Airport CEO Alpha 31 Released (The Multi-floor Update)
Hello airport CEO!
After months of development, the next big Airport CEO feature update has finally arrived. Have you dreaded running out of space for your terminal areas? Dread no longer, because this update enables a total of five floors to build on: Two down and two up. You can now also construct road tunnels and proper underground conveyor belts as well as terminal overpasses.
The Multi-floor Update
In this update we’ve included:
- The ability to construct terminals across multiple floors
- Road tunnels and proper underground conveyor belts
- The ability to construct terminal overpasses
- A key-binding system
- A new text display system (in preparation for translation)
- Other minor improvements and additions such as the Beechcraft 1900 aircraft
This update, of course, also hold huge amounts of bug fixes and improvements including numerous behavioral fixes, pathfinding improvements and a brand new grid system. Decreasing loading times for saves is also something we've focused a lot on.
Important changes between Alpha 30 and Alpha 31
This is without a doubt the largest ever, most fundamental change, we will ever deploy for Airport CEO. This means that we've had to make some adjustments to the game's core functionality, which is something we'd like to highlight below.
Underground conveyor belts needs reconstruction
Due to a completely new underground conveyor belt building system, your old baggage system will not work on Alpha 31 or newer versions unless your airport is adapted or only is constructed using ground floor belts! All underground conveyor belts built with the legacy system will automatically be transferred to the “real” underground floor (one floor down, labeled as “-1”). Alpha 31 features a brand-new conveyor belt escalator system which includes manual placements of escalators to enable underground crossings and better player control. This means that all conveyor belt escalators must be re-placed manually by you in order to get your baggage system up and running again after updating!
We HIGHLY recommend you perform the following steps to restore your saved airport to functioning order:
- Open the development panel by pressing F10
- Find a toggle called “simulate construction” and make sure it is unchecked
- Build conveyor belt escalators where needed to repair the baggage belt connections (found in the build menu where you usually find all buildable conveyor belt items)
- Pay close attention to the direction of the conveyor belt escalator (if the escalator should go up or down)
- Re-enable baggage service from the operations panel
- Finally enable construction again from the development panel
Once your baggage system is restored, some already existing baggage might get stuck on various places on the belts and this is expected, they will automatically be deleted after a while so there is no need to report lingering baggage on a conveyor belt as a bug. Some flights might also get stuck or delayed waiting for undelivered baggage. You will need to dismiss these using the stand panel. After a few flights, given that you’ve re-built your conveyor belt system correctly, the complete baggage system should be up and running again as expected!
Road sidewalks disabled
Alpha 31 also brings changes to road sidewalk, and will no longer support walkable road sidewalks (the area next to the road which is part of the placed road piece). Instead you must place normal sidewalk and crosswalks to create a path from and to your terminal. This change was made in preparation for the multiple terminal update which will come at a later stage.
We will continue to echo these changes throughout the full deployment of this update, and we’ve also implemented several operational security measures across the game to make you attentive on these changes. For example, airports saved with Alpha 30 but launched with Alpha 31 will have baggage handling automatically disabled and a dialog box popping up making you aware of the important changes happening between Alpha 30 and 31.
While these changes are annoying, they are unfortunately the reality of any early access game development. We’ve done our best to make sure that this transition happens as smooth as possible, considering the huge technical change this is while still keeping save integrity and "loadability" as one of the highest priorities across the development of the game.
Jetways automatically removed
Jetways now only connect to the first floor, thus any existing stand jetways you have built in your Alpha 30 update will automatically removed and the stand will be converted to a non-jetway stand to accommodate this change. This should however have no apparent impact on your airport from an operational perspective, as the city will provide you with a few stair trucks to accommodate the change.
We will of course be watching the bug flow just as usual and deploy bug patching updates throughout the week and through the next. Now with this large update out, deployments to the default branch will be a lot more frequent as we're now over the hurdle.
Release notes - Airport CEO - Version Alpha 31.6-0
This Steam announcement message contains too much content to include the full patch notes, therefore we've posted them over in the official release thread at the Airport CEO forum and can be reviewed by pressing the following link:
Airport CEO Alpha 31.6-0 patch notes
Bouns! Alpha 32 and The Turnaround Update deployed on the experimental branch
With Alpha 31 now out on the default branch, we're immediately deploying Alpha 32 and The Turnaround Update to the experimental branch. It features the three new turnaround services voted through for implementation by the community: Catering, aircraft cabin cleaning and de-icing! You're welcome to join us on the experimental branch to test this out if you want but beware as there may be game disrupting bugs. And yes, of course, Alpha 32 is an extension of Alpha 31 and has all the same multi-floor capabilities.
That's all we have for now. Try out the new update and let us know if something doesn't work as expected by performing a bug report. Thank you for your continued support and fly safe!
