the headliners above are publicly available now over on the edge branch -- though it's not quite stable yet. -- and the rest will make their way to Edge in the next few weeks.

Once the cycle is complete & the builds are stable we'll move towards default; we'd currently estimate that to be late January 2019 or early February 2019, should we run into any hurdles between now and then.

As always we'll do our best to get things stabilized and ready for Default as quickly as we can, but most importantly we want to ensure that the Default branch remains stable. In the meantime, check out the 2019 SimAirport Roadmap or, if you're anxious to try the tutorial or do some staff scheduling (and you're not afraid of some new bugs), then hop on over to the edge branch and give it a whirl right now!


We appreciate your continued support and patience, and we hope you're enjoying the exciting evolution of SimAirport just as much as we are! Thank you for being such great members of our community, and for being as passionate about the game as we are -- your support & feedback continues to be instrumental to our success and we can't thank you enough.

Happy holidays & safe travels to all!

Tonight we are deploying a small set of fixes for some of the more common and severe issues that have been brought to our attention on the Default branch over the last couple of weeks. Still a ton more coming this cycle, this is more of a 'hotfix' of sorts, for general airworthiness improvements -- but we wanted to go ahead and get these fixes out to default sooner than later.

We'll have more for you soon -- and, as always, if you have any questions or feedback for us we'd love to hear it via any of our channels! Post on the forum, over on our subreddit, or even tweet at us if you prefer! :)

Thanks everyone!

• Increase max zoom distance slightly for any given map size
  
• Fix cancelling a piece-wise construction project could sometimes cause stuck workers
  
• Fix luggage task enqueue checking directional reachability instead of bidirectional
  
• Fix workers getting stuck trying to get to suspended-in-air supply piles
  
• Fix workers sometimes not falling into 'get unstuck' routine due to being 'sent home' too quickly
  
• Fix object warnings flashing too rapidly
  
• Fix sector generation thread safety lock-run, was allowing >1 re-generations at once which rarely caused corrupted sector state (stuck & clumping pax, strange behaviors, etc)
  
• Fix sector data pooling bug that caused RAM usage to continually increase
  
• Fix road reachability bug when road targets are shared by >1 object
  
• Fix lighting 'flash' each day at 20:00
  
• Fix road reachability matrix & caching when using one-way taxiways, optimizes same
  
• Fix several minor null references
  
• Fix rain appearing off screen when zoomed out
  
• Fix several needless RAM allocations within Pax AI routines
  
• Optimize nearest zone lookups
  
• Find nearest walkable area routine now runs on background thread
  
• Find nearest zone lookups now more accurately account for floor delta
  
• Revise thread-based state refresh systems into a shared state manager