Airport Master Early Access Public v. 0.3.4a RELEASED!

Game workflow

• AddedAdded Player Avatar (Airport GM) experience and levels systemupon completion of servicing aircraft, upgrading facilities, unlocking achievements etc. each such action is awarded with EXP points: each EXP gain consists of base value (e.g. Ground Services Delivered to Medium WTC Passenger Twin-Turboprop - has base value of 32, completing a tutorial step has base value of 5 and so on), base value is incremented using a balancing algorithm which takes APT (Aptitude) character stat into account (so, basically you earn least EXP with APT skill of lvl 1 and most EXP with APT skill at level 10), after that a game difficulty modifier is applied: if Player plays on Easy game difficulty setting, additional bonus not exceeding +20% is applied, on Hard - a deduction of no more than -20% is done, no bonus or deduction on Normal game difficulty setting; once the Player completes enough interactions fill next level EXP, his avatar automatically levels up, with each level up bringing possibility to spend 1 additional skill point on any skill Player desires; added

• Added Player Avatar skills (those are main character attributes) and can be customized on new game start and unlike Career Background and Personal Perk, skills can be improved through leveling up. The core skills set at the moment includes the following skills: Connections [CON] - defines how well you know people and businesses around you. Higher CON results in more contracts and offers; Negotiation [NEG] - defines the efficiency of your contract price and resources purchase price negotiations. Higher NEG allows you to buy lower and sell higher; Discipline [DSC] - defines how you build discipline in your workers. Directly influences speed of completion of various jobs performed by airport staff; Social [SOC] - defines your social skills with your workers, City Mayor and partners. Higher SOC allows you to hire people for less and receive better funding; Aptitude [APT] defines the effectiveness of your learning. With higher APT you get more experience each time and thus you are able to progress faster; Luck [LCK] - defines how Her Majesty Luck treats you. Higher LCK increases chances of more positive random events occurring in your life. Each skill can be at least level 1 and at most level 10. The cost of leveling up a skill is 1 skill point. Player gets 1 skill point for each character level up.

• AddedAdded new Cargo Airline operating A210sFHL Global Air Cargo Logistics (FHL) with base airport of Lepsing Intl and major world hubs in Sandopure Intl and Hing Hong Intl; added
• AddedAdded new batches of LD3 cargo containers for the following operatorsFong Cargo (FNC): 58 new ULDs added in 3 cargo container identification groups (APN, APS, APP); FHL Air Cargo (FHL): 60 new LD3s were added in 3 cargo container identification groups (AKE, AKN, RKN); added

• Added statistics parameters Service Contracts Accepted, Service Contracts Rejected, Service Contracts Complete; added

• Added 2 new Wind Tees to runways 16 and 34, the new larger Wind Tee model complies with FAA-standards (7m by 3,65m T with 20 Night\IMC lights) and does not include visual pattern indicators; also consume more electric power; added

• Fixed Flight Schedule Slot Editor not changing parking stand of an edited flight's linked flight; fixed

• AddedImplemented new colliders system for Large aircraftwhereas box colliders are efficient and usable on smaller aircraft, it is not the case with Large aircraft, that would require such a box collider that would occlude other objects around; from now on a group of colliders represents physical dimensions, click areas and other collider-related properties of Large aircraft: fuselage_body, engines_block, wing_area, tail_area, stabilizer_area; added
• AddedAdded Income Tax to economy modeltaxation happens on all incomes that are subject to Income Tax (subsidies, bonuses, investments) are not taxed; Tax Rate varies both on Airport Upgrade Tier and Game Difficulty setting with minimum value of 0,25% (at Easy, Upgrade Tier 1) to 17% (at Hard, Upgrade Tier 5); Income Tax collected counts towards Expenses and additional group of Expenses called Taxes represents its value over time; added

• Fixed Flight Schedule and Time Tables in Terminal 1 not removing completed flight operations in some cases; note: fixed

Aircraft

• AddedAdded new aircraft - Airecoach A210 (real-world prototypeAirbus A310-300F) - the legendary airplane that first introduced Airbus-style winglets and many other innovations, that had great service life as a pax transport and then found its second life as a massive cargo airplane. The first HEAVY (MTOW 164 tons) aircraft in the game! Airplanes in the following liveries were added: N712X (operated by Fong Cargo); PV-KTB and PV-KWA (operated by FHL); added

• Added APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) to all aircraft actually having APU; all aircraft equipped with APU will start the APU upon exiting the runway on landing and will keep it running until a ground power source (GPU) is attached; departing aircraft will startup APU after all pre-flight ground services delivered and ground power source is disconnected and will keep APU running until all engines are started and generators switched on; on some aircraft it is possible that flight crews will delay APU shutdown until taxi; added

• AdjustedChanged Rudder stiffness to be based on aircraft sizelarger aircraft now have very stiff rudder with longer full traverse time and less affected by airflow around tail; smaller aircraft have more dynamic, softer Rudders with a lot of visible Rudder Travel caused by air flow around tail as well as shorter full traverse times; changed

• Fixed Aircraft not retracting flaps to intermediate position upon vacating runway, only on taxi to parking; now flaps are retracted to intermediate position on vacating the runway and to fully retracted position upon reaching runway vacated hold line; fixed

• Fixed Aircraft communicating with ATC on Departure\Arrival frequencies readback IFR altitude and Flight Level change instruction on Tower frequency; fixed

Vehicles

• Added new ground vehicle type - Airport Police Car (model Bjord Scout PSE). Bjord Scout Police Special Edition features cranked up engine with dual exhausts, strengthened frame, hydraulic-boosted steering, individually locking rear doors, interior gunmount, heads-up display, dual HF-radios and many other improvements over stock version to make Airport Police Officers life a tad easier; added

• Added working flasher to Rosencrantz AFF5 fire truck; configured according to active flasher standard (85 flashes per minute rate); added

• Added working siren to Rosencrantz AFF5 fire truck; added

• Added working flasher to Bjord Scout PSE police\airport security car; configured according to active flasher standard (100 flashes per minute rate \ 50 dual flash-sequences per minute); added

• Added working siren to Bjord Scout PSE police\airport security car; added

• Optimized all vehicle headlights, turning lights, brake lights and rear lights to use less computations for lighting; changed

• Fixed Large Fuel Trucks erroneously not splitting fuel loading into sequential job orders when required fuel quantity is more than the capacity of Large Fuel Truck, thus forming a request for refueling that could have never been completed; fixed

• Fixed Large Fuel Truck using refill-rate and fuel delivery rate values those of Small Fuel Truck; fixed

• AdjustedChanged the way Cargo aircraft are serviced pre-flightfrom now on Fuel can be loaded parallel to loading cargo; changed

• Fixed Large Fuel truck not accounting for refueled Aircraft wing height and thus not operating forward lift-platform when refueling high-wing aircraft; fixed

• Fixed heliport vehicles routing rare bug that may have resulted in two heliport mini-buses to lock-up due to permissions to drive inconsistency when entering and exiting Heliport vehicles base at the same time; fixed

Facilities

• Added new East Service Hangars, featuring two hangar stands able to accommodate SUPERHEAVIES (max wingspan 75m); both hangars spots feature independent sets of rolling doors, individual lighting and access to maintenance shacks inside hangar; added

• Added Passenger Terminal 2 (East) building (light version); fully walkable inside model of the Passenger Terminal 2 will be added in future versions; added

• AddedAdded fully functional Jetways to Pax Terminal 2jetways can be driven in designated maneuvering area of a parking stand, adjust height, roll and extension length to connect to any type of aircraft a parking stand supports; Jetway interiors are modeled thus making it possible to walk from Passenger Terminal 2 via Jetway to aircraft boarding door and back; added

• Added Airport Security (Airport Police) Station building next to Aerodelish Catering building; added

ATC

• Changed radar readouts frequency to depend on distance of closest aircraft on approach to active runway to ensure proper conflict resolutions of precision and non-precision approaches within 5nm range of active runway threshold; since the new algorithm relies on circular distance measuring (actual radar distance instead of calculating a triangle's edge distance) it does not care for cases when traffics are on opposite headings (visual approach traffic on downwind and precision approach traffic on runway heading), it will detect and recognize distance as close and will increase the frequency of radar readouts while resolution for possible conflict is not issued; since in most cases visual approach traffic will be given an instruction to either Extend Downwind or Orbit Left\Right, the distance then will naturally increase effectively lowering the radar readout frequency; this new method ensures much more potent ATC capability to predict and solve possible conflicts in 5nm area while gradually increasing and decreasing CPU load when needed; changed

• Added ATC radio-call on Intercomm frequency when all required ground services to an aircraft are delivered; aircraft Type, Registartion Number and Parking Stand are specified in this radio call; added

• AddedAdded 3 new AirportsLepsing Intl (JDDP/LPS, 980nm away), Sandopure Intl (JSSS/SAN, 2710nm away), Hing Hong Intl (JHHH/HNG, 3230nm away); added

• Fixed ATC issuing correct runway vacate instruction while setting incorrect direction-of-taxi flag, which in some cases may have resulted in aircraft taxing after landing to taxi to incorrect aprons (e.g. Cargo Aircraft taxing to Pax Apron East) thou still having perfectly correct taxi clearance from ATC; fixed

• ATC now correctly appends “Heavy” to callsigns of Heavy aircraft; added

Sound

• Added new sounds for A210 aircraft engine operations, recorded in hangar on actual CF6-80 engine and remastered to allow for fine blending with APU running idle sound; added

• Added siren sounds for Rosencrantz AFF5 fire truck; siren operates in two modes - Mode A uses 1,5 second sin-waveform tones and Mode B uses 7x0,25 second short burst tones; added

• Added siren sounds for Bjord Scout PSE police\airport security car; added

• Added heavy hangar doors rolling sounds for East Service Hangars; added

• AddedAdded new UI sounds associated with Player Avatar Experience and Levelinglevel up, skill point added, skill point subtracted, experience gained; added

• Fixed sound audibility ranges for several vehicles and buildings; fixed

• Fixed Doppler-shift effects on several vehicles and buildings; fixed

Visual enhancements

• Added vehicle driving lanes to Apron East; added

• Added parking stands numbers on asphalt\concrete for stands V1-V14 and U1-U3; added

• RemovedAdded hot air effect to jet engines (for aircraft typesRJ10, RJ5X, E30P, J358, CT55, A210) and APUs (for aircraft types: RJ5X, J358, CT55, A210); the new hot air effect uses high-efficiency shader that on contrary to original hot air effect using alpha-blending of particles that was introduced in v.0.2.1 and disabled due to performance issues especially on *Nix platforms in 0.2.3a; the new hot air effect has minimum impact on game performance and adds great looking hot air distortion; added

• Added new shader for vertical surfaces eliminating flickering (z-buffer fighting) on vertical surfaces that are very far from the camera; added

• Fixed incorrect distance to camera measurement for several groups of taxiway signs on taxiways P, H, K, J, E - previously some of them measured distance to camera based on incorrect location data which may have caused some taxiway signs disappearing from view despite they should not have as per Detail Draw Distance setting; fixed

• Added new advanced shading model to graphics sub-engine allowing for detailed high quality shadows on all objects and terrain MTMLBs: the resulting shadows are crisp, accurate, computation-efficient and produce overall great picture; added

• Changed General Shadow settings to crisper high definition shadowing model on higher game quality settings (Maximum and High are affected); shadowing precision and shadow cascades also increased for Maximum setting; this may cause slight FPS decrease on older video cards, while having minimal to no impact on newer GPUs; changed

• Changed MTMLBs shader to more efficient computation model allowing to accept new high quality shadows; changed

• Changed minimum draw distance for MTMLB-tiles and terrain tiles in vicinity of Player's airport to work best with new shadows model; changed

• Changed minimum draw distances for taxiway signs to work best with new shadows model; changed

• Fixed elevation data for ILS GS and LOC antennas, Wind Tees and other navigation and meteorology equipment to blend perfectly with MTMLBs using new shadows model; fixed

• Fixed no shadows been cast by Small Wind Tees; fixed

• Changed blending with ground markings shader; pure physical-based multi-layer pre-multiplied alpha-blending is now used; changed

• Changed blending of some small ground-level decals overlapping MTMLBs to use faster and more efficient shader; fixed

Cameras

• Added 2 new QuickCams to Overview Camera rollout, available when hovering mouse cursor over overview cam button in main UI: Terminal 2 and Service Hangars East; added

• Changed minimum and maximum distances for ObjectCam for many object types, primarily for vehicles and airplanes: vehicles are now split into three categories: cars, vans and trucks\buses, ensuring adequate zoom in capability is available for smaller cars while no polygon occlusions happen when ObjectCam is on larger truck or bus object; also tweaked values of different wing spans of airplanes; changed

User Interface

• Added Achievements screen providing access to achievements and Airport Upgrade Tiers (also available via [F2] on keyboard; added

• Added Skills to New Game Character Customization Screen; upon starting a new game a Player is presented with average (default) skill distribution of having 3 points in each of the Skills Levels; it is possible using Plus and Minus buttons to customize starting Skills to Player's liking; in order to start the game (Start button turns green) Player needs to input his or her Avatar Name and distribute all unallocated skill points; added

• AddedAdded Player Avatar display to main UI buttons barthe box displays Avatar, current Airport Upgrade Tier, current Player Level, Experience bar (floating notifications appear for approximately 2 seconds over EXP bar every time experience points gained); upon reaching new Level(s), three running arrows appear next to Player avatar to indicate there are unallocated Skill Point(s) - clicking anywhere in Avatar area brings up Airport Administration \ General Manager tab, where unallocated Skill Point(s) can be spent on improving one of Player's skills; added
• AdjustedChanged the layout of Airport Administration \ General Manager tab, from now onarea to the left of Avatar displays Skills (and when Unallocated Skill points left - controls allowing to improve skills) alongside with Skill Icons, Skill Tag and Skill Description; avatar is now larger and has a gold medal icon with current level; right part includes ratings: Airport Upgrade Tier, Average Airlines Rating, City Mayor's Rating, Game Difficulty; changed

• Removed Airport Upgrade Tier preview dropdown from Airport Administration \ General Manager tab list as it has no use anymore; removed

• Changed position and size of Alpha Build watermark on screen; made it less visible, moved to lower right corner and made it visible even when UI is turned off using [F12] key; changed

• Changed how Level Up, Game Saved, Upgrade Complete!, Insufficient funds pop-up messages appear; from now on they do so above all UI screens, i.e. Player will see Level Up animation or 'Game Autosaved' notice even if they are currently on Flight Planning or Contracts screen; changed

• Added Tax Rate display to Airport Management\Financial Tab; added

• Added new statistical group Taxes to bar-chart display area of Expenses in Airport Management\Financial Tab; added

• Changed name of statistical group Passenger Terminal Businesses to Businesses & Commercial Services to better reflect statistical parameters of the group; changed

• Added Tax Rate display to Financial tab of Airport Management screen; added

• AddedAdded display of the following statistics parametersService Contracts Accepted, Service Contracts Rejected, Service Contracts Complete to Statistics screens; added

• Added help-screen page on Transition Altitude \ Transition Level and local Q-pressure values; added

• Fixed several typos on several UI screens; fixed