Dev Blog 142: Revealing The R&D Update

Hello airport CEOs! Here’s today’s dev blog, read it and enjoy all the new details on what’s coming.

:airplane: :comet: :airplane: :computer: :airplane: :trophy:

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Wonderful devlog as always!! Can’t wait to see this unfold!

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Exciting stuff as always! Keep it up!

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When or will you guys be addressing the aircraft pathfinding/running into each other while taxiing issues? Its making the game pretty much unplayable in a larger airport.

Great Devblog as always.

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Wow that was a fantastic read… Still Wednesday here in ET… Is the contract system also being modified or will the contracts stay the same?

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Finally the staff-only bathroom I’ve been recently usually creating in my administration centre building will find its use. :grinning: Now if only that coffee machine I put in the common room when they go for breaks (by temporarily disabling their specific assigned rooms) got some use, too… :laughing:

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:star_struck: :heart_eyes: :star_struck:

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beautiful, good work
when will this be available on the experimental branch (the one everyone can use)

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also, anyone else notice the “operations” tab has been moved?

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This looks awesome, however one thing that wasn’t mentioned, but I am really curious about is how airport operating hours will work. The current method of researching night flights and then being forced to run nonstop is rather problematic when it comes to identifying bugs (stuck passengers/baggage), and not really realistic. This appears to be the best time to replace that method with sliders (like we currently have for the airport lights) so that we can specify our own downtimes.

Another thing that wasn’t mentioned in the devblog that I kinda expected to see was an employer rating system, that would impact the skill level of employees you could hire, and cause better employees to quit if it got to low.

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Very nice dev blog :star_struck:

One question regarding staff care:
Canteens are also planned later?
I think this would be also a good thing to refill energy off staff.

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Excellent! Looking forward to R&D!

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:disappointed_relieved:

I suppose that means Alpha 34 will be an after-christmas update :frowning:

All sounds really exciting! - hope the devs have a great Christmas break and I look forward the next release!
Just wondering if anyone knows if the flight planner is getting an overhaul as part of this update? I’ve lost track of when and where everything happens and didnt see it mentioned in blog

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Great devbloggg

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Not in this update, sounds like something that’d more fall into polishing before full release. Although we don’t have that many bug reports on taxiing patterns making the game unplayable so you’re welcome to bug report it if you want and then we can take a look at it.

Contract generation will be impacted by the rating values in this update, airline classes and ratings are also getting an overhaul but nothing about the contracts as a unit is touched. We are of course however looking at balancing their values and functionality, we are aware of bugs reported, and that falls into the rest of the economy balancing that happens in Alpha 34.

Hopefully before we leave for christmas, although probably not in its full shape. Alpha 33 had to be a big bang release due to its many asset changes, Alpha 34 is easier to roll out in steps and as long as we have something playable and is worth testing publicly by the end of next week we’ll release it.

It did, the R&D panel is sorted under operations and thus now more relevant! :slight_smile:

Well, as mentioned, since it the single largest stab at systems and gameplay this far. We need to scope it off somewhere to make sure that we can get continued releases out and it’s very likely that there’ll be a few minor things left, or things we’ve completely missed or balanced poorly, that we’ll address in the other future updates.

Since both the R&D system and the rating system has such a large impact on gameplay it makes sense to roll out these as quick as possible and check how it works and, once we know that, mak adjustments to specific projects and sub features after.

We’ve already dug quite deep into the micro management with working hours and admins, an employer rating system would pile on top of that and at this point I can’t really see the value of it, also in relation to the response I wrote above this. More so that if you run your employees into the ground and you have a shit productivity, they will go on strike for awhile. But that’s something for Alpha 36.

Maybe! Let’s see how well people will care about their bathroom needs first and if the simulation engine copes well with that we could perhaps add lunch breaks too.

Energy today is refilled by employees returning home or employees resting on seats.

Yeah sorry, the dev blog is a very time consuming endeavor and not something we want to write just for the sake of writing during the holiday. It’ll be back with refreshed energy in January! :wink:

Not the planner itself no, but there are multiple ATC fixes planned that will aid planning in general.

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Would love to see an explanation of what the different symbols in the picture of new airport rating systems represent (yes I know I’m being greedy but please this looks so awesome)

No planner update? Was really hoping to be manually able to schedule flights all throughout the day (currently can only do it for flights that leave on the same day that they arrive, have to rely on auto-scheduler, which I prefer not to, if I want flights to arrive before but leave after midnight)

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Nice blog! Is the spesific auto planer comming?

I guess I can no longer have a small 3×3 staff room in the corner for everyone

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