Beta 1.8.0 : Major Optimization, Firing Mechanic, and Automation

Read the improvement roadmap original post here:

view Beta 1.8.0 : Major Optimization, Firing Mechanic, and Robust Automation

It’s been a while again, Skyfarers.

First, I’d like to let you know that we are currently featured in Start Your Engine Fest, a Steam festival for games about vehicles, machines, and everything you can climb into and drive. The event kicks off today, with nearly 90 games taking part, including discounts, demos, and new announcements. There's a 45% discount coming on the 17th of May.

Now for what you have been waiting for.

Last time, I came back with a long roadmap for Airship: Kingdoms Adrift. It was not a promise to turn the game into something entirely different, and it was not a perfect dream version of the game. It was a practical plan to return to Kingdoms Adrift, fix what we realistically could, improve what players kept bringing up, and make sure that the game remains welcoming for anyone discovering it from now on.

I’m pleased to announce that Beta 1.8.1 has finally arrived, and once a couple more things are done, hopefully within the next month, it will be promoted to the default branch. The main blocker right now is making sure the whole experience is wrapped with the kind of tutorial support it deserves.

So…

Update Note for 1.8.0

Status:

PUBLIC BETA: 13th May 2026

Older Saves: Should be safe to continue

Quite a lot has moved over the past year.

When we first shared the roadmap, we said clearly that our goal was not to rebuild Airship: Kingdoms Adrift from the ground up. The game was already complete, and the team had already moved on to the studio’s next major project. But many of you had spent a lot of time with the game, reported issues, explained pain points, and helped us understand where the experience could still be improved.

That feedback mattered.

We tried to avoid making noise until we were ready to properly return. Once we start revving up our online presence again, we want to be able to keep it going at a steady pace, and we were not quite ready for that just yet. In the meantime, aside from threading through the messy old Kingdoms Adrift codebase, we also had to take on other projects to keep the lights on at the studio, while continuing work on the successor to Kingdoms Adrift, as we have mentioned a few times before.

Even so, we have managed to complete several of the biggest and most difficult improvements from the roadmap. Combat performance has been resolved. UI related performance drops have been addressed. Fast travel between major hubs is now in. Automation has been expanded. Combat is more interactive. Click to command targeting has been added. A new and improved test drive experience has been introduced. On top of that, a long list of legacy bugs, including some we once thought would be too difficult to remove, has now been fixed.

Some problems were too deeply rooted to solve quickly. Some systems were designed in ways that made them difficult to change without touching many other parts of the game. Some issues only became clear after players reached late game fleets, larger economies, and more complicated automation setups than we could fully anticipate during development. But with time, better understanding, and some resources finally available, we returned to the list and started working through it.

There are still things left to do, and we want to be transparent about that too. Some systems are still in progress. Some have been pushed further out and may become part of future versions or later updates. A few larger items have not started yet because they require deeper changes than normal fixes or quality of life improvements.

We believe that Kingdoms Adrift is now in a much healthier place, and we are much happier to keep the experience open for new players and returning captains alike.

You can always find the live improvement status here:

https://discord.com/channels/824584233149923340/1413261736999518288

For bug reports, see here:

https://discord.com/channels/824584233149923340/1085453864280522753

So, here is the full update note.

The big picture

A major part of the roadmap is now complete.

Most importantly, the heaviest technical and usability improvements have been addressed. These include CPU load during combat, UI performance issues, late game travel fatigue, limited automation tools, and several longstanding bugs that could affect saves, traits, achievements, logistics, ship behavior, and production systems.

There are still unfinished items, especially where the work requires new systems rather than fixes. Tutorialization and Thai localization are currently in progress. EXP and crew progression, ship loadout templates, map driven UX upgrades, and German localization have not started yet. That said, MCmadcat has done a very good job with a German localization mod, which you can find here:

View on Steam

We still want to be careful with expectations. Some items may need to be adjusted, reduced in scope, or moved depending on technical risk and development capacity. But we also want to recognize the progress that has already happened, because many of the most painful issues raised by the community have now been addressed.

Major Improvements

🧪 New and Improved Testdrive Experience

Status: ✅ Done

The old “Try Loadout” option in the ship fitting menu gave players a simple way to test a ship’s setup, but it was very limited. You could fly around, check weapon behavior, and fire at a lonely Bronze Drake that mostly existed as a passive target.

That experience has now been expanded into a proper test drive environment.

The Bronze Drake can now fight back, giving players a much better sense of how their ship performs under pressure. Beyond that, players can now choose sparring partners from all airframes available in the game, making it possible to test different loadouts against a much wider range of ship types and combat situations.

We have also added options to configure resource limitations and opponent behavior, so the test drive can be used for more than just checking whether the guns work. You can use it to stress test a build, compare ship roles, evaluate defensive coverage, practice against specific enemy profiles, or simply experiment with ideas before committing to them in the main game.

This should make ship fitting more useful, more informative, and much more fun to play around with.

🔧 Addressing CPU performance in combat

Status: ✅ Done

Large battles and late game ship configurations used to create heavy CPU load, especially during combat. While Kingdoms Adrift was never especially demanding on the GPU side, combat could become CPU-bound because of damage calculations, targeting logic, AI behavior, and repeated checks happening across many ships and parts.

This was one of the most important technical improvements on the roadmap, and it is now done.

The goal was to improve frame rate stability during combat, especially in large encounters and late game fleet situations. While performance will still depend on hardware and battle scale, the combat simulation is now in a much better state than before.

⚔️ Improving combat engagement and interactivity

Steam post imageSteam post image

Status: ✅ Done

One of the most common pieces of feedback we received was that combat could become too passive over time. Players could build powerful fleets, prepare strong loadouts, and set up strategies, but the battle itself did not always give enough hands-on control to make that preparation feel active in the moment.

This improvement is now done.

You can now aim and fire guns manually, while still having the option to leave point defense and other automated responsibilities to the crew. We have also added button mapping for different gun types, allowing you to fire torpedoes manually and independently from the rest of the firing chain.

We believe these changes make combat feel more responsive and interactive, with clearer engagement options and more meaningful moment-to-moment control. The intention was to let players participate more directly in battle without removing the automation and fleet management identity of the game.

Kingdoms Adrift is still a fleet command game at heart, but combat should now give you more to do, more to decide, and more to react to.

🖱️ Click to command: Ship model targeting

Status: ✅ Done

Previously, many combat commands relied heavily on UI panels. This could make battle feel more indirect than it needed to be, especially when players wanted to quickly select ships, change focus, or issue commands during active combat.

Click to command ship targeting is now done.

Players can interact more directly with ship models in combat, making command flow feel more natural and more immediate. This was one of the key changes intended to make combat feel more hands-on without turning it into a completely different game.

📉 Addressing UI related performance drops

Status: ✅ Done

Some menus, especially around fleets, cargo, industry, and late game economy management, could cause frame drops or UI lag. This became more noticeable as the player’s fleet, storage, production, and route network grew larger.

This work is now done.

We have profiled and improved several of the interfaces that caused the most noticeable slowdowns. The result should be smoother menu navigation, especially in parts of the game that players interact with repeatedly during the late game.

🚀 Reducing travel fatigue through fast travel between hubs

Steam post image

Status: ✅ Done

Travel is an important part of Kingdoms Adrift. The scale of the world, the routes between cities, and the feeling of moving through the sky are all part of the game’s identity.

But late game travel could become tiring, especially when players were moving cargo, managing trade routes, completing quests, or returning to major locations they had already visited many times.

Fast travel between major hub cities is now done.

This feature is designed to reduce downtime without removing the feel of the world. It gives players a more convenient way to move between important cities they have already reached, especially once the game opens up and the amount of backtracking increases.

⚙️ Expanding automation features

Status: ✅ Done

Automation is one of the core late game systems in Kingdoms Adrift, but the original tools were too limited for the kind of economy many players wanted to build.

This improvement is now done.

The roadmap focused on two important automation upgrades: auto sell functions and “maintain supply up to X” logic for transport routes and repeat production. These changes make resource chains easier to manage and reduce the amount of manual cleanup needed when operating larger trade and production networks.

This should make the late game economy feel more sustainable and less dependent on constant menu checking.

🧪 Adding a Sandbox Start option

Status: ✅ Done

Sandbox Start is now done.

The purpose of this mode is to let players begin with broader access to commissions, exclusive stores, ship models, and late game tools from the start. It is designed for players who want to experiment freely with fleet setups, ship loadouts, base building, and economy systems without needing to progress through the story first.

Importantly, the intention is still for this mode to allow full story progression. This means players can experience the narrative while having more freedom from the beginning.

📘 Improving feature discovery and tutorialization

Status: ⚠️ In Progress

This is still in progress.

Kingdoms Adrift has many systems that are easy to miss, especially around trading automation, ship loadouts, economy management, production chains, and late game tools. Some mechanics were technically available, but not explained clearly enough. Others were introduced too quietly, making players feel as if they had to guess how important systems worked.

We are still working on improving this through better onboarding, contextual explanations, and clearer guidance in areas where the game currently leaves too much unsaid.

This remains one of the most important areas for the new player experience, so we are taking it carefully. It is also the final major task we want to complete before moving version 1.8 from public beta to the default branch.

Other Improvements

A large number of smaller improvements have also been completed. These may not all sound as dramatic as combat optimization or fast travel, but many of them directly affect how smooth the game feels during regular play.

✅ Done

• Saving and autosave beyond the point of no return are now allowed.

• Players are automatically returned to the point of no return after the end credits.

• Recipe selection can now be done by clicking on ongoing productions.

• Buyers and sellers in item info are linked to their respective merchants.

• Ship selling now includes the value of onboard parts.

• Menus and UI windows now have a clearer “X” button for closing.

• Entering aggro range no longer cancels cruise mode.

• Enemy spawn and detection ranges have been fine tuned for smoother pacing.

• Battle engagement distance has been increased to give larger battles more space.

• Map access has been improved when many facilities are on screen.

• Disabling production notifications no longer hides item rewards.

• Stripped parts are now clarified as being moved to the ship’s cargo, not the fleet cargo.

• Visibility range for certain quest related encounters has been improved, making them easier to find.

Legacy Bugs

When we first posted the roadmap, we included a section called “Legacy Bugs That We Thought We Couldn’t Get Rid Of.” These were long standing issues that had either been difficult to reproduce, risky to touch, or buried deep enough in the game’s systems that we were not confident we could solve them earlier.

We are happy to say that most of them are now fixed.

✅ Done

• Save loss and crash on “Continue” has been fixed.

• Cadenza’s trait no longer stops working after combat.

• Captured ships are now counted properly toward “Ships Owned” achievements.

• Boarding orders no longer accelerate ships beyond their speed limits.

• The 3D render behind the opening cinematic has been removed to avoid related performance issues.

• The broken quest sequence in Helmut’s storyline has been fixed.

• Officer discount traits now apply properly even when officers are not in the active fleet.

• Combat prompts such as WASD to move and Space to fire are removed after their first display.

• Ships can no longer be sent to ports that are already full.

• Sold ships no longer continue carrying out freight routes.

• Initial combat prompts now auto hide after a short time.

• Production notifications are now fully disabled when toggled off.

• Stripped ship part storage has been clarified.

• Cases of data loss when using cloud save have been fixed.

• The crash in the Logistics tab when using Simplified Chinese has been fixed.

• Intermittent failures of the auto-buy feature have been investigated and fixed.

• Remote inventory transfers no longer select the wrong ship.

What comes next?

For now, our remaining focus is on the items already in progress: tutorialization.

These are important because they help different groups of players in different ways. Better tutorialization helps new players understand the game, while Thai localization lets us finally bring the game properly to players in our home language. Sandbox Start is now complete, giving returning players more freedom to experiment from the beginning.

After that, we will continue reviewing what can realistically be done from the remaining list.

We want to be honest here. Not every remaining item is equal in difficulty. Some are small and contained. Others touch old systems that were never built with these changes in mind. We will continue to prioritize improvements that bring meaningful value without creating new risks for existing saves or destabilizing the game.

Oh, by the way…

The Steam page for the next game is now up and running. We’ll be releasing a teaser video and making a much louder announcement in a few months. For the time being, please feel free to hop on and speculate on what the next game will bring over on our Discord server as usual:

https://discord.com/invite/BVcgwY6AM4

*Note that most GUI information are still placeholders, we’ll replace them soon. Gameplay screenshots however, were taken from the work in progress.

Airship 2 Kingdoms Ablaze

Thank you, Skyfarers

When we first released Airship: Kingdoms Adrift, it was our first title of this scale. We learned a lot from making it, and even more from watching all of you play it in ways we never fully expected.

The roadmap was our way of coming back to the game with a clearer understanding of what could still be improved. This progress update is our way of showing that the work has not just stayed on paper.

To everyone who reported bugs, explained pain points, shared saves, wrote feedback, posted discussions, or simply kept flying through the Segson Archipelago: thank you.

Kingdoms Adrift will always be an important part of our studio’s journey. As we continue working toward what comes next, we still want this game to remain something we are proud of, and something new players can step into without being pushed away by issues we now know how to fix.

There is still more to do, but the skies are clearer than they were when this roadmap began.

Thank you for being with us.

-Jay