Hello airport CEO and welcome to yet another dev blog! As you may have noticed, this 148th edition is a bit delayed and it’s due to the fact that we’ve for the last few days have kept ourselves heavily preoccupied with the internal testing of Alpha 35. This also means that this dev blog is going to be unusually short as we naturally right now want to put as much time as possible into actual development rather than writing about it, so that we as fast as possible can release Alpha 35 for public testing on the experimental branch.

But before we get into it, we just wanted to extend a heart filled “thank you” to everyone who’s contacted us in regard to the current ongoing pandemic wondering about our health and how everything is progressing. We’re happy to let you know that the studio is completely unaffected by the situation and that we’re able to continue working as we’ve always done with no impact on our overall productivity. We’re in the lucky position of being a small and agile team used to working remote and thus already having all of the tools necessary for the type of change this virus is invoking on our society already in place. We hope that each and every one of you are also keeping safe in these challenging times and that you perhaps spend some of your extra indoor time with us, polishing your airport designs in anticipation of Alpha 35.

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Internal testing of Alpha 35

Alpha 35 and the terminal update has now been deployed on the internal branch and is currently being tested by our fantastic focus group. A lot of progress has already been made and we’ll spend the rest of this coming week by deploying daily updates and stabilizing the core of this update. During previous internal testing periods we have shared the internal update patch notes with you on the outside to provide a better insight into the development progress, and this time will be no different. So far, we’ve deployed three updates to the internal branch and they contained the following:

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Alpha 35.0-1:

• Fixed large security station name in objects panel

• Fixed check-in desks descriptions and names in objects panel

• Fixed missing self-check-in desk name and description

• Fixed flowerbed name and description (they are unfortunately not the beautiful flower species “ASD”)

• Fixed terminal overlay button texts

• Moved self check-in desk to main check-in desk objects panel

• Fixed an issue which caused rendering of the ground environment only to be invoked on the restart of the game session

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Alpha 35.0-2:

• Fixed deserialization issue for elevator entrances

• Fixed deserialization issue where the airport logo only appears as a questionmark

• Fixed max number of stationed employees at small check-in desk

• Fixed an issue where service vehicles could not park at service vehicle parking lots if both not assigned to a terminal area

• Fixed an issue where dragging zones and walls could be interrupted by raycast block from low transparent area panels

• Fixed small belt loader trucks being deserialized as ULD loaders when launching an Alpha 34 save in Alpha 35

• Fixed an issue where R&D project “Automation” was unobtainable outside of sandbox mode

• Fixed an issue where business room desks would not properly activate and thus deny passenger purchases

• Fixed an issue where activation notifications for various objects would incorrectly spawn (will only work correctly after second reload)(edited)

• Fixed passport checkpoint panel header

• Fixed follow aircraft button showing in flight planner panel

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Alpha 35.0-3:

• Fixed an issue where dragging international zones in secure areas appear to duplicate the secure area

• Enabled contractors to properly use elevators

• Fixed a passenger looping behavior where they would endlessly fetch departure passport desks

• Enabled passengers to attempt pass through passport desk if deadlocked in a secure area (multiple failed leaving attempts) with no accessible secure area exits

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As you can see, we’ve ridden Alpha 35 of a few important childhood diseases already but still have some way to go before we’re ready for public testing. As always, you’ll be the first to know when that happens.

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Walkalators

Although the previous dev blogs have in thorough detail gone through most of the features shipped in Alpha 35, one of the most anticipated ones has been left out: Walkalators!

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What was once a boring and long walk can now be a fast-paced adventure!



Walkalators come in three different sizes: Small, medium and large. They have a specific direction which is highlighted during construction and simply enable passengers and employees to quickly move from one side to the other.

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Mix and match walkalators for best results.

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Once placed, persons walking within the walkalator’s vicinity may consider using them as they find their way across the airport. Most likely the majority of persons, if they come close enough, will utilize the walkalator but some that feel they want and have the time to walk may do so. In the passenger section of the airport’s rating score the distance walked score is defined by how many steps a passenger has to take to get to its key locations around the airport. One way to improve this score is by building walkalators as that part of a passenger’s path does not count towards the degradation of that score. In short, walkalators are an essential tool for any airport CEO to utilize in order to bring their passengers and employees around airport quickly and comfortable.

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Walkators come with handy entry and exits sign so that potential walkers don't get confused.

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In other news

... the office is finally completed which means that the next dev blog (in two weeks’ time) will finally feature the long-awaited studio tour. Hype!

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That’s everything for this week, an unusually short but highly effective dev blog which means that we’ll be able to get right back to the code. Hopefully before the next dev blog, Alpha 35 will be available for public testing on the experimental branch. Until then, stay healthy and fly safe!