It seems as if it was just a few days ago when we posted a devlog where we celebrated reaching 400 redditors subscribing to the subreddit and… well, it was, and now we’re 500 (and we just passed 200 on Twitter)! Your continued support and hope for this game calls, as usual, for celebrations. We’ve uploaded four new screens on the media page, actually it’s three new as you’ve probably already seen one of them before. On these screens we feature some passengers passing security, checking in as well as the new grass runway and smaller aircrafts.

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This is just a very basic example of the current state of a basic check-in area. Each desk is placed as an individual item with two available slots for processing passengers, each desk has two basic belts on each side where passenger’s bags are placed and then its up to you to connect each desk to whatever baggage handling system you implement. Passengers arrive to the airport with a maximum of three bags (all carried currently but we have plans on implementing baggage trolleys) where one of them is a hand bag, the rest is currently checked-in. When you click on a desk you are presented with a UI panel as displayed above, it contains the relevant actions you can take as well as a schedule of the desk’s planned flights and some basic information on those. Desks have queues which you need to build, or load from a blueprint, desks can be reserved for certain airlines or made as a check-in desk available only to priority passengers. Desks can also be shutdown and re-activated for resource management. Desks are also nameable, and are currently getting a default generated name which you can change. The name of the desk will not only change on the UI panel, but in the game world as well. This is just the first iteration of how check-in desks work, if you have any ideas on any more functions that we could implement via the panel, fire away!

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In the .gif we posted earlier you saw this system in action, this is what it could look like when you have three of them lined up next to each other. The passenger’s choice of which security to go to is dependent on the passenger’s position, the length of the queue to a certain station and to some extent random choice, just as in real life. Security stations must be manned by four security staff to be fully operated (they work in shifts) and when clicking one of the stations you are presented with a UI panel similar to the check-in desk where you can, in excess of build custom queues, set if its a priority pass station, if it’s only accessible for staff and etcetera, also use different sliders to increase or decrease the stations different operating trade-offs such as efficiency versus thoroughness. This will be explained in more detail in the upcoming video.

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This is just a pretty low-res image showing what the final approach looks like with implemented shadows. Pretty nice huh? Looks like the 2D perspective is really coming alive.

In other news, we are continuously making progress. A week ago we completed the first build where an airport was built from scratch and a complete aircraft turnaround procedure was made (including hiring staff, accepting contracts, scheduling flights, hiring executives, building everything necessary for a small airport to operate and then simulating everything). Fredrik was doing some tests and all of a sudden he was like “damn, I’m actually playing the game, lol”. This marks a great milestone and brings us closer and closer to the gameplay video which is why we’ve updated the funding page with a roadmap depicting the future of Airport CEO, where we are now and where we’ve come from.

Olof is finishing up the last basic building system, zoneing, which is needed for constructing the internal facilities of the terminal such as bathrooms, restaurants, shops, business lounges and so forth. This is a pretty straight forward system, you can for example construct a room using the wall and floor tool, place items within the room space and then overlay it with a zone in order to specify the room’s purpose. If the zone, for example, is a restaurant zone and it has the necessary items and furnitures, passengers will go there and eat. Zones can contain a lot of information about who’s allowed in there, it’s name and it’s purpose. You can, for example, construct a staff room that is close to the tarmac and aircraft stands, mark it as a staff zone and then select that it is only allowed for ramp agents to be there. This will allow for optimizing where staff resides when and if they are not performing a task as it would make no sense to have your generic airport staff out running on the tarmac. Staff rooms can also be dedicated for executives only, or security staff only, or a combination. It’s all up to you!

Fredrik has started working on the save and load system of the game, a very fundamental system which requires a lot of work and is not very fun to talk about. However, to let you guys know that we’re working on it, should be taken as a sign that this is a continued serious project and that this game will be released as a playable title. We’ve also started working on a very basic traffic system to keep vehicles from crashing into each other, this is pretty far down on the priority list but its needed since vehicles must be able to roam around the airport, vehicles such as buses, fuel trucks, patrol cars and etcetera, without crashing. How advanced this system will become in the future is something only time can tell as we’ll have to develop it further as the game infrastructure support larger airports.

That’s all for now, and as always, post your thoughts in the comments below or via the different ACEO channels. Thanks for your continued support!

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