Let’s end this sunny, sunny week (at least in Skåne, Sweden’s riviera) with another DevLog! First off we want to announce that we’ve changed website host, the move is complete and everything should be running smoothly but if you notice extended loading times or things that look weird please send us a message (also, to view this site correctly you’ll need to disable your adblockers, the ACEO website will never feature any ads).

This week has had Fredrik focused on rebuilding the road building system (nodes, basic rules for traffic, etcetera) where we had a lot of technical debt (shitty code, lol) as well as doing some more work on the saving and loading feature. Currently it’s possible to save and reload all built objects which helps us a lot with testing, as we progress development and move closer to an initial release we’ll probably have to do some major overhaul on the simulated objects such as passengers and aircrafts. The saving and loading feature of the game must be 100% stable as we know how much it sucks to get your save game corrupted ending up having to redo all your hard work. When the road building system is completed we’ll move on to finalizing the wall building and baggage belt building system (both are already implemented but they need some small fixing in order to display correct sprites and such).

Olof has focused on extending the functionality of zones, we’ve now finalized the implementation of support for restricting zones for different person types. The generic security zone is open for everyone but in order to plot paths there passengers or employees must pass through security. As we’ve mentioned, staff zones have a number of different options where you can choose what kind of employees are allowed in that zone and so it’s been rather nice building specific staff buildings for ramp agents, close to the stands so they can get out of their quarters and take care of the turnaround procedure whilst airport staff and security, for example, might stay in a staff room within the terminal and where janitors have their own space to hang out in to do… janitorial stuff. Zones like shops and restaurants are the player’s responsibility to zone out and build (placing out items like shelves, cash register, seating, etcetera) but not to operate and not to hire staff for. Zones are essentially areas that you can rent out to third-party businesses (like McDunkalds, Gurdun Rumsay’s brand of restaurants or exclusive boutiques like Loius Vittån, Prata and Hugo Hoss), you’ll sign contracts with them and depending on the contract there are a number of different ways that you, the airport, can make money.

This week has also been about resolving the last UI legacy meaning that old UI components designed for functionality has gotten a fresh coat of paint and that it all now looks uniform. We of course still have a long way to go before reaching a final UI design and the UI will change and adapt as the game grows but getting rid of the last legacy mean that its, in its initial and basic appearance, is ready for the gameplay video.

Two weeks ago we promised a fan to release some new content, we forgot about this (sorry) and will redeem ourselves on this Monday. We’re steaming ahead and want to keep you posted, for this reason and per request from the community we’ve decided to start putting out one devlog each week and the magical day is Friday. We’ll continue to share activities and thoughts on the development progress. Oh, we should also mention that we’re still on track for releasing the gameplay video within this month. See you next friday!