Hello, SimAirport Community! We're alive!!

As we've talked about on our live streams, Discord[discord.gg], and on the forums -- we're dying to ship an update for SimAirport, we owe you an update. So, that's exactly what we're working on! We wanted to take some time today to let you know that we're alive, that we're working on a few patches, and provide some insight and a brief overview of what's in the pipeline, and what you can expect to see coming to SimAirport in the near future.

First off, we're not dead (and no one is dying - as of writing this)! Stuff happened, much of it relatively unavoidable, which unfortunately resulted in this period of downtime. The good news is that we're back at it now, and a SimAirport update is actively in development -- and we're looking forward to being able to release it to you as soon as it's ready! :)

As per tradition, we'll do a fire-side chat live stream coinciding with the patch releases - we always enjoy these and we love to chat with you all. We'll announce date/time of the live stream at the same time the patch is released, which we anticipate will be very soon!

We're targeting several specific points and we intend to break them up over two upcoming updates/releases

The first update will consist of general improvements, mainly fixes and improvements to things that already exists, including bug fixes and addressing several major pain points. We're aiming to have an edge patch out as soon as the end of this week, with a public release following soon thereafter.

That will then be followed up by a beefier second patch -- which is slated to include a number of actual gameplay enhancements, changes and additions(!!). While we don't have a firm timeline on this larger patch, internally we're hoping to be able to ship it by the end of November, but we'll ship it as soon as we feel it's ready.

Keep an eye on the Edge branch, Discord[discord.gg], and the Steam forums -- you can expect a flurry of activity in the very near future!


Here's a high-level overview of what we're hoping to be bringing you over the coming days and weeks!



-- Steam Deck UI/UX
Since our input rework several issues and quirks have been noted regarding SA's Steam Deck compatibility - we'll be taking a closer look and resolving these quirks, ensuring that SimAirport can be enjoyed just as well when on the go as it can from your desktop!

-- Logic Quirks & Bug Fixes
We know the game isn't perfect in regards to bugs and this will be a major point for us for this patch. Whatever we find we'll take a look at! We already have a list on our end of things we need to check out but if you have any bug or weird thing be sure to post or bump it in the Bugs Discussion subsection of the Steam Discussions - we'll check and note whatever we haven't taken care of!


-- The tale of Bridges, Overpasses and Roads
Bridged building and roads going up to floors above the ground floor have been a major ask for a long time. While bridged building has been an option via the Skywalk mod by TBFlash[http//Skywalk+mod+by+TBFlash] - very well done on that note! - going up with roads is still not possible. This is going to be the main change with this release, and it will allow you to finally build airports with separated - above ground(!) - Departure and Arrival sections, like many (most?) IRL airports use today.

-- Baggage Changes
The baggage system is not a great user experience currently -- it's challenging, sure, but it's also tedious (some might say it's a PITA) -- there are certainly some pain points, to put it lightly. We'll be working to make some major improvements on this front, and we're currently evaluating some concepts & ideas for expanding it a bit, too! Once the aforementioned rework for bridges and roads are done, it should open the door to allowing vehicles into the ground floor of terminals, - which may not sound like a massive change, but it'll allow for a indoor/ground-floor baggage depots, without having to go below ground -- making a 'starter' baggage system a lot cheaper, and simpler, to get up and running!

-- Research / Tech Tree
The tech tree is quite short and often completed rapidly - it simply doesn't add more "late game" gameplay, as it was intended to, and that's something we intend to improve upon. It's also visually quirky, at best, and we'd also like to fix that aspect. With the upcoming second patch, we're going to revamp & augment the current tech tree, with the goal of having it add actual gameplay value for mid-to-late game airports. This may include some changes, not locking some things that currently require research, as well as adding some new features that can be unlocked -- and perhaps an additional twist or two, that we'd like to see how they "feel" during gameplay.

Fear not -- existing saves will not be (forcibly) impacted. We'll implement logic that ensures you can continue your existing airports as you have been, potentially allowing you to "opt in" to the updated version, but certainly such that your existing saves won't be negatively and forcibly impacted.

-- AI
This is such a big and broad topic but it's probably also the general area that we hear the most feedback about; it's a non-trivial "problem", and there are numerous types and variants of AI within SimAirport, but we'll be looking to make some positive strides on several fronts:

Construction & Worker AI is an area we hear about quite a bit -- from acting weird or inefficiently, to to sometimes seeming to completely ignore instructions and priorities. We'll be taking a deep look, making some adjustments and testing them thoroughly, to make sure it's smarter and that workers finish the job and are never slacking around or requiring you to reload the game.

Passenger AI is another area we're going to be taking another look at; we've spoken in-depth about Pax AI, and it truly is a tough cookie overall (for a number of reasons). It's obviously a critically important aspect of the game, though, and it's an aspect that we think we can iterate on and further improvements to -- and that's exactly what we plan to do!

-- Quality of Life Improvements:
We have a number of items from this category on our list and we're going to try to get as many done as possible; we don't want to hold up a larger content patch for these, but we're going to do our best to tackle as many as we can.

-- Performance
We always profile code, but we're going to do a bunch more profiling -- we generally do this every so often but over time, as we've looked through the codebase, we've noticed a few things and there are a few areas that have some low-hanging fruit. We'll do our best to tackle those and, if we're lucky, find some more performance wins along the way, too! :)

Just to reiterate -- we still absolutely love SimAirport -- we love working on it, playing it, and we adore the SA community. While the time we've had to take away has been difficult, and frankly was suboptimal for us too, the reality is that we truly ❤ SimAirport and we're thrilled to be able to jump back into the code to improve the game that we all love to play.

Something you'd like our eyes on? Speak up! Let us know about anything on Discord[discord.gg] or over on the Steam Discussions / Forum!

As always, thank you for your patience and continued support -- and a special thanks to the great community members who are always active and willing to helping others. There are far too many to name everyone, apologies in advance to those we'll inevitably miss, but we want to extend an especially large thanks to: Alo, chick1000 and modair -- and many others on the modding side -- for your continued support of SimAirport, and the LVGameDev team as a whole.

We're extremely happy to be able to make this post; and even more enthused for the next one, because it'll mean we've actually released a patch!!

Thank you everyone -- we sincerely couldn't do any of this without you!!

It's summer for us and it's really heating up (and probably starting to really get cold for those of you in the southern hemisphere) -- and with the heat on, it's time for an update to SimAirport!

In this iteration we've taken an even deeper look into Performance and we have some solid gains for you on that front. We have also brought to SimAirport the same Localization system that we've been using for SimCasino, which will make adding & improving translations much simpler for the community. Finally, we'd like to take a short look at our newly-announced upcoming title and talk a bit about how it came to be!

Before we get into the details, we want to make you aware of our upcoming Live-Stream -- planned for this Sunday! We haven't done one in a while but Arthur and Joscha are excited to join you once again to play SimAirport alongside the community and chat with you -- we'll be talking and answering questions about SimAirport and, as usual, it will be a "fire-side chat" style discussion where we'll talk about anything interesting, from gaming & aviation to world news, and anything in between.

We're excited to be back streaming with you and playing SimAirport, so be sure to join us!

When: Sunday, July 3rd @ 11AM PDT // 20:00 CESTWhere to Watch
• YouTube
  
• Twitch[www.twitch.tv]
  
• Steam - or directly on this page, once the stream begins!

As we've always said - we're always looking for performance improvements and if/when we find something actionable, we won't hesitate to jump at the opportunity. Sometimes, however, this isn't enough -- and to get a really deep look into how and what we can do to improve performance improve we've been sitting down together in multiple-hours-long calls and delving deep into the profiling tools at our disposal. For a reference, this is one of the reporting tools that we have available and is a good example of what we're talking about:
Note: This is the Profiling view of our last default build - it helps us see the areas we can Improve on.

Since the last release we've been able to find major performance gains in several of the "systems" that the SimAirport gameplay relies upon to function. Notably, agent movement updates & calculations - these are now parallelized, meaning several threads can run these updates at once leading to a relatively substantial improvement especially for those who have robust CPUs with high core counts.

The second major improvement comes from improving how we organize and approach the agent rendering aspect of the code - specifically the organization & layout of the data, and how many "indirections" were required simply to update the position or facing of PAX and staff. While the new code may not be quite as optimal from a maintainability standpoint, due to the "hot path" that this code has (translation: extremely high-frequency invocation), making this code more 'direct' (even if a bit less legible) directly translated to a relatively major boost in performance -- and one that doesn't change the underlying results whatsoever, meaning the improvements made here will affect everyone!

Lastly, we've improved several aspects related to our "object validation/functional requirement checking" systems -- this handles things like ensuring that objects or zones are functional. We won't dive too deep into the weeds on this one, but suffice it to say that we uncovered several aspects of the system that were substantially slower than they should have been, bordering on egregious even, and much of this code was still nearly "original" from early in SimAirport's development. Suffice to say, after updating these systems and applying better paradigms we were able to make several areas of this system run quite a bit faster! :).

Besides these major systems, we've also fixed various issues as we encountered them across them - check out the full change-log below for all the details!

We've been able to improve performance by a whopping 18% -- and that's on a massive 14k+ PAX airport!!
A big thank you to Chick for letting us test on his save!

Check out the some of the detailed profiling results we've gathered; this screenshot displays the "before" vs "after" (a comparison between last default and today's default release):
If you'd like to know more about what, why or how we took care of profiling SimAirport, or if you want to understand the things we talked about a little deeper, then be sure to join us on Discord[discord.gg] or join us on the upcoming live stream! :)

As you may know, we "crowd-source" translations via you -- the community -- for both SimAirport and SimCasino. While this has been working really great for SimCasino, we've been using an older and antiquated system to handle collaboration by the community for SimAirport, a system that has been in place since the initial release of the SimAirport localization functionality, and which even predates the existence of the system. The new system is MUCH easier, though, and far more user-friendly -- and so we're now making the switch to Localizor for SimAirport[www.localizor.com], too!

We've been using Localizor on SimCasino[www.localizor.com] since release - it's easy to use for everyone, and now both games can much more easily be translated into many more languages and further refinement/improvement to translations of already-supported languages can continue with far less friction than before.

If you'd like to help us translating SimAirport into your language be sure to check out SimAirport on Localizor[www.localizor.com] - If you have any questions or need any assistance you can always let us know on our Steam Forums or join our Discord Server[discord.gg]!

We've also taken a look at, and fixed, several issues related to translations, language-specific fonts, and fonts/text in general. Some fonts (e.g. the one used for Chinese) were not correctly displaying all characters - this is now fixed for all fonts! We also received and confirmed reports of some font-related issues when playing on Apple M1 systems, where only some text would be displayed while other parts were completely invisible - this has also been fixed!

Escape: The Endless Dogwatch is the next game from LVGameDev and is a project spearheaded by Michael. It's a new and unique genre for us, a point-and-click adventure set on a creepy ship where you, as the 2nd Officer, have to to uncover a secret that the Captain is hiding from you. Wishlist on Steam: Escape: The Endless Dogwatch

You may have noticed somewhat of a downtime from us the last few months, in terms of updates for SimAirport and SimCasino. To be honest, we've all been a little burned out to some extent, or at least close to it. To avoid burnout and stagnation, we have all been on vacation recently, and we've all spent some time working on various 'passion projects' to keep the fire alive (along with new game), all in an effort to continue keeping things fresh and fun. Also, some of you may know, Joscha is still in University -- so, in addition to working on SimAirport, that has added a bit of additional downtime as he (hopefully!) starts to wrap up his studies, too.

Luckily, working with ya'll is always a treat - whether on the forums, live-streams, email, or Discord[discord.gg] -- we're always happy to chat and discuss how we can best improve SimAirport!

Be sure to check out Escape: The Endless Dogwatch and join our Discord[discord.gg] server for some chatting!

Happy Summer (and/or Winter) To All - the LVGD Team

• Disable LRT Sounds until we can either improve it or add a slider for it.
  
• Fix text settings and make sure we're using the right font in all places.
  
• Fix setting font in some places - we don't need to set the font, it should be correct from the get-go.
  
• Fix setting objects constructionstate to finished twice when constructing using instant build which may have caused an issue where the AI would only chose one object instead of spreading out to several of the same type.
  
• Update TMP package to fix texts going missing.
  
• Fix mod closing mod status menu using ESC while mods are being downloaded causing the game to be stuck on paused.
  
• Actually fix fonts being broken - I thought I had fixed this for Chinese and some other Languages but it appears it was still broken; Should now be fixed.
  
• Fix some text being displayed all scrambled up due to using the wrong Font.
  
• Fix deleting non-functional queue resulting in non-functional warning being left until reloading the save.

• Prevent functional object updates from being calculated on threads which could have caused problems. Dev Note: It was probably fine and wouldn't be noticeable but this just makes sure nothing can break while not impacting performance :)
  
• Improved performance of functional object checks.
  
• Check up to 20 objects at once for whether or not they're functional (this will result in faster updates if e.g. the secure area is broken).
  
• Fix PAX being spawned all at once causing a lag spike whenever a bus, LRT or plane unloads.
  
• Various smaller code refactors to improve performance.
  
• Improve runtime of some agent tasks.
  
• Improve performance of updating agent positions (~3.5x faster on our tests, should result in a pretty good improvement overall).
  
• Improve calls on (smart) objects.
  
• Fix some objects/elements using the wrong font possibly causing some objects not to display text on M1 Macs.
  
• Add a system to concurrently update agent movement.
  
• Fix some texts not receiving the right font when switching language.
  
• Add Radial menu for tools and UI (two separate ones); these are mostly for controllers but can be used on desktop to; On desktop they're setup for Mouse Button 4 and 5, if your mouse doesn't have any extra buttons check out the keybindings!
  
• Theme hotkey bindings menu to be in the same look as the rest of the game.
  
• Update steam integration libraries to prevent possible crash on launch and other inconsistencies with Steam.
  
• Update translations from github.
  
• Moved translations to localizor - update about this with a more detailed description to follow soon.
  
• Fix issue where too many characters in one Font may cause an overflow and all further characters to only show up as rectangles.
  
• Fix possible issue where pax don't go home after a flight was unable to land.

This autumn we'll be releasing a new point and click adventure game set on a creepy ship.

January, 1928. The SS Carolina is lost deep in the ocean. There's a deadly chill outside. The captain is hiding something from you. By night 2 you're attacked and the crew is missing! It's a nightmare!

You play as 2nd Officer Walton. Explore the ship, use items, find the crew, and try to survive! You must get back to land and not let the ship sink.


Check out our store page!

Feel free to speculate in the forums what you would like or expect to see in the game, and if you have any interest in testing in the near future.

Please also give us feedback on our screenshots and trailer!

Finally, add this game to your wishlist for future updates!

Celebrating the launch of the Steam Deck, we're happy to bring you today's patch containing improvements to Input handling (including full Controller support!), several performance improvements, and a bunch of general bug fixes, too!

To support all inputs of the Steam Deck and to have support for Controllers we've completely overhauled our input system. Previously we've done most of the input stuff ourselves (we're really the people who'd like to do everything by ourselves) but have now upgraded the whole system to use Rewired - a well-known and highly regarded input system for Unity.

This rework allows us to not only support the Steam Deck better but also allows basically all Controllers, Joysticks, or other Gamepads to be used in SimAirport - the list of supported hardware is indeed rather long. In addition, it does simplify the code for us by a lot and helps us with any new features or additions requiring input.

In addition to what's in this update, we've also got some further improvements planned that didn't make it into this update. For example, having a radial menu (which will be usable from KB/Mouse as well as Controller) makes it simpler to open tools or windows - especially without having to remember the keybindings!


We'll keep this one short as we've already spoken about what exactly changed on our dev-log in the beginning of February; Check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/598330/view/3118182224262686059

In short, however: We've found a good performance improvement that will have a good impact, especially on bigger airports where a lot of AI agents need to check if objects can be reached.

We have also improved the handling of 'queue overrun' conditions and how the game handles it to keep the airport running well even on high load (e.g. when first loading a massive save) - check the above-mentioned dev-log for more information on that topic, too! :)

Lastly on this topic we've been experimenting with some further changes that may improve performance - we need to test these experiments further to be sure they're actually improvements and more work is needed in general; We'll update you as soon as we have more news on this!

As always thank you all for being around! If you have received a Steam Deck be sure to leave some feedback for us on how the controls feel and what games you're playing besides SA :)

If you want to see some of the experiments and/or early previews of stuff we work on be sure to join the Discord[discord.gg] server - always happy to talk to ya'll!

All the best wishes and hopes ya'll are safe from the team!

• Add a button to teleport apron vehicles to their hangar in case they're completely stuck without a road.
  
• Add detection for whether or not a mouse is connected to hide the virtual cursor on launch (The virtual cursor is the one used when you're controlling the on-screen cursor using a controller).
  
• Add setting for virtual cursor speed.
  
• Add on-screen keyboard component to input fields for use on the steam deck (this can probably be used on other systems too - let me know if you'd like to use an on-screen keyboard anywhere!).
  
• Fix RESET startup option not running correctly sometimes.
  
• Some minor UI improvements.
  
• Update Steam integration.
  
• Fix issue in ModLoader possibly causing some mods to not load correctly on new saves.
  
• Add check to make sure one-way paths cannot be placed on security zones (placement in security zones may cause issues with the zone, you can still place them behind the zone though).
  
• Fix "Show Non-Secure Path" not being removed after closing the selected object dialog.
  
• Fix a possible issue that may cause planes to be missing completely instead of showing UFO sprite.
  
• Fix possible issue where some data is not reset when sectors rebuild causing areas to rarely not show correct status for security availability or reachability.
  
• Rework automatic slowdown - the game was already slowing down when the job queue got overwhelmed but will now do so in a more consistent manner and will show it in the speed display under the clock.
  
• Improve several reachability and object choosing algorithms - this should give a boost across the board but especially for big airports.
  
• Fix some missing mods not correctly listed in the missing mods list.
  
• Fix build menu overlapping bottom menu buttons when UI scale is not 100%.
  
• Fix issue with how the game looks at neighboring cells in several places of code.
  
• Fix issue where agents would rarely overshoot and run out of a secure area re-doing security (this was caused by the above issue).
  
• Add check to make sure pax can walk diagonally and improve flow field generation (basically how agents move around).
  
• Fix old save-fix possibly despawning cars that were on a road ramp up causing pax of a flight to go missing.
  
• Some cleanup of the scene to fix some missing <xyz> warnings.
  
• Fix possible scaling issue with notifications.
  
• Improve animations of new agent sprites standing at or boarding from the LRT Platform.
  
• Improve default stationary state for new agent sprites.
  
• Fix runway upgrades working while being under construction.
  
• Fix "Fastest" quality setting causing mods to render incorrectly.
  
• Fix mod-loader not taking into account all loaded mods when checking for missing mods causing a lot of mods to show up as missing but installed.
  
• Add early setup for some user settings to make sure they're setup even on the first launch of SA.
  
• Fix some sprites of multi-level objects being rendered on the same/wrong floor due to some missing configuration.
  
• Fix modded sprites being offset by the SpriteManager - now rendered correctly.
  
• Add a fallback in case a floor goes missing (e.g. when a mod is removed) - the game will now use concrete in this case instead of just having no floor and failing to load the save.
  
• Add seeding to agent names so saves now get a different set of names for initial agents.
  
• Fix taxiway not placeable if extrusion is on the spawn road or LRT track.
  
• Fix mods using auto-foundation visible on all levels but the one the object was actually placed on.
  
• Fix some input devices randomly scrolling in dialogs/UIs.
  
  
• Modding: Fix LRT boarding not using all doors on modded LRT trains.
  
• Modding: Use SpriteManager for LRT Tracks allowing LRT Track modding.
  
• Modding: Fix modded sprites pivot calculation.
  
• Modding: Fix mod OnLoad causing an exception stopping the game to load completely.
  
• Modding: Add an exception for .pdb files in scripts folder to help debugging mod code/scripts.

To kick February off we'd like to talk about the upcoming SimAirport update - along the lines of a dev-log, so you know what we're currently working on & what you can expect from SimAirport in the near future!

Valve will soon be launching the 'Steam Deck' and as the release of the hardware nears we've been working on making SimAirport compatible with the new handheld! Luckily SimAirport already runs on Linux, and we have confirmed that both native and Proton options are already able to run on the Steam Deck!

Our initial testing on Steam Deck did reveal several issues and some quirks - from screen resolution to controller bindings & even some audio issues. Several UIs required a bit of reworking while others may just need a small nudge in the right direction. For example, the top UI generally fits, unless the fuel HUD is enabled; to solve this the entire top UI now is able to move to the left and "attach" to the Menu button. This is a general change so you'll benefit even if you're not using the Steam Deck but happen to be playing on a smaller resolution desktop monitor or on a laptop!

Lastly, we're currently working on making sure the Steam Deck controls can be fully utilized in the most optimal way possible. For this we're reworking a good chunk of our input-handling code which will result in a good default experience on the Steam Deck, and it will also enable the use of controllers on other platforms, too! :)

On the whole, we're thrilled to say that SimAirport runs well on the Steam Deck after some tweaks it's fully playable -- including all Workshop content & mods being available on the platform!

We generally strive to find performance improvements whenever possible -- though we're also somewhat limited by a number of factors: architecture & age of the code-base, size/scope of refactoring, compatibility/legacy concerns, engine issues, GPU support, etc. Despite that, we're constantly looking for ways to improve performance -- incremental steps & big leaps alike, and we get especially excited when we're able to find improvements that can positively impact "late-game" & large airport performance.

We're thrilled to say we've found a relatively substantial performance improvement related to the agent (passenger) AI -- specifically in how the AI determines whether or not an object can be reached. Previously this reachability check was unintentionally being run on an overly low-level & granular layer of abstraction; as airports grew in size this became an increasingly costly operation and the result was that performance deteriorated faster than expected or intended as agent (passenger) counts increased. While we've faced these same types of issues in the past, and dealt with them, this one was substantially more hidden due to the 'smaller' role it plays in AI decision-making process -- specifically, the issue was with checking distance to "lifecycle" goal. After the fix, reachability is now checked at a higher level of hierarchical abstraction, and overall performance for larger airports is substantially improved.
TLDR: Bigger airports run better & more performantly, by a pretty good margin. :)

Feedback from players testing out the latest edge versions has been quite positive -- we're hearing frame-rate improvements & decreased CPU load across the board & drastically reduced instances of "overrun"/the game is able to update agent AI without 'falling behind' (i.e. none stopping for calculations) much more consistently, and even at relatively high agent/passenger counts.

Queue overruns happen whenever the game is running faster than it is able to handle agent 'AI' jobs/calculations. At some point, these 'jobs' (or sets of calculations) can 'stack up' on the job queue and the queues run "full". When this occurs agents may not correctly update or may stand still waiting for their AI to update, causing them to not be making timely decisions & missing their flight, etc...

This update also includes a change in how the game handles these types of 'overrun' scenarios. While the first part of the update is intended to improve the performance of the AI job itself, reducing the time each job takes (and therefore reducing the potential for overruns), our handling for scenarios where 'overrun' state did happen was not optimal. Previously, SimAirport would rarely slow down because it missed jobs on the job queue -- which was the intended outcome but was not working quite right -- this is now fixed, so now all AI jobs are counted correctly and the game will "slow down" if it detects an overrun condition (allowing game-time to run 'slower' [vs real-time] so that agents are acting/reacting at the correct pace based on the CPU resources/load available).

We've also improved the visual of this slowdown - the game will now show the actual slowdown in the clock as the speed number will be capped; we hope you'll rarely, if ever, actually see this occur -- but the mechanism is there so that the algorithmic complexity is able to scale with the available CPU resources & to do so in such a way that the gameplay itself (ie passenger 'outcomes') is wholly unaffected.

If you'd like to help us with this update be sure to check out the edge branch (Instructions on how to switch) - we're always happy to talk on the forums and on Discord[discord.gg] about the current cycle, and we're excited to be bringing this update to you in the near future!

Be sure to let us know how you like these more "in-depth" dev-log style of posts between updates -- we love to share what we're doing, and so it's helpful to know if you find the content & details interesting (or would like more/less details, etc).

We'll continue to do our best to listen to your feedback and utilize it to continually improve -- on every front, from gameplay to the content & format of our updates -- we appreciate any/all feedback, and we thank you for joining us on the journey! =)

As always, thank you -- the community -- for all of your help with providing valuable feedback & bug reports, testing on edge, suggestions & ideas, and even just sharing photos/videos/builds. And a special thank you, to those who make mods, too!

Thank you!!

Just shy of 2022 we'd like to present you the December update for 2021 - while it took longer than expected on our end we're happy to release this load of fixes and improvements to you all.

Remote gates have gotten one highly requested feature as well as some general improvements and bug fixes (e.g. not loading a plane if part of the crew is already on the plane while the rest are still on a bus).Remote bus pickups now have three modes, Pickup & Dropoff, Pickup Only, Dropoff Only. By default the P&D mode will be selected which works the same as the previous implementation where the same stop will be used for both arriving and departing passengers. In addition to the modes you can also assign several bus pickups to the same remote gate.The Pickup Only mode - as the name states - will be used to load any departing pax onto the bus that would like to get to the aircraft. The Dropoff Only mode will do the reverse, it's used for any arriving pax coming into your airport being dropped off from the aircraft.In addition, while using the Dropoff Only mode on a remote bus pickup it can be assigned to as many remote gates as you wish meaning you can have a central dropoff area for all arriving passengers.

We've updated our Steam integration in this cycle - while the old version wasn't broken it did start to show it's age (e.g. in the missing mods dialog not correctly showing the status).Coming with this upgrade we also reworked the missing mods dialog - it will now correctly show status for downloads and, as soon as all mods were downloaded, will ask if you'd like to reload your game right now.The menu will also include mods besides airlines and aircraft - so any object mod or script mod that may be required for a save.

With this update saves will now store all mods you've been using while playing including any script and object mod besides airlines and aircraft.This means you can now safely share your games with friends or on the Workshop an other people can correctly load the game with all objects in place - made even easier with the improvements to the missing mods menu mentioned above :)The update also helps us out - if you run into an issue with this version while using a lot of mods we can debug it with the mods you've been using, so no broken or unusable airports on our end anymore!Lastly, small but notable, the capacity of dumpsters can now be modded.

We just set live the Hotfix for MacOS not having any text, be sure to let us know if any text issue still remains or rendering is now back :)The hotfix is live as of now (January 2nd ~21:20 UTC) - you may need to verify your files if you don't see the update yet.

Thanks for being patient with us through this year - we're really happy to get this update out to you!I'd like to say sorry for the delay though - many of you know we're a small team, sometimes we underestimate what needs to be done for a release and this was definitely the case with the December update. We would've liked to have it out a week ago right around the holidays but pushed it back a week to get some more issues fixed (check the changelog below for all fixes/improvements).At this point I'd like to mention our discord server - while we're active on most platforms Joscha is usually around to answer questions on discord, if you run into any issue you'd like to discuss or have any questions in general be sure to let us know! Link: https://discord.gg/ShqSSEKAnd lastly, we wish everyone a happy new year! May 2022 be a good one!

• Fix moving the ATC Tower may cause no planes to land until reloading a save.
  
• Fix "Show non Secure Path" button on objects that require a secure area but are in an unsecure area. It now actually shows the path correctly :)
  
• Fix runways not being placable close to fences. Fences were already placable close to runways so now both work.
  
• Rework how aircraft sprites are loaded. Previously all aircraft sprites would be loaded at once, they're now loaded only when required. In addition fleets in airline details will use a smaller image instead of the whole aircraft sprite. This should save a lot of VRAM helping systems with iGPUs as well as older GPUs.
  
• Fix road reachability sometimes determining a bus pickup cannot reach the gate while the vehicles are using it without a problem (more technical: The reachability check did not include both directions on the apron side, it now does since vehicles on the apron can drive on the road both ways).
  
• Fix issue where a runway may be removed even through the dismantle project was cancelled.
  
• Fix tasks to dismantle upgrades from runways and baggage hubs when dismantling the base object not saved/lost after reload.
  
• Fix upgrades comming up as "UNKNOWN" and in a bugged state if dismantling the base object and reloading the game.
  
• Fix runways not correctly being detected as usable if it was marked for dismantling, saving the game and reloading the game and cancelling the dismantling again. Previously the game would detect the runway only after another reload, now works correctly.
  
• Fix notification hover text showing the full text of any object previously hovered over if the cursour was moved from said object onto the notification.
  
• Add new notification in case a passenger was not able to board a plane in case they're unable to reach the gate door from the gate agent desk.
  
• Fix "Browse Saves Folder" not actually opening the browser on MacOS.
  
• Fix possible nullref in mod status menu.
  
• Overhaul missing mods/mod status menu. The menu now lists all mods (not just aircrafts and airlines) and the download will now run correctly with updates being shown in the list.
  
• Saves will now store what mods were used at save-time. Sharing a save will now bring up the missing mods screen for all mods correctly and with the overhaul all mods can be downloaded easily.
  
• Fix the naming convention of some languages.
  
• Fix remote bus pickup stating it requires a door on the ground floor while working perfectly fine underground.
  
• Fix PA Amplifiers erroring with "Must be placed in valid electrical zone" in case it's placed facing towards a wall.
  
• Fix aircraft gate flyout menu (the one for reports/overlays) always being disabled.
  
• Fix time slot highlighting in master flight schedule ending after ~50 gates - we did not expect ya'll to have that many gates but it will now scale to the window so I dare you to break it again!
  
• Backported some fonts and the font choosing/updating system from SimCasino - changing language should be a lot more consistent in terms of actually showing the new right font.
  
• Fix crew boarded state not correctly being set on some remote gate flights in case only part of the crew is on board of the plane while another part is waiting in the second bus. Save fix included :).
  
• Fix possible issue with objects failing their functionality checks.
  
• Fix possible issue with apron buses in case a plane doesn't arrive or depart on time.
  
• Fix maintenance panel not correctly working in case a mod needing maintenance is missing.
  
• Fix several issues with maintenance trying to start out of window or without actually needing maintenance.
  
• Fix not being able to change bus pickup assignment if no plane or bus is using the pickup or any assigned gate while a plane was scheduled on any gate.
  
• Improve runway placement tooltip - now only shows the 5 planes with the longest requirement that could use the currently placed runway.
  
• Update steam integration (for stability and workshop compatibility).
  
• Increase max pathfinding length for planes to enable bigger maps (planes could get stuck due to not being able to pathfind on some modded sizes).
  
• Fix maintenance not correctly finishing in some cases.
  
• Add ability to connect bus pickups with the terminal using sidewalk and crosswalks (like remote gates already work).
  
• Add ability to assign more than one bus pickup per gate.
  
• Add ability to select what mode a bus pickup should run in (Pickup & Dropoff (default), Pickup Only, Dropoff Only) - In Dropoff only mode a bus pickup can be assigned to as many gates as you wish.
  
• Fix remote gates in walking mode not working if crosswalk is used as last walking part adjacent to the gate.
  
• Fix objects taken down for maintenance before actually having to be maintained.
  
• Add warning on metal detectors, body scanners and bag scanners in case one of their usage positions is not in a security zone.
  
• Fix reception desk is placeable on walls and outdoors.
  
• Fix maintenance sometimes getting stuck when the task fails due to a nullref exception.
  
• Fix objects may not be correctly staffed if a worker doesn't correctly get to the object.
  
• Increase max flight count per airline (mostly helps with modded airlines).
  
• Fix fuel UI hover showing "Current Reserves" where it should state "Pending Deliveries".
  
• Fix fuel amount could overflow on the valuation UI (the cash calculation was not affected).
  
• Fix wander near object task could choose a position to wander to that would end up in the agent having to re-do security.
  
• Fix wrong detection of when walking through walls is needed - in some rare cases workmen could not path and a construction project might get stuck.
  
• Fix runway tooltip breaks when placing runway lights using instant build while having the game paused.
  
• Enable thirst and hunger for arrival passengers.
  
• Fix gate <=> ticket zone were assigned twice on save load.
  
• Fix pax may run around on the grass when deplaning from a walking remote gate.
  
• Fix hover box sometimes loosing its layout when leaving the hovered object.
  
• Fix missing text on police cars and fire trucks.
  
• Fix "Z fighting" on the flight scheduler, now the time row is always on top.
  
• Improve flight schedule entry UI, the line spacing is smaller and it'll shorten the airline name to better fit in the little space available.
  
• Modding: Fix uploading UI never resetting the tag selection.
  
• Modding: Fix mod airlines and aircrafts sometimes breaking due to bad ID datatype.
  
• Modding: Add ability to view local aircraft and airline mods while offline.
  
• Modding: Make dumpster capacity moddable; attribute "Capacity" was added to the config with type int. The base game one has a default of 10.

As some of you may have heard on our recent live streams, we are actively working on an update for SimAirport!!

We've talked about it on our last few streams & we have discussed it quite a bit on Discord (be sure to join!) -- but we wanted to make sure everyone was aware, hence the post today! :)

The plan for this update is going to primarily be fixes, though (as many of you who know us can likely guess) we'll be doing our best to sneak in some quality-of-life improvements and enhancements as well. :)

Specifically, we'll be addressing several issues that have come up over the last year or so, and adding some better contextual guidance for some of the more advanced things that we've heard struggles with. We've also got some performance improvements lined up, along with some changes that we expect will help new players tremendously while also making life simpler for existing players, too.

We're working on getting this patch out to everyone by the end of December -- right around the holidays -- with edge deploys to begin rolling out in the upcoming days!

Thanks for your patience while we've been working on SimCasino -- we're truly privileged to have such an amazing, dedicated, and awesome community -- working with all of you has and continues to be amazing, and we look forward to continuing to ship new stuff out for SimAirport again very soon!

As always, if you have any questions be sure to let us know, either here, on discord[discord.gg], during a live-stream, or wherever you'd like to contact us!

Thank you!!

A Modern Casino Tycoon Simulation in full 3D glory. Build the casino. Set the odds. Expand into a luxury hotel/casino or go cheap & extract max profits. Keep the vault secure at all times, and beware of criminals & cheaters!!

August, a hot summer month and the host for our latest update! Wrapping up this cycle today we're getting out a lot of fixes, stability, and some quality of live additions while we're also working on SimCasino. If you haven't heard of SimCasino yet be sure to check it out over here!

We'll be hosting our typical fire-side live-stream next weekend, to answer questions and just have some fun with the community.

When: Friday, 21st of August @ 11AM PDT // 20:00 CESTWhere: YouTube, Twitch[www.twitch.tv], and SteamThe Airport: This Airport on the Workshop :)

Sometimes you may want your terminal to be small and have several gates in front of it - all reachable by walking from the terminal to the gate - just like the low cost airlines often do!This is now possible! Remote gates can now be switched between the bus mode (having a road in front of them) and walking mode (having a sidewalk in front of them). To switch the mode just click the gate and select the "Switch Mode" button. You'll get different requirements for both and the game only displays the problems for the current mode. Once switched just connect the gate's "terminal side" to a door in the terminal. You can use Sidewalk, Crosswalks, and any modded material that is set up for usage in the secure area (check the Workshop and take a look at the flooring mods).One building idea from our side: You can put these walking gates just a little further than you'd usually place a terminal gate and add remote bus pickups. This way you can combine remote bus gates and remote walking gates all on one terminal front! Be sure to share a screenshot of your layout with us!

Roads can now be placed underground and can tunnel under existing structures.Usually, this would be a small point but we wanted to share that this one is a point where you guys changed our minds! When adding a new feature we try to make it some challenge or add some gameplay relevant aspect to it, it should always be a task to work with but we're not always right on making that "task" fun. With underground roads not being able to tunnel under existing structure we hit one of these challenges that just didn't fit. Based on your feedback, in the forums & during live-streams, we went ahead and removed this restriction completely for both roads and road ramps!

We've added some smaller notifications to help you in day to day gameplay or just show you something that may get missed for a veteran player or a new player doesn't know about.
• Transport Capacity: Lets you know when the transport capacity has been reached (and passed) and pax may not be able to get to your airport. Will open the transports and deliveries section when clicked.
  
• Kitche problem: Sometimes we miss an object or don't remember to get stock into the kitchen, this notification will let you know when an order could not be fulfilled. Will go to the kitchen and open the kitchen's overview when clicked.

We went ahead and tweaked some of the UI, notably three smaller changes:
• The save game UI will now use your last save name even if you expanded your airport.
  
• Sections on the grants UI now better fit their content mostly removing scrolling on the track list and the track description.
  
• The perfect ops detail overview will give more details on why, when and where a plane was delayed or a passenger missed their flight.

We just want to say thank you! Thank you for your commitment to us, our community and for helping us out with feedback and reports.We're always happy to talk with you - whether it's on the forums, Reddit, Twitter, Discord or on our live streams - you guys are the reason we're where we are today. We'd also like to take a second to get a big thanks out to everyone creating mods in their free time for others to have fun with! We, along with the community, appreciate your efforts tremendously -- we love seeing all the awesome new stuff you guys put out -- thank you!We hope to chat with you on our next live stream, stay safe and keep on building!

• Add a new mode to the remote gates, they now support Bus and Walk mode.
  
• Add crosswalk to allowed walkable space in the secure area.
  
• Fix several sector reachability <-> error situations that would end up with sectors showing not accessible even though they are.
  
• Remove tunneling restriction when placing roads underneath existing structures.
  
• Add option to ignore admin requirements to the sandbox menu.
  
• Fix instant build not costing money.
  
• Fix zone texts sometimes ending up bigger than expected.
  
• Fix garbage trucks sometimes getting stuck when a trash bag is moved into a container while already on the list of tasks for the truck.
  
• Fix cost display for moving walkways when placing while some material is in storage.
  
• Fix sandbox menu trying to save the size making the text disappear.
  
• Fix nullref that could cause issues related to crosswalks (i.e. having 10 dismantle buttons on the selection dialog).
  
• Expand checks on parking lots to specifically check for spawn/despawn connectivity to prevent stuck cars.
  
• Fix tooltip not disappearing when right-clicking with some tools active.
  
• Fix runways possibly placeable off-grid on some occasions.
  
• Fix road ramp validations - they're now in-line with the road placement restrictions and tunneling works for them too!
  
• Fix issue where a direction change on escalators would mean no pax use them until the sectors are regenerated.
  
• Fix cars sometimes spawning underground leading to stuck cars/nothing spawning.
  
• Limit max interest rate to 50% instead of 500%.
  
• Improve flight crew boarding (they'll try to get to the gate earlier).
  
• Fix stat for lifetime revenue is not correctly calculated for terminals.
  
• Rework grants UI to better show track list and track description without scrolling.
  
• Fix save name showing "land_expansion" when saving after expanding the airport - now shows your last saved name.
  
• Add QuickSelect as default keybind.
  
• Fix pax getting stuck if their flight's gate doesn't exist anymore.
  
• Fix vehicles stopping on road ramps and trying to pick up pax.
  
• Add notification in case a vehicle could not stop and pick up passengers.
  
• Fix standby gates not used in case both gate agent desks are in the same security wing but the origin desk can't reach the standby desk without re-doing security.
  
• Add the ability to add default airlines to existing games.
  
• Fix delays when recalculating a secure area in some cases.
  
• Add notification in case the transport capacity has been reached.
  
• Fix parking vehicles not spawning in rare cases.
  
• Lower minimum schedule time for flights to 45min (Note: Use time wisely, 45 minutes will work for small planes but anything from a 737 up will most likely take longer!).
  
• Fix auto fuel delivery not taking into account pending reserves that should be delivered at the same time.
  
• Fix bankruptcy giving the accomplished achievement instead of the unaccomplished achievement.
  
• Add error message for remote gates placed against a terminal and terminal gates placed into the open field.
  
• Fix remote gate prices (previously all were 20k cost).
  
• Fix issue where cars would not drop off their passengers leading to some pax never showing up for a flight.
  
• Fix parking vehicles never resetting their parking start time leading to extreme profits from parking lots.
  
• When selling a fuel truck fuel is now moved into the system or sold.
  
• Fix position for when an agent ends up on a conveyor transition.
  
• Show green color on flight status pax boarded only when all pax have been scanned, otherwise show orange.
  
• Rework perfect ops details - it now better shows the actual information of interest (for new flights - old flights may not have all details).
  
• Fix ID Check not taking into account downstream objects when dequeuing agents.
  
• Fix text in tutorial stating to assign a queue to an object (you can only assign an object to a queue).
  
• Change stuck message on aircraft in case they're not able to reach the runway (they now state which runway they cannot reach and the direction of takeoff).
  
• Fix some components possibly re-using an old path renderer leading to UI issues (e.g. staff scheduler not opening correctly).
  
• Add minimum runway length to master flight schedule entry (shown on hover under arrival and departure times).
  
• Fix flights shown as delayed when changing gate due to bad ChangeGate flag.
  
• Add no stock warning to the kitchen overview display.
  
• Add notification in case a kitchen cannot fulfill orders (due to no stock or missing objects).
  
• Fix runway upgrades may be placed on level -1 leading to funky rendering.
  
• Fix parking vehicles not despawning when a lot went MIA in some cases.
  
• Fix pax not able to exit conference rooms.
  
• Fix crosswalk cannot be walked on in outside + secure areas when placed directly on the terminal.
  
• Fix buses possibly getting stuck when they stop in a corner road and their position is not actually on the road.
  
• Fix instant build failing to correctly construct runway lights.

• Modding: Fix modded objects with newly added AttachToWall property failing to correctly position on the map.
  
• Modding: Fix several nullrefs in case mods are missing.
  
• Modding: Fix security zone not working in case several SmartObject components are on the same placeable config.
  
• Modding: Fix issue when using several security components on one object.
  
• Modding: Add exception handling in case a script mod fails to load with a ReflectionTypeLoadException.
  
• Modding: Fix some possible issues with mod uploading & save game steam_ids to ulong to prevent issues with overflowing ints.
  
• Modding: Fix modded toilets and sinks not satisfying restroom zones.
  
• Modding: Fix materials not showing up if any more than one atlas is used for modded floors.
  
• Modding: Add a configurable mask to bag scanner component.
  
• Modding: Add the ability to use i18n key as mod name.
  
• Modding: Add field on construction materials, it can now be set to be walkable outside in a secure area.
  
• Modding: Fix no error showing up in case an i18n file is failing to load.
  
• Modding: Fix floor mods having lines due to wrong filtering mode.
  
• Modding: Fix modded remote monitoring stations that don't require staff won't work.
  
• Modding: Fix some problems with modded body scanners.
  
• Modding: Fix arcade mods not satisfying requirements for the arcade zone.