Dev Blog 152: Notifications, tooling and Steam achievements

The wait is finally over! Dev blog 152 is now available, enjoy!

:eyeglasses: :hourglass: :coffee: :flight_departure:

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Nice!

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Canā€™t wait for hangers and stuff, but this is cool also!
Question: do the debug tools tell you what you messed up?

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Good stuffs as always! Really looking forward to the next update

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As always, great Devblog. Thank you that achievements arenā€™t disabled by mods! As they are for so many games. Also, would it be possible to simply have a ā€œdebug modeā€ checkbox in the settings that will enable/disable the F9 and F10 ? As pressing then by accident or with lack of thought will have many concequences.

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awesome! Canā€™t wait for q300 to mod :wink:

do i get a archivment for 200 mods uploaded so far? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Looking forward to A36 and the Q300 aircraft. Looks great @Rubble.


midsummer

midsommer

Here is a spelling mistake @Olof at the very end.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Help on International Stands

Very impressive, and thank you for adding to the community.

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The new debug tools look quite sophisticated!
I donā€™t really like the concept art for achievements though. It feels kinda bland and ā€œplasticā€. I know it is subject to change but that was my first impression. What do others think? :slightly_smiling_face:

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Nice devblog.

I also agree with some of the sentiments with regards to debug panel (F9 and F10). Rather than have it always bind, perhaps make it a toggle-able option in the settings, or on game-launch, so players donā€™t accidentally open them?

Now with regards to the pathfinding notification itself, Iā€™m not sure if this method is actually better, given the notification size is pretty small. Sure, it now lets players know where the problem is, but what is 1 square in a thousands of square multiple-floor terminal? It also doesnā€™t help that, as even pointed out in the image example, the notification color can blend in quite well. Thus, while the current change can finally give players feedback on where to fix, it seems that the current change cuts the feedback loop to inform player when to fix. i.e. having a pop-up sound from the notification, as annoying as it was, is at least helpful in reminding me thereā€™s a pathfinding problem. Is it possible to have this old system also return, albeit in a more streamlined manner, i.e. instead of each agents spamming notifications, itā€™s just 1 notification saying thereā€™s a pathfinding-related problem?

The notification on the flight monitor is also great, but I wonder how the UI will handle when thereā€™s multiple notifications?

And on topic of the tooltip thatā€™s shown when the players hover over the alert notification, can we also get this for the other notification alerts in-game, e.g. the checkpoint/scanner not staffed, vehicle checkpoint, check-in desk baggage connection, etc.? I know some players are lazy/unintuitive enough (sorry for this, folks) to know what each icons mean.

Anyways, sorry if I sound so critical. I wish you devs a ā€œglad midsommarā€ as well!

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I might be the only one but i got pissed off with this blog ā€œoh, itā€™s your fault btw, not oursā€ attitude. Player fails to build things correctly. Maybe so, but devs FAILED to give us decent information how to do things correctly in the first place. Real life logic doesnā€™t apply to zoning here, which is a big minus to begin with. To give us a tool to figure things out is ā€œniceā€ but would be better to actually give enough clear information to show how things should be done.

And as you said, now we need to hunt down these problems from the vast maps which are indicated in colours which arenā€™t always that clear to see.

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But the devs stated themselves that it is ultimately their fault because the game doesnā€™t provide information well. They didnā€™t blame the players.

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Thanks for this. I just hope the wretched ding ding sound is a thing of the past too. After listening to that go off a hundred times a second (exaggerating slightly) I just want to smash my keyboard! :smiley:

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Achievements will only be blocked if you take an action on any of the F9 och F10 panels, not if you simply open them! :slight_smile:

Haha, unfortunately not, the achievement system does not know about anything that has happened in the past, only new actions as of Alpha 36 will count toward an achievement.

I really do believe that multiple spawned world notifications in a specific area is a lot better than spamming the side panel. As you zoom around your airport youā€™ll spot those and be more inclined to investigate what exactly is going on in that particular area.

Clicking on a path finding related world notification will open up the path analysis panel and load the data of the failed path, itā€™s multi functional in that way as you also use that same panel for your own path analysis via the tools. Think of it as a much more detailed version of the current incident panel screen that pops down when you investigate a UI notification.

Multiple world notifications of a specific type, i.e. when you have hundreds of them, will eventually spawn a UI notification too highlighting you of an airport wide accessibility issue.

The hover panel expands and stacks the text of each notification.

This is already implemented, the system is not allowed to spawn any sort of notification without including text to support it. If you hover over a ā€œnot staffedā€ world notification the hover panel will show you this:

Same goes for all world notifications.

You need to read the dev blog again then, as this is exactly the point weā€™re making: Whenever a player makes a mistake it is ultimately almost always the developer that is responsible for enabling that mistake.

Most airport CEOs have no issue playing the game and build well functioning terminals without these tools, what weā€™re trying to do is to offer the small number of people who do struggle a way to test their designs. ACEO passenger flow will always be a complex because zones, areas, gates and checks (i.e. the flow of an airport) is complex in nature. I donā€™t understand what you mean by ā€œreal life logic doesnā€™t apply to zoningā€ and the tutorial does cover the basics on how to set up a functioning passenger flow with secure and staff zones, something a lot of people obviously understand as our Steam score rating would be way lower than 80% otherwise if that was the case.

Yes! No more spamming notification container means no more spamming notification soundā€¦ :heart_eyes:

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Thank you for blog. I think achievements are not pretty or well-themed. It is subject to change, so i would like to add feedback. It looks old, style wise. Colors does not really blend with game theme. Idea of window is great but execution of it is poor. It does not look like window at first glance. There is room for improvement.
Great job, keep it guys.

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I know a bit of Swedish. Midsommar is, you guessed it, Swedish.

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I definitely think visuals is better for the moment, but what I was worried about is solving the weakness of one feedback loop (informing the player where/how to fix the problem) and removing another part of the feedback loop (informing the player that there is a problem). However, after what you replied to, I think my worries is already mostly assuaged. As long as the players are made aware that there is a problem than just having to inspect the terminal one by one (which can get annoying with more complex layout), itā€™s definitely better by me.

Is it possible to make the UI less blend in with the background? Even now the text on the UI is rather difficult to read.

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Haha, unfortunately not, the achievement system does not know about anything that has happened in the past, only new actions as of Alpha 36 will count toward an achievement.

okey, then i know what to do thenā€¦ do more mods hahaha

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Great blog! Glad you implemented tools and overhauled the noticing system. I could do without Steam achievements but: gift horses.
The Dash Q-800 is very nice to get. I very much applaud you to implement many different planes.
Keep it on!

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